Aug 29, 2010 | Alliance management, Leadership
This hung election has generated a tsunami of comment, but nothing I have seen on the mechanics of collaboration, a key factor in any lasting resolution to the impasse I would have thought.
The idea of a “party” is simply an expression of the need for group action to get anything done. In the case of the two major parties the early collaboration around an idea has long been replaced by the institutional battle for survival, the original reason for the formation of the party forgotten.
By contrast, consider the Greens. They evolved from a protest group coalesing around opposition to the Franklin dam in Tasmania, through to political group with the power to protest in a wider forum of proportionally elected houses state upper houses, (Federal senate, NSW Legislative Council) from which all we expected was protest, to a party that now carries a veto over all legislation, which is a far wider remit than a one issue protest.
This last step is a game changer, one the Democrats failed. But what of the three independents in the house of Reps? Almost by accident they have the power of veto if they act collaboratively, but it seems to be emerging that consistent collaborative action may fail them just because the rallying point around which they can coalesce is far more ambiguous than the Greens “save the Franklin” and the Democrats “keep the bastards honest” and therefore the collaboration lacks some of the “glue” essential to a collaborative effort, and they lack the institutional organisation that is the alternative.
It will be interesting to watch, and I suspect that there will be an agreement that sees the “Mad Monk” as PM with the nominal support of the three independents, which will become very fragile as the next full moon impacts on Bob.
Aug 23, 2010 | Leadership, Management
Leadership is a subject that has filled libraries, kept researchers in businesses, and academics interested for decades. However, anyone who has been around organisations for a while probably sees it a bit more simply if they have given it any real thought.
To me, a leader needs to be able to communicate simply, and intimately (irrespective of the size of any group) a range of pretty basic things with those he/she is supposed to be leading:
This is why we are here
This is where we are going
This is why we are going there
This is how we are going to get there
This is what you can expect of me
This is what I expect of you
This is how, individually and collectively will take responsibility
This is what will happen if we fail at any of the above.
In the event that a leader “lives” all the above, others will follow, but there is little room for saying one thing, and doing another.
So much for the libraries!!
Aug 10, 2010 | Communication, Management, Small business
Sitting around many board and advisory tables over the years, I have observed that those that are successful follow what I have started to call the rule of thirds. Actually, there are four rules, but the first is generic to all meetings: have an agenda, follow it, take minutes, allocate a specific time to end, and follow up. The other three relate to the manner of organization of the agenda and are:
1/3 review the financials, the past period, and coming periods, with particular emphasis on cash generation.
1/3 Consider the immediate issues, gain agreement on actions, outcomes and timetables,
1/3 Consider the longer term issues, all those things that will not impact on the immediate performance of the business, but are in the medium to long term critical for survival.
Most board meetings tend to spend considerable time on the first, a bit on the second, and little on the third, but organizing the time allocated, and being disciplined about the manner in which the time is spent will pay dividends.
Aug 8, 2010 | Management, Marketing
Watching the current federal election campaign from both major parties, it seems they both should go back to marketing 101, and consider what it takes to engage with those to whom you want to sell something. Both to my mind are failing badly to create a brand that has a proposition that is attractive to those who take the time to consider their “purchase” rather than just buying the same one they bought last time.
From a different perspective, I had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of NSW shadow ministers with a group of business people last week. Their problem is that although the current NSW Labor government is so on the nose that is seems inconceivable that they will be reelected, very few in the electorate know anything about the alternative, and they have great difficulty gaining any media traction, so unlike their Federal counterparts, their problem is awareness, and how do they generate it, not that the product appears to be in tatters.
Aug 1, 2010 | Alliance management, Leadership, Management, Social Media, Strategy
Knowledge Management is all about collaboration, making the 3 + 3 equal > 6, but the challenge has always been how do you codify the knowledge for dissemination and re-use, implying the existence of both strategy, and a management mechanism for the knowledge.
By comparison, social networking is largely uncontrolled, and lacks a strategy beyond “to connect”, but it nevertheless has become a source of knowledge management.
Social networking brings to the table two factors not usually prominent in KM systems:
- Humanity, people connecting and interacting for the personal value, not monetary value, it reminds of the notion of “commons” where groups assemble because they can leverage off the social, intellectual and commercial base of the “common”
- Social networking offers the opportunity not just to form horizontal connections as happens in managed KM systems, but for the vertical, and oblique connections that offer the opportunity for insights and capabilities in an organic manner, rather like the organic metaphor for innovation.
It appears to me that an application for social networking techniques that will evolve quite rapidly will be as a new and powerful tool that will enable the rich and varied collaboration so crucial for the innovation process.
Jul 29, 2010 | Alliance management, Communication, Leadership
Contracts are the point of last resort, they define the exit, should it become necessary.
Believing a written contract that details how the dynamics of an evolving relationship will be managed is as dumb as believing the lady in the tent can tell the future with any accuracy.
Relationships are about leadership, collaboration, honesty, and a mutual respect, and a reversion to the clauses in a contract are a clear pointer to the failure of the relationship and the leadership.
A while ago, a business I have had intermittent contact with over a long period set about outsourcing their IT function. It is only a modest business, short of resources, and took the view that the IT people were the experts, and that they should know all there was to know about how to approach their problems, and that the resources freed up could be better used elsewhere. Problem was, they had not adequately defined their processes and expectations, and the vendor saw it as a small sale, perhaps not worth their best efforts.
There were some tough lessons in the exercise, and at their most basic broke down to the simple fact that nobody could know their business as well as they did, and a generic set of solutions sold to a modest business were never going to be successful.
The vendor failed in their duty to meet their needs, once the sales contract was signed, they “moved on” and the company failed badly in the implementation, and the whole exercise ended very badly.
The simple fact is that the “solution” could have, and should have worked, the company’s logic was sound, and the solution had all the fundamentals to deliver a great service, but the relationship failed. Rather than leveraging the skills and experience of both parties to arrive at a successful outcome, they took the easy way out and just fought over who would carry the can. Really dumb!
