Reality, choices and alignment.
It’s all I want in the companies I work for. Yet I see very little of it. To me, all the management and strategy jargon out there just complicates things.
Reality.
Reality is important because it frames your worldview. Time and time again I see senior people ignore reality. You want some examples? RIM:” no seismic change” required? Hello, dude you are screwed!! ‘manage decline”, what kind of obscene statement is that? I mean first up, you are basically stating it’s ok to loose, worse that you have some magic trump card that allows you to control market shifts. This is poison because your staff know its total rubbish and it sets people up for failure. . . . trust me I’ve seen people try to do this for years and I can attest to the fact that any ‘management’ of decline only happens in the minds of strategists and accountant. The rest is luck.
Choice.
People think they make choices every day, but the reality is they do it without fully considering the true impacts. Take global warming, its is kind of hard to ignore the fact base that it is happening. At a personal level i don’t think people understand what they do to contribute or change this, they haven’t really had the choices explained to them….
“Combustion of one US gallon of gasoline produces about 19.4 pounds (8.8 kg) of carbon dioxide (converts to 2.33 kg/litre), a greenhouse gas.[4][5]”
Did you know that? that is a lot of C0!!!. How about wording the choices this way.. “you can keep driving your car and contributing to the pollution of the petri dish we call home, or you can find alternate transport, you choose”
Cigarette smoking – “you can keep smoking cigarettes, but you know that it causes all sorts of bad stuff to happen and if you get sick because of it, there won’t be any government or private health insurance to support you”
Business – man, so many examples ( dilbert lives on this stuff)
“We can’t decide what we are going to do” (which is a form of non-choice), the impact of this is there is no guiding principles to make good choices about so companies will attempt to deliver everything… which means nothing gets done and everyone is unhappy
“we need to change, become more agile and cost effective”, but we will do this with the existing processes and cost base…. without a plan to address process and cultural overheads, this just won’t happen
“…most often the very skills that propel an organization to succeed in sustaining circumstances systematically bungle the best ideas for disruptive growth. An organization’s capabilities become its disabilities when disruption is afoot.” – Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Solution
“We need to be more innovative”, so you either choose to learn about / invest in innovation, sponsor, support and nurture new projects …or don’t. One of these approaches has much more chance of success than the other
“you can launch that new thing, but you need to avoid canabalisation” you just choose to waste your time and money. That new thing ain’t going anywhere. Good companies (like Apple) acknowledge canabalisation, then don’t get stopped by it because its actually just part product lifecyle
Another choice “lets cut costs but culling headcount” but we will do it before / without fixing the underlying systems and processes, all this means is that a smaller number of people are going to end up doing the same amount of work…. With the obvious results in output, quality and staff satisfaction…
Finally a segway into alignment “we want focus, here are five separate targets. “
Alignment .
Getting the company in motion, by ensuring that everyone is working in the same direction…. Sound so simple, but so often it never happens.
Multiple targets – a recipe for disaster… classics include hit your revenue and EBIT targets… or how about maintain share and price? Sound familiar?
What about different parts of the business being aligned? How many of you out there have given operations a cost reduction target while simultaneously giving product or sales an uplift? This causes conflict at best, it also hamstrings your growth. Some managers call this ‘healthy tension”… which is management school bullocks for misalignment
Finally my personal favourite piece of target tripe… manage decline in legacy business (ie maintain the status quo as best are you can) while simultaneously driving radical simplification…. That’s like saying go to war but don’t use guns … what are you supposed to do? Batchslap them into submission? Have them laugh themselves to death by showing them your impossible targets?
Combine reality, true choice and alignment and you get simplicity and organisational alignment. Trust me (most) people have decent BS meters. They will naturally see if a plan, driver or goal is aligned with what they are targeted with or are doing. To quote Jason Jennings “in great companies everyone knows the strategy, and everyone thinks and acts like an owner”
This was going to be an indignant rant, but after a little research I realised that perhaps I was onto something. What if NZ’s employment law is ONE of the major reasons for our lack of GDP growth? What if we made it easier to dismiss underperforming staff? What if instead of making the HR function less about the process and more about the outcome, we’d be better off as a nation….
Now before I get burnt at the stake, let me explain and support my statement with some real life examples. I should also say that as an employee i have experienced the good and bad of employment law and HR policy … (aka i’ve been ripped off).
But I still think my thoughts below have some potential First up let me describe first hand some examples we have to (by law) go through to dismiss someone.
