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CAN vs. SHOULD: How to Choose the Right Problem to Fix [A Call To Action]

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There is no shortage of problems to fix.  They’re everywhere:

Personal: I’m out of shape. I don’t read enough. I need to get my side project off the ground.

Work: My reports take too long to produce.  We are losing market share.  I have too many projects and not enough time.

Humanity: Water shortages. Climate change. Income disparity.

We have to start somewhere.  Where do people usually start?  They start with something they can fix…something easy, do-able, a “quick win.”

But – there is another way to choose where to start.  The other choice is to work on the things we should fix. Should means we don’t think about how hard it would be.  We look only at the impact it will have.

Think about the big projects you’re working on now, at home, and at work.  List them all.

Are you working on them because they can be fixed?

Or are you working on them because they should be?

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Let’s illustrate the difference between solving problems that can be solved vs. ones that should be solved.

Hypothesis: a large percentage of our smartest, most entrepreneurial people are working on stupid things…because they CAN fix them (and they CAN make money quickly).

Evidence: there are 12 (that’s TWELVE) companies that are focused on delivering booze to you.  (Probably there are twenty more pitching venture capitalists right now.)

What’s their mission statement? Get all the world’s lazy people drunk?  Is that something we should be working on?

How many more entrepreneurs are focused on solving “problems” of convenience?  Is this the system problem we should be working on: allowing people to be as lazy as possible?

As a species, we are massive, incredible challenges. Fortunately, we are in a technical, scientific, and entrepreneurial renaissance.

Ray Kurzweil described a phenomenon that shows our technology and capability as a species advances as a quadratic function — a runaway train of progress.

Anecdotal example: Deep blue — the 1998 IBM supercomputer that bested then world-champion chess player Gary Kasparov and stood taller than a person — is 10% as powerful as the smartphone in your pocket.  That’s several orders of magnitude of improvement in 20 years.

Data-driven example: It cost $100,000,000 to map a genome in 2000. Now it costs $1000.  (That’s a big improvement.  Like, really, really big)

All of this new capacity and ability…how can we use it?

30% of the food we produce is wasted.  We spend an incredible amount of water and oil to produce food…and then an equally incredible amount of water an oil incinerating that same food. This is a system problem.

All therapeutic drugs are essentially developed with lots and lots of trial and error.  How can we crowdsource solutions to develop these therapies faster?  How can we turn cancer research into an MMORPG (or the science version…massively multiplayer online science)?  This is a system problem.

Shouldn’t we be working on these problems?

Entrepreneurs: I beseech you.  We know you can make money.  Please make what should be worked on at the core of what you choose to do.

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Donald Schon was a professor at MIT in the 90s.

Dr. Schon makes this observation: what can be worked on and what should be worked on is a dilemma all professionals face.  Especially academics.

Academics like neat problems that wrap themselves up in neat equations and fold their napkins and excuse themselves from the table and never have more than one drink at a party.

Professionals know these problems don’t exist.  Professional problems happen in the real world.  They are rowdy, drunk hooligans.  Real problems slap you in the face.  They throw up on your shoes.

Here is Dr. Schon’s more eloquent characterization (emphasis mine):

In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground overlooking a swamp. On the high ground, manageable problems lend themselves to solution through the use of research-based theory and technique. In the swampy lowlands, problems are messy and confusing and incapable of technical solution.

The irony of this situation is that the problems of the high ground tend to be relatively unimportant to individuals or to society at large, however great their technical interest may be, while in the swamp lie the problems of greatest human concern. The practitioner is confronted with a choice. Shall he remain on the high ground where he can solve relatively unimportant problems according to his standards of rigor, or shall he descend to the swamp of important problems where he cannot be rigorous in any way he knows how to describe?

So…

Do you decide to work on a problem because it has a solution?

Or do you decide to work on a problem because it SHOULD BE SOLVED?

(Here is a link to Dr. Schon’s brilliant piece which I recommend you read in its entirety).

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I’m not saying that everyone should be working on fixing climate change, or curing cancer, or some other giant problem.  (although, would that be so bad?)

Surely, there are things at your job that you know should be fixed.  You can probably think of 10 right now.  You can ask your colleagues and get 100 more.

Working on things that should be fixed is hard.  It can take a long time.  The path forward is unclear.  And scariest of all: there is no guarantee you can fix it.

In other words: not all problems that can be fixed, should be fixed…and not all problems that SHOULD be fixed, CAN be fixed.

To fix them you have to be brave.  You have to be creative.  You have to have lots of ideas because most of them won’t work.

You have to accept that working on something that SHOULD be fixed will not create a crisp, satisfying feeling, like when you snap the final piece into a puzzle, or hit “send” on that report you spent 4 days on, or finish taking your final exam and get your degree.

Nope.

Satisfaction in working on problems that SHOULD be fixed comes not from the result, but from the process of fixing the thing.

But here’s the good news: No matter what you work on, results show up sporadically, occasionally…but the process of striving for results happens every hour of every day.

Here’s more good news: Those at the peak of their profession revel not in the results they achieve, but in the process of achieving it.  This is why so many toil in obscurity for extended periods (or maybe forever).

Work is the process, not the result.

Do you want satisfaction every day at work?  Do you want to be at the peak of your profession? Do you want to be the person that drives your business into its future?

Here’s my 3-step process:

  • Find the problems that should be fixed.  
  • Find a lot of other smart people.  
  • Get to work.

Change One Thing. Hire the Best People.

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HOORAY

You’ve done the research. Background checks. Interviews. Exams.

You’ve talked to friends. Colleagues. Advisers. Your parents.  Your pets.

But there are still nagging doubts.  How do you know you’ve found the right person?  I mean…how do you KNOW?

You don’t know. And that’s ok, because you can’t know.

…Or can you?

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Why do people fail at jobs?  Why do people fail at all?

There are lots of reasons. But there is one reason that is pervasive. This reason is pervasive because it’s unavoidable…it’s as unavoidable as the passage of time.

Before we depend on someone to do something for us, we need them to convince us they’re “qualified.” Convincing others – or ourselves – we’re “qualified” is what causes us to fail.

That’s because convincing someone you can do something is completely different than actually doing the thing itself (share this). 

Consider: People run campaigns before they get elected to office to become politicians.

What makes a great campaigner?

The great campaigner revels in the spotlight.  The great campaigner is an expert at reducing complexity with soundbites…digestible, repeatable catch phrases.  A great campaigner builds a tribe….like-minded individuals who feed on one another.

The great campaigner is a master of manipulating emotion. It is on a groundswell of emotion that their political wave is built.

