Team work

I have at times felt like organizations emphasize team work more than they really ought to? It is no surprise that team work tends to bevel sharp edges. The best performers get a raw deal while the worst ones manage to escape without a problem. Alexander Fleming could not have said it better in his quote… "It is the lone worker who makes the first advance in a subject; the details may be worked out by a team, but the prime idea is due to enterprise, thought, and perception of an individual."

Then why is the organization conical not flat or cylindrical? There is a single leader and multiple followers in every organization. Every post game analysis on ESPN is filled with number of assists, rebounds, free throws, and so on by individual players?

Is the issue with the scale? Is it the measures? Is it our lack of understanding to track these measures? Is it the ideology? Is it the judges? Or is it the peer group?

Are we following a blind faith who told us that team work is important? So how important is team work really? May be Mark Twain could help… "Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant".

Advances led declines

I love National Public Radio. Every evening on my way back from work I tune into on my jogging radio. I was strange to realize how I wait to hear the stock market news which concludes with the words “advances led declines by a ratio of X to Y.”

When I first heard those words I was surprised. What does it really mean?

Early on I ventured to speculate…
…May be some of the stocks that advanced lead the decline of others? May be market moved money from one set of stocks that at some point performed better to others that have stronger prospects today in the ratio of their numbers? But the hypothesis did not verify.
…Then I wondered may be early in the day stocks advanced and declined by close of market in the ratio of duration the day? Once again the hypothesis did not verify.
…Or may be a certain percent (X/X+Y) declined while the rest (Y/X+Y) declined?

I wondered what is worse? To be missing data or lack the know how to use it? All so common a story in corporations today.

(Advance/decline numbers give you an indication of market performance. The advance to decline ratio adds a dimension to the information conveyed by the index to spot trends.)

Business and optical illusions.

I am fascinated by optical illusions. I guess that’s one of the reasons why I love the artist M.C. Escher. I guess I like illusions just as much as I love analyzing and dissecting business models. Believe me it is just as funny to see how business models aren’t much more than an optical illusion.

I recently came across a site I wish to share. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html

The perfect candidate for cross pollination of ideas… if you know what I mean! No I am not talking about KRPYTOS.

O level & A level

I love discussing and debating things. More often my debate partner is my better half and then there are some smart friends who would like to stay anonymous. This topic was one of those that I enjoyed arguing about. It is amazing to evaluate people’s actions and use them to segment the population into categories. Only recently we were discussing actions of our maid, some of our acquaintances, a waiter in a restaurant, folks from work and the discussion quickly led to the difference between O level & A level education. (O-level education is the ordinary level which includes at least four science courses the typical high school level in the United States and A-level is the advanced level one studies at the university.)

So what is the difference and who cares? I think we ought to! O-level education prepares us in the general ability to compare and contrast, logical thinking, judgment and reason. A-level on the other hand enables us to focus on a specific interest area like accounting, finance, computing, mechanics, electronics, etc. The fundamentals from O-level play a vital part in our overall performance during and after the A-level. If O-level fundamentals are not established the logic and reason fails in every faculty, professional and personal.

Then why is it that when corporations hire individuals they are more interested in ones A-level as against the O-level? Or do we just assume that the silent endorsement from that the A-level institution implies that O-level has been perfected?

I don’t think so!

“The Pensive”

Couple years ago when JK Rowling introduced the Pensive in the “Order of the Phoenix”, I loved the idea. Intrigued by the sight of a bowl that looks like cotton candy maker with images inside Harry decides to take a peek into it. The kinds of things that Harry is able to view is unbelievable. At a later time Dumbledore even pulls out his thoughts with his wand and adds them to the pensive.

I thought to myself wow! How creative is that.

The pensive reminded me of my diary I used to write. A couple years ago my better half introduced me to Adrian Mole the series by Sue Townsend, I have always a been a huge fan even since but just the word pensive is so profound.

