{"id":1740,"date":"2012-08-27T09:55:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T14:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/?p=1740"},"modified":"2012-08-27T09:55:53","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T14:55:53","slug":"business-author-ro-khanna-discusses-his-thought-provoking-book-entrepreneurial-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/2012\/08\/27\/business-author-ro-khanna-discusses-his-thought-provoking-book-entrepreneurial-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Business Author Ro Khanna Discusses His Thought Provoking Book Entrepreneurial Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ro<\/a>The nice folks at McGraw-Hill sent me a freshly minted copy of Ro Khanna\u2019s new book Entrepreneurial Nation : Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America\u2019s Future<\/em>.\u00a0 As someone who would like to help the CEOs and board of directors transform the sales and marketing of America\u2019s manufacturers to make them into international growth companies, I was excited to see this title as I hope it will bring focus to an important and related issue – where and how corporation resources and employees are allocated for utilization.<\/p>\n

In Entrepreneurial Nation, Ro Khanna presents a highly valid yet contrarian book about the potential for USA manufacturing resurgence. Ro advocates reversing certain strategy consulting dogma of the late twentieth century to create this reality. People would be wise to listen to and act on Ro\u2019s message.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The book is a highly unique combination of personal memoir, business and government stories. If the book were to go mainstream, I would\u00a0 think that the world might discover that his core concept has applications in other areas. Ro was kind enough to answer some questions:<\/p>\n

In Chapter 1 you state, \u201cThe best American manufacturers consider the intellectual contributions of all of their employees.\u201d Critical and divergent thinkers are critical, but the majority of companies are not yet replacing their leadership ranks with these types of transformational leaders.\u00a0 What has to change for this to occur at more companies more quickly?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna: We cannot compete with China in a race to the bottom or lower wages.\u00a0 So, we have to outcompete them by offering more innovative products, finding efficiencies in production, or customizing products to meet consumer\u2019s unique needs.\u00a0 The best manufacturers recognize this fact, and their leadership creates the culture for employees to make meaningful contributions to a product\u2019s design and the production process.\u00a0 The result is gain in productivity and also better products.
\nMy hope is the manufacturers that I profile can serve as a model to many of American companies.\u00a0 They show that empowering employees makes business sense.\u00a0 A bottom-up culture is perhaps the only way American companies can compete with low-wage labor.\u00a0 We can\u2019t compete on price. We need to compete by being more creative.<\/p>\n

You had the privilege and honor of meeting with one of the most brilliant business people ever, Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel. He argues strongly against outsourcing manufacturing ? Yet it occurs. so who exactly are people listening to for this advice that is contrary to Andy Grove\u2019s great wisdom?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna: Yes, Andy Grove is one of the most brilliant and passionate people I\u2019ve met.\u00a0 I wish more policy-makers were listening to him about the importance of keeping a manufacturing base for the purpose of innovation.\u00a0 Some neo-classical economists have argued that we should be indifferent about whether we have a manufacturing base or not.\u00a0 That may be nice in theory, but what Grove shows is that it cannot work in practice.\u00a0 Losing manufacturing would mean losing millions of good paying jobs.\u00a0 It would also hamper our ability to innovate because as Grove shows design and production cannot be separated.\u00a0 I am disappointed that Grove\u2019s ideas on the importance of manufacturing have not captured more of the attention of the Beltway.\u00a0 It\u2019s partly why I wrote the book, and Grove arguably is the protagonist of the story.\u00a0 Washington should listen to people like Andy Grove who have actually implemented successful manufacturing processes and created thousands of jobs here.<\/p>\n

I found your research finding that a number of companies were starting to \u201crecognize that machines don\u2019t always improve productivity\u201d to be fascinating as it validates much of my research about white collar management, business strategy and marketing operations. Please discuss how you discovered these fascinating bits of information \u2026<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna:\u00a0 When I would ask manufacturers about why all their jobs could not be automated, they would laugh at the naivete of such a thought.\u00a0 One of the senior managers at GE explained that individuals were actually more efficient and accurate at tasks such as packaging compared to robots because they were more portable.\u00a0 Keith Busse of Steel Dynamics also went into considerable detail about the types of jobs in steel manufacturing that he could not see automated any time in the near future.\u00a0 In general, it\u2019s a gross oversimplification to say that automation will render human workers unnecessary.\u00a0 A better question is to figure out what types of workers are needed with increasing automation, and what skills they need to develop.<\/p>\n

