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 5, 2011 | Leadership, Management
Most of us tacitly understand that winning leadership styles differ depending on circumstances, that the bloke who was great at starting a business, and getting it running is not necessarily the one to lead it into maturity.
Most commentators on leadership have watched the comings and goings of Steve Jobs at Apple, and seen the relationship between success and the near death experience that occurred concurrent with his presence, and have at least read Andy Goves’s analysis in “Only the paranoid survive”.
The literature on leadership focuses on what Ben Horowitz calls “times of peace” but the “times of war” are what kills us.
Bens short post on Wartime CEO/Peacetime CEO sets the context of leadership in war and peace, I particularly like the comparison:
“Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand”, which is just so true!
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 15, 2011 | Management, Strategy
Scenario planning was a popular tool 20 years ago, but seems to have been supplanted by other tools, and priorities, or forgotten. In an increasingly unpredictable world, it makes sense to step back, and consider a range of perhaps unlikely scenarios, after all, those doing budgets in early 2008 when oil was $45 a barrel would hardly have predicted it would be $145 just 9 months later, then drop back under $100 almost as quickly, or that The gulf of Mexico would become an oil bath, and more recently, that a single persons protest in Tunisia would start Egypt on the rocky road to democracy, followed by the riots and perhaps revolution in Libya, that an earthquake would lead to a tsunami and nuclear “incident” in Japan, what else can happen?
Stepping back, and using the tools of scenario planning, identifying the fundamental drivers as an input to your own planning makes more sense now than it has for 30 years.
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 | Leadership, Management
Management and leadership are not the same.
For years I have advocated this self evident truth, and occasionally something comes along to confirm, again, the essential truth that leaders lead, and managers just take care of the details.
Leadership in a tough place is often personified by individuals in the military, none I suspect better than Stan McChrystal former US commander in Afghanistan, who shares on TED.
