Art Petty on Management

Vacation Reading

One of the biggest challenges that I face every vacation is trying to decide what I'm going to read.  Usually, I don't decide and I end up lugging 40 pounds of books with me just in case I might be in the mood for a certain work.  (Note: I know that the Kindle from Amazon will solve this problem...I just can't get beyond my "I don't buy the first generation of any consumer electronics" rule.)  Eventually, I thrift my choices down to a full duffel bag (for driving trips), and when my wife is not looking, I sneak a few additional volumes into someone else's bag or under the seat.  I guess I'm a book smuggler.

Here's the latest list of great reads that will make it into my traveling book bag this season: 

• The Glorious Cause, volume two in the Revolutionary War series by historical fiction writer, Jeff Shaara.  If you like historical fiction, you'll love Jeff.

• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement,  by Eliyahu Goldratt...a classic business novel and something I've been meaning to revisit for the last decade.

• Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.  I re-read this classic of objectivism every few years and it's time.

• A biography of one of the founding fathers to match up to Shaara's book.  I've always enjoyed pairing a good piece of historical fiction with the real thing.  It's kind of like Stilton Blue Cheese and a glass of vintage port...they just go together.

• Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch and Million Dollar Consulting by Alan Weiss...both authors and both books are must-reads for the independent professional and invaluable reference tools for me.

• Marketing Metaphoria by Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman.  A review of this one prompted my "Why Don't Managers Think Deeply" blog posting a few weeks ago. 

• The last two issues of Harvard Business Review.  In particular, the July/August issue is themed as "Honing Your Competitive Edge" and has some great looking articles.

I'm probably approaching a stuffed duffel bag of books at this point, so I'm pushing my luck (and the limits of my time), but if I can slide a couple under the back seat, they will be:

• Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the story of Lincoln's challenges and successes in managing his less than friendly cabinet.

• Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.  I started reading this unique take on the development of cultures and societies last year and got sidetracked.  It's been on my to-read list for some time and it's time to finish it. 

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I'll keep you posted on my progress and I'll look forward to the incredible material for blogging that I will gain from the list above.  I love great business books, but I've always believed that the best leadership and management material is found somewhere other than the business aisle in the bookstore.  I look forward to reporting back to you after vacation. 

Want to Kill a Few Brain Cells, (Try and) Read a Management Textbook

(Author's note: this post is filled with hasty generalizations and probably a few miscarriages of justice and judgment.  If you are in academia, read it at your own peril.)

I suspect that I might raise the ire of a few publishers and professors with this one, but oh well, life is short and some things just need to be said.  Of the many things that I am involved in, one of the newest and most enjoyable is teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels.  This has been a long-time goal of mine driven in large part by a number of great experiences and great instructors earlier in life.  You know the type of instructor that I'm talking about.  The ones we all remember are the educators that both created and satisfied intellectual curiosity, entertained and ultimately left an impression on us. 

And while I'm loving the experience, I can't help but observe that the textbooks are some of the most mind-numbing, coma-inducing products ever to emerge from Gutenberg's great creation.  In particular, the Management text in my Fundamentals of Management course this Spring is almost certain to drive the most interested of business majors to consider something more exciting like accounting or neurophysiology.   What a shame to take a noble and exciting and complicated topic like management and wrap a bunch of dead theories in-between some interesting case studies and let that suffice for something that is supposed to teach the fundamentals of management.  (Author's note: I didn't pick the text...it was pre-picked. I won't make that mistake again.)

I confess to being a bit over the top about business education.  I've spent a decade attending programs at Kellogg and I've never left a day long, week-long or year-long program without being filled with ideas, excitement and new found energy for the challenges ahead. (And now that I am teaching at several institutions, I aspire to have that impact on the participants in my classes.) I must have missed the memo that said that it is OK to inspire executives, but for undergraduates, we've got to test them by subjecting them to content that is almost certainly non-essential for success and most definitely, boring.

OK, in fairness to this unnamed textbook, words like strategy, management, market forces, Porter's Forces, leadership, innovation, information technology and many others that you would recognize as belonging to the field of management do appear.  However, it's downhill from there. 

