As I sit here afraid to breathe on my laptop because it is within kilobytes of crashing, it occurs to me the leaders of today’s consumer products companies need a little slap in the head…er…feedback. “Attention companies, what will it take to get products that work, consistently, at what they were made for, for more than a couple of years?”

I’ll start with my laptop. Purchased 3 years ago for a whopping $2500, my IBM Thinkpad is not working properly. In fact, it has not worked properly for most of the last year. Somehow the hard drive is full, yet when I look at how much space my programs and files take up, it comes to about 10% of my 15 GB hard drive. I’m guessing it is the thousands of Microsoft and McAfee updates that occur daily and/or the basic system files (most of which I really don’t use) which also slow my boot-up process to a whopping 8 minutes. (I should send IBM an invoice for my cumulative invested time, I think, so I can retire.) There is also some kind of corrupted area of my hard drive, which prevents me from using that area and also from deleting files located there. I call it my own personal black hole. So, to remedy this, I am told I must backup all of my files somewhere, reformat my hard drive, and re-install everything. Assuming I could pull this off without any data loss, (Outlook files are NOT automatically stored in one’s documents area, for example, but are hidden elsewhere in the ether and are, in fact, “hidden files”, which you must unhide before you can even see them.) I’m guessing this process is going to cost me some time and cash or just a lot of cash.

Then, there is my dishwasher. 5 years ago for about $1000 we purchased a high-end Maytag. It was claimed to be very quiet and able to “sanitize” dishes because it adds extra heat to the water. Sounds good, right? At 3 years we had a new pump installed and lately we have found unidentified rubber parts on the floor outside of the dishwasher. Nothing on the top shelf comes out clean anymore and running the beast is louder than having a conversation in the kitchen, which is strangely what I like to do in my kitchen after dinner. The prospect of buying a new dishwasher is aggravating to me because ASSUMING we find one to fit the exact space again, I will have to spend time buying the product, arranging installation, and supervising the installation.

I recently traded in a Honda Odyssey after a 4 year lease. In less than 4 years I replaced a battery (after several calls to AAA to jump start my car) and tires, as well as responded to a recall notice to replace something with the transmission. One of the automatic side doors was temperamental, working only on even days, I think. The air conditioning was also sporadic and seemed to work opposite to what was needed. Again, in addition to money, resolving these issues cost me TIME.

In every case I made purchases of high-end, high-priced products from industry-leading brands. I did not load up on gizmos and gadgets to do anything special – I just wanted a laptop to run basic office applications, a dishwasher to clean my dishes, and a reliable bus to transport my family. What I though I paid extra for was quality, reliability, and service. While what I got was probably better than what non-industry-leading brands provide, I personally think this is just not good enough.

My parents had the same washing machine for 25 years. (My 7 year old washer and dryer have both had new motors this year.) They drove the same car for at least 10. The toys we played with were stored, gifted to my children, and are now stored again. While I can appreciate technological advances have reduced the purchase cost of these items today and increased the features, assortment, and availability, I cannot help but ask, “What will it take to use technology to create BETTER quality products than those our parents had?” Because you know what, my TIME has a cost as well.

So, to any of you market researchers visiting this website to tap into the trends, feelings, views, and preferences of professional moms, “Listen up! We want functional products that work. Period. We DON’T want refrigerators with TVs that can’t keep the milk cold, cars with IPOD connections that can’t tote kids around town, computers that can zap the latest viruses but can’t get an internet connection, coffee pots that can sense the room’s ambient temperature but can’t make any coffee, or bicycles that make motorcycle noises even after the non-replaceable plastic pedals have broken off.

And guess what, WE ARE WILLING TO PAY MORE FOR THEM!!!”

Reading the business media is sometimes like riding a roller coaster. One minute, former GAP CEO Paul Pressler is a genius, poised to turn around the retailer’s woes. Less than four years later, the guy is considered ineffective and is ousted. Just months before leaving Enron, Jeffrey Skilling was touted as a leadership “powerhouse” by Businessweek. Even Michael Eisner’s dynasty at Disney was eventually attacked and dismembered. These leaders were all once favorites, highly compensated for their apparent accretive effect on the stock price and shareholder value. But, in hindsight, and despite their short-term successes, their leadership may have actually diluted long-term wealth for investors. So how can we objectively measure and compensate leadership results?

It occurs to me that one model may be to look at how we are judged as parents.

No, really, think about it. The parallel is somewhat close. As parents and leaders we are stewards of assets that can have a positive or negative impact on the world around us. Our job in both cases is to develop people to make a positive contribution. Moreover, when we succeed, our legacy carries on beyond us.

Now, let’s think about what would happen if we were judged as parents with the current system of rewarding quarterly growth and profit results. Imagine getting a bonus when visiting the doctor’s office because our children grew 2 inches or gained a pound since the last visit. We must be doing something right. In fact, we might be tempted to feed them a little more carbohydrates, because we know that might make them even heavier next time. After all, by the time that catches up, we won’t be in charge anymore. We also might not want to spend the money on the well child visit at all, because we can measure growth ourselves and all of that other stuff is just unnecessary expense.

Further, when our children come home with a “D” on the report card, we would put them on a 30 day performance plan for improvement. If they fail to improve, and therefore end up in the bottom 10% of their peer group, we would have to swap them with someone else’s children.

Obviously, this is ridiculous, but it makes me wonder how much more long term our thinking is because we are forced to live with the consequences of our parenting for life. The results are more cumulative and our short-term decisions are only important if they are made consistently over time. Also, our success or failure in parenting seems based upon more meaningful metrics, like character and self-sufficiency.

Here’s a thought. What if, instead of bonus performance incentives, we paid our executives an annuity that pays out over the rest of their lives if, over the long term, their organizations grow steadily, avoid negligence, satisfy stakeholders, and improve shareholder wealth; in other words, display character and self-sufficiency.

I wonder who history will celebrate under this model.