The demise of HMV

News Bites
In January HMV went into administration, and earlier this week they announced the closure of 66 of their 220 stores, and the redundancy of their Chief Executive. What I had not realised until today was that their CEO was previously the boss of Jessops, a chain that also went into administration.

I am not a believer in coincidence so my interpretation of this is that the man at the top had the wrong vision.

I think this teaches us two things

1 The person at the top has to have the right vision, along with the leadership skills to push it through
2 Change is inevitable, and these days, you have to keep running just to stand still

I cannot comment on the leadership skills and tenacity of the incumbent, but I can draw the conclusion that he had the wrong vision in both cases. Both he and his employees haver paid the price, they have lost their jobs. We the public have also paid the price, there will now be less choice in the high-street.

Things are changing so fast these days we have constantly to be prepared to drop our old ideas and take on new ones.

I remember running a course at Bury College in 1999/2000, all about how to start up and run your own business.

One of the people on the course worked in a well known high street shop where you dropped off your 35mm film and collected it 24 hours later, or earlier of you paid extra. I remember telling him, find a new career, I cannot see your type of business surviving the coming changes.

OK I was not totally right, but I was very close. Today you can walk up to a machine in one of those same types of shops, slip in the card from your phone or camera, and get instant printouts. Recently I saw the same machines in my local supermarket, so you can do it as part of your normal shopping process.

I don't claim to be a visionary. At the time, I just looked around, and extrapolated what I saw, into the future. The hardest part was do disregard what I wanted to happen, or what I thought technology would allow.

In the past, I have seen leaders that surround themselves by yes-men, to protect their own position and authority.

To me, progress is not made by a constant consensus, it is made by argument. If you do not have disagreement, you do not have different ideas, so you cannot choose between the good and the bad

I wonder if this is what happened at Jessops and HMV


Trainer Talk
This morning we discussed the weather. We have a 1-week course starting in the morning, but we have had severe weather warnings. Should we run it? Or postpone it?

Lets see what happens


Thought for the day

Change is inevitable except from vending machines.