Why you haven't "reinvented" your company

The word "reinvent" is a dumb term, having an overtone of redundancy. After all, when you have invented something, it exists. You can revise it or change it, but you can't "reinvent" it after you have already invented it. I never heard the term when I first entered the workforce. But somewhere in the 1970s or so, corporate executives-began using the word, and using it a lot. Then as now, the nation had its usual economic ups and downs, but suddenly after one downturn, our nation was heavily laden with companies that had reinvented themselves. What happened is that after one of the downturns, there was the typical response of layoffs, consolidations, divestitures, product redesign, relocation of operations, and changes of assignments. Although corporations have made these sorts of adjustments since the dawn of the industrial age, the guys on mahogany row suddenly thought they were seeing something different, and they began to speak of these changes as "reinvention." I am not sure why they seized on the word, but my guess is that it was because if they went to stockholders at the annual meeting and said they were trying to cut costs and improve profits, that didn't sound as though they had applied much cerebral brilliance to their problems. Or maybe it was because there were a lot of young people just assuming managerial positions who thought the routine economic cycles they were seeing were something previously unheard of. Whatever the case, managers dredged up the word "reinvent" to imply they were making brilliant and daring moves when, in fact, they were doing the same things managers have done for generations before them. If you stand at a podium and say you are "reinventing" your company, that sounds better than saying you are laying off 20% of your workforce