Mar 24, 2014 | Change, Leadership, Personal Rant, Strategy
Until I was about 10 years old, I lived in a little cottage at North Avalon, and used to walk to primary school through the sandhills, along the beach, then to school, and back. It sometimes took longer than it should have, as there was simply so much to see and do.
Those with children who have been to a farm nursery will understand the joy, the wonder of it to those kids, yet, this is not a normal part of our landscape, as it was just a very few years ago. This connection to the world around us has been replaced by apartment blocks, video games, and concern about the safety, both physical and emotional, of our kids.
Somewhere along the line we have lost something, real engagement with the natural world has been lost, replaced by coverage by David Attenborough.
Imagine the urban landscape that included again, those opportunities for the production of a bit of food for the family, and neighbours, how much reconnection might occur?.
Man is a social animal, and at some level we all understand that the most powerful motivator is recognition, not money, so social collaboration when enabled and recognised can change the world.
Look at what had happened with the town of Todmorden in Yorkshire, England, the productive gardens in our own backyard, have the potential to again be social glue, a force for the benefit of us all.
Problem is, the short term, financially driven mind set that dictates the usage if land around out cities, as well as in them mitigates against this opportunity to once again create the enablers of the production of social glue, and our children and grandchildren will be the worse for it.
Mar 11, 2014 | Change, Governance, Innovation, Personal Rant
Comment on possible changes to the cross media ownership laws is emerging, again. Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull reopened the conversation in an interview with Sky, reflecting that the media landscape had changed dramatically, so it makes sense to change the rules that govern the ownership that were set up before the changes occurred. It seems pretty sensible to me.
However, here is the paradox.
The traditional media is commercially stuffed, as the advertising has been drained away by the “new media” of the internet, but never have they been so powerful. Just look at the role the Murdoch press, and the so called “news” programs on commercial TV at prime time in the evening, played in the recent federal election.
“New media” outlets are popping up all over the place, previously unpublishable individuals (like yours truly) can have their say, amongst comment and analysis by serious groups like the Guardian , and new collaborations like that represented by the Conversation . However, the agenda is still being shaped by the newspapers and evening TV “news” programs.
Occupying a core place in the system is the ABC, seemingly reviled by both political persuasions when in Government, so they must be doing something right. However, the future of the ABC is consistently under question, and the economic argument is a solid one. The demographics of the ABC are heavily skewed towards the top half of the population, 70% of the population never engage with the ABC over the course of a year, and yet we all pay equally, effectively a regressive tax. As the argument goes, those who want the ABC can generally afford to pay for it, or have their viewing/listening interrupted by ads which pay for it, and those who do not ever listen/view it should not be expected to pay.
The media landscape has changed beyond recognition in the last decade, and the rules that govern that landscape should evolve as well to better ensure a competitively and commercially healthy system, as we are all best served by diversity, competition and innovation. Just what that evolved regulatory framework means is under debate, and some pretty smart people are putting their views, amongst them Marc Andreesen, an investor who gets it right more often than he gets it wrong, with this terrific post on the future of news.
Any change will impact all of us. How we obtain information, analysis, and opinion, wrapped up as “news” in my humble view, is crucial to the way we interact with the world, and we should all be engaged in the debate about the changes.
Feb 25, 2014 | Branding, Change, Collaboration, Demand chains, Marketing, retail
A pilot program I have been recently involved with, setting out to assist the evolution of a” Sydney Harvest” brand of local produce has not delivered the results hoped for.
After years of agitation by produce growers in the Sydney basin, beset as they are by aggressive competition from the chain stores, lack of scale and high operating costs as a result of being in semi urban areas, governed by urban concerns, the pilot was created. It was a collaboration between a small number of Sydney basin growers, and specialist retailers aimed at delivering the freshest and best possible produce to those discerning and demanding customers who choose to shop at the specialist produce outlets.
The value proposition was simple : “You know it is fresh, because it come from down the road, you know the retailer, and here is the grower, guaranteeing product provenance and farming practice sustainability”.
In considering the reporting of the exercise, part of the shortcoming of the pilot was that there was little commitment beyond the verbal from the participants, even though the verbal commitment was strong. This is very common in the early stages of collaborative exercises, everyone says “yes” and waits for others to do the lifting. The emergence or otherwise of a “champion” someone who takes on the challenges at a visceral level, can be the main bellwether of success.
Watching a presentation by Seth Godin last night, he articulated just the situation we had.
There was no “connection” between the participants beyond the superficial, the human connection was not there.
Godin calls Connection “The asset of the future” and in a connected world, it would be hard to argue against this proposition. He further identified 4 pre-conditions of connection occurring.
- Co-Ordination. There was co-ordination in this pilot, but it was managed from the outside, by me, there was little skin in the co-ordination part of the game by participants.
- Trust. Trust evolves over time as a result of behaviour, it is never given, it has to be earned. In this case, we underestimated hugely the role to be played by trust, and the preconditions necessary for its evolution.
- Permission. Seth is talking about permission being given by the subject of a marketing effort, so this pilot is a different set of circumstances, nevertheless, whilst” permission” was given in the sense that all signed up to the pilot knowing exactly what was going to happen, and the role they were expected to play, when it went away, nobody missed it. The “permission” whilst given was nothing more than a superficial “OK”
- Exchange of ideas. In this case, whilst there was superficial buy in, the subsequent behaviour did not include interaction amongst the participants. They were too busy and pre-occupied with the normal business to put the time aside to exchange ideas, and get to know on a human level the other participants ,exchange ideas and experiences, and learn from each other.
