smaller house in a less expensive part of the country, tell your kids they can’t count on Ivy League tuition and buy used cars rather than new ones. Second, you’ll probably have to work a few months a year or hours a week, either for your old employer or for a new one (in- cluding yourself). Third, you’ll have to save enough money to supple- ment your newly reduced income.” In other words, even when you retire early, you must go on asking yourself what else you will need to do to attain your goals. Retiring early changes the landscape, but not the journey. You must still learn to rise Above The Line as you encounter the new challenges and obstacles you will face. If it sounds like the process of moving Above The Line to solve your problems requires some personal risk, that’s good, because it does. But to think that residing Below The Line does not have its own risks is folly. The risk in getting stuck Below The Line is never obtaining the results you most earnestly seek.
Regardless of whether you’re trying to keep, revolutionize, or retire from your current job, you’ll never do it successfully unless you overcome the temptation to fall Below The Line. Indeed, you must focus your efforts on removing the obstacles standing between you and the outcomes you desire. As always, unhappy consequences await those who fail to do so.
conversion. Despite such advances as CD-ROM, interactive computer software, and other so-called multimedia developments, the publishers in the $2.6 billion market for college books could miss a potential gold mine in new product sales. They have a fortune sunk in the making and marketing of standard textbooks that are increasingly behind the times and technology.” While most publishers “see” this rapidly emerging reality, and some even Own It, few have started converting their problems into opportunities. An exception is Robert Lynch, director of McGraw-Hill’s Primis service, a database operation that allows professors to customize textbooks, who says, “If we do things right and develop the full potential of high-tech educational publishing, this could be a $50 billion business instead of a $2.6 bil- lion business.” If college students will someday buy more computer disks than books and more books that their professors tailor for their needs from databases, then textbook publishers must respond by seeing it, owning it, solving it, and ultimately providing these products. As our next case demonstrates, it’s not uncommon for people to See It, Own It, and then fail to Solve It. At GeneralWare, a computer software company disguised to protect the privacy of one of our cli- ents, four directors in the programming and development area had come to their wits’ end dealing with their boss, the vice president of programming and development. He would not fully accept responsib- ility for meeting product development deadlines and product quality standmards. Brilliant in other regards, he would blithely promise to meet impossible target dates and then release a rushed and comprom- ised product.
On the other hand, the four directors, each responsible for a different segment of the programming and development operation, saw the reality of the situation clearly and even owned their circumstances, but they could not move forward to Solve It. They had become stuck in their inability to move beyond the Own It step. Their attitude of
“we’re trying, but nothing’s working,” dampened their willingness to continue asking the Solve It question.
With the four directors manifesting all the familiar signs of the victim cycle, the programming and development function continued to languish under the mismanagement of the vice president. Each time they moved Above The Line to Solve It, they would fall back Below The Line, frustrated and discouraged. Because of the vice president’s approach they felt helpless to change the circumstances
and powerless to impact the things that really needed to change.
Without new products, GeneralWare’s credibility in the marketplace declined as dealers, distributors, and retailers began to discount the company’s promises regarding product introduction dates and contin- ued to expect faulty products even when they did materialize on time - a heavy price paid for a failure to Solve It.
In a similar example, General Electric’s and Emerson Electric’s Below The Line behavior brought tragedy and heartache to hundreds of families. In an ABC News, “PrimeTime Live” broadcast, Chris Wallace reported how a malfunction in General Electric’s coffeemakers, man- ufactured with Emerson Electric fuses, caused the appliance to burst into flames, destroying homes and families. Both manufacturers knew about the problem, but ignored it. According to Wallace: “Over the past 12 years, hundreds of people have had problems with GE coffee- makers. Defective machines have burned down houses, caused serious injuries, even killed people. But GE for years denied responsibility, contesting claims against its coffeemakers with all the resources a big corporation can muster.” General Electric documents from ten years prior to the “PrimeTime Live” report show that the company expected an estimated 168 claims that year and rated the prospect of
“no injuries” associated with the claims at only 42 percent, evidence that the company had the data to recognize reality. One year later, GE recalled 200,000 coffeemakers, proof that the company even owned the problem.
However, the company’s efforts to improve the appliance didn’t stop fires from breaking out. As Wallace reported, “GE considered adding a second backup fuse, but didn’t do it.” A couple of years later, GE sold its coffeemaker division to Black & Decker, which, to its credit, solved the problem by adding a second fuse. During this same period of time, GE sued Emerson Electric for its faulty fuses and won. One GE official testified that the company had been “disgusted with the reliability” of the Emerson fuses for several years. Neverthe- less, prior to selling the division, GE failed to solve the coffeemaker’s problems because as it appeared, an otherwise accountable company was stuck Below The Line. In light of the tragic results and in the face of the collective talent, wisdom, experience, and integrity of G.E. and Emerson, it goes without saying that people and organizations need to do more than just See It and Own It.