Jun 26, 2013 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
Across all my activities, I hear management talking about the “next big thing”, the importance of innovation, of being different, creating new product platforms, and striving to be disruptive, but settling for a change of colour, flavour or pack size.
After a long time at this, it seems there are a small number of very consistent reasons that show up, usually in multiples.
1. Incremental is easy. It is easy to be incremental, but true innovation is really, really hard. Not only do you have to come up with the ideas, but you have to sell them internally before you get a chance to take ideas to the market. Taking yourself, and the enterprise outside its comfort zone is a major exercise in leadership, and there simply is not enough of it. On top of that, it is hard to get a budget for stuff you have little idea about, the discounted cash flow analyses, even if they are at the push of a spreadsheet button, carry way more corporate weight.
2. Human beings are risk averse. We like the stable, familiar, and predictable, and shy away risk. Daniel Kahneman co-authored a 1979 article which won him the Nobel prize, that put numbers around the notion of risk reward. When offered the choice of $1000, or a 50% chance of $2,500, a majority take the money and run.
3. It really is so easy to say No. Finding reasons not to take a punt is really easy, there are usually many on offer. By contrast, it is difficult, risky, potentially personally expensive, to say yes, and you have to keep on saying it, confirming and reconfirming the project in the face of the naysayers. Corporations of any size larger than 7 people are hierarchies, and consequences of decision making are social as well as commercial. Few people are prepared to be seen to make a mistake, and most will avoid the possibility like the plague.
Every organization needs some sort of balance, a discipline of culture that regulates the manner in which they behave. It is in the way the balance is struck, and the behavior that is favored where the innovative enterprises have the edge. Everybody has the same(or similar) access to the market for ideas, good people, technology, and all the other inputs necessary apart from the fundamentally important one that is internal, the culture of the place.
Safe nowadays is the new risky, so get off the fence!
Jun 18, 2013 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Personal Rant
As this excruciating election campaign continues, the trivial, irrelevent, personal, short term crap we have come to expect is getting laid on with a spade. Nothing substantive is being considered by the pollies, and whilst it is easy to say the media is blowing it all up, from personal experience, the Canberra “officials” who implement, are also sitting on their hands, waiting, and wondering.
If you add up the cost of our political system, and all its accoutrements, Local , state and federal, it is billions, and billions. We pay so much, 32% of GDP, surely this should qualify us to get a bit of value for our money, but we accept what is being doled out like cattle to the slaughter, with nary a whimper.
When will the real debate, on real issues, real ideas, and questions of the future of the country, and that of our children, be taken seriously?
Perhaps it is time for us to dismiss the nonsense we are being fed, and demand what we are paying for.
Lawrence Lessig’s TED presentation is one we should all a watch as the current federal parliament goes through its death throes. It should also be compolsary viewing in Canberra, all union HQ’s and offices of every walley empowered to make up regulations.
Our system worked well for many years, and is still better than alternatives, but it is grossly unsuited for continuing prosperity and social harmony the 21st century. We need to be forcing an evolution to accommodate our new circumstances, not be wedded to a model of the 19th century.
Jun 13, 2013 | Collaboration, Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
One of the most famous photos ever taken, above, is of the 29 Participants in the 1927 Solvay Physics conference. The astonishing thing is that of the 29, 17 were Nobel prize winners, lauded busy people, so how did they get them all together at the same time?
Relatively easy, as at the time the photo was taken, only 3 had already won the Nobel prize, the other 14 won in the years after the conference, so were mostly unknown outside their research domain. (One of those who had already won was Marie Curie, who is also the only person in the photo to have won the prize twice, in different disciplines)
The point is that assembling this group, the organisers were not looking backwards, they were looking forward, to those who would make, rather than had already made a huge contribution to the topic.
Next time you are considering the personnel to go onto a project team, seeking to define your role into the future, or just operating a day to day activity, exercise the same forethought, and open the opportunity for great things.