I suppose the best cure is for me to write myself and I may.  I already co-wrote a leadership book that I now look at in a new light after struggling through the text's painful treatment of one of my favorite topics.  I'll stop my ranting now and offer a few suggestions for anyone considering writing about or teaching management to the future managers of the World. 

My suggestions for the ultimate management textbook (versus the one I had to teach from):

• Please skip the history of management theory development or at least condense it down to an interesting few pages. This is a great topic, and likely very important at a more advanced level, but not critical as an initial exposure to management.

• I do want to provide students with some context for the evolution of business and business models and how organizations and leaders have changed over time based on advances in technology and changes in society.  Good stuff and important context.

• Leadership...keep it practical and make certain that we do much more to highlight that leadership is a profession and a very complex, challenging and rewarding one at that.  You can skip the nonsensical debate and endless pages about the mind of a manager versus the mind of a leader.  They are one and the same person...dealing with different topics from tactics and operations to strategy and motivation.

• Speaking of strategy, please portray this powerful tool of leadership and engine for value creation as a dynamic process that involves an entire organization versus something that consists of SWOT and Porter's Forces analyses.  And don't forget execution.

• The section on HR reads like something developed by the Politically Correct Committee.  Please.  HR's role as a critical enabler of strategy through talent and systems and tools is much more exciting than whole sections on diversity and harassment.

• Hmmm, Information Technology as a subset of some other chapter is not going to cut it.  Again, we are talking about a critical enabler of strategy and a complex and constantly changing arena.

And so on...

The Bottom-Line for Now:

I'll stop here with a comment that now that I've thought about it, I don't know why a text is needed at all.  Staff the program with experienced business professionals and infuse the curriculum with readings and concepts from Welch, Charan, Maxwell, Day, Drucker, Collins, Churchill, Lincoln and Franklin and most issues of Harvard Business Review and call it The Joy of Management.  Hmmm, it just might work.  Remember, you heard it here first.

The Emerging and Strange Alliance Between Boomers and Millennials

If you are leading a team today, chances are you are dealing with one of the fascinating experiences of our time: how to manage teams increasingly comprised of aging Boomers and newly graduated Millennials.  Your first thought might be that you couldn't find two groups farther apart in terms of values, priorities, interests and capabilities. Well, your first thought is wrong.

On the surface, the evidence seems to support your case that Boomers and Millennials are polar opposites.  Consider:

• Millennials were practically born with a cell phone in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.  They are the most technologically sophisticated generation ever.  While some aging Boomers have embraced technology, for  a large number, many of the latest advancements are truly foreign.  Ask a Boomer to contact someone and they pick up a phone.  While the Boomer is dialing, the Millennial has texted and received an answer, scheduled a social engagement and made small talk about last night's game, all with their thumbs.

• Boomers have the benefits that accrue from age and experience.  They've forgotten more than the Millennials know about the big bad world, with much of this experience developed during some tumultuous times.

• Boomers have one eye on retirement and Millennials have both eyes on a bright future.

• Millennials are used to getting trophies just for participating and Boomers are used to working hard at thankless tasks.  Boomers have put in hard time in organizations that showed them the door without hesitation.  Millennials expect to start a job and be promoted within the first few months.

• Millennials want to work where and when they want and they are adamant that the conditions are right, the work interesting and that it not interfere with their inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness.  Boomers want....

It's at exactly this last point that the differences between these two generations begin to melt away with a unique and perhaps surprising alignment developing. Millennials and Boomers share many of the same life and career priorities.  Your understanding of this emerging alliance may prove critical as you increasingly deal with managing the generations in the years ahead.

For all of the reasons described above: long years in thankless jobs, falling victim to the lack of corporate loyalty and gaining experience through tough times and hard work, the Boomers can now afford to begin looking at life and career through different lenses.  As the tidal wave of demographic change starts to hit the workforce over the next few years, Boomers will increasingly require:

• Opportunities that allow them to work when and where they want

• Interesting assignment that leverage their vast experience

• Engagements that provide psychic and social rewards

• Flexibility driven by a high priority on social time.

• Varying experiences and short-term engagements where they can learn and grow while contributing.