I wondered how can corporations use the concept of the ‘pensive’? Do we do it today? How? …and it dawned on me! KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT!

The processes, the best practices, archives of experiences both successful and failures have got to help us avoid get better at everything we do. Although JK Rowling’s concept of the pensive was only a repository of thoughts to clear up the mind.

Cross pollination

I first studied the concept of pollination in flowers in middle school. It was a sexual message at the time. Years later again as a business manager and strategist I came across pollination again but now the word meant smartness, competitive edge, innovation and much more. Funny thing cross pollination, unlike the flowers where the bees do most of the job, businesses lack those messengers. It is interesting to hear managers talk about exchange of ideas but for some reason every word has a fertility connotation to it. Why not a term like specular and diffuse?

It funny to hear management talk about ideas, Out-of-the-box thinking, but the fact is a significant number of ideas even today are inbreed. It is just a matter of comfort level. Everyone has a comfort zone and most people will quite easily say “Think Different!” but when it comes to “Acting Different” or “Doing Different” it causes them to move out of that comfort zone.

In most corporate cultures thinking different means a new package, a new color, a new fragrance and boom that’s the new and different. Granted no one wants to suffer the fate of New Coke. The problem is not just acting or doing different but even greater energizing people to literally cross pollinate ideas; imaginate and articulate!

Corporations often translate cross pollination to diversity. But is that really so? Cross pollination is quite a tortuous process. It is unlearning what you already know, learning the new business or process and then relating the old to the new to give rise to a whole new world of possibilities. It is the kind of thing one is born with not trained for. Training can only help hone the skill not indoctrinate.

Milking Strategy

How long can one live on past achievements? I guess it is an open question today? Businesses constantly need to reinvent themselves. No lest you take your eye off the prize and competition takes your place. It is ironic though how demonstrated successes can grease the tracks.

The noble prizes in the sciences are an interesting example of a milking. Breakthroughs achieved very early in the career are evaluated years later based on adoption to be considered worthy of recognition. It is impossible for one to be awarded and even nominated for the prize for recent work. The other interesting fact I have studied with regards to the noble prize is the fact that the work is fundamental but recognition is based on application and adoption.

An interesting thought! Years ago when I worked for a software company in their solutions and strategy group I noticed a phenomenon. The more I looked around, the more the milking strategy became apparent in corporate strategies, competitive strategies, customer strategies. We started with one enterprise level software we developed and sold, then we split the overall software into individual layers of the business and sold the same separately, then we sold the same as a new product by industry segments. The process continues with new bells and whistles added to the package.

Here is another one, think of detergents our moms used. Now my Whirlpool Duet has compartments for the pre wash detergent, the detergent, the bleach, the softener. Have our clothes suddenly changes so much that we need these individual products? How much can these combinations enhance the life and where is the diminishing marginal utility?

One can certainly live forever on past achievements, as long as one finds creative ways to positions and promote them.

The coffee line

I love famous last lines, one in particular is “Elementary my dear… elementary!”. Each time Sherlock Holmes says that to Dr. Watson I wonder how simple he makes it appear. But you know what human beings are simple people, things are just complicated because we hesitate and defer simplifying things down.

Just this week I was in the cafeteria for a cup of my morning coffee. Obviously I picked the shortest line, but who knew Murphy was at work. Isn’t he always! The shortest line soon became the slowest one. Or may be that was why it was the shortest line? Who knows, it is always a chicken and egg problem when it comes to answering that thing. I quickly moved to the next line, and then to a new counter that opened up. While I paid for my coffee it came back to me. “Elementary my dear… elementary!”.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could run and manage our business like that?

Lou Gerstner wrote Elephants can Dance too! and Bill Gates talks about Business at the speed of thought. Both made very interesting reading, so can’t this experience lead to just that. With a high intellect, clear goal, concise and articulate communication, calculated risks, high capacity, strong capability and collaboration, I am confident we certainly could.