Jun 5, 2013 | Innovation, Leadership, Management, Strategy
I was struck by a line in a terrific blog post by Ian Leslie I read that said ” Google can answer almost anything you ask it, but it cannot tell you what to ask”
It is totally counter-intuitive to consider that the power of the web is now narrowing our horizons, and that by succumbing to the lure of the algorithm, we are dismissing the beauty of serendipity, that unexpected discovery, the thing we would never have seen were it not for “right time, right place”. It does not seem to matter if it is a scientific discovery, Fleming recognising that the growth on his slide was killing all the bacteria around it, or just finding a book in a bookstore that is “right” somehow, these thing s cannot happen on Amazon, or in isolation.
The question then becomes how do you create serendipity?
You need to be messy, cross- functional, collaborative, iterative, and work with an open mind, as well as applying discipline to the scientific method of process improvement, practicing what I call Loose-tight , or ambidextrous management.
This ambidexterity is not easy. It takes leadership, an enabling culture, and a deft hand, but the results speak for themselves. Combining the ability to mine the accumulated knowledge of all of us, with the creativity inherent in human nature when it is open-minded and free to make non linear connections will eventually lead you to ask the right questions, and reveal what you do not know.
Once you see the question, serendipity has a chance.
Jun 4, 2013 | Branding, Collaboration, Communication, Leadership, Social Media
Hugh MacLeod
There are many people I would like to meet, but a special group of them are the thinkers in the “new media” space.
Brian Solis is one of them, along with Clay Shirky, Hugh McLeod, Mitch Joel, and Seth Godin. These are all people who are shaping the manner in which we perceive the explosion of connectability that is driving our lives, enterprises, and the world we live in.
A current report of the Altimeter group of which Brian is a principal is called “The evolution of Social Business: Six stages of business transformation”. The report, and embedded slideshare presentation puts a framework around the bumbling most organisations are experiencing as they grapple with the opportunities, complications and costs of social, and socialised media.
Two last guests. First, someone who does a fantastic job of curating the content and thinking that is going on, is generous enough to share it all, and who knows all of the above blokes in person as a result of that generosity, Mike Stelzner. Second, an Aussie bird, for a bit of balance to the testosterone, and an alternative way of looking at things, Bernadette Jiwa.
What a truly great dinner group, the conversation would redefine “out of the box”, what pity I suck as a cook.
May 19, 2013 | Governance, Leadership
This week we have had a budget, arguably the first half realistic assessment of the economy for some time, with some politically unpalatable pills swallowed. Not before time.
We have also had the budget reply, which was more an election speech than a roadmap for sensible governance, and government. We still know little about the priorities and relative weight the opposition gives to the many competing demands on the resources at their disposal via our tax payments, but we know a bit more now than before the speech.
Mr. Abbott put his finger on it when he recognised in his speech that if directors of a public company behaved like politicians, there would be some very serious questions asked by the regulatory authorities. We of the taxpaying classes have been saying that for years.
So, on the standards by which Directors are judged how has our government performed, on a scale of 1-5.
-
- Formulation and execution of a strategic plan. 1/5. Comment. I see nothing that resembles a coherent plan that takes account of the short term bumps whilst assembling the capabilities and resources to deliver longer term prosperity in a volatile and commoditized world. Long term planning to this lot is what they are doing after (taxpayer sponsored) lunch. There are a few exceptions, some good intentions that may never emerge from the policy cocoon, which gave them the 1 point.
- Communication with, and alignment of, stakeholders to the strategic priorities outlined. 1/5. Comment. They get 1 because they did try, however ineffectively. The only stakeholders who appear to be aligned are the militant unions who have lined up to build back some of the rorts lost over the previous 15 years. Non public sector union membership is now around 10% of the workforce, yet they exert a huge influence on this government, way out of proportion to the numbers they supposedly represent. The internal alignment of management is appallingly bad, and has resulted in not just a trashing of the brand, but in having some useful talent and experience being relegated to the bench for speaking their mind. Successful leaders recognise that the debate around differing views, and the “due process” that is a part of creative and sensible policy development is vital, shooting the messenger went out with Al Dunlap.
