On Randy Mayeux’s recent “conversion”

Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg

Randy Mayeux’s recent “conversion” to an iPad by no means invalidates or even contradicts his previous and passionate support of the bound volume.

The number of electronic reading devices as well as the applications they offer is certain to increase. It seems reasonable to assume that, over time, there will be a corresponding (but not necessarily an inverse proportional) decrease in the sales of bound volumes.

Let us all remember that those who devise breakthrough innovations and disruptive technologies are not playing a zero-sum game.

I agree with Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, (whom I quoted in a post a while ago) that the bound volume should be praised for sustaining a 672-year run of dominant success since Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press with a process that consisted of using separable type, oil-based ink, and a wooden press similar to the agriculturalscrew presses of the period used to crush fruit for wine.

Some people will read only bound volumes.

Some people will only read what an electronic device can display.

Some people will use both.

Randy did not have a conversion; rather, he made an addition to his resources and increased his options.

From my perspective, that’s progress.

Osama bin Laden on symbolism…in his own words

Osama bin Laden

“Allah knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers but after the situation became unbearable and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed – when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way (and) to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.”

Osama bin Laden, 2004

It was not until I read this passage more than seven years ago that I understood why the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001. According to bin Laden, its “twin towers” symbolized all that he blamed for destroying other towers in Lebanon.

The death of bin Laden by no means signals the end of Al-Qaeda. In fact, I fear, it could be viewed – at least by some among them – as another symbol, suggesting another act of retribution.

Replace “success” with “contribution”

In The Effective Executive, first published in 1967, Peter Drucker stressed the importance of mastering several learnable disciplines. They include

• Manage your time and your energy, not your work
• Know your priorities
• Do first things first
• Do not multi-task
• Focus on (leverage) strengths, both yours and others’

He then asserts that, above all, it is imperative to “replace the quest for success with the quest for contribution.”

The critical question is not, therefore, “How can you achieve?” but “What can you contribute?”

Some people seem obsessed with “success” and, worse yet, with success measured according to how others determine it. Their obsession with obtaining approval or at least acceptance is unnerving.

Drucker would urge them to focus on (a) what they can contribute and (b) what they must do to contribute even more.

Meanwhile, Oscar Wilde would add, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

Smell a Rat – From a Distance

You may remember my presentation at the First Friday Book Synopsis on the book How to Smell a Rat:  The Five Signs of Financial Fraud by Ken Fisher (2010, Wiley).  The book was all about distinguishing between scrupulous and unscrupulous financial advisers. 

Its primary feature was identifying the red flags, such as advisers who have access to your money, promises of returns that are too good to be true, mumbo-jumbo jargon that takes the place of explaining investing strategy, fake benefits like exclusivity, and relying on someone else for due diligence.

I thought it was interesting that an article by Mary Pilon in the Wall Street Journal, April 30-May 1, p. B9, entitled “Checking Up On Your Adviser,” gave information on how you can do this from a distance.

The article discusses how BrightScope, Inc., an independent rater of 401(k) plans, created a new directory entitled “BrightScope Advisor Pages,” where you can research the background of advisers from a collection of nearly 450,000 of them.  The service is free, and it gives you all kinds of information that is pertinent to the relationship you may have with him or her.

I just looked up my own financial adviser on the site.  The search was free and very fast.  I got all kinds of information about him, including the amount of assets invested with him, the average amount per person invested with him, his experience and employment history, his license and registrations, and the results of his uniform securities law exam.  The search also revealed the percentage of his clients by type, such as individuals, corporations, charitable organizations, and so forth.

What a tool this is!  While “information about advisers has long been public via the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory organization for securities firms” (p. B9), investors have had difficulty accessing the data.

This difficulty is no longer true – here it is! 

Just go to www.brightscope.com.  Let’s use the tool.  Will you? 

Let’s talk about it!

3 Specific Ways to Encourage Meeting Participation

Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

You know the drill: A meeting is called to discuss an important issue but only the usual suspects participate.

Everyone else is quiet and their opinions go unheard. Meaningful contribution is the key to meeting success.

Here are three ways to get more people involved:

Don’t dominate. This not only gives others less time to speak up but also conveys that only your ideas are important. Let at least three people speak before you
talk again.