Item one. It should be noted that in NZ it is just as important to follow the exacting process. That is its not just having proof or cause for dismissal. You have to follow the correct process, in the correct order, and in some cases say the correct things. If you don’t then you can end up in employment court.
Example. We Have a staff member who is continuing to under perform, wanted to take 5 weeks leave to go offshore, which we declined , who hasn’t resigned, but is now abandoned the job. Simple you say, fire them and move on! Nope sorry. Because we know they are off-shore we cannot assume abandonment, we cannot hire a replacement because that we pre-meditate their dismissal, and that’s illegal. So we have to wait for them to return (ie run short staffed and under productive) and then go through the process
That process is thus. Have evidence that they’ve done wrong. Invite them to a disciplinary meeting and ask them to bring a support person Explain to them that we are thinking of dismissing them. Ask them what they think of that, how do they feel about the decision. Take that feedback on-board and have a minimum 24 hr “thinking time” (cool down period). Then and only then can we dismiss them. I’ve shortcut this, but this is the process you have to abide by for any “automatic” dismissal according to the dept of labor.
Item two. Restrucutures. In big companies, they have the above issue multiple times. So they save them all up and deal with it through restructures. So instead of dealing with the problem people in a discrete, timely and targeted way, we save them up. Collectively living with the underperformance until such time as we then disrupt large sections of the company with restructures in order to get rid of a few errant performances (and potentially deal with organisations efficiencies, but i’m too cynical to believe that is actually the case)
What if we created processes that meant we as employers could continually cull out underperforming staff? What then? How about better performing business because you have good staff, capably doing the tasks required of them. I think you’d have more motivated staff too. We all know who the dead wood is, and those who create more problems than they solve. In a small business they are poison. I think most people would cheer the thought of not having to carry them. We’d also benefit from significantly less HR cost, perhaps they could focus more on organisational development then instead?
Good theory, is there evidence? Well yes (more)… “These results suggest that adoption of dismissal protections altered short-run production choices and caused employers to retain unproductive workers, leading to a reduction in technical efficiency”
My own experience of working in the UK and Australia supports this. Those nations rapidly address underperformance in their companies. The result was you don’t have to carry the dead weight, live with the consequence of their often poor decisions and delivery, and a better work environment and bottom line..
Now i’m not proposing Chinese style work environment. The causality of high growth and a lack of workforce regulation and unions is evident, but that to me is exploitative. However I am challenging the need for too much regulation.
investing for value not money…
Ben Kepes wrote a great post the other day, castigising some of the digerati for ignoring the ma and pa businesses that drive our nation and creating an ethos of investment elitism… that is myopically focusing on the next big thing and ignoring the noble organic growth many businesses take…ok my take anyway, my blog so deal with it 
I love the post, it took cahones. It also summed up some of the things wrong with economics in my opinion…the pathalogical craving for growth, at the expense of everything else….
Then today I read Umair Haque’s blog on HBR, a post that i wish i had written, and that i think mirrors my one for a couple of months back and it got me thinking that perhaps even Ben’s stance needs challenging.
Perhaps what we, as investors need first and foremost is an moral or philosophical yardstick, then a commercial driver. Think thru some this years big IPO’s, all they do is exacerbate the rampant consumerism Umair describes. Groupon, i’m looking at you. Many others just drive the same outcome more efficiently, like Jive.
What would happen if we diverted out resources to solving genuinely big issues rather than perpetuating what appears to be a failing economic model? Things like clean energy like Google, alternate fuel, food surety, sustainable fishing, water security, education, health, disease control or eradication, population growth, population extinction ….
Am I the only one that thinks that in comparison to those challenges, a gamified business app is completely unimportant, the next iPhone game? Or another daily deal shopping play that only satisfies our consumerism addiction (I have visions of needles).
Asking the right question
Yesterday was a big day here in NZ, the iPhone 4S was released, whats more the stranglehold that Vodafone had on the iPhone has past.
Predictably there was plenty of hype. And then the carriers put out their plan details (see NBR). Lance Wiggs put it bluntly, “Vodafone’s iPhone 4S plans seem to have forgotten data”. The interesting thing is why.
They’ve had a monopoloy on the coolest device this decade, they must know what this does to ARPU …and yet they do this?
Could it be that in their analysis, they’ve uncovered a nasty fact? That they are killing their network with these devices?
Sounds silly but have a look at this mobile data growth chart
Given growth is nearly flat, prices are flat or falling… maybe it just wasn’t economic? Could they actually want to bleed these data hogging customers.