This stuff is really, really, hard, and the only way we learn is by jumping in and having a go.
Feb 12, 2014 | Change, Management, Operations
Courtesy Cartoonstock
As a little kid, the milkman used to deliver from a horse drawn cart. Even then, in the mid fifties it was outmoded, almost rustic, but endlessly engaging for a 5 year old boy.
Much later, I was the marketing director of a NSW dairy co-operative as it wrestled with the inevitability of deregulation. I was continually reminded by those with vested interests that there should be no change, that the regulation was a good thing, that home delivery of milk was what had made us great, even though customers had voted with their feet. It sometimes sounded like that old milkman of my childhood explaining why he still had a horse when everyone else had trucks.
Yesterday listening to the various political blame allocations for the closure of Toyota, on the heels of the announcements by Ford and Holden, it was groundhog day, again.
Facts, and a dispassionate view of the whole picture played no part. Just like the farmer Directors of that dairy company, everyone else was wrong, they alone had the insights necessary to keep the boat from sinking, disaster from arriving, and the black forces from Hades consuming us.
Toyota has joined Ford and Holden in folding their tents, along with much of the Australian food processing industry.
Lets have a look at some of the underlying factors obscured by the smoke and mirrors of self interest:
- If we are so committed to an Australian car making industry, why do only 20% of us drive one made here? Some more heresy: A significant proportion of those 20% are company supplied cars, where the driver has no choice, and if they did, would that 20% be 10%? Death of an industry!! Who cares, obviously not enough of us. It is just like the food processing industry, which I would argue is just a touch more important, killed off by lack of scale, high $A, global supply chains, the move to low cost manufacturing locations, a history of self important and short sighted management, and political and bureaucratic hubris.
- 35,000 jobs will disappear!! Woe is me, the sky is falling! That number, not to make light of the distress of those who find themselves unemployed, and perhaps unemployable, is less than 0 .3% of employment. Anyway, why is 35,000 the number? Toyota has 600 people in their Sydney offices, none of them are going.
- 25 years ago manufacturing was 14% of jobs, now it is 8%, it was 12% of GDP, and now is 6.5%. The vast majority of people displaced by these changes have found new jobs in industries that barely existed 25 years ago, why not again? Anyway, 350,000 people change jobs every month, every month! Another 35,000 over 4 years is a drop in the bucket, again not to be unfeeling towards those who struggle.
- It could be a financial bonanza for the government. Instead of supporting a corpse, pumping in life support dollars, they can be just counting the revenues from tarriffs as imports increase 20%, they might even remove the “luxury” tax designed to “save” the local industry, now there is no local industry left to save. However, I doubt it, as the “luxury” tax raises$ 1.8 billion. When the previous government proposed changes to the regime to capture tax lost to corporate salary packaging of cars, the current government, then opposition, in a dose of real hypocrisy opposed it, but I sense a change of mind now.
It would be much better if the energy spent looking backwards and allocating blame was spent looking forwards, and building for the future.
Feb 10, 2014 | Change, Communication, Marketing, Small business
The most powerful way to get someone to agree with your idea is to ask them the leading question, and have them give you the answer you want.
Ronald Regan used this technique a lot.
He did not tell the American people during his election campaign: “your economic situation has deteriorated over the last 48 months”, instead he asked the famous question: “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”. The answer was a resounding “NO” which led to the obvious follow up question:” What do you need to change?”
Resoundingly, he was elected.
Asking a question compels a response, and the formulation of the words to convey that response in turn provokes a deeper, more intensive processing of the question, and leaves less room for ambiguity in the way the receiver responds.
It is the beginning of an engagement process.
However, it does not always work.
Ever noticed how pollies never answer the question asked unless the answer suits them?
Watching the 7.30 report a few minutes ago (Aussie readers will know what that is) the Opposition leader, in response to pointed questioning about the announcement by Toyota today that they will cease manufacturing cars in Australia, simply pointed out that in the 5 months since the Abbott Government had been elected, all three car-makers had announced production would cease. As if the last 25 years, overvalued $A, and small scale of the domestic market had no impact.
To anyone with half a brain watching, his failure to at least address the question in some modest way, simply corroded his credibility.
So, answering a question well is as much an art as asking them, and can be used to turn the tables.
Next time you see a really good salesman, just watch and listen, and learn.
Feb 7, 2014 | Change, Leadership, Management, Operations, Strategy
Scaleable.
My world is SME’s, helping them to be more profitable, more commercially sustainable, more accountable, by being focused on customers and their own processes and priorities. The outcome is that most successfully remain SME’s, avoiding the many death traps that lurk, and a few make the leap and become SLE’s, or sustainable larger enterprises.
Watching this evolution occur over many years, different in the detail every time, but following a few core principals, there is one principal, “StrategyAudit’s second law” (the first is “Look after the cash, and the cash will look after you”) that keeps coming up, time and time again.
The second law is “Solutions to problems are specific, and generally do not scale, but principals by which decisions are made can be successfully scaled”
Building scalability into the solutions of problems is about as fundamental lesson in growing a small business into a larger one that I have seen.
Principals scale, single solutions usually do not.
