Sep 8, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
The first syllable of the word “innovation”, describes how most organizations see the process. Look inside the business for better processes, better science, better customer service practices, better product offerings. Problem is, that way you are always seeing the world from within the boundaries set by the status quo that pervades the business.
Looking at the world from another point if view, from the “outside” is usually a better way to create something new.
Innovation thinking from outside requires new rules about collaboration, and where you can get ideas, and it requires a special sort of leadership to enable an enterprise to activiely seek those who “do it” better than you.
Procter & Gambles A.G. Lafley reinvigorated the company by actively seeking ideas from outside the huge P&G innovation machine, recognising that most of the great ideas will be elsewhere, and the skill of the organisation is to recognise and commercialise them.
The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz noted “we observe everything from a point of view”, and like much of his other writing, he was centuries ahead of his time, as the really successful innovators remove themselves from the shackles of the corporate point of view, to bring the outside inside their innovation efforts.
Sep 7, 2009 | Uncategorized
Reacting to something takes little thought, it is easy.
Responding to something is harder, it takes thought and usually some resources
Initiating is really hard, it requires you to be prepared to be wrong! This is always hard, as it often leads to questions that invoke the power of hindsight in the questioner, and if he/she is your boss, what then?.
This simple thought, “what will the boss say if it is wrong?” is enough to stop 95% of people from initiating anything, and some of those who do grasp the nettle, do get fired. Not comfortable.
As Thomas Watson, the founder and first chairman of IBM said, “The fastest way to succeed is to double your failure rate” so initiate something today, despite the risk, it will make your day!
Sep 6, 2009 | Innovation, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
Then notion of “industrial commons” as a metaphor for the clustering of firms of a similar type in an area put forward by Gary Pisano of Harvard Business School is immediately attractive, as it easily explains things we have all seen, without recognising the implications.
Pre industrial revolution, the notion of commons applied to the common land on which all villagers could graze their cattle, or carry out other communal activity.
In the post industrial age, it is about the manner in which particular skills assemble over time in a location that enables them to leverage the proximity of the intellect into goods and services. Silicon valley is the best known example, but there are many others.
This puts a simple platform under many publicly funded efforts to enhance “clusters” in my area of work, particularly in the production of high value specialty food products.
The growth of Orange in the central west of NSW as a fine food centre is supported by a wide range of agriculture, from broad acre cropping to intensive horticulture and wine making, further supported by mining operation which give some scale to the engineering services sector, and the University offering agricultural science amongst a wide range of disciplines. By contrast, nearby Mudgee has all the agricultural advantages, possibly more, but lacks the mining, university and the attraction to general tourism and passing trade, and so the clustering of food value adding has failed to gather the momentum of Orange.
The challenge in creating a “common” is the timeframe of the return on investment in the necessary infrastructure. Governments create and abandon a development program in sync with the electoral and economic cycles, commons will take a generation at least to gain traction, so governments should not be surprised to see their efforts largely fail, whilst next door, a “cluster” will evolve with little or no engagement of public funds beyond basic services, simply because it has all the natural conditions to thrive.
Sep 3, 2009 | Leadership, Management, Sales
Negotiation is a daily activity of most managers, almost irrespective of the size of the organisation, and the industry it sits in. On many occasions, a conversation may not be seen as negotiation, as it lacks the adversarial background that highlights a negotiation in progress, but if the conversation has an objective, it has in its nature some elements of a negotiation.
This was highlighted recently in a conversation with a client preparing for a friendly merger, where the outcome had been agreed in principal, all that was left was the “how to” bits, so below is a list I developed for that conversation, in no particular order.
- Any conversation that seeks an arrangement where both parties believe they have done better than their “walk away” point is a negotiation, recognise it when it happens.
- Failure to neglect or understand the other sides priorities and what drives them to participate in a conversation that is really a negotiation is a fundamental one.
- Do not let price hide the other factors that contribute to a successful outcome, particularly the emotional and psychological ingredients. A negotiation is a “climax” moment in a relationship, if there has been no work on the relationship, it follows that the climax will be sub-optimal.
- Allowing established positions to get in the way of sensible and creative compromise that serves the best interests of both parties is a common mistake.
- Early in the process of determining the nature of the negotiation, establish your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)
- Processing information that emerges during a negotiation purely from the perspective of your inherent bias can prove to be fatal to achieving any outcome.
Sep 2, 2009 | Leadership, Management, Marketing
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it is probably a duck.
How easily some of us can be led to believe that what we are looking at is something other than what we see.
The old saying about the duck has never been truer than in the recent collapse of Bernie Madoff’s empire. Billions were invested by many otherwise sensible people in the mistaken belief that one investment business could consistently outperform the market under all circumstances.
Madoff conned people over an extended period, creating a “Ponzi” (to Australians, pyramid selling )scheme that became so big, and so successful at attracting new funds that most refused to believe it could be a Ponzi scheme
If it too good to be true, it usually is, irrespective of the hyperbole that may accompany it.