And so – the great campaigner gets elected.  Does being a great campaigner qualify them to be a great politician?

Nope. Being a great campaigner does not qualify you to be an effective politician.  In fact…the best campaigners are the LEAST qualified to hold office.

What makes someone an effective politician? Here’s what I found:

Careful listening.  Consensus building.  Leadership of peers through influence.  Understanding of the governmental bureaucracy.  Clear judgement in the face of complexity.  Finding compromise, and bridging different – often equally valid – opinions on a subject.

Are there any other examples where being “qualified” doesn’t predict success?

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Qualifications are a proxy for time machines.  If a person has achieved some qualification, we conclude they can do a certain job.  And that can be true.  But these things are also true:

  • A person without a qualification can often do jobs as well as – or better than – people with them.  What’s the most common qualification for any corporate job?  A college degree.  Here’s 100 multi-millionaires without college degrees, including Richard Branson, Zuck, Bill Gates, etc.
  • In fact, Google doesn’t really care about college degrees or other traditional qualifications.
  • Qualified people often can’t do a job.  That could be for any number of reasons.  A big one is simply that time passes.  My master’s thesis was called “Design and Implementation of a Signal Interface System for Optimal Control of 3-Phase Motors.”  If you didn’t understand that…don’t worry.  I don’t either, and I wrote it.  (Don’t hire me to optimize your three phase motors.)

So…if qualifications can’t predict success, then what can?  How can you hire the best person?  How can you set them – and yourself, as their manager depending on them to deliver something – up for success?

To hire the best, change your focus from the past to the future (share this).

Don’t focus on qualifications.  Qualifications document the past.  Your focus is on the future – the job that needs doing.

How do you think of your own ability?  It’s not simply “the things you’ve done.”

Your ability = applying the things you’ve done to the things you’re about to do (share this).  That’s what you need to evaluate in your candidate.

I try to keep these three things in mind:

  • The Hard Skills.  Evaluate  the actual job that needs doing.  Are you hiring an analyst?  Ask them to analyze something…if possible, an actual problem you’re trying to fix.  Are you hiring a sales person? Put them in front of a customer.  Get creative and ask for help.
  • The Soft Skills. Who’s doing the job and killing it right now?  Think broadly across your whole network, not just in your company…or your industry.  Talk to that person.  Buy them dinner.  If they drink, buy them at least 3 of whatever they like.  Understand why they’re so successful.  How do they build consensus?  How do they lead through influence? How do they make decisions?
  • The Motivation. What motivates the person? What will have them boot up their machine on a Friday night because that’s the thing they most want to do?  Are they a problem / puzzle solver? Do they love thrilling users and having people depend on them for critical functions?  Is it the pursuit of money? Fame and notoriety?  Find this out – and find out if your job can provide it.

The outcome of this analysis should be: a person with the skills you need, who is like the best in the industry, that is motivated to deliver.

Did the last person you hired check those three boxes?  Did you check them before you accepted your current job? Would things be different if you did?

What do you do to make sure you’re hiring the best?

 

This is the Fastest — and Only — Way to Make Change Happen at Your Company.

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What is the only reason why some ideas work, and others don’t?

I think the answer is simple: Belief.

Not agreement, or consensus, or endorsement.

Belief.

Yes, there are other factors (what are they? Can you come up with ten?), but I think this single factor — belief — eclipses all others.

Belief is what happens when someone else weaves some part of you into their own fabric. They change themselves in some way as a result of you.

Belief doesn’t drive someone to complete a task. It drives someone to reframe how they complete every task, every day.

Do you believe in your company?

Does your team believe in you?

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What is belief? Is it important?  Why?

Let’s think about belief and make some observations.

Observation 1] Getting people to *believe* in things is hard. 

Think about some common beliefs.  If someone believes in a religion, or a management philosophy, or that college is important, or that dogs are better than cats…it is possible to get them to change their belief, but it’s hard.

That’s probably good, because I think beliefs are very durable and valuable things.

Why are beliefs important and valuable?  Because they give you a framework for how you interact with the world.  They help you process information and make decisions.  If you changed them all the time, you’d be confused all the time.  You’d lack focus, waste time, analyze endlessly, and not progress.

If you believe college is important: you’ll study hard and do things that will look good on a college application.

If you don’t think college is important: you’ll do things over that same period of time with no regard to a college education…instead, you’ll do things in service of whatever else you believe (a trade, or learning to code without college, etc).

Both beliefs can provide excellent paths forward.  If you flip-flopped between “college” and “no college” every 6 months, you’d have no focus.  You wouldn’t accumulate meaningful experience or qualifications.  You’d have no path forward.

So, that’s one definition of belief: A system of values that clarify your path forward.  Which leads me to…

Observation 2]  Beliefs provide a justification for making a choice.  It’s WHY you do something.

Belief = passion.  Passion is what drives action.  This is true in your personal life.  It’s why people run marathons.  It’s why people go to comic-con.  It’s why some people would rather be homeless than give up their dream of being a musician, or actor, or professional rock climber.

Why would it be any different in a business?

The answer is that it’s not.  

So if you want someone to change what they’re doing, they msut become passionate about the new thing.  They must understand why.

Observation 3] Just as people have beliefs, so do companies.

A company’s beliefs are also known as “mission statements” or “visions” or “strategy” or “guiding principles” or “leadership principles” or “management framework” (I have literally heard it called all these things, I’m sure there’s 100 more names, but they’re all the same thing).

Google’s most famous core belief is “don’t be evil.”  Amazon has codified their beliefs in its “leadership principles.”

Of course, a company has beliefs whether it states them or not.  Every decision a company makes is an indication of its beliefs.  If a company always promotes from within, it believes in developing leadership internally.  If the company states that it’s customer-centric but always makes decisions based on stock price or shareholders, it’s clear what the true belief is.

If a company’s leadership changed what they believe in (also known as mission and strategy) all the time, customers and employees would be confused and the business would suffer. In fact, it might die.

So there it is:

  1. Getting people to believe things is hard.
  2. Beliefs provide the justification for choices.
  3. Just as people have beliefs, so do companies.

Therefore: If you want to change how your company behaves, you have two options.  (1) Link your change directly to what the company believes, or (2) change what your company believes.

If you want to change WHAT people are doing (or HOW they’re doing it), you have to change WHY they’re doing it.

That’s all.  No big deal.

So how the **** do you do that?

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Forget about what change you want to make, or how you’re going to get it done.  No one cares. Yet.

How do you make them care?  I use a tool I call a “Value Prop Chain.”  It has two links.  (It is a short chain)

Here it is:

Step 1) You tell them why you want to change.  Not what.  Not how.  Why.  This is link #1.

