May 11, 2010 | Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership
When people are tied together, when they are in “communities” they tend to develop shared values, aspirations, and courses of action. The incidence of double dealing, dishonesty, personal gain at the expense of the community gain, are reduced.
An efficient demand chain is just another type of community, it benefits from the collaboration, is able to identify and filter out self interest and hubris, and can deliver value to all participants.
The oxygen of such a community is information, both the quantitative data that can be collected and shared, but perhaps more importantly, the qualitative stuff that accrues with use, personal relationships, shared obligations, the mutual understanding of peoples idiosyncrasies, and simply the need to be recognised.
May 6, 2010 | Change, Communication, Leadership, Strategy
For years there have been libraries written on the value of business purpose, vision, mission, and values, consultants have made a good living out of running workshops and managing implementation projects. Now, at a TED event, all the complication has been stripped away by Simon Sinek in a terrific presentation about “why” .
As managers, and in my case, a consultant and advisor, we talk about all this stuff, but never have I seen it put so simply, and so compellingly.
May 2, 2010 | Change, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing
What a cliché this has become, and you hear it all the time, like most cliches, it has become so common, we need to go a step further. Outside the box, outside the room, outside the building? How far outside is far enough?.
Surely it is more a matter of thinking differently, looking at the facts through a different set of eyes, not just seeking a way out solution that is the point here. It doe not much matter how far outside the box we are, it is how we interpret the box, and what is in it that counts
Apr 22, 2010 | Demand chains, Leadership
Isn’t it interesting, when we pay for something, we have an expectation of what that transaction will deliver to us, but there is little sense of lingering obligation.
However, if we just do something for someone, any small piece of kindness or consideration, it creates a bond, and often a feeling of obligation that the kindness requires some reciprocal consideration on the part of the receiver.
This reciprocal obligation dynamic exists in the best demand chains, smoothing the path through the chain of whatever product or service the chain is set up to provide.
Any chain is a set of transactions, but the dynamics of a transaction are nowhere near as important to the individuals performing the transactions as the overall performance of the chain, and so they use initiative, alter the status quo, innovate, and generally go that bit extra, recognizing implicitly the value of the action to the performance of the chain, and it is their contribution to the performance of the chain that is the motivation, just completing the not the immediate transaction.
Apr 21, 2010 | Customers, Demand chains, Leadership
Integrated value chains are nothing new. IBM had one before it started “outsourcing” what turned out to be the future to Microsoft and Intel, Ford had one at centered around the Dearborn factory, from where the company controlled by owning everything from growing the cattle to supply the leather for the T model seats, to the end of the production line, and beyond, and even the Venetian shipyards way back in the 1400’s was an integrated chain.
What has changed are the tools by which we can manage integrated value chains, and the recognition that they do not necessarily need to be controlled by equity, the power of the customer is far more potent.
Apr 17, 2010 | Leadership, Personal Rant
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”
The Roman historian and thinker Cicero said these words in 55 BC, but it could be any one of our current crop of pollies, from either side, although the language may be a bit polished for some of them.
However, we now explicitly understand the notion of public investment, and the associated debt as a means to build productive infrastructure to benefit the commercial activity of the whole community. In Roman times it was a matter of “Romanising the Barbarians” as a means of subduing them, the economic activity was a fortunate offshoot. (The link is to a wonderful book that casts an entirely different light on the popular view of Roman history)
Our forbears understood this when they built the train lines, bridges, and the Snowy scheme, that we still use today, but we appear to have forgotten the value of long term investments, and need to justify every activity in the current electoral cycle
Nonsense.
