Too Big to ???

We live in a really big country. As one who has had the good fortune of driving on many of those highway ribbons that criss-cross our fruited plains, mountain majesties and traffic-choked megalopoli, I marvel at the expanse on which this nation has come to life. And it is not only gigantic in compass dimension—it is exploding in that element with which we most identify: people. In the few years of my own consciousness we have more than doubled in population, growing from 178 million to a whopping 332 million in current census reckoning. Alaska and Hawaii added a bit more room for all these new folks, even if tiny islands and frozen tundras are not everyone’s idea of home. It makes me wonder how large we’re going to get, or should get, before we’re just too big for our britches. And I’m not just talking about birth rates, population and living space.  

It wasn’t that long ago, during those forgettable and regrettable days when Enron and Wall Street imploded and American stock portfolios and pensions evaporated overnight, that I first heard the expression, Too Big to Fail. History has a way of putting the lie to institutions and nations for whom such claims of inviolability are trumpeted. The glory that was Rome, the British Empire upon which the sun never set, the Third Reich and its imitators all have shared the same Titanic fate. And look what happened to Kodak, Blockbuster, Yahoo, Sears, Borders, along with a host of other corporate behemoths that have seen their fortunes decline or go belly up right before our eyes? Thanks to the vagaries of cultural taste, technological advances and the unpredictable trends that drive political and economic cycles, nothing is so big that it will endure forever in this universe where change is the abiding constant. While there may be no limit to how big we can get, there are also no guarantees that size can insulate us from failure or extinction.

In spite of this, our ambitions to enlarge seem undeterred. Mergers, consolidations, buy-outs and expansions move forward, shepherded by those devoted to the principle that bigger is usually better. The allure of increasing productivity, extending services, upgrading facilities, reducing costs while inflating profit margins is the tonic that quenches the thirst of entrepreneurs and the boards, investors and attorneys who support them. We see it in banks whose names change more quickly than their marquees can be replaced, in businesses that relocate, rebrand, upgrade and resize as often as we change cell phones and credit cards. It’s as if we delight in swimming upstream against the currents of history, intent on reaching shores where our biggest dreams and most expansive projects can find safe harbor. Yet like the monstrous saurians who once threw their weight around in dominating their world, our survival in mega-proportions is as precarious as it is intimidating. 

What concerns me most as I observe this exponential growth over my lifetime is not that some of our biggest companies will inevitably fail. That is as certain as it is predictable. My worries and frustrations arise when so many of our corporate giants become too big to really work, and too big to really care about those they supposedly have been created to serve. I have no fantasies that Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (aka Google), Amazon, Meta (aka Facebook), or Walmart know me other than as a digitized code in their various data files stored on earth and in the clouds. That I have come to depend on each of them daily is a source of wonderment to me. 

I still recall surviving quite well with corded phones you had to dial and TVs with three or four channels you had to get up to change. And remember when we communicated with each other on paper whenever real face time was impractical--you know, when face time meant standing next to each other, looking each other in the eye, and speaking with our own mouths. It wasn’t that long ago that we purchased what we needed to eat or wear at stores in the neighborhood, businesses to which we actually walked or drove our cars, shopping on the very premises in which we picked up what we needed. There is no denying how our options have changed, and how, in that transformation, we have changed too.

That was then, this is now. We shop online, we order groceries over the phone—sometimes with our own voices--we have things delivered to our houses and we pay our bills via the stroke of a digit on our smarter-than-we-are devices. Our lives are so much easier and convenient thanks to how big we have grown and how technologically sophisticated we have become. Big promises; Big delivers; BIG works—that is, until it doesn’t.  And then the wheels of progress fall off the wagon.

It all starts innocently enough. Something we own doesn’t work, a financial statement doesn’t make sense, or we’re thwarted in the attempt to purchase something online. So we make a call, hoping to hear a helpful voice on the other end who will assist us in solving the problem. And then it happens—we run into what BIG too often entails. A recorded voice directs us to a numerical sequence of prompts that takes us to another recorded voice with its new list of prompts. If we’re lucky, this telephonic labyrinth leads us to a living human being who may actually be able to address our need. As often as not, however, we ride this techno treadmill two or three times before we are disconnected or, our blood pressure rising, we just hang up. If you’re thinking, “been there, done that” you’d be in good company. It is in such moments that I start to realize how dependent I am on corporate entities that have become too BIG to work as promised, and too BIG to care as needed. No wonder we are so cheerfully drawn to the prospect of finding sanctuary in some mythical neighborhood bar where “everybody knows your name.”  

Lest I be faulted for applying too broad a brush over this landscape of modern enterprise, I will offer my appreciation for those businesses that are able to balance their enormity with both efficiency and personality. One in particular comes to mind. Each time I travel by air I come away impressed at how well such a complex coordination of people, air and ground vehicles, schedules, and facilities actually functions. I know, baggage can get lost, flights can be delayed or cancelled, and nerves can become frayed for both travelers and conveyors. But when you consider that the major air carriers do this about 45,000 times while serving 2.9 million sky riders like you and me each and every day, the task at hand boggles the mind. Yet fewer than one in ten flights depart or arrive off schedule, and only six out of 1,000 pieces of luggage are delayed or lost. As aggravating as these disruptions can be, the fact that it works at all on such a BIG scale is a tribute to both the intelligent organization and dedicated employees at our best airlines. Perhaps knowing that planes can crash and lives can be lost puts a different sense of urgency into their approach at being both big and competent. The airline industry makes a good case that BIG can work, that BIG companies can treat customers with a surprising degree of consideration and cheerfulness. But my gut tells me this is the exception rather than the rule.  

Whether the businesses and institutions we design and run actually work depends on how well they balance the services and efficiencies they promise with those personal considerations that elevate clients and customers above impersonal statistics to be recorded and nameless beans to be counted. I say this having worked in schools, nursing homes and churches—all operating on a much smaller scale of complexity and cohesion than airports, tech giants, insurance and phone companies. From the smallest mom and pop operations to those with the most convoluted maze of departments, chains of command, systems, protocols and ownership turfs, the fact remains: people make mistakes, balls can be dropped, appointments are missed, and nerves get frayed. The bigger the institutional structure, the more possibility that there will be weaknesses in the links that hold it all together. The larger the scale of services offered the greater the chance that something will fall through the cracks, be it a suitcase at an airport, a check in the mail, or a nondescript student in a big high school.

So here we are, living in a world much bigger than the one we first entered. There is no denying how much better it is in providing us with creature comforts our ancestors would envy. And there is no turning back the clock to times that were simpler and smaller. Since nothing is too Big to fail, we do well to let our innate skepticism about what is believable and who can be trusted guide us when signing contracts, engaging each robo-caller, and purchasing the latest must-have product or service. For our safety and welfare continue to reside most assuredly in those places and among those people who know us by name, and whom we know in return. Today’s world may now be TOO BIG for any of us to conceive or direct. And it may fail us as often as it delivers its latest cost-cutting or time-saving convenience. But it will never reduce or replace our need to remain in relationship with those in whom and for whom our need to love and be loved is satisfied and treasured.