Step 2) You tell them specifically why the change will make their lives better, or easier, or remove pain, or help them make more money.  In other words: to get someone to believe in something, you translate why YOU want the change into why THEY want the change.  Either they will get something awesome, or avoid something painful, or — and this is when you really start to cook with gas — BOTH of those. This is link #2.

It really is that simple.  

Not convinced?  Let’s go through two quick examples.  (Can you come up with 5 more?)

EXAMPLE 1] You want to roll out a new data collection and reporting system for projects throughout the whole company.  (this one is very recent for me)

  • For Management: They get something awesome. You will have data where before there was none >>> which will give you confidence you’re making the best decisions >>> which means you will invest in the best projects >>> which make more money for the company AND will remove pain because you will be informed whenever corporate (or anyone) “quizzes” you on project status.
  • For Project Teams: They avoid something painful.  You will have a single place to report data >>> which will remove pain of having to report the same data in multiple places to multiple people in multiple formats at multiple time points.

EXAMPLE 2] You want to deploy an application that’s currently installed on-premise, and transition it to the cloud.

  • For Management: They will get something awesome.  You will have more capability and a lower cost >>> which will allow us to make more money by spending less money on infrastructure and more time on using applications, instead of managing them.
  • For End Users: They avoid something painful.  You will get functionality updates faster and automatically as part of a service >>> which will remove the pain of having to engage IT for updates

Note: once you’ve got people caring about WHY, you had better be able to prove to them you can deliver it.  That’s when you can focus on HOW and WHAT (also known as your change plan).

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So that’s the fastest way to create change.  Do not focus on what or how.  One minute spent strengthening your “why” is worth a thousand minutes spend answering anything else (at least at the outset).

Still not convinced?

This idea of focusing on WHY before HOW and WHAT is very powerful…and it’s also not my idea.  The most successful social leaders and companies in the history of the world have used this idea.

In fact: if you’re really good at answering “why,” you can forget the thing I said a few sentences ago.  When people become passionate about WHY, you can forget about WHAT and HOW.  Your team will figure it out for you.

Whole Foods was able to define an entire category of food retailing because they focused on why: “helping support the health, well-being, and healing of both people.”

Starbucks redefined coffee, but their mission statement barely mentions coffee.  “We are performance-driven, through the lens of humanity.”

The most powerful and successful social movements in history — the good ones and the bad ones — habitat for humanity, terrorism, civil rights, the american revolution, women’s rights and child labor laws…they all relied on “why” at their core, and let their agents figure out the rest.

To create any meaningful change, you cannot personally do everything.  You have 40 (or maybe 60) work hours in the week.  You cannot scale beyond that.

But your idea can scale.  If people believe in why they’re doing something, they will find a way to get it done.

If you want to create change, you have to be the one than can provide the answer to the most important question anyone will ever ask you: Why?

…what’s your answer?

Here’s How Relying on Your Data Can Kill You.

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There was a giant explosion, and people died.

The control room was blanketed in deafening silence, followed immediately by a deafening roar of voices. Alarms. Radios. Static. Percussive, Repetitive, Relentless. There were equal parts confusion and disbelief.

It seemed impossible.

It was impossible.

But it happened anyway.

This is not the opening to Andy Weir’s new novel. This is January 28, 1986. The day the American space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff and sent 7 astronauts — 1 of them a schoolteacher — to their deaths.

Could it have been avoided? Yes, without question.

The people involved made a mistake. It’s the same mistake made every day by thousands of professionals. Maybe millions.

Is your boss making this mistake? Your clients? Your Employees?

Are you?

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We rely on data. Now, more than ever, we do, or at least, we claim to. We love it. Our culture reveres it.

We expect the data to make the decision for us. Automated manufacturing. Self driving cars. Self-optimizing code, running on self-monitoring hardware.

We want data to set us free. We want data to free us from the burden of making a decision.

But data is meaningless without understanding. (Tweet This.)

And understanding is the most basic element of making the best decision (or at least, a good one).

What creates understanding? It’s the context around the data. It’s transporting the data from the abstract world of numbers and measures to the equally abstract world of feelings and emotions, passion, fear, and hope.

It’s the story. The story is what creates understanding.

Your data won’t tell the story. Only you can. And not telling the story is the best way to fail. (Tweet This.)

The NASA engineering team did not tell a story. They buried themselves in data, spreadsheets, numbers.

You can make the numbers say anything you want them to. That’s because when you see numbers, you mind doesn’t process them the way a computer does. No…it puts a story around them.

When you see numbers, they become a justification for the story…not the other way around.

There is always a story. If no one is telling the story…we make one up that fits our personal bias or desired outcome.

Think about the last report you made. The last presentation you did.

What was the story? Were you the one telling it?

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(Thanks to this american life for this next section..)

OK, let’s move away from life and death, and into the world of business.

One word can make a story. And that word can make millions or billions of dollars.

There’s a new thing in fast food now. It’s called “Frankenfood” or “Mash Ups.” The idea is that in a world that is becoming increasingly obsessed with local, organic, healthy food…fast food companies are uniquely positioned to do the exact opposite.

They optimize for one thing: TASTE. (hooray!)

Example 1: Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos taco, which has a Dorito for a shell. I hope whoever had that idea got a raise. Taco Bell has sold more than 450 million of them. (Full Disclosure: they sold 2 of them to me.)

Example 2: KFC’s Double Down, which uses fried chicken breasts instead of bread and became an internet meme.

nutrition.

There’s a third example. At Hardee’s / Carl’s Jr., the “R&D” team came up with an amazing tasting product: BBQ pulled pork on a burger.

But taste was not enough to sell it. It wasn’t enough to tell people it tasted good. “Tastes good” is all the data you would think someone would need to buy the sandwich, right?

This “data” wasn’t enough. It wasn’t testing well. Why?

They were calling it the “BBQ burger” or the “Pulled Pork Burger” or the “Southern Burger.

There was NO STORY.

Then one guy decided to put “Memphis” in front of BBQ.

All of a sudden, it was selling great. Memphis meant southern soul. It meant credibility. It evoked feelings of authenticity. It was evocative, yet approachable.

In one word: it told the story. And that made people want it.

Think about the reports you make. Think about the dashboards you read. Think about the meetings you attend, and the ones you run.

Do people want the things you make? What story do they tell?

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How do you sell your ideas? How do you build support? Get traction?

It’s hard.

But it’s easy to drown someone in data. I work at a technical company. Data is everywhere.