Boomers and Millennials are almost in complete agreement on the above priorities, and while the cynics among us might be quick with "that's nice, but it's not reality," comment, it is most definitely going to be the new reality.  The demographic numbers don't lie and the world is not growing less complex. 

Over the next decade, organizations will increasingly struggle to bring the right talent to bear on executing complex and ever-changing strategies in this global world, and both the Boomers and Millennials are the source of that talent.  Enlightened organizations get this situation and are already creating systems and approaches to meet the needs of these critical groups.  Less enlightened organizations will be clubbed over the head by this issue in the not too distant future.

In the interim (between now and the exodus of the boomers), what's a manager to do?

Some Suggestions for Leveraging the Strange Boomer/Millennial Alliance:

• Create opportunities to leverage the experience of age and the energy of youth by blending project teams where the respective skills and energies spell success.

• Use judo on the age differences by openly encouraging Boomers to provide mentoring and guidance on career development and any of the broad areas in business that Boomers are experienced at.

• Encourage Millennials to educate Boomers on technology, current trends and social issues, and all of those issues that have changed so radically over the past few years.

• Create and celebrate victories regularly.  The Millennials expect the celebrations and the Boomers are overdue for a few trophies. 

• Embrace this new project-driven world, and provide Boomers with the flexibility to work when they want on projects that truly interest them.  Boomers as contract knowledge workers may be your secret weapon to success in the years ahead. 

• Get rid of the last vestiges of "I have to see someone to know that they are working."  There's still some of  this running around and it is silly. 

• Challenge the HR functions in organizations to enable this new alliance and to provide the systems and support necessary for virtual teams and projects and contract knowledge workers. Most of this doesn't fit the old HR model...and the model has to change. 

• Quit giving lip service to "people are our most important asset" and start living it.  (This is one of the most abused phrases in all of business...stop the abuse.)

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The great news is that for forward thinking managers and organizations, the availability of experienced talent has and will never be better.  The trick of course will be how to capture and benefit from all of that talent.  In my book, recognizing and leveraging the strengths of Boomers and Millennials is essential for success.  The Millennials will moderate over time (as happens with every generation) and the Boomers will ultimately fade into history.  However, for the here and now and for the next decade, managing the generations is one key to success. 

The Project Management Discipline of Strategy Execution

A number of months ago, I wrote about the benefit of applying professional project management practices to help improve strategy execution (Struggling with Strategy? Think Project Management).  While many view strategy as something that is transformational (and it often is), the fact is that an organization moves from where it is today to where it has decided to go one project at a time...like a football team marching down the field on a long-drive.

In the June, 2008 Harvard Business Review, in an article entitled The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution, Gary Neilson, Karla Martin and Elizabeth Powers add considerably to the body of knowledge on strategy execution, with this excellent article, backed by a considerable amount of research gained in surveys of over 1,000 organizations.  Their findings seem to support their thesis that: "enterprises fail at execution because they go straight to structural reorganization and neglect the most powerful drivers of effectiveness—decision rights and information flows."

A few key findings covered in the article:

• Employees at three out of five companies rated their organization weak at execution.  (Asked: Are Important strategic and operational decisions quickly translated into action?)

• The number one rated trait (by a landslide) that makes organizations effective at implementing strategy: Everyone has a good idea of the decisions and actions for which one is responsible.

• Of the top eight traits (17 were identified), five were tied to having effective and timely information flows and three were related to decision rights.

• Structure as an effective trait for driving strategy execution did not hit the  list until number 13, with a relatively low strength index rating. 

Fascinating. It's important to see a large body of research dedicated to the execution issue and it is a great learning experience to see how valuable information flows and decision rights are to successful strategy execution.

Additional Thoughts on Strategy Execution:

Structural changes, properly implemented at the right time and for the right reasons can go a long way towards addressing and improving the information flow, decision rights and collaboration issues that are so critical to strategy execution.  Don't write off structure as a powerful tool in strategy execution,  however as the authors highlight, don't jump to structure as the solution.  It's one part of many pieces to the solution.

