I don't recall if you pointed him out to me or not. But I saw this in a recent interview and loved it:
"The chain (Godfathers Pizza) was losing money and seemed headed to failure when Cain took over in 1986. If you listen to Cain describe how he analyzed Godfather's problems, how he came up with solutions, and how he implemented those solutions -- listen to that and you'll hear the pizza version of what Cain says he would do as president.
"I spent the first 60 days of my time at Godfather's listening, to figure out what we needed to do," Cain says. "It wasn't complicated: get back to basics."
"Number one, we had too many products on the menu. We had gotten away from our core product. We had too many crusts. We had the original Godfather's pizza crust, we had the original Godfather's pizza, and then we had three imitations that looked like Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Little Caesar's. I got rid of the three imitations, and we got back to focus on the one we were good at."
"Number two, we simplified the operations, because if you simplify the operations, you make it possible for the people in the restaurant to execute exceptionally well every day. When you've got too much stuff, they can't execute."
"Number three, we instilled in the company that we could, in fact, win again."
Cutting an organization down to its core mission, sharpening the focus of its employees, and then re-energizing those employees -- it's a strategy that has obvious resonance for a man who wants to run an overextended and deficit-ridden United States government. "So in your view," I said to Cain, "America has too many crusts?"
"Yes!" Cain exclaimed, breaking into a long laugh. "America has too many crusts! And we've got to simplify things, clarify things so that we can achieve real progress."
"You get it!" Cain beamed.
Our fundamental problem is too damn much government!
Originally Posted by pjorourke
I really haven't made up on my mind on Cain. Like a lot of non-politicians or outsiders, we don't know a whole lot about them and have guess what they'd actually do if governing...
I haven't seen a Godfather's in longer than I can remember....very regionally clustered I guess...so I looked at their website.
Anyway, ironically, they are back to four crusts:
Original
Golden (Pan)
Thin
& Gluten-free
I don't know if that is simple irony or something more...
Cain's story about the crusts is wonderful and makes a point very well, but I wonder if there isn't another lesson to be learned:
We can go back to basics and simplify, but over time we invariably take on more and revert to complexity.....