I was sitting with a colleague during lunch and we were talking about how many leadership decisions are taken today to avoid bad press from the people they are taking decisions for.
It's as if (sometimes) the fear of reaction dictates the decision that will be taken. Politics, business, etc., the examples abound of people in power who take the POLPOP instead of the right decision.
Ok, so we invented a new acronym... and I invite you to find the examples around you and identify the POLPOPs. What is it, you ask ?
Path Of Least Pissed Off People
So here's the introspection part: how many decisions do you take that are based on POLPOP and not the right decision ?
I don't often appreciate reductionist formulas where people say ' Do this and you're life will be better '. Life is so much more intricate and complicated.
However, I fell on this little formulaic reminder of corporate structure and priorities and thought it worth putting on the sticky side of my mind :
3 P = 2 P
Products + Processes + People = Profits and Phun (ok, I cheated on the last P, but it works)
Products : The right widget or service to fill the right need with the right message in the right market at the right time.
Processes : The right way of doing things to optimize revenues and expenses.
People : The right ready, willing and able people.
Equals
Profits : Not just financial, but also personal growth.
Phun : The most important part of the equation. If you're not having fun, STOP, go back to the left part of the equation and figure out what's wrong... then fix it.
I love getting to know the real person in front of me. And when I interview, I like to dig deeper than the standard questions to find out who I am really talking to.
So I am quite partial to open - ended questions and then take it from there. It's usually an informal setting where I try to put the person the most at ease. I know HR experts have different opinions about this, but my goal is to feel entirely comfortable with the person... and seeing how they react to non - standard questions is an excellent way of doing so.
Here are some sample questions I love to ask:
- If you stayed with your current company, what would be your next move?
- What makes you stand out from others?
- Tell me your greatest accomplishment
- Give me an example of a time when you took the time to share a co-worker's achievement with others
- How many hours a week do you need to work to get your job done?
- Do you take enough time to make a decision?
- Why do you want to work here?
- What are your salary expectations?
And my favorite :
- Tell me about yourself.
Sometimes, I come across stories that inspire me to be a better person, to excel and go beyond established limits. This story is from the Bible, from the book of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah knew that to be a good leader you had to have clean hands and a pure heart. The basic quality for leadership is the same as the basic quality for success in a person's life. And that is to be true to one's belief and values.
So what made Nehemiah so special ?
Nehemiah had a sense of calling.
Nehemiah patiently waited for the right timing.
Nehemiah established reasonable and attainable goals. You know one of the reasons why leadership fails is 1) they have no goals whatsoever or 2) they establish goals that are not reasonable, measurable or attainable.
Nehemiah made prayer and recollection a priority in his life.
Nehemiah rearranged his priorities in order to accomplish his goals.
Nehemiah acted decisively when it was time for him to act.
Nehemiah took time to rest, to plan, to pray, to think.
Nehemiah became personally acquainted with his task.
Nehemiah made shrewd use of his time.
Nehemiah surrounded himself with trusted allies.
Nehemiah provided vision for the people.
Nehemiah involved a broad-based work team in the work.
Nehemiah never wavered in the face of opposition.
Nehemiah executed a plan to accomplish his goal.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to take emergency action when emergency action was necessary.
Nehemiah was very visible and approachable.
Nehemiah managed his resources very well.
Nehemiah verbalized his dependence on other's help, and he did it again and again.
Nehemiah was not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Nehemiah took care of his people financially.
Nehemiah personally sacrificed to accomplish his goal.
Nehemiah refused to live above his people.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to discipline inappropriate behavior.
Nehemiah had a great view of the value of his own work.
Nehemiah exuded integrity before everyone.
Nehemiah showed discernment in dealing with people.
Nehemiah didn't hesitate to attribute his success to others.
Nehemiah kept his promises.
Whether you believe in the veracity of the Good Book or not is besides the point. The example given here of someone who wisely persevered against all odds is worth a moment of reflexion.
As business leaders, the best decisions are often not the ones we say YES to, but rather the ones we decide to say NO to.
Passing on an opportunity is one of the hardest things an entrepreneur or a company has to do, but (imho) it is the single most differentiating factor in its success.
What follows is a result of experience, mistakes, books I read and some gray matter.