Be positive. Demonstrate that all ideas are valuable by restating important points. Thank people who are usually reticent for their comments.

Ask directly. To get input from everyone, ask each person for their thoughts. Don’t do it in a confrontational way. Try, “Do you have anything to share?”

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter.”

To buy the guide for more tips on running effective meetings, please click here.

Fiction Turns into Reality on the Same Day

I was amazed that the same day that I read about the bombing of the hideout for Osama bin Laden in a novel was the same day that the United States Navy Seals and our intelligence operations actually killed him!

One of my favorite fiction authors is Stuart Woods.  His recent best-seller is entitled Strategic Moves (Putnam, 2011).  The featured character is Stone Barrington, a playboy-type attorney, who is “of counsel” to a large New York City law firm.

In the book, a foreign arms-dealer and fugitive,  Erwin Gelbhardt (Pablo), reveals he knows the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden at the end of a four-day interrogation which the CIA conducted in Barrington’s home office.

The book notes that the area that Pablo identified became the target of heavy and intense bombing from Unites States forces.  However, the book does not provide a conclusion that the attempt killed or captured bin Laden.

Not so on Sunday!  It was 10:00 p.m. and I turned on the news to check on the DFW weather.  The local news was not on, but an ABC network breaking news story was.  And,  you know the end of the real story as well as I do.

How many times have you seen fiction turn into reality the same day?

Let’s talk about it soon!

Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, on business culture, technology, and social issues

Eric Schmidt

Once again, McKinsey & Company offers (at no cost) an exceptionally valuable resource, in this instance Eric Schmidt‘s conversation with McKinsey director James Manyika about business culture, technology, and social issues. More specifically, Google’s executive chairman discusses his strategies on hiring, meetings, mobile business, and jobs and education.

To check out the video, audio, and text versions, please click here.

To check out the wealth of other resources at McKinsey’s website, please click here.

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Google’s executive chairman shares his strategies on hiring, running meetings, designing “mobile first” business models, and addressing joblessness and education reform.

MAY 2011
Source: Strategy Practice

When Eric Schmidt handed the reins of CEO at Google back over to co-founder Larry Page recently to take on the role of the company’s executive chairman, with a more external focus, news reports predictably recounted his oft-made joke that his role at Google had been to provide “adult supervision” for the company’s co-founders, Page and Sergey Brin. Indeed, no one could argue that in Schmidt’s ten years at the helm, Google had grown up into an extraordinary force in global business. Schmidt’s track record atop the leader in Internet searches stands as remarkable story of steady growth, expanded reach and influence, and an innovative management style that will remain scrutinized as Schmidt, 56, takes on new duties.

Google now produces close to $30 billion in annual revenues, and its domain is growing well beyond search. The company’s YouTube unit, with some 40 percent of the market for Web videos, is generating profits for the first time, and its Android operating system hums at the center of more smartphones than Apple’s iPhone.

Yet the organization that Schmidt was instrumental in building still depends on hiring and retaining the brightest talent, as well as encouraging deep collaboration and granting substantial creative free space to its teams. In this talk at a McKinsey conference in Washington, DC, in mid-March, Schmidt spoke with McKinsey director James Manyika and described Google’s approach to talent management, the mobile and data technology trends he sees shaping the coming years, and his views on public-policy issues such as joblessness and education.

Please click here and then scroll down to launch the interactive, or download the audio file.

ROAR! : A book review by Bob Morris

 
ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle
Kevin Daum with Daniel A. Turner
John Wiley & Sons (2010)

How to “break through all that noise and visual stimulation to get to the core of the customer”

What we have here is another business fable, a very popular sub-genre for business book authors in recent years. In those in which their authors rely on anthropomorphism and personification, cheese keeps being moved mysteriously, icebergs are melting, and squirrels are reluctant to trust their acorns to a storage company. In others in which the focus is on human characters, the best of them include those written by Eliyahu Goldratt and his co-authors (e.g. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement) and those written by Patrick Lencioni (e.g. Silos, Politics and Turf Wars: A Leadership Fable About Destroying the Barriers That Turn Colleagues Into Competitors). Kevin Daum wrote ROAR! with Daniel A. Turner and, in my opinion, the book it most resembles is Matthew May’s The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change.

