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General Motors has become Government Motors. The company that was formed over a century ago and dominated business in the last century is now a ward of the state.

Most of the talk now is about what happens next. Will GM become the new Amtrak? Will the government meddle in the marketplace even more to help GM "succeed" at doing what the government wants? Will GM ever come home from the economic hospital?

Those are important questions. But if we want to make good of this right now, we should start with the lessons we can learn from GM's failure.

Lesson: Success is not forever.

A successful GM is a fading memory. But GM's success was huge. Popular songs were written about GM cars. GM's management was held up as the example of what we all should be. But that was then. The same thing happened to Ford and IBM. It can happen to you.

Lesson: You are never so big or so good that you can't screw up.

It's fashionable to throw a lot of blame at the unions. After all, they pushed for thing like the job bank, where people were paid for not working. They pushed for full retirement with great benefits at age fifty.

But remember, executives on the other side of the table agreed to all those things. Those executives probably figured that they could agree to anything and still succeed. Nope.

Lesson: It doesn't happen all at once.

Many strategy books make it seem like one great decision brings success and one bad decision can bring failure. But that's not how it works. GM's state today is the result of thousands of mutually-reinforcing bad decisions over decades.

Decisions about product line and union contracts and who was rewarded and promoted all created the GM that's now on economic life support. What you do every day is cumulative.

Lesson: The culture and strategies that bring you success can sow the seeds of your destruction.

"A car for every purse and purpose." It worked great for a while. With time, GM started sharing parts among the brands. Soon the brands looked and performed alike.

Donaldson Brown created internal controls that gave GM a competitive edge. With time, there were more and more and more controls. And more and more of GM's people \ spent valuable time gaming the controls instead of running the business.

Alfred P. Sloan brought GM the discipline to compete with Ford. With time, that discipline turned into a culture that rewarded obedience and agreement, not fresh ideas.

Lesson: Hubris is a leading indicator for failure.

GM was once the model of everything we should strive to become. Alfred Sloan's autobiography, My Years at General Motors was the premier executive bio. Peter Drucker made his reputation by writing The Concept of the Corporation about GM.

Neither business nor markets are static. You have to change and adapt. There is no right of inherited success. Google beware!

Boss's Bottom Line

No matter how good you're doing, it can all go bad if you don't pay attention.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.