We are collecting more data about everything we do. Are you wearing a fitbit right now? How much data is your phone sending back to Google or apple servers every day? Every minute?

Here’s the thing about data: absolutely no one cares. (Executives, especially, do not care)

To make people care, you need a story.

If you’re still on the fence, consider the opinions of people who are smarter than I am:

Still not convinced? Here is one final observation:

Writing was invented maybe 6000 years ago. Maybe it was 4000. Who cares, it was recently (relatively speaking).

How did we pass down knowledge before writing was invented?

Stories.

Oral accounts were the things kept you happy, kept you entertained.  They passed down knowledge and kept you ALIVE.

I will postulate: the evolution of our species selected for those people that could best tell and understand stories. If stories were how you learned how to survive…those that were better at understanding them, survived.

Embrace this fact.

Of course, collect your data. Curate it. Verify it, get as much as you can. Of course, do that.

But you can’t stop there.

See if the data has meaning to you. After you look at it for awhile…maybe it will tell you something, it will give you an insight, it will tell you a story.

Find the story. That’s what you should tell. The rest is just details.

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Here’s Why You Should NOT Work at a Small Company / Startup.

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I recently wrote about why you should work at a very small company.  Now I’m going to write about why you shouldn’t.

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Everyone wants to work at a startup or a very small company, Or everyone thinks or feels they should want to.

Why?

Working at a tiny company can be rewarding.  Life changing. It can allow you to impact the lives of millions.

Guess what?

1) Those things are not guaranteed.  In fact, its almost a guarantee that none of them will happen.

2) You can absolutely make those same things happen at a medium or big company, or any company.

So…if you’re embarrassed because:

  • You’re working at a small company but (secretly) want to leave it for a bigger one or
  • you think you want to work at a small company because that is what you think you’re supposed to want, or
  • you don’t want to work at a small company but you’re e!embarrassed to tell people that…

why? Why are you embarrassed?

You shouldn’t be. Here’s a story from my experience to prove it.

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I got a new job at a big company. I would be doing at a global level what I had been doing previously at a local level. (This also known as a promotion)

The job was to manage the global portfolio of projects.

What does manage mean? I’m not sure, but here are some other words that mean the same thing, in this context: understand, measure, communicate, characterize, analyze.

Actually, that sums it up: my new job was to measure, characterize, understand, analyze, and communicate the global portfolio of projects.

My new job was to answer this question: we are investing many millions in projects. What are we doing? How are we doing?

I thought, surely at this big company, there are robust and established things to do this. I will inherit a system, processes, tools, etc…and administer them. Improve them. Refine them.

When I actually started the job, I discovered something. This thing I discovered has been discovered by countless people before me.

None of that stuff was in place. I was starting from the ground.

Why?

Because this complex, profitable, effective company I was fortunate to be a part of… It wasn’t built to do “portfolio management.” It was built to make things and ship them. (And it was pretty good at that)

So I had to build it. Actually, first I had to define “it” in the first place. What is “it”?

And I didn’t have a big staff, or a budget, or a manual to tell me how.

I just had to make it happen. And I had to do it fast.

Boy. Sure sounds like a startup, doesn’t it?

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My boss gave me the autonomy and freedom to develop my path forward and execute it. She trusted me to deliver. That’s why she hired me.

So I decided to approach my job like a startup. Or at least, like I was starting something up.

But there was one major difference between what I was doing and what I would be doing at a startup: I had the support and resources of an at-scale business. And that support gave me the ability to build and launch in ways that would have been otherwise impossible, or at least, much, much harder.

Here’s what we accomplished in about 9 months:

We built a network of like-minded colleagues. Suddenly…instantly…I had a team.  My team was not there because I was paying their salaries.  They were there because they wanted to help define the mission and vision for this new thing. And they committed to help realize it.

We developed and deployed standards. Sounds trivial. But capturing and reporting data on hundreds of projects across multiple locations, geographies, and sub-cultures is hard. A standard was the best (only?) way to understand what’s going on.

We developed out first quantifiable performance measures. These are also known as KPIs or metrics. This is so important.  Why?  Because it let us figure out where we, as a team of like minded individuals, needed to focus to improve our work.

Think about it this way: with our measurement framework, we were no longer carpenters fixing desks to make them sturdier, or more functional. We became carpenters that were learning to become better carpenters, so that every desk we make will be better, forever.

We built the first customized reporting package for the business. This is not some generic consultant’s reporting package based on “generic large businesses like you best practice magic quadrant tribal knowledge buzzword!”.

No.

We built the reporting package using lean startup techniques…shipping our reports, iterating, and shipping again. And once enough people saw them…

We built a platform where executives reviewed these reports, every month.

So to recap:

When we started: goose egg.

9 months later: data-driven custom reports based on a global data standard, reviewed monthly by executives, driven by a team of like-minded professionals, with a plan to constantly improve the process, data, reports, and ultimately impact the business and worldwide customer base.  We were solving problems.

Would you be excited for the next 9 months?

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Big companies have massive liabilities. We all know about them. We complain about them to our friends, spouses, co workers. They’re documented and studied in business schools. There is an entire consulting industry built to (alledgely) fix them.

What about big companies’ assets? No one talks about those.

I will. Here are a few. (Are there more?)

  1. Instant access to a customer base. Startups are about building a customer base. Large companies have that already. So instead of building it, you can go straight to delivering to it. (Or build a second, or third one, I’d you want)
  2. Instant access to many types of customers. Internal. External. Vendors. Contractors. Consumers. Executives. Pick who you want and make what they need.
  3. Resources. This one is obvious.  Money, people, time. Build your business case and get what you need to do what the business needs.
  4. Opportunity. A big company needs lots of different functions to achieve its business strategy. Sales, marketing, research, manufacturing.  Dozens, maybe hundreds more. Work in all of them. Or work in one for a really long time and learn to dominate it. Just had kids? Take something low key. No kids yet? Travel 25 weeks a year.
  5. Opportunity part 2. So many problems! Every problem is an opportunity. Every fix ultimately impacts your global customer base. Pick the one you want to fix. Build your business case and go fix it. Then pick the next one. Then the next one. This is fun!
  6. Mentors. Big companies have awesome people in them. 10k people in your company? 100 of them are geniuses. That’s just statistics. Do you know who they are? Find them and work for them, work with them, work near them, around them.  Remember: you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.
  7. Skills. Ideas take hold through leadership. Leadership happens through influence, not reporting structure. Large organizations are an ideal place to develop and use this ability to…again…deliver for a global customer base.

That’s 7. Can you think of any more?

======================

A final thought: what is a theme in the things I identified above?

