all.the.work.things

[corporeal blogs about corporate cogs]

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?

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

by 6 Comments

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.)

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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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I’m Flexing My “Idea Muscle” Right Now.

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MMBBLT_

I treat my brain like a muscle.  I (try to) use it every day.

Some days, I make the effort to use it so much, it actually feels tired.  I have a headache. It’s a good feeling.

It’s the nerd equivalent of “runner’s high.”

I treat my brain like a muscle because it behaves like a muscle — if I don’t use it, it gets weak.  And then, when I need it for something — when I’m dependent upon it, to respond to a question from an executive in a meeting, or debug some code, or calculate a tip — if it’s not in shape, it lets me down.  I’m “winded.” I can’t “lift the weight.”

Is your brain in shape?

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When I was in my 20s I didn’t need to do brain exercises.  I was in grad school. I read engineering and science textbooks every day.  I worked in a research lab with people much smarter than I was (and am).  I was constantly exploring the limit of my intellectual ability.  Also I could do all of this while sleeping 2 hours a night.  I was a professional brain athlete.

Well, now I need to exercise to stay in shape…that applies to everything in my body that has a blood supply.  And it especially applies to my brain.

So what is a “brain exercise” anyway?

Brain exercises are easy.  They are free.  There’s only upside to doing them.  Sudoku, Crossword puzzles, Kenken (my favorite), all those things are great.  Those puzzles can help you with problem solving.  But they have one limitation: they are structured.

Structured things have guaranteed solutions.  You know this before you start.  Knowing there is a solution makes it easier to persevere.  You know, in advance, there’s a path to a clear resolution.  Is that ever true in business?  Is it ever true in life?

Structured problems won’t help you with resiliency.  They won’t help in situations where you’re unsure of what the solution is — or if there is a solution at all.  What do you do when you’ve tried everything you can think of, and you’re convinced there’s no path forward?   I’m going to tell you the one brain exercise I do that helps more than any other.

It wasn’t my idea.  I have stolen it without remorse or humility.  This exercise helps where the puzzles cannot because it greatly expands the set of things that comprise “everything you can think of” — it stretches that from 10 things, to 100, to infinity things.

The exercise is simple: Making lists.

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To start, I make a list of lists.  Some of the items in that list, inspire more lists.  So then I have a list of lists, where each thing in that list, is itself a list.  (i never was very good with recursion)

I’m always thinking of lists.  Every item in a list is an idea, and every idea has the potential to be something, or change something.

As i said: I didn’t come up with this.  Linus Pauling (very smart) said “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.”  (This is from a guy that had a lot of good ideas, so you can trust him)

Also, James Altucher (also very smart) advocates coming up with lists as part of his “daily practice.”  If you haven’t read James’ work, please follow that link and read everything he’s ever written.  (do that after you’re done reading this article though)

Ideas are the currency of the knowledge economy.  People may think that money is the currency, but I think it’s ideas.  Here’s why.  One dollar is worth one dollar.  But an idea has the potential to be worth infinity dollars. I would rather have infinity dollars than one dollar.

Also: pretty much every success, promotion, or good “work-thing” that’s happened to me, has been the result of good ideas (either mine, or someone else’s that I was fortunate enough to be a part of).

Also: there is nothing physical about software and business processes — they are  just ideas that are reduced to practice.  They are ephemeral.  You can’t touch them.  And yet, there are trillions of dollars (euros, pounds, lira, etc) generated annually based on these ideas.  And they’re supplanted all the time by better ones, because people like you are thinking of better ones. all. the. time.

Also: Lots of people say “ideas don’t matter, it’s execution that matters.”  Guess what execution is?  It’s a bunch of smaller ideas that, when strung together, achieve or implement some bigger idea.  Execution = ideas! So saying “ideas don’t matter, it’s execution that matters” is like saying “ideas don’t matter, it’s ideas that matter!”  What?

I think the reason that people don’t get their big ideas done is because the big idea is easy to come up with (let’s invent a time machine!, or lets standardize everything across the company!), but it’s hard to come up with the small ideas that get you there.

It’s much easier to come up with excuses.  So, that’s what people usually do.

Come up with ideas instead.

Also: It takes a lot of ideas to give something shape, form, and meaning.  A painting is the result of a million brushstrokes.  The big idea collects, organizes, and applies the smaller ones…the big idea gives the smaller ideas meaning.  A million small ideas make a “big idea,” also known as a business, or a movement, or a revolution, or a vision.

How many ideas are in this article?  I don’t know. Can you count them and tell me?