The situation that Daum introduces is a familiar one to most business executives: Ryan Miller is the VP of sales and marketing for a well-established furniture company (Wolfson) that was previously thriving and is now undergoing a very tough period in a marketplace that is becoming increasingly ferocious. How to save the company and probably his job? The answer is suggested (not provided) by a high school classmate whom he unexpectedly encounters. Lenny Goldstein is founder and CEO of Golden Box Packaging. Over a period of several months during lengthy luncheon conversations in the NYC area, Ryan absorbs and digests what Lenny shares, then modifies the concepts (as he should) before applying them to Wolfson’s specific circumstances. How it all works out is best revealed within the book’s narrative.

Others will have their own reasons for praising this book. Here are three of mine. First, Daum demonstrates the skills of a consummate storyteller as he introduces the main characters, sets the scene, then allows the plot to develop at a reasonable pace with plausible developments. There is little (if any) tension because there are few (if any) conflicts and little (if any) doubt that Ryan will achieve his own goals as well as the company’s strategic objectives. This is a content-driven rather than drama-driven business fable.

I also admire Daum’s skill as he explains (using the Lenny persona) how to “break through all that noise and visual stimulation to get to the core of the customer.” Here is a brief excerpt from Chapter 3 on Page 43: “The message is key…It attracts the right clients, but closes only the easy sales for you…Think of sales and marketing like walking through a jungle. It’s noisy, crowded, with everything attacking your senses. Somehow, some way, we have to break through all that noise and visual stimulation to get at the c ore of the customer. Get them to clarify the need and opportunity, amid the chaos of the jungle.” Lenny walks Ryan (and the reader) through the process of formulating an appropriate Value Proposition. (Be sure to pay close attention to the material that examines “the model of pain, solution, and best provider.”) He also explains how his own company defines four buyer segments (i.e. Wise, Cynical, Simple, and “Unwilling to Ask”) and formulates strategies and tactics to maximize its appeal to those in each segment.

Finally, I was intrigued by what Lenny characterizes as a “3,500-year-old secret” that involves a process also best revealed within the book’s narrative. However, I think most readers will agree with me that it is an insight well-worth knowing.  After an Epilogue and a “Summary of ROAR! Concepts,” Daum shares this in the next section, “Integrating the ROAR! Approach”:

“The key to the success for both the value proposition and the four buys approach is to fully integrate them into your sales and marketing. What’s the point of developing powerfully compelling messaging of your web site, collateral, and salespeople are all communicating different messages and are leaving out half the potential customers?”

If there is another business fable that offers more and better advice about “how to “break through all that noise and visual stimulation to get to the core of the customer,” please let me know.

Beware the Busy Manager

Heike Bruch

Here is an excerpt from an article co-authored by Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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If you listen to executives, they’ll tell you that the resource they lack most is time. Every minute is spent grappling with strategic issues, focusing on cost reduction, devising creative approaches to new markets, beating new competitors. But if you watch them, here’s what you’ll see: They rush from meeting to meeting, check their e-mail constantly, extinguish fire after fire, and make countless phone calls. In short, you’ll see an astonishing amount of fast-moving activity that allows almost no time for reflection.

Sumantra Ghoshal

No doubt, executives are under incredible pressure to perform, and they have far too much to do, even when they work 12-hour days. But the fact is, very few managers use their time as effectively as they could. They think they’re attending to pressing matters, but they’re really just spinning their wheels.

The awareness that unproductive busyness—what we call “active nonaction”—is a hazard for managers is not new. Managers themselves bemoan the problem, and researchers such as Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton have examined it (see “The Smart-Talk Trap,” HBR May–June 1999). [Note: They later developed their insights in a book, The Knowing-Doing Gap, published by Harvard Business School Press in 2000.] But the underlying dynamics of the behavior are less well understood.

For the past ten years, we have studied the behavior of busy managers in nearly a dozen large companies, including Sony, LG Electronics, and Lufthansa. The managers at Lufthansa were especially interesting to us because in the last decade, the company underwent a complete transformation—from teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s to earning a record profit of DM 2.5 billion in 2000, thanks in part to the leadership of its managers. We interviewed and observed some 200 managers at Lufthansa, each of whom was involved in at least one of the 130 projects launched to restore the company’s exalted status as one of Europe’s business icons.