Customer base.

When you choose the company to work for, what you’re really choosing is a customer base. (This is true even at a startup, but the difference is a startup has a potential customer base, whereas a big company has ACTUAL CUSTOMERS)

Are you curing a disease? Transforming a consumer experience? Delivering a new technology to the world?  Are you passionate about your customer base? 

After you choose your company, you need to choose what to do. Can you link what you’re doing to your company’s strategy? To the customer base?

One thing is true: it’s human nature to want instant gratification. (It is mine, for sure)

I don’t want to wait for the customers. I want to make it better for customers, and I want to do it now.

I can do that at a big company. You can too.

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Here’s Why You Should Work at a 3 Person Company (Startup, or not).

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daisy

This is an article about why I think everyone should work at a very small company.

This could be a “Startup” or not…it could also be a small consulting firm, or a bakery, or a house cleaning business, or an online school, or a dog walking company, or an art studio, or a house painting business.

The aspect that’s important is that there’s you, and a few other people, and a common sense of purpose that binds your success or failure together.

=============================

At my first job out of grad school, I was one person in a three-person company.

This was not a silicon valley social media crowdsourcing cloud computing venture capital backed startup. We did not have a ping pong table.  (we barely had a conference table)

We designed, manufactured, shipped, installed, and supported maritime control systems — the electronic things that control the ship’s engines, steering, autopilot, etc — for high performance marine craft (boats). Our customers were the US Navy, international Navies, luxury yachts, and commercial ferries, as well as some small high performance craft and working boats, like firefighting boats.

Our funding didn’t come from angel investors, investment bankers, or venture capital.  Our funding came from two places: the founders and customers.

I worked 90 hours a week.

I wrote code, designed circuits, and fixed hydraulic and mechanical systems to make the things work. I wrote the technical and user documents that explained how the things worked.  I assembled and tested things, and then packed and shipped those things.

Then I installed them.  I did a lot of the work myself and coordinated teams of people. Many of those people didn’t speak English very well. Most were not interested in taking direction from a 24 year old kid. (who could blame them)

Then, I provided support for them all over the world. Remotely if possible, but sometimes you have to get on a plane. (I was not flying business class.)

I had that job for about 5 years (full time and contract).

I learned more about myself than I could have imagined.

I wouldn’t trade this experience for any degree…what I learned, can’t be learned any other way.

Here is a defining story from this period of my professional life. I carry this with me today (for better or worse).

It is a story about getting the confidence to tackle the hard things in business and in life…and a philosophy on how to approach any challenge, in any size company.

=====================

We won a new contract for a custom control system. The customer was a navy in Asia, and the application was a “special mission” boat. The system was complex and required some special software and changes to our standard hardware. It was also challenging to nail down the user requirements due to the time difference, language barrier, cultural differences, etc.

So we spent most of a month designing, building, testing, redesigning, rebuilding, retesting.  And when I drove the 75 pound box of stuff we had made to FedEx at 9pm on a Tuesday, I knew it would not be the last time I would “see” this system.

It took three months for shipping and installation…just long enough for me to have forgotten all the weird changes I made to get the system to (theoretically) work.

2am on another Tuesday, my boss called me. I knew he wasn’t calling to say that everyone was just! going! great!

Nope, the boat wouldn’t turn left (“port” in maritime speak). They were about 3 miles out to sea in the Pacific.  No way to turn left.  He really wanted to turn left.

He said, Rich, why won’t the boat turn left?
I said, well, I’m not sure.  It SHOULD turn left.
He said, well, we need to turn left. There are 15 people on this boat and we would like to no longer be on the boat and that requires us to turn left.
I said, OK, but I don’t know what’s wrong.
He said, Rich, sit up in bed. Look all around you. (I remember actually doing this.) If you don’t fix it, who will?

…Who will?  

I thought about that.  I had no engineering department, or quality engineers, or vendors or contractors or suppliers to lean on for help (even google wasn’t much help because this was 2004).

I had me.

So…

I went to the office, set up the test rig, fixed the software, emailed the file to the ship yard.

They sent a motor boat to the ship with a USB drive.  (I slept for 2 hours while that happened)

Then I walked an officer through the fix in very broken English. It would be unfortunate if the software patch didn’t work after all of that.

But…the boat turned left. They were able to dock the boat and everyone was able to get off. (Phew)

=======================

I made one observation immediately:

The horribleness of causing the problem was matched only by the elation of fixing it. I don’t know of any other way to get that feeling. (If you do, please let me know)

During my time at this job, I had several other experiences like this one.  As I thought about these experiences, I discovered something else…something that has been a prime mover in my career and life:

I developed the confidence that I could figure something out, even if that thing was unfamiliar, complex, and important.

I learned to be self-reliant.

======================

OK, I’m now going to get on my soap box. (Please indulge me)

People say “big companies should act like small companies!” “They should act like a startup!”

What does that even mean? “Big companies” are not people or cats or chimpanzees that have the ability to “act” like anything.  The way big companies “act” is the sum of how all the people within that company — and especially leadership — act.

I think what people mean is: people in big companies would (or could) be more effective if they BEHAVED like they were in small companies…and specifically, if each actor in a big company was more self-reliant.

Self reliance is a trait that is ingrained deeply and celebrated in the American value system (probably many other value systems too).

We romanticize it: the farmer that can fix anything on her farm, the cowboy that builds civilization in the wilderness, the entrepreneur that pulls an idea from thin air and simultaneously makes a billion dollars and changes the world.

In a company, you may know self reliance by another word: accountability. It means you tie your personal success to the company’s success. It means the success you enjoy (or failure you learn from) is tied directly to the decisions you make.  It’s on you, and you’re cool with it.

Here’s what I believe: there should be one approval on a document. One owner of a decision. A single point of accountability for the things that drive the business (or fail to).

I certainly don’t mean that this accountable person is not the only one with input into making the decision. But they are accountable for getting all the input, assessments, analysis, data, and consensus needed to make the best possible choice…and they are accountable for the business result.

In this model, the company relies on a person to deliver something. That person relies on her team to choose the right thing, plan it, monitor it.  And that person relies on herself to deliver it.

This requires trust…the company leadership must trust employees, and employees must trust each other (and their subcontractors and consultants and vendors). It requires commitment, and delivery.

But I believe this model of the “empowered individual” can deliver more for less than any bureaucratic decision by committee ever could.

I don’t have a raft of scholarly articles to back up this claim.  All I have is my own personal experience.  And this claim has been proven to be true for me over and over again, at 10, 1000, and 100,000 person companies.

