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This book by a former GM employee of about 4 decades has interesting parallels to what has happened to Games Workshop. When the bean counters take over and push the creative people to the side when steering the company, bad things can happen. And with all the cost cutting and price hikes dominating every move GW makes the past couple years it seems they might learn something from the problems the much larger GM Corp. has encountered.

The author of this book has since been invited back to GM to help them get back on track. When will GW get back to catering to their customers' love of creativity instead of letting draconian cost cuts, price hikes and information policies dominate everything they do?

http://www.amazon.com/Car-Guys-vs-Bean-Counters/dp/1591844002/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320163260&sr=8

Book Description
Publication Date: June 9, 2011
"It's time to stop the dominance of the number-crunchers, living in their perfect, predictable, financially-projected world (who fail, time and again), and give the reins to the 'product guys'...those with vision and passion for the customers and their product or service."

When Bob Lutz got into the auto business in the early 1960s, CEOs knew that if you captured the public's imagination with innovative car design and top quality craftsmanship, the money would follow. The "car guys" held sway, and GM dominated with bold, creative leadership and iconic brands like Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, GMC, and Chevrolet.

But then GM's leadership began to put their faith in numbers and spreadsheets. Determined to eliminate the "waste" and "personality worship" of the bygone creative leaders, and maximize profitability, management got too smart for its own good. With the bean counters firmly in charge, carmakers, and much of American industry, lost their single-minded focus on product excellence and their competitive advantage. Decline soon followed.

I think some bean counting is in order but I have to generally agree.

I've told people many times before that attorneys and CPAs should not be leading companies, because they tend to be risk-averse and bottom line oriented, rather than development and market oriented. For the opposite reasons, creative people shouldn't always lead them either, because they tend to ignore the bottom line as well as push for things that are too risky. A good C level exec wants both groups with seats at the table, so that they can couteract one another, and balance the two sides of a business venture. But often when one side becomes dominant without a counterbalancing weight, companies run into problems.

There are individuals who can be objective and see past their own training or background. Likewise, there are some corporate structures that have those types of safe guards in place organically.

IMHO, GW's problem has been that it has kind of see-sawed between the two extremes. It had a lot of developmental explosion in a short period of time, but without the underlying and necessary structural safeguards and development. It got way overexposed, and rubber banded back the other direction too far. It seems to be evening out somewhat, but it is still hard to say...

Eldanar wrote:I've told people many times before that attorneys and CPAs should not be leading companies, because they tend to be risk-averse and bottom line oriented, rather than development and market oriented. For the opposite reasons, creative people shouldn't always lead them either, because they tend to ignore the bottom line as well as push for things that are too risky. A good C level exec wants both groups with seats at the table, so that they can couteract one another, and balance the two sides of a business venture. But often when one side becomes dominant without a counterbalancing weight, companies run into problems.

There are individuals who can be objective and see past their own training or background. Likewise, there are some corporate structures that have those types of safe guards in place organically.

IMHO, GW's problem has been that it has kind of see-sawed between the two extremes. It had a lot of developmental explosion in a short period of time, but without the underlying and necessary structural safeguards and development. It got way overexposed, and rubber banded back the other direction too far. It seems to be evening out somewhat, but it is still hard to say...

I hope it leans a little more away from the bean counting side if its in the process of evening out. Because if this is them with a well based blend of creativity and bean counting i don't want to see bean counting at 11.

I'm glad you ddint use the British car industry as a parallel.

Unions.
Out of date products.
Lack of innovation.
Poor workmanship.
Lack of funding/Funding squandered.

Profitability is probably the number one concern of any company. But, yeah too many bean counters doesnt lend itself to better productivity, products or indeed profitability.

Mr. Burning wrote:I'm glad you didnt use the British industry in general as a parallel.

Fixed....though arguably tis partially the Government's fault.

Another example of letting the accountants be in charge and run wild is British Rail in the 1960s.

My general view is that the forecasting aspect of bean counting is pointless. This includes associated activities such as "Not telling our customers about new releases will make us more money."

However, analysis of past trends bean counting is generally a good idea in order to avoid making the same mistakes e.g. "Hmm... our customers aren't buying our products, maybe we ought to do some marketing."