Back to my strategy execution as project management thesis, the best performing project teams are characterized by clear structure, unambiguous roles, detailed communication plans and clear accountability for decisions and results.  Top notch Project Managers ride herd on these issues, seeking out points of confusion or gaps in information flows and fixing them in process.  

The fact that the authors are able to cite as a research finding that 3 out of 5 surveyed managers believe that their organizations do not quickly translate strategic priorities into action tells me that most of those organizations have not adopted a robust project management discipline for strategy execution. And while strategy is arguably more complicated than creating a new product or constructing a building, it is very possible to structure and manage your execution program using the same approaches. 

The bottom-line (for now):

Strategy execution is where value is created.  The best plans are worthless unless they are backed by a group of people that understand their roles and accountabilities and that have the information they need when they need for rapid decision-making.  Execution never takes place in a straight line and without setbacks.  In fact, the setbacks are powerful learning experiences that a good team will leverage as it adapts and responds to internal and external factors.

A large part of the solution in my opinion is treating execution like a high-order program comprised of a series of projects to be managed.  Ask a good Project Manager how to successfully pull of an execution program and I suspect they won't need to interview 1,000 companies. 

Yeah, "Why Don't Managers Think Deeply?"

There's an interesting post today in the Harvard Business Review Working Knowledge newsletter entitled "Why Don't Managers Think Deeply?"

Professor James Heskett highlights GE CEO Geoffrey Immelt's recent pronouncements that he is: looking for managers to think deeply about innovations that will ensure GE's longer-term success. He has vowed that he will protect those working on the breakthroughs from the "budget slashers" focused on short-term success.  (Professor Heskett also reviews the book Marketing Metaphoria and the perspectives of the authors: Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman on why managers don't think deeply.)

As I leader, I've wrestled with this topic for years, and have worked around and with many individuals perfectly content to let their days unfold in a transactional nature, with no time to think deeply or even strategically.  Days pass into months and months to years, and still these individuals prefer conquering the issue of the moment versus wondering whether they are even working on the right issues.

I look forward to learning more about what the Zaltmans have to say about this issue above and beyond what Professor Heskett highlights in his post when I read their book. For now, here are a few of my perspectives on why managers don't think deeply:

• Personal characteristics: some people are not great strategists but excellent operators and they focus on where they are most comfortable making a contribution. 

• Poor leaders above them that don't create the forums and opportunities to think big.  This fits with my strategy-fueled theme where in my opinion; the best leaders involve everyone in sharing insights and developing ideas for strategy.  This provides ample opportunity for individuals to contribute and teaches otherwise task-oriented people that it is OK to get out of the moment once in awhile.

• Bad personal time management habits.  Some managers like crossing off a bunch of lower-level, "C" priorities than focusing on one "A" priority.  This can be corrected.

• Fear of being accountable for something.  I worked with a sales manager that absolutely hated to work on anything beyond the deals of the month.  While his focus on results created some good outcomes for us, as the business changed and evolved, his ability to contribute dropped dramatically.  When it was said and done, he admitted that he was uncomfortable considering big changes when it was so hard to drive short-term results.

• Frustration with impediments to change.  If Immelt is imploring his people to innovate, the GE culture better darned well be willing to turn ideas into actions or the creative flow will shut down quickly.  I've observed cultures where the leader preaches change as the rest of the team nods and then proceeds to do nothing.

The bottom-line for now:

It's hard for most of us to think creatively on command.  Moving from a transactional model to a state of lateral or divergent thinking requires making and taking time.  As leaders, we can help improve and support Mr. Immelt's suggestion (hard to argue with the intent) by creating opportunities for the right types of discussions and by supporting the movement of ideas into actions, products and services.  Try holding your leaders accountable for creating a culture of innovation and then let them loose.  The results may surprise you.

The Leader's Challenge: Recognizing the Need for Change

Jack Welch, in his 2005 book, Winning, offers the following thoughts on change:

“For more than a decade, there has been a whole industry devoted to the topic (change), all of it selling pretty much the same line: change or die.  Well…it’s true.”

Mr. Welch also offers up the following advice in his usual, blunt style:  "You have to change, preferably before you have to."

