Under New Management: Why companies fail and how leadership works

All over my town of West Chester, Ohio, there are signs everywhere indicating that new management is running a business.  Most of them are restaurants and bars, but they have been unusually placed in front of all kinds of companies, even manufacturing facilities.  Which was another thing I said would happen as a result of the catastrophic stupidity of COVID, where a global Marxist strategy of micromanaging how people were going to do work was imposed on all of us through the ridiculous means of a doctor’s office.  White coat losers in the form of health professionals were trying to scare us into open socialism, and it was always going to be a disaster.  And now, five years later, the world has turned to populism, specifically to capitalism.  If you really want to get philosophical about the Trump administration at this particular time, it’s because the human race knows what’s good for it, and all forms of Marxism have not been it.  There was never a plan for Trump to be in any authority position.  The plan was to take over mass society and make people afraid of a virus that was made in a Chinese lab, by people who wanted to make a bioweapon to use against the world, to steal elections, and take over economies.  People saw this happening, and they put Trump in office as the rest of the world has been supporting their own version of pro-capitalist populism.  Its not because they were that great of a candidate, but because people didn’t like the direction the world was turning, which brought about out of desperation, the Covid year of 2020 and the complete collapse of the global economy that was so tragic that most people didn’t even want to discuss what happened because they wanted so badly to put it out of their minds. 

So the mindset of the economic shutdowns has taken a few years to recover from, and it has taken a while for people to get their feet under them again.  And what we’re talking about are all the DEI hires and the work-from-home mentality that has been socially disastrous—social policy cooked up in a lab, with everyone’s books open to Karl Marx’s literature.  Even Microsoft was in on the gag, trying to push everyone into Teams meetings from home in their pajamas.  Nobody was betting on a complete economic recovery in those dark months of 2021, as Biden took office, Trump was forced into exile, and Covid protocols were imposing themselves on every one of us.  People should have been more intelligent to see the obvious.  We were under attack by an extensively laid plan of a complete Marxist takeover of the world.  And I said it at the time, and said all this was going to happen.  Nobody listened until it was too late.  And I would go around town and talk about all the businesses that were working from home, and how they were going to fail, and all the fast food places that closed their dining rooms because they didn’t have enough staff to stay open.  I told everyone what was going to happen, and now it is.  And I saw it clearly because of the way I live my life, in front of the train. At the same time, most of the world lives in the back, where it’s safe.  We’re talking about Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality as he talked about it in the great book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  It’s a very popular book, though largely misunderstood.  Its sequel, Lila, has not been read by millions, but by a very select few in the world who are audacious rarities. 

The metaphysics of quality, as I explained in my video with a train roaring by, is essentially a perspective on leadership and decision-making. Outstanding leadership is done at the front of a metaphorical train, where you can see what’s coming as it approaches.  You can turn the train, slow it down, tell people what you see coming.  But most people don’t dare to lead from the front.  So they have built an administrative bureaucracy in the back of the train to provide analysis, which is useful.  But it’s not leadership because by the time the moving train reaches the point of decision, the caboose has passed it entirely too late.  Decisions have to be made at the front to ensure the quality people expect.  That is why great generals who lead from the front are great.   Great business leaders are so rare.  And why political efforts succeed or fail.  If leadership is at the back of the train, a management effort will likely fail every time.  If, under scarce circumstances, an organizational leader is at the front of the train —where few people dare to be —then great success is possible.  Success that is often beyond people’s wildest dreams.  So when a business is failing and wants the public to know they are making changes, they put up signs saying they are under new management, hoping people will give them a second chance in the economy, implying that their leadership change will be different.  After COVID, a lot of companies got suckered and put their leaders all in the back of the train, where it was safe, and it was a disaster for the world’s economy under a hostile takeover. 

Karl Marx was always an idiot and a coward.  He died broke because he was a back-of-the-train theorist.  The world is full of them.  But because there were a lot of cowards in the world who ended up in government, health care, and were second-generation titans of industry who didn’t have the same guts their previous generation had, they adopted Marxism to hide what losers they were.  But in a marketplace where free will is expected, that kind of back-of-the-train micromanagement was never going to work.  And I said so all along.  And now that the money is flowing again and Trump is back in the White House, leading from the front, it has exposed this plan for the fraud it was.  And now everyone is scrambling to find people at the front of the train, and their “under new management” signs are hopes that people will assume that there is leadership at the front of the train instead of everyone functioning from the back, where all the wimps hang out.  And that’s why there are suddenly so many signs.  At least the owners of these businesses are trying.  But it shows clearly the danger that arises when we micromanage society, with back-of-the-train personalities who are not equipped to lead.  Even in a bar or nightclub, where leadership isn’t even considered.  People expect the lights to work and the beer to be cold.  And when everyone is hiding in the back of the train, they often order those things too late to arrive for a Friday night gathering that nobody thought would happen because of COVID social distancing rules.  Only people in the front of the train were ready, because they saw well in advance what a dumb idea everything was.  And most businesses that lacked those unique personalities failed, are now trying to recover, and want the world to know they are looking for front-of-the-train management.  And even if they haven’t yet found them, they are at least looking.

Rich Hoffman

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Rodizio at Lunch in Liberty Center: Only $19.99 and defining the Metaphysics of Quality

It might be because I believe that advanced civilizations first erupted in South America a long time ago that I find the Rodizio at Liberty Center, Ohio so enchanting, but I love the place. It has become a personal refuge for me of late because I love the atmosphere, the enthusiasm, and the food—and I love the location. I previously wrote about a VIP night that I was a part of which can be seen by clicking here. But that was at night where the price per person was $33 dollars for the all you can eat full Rodizio experience—where they bring skewers of meat to your table in a very theatrical way and you eat as much as you want or can. Well, I wanted to try it out for lunch so I brought some people important to me to the place to see if the lunch was as magical as the dinner—and sure enough it was.