The Anomaly

The word anomaly has a negative ring for some strange reason? I first came across the word in physics while in the 5^th grade… “The anomalous behavior of water…”, where water contracts when heated to the 4”centigrade temperature. I thought that must be a bad thing, an anomaly can’t be good?

Over the years I have heard people quote things like “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, “There is no I in team” and so on. So what does that mean for an anomaly, is it good or bad? U bet the jury is evenly divided. A business breakthrough is an anomaly, a smart individual in the middle of mediocrity is an anomaly, ‘A purple cow’ is an anomaly (thanks to Seth Godin), a brand with extra strong equity is an anomaly.

So how do institutions cope and capitalize on anomalies, good or bad? The frame work is called culture. Culture is like a cover for the book with anomalies. No CEO in the world has risen out of mediocrity, no organization has set itself apart from the pack by following the trodden road, and they have all been anomalies in their own right. But in doing so they have always bound themselves down by the ropes of culture within the organization and institution they have associated with.

Culture can some times be a shirt made of iron that inhibits these anomalies, it is often unfortunate to see how those institutions fail to achieve their fullest potential.

Normalization.

A very simple concept and yet so complex!

Recently I saw a graph, with a bunch of plots combined together. The bright colors and the steep rise made conveyed a feeling of accomplishment felt by the team. …But the mood was only somber. I had done my research upfront and had an inkling of the problem on hand.

The graph was perfect representation of the effort the project team had invested. Kudos to them! But as a general manager shuffling a portfolio with tangible deliverables in terms of short term volume and profit and long term positioning them, did not offer much solace. The funny thing though was the graphs were part of a deck that was being projected to convey overall success of the program.

I began to wonder, what was the gist of this gap in communication? It dawned on me, NORMALIZATION!

What is worse is people blame graphs. These are simply lines within a frame of scales, they don’t have any intelligence. The interpretation is driven by the reader, the audience based on their presentation.

The way I think of it NORMALIZATION is to DATA what CONTEXT is to CONVERSATIONS!

Disaster & Terror

This morning during my walk I started to think about the episodes of terror attacks globally. My mind began to wonder, what is the difference between a terror attack and an industrial disaster? I decided to visit my favorite source for information online Wikipedia. The results were very interesting, to see some of the same incidents I was thinking about. The Chernobyl radiation leak in the erstwhile USSR (1986), the Bhopal gas tragedy in India (1984), mercury leak in to the Minamata bay in Japan(1968). There were many others I had forgotten about, the dioxin release from a chemical plant in Sevoso Italy (1976), fire at the Triangle factory in New York (1911) and the Chicago fires (1871).

There were other sites on the web that listed more comprehensive chronologies, more recent data, and death tool from these is Industrial disasters is huge. The Bhopal gas tragedy itself left more than 7000 people dead and more than 50,000 people partially or completely disabled. So what caused these so called industrial accidents, these mass disasters? Research points to accident, negligence or incompetence. Obviously there is no malicious intent although the result is death and injury? Could this be eliminated? Probably not, that is why these are accidents, but they could certainly be reduced through proper controls, testing and investment.

The big issue is investment! Corporations with tight budgets look for opportunities to save every nickel and dime and decisions are often statistically driven. Lower the probability, lower the risk of failure and hence lower the justification for active investment, not withstanding the risk to human life. So how are these decision makers starkly different from those on the dark side? And we have not yet included the undocumented disasters like GMO, processed sugar, fat and so on.

The number of human deaths and human injuries from industrial disasters to date has been far greater than all the terror attacks put together. So why are terrorists the bad guys? Is it just the malicious intent, the SCARE, or media coverage?

Why can’t good graphic designers be good clothing designers?

Ludwig van Beethoven was completely deaf by the time he was 31 years old in 1801 and still managed to compose some of his best works like Eroica Symphony no.3, Symphony no.5, Pastoral Symphony no.6, Symphony no.7, Symphony no. 8, Piano Concertos nos.4, (a lyrical work), Violin Concerto. How did the maestro do it?