Maybe the next trillion dollar idea is buried in one of the lists of ideas you haven’t written yet…?

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OK, time to start coming up with ideas.  It’s exercise.  That means it’s hard to get started. But, it becomes much easier very quickly (I promise). If you need a seed then take a look at the twenty list ideas below.  Steal these, make these lists.  Start with one list.  Then make two, then four.  At some point you will be a fountain of ideas — a “brain athlete,” or an “idea marathoner.”  And I promise this will result in goodness for you.

10 productive ways to spend the morning commute
10 dinner topics with a difficult relative / friend / coworker
10 nice things to do for my wife / husband / partner that are free
10 people whose careers I could help somehow
10 games to play with my son/daughter in the bathrub
10 side businesses I could start that would take less than 10 hrs a week
10 skills I could aquire in 1 year or less
10 ways competitors could establish or take market share from my company
10 online courses I could teach
10 productive ways to spend the 2 hours right before bed
10 stocks I would invest $1000 in (and why)
10 podcasts I should start listening to
10 ways to shave 10 minutes off of my morning routine (free time!)
10 meals that taste good, are good for people, and take 10 minutes or less to prepare, and cost $10 or less
10 ways I could improve my house that would take 1 hr or less
10 macroeconomic and cultural phenomena that are driving the economy
10 areas I have a basic understanding of that I wish I had a deeper understanding of
10 personality traits I have that I would like to change, and how to change them
10 things that happen to me every day that I should be grateful for
10 ways that we could turn competitors into partners
10 things that are illegal right now that will not be illegal in 10 years
10 things that were illegal 25 years ago that are legal now
10 things that are illegal that people do anyway

OK! that was 23 (no extra charge).

Your turn.

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Standardization Is Not An Objective.

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173H

Lots of work is done in corporate America in the name of standardization. We have to standardize!

Really?  Why? Why do we have to?

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Here’s the thing: standardizing can be bad. It’s often bad. (It can also be good but usually if it is, its luck)

Where does this insatiable desire to standardize come from? I don’t know (I’ll guess though). I believe it comes from people trying to simplify something complex.

That’s not an objective either.

Sometimes complex things are complex.  The best you can do is just manage them. You can’t simplify the currents in the Pacific ocean, so we manage that complexity with systems and engineering (GPS, autopilot, etc.)

There’s another reason people like standards.  And that’s because we enjoy their benefits — mostly without even realizing it — every single day.

Think about it: right at this second, you’re surrounded by standards.

Why does your electrical plug fit into that outlet? Standards.  Why does your WiFi work everywhere? Standards.  Why do staples fit into your stapler? Standards.  Why does gas make your car run? Why can I type on any keyboard in north america? Why do I know what shoe size to buy (sort of)?

Standards! (OK, maybe some other reasons too, but standards are a major reason.)

But those standards weren’t developed to … “have standards developed.” Standards cost time and money to make, deploy, and maintain.

Why were they made?

They were developed to accomplish something (usually something = make more money,  or reduce waste and effort, which is another way of saying make more money).

At some point lots of people figured out they were all going to use electricity, so they thought hey, if we all want to use a common resource, we should have a common way to interface with it.  So there was a clear objective for the “electricity standards.”

Were there other ways to achieve that objective? Maybe, but they chose to develop and implement standards.  It worked (and still does).

OK.  That’s the good side of standards.

So when are standards bad? When they make you do useless activity, for no benefit. (Useless activity by definition has no benefit)

Useless activity means wasted time which means you (slash, the company) make less money.  That’s the opposite of what you (slash, the company) want (unless your business model is to somehow benefit from someone else wasting their time).

Lets take an example of something a company might want to standardize.  Think about projects at big companies.  Someone may think “We do a lot of projects.  We should do every project the same way! Let’s standardize…because…standards!”

So they make a standard and it works great (maybe) really big projects.  But then a guy who wants to replace the shelves in a laboratory has to follow the standard, which involves filling out 5 forms and getting the signature of the CEO.  The gal who wants to change to a new software suite because it will make 100 people’s lives easier, she gives up, because it’s less work to use the old junk than to go through the pain of upgrading.

Not good.

What problem are you solving with the standard? Are projects too slow? Are they too expensive?  Are they not giving any benefit to the company? Do people not understand what’s going on with projects?

Start with that — the problem.

Come up with ways to solve it.

Maybe a standard helps, maybe it’s a terrible idea. But at least you know the point of putting that standard in place, so when people ask “why are putting this standard in place?” You will have a better answer than “because…standards! Next question please.”

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