Mar 11, 2010 | Leadership, Management
I often see businesses rewarding one behavior, whilst seeking an entirely different one. A Managing Director I worked for many years ago used to bang on about the long term the strategy, and values of the organisation, whilst beating (metaphorically) the daylights out of anyone who missed the monthly budget. Guess what people focused on.
When you align the rewards, and we are not just talking about money here, other things are usually more important, particularly recognition, with the desired outcomes, it is very powerful, but a misalignment is usually destructive.
When I trained my dog, I pushed on his bum and said “sit” when I wanted him to sit, and gave him a doggy biscuit when he sat. The desired outcome and the reward were aligned. Had I said sit, and given him a biscuit when he barked, the behavior outcome would have been different.
People are a bit more complicated that dogs, but you get the message.
The link will take you to a classic article from 1975, that relates stories of situations where one outcome is required, but the reward is for a different outcome. It is as valid today as it was in 1975, and I like the stories.
Mar 10, 2010 | Change, Leadership, Operations
In the audience at a seminar last week, I witnessed an interaction that probably takes place often, in a wide range of circumstances.
An audience member, when invited to ask a question, instead made a statement that was at odds with the point of view of the presenter, who proceeded to get annoyed, and respond to the statement with aggression. Predictably, the exchange did not go far, and if the presenter takes the time to look at the tapes, he should be embarrassed at the opportunity lost.
How much better to ask of the questioner: “why do you say that” and follow up with another question, and perhaps another.
The outcome of questions may have been they both, and the rest of the audience learnt something, rather than seeing the session degrade into an embarrassing mess.
Humans are hard wired to react to aggression, “fight or flight” is the usual expression, but I think we should, under some circumstances add the option of “question and learn” to our repertoire.
Mar 9, 2010 | Leadership, Personal Rant
National Womens day on Monday saw the leader of the opposition make an extraordinary promise.
Under a Coalition government, he is proposing to tax the big end of town a bit extra (presumably because he thinks they can afford it) in order to create a 6 month maternity leave right for all female employees, at their existing salary levels, I am unclear about the impact of the proposal on paternity leave.
Leaving aside the inequity, stupidity, and unique capacity to unite some unusual bed buddies, this proposal has three further profound failings:
- It clearly is a brain snap, not subjected to sensible costing and policy development disciplines, and therefore bound to be “binned” at some stage, so why go through the pain.
- Implementation would be a further huge distortion in the tax system, at a time when the system is breaking, if not broken, and with a major review about to be released to the public that has the objective of identifying, quantifying and removing the current huge inequities and distortions, where is the sense in adding another.
- Where is the evidence of a consistent set of values in the policy? Australians want to believe our politicians are leading us along a course that has at its foundation a philosophy, a set of values from which we can draw inspiration, and to which we can relate. Despite the evidence to the contrary, we appear prepared to give the politicians the benefit of the doubt in this regard. This policy proposal can only erode what little confidence we have in the foundation value system of the Liberal party, which is supposed to be about encouraging personal responsability, reward for effort, and the value of work, effort, risk, and personal integrity.
Abbott had been doing pretty well since becoming leader, his aggressive, no compromise style has injected some life into a listless opposition, but he has just shot the pooch with this nonsense.
Mar 8, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Leadership
Knowledge workers, and these days that is most of us, create value for their employers by leveraging their knowledge, but defining the ownership of that knowledge, and the flow of benefits from that knowledge, is a huge challenge, and becoming larger.
The recent court case between Mattell, owner of the Barbie doll franchise, and MGA Entertainment, owner of the Bratz doll range offers a salient example of the problems.
The designer of parts of the Barbie accessory range, after leaving Mattel went on to design the Bratz range for MCA, and the court held that Mattel was owed for the IP he had developed whilst working for them, but applied to the benefit of a later employer.
This scenario is a minefield for many businesses, and has far reaching implications on the way the employees and contractors are managed, and the ownership of ideas they have retained, or that evolve, even after they may have left employment. Simple no-compete contracts, which are the norm currently are a long way short of the mark in a knowledge economy.
In a knowledge based sector, retaining, motivating, engaging, and understanding key employees should take more time energy than just about anything else. Don’t leave it to the lady in personnel!.
Mar 7, 2010 | Innovation, Marketing
The emerging generation of E-readers, Amazons Kindle, Barnes & Nobles Nook, and now the Ipad are as disruptive a technology as the invention of the printing press by Johannes Guttenberg in the early 1400’s.
Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press was in fact a number of innovations put together from a range of skills, some of which he had developed as a goldsmith, applied in an entirely new way.
Sound familiar?
Most innovations take bits of seemingly unrelated technology or behaviours and combine them in a different way, creating value for the user.
The ability to see possible connections, and synergies between seemingly unrelated technologies and circumstances, and see them before anyone else is the essence of innovation. Steve Jobs did not invent the technologies that made the ipod, he just saw a number of unrelated bits of technology and put them together, and then single mindedly marketed the outcome. The whole exercise has been about changing mind sets, seeing options others are not seeing, connecting the dots, and being in there first.
