May 23, 2011 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Management
It is a bit ironic to think that in the midst of the information revolution that is surrounding us, that we are in some ways reverting to the ways of pre-agricultural humans.
Bit of a stretch? Just think, pre-agricultural humans lived by what they knew, where the water was, how to track an animal, then kill, dress, and cook it, which plants were edible, and so on. There were no personal possessions, everything was shared, and the group succeeded or failed by group effort and their relative position in their environment.
We moved away from this collaborative model as we started to grow things and gain possessions, but in the information revolution we are going through now, perhaps we are going back to some of the foundations of what made hunter-gathers sufficiently successful to evolve into us.
If this is the case, maybe we should be looking at the social and organisational behaviours that made hunter gatherers so successful. Forget the strategists, bring in the anthropologists.
May 12, 2011 | Collaboration, Leadership, Management, Marketing
I have been surprised a couple of times recently when I realised that two B2B businesses I was working with really had no idea how their ultimate customers used the products they bought from us. In both cases the products were sold through distributors, whose paranoia about both parallel competition and losing the businesses to a slicker option, because the distribution grass is always greener, prevented them sharing information.
Both the clients concerned were spending significant resources dreaming up new products and technologies, considering process, distribution and marketing options, but were flying blind because they had no idea of what was happening currently in the labs of the final customers .
Asking them how prepared they would be to endorse a pilot putting the flaps on the plane down when he did not know how high they were now brought the obvious response, but where is the difference?
OK, you may not hit the dirt in any way other than commercially doing it in a business, but it is just as stupid.
Blind-flying appears to often be a result of the pressure of the “just do something” attitude, appear busy and stressed, and then boss will leave you alone, but doing anything without understanding the starting point is just plain dumb.
May 2, 2011 | Collaboration, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
There may be no charge to post stuff onto social media platforms, but if you are running a business, and people are using the time and resources you have paid for, by definition, there is a cost, even if it is an opportunity cost.
Many businesses I have seen just react to social media use by employees by banning it, usually with a spectacular lack of success, others just ignore it, accepting the time spent as a hidden cost in their overheads, only a few have seen the hidden value.
Surely it would be better to set out to harness the resources that are going to be consumed anyway in such a way that they deliver some value.
Here is a list of ideas, feel free to add to them:
- Set up a social media intranet to:
- harvest new product and improvement ideas,
- customer service success stories,
- problem/solution discussion threads for company centric problems,
- a virtual “water cooler” discussion forum on just about anything on employees minds,
- Encourage consumer/customer contact with individuals in the business
- Offer product usage tips, recipes ideas, to consumers, allowing them to respond and build a community
- Report on company activities outside normal trading, and seek stakeholders feedback on how they went
- Ditto for activities of employees away from work
- Add personal stories about being an employee, supplier, customer or shareholder, personalise the place.
Add your own to the list, I suspect it could go on for pages.
May 1, 2011 | Collaboration, Lean, Management, Operations
Process improvement is all about slow adoption of the tiny opportunities that arrive, by any number of means, that together enable adaption of the system to the environment around it to improve performance.
My favorite metaphors usually come from the natural environment, where natural selection enables minute differences over time to become different species.
In organisations we do not have the time, so the process needs to be encouraged, speeded up a bit. Experience suggests there are a few pre-conditions for success:
- There is a willingness to make change, and that willingness is shared through all levels of an organization.
- There is a willingness, indeed pleasure in embracing mistakes, as it is by making mistakes and understanding why the mistake occurred, that we learn.
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There is a coherent plan, strategy, budget, whatever you choose to call it, that provides a framework for decision making, performance measurement, and allocation of responsibilities in a transparent, ordered and consistent manner.
Apr 10, 2011 | Collaboration, Leadership, Management
This note is being written on a plane, somewhere over Asia in the middle of a long flight to the UK to see a few who can contribute to my store of knowledge, and hopefully I to theirs.
It is a time of few distractions, the phone is off, nobody at the door, no meetings scheduled, email is off, just head-time.
Amongst the stuff put aside for such moments is this note from Paul Graham which I think highlights a basic challenge faced by “knowledge workers,” those of us whose contribution is measured by something other than volume of output, the time in attendance, and the appearance of “busy”. It is also a significant challenge for those who are supposed to lead us, rather than just manage our output.
So if you are a leader, I encourage you to apply my rule 1 of marketing: “see it from the other blokes perspective”, next time you find yourself feeling inclined to call a meeting that involves others who work to what Paul has called “makers time”.
Apr 7, 2011 | Collaboration, Leadership, Lean
Management structures have flattened and globalised at the same time, radically changing the way collaboration happens. Now virtual teams work across all sorts of boundaries, and have created a new set of challenges.
Traditional management simply does not work effectively, so new sets of behaviors are evolving to enable virtual teams to be managed, and to manage themselves. The tools all revolve around mutual obligation and trust, a recognition that the direct and control management style has outlived its usefulness, and it is the outcome of the team activity that is important, not necessarily the way you get there.
The foundation of successful self and virtually managed teams is a very solid framework of shared objective, collaborative behaviors, and stable processes that can be continuously improved. Sounds easy, but it is very hard, and takes a long termview and great leadership to achieve anything worthwhile.
