Week 2 Day 1- The Sun Tzu at Sears

Preface: I’m probably older than most of my classmates and can remember when Sears was a thriving department store. I’ve been reading articles on the downfall of Sears and Kmart for almost a decade now, and have been taking advantage of free after points and ridiculously generous “Shop Your Way” rewards to get tools in the last two years. In short I have noticed at the consumer level the issues detailed in this article. Now that the Sears on Maryland Parkway is closing it seems that my visits to Sears (and Kmart) are at an end.




Overall the manner in which Lampert ran the company had two major philosophical drawbacks: he was making choices that benefited him the most (see How Sears Was Gutted By Its Own CEO) and instead of cooperating and sharing resources he created a cutthroat atmosphere that incentivized actions that would harm the company overall and only mildly benefit departments.




On a more personal note, I took note of the following passage, “[b]ecause Sears had to hire and promote dozens of chief financial officers and chief marketing officers, personnel expenses shot up. Meanwhile, many business unit leaders underpaid middle managers to trim costs. The most cumbersome aspect of the new structure, former employees say, was Lampert’s edict that each unit create its own board of directors. Because there were so many departments, some presidents sat on as many as five or six boards, which met once a month. Top executives were constantly mired in meetings.”




As an English adjunct who has received dozens of emails over the past decade announcing new “Vice Provost of Provost Affairs” type positions being created at UNLV with publicly listed salaries that are five times what the adjuncts who teach 60%+ of classes (and all profitable English classes), I feel there are some similarities to how universities are now being run by MBAs. This feeling of disrespect (and having to live just above the poverty line) are two of the reasons I’m currently working towards a Civil Engineering degree.