Is this pure ability? Or is it ability combined with desire and passion? I would like to think so.

You often hear people say things like “If you love your job, you won’t have to work another day!” bet this combo of ability, passion and desire is what they are referring to. Shouldn’t managers then invest time and effort in clearly understanding the requirements for a job? It is funny some times when managers define the role requirements and responsibilities they appear like a cookie cutter. The problem is a vicious; employees strive to check those boxes off more than desire and passion.

I started thinking about the problem when I hit upon the question, why can’t good graphic designers be good clothing designers? What is the difference? Both the roles need a creative personality and that it! The clothing designer rarely stitches the clothes herself or himself, although an understanding of cloth, texture does help. The graphic design has similar quirks. Understanding of the graphics software does help.

But how often do we find graphic designers who are established clothing designers? Are we emphasizing the wrong things? Is the problem with job descriptions or even upstream with the education and curriculums?

Most difficult thing to decide!

Ever tried to decide on how much salt to add when making pasta or making a new recipe? How about of deciding between funds in the 401K plan? Even with all the data, information and knowledge it is difficult on allocate. It is truly an art and a science.

ALLOCATION!

It is as delicate as the neck of a Swaroski crystal swan. An unbalance in allocation can cause problems, not just in the long term but the short term too. Math models can help and often strategic decisions should pass through the filter but there are times when decision means now.

The human mind is fascinating when it comes to comparing and contrasting. The mind compares goals and objectives, exposure, risk, interest, penchant, likes and dislikes, guidelines and so on. Swiftness and Decisiveness are key leadership trait, ones ability to juggle the objective and subjective attributes is a reflection of the individual’s intellect, judgment and stead fast nature.

Organizational constipation

Oh yeah, the digestive system problem in eliminating feces. Now that is disgusting! But the market size for laxatives is an unbelievable $1 Billion! Believe it or not constipation affects every one at one time or another. Businesses and organizations are no different.

Organizations and about people, processes and products. Constipation can affect all three. Excessive bureaucracy, meandering career paths, whimsical products are typical examples of constipated organizations.

I am not sure the problem is simply discharge of waste, "Do not look where you fell but where you slipped". So what is the root cause of this constipation? I tried to look I up on WebMd to see if the suggestions were something we could apply in organizational design to avoid organizational constipation. The suggestions on WebMd said eat VARIETY of foods, FRESH foods, drink LIQUIDS, EXERCISE, NOT RESISTING bowel MOVEMENTS, appreciate UNIQUE habits, the list went on…

It felt like a breakthrough to me, I meant it really! I translated it into DIVERSITY, FRESH IDEAS and thoughts, OPENNESS TO CHANGE, appreciate and REWARD STYLISTIC DIFFERENCES, test and EXERCISE THE ORGANIZATIONAL MINDS with new and different challenges and finally organizational PURGE IS ESSENTIAL and a good thing.

The emperor’s new clothes

Think about it, you are in a meeting with some senior executives and some one asks a fundamental question, the response is either unclear or completely off target. How often do you hear the classic “I understand” or “Got it!”.

As a kid I remember the story was just a fable, I found it hard to believe that anyone would hesitate to speak the truth? It was not until I started working as I sat through meetings that I realized the depth of what the fable really meant?

Brand “Self” and its IQ

I have always been a huge fan of Tom Peters. There are few authors I have read so extensively. The one I like most if his “Wow!” series, “Brand You”. There are so many interesting and insightful things and yet so elementary. Stuff we so easily forget and ignore.

Couple months in to one of my jobs, my manager planned an offsite event for the team to know each other, help build a little camaraderie. It was an all day event that started off with an interesting exercise. We each had to answer a couple questions about ourselves professional and personal, sort of like “What kinds of things do I like most about work?”, “What is my favorite movie?”, “What is my favorite color?”, “If I could be some one else who would that be?”, and so on and so forth. We each answered our questions and then sat in a circle. The manager than asked us to pass those sheet two people to the right and again with the person diametrically opposite.

