1974 -- The Beginning Of The End

The world's largest retailer was an early victim of government meddling into personnel policies.

Today Sears is a dinosaur. Sears Tower is a ghost.

Sears is a metaphor for the USA.

	The Sears Tower was completed in 1974. It was planned to be the international corporate headquarters for Sears, the world's largest retailer.
	In 1974 Sears Tower was the world's tallest building.
	The following narrative is a first-hand account viewed from inside Sears' executive level by an employee subjected to the new governmental policies.

Sears Tower was rumored to be the first of two towers to serve as world headquarters for Sears, then the world's largest retailer. What caused Sears to decline? What prevented Sears from keeping up with the retailing industry?

Government Legislative Mandate

In 1974, over several months, each of Sears approximately 4,300 executive level corporate employees was shuffled into a special presentation in groups of from around one to two dozen. Each meeting was tightly scripted by Sears' top management and was presented by each specific group's upper management.

The purpose of the meetings was consistent across all operating divisions of Sears and applied to all executive level employees. The meetings started with a statement from the board of directors that identified Affirmative Action legislation recently passed by the US Congress. The board's announcement stated that Sears, being a corporate leader and the world's largest retailer, intended to implement this legislation in full compliance with the spirit and fact of the law. Sears would set the example for the nation's corporations.

Following the reading of the board of directors' statement attention was focused upon an easel holding a magnetic white board. Drawn on the white board was an outline map of the USA displaying each state and the continental borders. The presenter then placed two small model magnetic cars over New York State. One car was painted black and one painted white.

The upper manager presenter then said that the white car represented white men, the black car represented women and black people. He (most managers were male back in the days of Sears' prosperity) then said there had been a sort of competition going on inside Sears that was analogous to a cross-continental car race. This competition was for the promotions up Sears' executive ladder. Up to this point the white car had been winning. To represent that winning, he moved the little white magnetic car over to about Indiana.

He then moved the black magnetic car westward to about Philadelphia. Obviously the black car was losing.

In order to make up for lack of success in the executive competition to be the best performer -- and lost time -- the black car obviously needed extra assistance. It was this assistance that Sears' board of directors had ordered following US government legislative employment hiring, promotion, salary, and firing guidelines.

Therefore, in order to provide the extra assistance needed by the black car, from this day on, women and blacks would be openly and without shame, promoted before competing white males.

All employees were told that this was not intended to diminish white males. It was intended simply to provide needed extra assistance for women and blacks so that they might be made to catch up.

At this point the black car was moved closer to the white car in the cross-continental race.

The presenter then added that white men would openly observe this inequity in promotion starting very soon. White men were free to leave Sears, but it was hoped that they would continue their careers at Sears. When the situation warranted it -- ostensibly when the fairness judges determined equality in the ranks -- white men would again be promoted on their merit.

Until fairness and the requirements of Affirmative Action hiring guidelines were satisfied, white men would be expected to work just as competently, they would simply not be given the raises and promotions that women and blacks would be granted.

The Result

Within two years much of the most skilled white men abandoned their careers at Sears corporate and moved on become successful and be rewarded for their competence and perseverance elsewhere.

Sears decline had begun.

Sears during the late 1960s and early 1970s was known to have, along with Standard Oil Corporation, the preeminent corporate computer departments in the nation. Sears was IBM's largest customer after the US government. Sears often worked directly with IBM's top people in beta testing and implementation of IBM's latest software and hardware. Sears was a vibrant, thriving company.

In 1968, Sears had developed its own in-house training program to ensure a constant supply of competent personnel for its application development and technical support. This training program was designed for people who had earned college degrees and demonstrated a desire to work with competency. Often trainees had little or no computer experience. (These were the early years of commercial computer systems.) People were hired as full-time employees, given all benefits, and paid full salary for however long they required to complete the training program.

Sears' training program was designed to teach each student enough to, upon completion, be assigned to work productively on an system application project team. The training program allowed each student a maximum of three months to program and complete a specific set of technical exercises and system training topics.

Some students completed the course work in less than three months, but few were allowed more time. If some needed more time, they were often assigned to other functions within Sears since they had demonstrated a lack of aptitude for computer technology.

Soon after the start of Affirmative Action hiring for the computer training program, it became clear that changes were needed in the course work. Previously required content was simplified, other content was eliminated. The time frame allowed to successfully complete the reduced-in-difficulty course work was expanded from three months to nine months.

It was not uncommon for students who were allowed extra time to attempt to pass training to be assigned to a project team and never show up for work again. Many times these Affirmative Action hires were only heard from again when they called in sick for some period of months, collected full salaries, and then quit. Other Affirmative Action hires were assigned to project teams and proceeded to do little to no work or to become a burden on the workload of those team members who were responsible for ensuring project deadlines were met.

Serious, dedicated workers became demoralized. They did not have the time, nor was it in their job descriptions to train people obviously lacking in skills and work ethic.

The decline of Sears can be traced back to 1974. The story presented here contains first-hand knowledge of events from inside the executive level of Sears. It identifies the hubris of the board of directors related to the meddling of the US Congress in employment policy. It identifies the cause of the demoralization of Sears' workforce. It provides background that explains the decline in Sears' quality of operations, products, services, and its fall from being the world's largest retailer. Sears is today a stub of a corporation making money on momentum and ever-attempting to develop a new retail image, yet failing with each attempt.

On March 12, 2009, it was announced that the Sears Tower will be renamed to Willis Tower. The Willis Group asked the Sears Tower's remote ownership for naming rights and received those rights along with a lease for only around 150,000 square feet on space.

There will not be Sears Tower Two. There will soon be no Sears Tower.

Lessons Not Learned

The fate of the United States of America is traveling along a similar trajectory of failure.

When hiring guidelines are defined to meet social goals and disregard employee capabilities, the caliber of the workforce will decline and the better employees will resign. When credit is provided to potential homeowners based upon irrelevant criteria such as race, gender, or other social status disregarding relevant qualifications such as credit history, income, and work history, mortgages will go into default and mortgage holders will become demoralized.

It is easier to decimate a company than a country. Sears the company rotted from within over a period of two decades. The larger, more resilient United States of America has been rotting from within and withstood onslaughts from numerous enemies and envious allies.

Today America's demise is readily apparent in the streets of its big cities, the nasty, partisan, under-educated attitudes of its citizens, and the peril being suffered by its economy.

The US economy and the global economy would not be suffering at all if Americans were paying their mortgages, personal & student loans, and credit card obligations. It is Americans' unpaid, non-performing financial obligations that have crippled the global economy. Nothing more. Nothing less.