"New" Coke = "New/New" SECU?
"Déjà vu all over again"? - Yogi Berra
[Comments active- very!]
😎 We've been taking a look over the last few days of examples when strategically questionable "cultural changes" at successful companies have - unhappily - led to some "unintended consequences". Here's the "classic"!
Just
to refresh your memory, the Coca Cola Company in 1985 rebranded one of
the top 3 corporate images in the United States - if not the world - "by changing the formula" for
it's best selling soft drink, Coke.
The Board and senior management at Coca-Cola were so smugly certain of their wisdom that they failed in their due diligence. The Board didn't feel it was necessary to ask consumers what they thought or to explain why "the new" was necessary. It took less than 90 days for the Coca Cola Board to rescind its disastrous decision - it was an avoidable, very public, very costly mistake.
Don Keough,
the CEO of Coke at the time, said: "When senior leadership made the decision to change the formula, they
underestimated the deep personal attachment people had
to Coca-Cola. As an employee, it was an uncomfortable and almost surreal position to be in... it was sort of like we were starring in a bad movie." [At least the leadership "owned-up" and adjusted!]
At SECU - over three years later - it remains unclear to most SECU member-owners what exactly the "new/new" SECU actually means... improvements in cost of operations, quality of service, overall performance are not readily apparent.
How much more time will be necessary for the "new/new" results to become apparent? It only took the Coca Cola Board ninety days "to see the light".
Why not just start talking honestly about it to us as your fellow members...
Why would the SECU Board be afraid to do that?.