Rest assured, VIM Executive Coaching does not have a mystery shopper on staff who compares pricing of business coaches or the various executive leadership modules. However, we can’t help but notice that our local groceries are not only raising prices but often downsize packaging. We realize we are hardly the only people to see these trends, yet it is frustrating at times to not only pay more for a product but then to realize the containers have been shrinking.
Shrinkflation
Naturally, a term has been developed to describe the trend: shrinkflation. In a recent Boston Globe article (March, 2024), shrinkflation was described as: “The practice of companies selling their products in similar packaging, but with less weight, volume, or quantity meaning the consumer pays the same price for less product.”
The problem has gotten so serious, the U.S. Congress is putting pressure on the Federal Trade Commission to go after companies guilty of such practices. Good luck with that.
However, from the executive coaching point of view, it raises parallel questions. Indeed, there is a whole world of “ELC,” an acronym for executive leadership courses. Many claim to be immersive experiences, many more offer shortcuts to “Greater Functional Expertise.” It is short-hand for creating an abbreviated executive leadership environment that simulates years of real-life experience. It is the packaged goods equivalent of putting a smaller tube of toothpaste into the standard-sized toothpaste box, convincing the consumer they will get as many “brushes” in as with the larger tube.
Where do we go from here?
The problem with many trends of this nature is that the trendlines rarely reverse themselves. If a company knows it can reduce size of anything, charge the same or more, they will often do so. All it takes to make the above scenario believable is a lot of fancy advertising copy, for example: “So incredibly powerful, less is needed,” or “So concentrated, 1 dropper-full now equals 100 uses,” and all that stuff. The problem, deep down, is that no one truly believes it.
The same is reflective with incredibly abbreviated and concentrated executive leadership scenarios.
How does an instructor go about condensing mindfulness? How does a training module teach authenticity?
True, any course can be created with buzzwords and any system of instruction can spend 15-minutes on a particular point, but the risks are obvious. The “tubes” will keep getting smaller, the mentions will become more abbreviated, the functional experiences will reach a point of non-existence.
The more cynical might read the paragraph above and exclaim, “So, what’s wrong with that?” Who cares if the executive leadership tube keeps getting reduced? Why does it matter if authenticity or mindfulness are concentrated, sliced and diced to a three-minute mention?
Apparently, the workforce cares.
Now, more than three-years beyond the worst of the pandemic and walk-outs, disruptions and resignations, worker dissatisfaction and alienation remain huge issues.
You can’t fake authenticity or mindfulness, any more than convincing someone that they can get 100 washes out of a concentrated soap that is 20-persent smaller but 20-percent more expensive. While the FTC may or may not respond to Congress is one matter, however faking mindfulness or authenticity or listening skills is quite another. Executive leadership needs nurturing and development, listening and responding.
At some point, it must be realized that only so much toothpaste can come from a tube and that the consumer is much wiser than falling for rather doubtful advertising copy.