Mar 8, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
If Australia’s management has been slow to pick up on the need for intensive and innovative energy management programs, is it little wonder, with the litany of indecision, populism, back-stabbing, and just plain lies eminating from Canberra.
The Howard government announced an ETS in 2008, then lost the election, putting the Rudd government in power, espousing a view about the “greatest moral challenge of our time” and delivering a white paper that outlined their CPRS to be implemented in 2010.
Then we had the spectacle of a legislative program being pushed prior to any chance of certainty that may have come out of the Copenhagen group hug, which then failed to deliver on expectations.
Meanwhile, the Liberals had rolled Malcolm Turnbull, a climate change believer who had negotiated a bi-partisan approach to carbon pollution reduction, (illogically to be implemented before Copenhagen)by one vote and taken its bat and ball back to the corner labeled “skeptics”. A bit later, Rudd as PM was convinced by a cabal including his deputy to backpedal on their carbon scheme, and was subsequently rolled.
Now we have a renewal of the Labor Party “determination” to bring in a scheme being championed by said deputy as PM after an unequivacal promise prior to the last election that it would not happen.
Monty Python would shake its head at this lot, which is just what business leaders have done. In the face of the total shambles and indecision, they have moved very cautiously, as outlined in this Business Spectator/Accenture CEO Pulse survey, but nowhere near fast enough to come anywhere near being able to deliver the bi-partisan commitment to a 5% reduction on 2000 emissions by 2020.
From whichever political and climate change perspective you view this debacle of the last 14 years since the Kyoto protocol adopted by the UN in December 1997 it cannot engender any confidence that our “leaders” will actually provide the one thing that business really needs, certainty of the regulatory framework within which they must work and invest for the future.
Mar 7, 2011 | Management, Operations
Throughout my experience one factor continues to be a foundation for success in pretty much everything I see. Keeping “it” simple, or “KISS” reduces complication and the potential for misunderstanding, turf protection, and unintended consequences, and is far better than mastering the detail. Avoid the detail in the first place, recognising the truth in Einsteins quip that “not all that can be counted, counts”.
IBM appears to be celebrating achieving a mastery of the detail, and I suspect geeks are seriously excited, but any encouragement to foster an environment that complicates, simply because we can, appears pretty dumb to me, as articulating detail is way different to understanding the drivers of the detail, and the shadowy links visible only human imagination can uncover.
Mar 6, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
All sorts of changes are occurring in our working lives, but one that has huge potential to add to the economy, but is actively ignored, is the large pool of over 50’s (of which I am one) who are working at far less than their potential, and willingness to contribute.
This huge group are usually less than fully employed as a result of things beyond their control, often having been loyal and productive employees for many years find themselves on the scrap-heap after a merger, rationalisation of activities, or business failure, and sometimes simply personal chemistry, and they struggle to gain further employment.
Too old, too experienced or over-qualified. How can you have to much experience or qualification, and age is irrelevant? it is attitude that matters!!!!
Employers, often 15 or 20 years younger see them as a risk, particularly the airhead 30 year olds who seem to inhabit HR departments, and market based recruiters. They see the experienced over 50’s as too set in their ways, lacking in energy, just looking for a sinecure before retirement, or just easily bored by a job they may have done successfully in the past. Sometimes this may be true, but consider the other side, the experience, networks, work ethic and embedded knowledge that they can bring.
The waste represented by this “semi-grey” cohort of keen, experienced, but grossly under employed people is disgraceful. It should be an issue in any electoral conversation, and it never is. However, you can benefit when hiring if you view potential employee risk assessment just a little differently.
Mar 3, 2011 | Customers, Lean, Operations
Articulating a Customer Value Proposition, understanding which activities add value to the customer, and which do not, is core to any successful marketing activity. However, so many CVP’s I see are a bunch of words dreamt up over a beer, and have little to do with how a customer interacts with, uses, and values a product 0r service.
There is a relatively simple way to measure a CVP, a ratio of the Money spent that adds customer value, divided by total money spent, a CVP ratio! I am indebted to Bill Waddell for the idea, and like most great ideas, it is simple.
The notion of waste is a foundation to Lean thinking but can get tangled up in the definition of what activities are necessary to run an enterprise, but do not add value to the customer, and those that are just waste. However, having made the distinction, and done a bit of customer research, you can now put a number on the value added, and track it over time.
Should keep the accountants and MBA holders happy, and unlike many measures those numerator driven types grasp, will add value.
Mar 2, 2011 | Leadership
Leadership is a topic that has probably had more earnest academic stuff written about it than anything else, libraries would be denuded if all the material was suddenly removed.
Whilst it is dangerous to reduce complicated concepts to a list of bullet points, leadership is really all about behavior, and that can be listed as a series of do’s and don’ts.
This blog from Mike Michalowicz, and the links provided is as good a summary of the dead forests as I have seen.
