May 4, 2009 | Strategy
All of my four kids were elite athletes, petty unusual in one family, particularly as the sports they excelled in were different.
Apart from being naturally very good athletes, and being prepared to work very hard, they have one common trait: They all visualised the “finish line”, and the route to get there.
My daughter, a gymnast would close her eyes, and physically move through the whole routine on the floor, before mounting the apparatus, my youngest a butterfly swimmer, would stand behind the blocks, eyes closed, and get the rhythm of the stroke going, (looked a bit weird) and the other two, in their way would do the same for their sport.
Try the same thing in your business, visualise the end point, think and “feel” your way through the steps, do it again and again, and succeeding becomes the normal state of affairs, rather than something unusual.
May 4, 2009 | Uncategorized
This post follows up on the thoughts posted yesterday. Considering where the responsability for management failure lies, I started thinking about the experience currently being wasted by those unwillingly sitting on the sidelines, for any number of resaons.
Tough times call for tough minded decisions, informed by the wisdom of experience, not just the numbers and economics.
Many of those now fronting organisations are products of the last decade of good times, they have not seen the tough ones, at least from a perspective of having the responsibility to make the decisions.
The experience and wisdom to manage the current difficulties is sitting around wondering what to do in their semi retirement. The batch of baby boomers, born 1946 to 1952 are often underemployed and bored, early retirement, winding down towards retirement (often unwillingly) or having been impacted by the substantial removal of management layers that has occurred in the last 15 years has affected them to a disproportinate degree . Unlike their fathers, they are looking to another 25 years of life, and many are unused to inactivity, and are looking for outlets.
As young adults they were the most active and intellectually inquisitive generation in history, questioning the status quo in ways that shocked their parents, Vietnam, Rock n roll, and feminism to name the three most obvious manifestations of this energy.
What makes you think they are now happy to sit on the verandah and watch the grass grow? Why not seek their wisdom, after all, they have seen a few recessions in their time.
May 2, 2009 | Strategy
Many businesses bring in new blood from time to time, particularly when crises hit. If this is because the “old blood” is not up to the challenge, OK, but usually it is not because the new people are smarter, or more motivated than the “old blood” but because the weight if the status quo prevents the “old blood” from doing what needs to be done, and “new blood”, unaffected by the status quo, indeed often with a brief to change it, can get on with it.
It is interesting to consider where the responsibility for this failure rests, and often it is not with those who pay the price for the failure, but those who failed to display leadership when it was required, when the existing management could have executed the changes necessary.
Apr 30, 2009 | Marketing
Archimedes theorised that “With a long enough lever, you could move the world”
It appears that the web is such a lever, as the world has changed as a result of the leverage applied by the development of the web.
The internet bubble may have burst in the nineties, but the wild predictions made at the time are by and large coming to fruition, just a decade later, largely by different businesses, and with a clearer path to commercial sustainability, using the “old economy” disciplines of finding a way to solve a customers problem, or reduce his costs, whilst proactively managing your own assets, as the way to profitability.
Apr 29, 2009 | Marketing
There is a difference between telling someone what to do (management) and inciting a movement (leadership).
Managers use organisational structures to get stuff done, leaders create momentum by enabling connections to be made amongst like minded people, and showing the way.
You need 2 things to generate momentum:
- A shared passion
- A way to communicate.
The web has changed the dynamics, but not the rules, they are as old as human interaction.