- Development of sensible policy to deliver on the “vision” bits of the strategic plan. 3/5. Comment. The “policy” agenda of a government is equivalent to the components of the value proposition and business model of a commercial enterprise. Discussion of the current governments policy development performance could have a strong partisan element depending on your views. However, whatever your views on the individual components, I think it is fair to observe that they made considerable effort, carbon abatement via a tax regime, taxing mining profits beyond the existing tax rates, some substantial international initiatives, the disability scheme, the NBN, response to the initial impact of the GFC, and a few others. You may not like the individual policies, the implementation may have been be buggared, but the policy thought was there.
- Credibility. 0/5. Comment. Nobody I speak to believes anything coming out of the mouth of a pollie, of any persuasion. The spectacle of politicians and their mates who do not just stick their snouts into the trough, but dive in and wallow around has utterly tarnished the credibility of the whole lot. You can thank Obeid and McDonald et al in NSW, Thompson in Canberra, the sound of cabinet ministers dumping on the Rudster, who then squibbs, and absolute undertakings (as distinct from “election promises”) made and broken with monotonous regularity. The list goes on, and on.
- Performance compared to peers. 3/5. Comment. There is no doubt that Australia is in a far better position than most, if not all of economies that are reasonably comparable. The speed of Australia’s reaction to the GFC was commendable, and effective, although it can reasonably be argued that there was much waste involved. However, the financial flexability to make and implement decisions was a result of decisions taken by former governments, Hawke, Keating and Howard, and had little to do with the current regime. They just got lucky that there was money in the bank, and coal and iron ore prices went into a once in a generation spike. Discussion about how much better it could, perhaps should, have been done while being interesting, is irrelevant except as a learning experience.
- Productivity of our tax dollars, the outcomes we get from the spending. 1/5. Comment. Having run an agency outsourced from a Federal Department, and lived in Canberra for several years, I am particularly cynical about the manner of the expenditure that happens on our behalf. Everything costs many times what it should, and would under a different, more commercial performance and accountability culture. There is simply no bottom line culture of accountability, just spend what is allocated and fight like banshees for more, as size of budget and reporting numbers are the measures of seniority and therefore salary, and associated employment perks. Obviously this is a generality, there are many motivated, educated and engaged public servants around, trying to do a job, and being frustrated by the existing culture, and it is this culture that must change before any reasonable productivity progress can be made. It is in a word, a function of Leadership, a rare commodity it seems.
- Governance, finally. 0/5. Comment. As Mr. Abbot recognised, any CEO whose leadership had failed as conspicuously as that of the current and former PM would not just be out of a job, and be responsible for a trashing of the share price, but would be fronting the ASIC and its investigators for breaches of more regulations than Ian McDonald has had long lunches. (It should be noted, the opposition would also have problems with the regulators, as making public pronouncements of fantasy as fact when you are trying to get someone to buy your product is illegal)
All in all, a pretty sad state of affairs that no board would tolerate. A responsible board would have identified and eliminated the causes of such hubris well before it got to the stage on show in our various parliaments around the country.
The truly scary thing to consider is how much better the current opposition will perform when they, as it is almost assumed, take over the keys to the lolly cabinet in September. I fear they will be overcome by the same stuff that has sunk the current lot, and will just govern for themselves whilst mouthing platitudes.
None of this is to deny the difficulties of government, the competing agendas and political realities of the 24 hour news cycle, and our seeming intoxication with the banal, irrelevant, and superficial. However, it is our money that is being spent, we have a right, indeed obligation, to have our say.
How would you mark these parameters, and what other strategic considerations should be made that I have missed?.