I generally agree with you that the managers are handcuffing the creative staff in their company for the long term harm of the company.

Still, talking about bean counters is clouding the fact, that the management decisions are economically harmful as well for several years. Tom Kirby and his buddies are just milking the company dry to the last drop before they retire. In this narrow perspective, GW's management decisions make sense.

Sadly I see no change in policy from within. As in every true dictatorship, the regime usually ends with the retirement of the dictator, not before, as all critical elements have been disposed of.

stormwell wrote:

Mr. Burning wrote:I'm glad you didnt use the British industry in general as a parallel.

Fixed....though arguably tis partially the Government's fault.

Another example of letting the accountants be in charge and run wild is British Rail in the 1960s.

Always reminds me of poor Moss and the office fire...

Big fans of the IT Crowd here. Good post.

Apple is a good example of the creatives leading. In particular Steve Jobs, who's philosophy was; life's too short to NOT push the envelope.

Might not have a success with every rollout, but they've put out some pretty impressive work that takes risks. I'm curious what the future holds for them. Everyone expected Jobs to ignore the beancounters and make the product he envisioned. The new CEO has some big shoes to fill, and I doubt he'll get a pass if his first rollout isn't an immediate success.


As far as GW's concerned, their move to pushing plastic multi-part kits has been pretty impressive. I think it's been a game-changer for the hobby, both for more aggressive design and a medium for conversions. I'm ambivalent about their resin.

Didn't they just hire Aragorn, one of the sculptors who made Rackham a success? THAT'S where I would like to see them put their energy; designing models that push the creative envelope. Their recent necrons show a lack of growth and creativity, being way too boxed-in by previous design. For a race that sacrificed their biological forms for technological husks, why did they all retain a human form? Couldn't they inhabit forms with multiple limbs, or non-human physiologies?

Meh. They played it way too safe, and came out with a dull, uninspired product.

Those Ancient Greeks may have been onto something with that whole "Golden Mean" thing?

Maybe the GW studio team feels highly oppressed, I dunno. Scratch that -- they're creatives, so of course they feel like they're getting held back by the people on the business side. This from a creative professional.

Still, IMO there's a lot of good creative work coming out of the studio, and just last year the so-called bean counters allowed the roll of the dice that was the DE relaunch. Eighth edition WFB was a bit of a roll of the dice also.

I do think the insistence on backward-compatible rulesets clearly is a major impediment to the game designers. Then again, I think I tend to agree with the bean counters that complete rules resets invalidating all current codicies/army books would probably cause a huge uproar, especially among the less competitive customers. And I think GW misses some great opportunities -- like a Horus Heresy supplement -- seemingly out of sheer conservatism.

But overall from the outside it doesn't feel like the products we're getting are the work of a beaten-down creative team. Certainly the business side looks to have asserted themselves compared to 10 and especially 20 years ago. But constraints are part of the job when you're a creative professional. And I don't see releases like the Necrons being as creatively stale as the Chevys or Buicks of 5-10 years ago.

gorgon wrote: But overall from the outside it doesn't feel like the products we're getting are the work of a beaten-down creative team. Certainly the business side looks to have asserted themselves compared to 10 and especially 20 years ago. But constraints are part of the job when you're a creative professional. And I don't see releases like the Necrons being as creatively stale as the Chevys or Buicks of 5-10 years ago.

I can think of a few times when GW has updated an army to great effect, allowing previous design elements to grow and evolve. I'm thinking of Brian Nelson's characterful orks a decade ago, or Chris Fitzpatrick's sleek Dark Elves, or yes, the recent fantastic dynamic Dark Elves. In each case the design team seemed to have a real passion for what they were doing, and added a layer of personality and culture missing from previous model sets.

The necron snipers hinted at fresh ideas, with the single eye (despite the impraticality of monocular vision) and a slightly streamlined chassis, suggesting it was built for a specific role. The rest of the line seems like they took beefed up necron warriors and bolted geometric plates on randomly to suggest a culture, with a new weapon design. There is such a sucking vaccuum of creative ideas there, the absolute minimum input of new ideas.