Our findings on managerial behavior should frighten you: Fully 90% of managers squander their time in all sorts of ineffective activities. In other words, a mere 10% of managers spend their time in a committed, purposeful, and reflective manner. This article will help you identify which managers in your organization are making a real difference and which just look or sound busy. Moreover, it will show you how to improve the effectiveness of all your managers—and maybe even your own.

Focus and Energy

Managers are not paid to make the inevitable happen. In most organizations, the ordinary routines of business chug along without much managerial oversight. The job of managers, therefore, is to make the business do more than chug—to move it forward in innovative, surprising ways. After observing scores of managers for many years, we came to the conclusion that managers who take effective action (those who make difficult—even seemingly impossible—things happen) rely on a combination of two traits: focus and energy.

Think of focus as concentrated attention—the ability to zero in on a goal and see the task through to completion. Focused managers aren’t in reactive mode; they choose not to respond immediately to every issue that comes their way or get sidetracked from their goals by distractions like e-mail, meetings, setbacks, and unforeseen demands. Because they have a clear understanding of what they want to accomplish, they carefully weigh their options before selecting a course of action. Moreover, because they commit to only one or two key projects, they can devote their full attention to the projects they believe in.

Consider the steely focus of Thomas Sattelberger, currently Lufthansa’s executive vice president, product and service. In the late 1980s, he was convinced that a corporate university would be an invaluable asset to a company. He believed managers would enroll to learn how to challenge old paradigms and to breathe new life into the company’s operational practices, but his previous employer balked at the idea. After joining Lufthansa, Sattelberger again prepared a detailed business case that carefully aligned the goals of the university with the company’s larger organizational agenda. When he made his proposal to the executive board, he was met with strong skepticism: Many believed Lufthansa would be better served by focusing on cutting costs and improving processes. But he kept at it for another four years, chipping away at the objections. In 1998, Lufthansa School of Business became the first corporate university in Germany—and a change engine for Lufthansa.

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Heike Bruch (heike.bruch@unisg.ch) is a professor of leadership at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. She is a co-author of with Bernd Vogel of Fully Charged, published by Harvard Business Review Press (2011)

Sumantra Ghoshal is a professor of strategy and international management at the London Business School.

We Get (We Accomplish) What We Meet About – (with reflections on President Obama’s focus on getting Osama Bin Laden)

I’ve been re-looking at Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish.  I have presented my synopsis of this incredibly practical book a number of times.  The book describes, and elaborates on, in user-friendly form, the traits and practices of John Rockefeller.   At the center of those practices was the discipline of regular meetings.

I am now ready to boil it down to a phrase.  Here’s the phrase:

We get (i.e., we accomplish) what we meet about.
and
We seldom accomplish what we never meet about.

And here’s what I mean.  We are living in a constantly distracting world.  We have so many things to do.  Because we have so much to do, we do all of that “so much” – but we frequently fail to do the one thing we most need to do.

The Harnish book basically says this:  have one priority at a time, and meet about it until it is accomplished — (meetings + execution + debriefing + next meeting + more execution).

We see this everywhere.  Do you want to know which company will win the Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award?  Look at the schedules within the winning companies.  They have constant, perpetual, consistent meetings on quality improvement over the long haul – until they genuinely excel at quality.

In the article by John Dickerson on Slate about President Obama’s focus on Bin Laden, Mission Accomplished:  How Obama’s focused, hands-on pursuit of Osama Bin Laden paid off, we learn that President Obama gave the directive early in his presidency:

In June 2009, Obama directed his CIA director to “provide me within 30 days a detailed operation plan for locating and bringing to justice” Osama Bin Laden.
and, then…
A series of meetings were held in the White House to develop aggressive intelligence gathering operations.
and
By mid-March the president was chairing the national security meetings on the operation. (In all he would chair five such meetings, including the ones on the day the operation took place.)

You get (you accomplish) what you meet about.

Or, at least, you certainly don’t accomplish what you never meet about.  Or, in other words, meetings done well may not guarantee success, but a failure to meet with a clear focus almost guarantees failure.

So, whatever your goal, ask yourself this simple question: is it genuinely your focus?  If it is, then you are meeting about it, regularly, with the people who can make it happen – until it is accomplished.

Are you meeting regularly?  With a clear focus, “one priority at a time?’  If not, it is probably time to start.