We are at the same stage where the environment is overworked, and in order to move toward sustainability, we need to cut personal consumption of everything. I mean everything.

The manufacturing crisis began in the mid-80s with international competition in the automotive industry. Instead of being recognized as a technical supremacy, experts attributed the competition to cost. In reality, it was the competitor’s superior performance, rather than cost, that challenged the manufacturing capabilities of the 1950s and 1960s.

Large corporations in the United States must do something differently. For more than 25 years, manufacturing corporations tried to improve operations irrespective of their size-be it GM, Ford or a small company in a remote area. However, outsourcing of manufacturing continued and was followed by outsourcing of non-manufacturing operations.

I am sure everyone at General Motors (GM) is thinking about how everyone else is using GM’s misery as an opportunity. It is okay to learn from others’ mistakes. Does that mean GM is the only one that made mistakes? Absolutely not.

We cannot wait for managers to fix things for us. We should not wish for a better CEO to lead us to the magic land. We cannot expect our president to give us a vision and bail us out from the economic mess. It is time for us to wake up, see how deep a hole we are in, try to climb out and see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anytime I try to analyze why U.S. businesses appear to be losing their competitive edge, I look not just at manufacturing, but also at opportunities throughout the organization.

It is a given that U.S. corporations are struggling-be it manufacturing, finance or service organizations-with multiple diseases because of innumerable bacteria. The business bacteria strain keeps getting bigger and so do the business diseases.

There is a new methodology for improving business performance called the bailout.

Just in time (JIT) gave a new name to the Toyota Production System (TPS) and a set of good tools. However, I feel that the word lean undid all of that. Look what our economy has become: We are lean and we are sick.

In a recently organized Zagreb Economic Forum, I had the opportunity to give a keynote about our Breakthrough Innovation (Brinnovation) framework. During my talk, someone asked, Why isn’t innovation sensational, sporty or sexy to attract more people and executives?