While past
performance is a strong indicator of future performance there are a few small
variables to take into account.
1. Is it the same field/industry/product line or even close?
2. What is the starting point – complete clean slate or existing baggage?
3.
What is the support structure and team surrounding some one – weak, new, worn
out?
4. How much time and flexibility do they have?
There are very few
people that can do the same amazing things in one area/sport/business and then
show the same level of skill in another. Finding a Jim Thorpe in business is rare and without knowing
the starting field and unseen issues it is easy to miss the point with Johnson
and J.C. Penny.
In
all business there is risk. That risk can be so great that the chances of
success are almost nil. The question should be, is JCPenny’s able to evolve and
become relevant once again or has the world so changed and the brand has not
that no matter who steps in there is almost not chance? Was this a DOA business
turn around? Its one thing to launch the Apple store concept, it is a
completely different thing to take something from the 1890’s and make it “a
new!”
Maybe
it is less about trying to bring in someone to create a change or even someone
to try and bring back once was. Is it time for J.C. Penny’s, Sear’s, Kmart and
other turn of the past century retailers to merge and become something new,
something different? 