Jul 21, 2011 | Change, Collaboration, Leadership, Personal Rant
We all understand the “God Complex” the situation where someone proclaims their universal truth about a complex problem. My solution is the right one, no argument!.
Problem is that complex problems are really, well, complex, hard to understand, and there is rarely a single right answer, and even rarer that an individual stumbles across the solution first time, without trying many potential solutions and partial solutions, revising the bits that worked, dismissing those bits that proved to be useless. Sound familiar, its trial and error, continuous improvement, or to the Lean adherents amongst us, PDCA, or the scientific method, perhaps AAR, all variations to a theme about which I have written a bit.
In the case of the carbon tax in Australia, it may be a contributor to a solution to global warming, it may make enough difference to worth the pain, it may not, problem is we will not know until after the data is in, but by then the dice will be rolled, and we cannot unroll it.
Currently we have two political leaders proclaiming the rightness of their solution to a hugely complex problem. Neither knows the answer, that will be the outcome of a hugely complex set of assumptions and outcomes containing multiples of permutations of what may happen depending on decisions and actions over which neither pollie has any control at all.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have both of these silly wallies admit they do not know the right answer, that there certainly is not one “right” answer, but agree that the problem is real, as they have done in a tacit way by each “committing” to the 5% reduction. In a bi partisan manner, map out a program of experimental measures across a range of activities, with a view to refining over time the range of measures to be put in place to reduce our emissions, and encourage the “clean” economy through technology and changed practices. This stuff is important enough to our collective future that it requires genuine wide ranging collaboration to come up with an evolutionary and decade straddling program for there to be any hope of success.
Somebody, please tell me I’m dreamin’.
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.
Jun 24, 2011 | Change, Innovation, Marketing, Personal Rant, Social Media
Telstra is one of the best yielding shares around, management knows there is no other reason to hold them, so effectively pump the share price with good yields. At the current prices they are a good buy, being assured of a juicy yield, and probably 50% market share from the NBN deal, all of which makes Telstra pretty attractive short term , but long term?
It seems to me that a strategy of squeezing earnings out of an existing business model when that model is being attacked from all sides is always tough, but in a telco it is almost sure to be terminal given the rate of innovation occurring from the sidelines.
There is now a free VOIP app for iPhone, “viber” that eliminates call costs, including international roaming which has been around for only a couple of months, but has attracted 12 million users, and expanding at net speed. On top the damage Skype must have inflicted, and will inflict into the very near future as Microsoft (presumably) sets about building cheap teleconferencing services onto the Skype platform, traditional telcos must be in a long term world of pain as they see their markets stolen by innovators they did not see coming.
I ask again, who would buy shares in Telstra, other than as a short term strategy to get a slice of the public donation of $11 billion and short term market share.
Jun 21, 2011 | Alliance management, Collaboration, Communication, Customers, Personal Rant
Negotiation is a process of finding a solution to a question that is acceptable to all parties. It should go without saying that the first step is to actually communicate, setting out to find areas of compromise, and places of potential value not immediately obvious that occur in many disputes.
The alternative is standing back and throwing rocks, which can only be a winning strategy when you hold all the cards, but then it is not a negotiation, but a statement. However, when the power in a dispute is spread around, declining a seat at the table almost inevitably means you end up on the menu.
The unilateral banning of the live cattle trade to Indonesia was such a rock throwing exercise. Thank heavens the dills in Canberra appear to have woken up in time, and are at least communicating with stakeholders, hopefully with the intention of finding a solution, rather than just doing a post cock-up arse cover.
May 29, 2011 | Branding, Personal Rant
Why does the government set out to create conflict? Is it to distract attention? The current “debate” on cigarette packaging is a silly nonsense, a politically inspired furphy.
Obviously it is in the community’s interest to reduce smoking rates, smoking kills, and obviously the cigarette companies will protect their investment in a legal product, immoral as that may seem to some.
Philosophically, I am alarmed at the proposal to retrospectively trash the investment in brands made over a long time by sellers of the noxious weed, it has been legal to promote their products by any means allowed by the moving legislative goalposts , just very difficult for the last few years. Why is it different to the announcement by the NSW Premier that retrospectively he will reduce the feed in rate for solar panels? Both are an injustice, no matter how ill advised the original circumstances.
In the event that this legislation passes, we deserve to pay huge amounts of damages to the fag companies as compensation for their trashed brand equity. In an environment where business needs a rule of law as a basis for long term decision making, retrospectivity, no matter how superficially attractive, should be a no-no.
Why don’t they just double excise, and announce that in 12 months, it will be doubled again. That would do more to reduce smoking rates than plain packs, not open the IP compensation box, and it would be easy. It would also drag in a bit of short term revenue to pay the hospital bills of those few smokers left.
Perhaps it is because they do not want to be nasty to all those smoking voters, they would rather open the community to huge compensation payouts. Silly, silly people.
