No matter what one's thoughts on the mideast former Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once famously said "Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." I won't get into whether I agree or disagree, except to say that his insight can be focused on plenty of business organizations. One of my favorites lately comes from perennial red ocean punching bag Yahoo.
I'm quoting from a news.com article here: Google deal gets 'big eye roll' from Yahoo employees.
One source inside Yahoo said it's not uncommon for executives to hold planning meetings for follow-up planning meetings, Dilbert-style. That bureaucracy could cause more Yahoo talent to leave for opportunities elsewhere.
"There's a lot of pent-up creativity," the source said. "Morale is in the sh**ter."
Yahoo has shown the opposite of leadership: they're mired in the red ocean, flaying around and being eaten alive. Recent releases showed their share of the search market continues to shrivel.
Yahoo destroyed their search engine with pay-to-play, but has some other great products like Flickr, Messenger, Groups, and Answers. They had good market timing. They used to have some really good people. But the documentation is overwhelming that this company is falling apart, in a death spiral of red ocean competition that's steadily increasing in strength and velocity like one the hurricanes that occasionally wash up on the shores of my state.
Yahoo has the raw stuff needed to reform itself into a strong Blue Ocean company, but lacks the willpower needed to complete the task. During the first dot-com bust I saw lots of companies fall apart; many were poorly managed, but others just had lousy timing. Yahoo put in place things like pay-for-play in their search engine that they never quite recovered from, and still haven't removed. While it hurts on an individual basis -- the people personally affected -- Yahoo deserves the fate that awaits.
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