LETTING GO OF THE PAST
A now classic article from the Onion with a Morgantown, West Virginia, dateline reported the sum total of a recently deceased Morgantown native’s eight decades of hard work, honesty, frugality, and sacrifice was less than the book price for a 2002 Dodge Neon (see May 17, 2006, issue).
Recalling the article, I had a difficult time keeping a Neon-like, front-end smile off my face this past Friday morning as I prepared for sales action at my in-laws’ estate sale. I enjoy the interaction with estate-sale guests and had fun creating humorous signs for many of the unusual items in our sales inventory.
I also learned a great deal new about my in-laws, based on the material things they left behind.
In contrast, my wife and sister-in-law were stressed, sharing tears over memories of their parents as strangers congregated on the sidewalk adjacent to Kinnickinnic Avenue, ready to hunt down bargains amid the "things" collected over the course of two, wonder-filled lifetimes.
Memories and Tradition vs. Uncertainty and Risk
It is difficult letting go of the past: Memories and tradition hold sway and have stronger appeal than risk, fear of loss, and uncertainty.
As I have reported many times in this blog, the ready-mix industry serving the 53172 delivery area faces risk and uncertainty. It manufactures and delivers a quality product with distinctive value for specifiers, homeowners, contractors, and the general public. But it chooses to do so without qualitative or emotional differentiation in Southeastern Wisconsin, and its namesake product is in danger of becoming a commodity.
Through the Wisconsin Ready Mixed Concrete Association (WRMCA), some industry stakeholders are trying to work in partnership to increase top-line market share through coordinated programs of advertising, promotion, education, advocacy, and public relations. WRMCA has the staff, systems, and infrastructure in place to assist industry stakeholders with their education, promotion, and legislative advocacy efforts.
But lacking an engaging vision based on shared values, the ready-mix industry in Wisconsin remains fragmented, rooted at Commodity Crossroad – for 2008, and the foreseeable future.
Abraham Lincoln maintained:
the legitimate role of government is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but cannot do it at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.
In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not interfere.
Though fragmented, Wisconsin’s ready-mix industry is a community of people. Replace the word ‘government’ in the Lincoln quote above with the word ‘association,’ and industry stakeholders have a guiding principle for undertaking communal visioneering for Wisconsin’s ready-mix industry.
It is difficult letting go of the past … hard to exclude memories and tradition and embrace risk and uncertainty. But as author/consultant Tom Peters advocates, “In these challenging times, embracing the status quo may be the riskiest strategy of all.”
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Post Script:
The Onion article was quite accurate: The two-day estate sale netted about the book value of a 2002 Dodge Neon. My wife, Chris, and her sister, Laura, survived the bittersweet sale.