Knowing how and when to say NO requires :
- knowing yourself and your values
- knowing your business and its capacities
- being able to qualify and quantify the opportunity
- creating and adhering to a solid vision
Here are the questions I ask myself when analyzing an opportunity
- what is the exact need that this fills ? where do I position myself to that need ?
- how convincing is the solution to that need ? what are all the details ?
- how does this solution distinguish itself from all the others ? what are the barriers to entry ?
- what is the short and long term potential for the opportunity ? any upside to leveraging with current assets ?
- what are the risks involved ? what assumptions were made that include a measure of uncertainty ?
- is there a realistic execution plan of the strategy ?
- are all the necessary resources there to back up the opportunity ?
- is the team ready, willing and able ?
Things that can block an opportunity
- existing markets : our clients would not like it if we ...
- existing business models : we don't generate $ here with this method ...
- existing distributors : our distributors would not like it if we ...
- existing strategies : we decided way back when to do things this way ...
- existing structures : we don't want to manage this new opportunity in this department ...
- existing arbitrary constraints : if we don't generate this or create this or have this result his, it will be a complete waste of time ...
- existing vocabulary : we don't understand it ...
In Sanya, Hainan, China, there is a street near the bus terminal that has close to 20 double sided boothes with an assortment of products to sell to tourists who wander by.
What is interesting there is the model of competition. First : every booth sells a variance of the same objects: pearls, jade, chopsticks, plates, etc...
Second, the proximity of the booths to one another is never more than 1 foot.
Third, the prices are already on the low side. The perfect storm of negotiating and good prices. I have rarely seen the power of the walk-away be so effective.
Whose the winner ? The consumer ... and the manufacturing company that produces those objects for the 20+ booths.
A few years ago, I was invited to do a conference at a tech show on innovation and entrepreneurship. Another speaker on the bill got me curious. He was talking about how to 'be approachable'. His name was Scott and he was dubbed 'The NameTag Guy'. Another corny gimmick I thought.
I popped in to see his presentation (I was secretly looking for a good laugh, I must admit). Was I ever wrong! To his credit, I felt like an idiot to have judged the guy without understanding his message. Full of sound content, he was showing us how to be 'that guy', just like he was the NameTag Guy. His moniker came from one day, as a student, wearing a nametag saying 'Hello, my name is Scott' and then deciding to never take it off afterwards - sleep and shower included. He even tatooed on his chest. This social experiment led him to discover how approachable he became just by wearing a permanent nametag. It also led him to become a world expert on personal branding.
I've been following his career and blog since then and he has not ceased to impress me with great content and material. I often use him as an example in my classes. Recently, he did a post that cuts to the core of branding for entrepreneurs :
what is your mindshare.
He describes the 4 variations of mindshare, with accompanying questions:
- When you’re the FIRST person that comes to mind. (Immediate Mindshare)
- When you’re the OBVIOUS person that comes to mind. (Duh! Mindshare)
- When you’re the ONLY person that comes to mind. (Sole Source Mindshare)
- When you’re the BEST person that comes to mind. (Number One Mindshare)
It got me thinking about what kind of mindshare I wanted to give off personally and professionally. I want to be 'that guy' but what is the 'that' ? In my case, the difficulty comes from having built and sold multiple projects. I'm close to figuring it out, but I thought the principe that Scott put forward should be shared.
The post here
The blog here
The main website here
The video website here
I know. I promised there would only be 3 in this series, but only fools don't change their minds.
A reader sent me brilliant and striking parallels made from the Hierachy of Needs from Maslow to (A) corporate maturity and (B) types of individuals within a corporate structure. I just couldn't resist complementing the series with these parallels while acknowledging Celine Gravel and the Renoir Consulting company where these notions are continually developed and used. They work, I've been through each level and lived the thrill / stress / doubts / all nighters in the passing to the next one.
So here are the 5 levels of corporate maturity mapped out on Maslow's levels. I also included the types of employees per level.