I bring these quotes up because the other day I was asked to put together my thoughts for a talk at a gathering of community leaders in business, education and government on "How organizations can improve at recognizing the need to change."  The talk itself encompasses the full continuum of change issues, but my part is specifically focused around recognition.

I like this topic and think I it is brutally important to leaders and organizations regardless of whether they operate in the public or private sector.  I believe that it is important for organizations to develop competence at translating marketplace and macro-environmental changes into appropriate changes to better serve stakeholders.  No easy task, especially considering the "noise" that we all face in this era of accelerating change, time compression and growing complexity. 

I also think that improving an organization's ability to recognize the need for change, requires  an organization to improve in a number of areas that are essential for survival and success, namely leadership, strategy and execution.

First, A Few Thoughts On The Topic of Change:

• Change is a profound issue for most organizations, and a profoundly personal issue for people inside of organizations. 

• Most people are not wired to seek out change.  When talking about improving our ability to recognize the need for change, we are engaging in a tug-of-war with our nature.

• Leaders have the toughest job when it comes to change.  First, they have to ask and answer: "How should we change?" and then they have to succeed by gaining commitment from their organization on: "We should change."

• It's easy to overload on change.  There are ample opportunities for organizations to flail at the changing forces in our environments, never certain which ones are material or immaterial.

Organizations and People Have a Change IQ (Change Quotient)

It's hard to consider helping an organization improve their ability to recognize the need to change without taking into account that everyone and every organization has some predisposition towards the issue.  While there are a variety of perspectives on the topic of Change Quotient, a search will show common agreement on at least 3 components:

1. The ability to recognize the need for change: high change quotient leaders recognize the need to change before it is too late.

2. Understanding and mastering the change process: high change quotient leaders develop organizational competence at translating the need to change into actions that create value.

3. Emotional comfort with change: high change quotient leaders develop an inherent comfort with change based on their relative intelligence in components 1 and 2 above.

A number of practitioners offers assessments or audits to rate individuals and organizations on the three broad areas of Change IQ, I'll attempt a simple and practical audit for just #1, the ability to recognize the need for change.

Rating Your Organizations Change Recognition Quotient:

1. We have a current, clearly defined strategy.

2. Our employees would describe themselves as extremely comfortable in offering new ideas to our executives.

3. Our leaders (at all levels) are accountable for providing feedback on what they are learning about our
business and our customers.

4. Strategy meetings include individuals from all levels of the organization.

5. Someone or some group is responsible for external monitoring and report-back (market forces, trends, new advancements).

6. During the past year we have acted on something we learned externally by taking action to create a new
(program, product, service etc.).

7. We have an excellent understanding of how our customer's expectations for our offerings are changing.

8. Our offerings resonate with our customers so well that they practically sell themselves.

9. Strategy review and planning occurs multiple times per year.

10. We regularly engage in scenario discussions, where we imagine the impact of trends and forces on our business and on our customers.

11. Our employees would describe our approach to change as proactive.

12. We frequently have animated discussions on future directions.

13. New ideas come from people at all levels of the organization.

While I have yet to thrift these questions down and attach a scale, I would submit that a "strongly agree" answer to most of them would indicate a high Change Recognition Quotient score and a "strongly disagree" the opposite.   (I would love any input from readers on fine tuning the questions to create a viable Change Recognition Quotient survey.)

How Do We Improve Our Ability to Recognize the Need to Change?

I offer a number of "Best Practice" ideas for raising the effectiveness of an organization at recognizing the need for change.  These include:

Change your strategy habits.  Strategy is not an event, but a process and an effective strategy program incorporates ideas and insights from the broader organization (not just leaders).  Additionally, traditional tools (SWOT, Porters Forces etc.) often fall short in providing the level of depth you might need on change issues.  Consider scenario planning, even at a basic level (best case, worst case, continuation of current state) as a tool to inspire lateral thinking about your business and how forces might impact you.

Change your strategy communication habits.  Everyone in an organization must pass the "Walk In the Door" test, which simply means that as a person shows up to work, they understand very clearly how their priorities tie into the organization's strategic priorities.

