Aug 15, 2011 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Marketing
An ongoing frustration of innovation projects is the apparently always moving goalposts. How often have you heard “wish marketing would make up their minds what they want”
This desire to have the end point articulated at the commencement is natural, it enables good milestone and resource management, feedback and accountability systems, all beloved of the bean counters. However, if the requirements of a marketplace are evolving quicker than the projects can be brought to the market, leaving the goalposts untouched is the same as ensuring you bring a redundant project to completion, not much value there.
The challenge is to know if marketing is just a bunch of seat shiners who cannot make up their minds, or a group so intimately connected to the market that they see the evolution as it happens. Sometimes it is pretty hard to tell the difference. Therefore, the only way to ensure the development groups are connected to the market, via marketing or otherwise, is to and hold them to a level of personal and development group responsibility for the outcomes.
Aug 9, 2011 | Collaboration, Communication, Management
Negotiation is usually difficult, that is the nature of things when two parties are setting out to maximise their outcome. Whilst it may not be a win/lose situation, where the parties set out to make the pie bigger, or different before cutting it up, it nevertheless is a confronting process for most.
Considering the negotiation therefore as just another difficult conversation has great merit. Do the background work, see it from the other parties perspective, and be prepared to work through the negotiation toolbox, but do not lose sight of the personal dynamics of a difficult conversation, and set out to manage them as a part of the process.
The nine mistakes articulated in the link above can form a framework for planning a difficult conversation, forewarned is forearmed.
Jul 27, 2011 | Change, Leadership, Management
Large organisations tend to have what is usually called their own “culture” but when you look deeper, there is a more basic form of “sameness” amongst organisations in a field, particularly those in a public field, Government departments, churches, non profits and industry bodies.
I speculate that this is because they are stable, relatively long term entities, often protected from the discipline of the market to some degree, so they tend to select new employees, promote and measure performance against the criteria of those already there. This will tend to perpetuate the DNA of the organisation, and as people leave, they will often find themselves in similar organisations, thus spreading the DNA laterally.
In the Australian Public Service there is a set of guidelines driving the employment, promotion, performance assessment and cross departmental transfer processes, the “Integrated Leadership System“. It is a complex set of procedures designed to ensure even handed and consistent selection decisions, but which must result in the perpetuation of the genetic code of the APS.
This genetic coding is what makes change in large organisations so difficult, it takes a real gutsy, and very rare leader to alter the rules by which he/she rose to the point at which they can change the rules.
Jul 26, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Operations
Completing an AAR, (After Action Review) is now widely practiced, effectively a commercial post mortem after any major commercial activity. Completing an AAR has been standard practice for a long time after a capital expenditure, generally called something else, but it embodies the notion of learning from the mistakes, and successes to build capability the next time.
How much better it would be to conduct a formal pre mortem?
Project yourself into the future, a year, 2 years, whatever is appropriate, and assume the project you are considering has gone pear shaped, then conceive of all the ways in which this may have happened, and what the better option may have been. In other words, conduct a “Pre Mortem”
It seems to me that a rigorous pre mortem may be a pretty useful way of avoiding mistakes in the first place, better than having to learn from them.
Jul 19, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
I was struck last month by the blizzard of numbers and alternative views presented as a part of the release of the national accounts.
The economy was down, but the floods in QLD and Vic had largely caused the problem and was it short term only, consumer spending was up, but we are saving more than ever, and so on, and on, and on. However, the overall picture is so rosy that the Reserve Bank appeared likely to put up interest rates again pretty soon.
Little of it struck true at a “gut” level, a two speed economy is probably more like a 6 speed economy, with a couple of gears going backwards, and the picture if you take away mining, just a horrible mess of varying degrees.
Thank heavens over the last fortnight the Westpac chief economist has come out and said that interest rates were in fact too high, and all but the mining industry was struggling. On Monday the Reserve Bank minutes released indicated they were taking note of the problems, and rates were likely to be steady for a while.
In my patch, in and around the food industry, one of the largest drivers in the economy, the landscape is littered with landmines. It has not been worse in my 35 years of engagement. No numbers here, just tacit knowledge based on observation, discussion, and experience, all of which run counter to the heroic stuff mouthed explicitly by the treasurer, most economists, and the shiny pants set in Canberra who just rely on the macro numbers.
Jul 3, 2011 | Management, Personal Rant
I miss the mob
Derek Sivers has an oblique take on things, he seems to be able to see perspectives most of us miss. This short “I miss the mob” video should be shown to all who get confused about why things are done.