=========================

Is self reliance revered in your company? Do you value it in your daily work? Do you strive for, and advertise, your own personal accountability with your colleagues?

I’m not going to tell you that you should. I wouldn’t presume to know what the result would be. But what I do know is that if everyone in one group, or one department, or one entire company approached their work from a place of self reliance…the work would be better, and the results would be too.

Because if there’s one thing I look for in someone I rely on, its that I know that person can rely on herself.

Can you be that person to your colleagues?  Try to be.  See what happens.

I predict only good things will come to you.

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I Am In The Problem Solving Business. Are You?

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We need a new Dashboard! It is the rallying cry of leaders everywhere.

Leadership is a customer demanding a product. Leadership can be an especially demanding customer. They should be.

Of course, its true that they might need a Dashboard.  Also, they might not.

What they actually need is a problem to be solved.

Customer service = doing exactly what someone asks you.

Solving problems = identifying something that’s broken, fixing it, proving that you fixed it, and being personally accountable for the result.

What business are you in…customer service?

Or solving problems?

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I will give a two (anonymized) examples from my experience that illustrate the difference between “demanding service” and solving problems. It’s (almost always) as simple as: asking questions and thinking about something before you actually commit to doing something.

Example 1: A market analysis shows that a manufacturing plant’s capacity will fall short by 25% in 2 years. The plant leader directs the organization to add a new manufacturing line.

The thing is, “We don’t have enough equipment” is not a problem statement. Here’s the problem statement: we need 25% more stuff to sell.

Had she brought the requirement (add 25%) instead of the “solution” (new manufacturing line) to the org, many more ideas could have emerged.  Can the existing process be optimized? Can we outsource to a contract manufacturer? Can a partner meet the extra demand? Can another site in the company make this stuff? Can we white label someone else’s product?

Example 2: A department develops a homegrown software application.  They need to maintain it.  No one has time to do the testing.  So, they open a headcount for a Software QA specialist.

The thing is “I need to hire someone” is not a problem statement. Here’s the problem statement: We need our software QA’d.

Can they contract it out? Can they automate the testing with scripting and software? Can they reduce the scope of the application, to reduce the scope of the required testing?

Behind every request is a requirement. A problem statement. A broken thing that needs fixing. It can be difficult to uncover sometimes. But it’s there, and uncover it you must, if you want to fix it.

People who wish to appear smart always present the solution instead of stating the problem. This is especially true of people who are actually smart, because they are used to solving problems and being right and having people listen to them.

It takes bravery to admit you have a problem, but have not yet found the best solution.

But if you are the one owning the solution, you had better make sure you know the problem first. Because if you don’t, and the solution doesn’t work, you just created a second problem. And now you own both.

The problem statement is the rust under the paint. It is the termite-ridden pillar wrapped in brand new vinyl siding. It’s the teenager, whose angst is thinly veiled by a smile.

You must peel back the veneer, find the problem statement, and fix it.

Become a fixer of problems.

==========================

At every company I’ve worked, in every role I’ve played, I’ve had to translate feature requests, demands for new equipment, or desires to change business processes into problem statements. Here are three things I have observed as I’ve collected problem statements over the years.

Observation 1] Some problem statements are transient. Other problem statements last forever.

Consider: “We can’t ship product because the packing machine is jammed.” Fixing this problem is 100% within the four walls of a company. Buy a new packaging machine. Fix the existing one. Outsource packaging operations. Resell a competitor’s products. The problem statement disappears.

Now consider: “Our competitors spend much less than we do to deliver an equivalent product.” “Fixing” this problem requires action by the company (of course).  But the factors that cause it, characterize it, and drive its evolution live outside the company.

Maybe the price pressure is permanent due to some competitor’s innovation. Maybe it’s not sustainable and the competitor folds and the problem goes away. Maybe a new regulation comes out that adds cost, and destroys margin. Maybe a regulation is repealed or amended that does the opposite .

This second type of problem — the durable type — requires constant monitoring and vigilance. Solving it is not a one time event. In fact: It can’t be solved. It must be managed, optimized, constantly monitored.

These are the ocean currents and winds that guide the ship. You cant control them. But you must understand them.  Only then can you harness them, and use them get somewhere.

This kind of problem statement, I call a “Critical Business Question.” (I will call them CBQs to avoid typing that over and over again)

Finding one of these is a big deal, because they can, and should, change how you think about the business unit / function / department.

When you find a whole bunch of these and manage them together, you know what that is?  I call that strategy.

What are your company / business unit / department / personal CBQs? Do you have a strategy manage them?

Observation 2] Critical Business Questions (CBQs) are durable and universal.

Think about this CBQ: Is our portfolio of projects delivering our strategy?

How about this: Do we have the right number of resources to run the business?

How about these: How does each activity or project impact our cost of goods/services? How do defects/bugs impact cost of goods/services? How do defects impact customer satisfaction? How does our defect rate / cost of goods / operating margin compare with our competitors? What projects should we be working on? What are we actually working on? What’s the gap? What’s the plan to close it? How are we tracking against that plan? How can we speed up closing the gap?

It doesn’t matter if you make software, Tylenol, gummy bears, microchips, chicken nuggets. It doesn’t matter if you make things, or deliver services, or both. I’m willing to bet most (or all) of these questions apply to you / your department / business unit / P&L.

I know this because they applied when I was working at a startup with 3 people making control systems for navy seals’ boats. They also applied when I designed automated pharmaceutical manufacturing systems, and when I had a small start-up making headphone amplifiers, and when I ran construction crews building industrial production facilities, when i ran my own music recording studio, and when I started my own software company.

They apply to you too.

Observation 3] Direct, explicit management of these questions is (1) not common, and (2) a competitive advantage for a busienss.

And it’s really uncommon below the top tier of management. Where are the critical business questions asked at your company? Are you a part of that conversation? How can you help define them? Answer them? Manage them?

====================

So that’s it: you can choose to be in customer service, or be a problem solver.

It’s easy to slip back in to customer service mode. I do it frequently. “Customer Service” mode is not as good as “Problem Solver” mode, and sometimes it’s actually bad.

Being a problem solver requires skepticism, vigilance, courage. You have to challenge the people that pay your salary.

You have to risk being wrong.

You have to be willing to accept the consequences of being wrong.

But solving problems is the essence of business. It is what creates value…for the company, for customers, for shareholders, for society.

Be a value creator. Go find the problems and solve them.

(And In the next article, I’ll talk about one approach to solving the problems once you’ve found them)

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You CAN Make Change Happen. Here are 3 Ways.

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In a big company, making something new happen is hard.  Companies are goats.  They’re stubborn.  There’s a lot of reasons for that.