Get your organization talking candidly.  Whether you call it robust dialogue or candid conversations, everyone at every level of an organization must be comfortable in providing ideas and insights on tough issues without fear of reprisal.  Many cultures are not like this, and moving from a less than candid or a collegial environment to one where the tough issues are fair game for everyone, is a significant leadership challenge.

Create forums for ideas and insights to be exchanged.  Make certain that the dialogue of the organization is about the marketplace, about customers and that it includes a lot of "What if?" and "Why don't we?" types of discussions.

Get leadership on the same page regarding their role in facilitating dialogue.  If you are at the top of the leadership chain, this is your job.  Your leaders must understand the importance of identifying the right change opportunities, and they need to carry this message and requisite behaviors to their reports and teams.

Establish accountability for turning insights into actions.  Ultimately, you need to do something that creates value for your customers through change, so teams have to learn when to stop talking and start acting.  As a leader, you must encourage your organization to develop the protocols for implementing ideas and then reinforce both the victories and the losses as part of the learning process.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

If you are intent on maintaining and developing an organization that contributes to society, grows and runs profitably, the need for or possibility of change is omnipresent.  The good news is that as a leader there are many ways for institutionalizing the recognition for the need to change.  The better news is that improving in this area requires you to improve in the ways that your organization fundamentally creates value.  I prefer to turn "Change or Die" into "Change and Prosper." 

Some Great Insights at the Latest Carnival of Human Resources

Check out Jon Ingham's Strategic Human Capital blog for the latest Carnival of Human Resources and some global perspectives on on compelling issues in managing and leading.  Thanks to Jon for featuring one of my recent posts.  

Did Anyone Get the Memo on How to Act During a Slowdown?

You don't have to look hard to learn about the impact of rising fuel costs, including layoffs, plant closings, cutbacks, service reductions, fare hikes and new user fees.  These headlines and many more just like them blare from the tv and radio or jump out at us from the front pages of our morning newspapers.  However, what really amazes me is how hard you have to work to find examples of companies and leaders that received and read the memo on surviving, improving and even prospering during periods of economic difficulty.

I wrote about this topic a number of months ago (How Good Leaders Approach a Recession) suggesting that the best leaders take advantage of business cycle slowdowns to improve their organizations and set the stage for growth as conditions improve.  While I don't recall for certain, I suspect that I might have even suggested that it is possible for truly enlightened organizations to take advantage of the situation by flogging their competitors who are acting as if a slowdown means going out of business.  If I didn't mention it previously, consider it said: You can grow and advance during a recession.

The Airline Industry: How Not to Act:

The airline industry is generating a fair amount (bad pun intended) of the air time (another bad pun, sorry!) on bad news.  Rapidly rising fuel costs are further devastating the already not-for-profit U.S. airline industry, driving the companies to cut flights, cut employees, cut planes, reduce services, hike fares, add all sorts of new user fees in an attempt to survive.  While I never begrudge anyone the right steps to deal with costs, it seems that the net impact of most of the actions is to take one of the most miserable experiences that a human can go through (next to prison) and make it worse.  In the words of one of my favorite people on the planet..."We have a plan, it's not going to work, but we're going to do it anyway."

Hey airline industry, what about taking some steps to try and do something radical like offer something that encourages people to fly.  You've proven that punishing us with horrible service, uncomfortable equipment and extra fees for luxuries like checked baggage or rescheduling our flights don't work.  Why not Tune In to your buyers and offer us opportunities and experiences that surprise and delight?  Imagine,  trying to lure customers with something positive.  Radical.

Rumor has it one of the major carriers is working on rolling out a host of incentives that focus on providing consumers with good reasons to happily fill their planes.  Southwest figured this formula out a long time ago, and in my opinion, their current commercials mocking the fees of the other airlines by showing passengers inserting quarters for things like reclining a seat, accessing the restroom or opening the overhead luggage compartment, are brilliant.   Just like Apple has single-handedly rebranded Microsoft as a clumsy, lumbering, out-of-touch company with the "I'm a Mac" commercials, Southwest is showcasing how asinine the rest of the industry is acting.