Remember Telecom and 2Degrees both have shinny new networks, i’m guessing they have uddles of capacity…maybe Vodafone doesn’t…after all they still have 2G in patches
Like is said, almost as interesting as the announcement itself
the sucking mehness….
First up these are my opinions, i mean no disrespect to anyone who values some of my examples here.
I should explain why i’ve been absent online. My hiatus from blogging has been for several reasons, it lost its appeal when work decided I should blog for them, more importantly I was disillusioned by how trivial most of the topics were. I call it the sucking mehness….
I was attending conferences that were still explaining what cloud computing was, arguing about the definitions of what cloud is, whether it was secure …. All the while the world around us was undergoing such rapid turmoil… it just didn’t feel right.
Compared to the major events like the Arab spring, climate change, the Christchurch and Japanese earthquakes, the absurdity or the US default crisis, the European debt crisis and the social change drive by the occupy movement, I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to blog about technology. I was worried, worried about this globe of ours and worried about what world my children will live in…
Coupled with that, I’ve been researching some thought provoking topics. Ken Robinson’s the element, Clayton Christensen, HBR, Dan Pink and several others….They all share similar characteristics. They challenge the status quo, but from a point of view of changing the world….
All of this has been going around in my head for a while, and I can’t help thinking that at its highest level, the system is broken…
That the rich get richer is more than a proverb, it is a proven fact, but the hidden subtext is that the rich are also consolidating power. The age old societal promises are breaking down, and I hope more people like me are starting to question their role in this process, and ask if there is a different way.
I think we seriously need to question many of our underlying assumptions.
Do we truly live in democracies, or is most of it a charade, more an exercise in mass crowd control… and if we seriously question this would we like what we see scenarios like the police shooting rubber bullets at peaceful protestors in the US being barely newsworthy, and how is that different to the Arab states?
Is all the time effort and rhetoric of organisations like the WTO, UN etc even worth the effort when clearly they are so politically influenced (or compromised, again and again )…
Should companies focus on profits, what role do I play in the many bad behaviours we see because i’m a shareholder expecting ever higher returns
Why aren’t we seriously tackling the role of advertising on our society? Are we really ok with the subtext that they portray and what it does to our children, women and society…
What impact have unions really had over the last 100 years? Apparently nothing, why?
Why do we pay CEO’s so much money based on a promise, and yet marginalise their employees who actually deliver?
I don’t have the answers. I do have some thoughts
Lets get real. Openly acknowledging political systems for what they are, same is true for the financial systems.
Seriously look at lobbying and the impact of business on politics. This is a form of corruption. End of story.
In fact seriously look at politics FULL STOP. Any system that perversely rewards itself (if i make poor decisions that you like, you will keep me in my high paid important position) should be changed..
If you run a company, having openly states goals wider than profit that you are held accountable too might be a start.. i don’t know for sure. Start it up with equality in mind. Not exploitation
If you own shares, think about what your expectations as an owner are actually driving. You cannot seriously demand increasing profits then moan when another company downsizes, cuts costs at locals expense, takes cheaper inputs with dubious environmental impacts …
Also recognise that if the person in charge of the company tells you that they are going to grow, and most will, they are most probably lying to you (statistically and possibly overtly)… the numbers suggest it will not happen so why demand it?
How about viewing education differently, not the product line that churns out people with the same skills and thought processes who end up competing for the same jobs and coincidently end up creating companies with …you guessed it the same approaches. If you want differentiation, try mixing it up. Clayton Christensen describes the impact of MBA’s on companies like Sony in several of his books and articles.
The renaissance drove astounding change, huge culture and societal benefit…and was driven by the arts and most importantly, the diverse thinking the arts provides… yet our policy makers are forcing the education system to eliminate both…. SERIOUSLY is there any wonder that true innovation has slowed and everything is becoming the same. (hear the sucking now???)
Acknowledge that people are people… they will protect their interests above all else. Why waste your time fighting that?
Put things in perspective. In the scheme of things does arguing about cloud definitions make a monkey’s difference?
Manage your own consumerism… I’m battling this daily. It isn’t easy, but I personally find distinguishing between needs and wants is valuable.
Accept responsibility for your own actions….. Greece borrowed a tonne of money, so has the US and many other nations, apparently feed by consumerism, not assets acquisition…. Why shouldn’t they face hard times fixing their poor decision making? Smoking kills, its well known… in my country there is government funded insurance / healthcare provided to these people who decided to ignore the overwhelming evidence and still smoke… why?
