Scott D. Anthony

It wasn't that expensive.

It could have created a like for like competitor to it.

It could have embraced disruptive change.

The argument that I make in the book is Clay had part of the answer.

He talked about the resource allocation process naturally prioritizing making today better versus tomorrow different.

That's absolutely true.

And I say there's another part, which is maybe a little bit irrational.

I argue in the chapter that every organization to a degree is haunted by ghosts.

In homage to Charles Dickens, some of those are ghosts of the past, traumas the organization hasn't gotten over.

Bethlehem Steel had to deal with a lot of labor unrest.

One key to mini mills was non-unionized labor.

Talk about that.

And people are like, no, that's scary.

You have ghosts of the present.

You have the inertial pull, the patterns you follow that you're not aware of.

It's just the way you do things.

There had been 80 years where Bethlehem Steel focused on making sure it was the scale producer that it didn't pioneer, that it was just really good at executing at scale.

That was just the way they did things.

It's hard to fight that.

Ghosts of the future.