It really feels like necrons is missing a lead designer with a real passion for the race, like Jess Goodwin and his eldar, or Brian Nelson and his orks.

Flashman wrote:My general view is that the forecasting aspect of bean counting is pointless. This includes associated activities such as "Not telling our customers about new releases will make us more money.

If you don't forecast accurately how are you supposed to invest for growth or keep costs under control? Forecasting to hit predetermined targets is nonsense, but honest forecasting is essential to any business.

A combination of sales, accounting and creatives should be in charge of a business like GW. It's worth noting that GWs return to profitability coincided with a retailer (Mark Wells) becoming MD to an accountant Chairman (Tom Kirby) restoring balance to the previous situation.

Mastiff wrote:

gorgon wrote: But overall from the outside it doesn't feel like the products we're getting are the work of a beaten-down creative team. Certainly the business side looks to have asserted themselves compared to 10 and especially 20 years ago. But constraints are part of the job when you're a creative professional. And I don't see releases like the Necrons being as creatively stale as the Chevys or Buicks of 5-10 years ago.

I can think of a few times when GW has updated an army to great effect, allowing previous design elements to grow and evolve. I'm thinking of Brian Nelson's characterful orks a decade ago, or Chris Fitzpatrick's sleek Dark Elves, or yes, the recent fantastic dynamic Dark Elves. In each case the design team seemed to have a real passion for what they were doing, and added a layer of personality and culture missing from previous model sets.

The necron snipers hinted at fresh ideas, with the single eye (despite the impraticality of monocular vision) and a slightly streamlined chassis, suggesting it was built for a specific role. The rest of the line seems like they took beefed up necron warriors and bolted geometric plates on randomly to suggest a culture, with a new weapon design. There is such a sucking vaccuum of creative ideas there, the absolute minimum input of new ideas.

It really feels like necrons is missing a lead designer with a real passion for the race, like Jess Goodwin and his eldar, or Brian Nelson and his orks.

You're certainly entitled to dislike them, but I don't think they're creatively stale because of a certain amount of uniformity. That has traditionally been a design element of the Necron army, after all. Heck, there are a number of people here complaining because the line isn't plainer and even more uniform. Also note that they had some design constraints with Necrons that they didn't with DE...namely that they were keeping certain sculpts from the previous line, one of them being the base Necron Warrior.

Of course, you could say that's the business side not opening the pursestrings like they could. But there are also certain realities and reasons why they can't overhaul every line from scratch every time they do a codex or army book update.

I'd also say that what we've seen of the minis so far are mostly regular infantry, with a number of potentially more interesting miniatures yet to come. Personally, I'd put this range (even if incomplete) well above the Necron lines from 2003 or the mid-90s from design and conceptual standpoints. I just find it hard to equate these models with a 1994 Chevy Cavalier. *shrug*

I kind of think that the past year or two has been the most creative that GW has been in quite awhile.

Worglock wrote:I kind of think that the past year or two has been the most creative that GW has been in quite awhile.

Agreed, but it's also been the most draconian regarding staffing cuts, changes to Games Day events that make them a travesty compared to their former selves, price increases, lack of communication with customers, undesirable changes to White Dwarf mailing, Finecast and the problems that persist with the quality of many of those models, and on and on.

... and they fired Rick Priestley, the inventor of the game, for being too creative, starting a rage quit of some staff. (Also Alessio left in this period).

Hi all.
For a buisness to be sucessful it needs to ballance the books AND grow its customer base.

Both are equaly important.

Any company that ONLY focuses on finances (profit oriented) OR products (Customer oriented,) is doomed to fail eventualy.

IMO GW plc is simply following the path of least resistnce .The slippery downward slope so many companies have taken before...

