Inspiration and Hope: Encouraging Sound Bites in a Challenging World

March 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

There’s enough negative going around.  Here’s a few worth reading that will leave you thinking and maybe even feeling a bit more upbeat.

I’ll Have Fries with that Strategy and Please Pass the Data

Students of strategy and performance excellence might want to take a closer look at how McDonald’s is using leadership, strategy, customer relations and information to successfully beat back the economic doldrums.

I’ve found it easy to ignore this nearly ubiquitous chain as our family has moved a good decade beyond the Happy Meal phase and as I’ve concluded that my calorie quota cannot afford anything in this class of restaurants.

However, a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, entitled: McDonald’s Seeks Ways to Keep Sizzling,” has renewed my interest.  The article offers some good insights into doing things right at a time when most competitors are struggling with shrinking consumer purchasing power. 

Highlights:

  • A senior leadership culture that overtly emphasizes finding good people and providing them room to do their thing, the article showcases.
  • The firm’s bold and disruptive (to Starbucks) push into coffee.
  • A relentless focus on cutting operating costs by improving efficiency without adversely impacting quality and customer perceived value.
  • Investments in new store infrastructure at a time when most might hold off. 
  • Effective use of the system-wide investment in automation for business and consumer intelligence to grab data, monitor operations and trends and make appropriate merchandising and cost decisions in near real-time.

Regardless of whether your business involved food of the fast variety (McDonald’s prefers to call it Quick Service), there are some great “nuggets” for you in how this global giant is navigating the downturn. 

Oh, I might just have to stop by and see if the rumors of good coffee are true. 

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Innovation Please:

For an extended dose of hope and encouragement, check out the March issue of Fast Company, where the focus is on the world’s most innovative companies. 

I love editor Robert Safian’s “One Hundred and Fifty Nine Reasons (pages) to Cheer” theme and his observation that: “the one incontrovertible truth about this era: only creativity and aggressive innovation in the face of hardship and layoffs and seriously tough choices will fuel a turnaround.”  While I might call that “effective leadership,” I won’t quibble with Mr. Safian’s conclusion. 

My advice, read this one in small sound-bites on a daily basis and let the ideas and examples of the many innovative companies sink-in, rattle around and prompt some thoughts of your own. 

Articles ranging from new product development to fresh perspectives on emerging markets as innovation incubators and the art of setting of modest goals are just a few of the many great and thought-provoking reads here. While it is easy to grow weary of “list” type articles, there are just too many good examples to ignore.

On a side note, I’ve enjoyed Fast Company since its inception in the dot.com boom of the late 90’s, when every issue was jammed full of cutting edge articles and cutting edge ads.  It was cool (best word I can think of) to read and feel like you were a part of the Fast Company community, just like it is to be a part of the Apple community today.  While not attuned to the current financial status of this publication, given the times we are living in and the editorial focus on finding firms and people pushing the envelope, it might just be in vogue to be part of this community once again.

The Bottom Line: 

Take a note from the post today and spread some “can do” and “here’s how they are doing it” wisdom today.  Get people thinking “What if?” and then get them focused on talking and trying and creating.  Safian is right.  Creativity and innovation will fuel the turnaround.  If McDonald’s can get it, so can your firm. 

Filed Under: Crisis Leadership, Decision-Making, Leadership, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Right Stuff: Sprinting Towards the Future

February 20, 2009 By 1 Comment

It’s easy to focus on the bad news.  Everyone’s talking about it.  We’re bombarded with news flashes and human disaster stories as the layoffs mount and the foreclosures climb.  And make no doubt about it, these are tough times, but let’s start giving some coverage to the firms, leaders and entrepreneurs that have turned off the news channels and are too busy building or rebuilding to worry about the dire forecasts.

For a good dose of “can do” spirit, get out of your office and go talk with some smart people working to strengthen, build or start businesses.  I’m doing just that as I work with a colleague to gain market feedback for a new business venture that we are considering. 

We’re talking with the best battle-hardened, seasoned executives and operators that we can find.  The type that would have no qualms telling us that our baby is ugly. So far, they’ve highlighted a few flaws, but no one is using the U-word.

The great by-product of these discussions is the insights we are gaining into people and firms and their approaches to working and building while too many other people preoccupy on failure. 

Here are a few themes of success we are hearing from people that are sprinting towards the future instead of hiding from the present:

-Savvy operators see opportunities to out execute their skittish competitors and are strengthening every part of their firm, from people to processes, and focusing on driving results that will translate to growth.  The lack of a rising tide is actually exciting to these operators.  It’s an opportunity to pick up talent, gain customers and gain market share that will fund future investment and growth. 

-The smart firms in the venture community have a new formula: build to sustain.  Instead of the traditional model which was buy low, pump up and sell high as quickly as possible, the smartest operators are embracing the new reality by backing their firms with the best experts that money can buy and those experts are helping the firms improve execution around core tasks like development, product management and marketing.  Instead of the former oversight & badger model, the venture firms are taking responsibility to support strengthening in areas that will create value for years to come. In the words of one leader, “this is hard work, but worth it.”  

-Other entrepreneurs see remarkable opportunities in the application of new technologies to helping people manage their lives. From the Trunk Club for Men that I am now a proud customer of, where technology meets, expertise, meets convenience for men’s fashions, to new devices and programs underway to help millions of people manage difficult health problems, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and excited about the potential.