The night before I watched the very exciting Battle of Ohio at Paul Brown Stadium where the Bengals continued to have an impressive season. It was Thursday Night Football and the nation was watching. The night was long and the crowd was rowdy, but it was enchanting to watch the game from the Club section with the same demographic type of people who will enjoy the new Liberty Center. However, once the game was over, I shared with tens of thousands of other people a strong desire to get back to our cars and get on the road—which clogged up I-75 all the way back to West Chester. The highway really didn’t begin to move until we moved north passed the I-275 bridge. We were all going home from the Bengal game to the same place. It was well passed midnight and we just wanted to get to our beds. That was a persistent thought that I had all evening during the football game. Take away the Bengals, the Reds, the museum and an occasional theater play and there isn’t much that downtown Cincinnati has to offer. Sure they have nice dinner options, but downtown is such a pain in the neck to travel around. For the people who can afford it, such as the people in the Club section at the Bengal game, once the fun was over, they wanted to get back to their homes—north of Cincinnati in the suburbs of West Chester, Liberty Township and Mason.

For years I have enjoyed going downtown for the exotic experiences that you can have there, but have more than once been dismayed at how trashy it was. For instance, when you’re walking around with your date in front of Fountain Square with the Westin Hotel in the background, you want to enjoy the luxury and options of the setting, but then some dude walks by with his pants half down cursing up a storm looking like he just crawled out of the gutter—which most of the time he has, it tends to alter an otherwise good mood. You may have just spent $400 at Ruby’s Steakhouse and had an otherwise nice time until something like that happens. Cincinnati, because of the environment they’ve allowed to percolate just wasted your money on the experience you were trying to have. At the Bengal game, money flowed better so long as there was a set-up that allowed people who wanted to enjoy the game without a lot of ruckus to do so with a pretty decent guarantee that the exchange would be worth it. Those same people didn’t want to spend much time not getting to their car and were eager to get back to friendlier territory as soon as the drama of the game was done. So much of the imagery shown on the television of the downtown cityscape was an illusion, it wasn’t real. Downtown was dead because the people best able to support it wanted to get as far away as possible once it came down to putting money on the table for a nice evening. Snobby, sure it is and there is nothing wrong with that. People of value enjoy association with other people of value. If other people don’t share those values, then there will be tension, and in this day and age where political correctness is choking off our opinions, people vote with their wallets.

That brings us back to the wonderful Liberty Center downtown that is privately managed by the Steiner group which essentially gives people the Club option of shopping and dining. It has the same appeal as going to an NFL game in the Club and Box seats—it puts everything on a pedestal, keeps the riff raff at bay, and ensures that the money you spend will be worth as much as possible. And so far, I have discovered that the Rodizio is the best value of all those elements. It’s just a top class place—it reminds me of the type of place you’d find in South America without the language barriers, the sweaty hotels with half working air conditioning units, and the modern socialism that is crippling their current economy. When I walk into Rodizio each time, I think of the ancient cultures which seeded planet earth well before any established religion laid claim to history. There is an ancient truth to the place that first appealed to me. Now I find it sustaining to attend their salad bar which is only $12.99 for lunch including all the hot dishes, and pick from some very healthy selections of food prepared by a kitchen staff that really cares. But for lunch at only $19.99 you can have the whole Rodizio experience which is a business lunch bargain. So I had to try it out with those thoughts of the Bengal game fresh on my mind.

Yes Captain Hook was there and he personally cared for our table. We were very happy and the management at the Rodizio made it a very memorable experience.  Our waitress, Crystal was exceptionally professional and poured a lot of passion into our experience.  I had stated previously that I considered Rodizio a great business lunch option and it has certainly lived up to that assessment. This wasn’t a VIP evening, this was an actual business day in what I consider paradise—a well managed downtown where I don’t have to worry about my car, or nasty people ruining my investment dollars with degradation.  To say anything less would be dishonest just for the stylishness of being politically correct. Thus far, I don’t have to worry about wasting money at Liberty Center or Rodizio. If you are taking clients or associates out to lunch to impress them, you need the whole experience, the food, the atmosphere, the people—everything that your senses perceive. It all has to work or really you are just wasting your money.

The Rodizio crew understands that investment which is why I am so glowingly supportive of them. If Liberty Center were the kind of shopping destination that John Galt would have built from the novel Atlas Shrugged, then Rodizio is one of the unique places that would belong on the pages of that classic story for all the right reasons within it. It’s better than reality, which is what I feel each time I visit the Rodizio Grill. They do a good job of caring for their customers with an experience that is better than the reality of the outside world—the world beyond the parking lot of Liberty Center.

It’s not being snobby to enjoy nice things. For me it’s all about the Metaphysics of Quality. I love a quality experience and when variables create mundane results, I often resent whatever investment I’ve put into the endeavor—whether that may by time, money, or emotion. I don’t like to waste resources—so if I do something, I like to see a return on that investment in a quality experience. When I get that I do enjoying talking about it. There is nothing wrong with setting the bar high for yourself. There is nothing wrong with playing above your head, because it can make you a better person. And there is nothing wrong with eating the best food that you can for the best price in the best place. At Rodizio Grill at Liberty Center, quality is what the experience is all about. And with that, I’m pleased to report that they are the real deal, not just a flash in the pan. If you are looking for a good place to grab lunch, they should be at the top of your list.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

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