I've got to add my threepence to this, simply put, a company without bean counters or executives to lead in in the world of business does exactly one thing...

go out of business.

the simple fact is that a lot of what i call artists and creatives have about as much business sense as <text redacted; a hint - if you have to use *'s to get around the profanity filter, then you shouldn't be posting, with or without *'s --Janthkin>
how many FLGS's come and go that are ran by hobby enthusiasts such as ourselves who get burned out quickly, get shafted by the business market loose a tonne of money by being everyone's friend then spend the next month declaring bankruptcy

granted thats not all, some do have a lick of business sense but if you want to be a major national and then international player in any field you need suits. the side effect is that sometimes you loose your soul and you have to make tough decisions.
GW is always under a lot of scrutiny but ask yourself why, this is simple they're very popular and its very hard to cater to everyones wants.

the majority do believe the prices are too high, i myself believe this but then i don't know the business cost behind these prices and i don't know how much their directors get paid either, if my 8 year old son will look at items on the shelf and say "Thats way too much money" then something is wrong, give them chance to correct this, they'll come around eventually.
if not, pick another hobby or buy from whomever rifles the pockets of its corpse for the rights to the game systems and models.

The only Beans Carrol Shelby ever counted were in his chilli.

On the flip side, how do we know the company is being run by bean counters and not amateur businessmen who are also hobbyists and gamers or are the creative talent type of peoples? Can you cite some evidence to back up your your claims?

General Hobbs wrote:

On the flip side, how do we know the company is being run by bean counters and not amateur businessmen who are also hobbyists and gamers or are the creative talent type of peoples? Can you cite some evidence to back up your your claims?

Tere is this thing called Google, this is what it told me
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/people.asp?ticker=GAW:LN

Melonfish wrote:
the simple fact is that a lot of what i call artists and creatives have about as much business sense as <text redacted>

Zuckerberging that idea and taking that straight to the bank. I'm willing to bet there is a sizeable market for such a thing, if it doesn't already exist.

Hmm no love for the commercial people eh, this is awkward.

Being a Commercial Manager in the construction industry and employing creative types myself I have to say that designers have to be managed, very closely.

It can be very easy for them to come up with sweeping designs that will cost double your budget and when corrected get pissy and not want to resolve the problem they have created by not following their brief. This is for people that have been paid anything up to £1.5M but don't understand why their Glass building is not suitable as a school in an inner city area.

Sure you can go the other direction and come up with something that no one wants but I don't see GW doing that if DE and Necrons are anything to go by.

There are other signs that GW allows their designers an outlet to their creative urges (FW, WH Historical, Dreadfleet) rather than just turning out the next phase of 40k/WHFB/LoTR which is where the main money is.

GW seem to have a good balance between creativity and business (not that I see the two as separate).

Final thought don't give an Architect control of your funding, it may not end well.

notprop wrote:Hmm no love for the commercial people eh, this is awkward.

Being a Commercial Manager in the construction industry and employing creative types myself I have to say that designers have to be managed, very closely.

It can be very easy for them to come up with sweeping designs that will cost double your budget and when corrected get pissy and not want to resolve the problem they have created by not following their brief. This is for people that have been paid anything up to £1.5M but don't understand why their Glass building is not suitable as a school in an inner city area.

You know though, sometimes you business guys write really crappy briefs.

lord_blackfang wrote:

General Hobbs wrote:

On the flip side, how do we know the company is being run by bean counters and not amateur businessmen who are also hobbyists and gamers or are the creative talent type of peoples? Can you cite some evidence to back up your your claims?

Tere is this thing called Google, this is what it told me
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/people.asp?ticker=GAW:LN

But this also doesn't tell you whether they are hobbyists. Or are "creative". Mark Wells may not be, but Tom Kirby is. The old US CEO Ernie Baker was both. John STallard was a gamer, and he started out working in the mail room of the company.

notprop wrote:Hmm no love for the commercial people eh, this is awkward.

Being a Commercial Manager in the construction industry and employing creative types myself I have to say that designers have to be managed, very closely.

You may be right in principle, but we are talking about a company, where the managers are hostile to designers AND customers AND produce sinking revenue, sinking customer numbers AND drain the company for millions of personal profit for years.

You may be right in principle, but we are talking about a company, where the managers are hostile to designers AND customers AND produce sinking revenue, sinking customer numbers AND drain the company for millions of personal profit for years.

Yea exactly like every other company in the world. GW are not laying off waves and waves of employees, so I guess they are doing alright.