You discussed a manufacturing skills gap in Chapter 7. Recruiting expert Libby Sartain is famous for saying \u201cHire for attitude, train for skills.\u201d Jeffrey J. Fox asserts companies do not spend enough on training employees. Is there really a skills gap or is there a management problem combined with a lack of vision around how to hire talent that could be trained to do these jobs in a short period of time?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna:\u00a0 Great question.\u00a0 You are absolutely correct that companies should invest in training workers.\u00a0 But, we need to provide them with the incentives to do so.\u00a0 If we expect companies to take a financial risk and invest in training workers for specific skills —skills that these workers presumably did not acquire through public schooling, college, or vocational education \u2013then companies should receive some tax incentive to do so. We have to make the economics of investing in worker training attractive for a company\u2019s bottom line.\u00a0 Yes, visionary corporate leaders may get the importance of doing so, and understand that you hire talent not resumes.\u00a0 But, having incentives can help them justify such\u00a0 long-term investment decisions to their Board and shareholders. Companies can also partner with trade unions to invest to help cultivate the best workforce.<\/p>\n

How did the lecturing gig at Stanford come about?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna: I was speaking at Stanford about how historically there has been a bipartisan vision of supporting American manufacturing.\u00a0 I talked about Hamilton\u2019s Report on Manufacturing, about Coolidge\u2019s investment in our aviation industry, about Reagan\u2019s investments in our semiconductor industry.\u00a0 Many of the students had no idea about this aspect of American economic history, and said that they often did not get that perspective in their classes.\u00a0 Their economics classes were like math classes. So, I thought it would be fun to discuss with students the practical aspects of American economic policy-making, and how that may not easily fit into classical economics or Keynesianism.<\/p>\n

What did you personally learn about manufacturing as a result of writing this book?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna: I was inspired about the resilience of American manufacturers I met, and how they went about just doing their work with determination.\u00a0 I write in the book that, in a deeper sense, the American manufacturers I met speak to who we are as a people. Those talking heads who predict America\u2019s decline need to travel this country and see the hundreds of innovative businesses that are thriving.\u00a0 There is a reason that the skeptics were wrong when they wrote us off during the early years of the Cold War.\u00a0 There is a reason they were wrong again when they predicted in the 1980s that Japan and Germany would be the dominant post Cold War economies.\u00a0 These skeptics always miss the entrepreneurial culture, the hard work, and the sense of optimism that defines America.\u00a0 After meeting dozens of manufacturers, I am very confident about the future of American manufacturing.\u00a0 We just need to get the policies right to make their lives easier, and encourage our manufacturers to adapt to the global economy.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the work you are doing is so important.<\/p>\n

Was there anything you learned after the book went to press\u00a0 that you\u2019d like to share?<\/p>\n

Ro Khanna:\u00a0 Almost every person who has read the book says what they find most interesting is the stories.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time worrying about taking on the economists such as Jagdish Bhagwati who argues that manufacturing no longer matters.\u00a0 I spent time arguing for the right policies our nation needs to support manufacturing.\u00a0 But what seems to touch readers is the concrete stories of Americans who are succeeding in making things.\u00a0 If the book accomplishes one thing, I hope it shines a spotlight on those Americans who are figuring out how to compete successfully, despite the difficult odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The nice folks at McGraw-Hill sent me a freshly minted copy of Ro Khanna\u2019s new book Entrepreneurial Nation : Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America\u2019s Future.\u00a0 As someone who would like to help the CEOs and board of directors transform the sales and marketing of America\u2019s manufacturers to make them into international growth companies, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,107,12,108,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-business-strategy","category-change-management","category-leadership","category-recruiting"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.daviddalka.com\/createvalue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}