Bottom Line: Other Thoughts on Prospering During a Slowdown in Any Industry

I didn't mean to make this a rant on the airline industry, but with 1 million air miles, most on United, I've earned the right to vent just a little.  Some other thoughts for leaders, managers and concerned corporate citizens everywhere:

• Thump your competitors if they'll let you. If your competitors are responding to a slowdown by acting like they are preparing to shrink, launch a frontal assault and seek to grab customers while the grabbing is good.

• Give us reasons to buy, not avoid your product or service. Offer positive encouragement. If you own airplanes you want butts in seats and if you make cars, you want the same.  Help us solve our problems and offer us some good reasons to take that vacation or consider you when we need a new car.

• Be positive.  Manage the flow of noise from your organization to ensure that it is weighted in the right direction.

• Create experiences for your customers that "surprise and delight." 

• Monitor what's happening in places where your customers come to buy.  (Home Depot, you lost my lawn tractor purchase last week, because no one in your store would take the time to talk to someone clearly ready to buy.)

• Topgrade your team.  The right people make you great.  The wrong people have you punishing your customers and sewing the seeds of your own demise. 

• Plan and act to prepare for improving conditions.  Prune your project portfolio to those that are most strategic and support them to the hilt!

My next assignment is to seek out examples of companies actually doing some of these things.  If you've got some examples, let us know.  I have to stop typing  now, I've finally reached the ticket counter and I need to pull out my credit card to pay for: the baggage fee, my flight change and my fuel surcharge.  Uh oh, the ticket agent looks angry. And oh yeah, I need a few singles for the bag of peanuts on the flight. 

 

Tuning In to Leadership (and much more) With A Great New Book

One of the highlights of the past few months has been the opportunity to gain some early insight into the forthcoming new book, Tuned In, by Phil Myers, Craig Stull and David Meerman Scott. 

I'm excited about this book on a number of levels.  In a pre-release article about the book, Phil, Craig and David make a promise to readers that they will show us an approach to finding "overlooked marketplace problems that, if solved, bring in customers who willingly buy your products and services without being coerced." 

From my discussions with Phil and from reading the article and advance materials, I am confident that this promise will be more than kept, offering some much needed guidance for executives and marketers looking to create offerings that resonate with buyers.  After 22 years leading high tech marketing teams, I couldn't help but ask myself, "Where was this book was all those years when I needed it?"  Well, it's here now, or at least almost here, and marketers everywhere will be well served to read and apply the well-researched and well-developed ideas and approaches in this fascinating and practical new book.

Tuned In presents a six-step process for creating a resonator: "a product or service that so perfectly solves problems for buyers that it sells itself."  The examples, approaches and ideas for realizing resonators and for supporting the creation of an organizational culture that institutionalizes the requisite thinking and processes are the heart of the work. The steps: find unresolved problems, understand buyer personas, quantify the impact, create breakthrough experiences, articulate powerful ideas and establish authentic connections offer powerful and practical guidance for marketers and executives everywhere. 

Valuable Guidance for Leaders in Tuned In:

We all read and relate to ideas through the filters of our own experiences, and as I've immersed myself in writing, speaking, training and teaching on all things leadership during the past few years, I've started to view the world through the eyes of how great leaders at all levels transform organizations. The Tuned In tagline reads: "Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs," The breakthrough for me personally from this book is the perhaps unintended but powerful framework that emerges for creating and sustaining the leadership culture necessary to realize a Tuned In organization.

During the research for my book, Practical Lessons in Leadership, my co-author, Rich Petro, and I came away from hundreds of hours of interviews with the perspective that most leaders do not operate with a holistic view of what leadership is supposed to deliver to an organization.  Tuned In helps solve that problem by offering clear context for the role and priorities of leaders at all levels as they pursue creating breakthrough experiences for their customers.

The Top Priorities of a Tuned In Leader:

• Creating the environment (atmosphere) necessary for individuals and teams to be comfortable and confident to take the risks and pursue the actions needed to identify and realize offerings that resonate.

• Bringing together individuals and teams with the talents, skills attitudes and sense of adventure needed to succeed as a business that is constantly searching for unresolved problems and applying the discipline needed to turn those into resonators.

