By Peter M. De Lorenzo
Detroit. Statistical analysis has never been my thing, but I have noticed of late how it has swept through Major League Baseball in a big way. Baseball, that solemn game so well and truly mired in historical statistics, is taking it to a new level, according to The New York Times, with stats such as B.A.B.I.P. (Batting Average on Balls in Play), WAR (Wins Above Replacement) and VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) now coming into play in obsessive fan discussions.
Although those statistical acronyms mean nothing to me (I’m a football guy, for Vince Lombardi’s sake), they obviously mean a lot to the aficionados of baseball who just can’t get enough of the minutiae that is such an inexorable part of the game.
But it did get me thinking about the automobile business, however, and there are acronyms at play every day in the biz that I’d like to share with you today. And even though this update of our Autoextremist Guide to Auto Industry Terms doesn’t involve much statistical analysis, rest assured these terms deeply affect this business every day.
BFI. This is where people are sent after going down in flames due to some inglorious episode that they just can’t hide from. It could be anything from a high-visibility project that goes BURG (see below) to a glaring mistake, the point being it was so egregious that even the fiefdoms and the compartmentalized bureaucracies couldn’t save them. Not to disparage Idaho – a beautiful state by the way – but, California would seem like a reward, so what are you going to do? You screw up bad enough and this is where you’re going to go - BumFuckIdaho.
BURG. Every once in a while a product plan, an advertising campaign, a marketing strategy or even a career gets so derailed that it can’t be saved. Now this may occur by corporate inertia (a Legendary Force that consumes all in its path, see below), but it usually involves blatant incompetence, a dumb idea gone bad, or someone making a horrendously bad call at the most inopportune time. Thus, it gets Blown Up Real Good. Also used as a verb, as in “Jake was buried so deep into that miserable excuse for a marketing plan that he ended up getting BURG’d.”
CI. As referenced above, no, not another new crime procedural on TV, Corporate Inertia is the irresistible and Legendary Force at work in these companies that serves to render otherwise brilliant ideas and programs utterly rudderless and ineffectual. Corporate Inertia has been the bane of every good idea throughout automotive history, whether it was product related, a marketing idea or a bold advertising campaign. And it’s still very much alive and well today. I’ve seen brilliant marketing strategies get parked in the CI Twilight Zone again and again. I’ve seen breakthrough ad campaigns get muzzled and neutered by wave after wave of meetings, all designed to reduce the original idea down to a nub of inconsequence. I’ve watched exceptional product programs get pummeled as CI reared its ugly head and reduced them to forgettable examples of lowest-common-denominator thinking. I’ve seen it all when it comes to Corporate Inertia, one of the biggest enemies to success these car companies face on a daily basis. And it’s as potent as ever.
CYAAYBA. The ever-popular phrase “cover your ass” is surely a staple in corporate America and one not confined to the automobile business by any stretch of the imagination. But the expanded and more specific CYAAYBA for Cover Your Ass And Your Boss’s Ass is very much alive and well in the auto biz. When I refer to the vast gray middle at these companies, and the intransigent fiefdoms that are entrenched throughout this business, it starts with legions of people who strictly adhere to the laws of CYAAYBA. As a matter of fact I wrote about this phenomenon in the very first issue of this publication. These people get up every day and ask themselves two key questions: 1. “What do I have to do to cover my ass today? (And do as little as possible while doing it, of course.) And 2. “What can I do to make my boss look good? (So I can keep my head down and coast for another year with minimal effort.) The CYAAYBAers wreak havoc in this business every day. Unfortunately it’s still rampant, even after the near-death experiences of The Great Recession and the giant bankruptcies.
FBs. Another obvious one but still used effectively at the most appropriate times, simply because it’s a go-to phrase that never gets old. Insert Frickin’ Bozos in any number of declarative statements and it works perfectly. As in, “We’re trying to do a milestone car here, one that will redefine this brand for generations to come, and purchasing is going to shit-can this interior over a five-dollar trim piece? Frickin Bozos.”
NIH. Yes, an old-school reference, but Not Invented Here is still an insidious disease in this business. You’d think it would be the hordes of CYAAYBA minions who would be expert at this nonsense, but in fact it’s the director-level schmoes who are the most egregious offenders. These maliciously incompetent managers will pass on outside input of any kind – even though it would help the company compete on equal footing with rival automakers – in order to protect their small-minded fiefdoms. The most virulent purveyors of anti-success in the car business, the NIHers paralyze these companies with their steadfast adherence to “the way we’ve always done it” – to the detriment of everyone and everything else.
SSA. Slip Sliding Away is a favorite term used by engineers and designers as they watch upper management screw-ups and Corporate Inertia relegate their potential “hit” product programs to the dustbin. Common usage, “Yeah, it was lookin’ good until it went all SSA at the last minute.”
PATHETIC. Just as it seems, but oh so much more, PATHETIC stands for Pissed-off At The Hordes Engaged in Turning It into Chaos. The Hordes, in this case being the countless bad actors embedded throughout an auto company’s organization who add absolutely nothing to the process, who are relentlessly negative to boot and whose net-net contribution to the proceedings is slightly north of negligible.
These hordes can suck the very life out of a company, and when you add in Corporate Inertia, the CYAAYBAers and the NIHers, what are you left with?
You guessed it, chaos.
And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.