If you’re trying to make a new company (or division, or department, or LOB), it is even harder.  That’s because of all the same reasons, plus even more reasons.

I won’t talk about the reasons here.  There are many articles, posts, books, blogs, infographics, podcasts dedicated to the reasons.  My opinion is that reasons are interesting, but they don’t help you make progress.

Reasons = excuses.  

Here are some things you can try that eliminate the need for excuses.

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I was (am always) struggling with getting some traction in a company for a new idea.  This is a frequent issue for me (I have lots of ideas and I think they’re all great).  The new idea is “strategic” (whatever that means).  It has clear business value (on paper).  Everyone wants to do it. Everyone agrees.

But no one is doing it.

Why?  I don’t know, but I came up with some ideas to get going.  Not all of these ideas are practical or applicable to every situation of course, but each has helped me at some point in my life and career.

My main hypothesis behind these ideas is that the easiest way to keep going forward is to start going forward.

Idea 1: Get customer feedback (endorsement) about your idea directly, and get it while you’re in the same room with decision makers.

Note that it doesn’t matter whether yours are internal customers, external customers, strategic partners, etc. — the process is the same.

This is different from the “standard way” of getting feedback which goes a little something like this:

  • Design some kind of survey or questionnaire.
  • Get a bunch of feedback, but not as much as you hope or want.
  • Summarize it in some type of “Voice of Customer” report.
  • Give it to management, who has a bunch of questions…why didn’t you ask this? Why did they respond that way?  etc.
  • Reach out to (annoy) your customers or partners or stakeholders again to get clarification.
  • Repeat, and be very busy, while your day job suffers.  Also, weeks and weeks go by while you chase people down.  Also, you’re late for dinner a lot, you don’t have time to exercise. (this is purely hypothetical)

Short circuit this.  Please.  Get everyone in the same (physical or virtual) room.  Your partners and customers will meet management, which will make them feel empowered.  Management will talk directly to customers or partners and clarify months of packaging and delivering “customer surveys” in the span of one hour.  Now you’re switching your efforts from chasing down surveys and compiling reports to facilitating…analyzing…creating value…and you’re saving time too.

Idea 2: Embrace objections.  Revel in them.  They will set you (and the change you want to make) free.

Everyone’s objecting…one person doesn’t think it will clear legal, another person doesn’t know if the data will be secure, do we have executive sponsorship, does this align with corporate strategy, etc. etc.  People have a hard time coming up with ideas, until it’s time to come up with objections.  There’s a thousand reasons not to do something.

You can’t prevent people from having objections. (That’s probably good anyway).  So, get them all on the table at once.  Tell everyone: send me all your objections BY FRIDAY.  Give them a week (or a day).

Make the “objection collection” deliberate, intentional, time-bound.  Make it part of your idea development process.

Collect these objections.  Analyze them.  You will learn something.  Then get everyone together and talk through your analysis.

There will probably be three buckets:

  • Bucket 1: things you don’t have to worry about.  These come from people not understanding the idea.  Solution: educate them.
  • Bucket 2: things you have to worry about later (bringing in legal for example).  That’s fine, log these, and deal with them when appropriate.
  • Bucket 3: things you have to actually worry about right now.  Get these on the table and talk about it now, move past it.  Or maybe you’re screwed…better to find out now than 6 months from now.

Idea 3: Summarize your idea in one page.  Then summarize that in a half a page.  Then 3 sentences.  Then one sentence.  Then one word.  Can you get to one word?

If your one word isn’t “profit” or “customers” or “marketshare” or “margin” then you’re going to have an uphill battle (assuming you’re running a for-profit company).  If it’s not about expanding or reinforcing the business, you might have a shot if you’re advancing the company culture or directly implement — use numbers — a senior executive mandate.  (Typically executive mandates are designed to make more money for the company somehow either directly or indirectly…hard to avoid that connection.)

If your idea does both…you have a runner.

When you explain your idea, start with your one word.  Then go to your sentence, then explain your three sentences.  If people haven’t bought in by then, refine your messages.

Your one-pager is not a sales document.  It’s to get everyone to agree on what you’re doing.  Sales happens in words, not pages.

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OK, that’s three ideas.  Can you come up with ten more ideas?  Give me some good ones that worked for you below and I’ll update this post (or another one) with the best ones.

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Your Company’s Strategy Is Not Important.

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8-5-2015 10-00-29 PM

Your company’s strategy is not important in the same way your brain or your heart are not important.

They are more than important.  They are essential.  You need them to survive.  Without them…you’re dead.

A company’s strategy is more than “important.”  A company IS its strategy.  

If you are skeptical of this claim or flat-out don’t agree (good!), consider the following things about a strategy:

[1] It is the only thing that can guide decision making at all levels, from CEO to line worker.  [2] It is very durable…it lasts a long time.  It’s the one stabilizing force, the beacon, in the face of constant, unrelenting, inevitable change. [3] It defines success — the company’s reason for existing — and tracks (or at least can track) if that success is being achieved.

It’s more than these 3 things, but I think that backs up my claim.

Also consider: Companies with well-defined, well-communicated strategies do better than those that don’t have them or communicate them.  You don’t need to research a bunch of scholarly articles to convince yourself this is true.  Proof of this surrounds us — the companies whose products we depend upon, the companies that dominate stock market, the companies that inform and entertain and define our experiences, every day.

Apple. Google. Tesla.  Amazon.  Corning.  Samsung. Proctor and Gamble.  Starbucks. Sam Adams. Hubspot. Chipotle. These companies have clear strategies.  Their communication is deliberate.  Their execution is relentless.

Do you know what your company’s strategy is?  Does your company have one?

…do YOU have one?

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Disney has a strategy.  They had one in the 50s, before the “field of study” was nearly as developed or rigorous as it is today.  Here’s a link to the Disney strategy map from 1957 (thank you HBR for hosting it).

Print it out on a big piece of paper. Study it for 5 minutes before you read any more...just look at it, and absorb whatever you can.  Try not to judge or form opinions about it.  Instead, just try to understand it…to understand the different parts, and the interactions between them, how a change in one area would impact the others.  (Please do this. I will wait)

We know this strategy worked (and some version of it continues to work).  But let’s pretend we don’t know that.  Let’s pretend we’re on the board of Disney, and the CEO (Walt) comes to us with this brilliant…dare I say…”infographic”…in the spring of 1957.

What weaknesses can you find?  How can we make it stronger…right now, one year from now, five years from now, fifty?  How do we implement it?  Manage it?  Evolve it?