Question seriously advertising. Not just the above the line message but the deep subtext… it doesn’t feel right that products make people feel insecure or captialise on it…Educate people about what advertising does and how they are impacted on it.
While we at it, how about turning the thing on its head and use advertising to raise self esteem, celebrate those, like teachers who, with the right resources can and do reall make a difference.
I’m sure there is more….
keep it real people
A link from Tim O’Reilly on twitter….think this thru and keep it real
In the first ever Cloudcamp that I attended, I made the statement that unless New Zealand got to grips with cloud computing, the 34 000 ICT professionals were in significant trouble.
I also put out the challenge, that Cloud computing represented a huge opportunity for NZ Inc . Cloud computing made our geographic isolation irrelevant, it also represented an opportunity to break our dependence on the primary sector…
Fast forward two years (that Cloudcamp was August 2009), and I couldn’t help but notice three internet articles pointing to the same thing. All from very different sources.
- Firstly Bernard Hickey looked at the economy and said ‘stop borrowing and start retaining our assets’. He shows quite clearly that our Gross Net Income (GNI) is falling.
- Secondly Lance Wiggs wrote up his take on the Nethui. There are 10 points here which i’m going to summarise as ‘things have improved, we have lots of potential to build a knowledge economy, but we have a long ways to go”
- Finally Sir Paul Callaghan spoke at about building sustainable economic growth in New Zealand, in an outstanding presentation he summarily dismissed some long entrenched myths, and challenged NZ build another 100 technology companies (17mins) …and have them STAY New Zealand owned (which circles back to Bernard’s post)…
So my question is…what is going on out there in NZ relating to cloud computing? How are we either planning or actively taking advantage of this opportunity? What more can be done??
PaaS moves on with Cloud Foundry
Yesterday, VMware announced the launch of Cloud Foundry. This is a big step in the evolution of Platform as a Service.
What is profound, is that this allows you to build applications in a private (your data centre), public (Amazon’s or Rackspace’s cloud) or hybrid environment (a combination of both). It scales from your laptop, to the hundreds of servers in the data centre.
Finally Cloud foundry is Open source. This is important to you guys out there because this should in theory allow you federate (or connect) clouds together. The theory being that as you have a known code base and API set, you can readily do this task.
In the cloud space, this is big news. PaaS is going to be the most critical enabler of Cloud applications going forward, but todate the execution on this vision by potential leaders like Microsoft (Azure) and Salesforce.com (force.com) has not quite been there…
For some more coverage of this move check out
Krishnan at Cloudave.com http://www.cloudave.com/11714/vmware-disrupts-paas-space-with-cloud-foundry/
They unwittingly built a massive new revenue stream for Microsoft….
According to Microsoft, OneNote had something like 15 million downloads from Apple ‘s app store to the iPad.
Think this thru. If you are MS, someone else has solved the riddle of how do you get your apps on more devices and to more people. And what is more, you don’t really have to go thru the massive change this disruption has driven, because depending on how much you squint, you are litterally just cutting application code just like you aways did.
Imagine if you could buy one instance of Word, ppt or Excel instead the deplorable bundle that we’ve had for the last 20 years…. Micro payment based growth….
Weird, what the world does sometimes
Is first mover advantage a crock?
I read yet another pack today that was expounding the virtues of first mover advantage. Call me a cynic but I personally think first mover advantage has lost what ever value it ever had. (and some question that!)
Here’s why,
In this instance, the vendor in question was using the hook of first mover advantage as a to sell us more stuff. The problem with that the market they are talking to is
- already fairly mature (where is the first in that)
- has an unclear business model
- and looks like the only folks making money would be them
Hell, the US is about to change it’s Patent laws to the first person to FILE and patent , not the first person to invent the product..
I also think that in the last decade, the speed of change is such that there literally is no window to build customer scale. It also means that technical change, or more appropriately how customers adopt or use technology is moving too rapid for any one player to gain any substantial advantage (take Android vs iPhone).
The last decade has also highlighted that the world is far less predictable than it ever was. Who for saw Apple’s meteoroic rise ? Facebook? Global financial crisis? Being first in this world, actually carving out and product category is so tough….
Call me cynical but it looks to me that the only real advantage a company has these days is execution.
Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player, or the smartphone. Google didn’t invent online advertising or search, what they did was execute better than their competition…