• Ensuring that expectations and performance are defined, communicated and measured against customer and market standards, not just internal or competitor standards.   Inherent in this activity is establishing a new way of measuring performance that aligns with the Tuned In Process. 

• Developing his or her leadership credibility by ensuring that words and actions match and ensuring that associates receive the mentoring, feedback and developmental opportunities needed to grow and to pursue new and greater tasks.

• Constantly searching for, identifying and supporting the development of formal and informal leaders.

• Fostering an environment that encourages action-focused debate at all levels, across all functions up and down the leadership chain.

Armed with these priorities, Tuned In leaders, from the CEO to the front-line managers have a clear view of how they should invest their time and focus their energy.  These items define the job descriptions of leaders at all levels and help guide the development of To-Do lists across the organization. There is no wiggle room for misalignment on these activities as an organization seeks to create offerings that resonate and surprise and delight buyers with great experiences. 

The Bottom Line for Now:

Phil, Craig and David in Tuned In offer a pragmatic and effective approach for creating and sustaining success, regardless of the size or style of organization. Building on their framework, a Tuned In approach to leadership will help institutionalize the approaches and practices that they advocate.

You can and should read the book for the practical and actionable framework on creating value, but the richest veins of gold here for me are the ideas that the authors prompt for reshaping and invigorating our leadership habits.

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Join me for a webinar on Tuned In Leadership this Friday, June 13th at 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. PDT

Preventing Product Launch Failure: Watch Out for the Pitfalls!

G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Viton writing in the Innovation Engine column at  BusinessWeek online, offer a sobering look at the Ten Reasons Your Next Launch Will Fail.   From the propensity of companies to create solutions for unknown problems (Science Run Amok) to the recurring theme of teams convincing themselves that they can't miss (Death by Consensus), this insightful and witty column offers some priceless guidance for marketers, product and project managers and executives everywhere. 

Having been on the winning side of some great launches and the losing side of a few spectacular failures in the B2B tech world, I can relate to the problems that Michael and Raphael describe all too well.  Some thoughts based on my own experience:

• The Swiss Army Knife or Requirements Run Amok Product: This one finds erstwhile Product Managers (usually unseasoned) working hard to pack every possible feature into an offering in the naive believe that this Swiss Army Knife approach will create a stronger offering.  They did not understand their buyer's problems/challenges sufficiently, and they over-specified to compensate.

• The Offering Just Slightly Ahead of Its Time:  Yep, I made this mistake.  As Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much."  Followed by, "Sorry about that Chief."  By now, drinks were supposed to be poured by a Drink Tower robot in Quick Service Restaurants everywhere, saving a veritable fortune in labor and improving time efficiency.  My Drink Tower interface from the Point-Of-Sale system burned a lot of time and money.  It was really cool in the one site that actually tested a drink tower in 1996.  I hear that there are a few more sites now.

• The "We'll Release No Product Before It's Time, Except This One" Launch: This launch failure usually involves a management team that built their budget around a new product launch, only to see schedule delays cut into their nicely developed sales dream.  Pressured by the urgency of the situation and the upcoming Board meeting, a watered-down version of the product is launched and you can guess what ensues. 

• The Product that Won't Be Born: OK, maybe this is a cheap shot, but it's my column, and I get to offer at least one gripe to a development team or two that couldn't get its act together.  It's not always the Product Manager's fault!

The bottom-line for now:

Like the forward pass in football, there are a lot of things that can go wrong and only one thing that can go right: the pass is caught and the product launch is successful.   Successfully launching products requires the organization to be Tuned In to their buyers.  Solving a vexing problem in a unique way for a distinct group is a great starting point.  Creating the culture, systems and approaches requisite for a successful launch requires committed, focused leadership at all levels of the organization.  Establishing a high level of competence in product launch is table stakes for success in a world where opportunities are fleeting and  and product life cycles shrinking daily. 

Hmmm, now, if 5,000 locations save .2 people due to the automatic drink tower, the savings will be worth millions.  I wonder if it's time to re-launch that puppy?  I suspect that Michael and Raphael would advise against it.