It’s pretty important to ask these questions.  The future of the company — everyone’s jobs, the customers that depend on the products, the ecosystem of value we create — it all depends on the strategy.  We should think about it and try our best to get it right.

Below are some questions (and follow up questions) I’d ask.  I organized the questions in to 4 categories:

  • Logistics (how does the strategy work?),
  • Weaknesses (why might the strategy not work?),
  • Opportunities (how might the strategy work better?),
  • Refinements (how can the strategy improved to drive decision making?)

(If you skipped studying the graphic before, you really need to do that now before reading on.)

=====================

Logistics

  • What is the best way to organize people to support this strategy? (For example, one “LOB” manager per box, reporting into a central COO)  How does our current organization compare to the optimal one?  Do we have a plan to get from current org to the optimal one?
  • Are all of the arrows “activated” right now?  Do we have the infrastructure to support every arrow on this map today? in 1 year? 5 years?

Weaknesses

  • Disneyland is a big consumer of value from the other boxes.  Does it generate the revenue to justify it’s massive consumption?  How can it PROVIDE more value to the other boxes?
  • The 16mm film box has very few connections.  Can it be eliminated?  What’s the impact to the business if we do?
  • The “Theatrical Films” box is a central hub of value.  If it doesn’t work well, it could be a single point of failure for the entire strategy.  What’s the likelihood of it failing?  Can we reduce that likelihood?  How? If we can’t…how can we distribute / transfer that risk across the other boxes?
  • Are any arrows under threat from competitors today?  Will they be in 1 year?  5 years?  Which arrows are at highest risk from competitors?  How can we protect them? (this brings up a point, who are Disney’s competitors?  Warner Brothers?)
  • Are any of these arrows in conflict with one another?  Conflict = simultaneously contributing to and diminishing the same objective.  For example, do some arrows drive revenue and content to TV that would have better impact in films (TV and films competing for the same content)?

Opportunities

  • All of these arrows are not equal if you start to measure them: Capital Expense, Operational Expense, Revenue Generated, Lifetime Value.  What’s the “operating cost” or “margin” of each one of these arrows?  Which ones should we sacrifice to enhance the performance of the others?
  • All the connections are internal to the Disney environment.  How can we capture external value?  How can we provide external value?  For example, how can we connect the places and activities where kids and their parents often are…restaurants, community centers, playgrounds, schools, etc…to this value map?

Refinements

  • Some arrows are not shown…is it because they don’t exist?  For example — can TV provide material for books directly?  Do we expect that it will in the future?
  • What new boxes do we think will be on the map in 1 year?  5 years?
  • What boxes will be irrelevant in 1 year?  5 years?

Whew, ok.  I have a headache.

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What’s the value of a map like this?  So What?

Probably, your gut says this map is (very, very) powerful.  You’re right if you think that (in my opinion).  Here are three ways it’s powerful.  There are probably ten more.  (or a hundred. what are they?)

First: It communicates the major components of a strategy AND how they interact on a single page.  It defines and communicates in one simple package.  That drives focused analysis and useful conversation.

Consider my analysis above: at least some of those questions would generate useful conversation (at least one of them, I hope).  I was able to develop my analysis with essentially zero knowledge about Disney’s business.  This brilliant graphic allows a non-employee (of marginal intelligence) like me to understand, process, ask questions, extract value, strengthen, solidify, refine.

Of course, the strategy map is useful for the board / leadership / decision makers.  But its power goes far beyond that.

Second: It’s a tool that anyone in the company can use to instantly understand how their position contributes to the overall strategy and mission of the company. Think about the massive raft of problems this single fact eliminates.  A janitor working at Disneyland understands that if the bathrooms are clean, it directly impacts the huge number of “arrows” that connect Disneyland to the rest of the business.  The same for someone inking comic strips, and a legal clerk in the licensing department, and, and, and…

How does what I do impact the company?  Here’s how.  Look at this map.  Here’s where you are. Here’s how what you does impacts what we all achieve.  Amazing.

Third: It also helps people (employees, shareholders, investors, advisers) understand the direction and intent of the company.  A map like this will clarify decision making and prioritization (NOTE: look out for a future article on prioritization).  It can even drive people within the company to develop specific career paths that reinforce the strategy (If I were working on 16mm films, I’d try and make the jump to theatrical films ASAP).

Let me underline this point: you don’t have to scream strategy from a mountaintop.  The people responsible for executing it do it for you.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’m sure there’s a fourth and a fifth and a sixth.

Here’s the thing: having a strategy is more than a “good idea.”  Strategy is an essential component — maybe THE central component — of any company that aspires to dominate a market, serve its customers, and eliminate competition.

A company IS its strategy.

I can’t think of any other thing to succinctly capture, communicate, and execute a common purpose across a complex, geographically distributed organization.

Can you?

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SOME EXERCISES THAT WILL MAKE YOU SMARTER (maybe)

Below. I’ve set up a few ways you can build on this Disney strategy map and add value to your own professional world.  This may look like homework.  But I’m not going to call this homework because it should be fun.  Let’s call it homefun.

Homefun Exercise 1] Draw the strategy map for your company / department / function / business unit / your own job. Or maybe you have a side business…draw a strategy map for that. Your company may already have a strategy map like this, or not.  There’s lots of literature on strategy maps.  Some of it’s very good.  But my personal experience is it’s best to read those things after you’ve mapped out your own universe of insanity.

It doesn’t have to look like a work of art.  You’re not a Disney artist.  Book an hour in your calendar.  Draw a map, get as far as you can.  Use an actual pencil and paper (or a whiteboard).  Invite 1 or 2 brains into the room to review it with you. I guarantee it will be a useful and interesting conversation.

(Note to self: Map my personal strategy and present it in a future article)

Homefun Exercise 2] Update this Disney strategy map.  What’s missing from this map? Well, DISNEY WORLD for one thing.  How about Pixar, ever heard of them?  How about the entire Star Wars franchise?  Probably 10 more things too.

Draw in a few of these missing boxes, and connect them up to the existing boxes.  Are there new arrows? Do some other arrows go away?

Now do the analysis.  Do the new boxes address some of the weaknesses and opportunities  in my analysis?  I bet they do.  Do they raise new weaknesses and opportunities?  Yes, I’m sure.

Homefun Exercise 3] Simplify this strategy map.  What happens if you eliminate a box?  Can you assess the impact?  If you can’t…who do you think you’d need to talk to, to get that understanding?  Now look at the strategy map you made in exercise 1.  What can you eliminate from your company / department / function / personal strategy?  Can you assess the impact?  If you can’t…who do you need to talk to in order to get that understanding?

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