Which 5 capabilities enable a leader to successfully scale

Which 5 capabilities enable a leader to successfully scale

Nov 23, 2018 | Change, Leadership

Virtually every business I come across wants to grow.

A few I come across want to, and are able to scale.

Scaling is different from just growing, it requires much more than being better at what you currently do. It requires significant change, invites risk, and for many is very unsettling personally.

The few that have scaled successfully all have in place a leadership that seems to have a few common characteristics, always in an individual, who is able to shape the organisation in ways that reflect the hunger to be different in ways that adds serious value to customers, and to scale as a result.

They create a vision that excites and engages those around them.

They are able to translate that vision into a clear strategy that provides a transparent framework for decision making, ensuring what not to do is as important as what to do.

They build the capabilities of those around them to enable the execution of the strategy.

They focus relentlessly on one thing at a time, and measure results that connect the outcomes to the strategy, daily, weekly, quarterly, bi-annually, and longer term.

They are good people. This seems counter to the public persona of the driving successful business person who scales a business successfully, but most I have seen who are the genuine leaders of a successful scaling, are also successful people in other ways.

When you want to see if your business has what it takes, give me a call.

Photo credit: Roberto Robitz via Flikr

 

 

 

Is AI going to take our jobs?

Is AI going to take our jobs?

Nov 21, 2018 | Change, Management

Some of them yes.

Those repetitive jobs where we do the same thing over and over, will be gone.

Let’s be clear about AI. It is artificial, it is not intelligent.

AI is very good at some things  we humans are bad at, but it is no good at what made we humans so successful.  The imagination, and emotion, the capacity to empathise,  and understand complexity we are born with is not artificial, and cannot be replicated by machines, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Machines can do things  faster and more reliably than us, and they do not go on smoko, no holidays, hangovers or emotional attachments to fellow workers.

Machines are fast and reliable, and fast and reliable is a huge benefit.

Machines are also very accurate, tell them what to do, they do it. Again, something we humans are not so good at, we tend to vary things around, sometimes just to relieve the boredom.

Machines do the routine, mind numbing tasks that we put aside, or do poorly. They do not have a mind, so they do not mind being bored.

Al is maths, not magic. All AI is statistics and maths that can be broken down into algorithms so they are repeatable. Machine learning is the next step on the ladder, where the algorithms learn to recognise patterns. This takes trial and error, so that eventually, the machine can isolate common characteristics in a pile of data.

This is becoming more common every day, as we see uses for pattern recognition.

Both Google and Amazon have products you can download and use that deliver astonishing accuracy in pattern recognition. An occasional client has introduced this feature on his remote cameras, so they can now distinguish between a kangaroo and a truck, triggering a response from alarm connected to the camera, so the truck, potentially an intruder sets the alarm, the kangaroo which is more likely just hungry, is ignored.

The next step is usually called ‘Deep learning,’ and we are just at the beginning of this. It is in effect layers of machine learning interacting to identify from a broader and deeper pool of input data the item of interest. We will progress down this track, and at the end, in another 50 years, perhaps machines may be able to ‘sort of’, think.

This stuff all has the potential to make us seem smarter, but we are not, we are just using machines to do what they are good at, while we still do the stuff we are good at, empathy, judgement, relationships.

Over history, technology has created more jobs than it has destroyed. While it will be painful for some, there is no reason to believe the pattern will not continue. Irrespective of the size and type of organisation you belong to, AI is knocking on the door. Open it, realise the productivity benefits, and figure out how to best use it to serve others, and make a buck along the way.

Addendum April 2023. This post was over 4 years old when ChatGPT burst onto the scene, taking the world on a wild ride. In a post in December 2022 I asked essentially the same question, ‘Will HAL’ take our jobs? https://wp.me/p5fjXq-31n and arrived at the same answer. However, the gap of only 4 years has seen the development of the technology referred to above evolve at warp speed, culminating in ChatGPT3.

 

 

The most common cause of the failure of medium sized businesses.

The most common cause of the failure of medium sized businesses.

Nov 19, 2018 | Customers, Strategy

  Businesses fail for a lot of reasons, lack of cash, their product becomes redundant, competitors emerge at a cheaper price, distribution is not as anticipated, inadequate sales skills, and many others. However, all these failures have a common root. They were not important enough to the few who might have really cared enough to give them their business. They try to be all things to all people, and even the most successful company of the last 25 years, Apple, cannot pull that off. What on earth makes you think you can? The key to success is to do less. Relentlessly prune everything you do until there is nothing left but the stuff that is really, really important to the few, that you do better than anyone else. That combination stops those key target customers going anywhere else. Saying ‘No’ is the hardest thing any medium business has to do. However, it is also amongst the most important things. Stand for something genuinely meaningful to the few, and deliver relentlessly to them. Forget the rest. Header credit. My thanks once again to Hugh McLeod at Gapingvoid.com  
A retrospective on personal values.

A retrospective on personal values.

Nov 15, 2018 | Leadership

Years ago as a young product manager, I made two related mistakes.

Nothing huge, or threatening, just a stupid mistake that would have been avoided by a bit of due diligence, thought, and experience.

All three were missing, but what was there was the overconfidence of youth, an action for the sake of action mindset, a level of intoxication with the first trappings of corporate power, and perhaps a (big) touch of arrogance.

Second mistake I made was to try and dodge when the error was called out.

That second mistake created, in the space of 5 minutes, what has become the bedrock of my personal credo ever since.

  • Always take absolute responsibility when it is yours, or that of your team if you are the leader. We all make mistakes, those who do not are not doing enough, but only a fool makes the same mistake twice.
  • When you make a blue, if you are the first to recognise it, stick your hand up, tell everyone of the error, explain why it happened, and what you have learnt. This can be very uncomfortable, but when you point out your own blues, it leaves those who would hang you with very little rope.
  • When it is necessary to administer an arse-kicking, as it sometimes is, always, always, do it in private. Administering the kick in public adds humiliation to the mix, demeans you, and ensures that the kickee will never respect you again, and if they are any good, will leave quickly.

That incident was now 40 years ago, a lifetime, but I remember it as if it were yesterday, and have diligently lived by the three simple rules for all that time.

The single reason most strategy planning fails

The single reason most strategy planning fails

Nov 12, 2018 | Strategy

We confuse strategic thinking with the execution of an agreed strategy.

They are two entirely different processes, and should not be just lumped together for convenience, which is what most of us do by default.

Thinking the strategy does nothing to execute the strategy.

Effective strategic thinking is an ongoing process, it should always be on the agenda. It is evolutionary, requiring deep consideration, diverse thinking and inputs, creativity, and the ability to see connections and trends missed or ignored by others.

Strategy execution driven by  the deep strategic thinking results in priorities, processes and resource allocation decisions, and timing that can all be managed.

The leadership is in the thinking.

It is not unreasonable while doing the strategy thinking to ask yourself ‘How’, but second guessing the thinking part during execution is a recipe for disaster.

There is however a partial exception. Isn’t there always?

Incorporating new strategic information and insight gained during the execution back into the strategic thinking is essential. Feedback loops provide the opportunity to learn, understand, and adjust, and as such are an essential element of success.

Be very careful you understand which is the cart, which is the horse, and what their differing roles are!