A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

APPROACH PROBLEMS WITH YOUR IGNORANCE ■ 65
owned by the corporation. While eventually a common theme of which businesses
GE should or should not have shed may have emerged, it would have
taken far longer and used up many more resources to arrive at this solution.
Further, it might have ignored Welch’s eventual strategic criteria since Welch
himself would never have been forced to struggle <strong>with</strong> the issue of which
businesses he would have GE enter if it were not already in the business.
Relevant Factors
Both Kaiser’s and Welch’s problems had a number of factors that were
directly relevant to each problem situation. Therefore, both needed to
gather additional data. Kaiser knew what he didn’t have. He needed to
know what resources he did have available. Kaiser looked into this, did his
analysis, and decided that he could build these particular ships cheaper
and faster. Similarly, Welch had to decide which businesses he would or
would not cut or retain, measured against a common standard. He decided
to get rid of those businesses in which GE could not be number one or two
in the market.
Alternative Courses of Action
In this part of the left-brain decision process, Kaiser had to decide on alternatives
to solve the problem. One option might have been to develop new
tactics. Maybe he could have started a worldwide search for expert shipbuilders
in neutral countries and offered them high wages. Maybe he could
have designed new metal-cutting machinery and produced it quickly using
his methods. It is possible he did consider these or other options. Likewise,
Welch might have used different criteria, say, eliminating those businesses
that don’t have the potential to reach a certain level of profits.
All alternatives have both advantages and disadvantages. Welch probably
sold off some valuable companies using his criteria. He knew that this
could, and probably would, happen in certain instances. That was a disadvantage
to this alternative.
Kaiser took an enormous risk <strong>with</strong> his solution. He had millions of dollars
invested in it before he built his first ship. Many of the methods he used
had never been employed previously and many were extremely innovative,
to say the least. It was reported that because it took years and extensive
training to enable novice fitters to tightrope across the high structures of
the ship as it was completed, Kaiser hired ballet dancers as fitters. 2