-In chatting with the great professionals at Construx , a leader in advancing best practices in software development effectiveness, one gets the impression that what they offer is more valuable and more in demand than ever.  Their recent announcement allocating 25% of the seats in their open-enrollment workshops at no-charge to unemployed developers is both a testament to the firm’s values (I’m a former customer and got to see these values first-hand) and a remarkable gesture to support the continuing education of industry professionals.  Face it, it’s also a brilliant way to strengthen people’s allegiance to the firm. No momentarily unemployed developer will ever forget Construx’s help.

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I like what I am seeing and hearing.  The focus on operational execution underscores the need to focus on procuring and strengthening talent. 

The “run to sustain” model takes into account the new formula for creating value…which is of course the same one as the old model that we keep forgetting in a “mania-a-decade” world.

The focus on looking at today’s crises and creating solutions to either eliminate or to help manage is just great business. 

Hey Leader, Your Baby is Ugly

I can’t complete this piece without looping back to the reality faced inside many firms.  I talk with and teach hundreds of great professionals through workshops and in classes and what I continue to hear is that YOU (leader) don’t get it.  The nightmare stories of poor execution, misalignment, missed opportunities and waste are coming from people that want to help and fix, not people that relish the opportunity to complain. 

Try listening to your people and then try freeing them up to save your skin before throwing them into the street.  If someone has to go, throw yourself out first.  Of course, you probably don’t have the courage to do that, so focus on my first suggestion.

The Bottom-line for now:

Next week I travel to The Data Warehouse Institute’s World Conference to deliver my workshop on Leadership for Technical Professionals.  The pre-enrollment numbers are great, and I view this as a sign that everyone…even the most creative and brilliant of our technical professionals are seeking opportunities to grow and contribute.  I’ll also be looking and listening for more signs of success.  While the storm in our economy is nasty, I like the forecast just a little bit more with every conversation.  

Filed Under: Crisis Leadership, Leadership, Leading Change, Surviving Lousy Leaders Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

October 2, 2008 By 1 Comment

Students of business history might recognize the quote above as coming from Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company and one of the early management innovators.  Mr. Ford’s quote raises a profound issue of when and how to listen to customers, or perhaps the more challenging flip side: when not to listen to customers.

The notion of not asking customers what they want and responding directly to their needs may seem like heresy to those individuals and organizations consumed with improving customer satisfaction and creating customer loyalty.  In fact, you should always listen and importantly, observe.  The real art in this process is understanding what customers really need, what problems they really would like to solve and what approaches and experiences that you can create that can surprise and delight them.

Harvard Professor, Clayton Christensen, seized upon this issue in his Innovator’s Dilemma/Innovator’s Solution books, where he suggests that a well-intentioned business may do everything right by listening and responding to customer requests, and ultimately fail as disruptive offerings upset the status quo.  

In my own work in the technology space over the past two decades, it is easy to look back at product development cycles driven by a never-ending desire to cram in customer-driven features, without a good understanding of why those features were needed and whether they were solving key problems or attacking symptoms.  It always felt like we were doing the right thing, but in hindsight, it was blind marketing. As Product Management systems improved and requirements development received more scrutiny, this situation improved.  Nonetheless, it is hard to see how the forest is changing when you are staring so intently at the trees. 

Christensen’s classic scenario is the company that dutifully enhances its offerings based on client input, ultimately creating bloated offerings with capabilities far exceeding what might be required of many or any buyers.  In the interim, a disruptive offering…something perhaps with fewer features and priced much lower (not always the case) can easily swoop in and…well, disrupt the market.  In essence, the well-managed, well-intentioned company created a vacuum that was filled by someone who understood the essence of the client’s problems…not just the features they were asking for.  (Think “Faster Horses” versus a new mode of transportation.)

The authors of the recent book, Tuned In, tackle this important topic by suggesting that a firm focus on developing Resonators, products or services that practically sell themselves.  Their six step process for creating a resonator and for Tuning In is in my opinion, a framework for avoiding the Innovator’s Dilemma that Christensen warns us about.

The design firm Ideo in their famous Deep Dive segment on ABC News showcase a process for design innovation that is what you might imagine a sociological dig would look like, as they follow and observe the various “buyers” of shopping carts in pursuit of understanding how this classic device could be grossly improved to better solve real problems.  While there is a fair amount of criticism of the “made for TV” nature of this episode, it offers some classic lessons in looking and observing to identify significant and perhaps even disruptive improvements.  Just asking a store manager or a customer about what they would like to see improved in their shopping cart may be insufficient for identifying what a shopping cart might actually be able to do.  Think cell phones and the iphone. 

The Bottom Line for Now:

My message here is intended as a cautionary tale.  It is good and right and noble to pursue increasing levels of customer satisfaction in your framework for operational excellence.  However, it is also easy to be misled by false signals, and sometimes those signals come from your customers.  Remember, they know you in a narrow context, so when they engage with you to talk about improving the Widgets that you make, they are thinking about you only as the Widget Company and as users of your widgets.  Their context is to give you ideas to improve your widgets. Just remember that it is quite possible that they don’t need a better widget or a faster horse. 

You need to build the institutional intelligence, the systems and of course the talent that truly focuses on understanding the unstated needs of buyers.  Of course, once you understand this, the real work of meeting and exceeding those needs as an organization begins. 

Filed Under: Decision-Making, Marketing, Product Management, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Towards an Independent Product Management Organization

March 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Product Management’s position in the organization is a topic that invites vigorous debate, usually around whether marketing or development should own the function. (Follow the posts, links and comment threads starting at On Product Management for some other perspectives.) While any debate about optimal organization structure can sound a lot like the radio and television sports shows where people argue fiercely over the greatest running back or quarterback of all time (there is no one right answer!), the PM issue merits some consideration.  Of course, the right answer may be, "It depends."

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Filed Under: Product Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,