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.
Mar 1, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
Writing position descriptions for employees takes up a lot of management time, just another job that has to be done by a date.
If this is the case in your business, you have missed the point, as it is people that make a business, not the other way around.
To me it is pretty clear that in culture of success, a place where people want to work, there is robust leadership in place that achieves a few key outcomes in relation to their most important asset, their employees:
- Roles are very clear. Each person understands what they need to do, how what they do contributes to the overall outcomes as well as their own, and the rules and behaviors that are in place.
- Trust and autonomy. People want to work on things that make a difference, and they want the autonomy to go about it, within the rules, but in their own way being measured by the outcomes, and trusted to do the right thing.
- Accountability and due process. With clarity of role definition comes accountability for outcomes whilst what I call “Due Process” is in place. Due process is simply the process of encouraging and enabling debate on an issue, so that irrespective of the final position, all parties who will have to live with the decision have had a chance to have their views heard and considered.
- Praise. Everyone looks for praise when they do something right that is out of the ordinary. In an environment that delivers praise when appropriate, it is also easier to deliver advice, admonishment, and change tactics on areas that are not so good.