LEVEL 1 : Physiological needs
Company needs to establish stable revenues and answer clients
Manages emergencies, very reactive and short term
Product is defined according to founder's idea
Initial systems and processes in place, trial and error to tweak them
Rapid production with little resources
Complete one-man-show decision making
Employees :
single tasked or inefficient multi-tasked
production focused
5% interpersonal abilities, 95% task execution
LEVEL 2 : Security needs
Company builds in parity with clientèle
Developing ideas to be proactive to maintain the flow
Product is modified according to client one-off demands
Certain critical systems are tweaked, secondary systems are still ad-hoc
Resources grow by client demand
Production is somewhat standardized
Some delegation takes place from founder on what the founder views as 'less critical' matters
Employees :
slightly more efficient multi-tasked
management by fear
Individualist profiles, little team spirit
Managers roles are created
15% interpersonal abilities, 85% task execution
LEVEL 3 : Belonging needs
Company grows by the market it is in
Ideas are out in place to be proactive towards the whole market, not just specific clients
Product is seen as an entry-point to satisfy market needs, complimentary products are envisioned
Internal processes are set with minor tweaks being brought to them
Resources are added in anticipation of market response and feel as though they are part of a global solution
Leadership is being executed by a team, with coherence still being tweaked as the founder learns to involve and 'let-go'
Employees :
customer service focused jobs
interdepartmental teamwork
supervisors, facilitators, management are put in place
management by relationships
less Individualist profiles, more team spirit
50% interpersonal abilities, 50% task execution
LEVEL 4 : Esteem needs
Company becomes a market leader
Recognition is there for work done to accomplish market needs
Future versions of the product now anticipate the market needs (and sometimes can even create those needs)
Internal processes are all 'in-sync' and have been optimized for top-line and bottom-line growth
Resources are lining up to be a part of the success story, supply passes the demand for HR
The leadership team have pride in accomplishments and have the constant challenge to keep the success going
Strategies for sustained growth become more diversified : new products, new markets, acquisitions, decentralization, recentralization
Corporate vision becomes challenged
Employees :
client and strategy focused
collective thinking, based on client services
like-minded individuals with similar value systems
team is king
85% interpersonal abilities, 15% task execution
LEVEL 5 : Realization needs
Company becomes a social heritage, a legacy to society, to its clients, to its employees
Recognition for social change and positive outcomes of the innovation becomes prevalent
Thriving internal culture with strategic alignment
Growth strategies have been successful and the challenged vision is now clear to all stakeholders
Strategic decision making revolves around how profits will be used to better the lives of those around the company
Succession planning becomes a priority for the founder(s)
Employees :
CXOs, VPs manage with creativity, unity and innovation
inventors, creatives thinkers, trainers are sought after
95% interpersonal abilities, 5% task execution
So where are you in this process ? Where do you want to be ? What kind of challenges do you thrive on ? What kind of leader are you ? What kind of employees do you need now ? and what kind should you look out for ?
This is the path awaiting you. Don't forget to have fun ;)
Value chains. You've studied them, heard about them and most probably been involved as an actor in many of them. In my 11 years of entrepreneurship and corporate value-making experience, I have learnt that mastery of the value chain is key.
Influenced from too many books and sources to count, here is my conception of the Product Value Chain - going from idea to satisfied costumers, from the product life cycle angle.
1. Planning value chain
o Investments
o Market research
o Product research
2. Supplier value chain
o Raw material
+ Creation
+ Transformation
o Inbound logistics
+ Brokers
+ Dealers
3. Organization value chain
o Creation / invention
o Tech transfer
o Product hardening
o Transformation
o Product development
4. Channel value chain
o Marketing
o Sales
+ Brokers
+ Resellers
+ Distributors
+ Retail
+ Direct
+ References
+ Partners
+ Final client
o Outbound logistics
+ Brokers
+ Distributors
+ Direct
5. Customer value chain
o Customer service
o Product return logistics
Audit your company to see where the holes are between the idea and the happy customer. Master this process and you become a value - creation expert.
One of the subjects I deal with daily is the increasing chasm between the baby-boomer generation and the students entering the workforce today. Much ink has been spilled on the subject and no clear solution has been brought forth. The debate goes far beyond the older generation saying 'they want everything without working for it' and the younger one saying 'they are doing things the old inefficient way'.
Listening to the other side is a crucial step to mutual understanding is the realization of what your company will inevitably look like in the very near future. Both sides can gain from youth's tech knowledge and previous generations' experiences.
The following video was created by the (brilliant) teacher and the 200 students in ANTH 200 : Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in.
The conclusions drawn are applied to the school system (that I also teach in) but most importantly, it should be clearly explained to future bosses and HR personnel. This is tomorrow's workforce, these students are your biggest assets and your ultimate threat.
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