Once we had all settled, the rustling of the papers, it was time for fun. One by one, each of us opened the sheets, we sequentially went about asking the person diametrically opposite answer the questions in that sheet about the third person who had actually filled it out. What an interesting exercise it was.

I started to think of Tom Peters at the very moment! What kind of a brand do you project? Do we clearly understand your value proposition and project it to our peers, colleagues and friends in the right frame? What do we do to address anomalies? How do we change perceptions? How do we measure this brand performance?

Do we know our Brand Value?

USD $180 Billion = 25 Years

I felt great this afternoon in the fitness center. Not just from the exercising but from the news. The thought of a judge assessing $180 Billion to 25 years leads me to believe the amount equates to the years of service it could take an individual to earn that amount. Wow there is hope! I guess my dreams of grandeur are not inflated.

No this was not an exercise in time value of money, or an individual’s purchase parity or assessment of the economy based on personal income, Bernie Ebbers’ sentencing was being discussed on Dollars and Sense.

What a coincidence just this morning the World Bank released GDP numbers by countries. I took the liberty to check those numbers and compare them with the $180 Bn figure. It turns out that only the top 30 countries have a GDP greater than $180 billion with Ireland at $183.56 Bn. I also started to wonder of the poorest countries how many would it take to add up to a cumulative GDP of $180 Bn? That is 74 of the world’s poorest countries with Macao, China at the top of the list with a GDP of $6.765 Bn.

Just gets me wondering how much power do corporate executives control to execute such an enormous embezzlement of funds? Certainly intrigues me!

Beget

My best friend is pregnant. I am so happy for her!

The thought lead me to wonder it is so unfortunate that we guys cannot beget. All day as I thought about it over the course of the day I realized that’s not really true. Guys do beget. May be not a human or a flower or fruit or an animal, obviously that does not include bacteria that I left behind this morning… sorry for that awful thought.

But I am serious we do beget and it has its own life too!

All those guys who write code develop software create a being, that does stuff. Stuff like run a corporation, produce bills, etc. and it has a life. Talk to my friends in PLM (Product Life cycle Management). They will give you a low down on all the stages from inception to maturity.

I guess there is hope and then there is that sea horse we can always look up to. No this is not mean to take away thunder from over better halves.

Who needs strategy?

A very fundamental question!

There are some very fundamental assumptions that people often need to understand when it comes to answering this one. It is common belief that if the corporation has a strategy every single function in that corporation needs a strategy that cascades down from the corporate strategy. I am not sure that is really the reason! I say that with a passion only because strategy is probably one of those OVERLY ABUSED words in business.

So why does every function and organization in a corporation need a strategy? More importantly why does the corporation itself need a strategy? Now that one is simple… to create a competitive advantage in positioning itself in the market place, as it deliver a quality better than its competitor and at a cost lower than its competitor for the betterment of its consumer. Better quality and lower cost means a larger share of the market and greater profits to the corporation. Mind you the key here is the word “MARKET”, its size and scope.

The inherent assumption in the statement is that the comprehensive selections of choices to be made are beyond the capacity of the corporation to explore simultaneously.

So obviously a corporation that has a monopoly does not need a strategy, since there is no competitor. So also if the quality cannot be improved and costs can no longer be lowered either through a judicious selection of choices then the product offering is a commodity and profits can only be increased through a smart acquisition of customers or expansion of the size of the market.

So as the corporation tries to make these choices organizations within the corporation that support its existence need to make equivalent choices in order to enable the corporation to meet its strategic goals. Likewise if a function within an organization has over capacity and is able to simultaneously explore every potential option there would be no need for a strategy!

But then the corporation should find a way to trim the unnecessary fat.

Hybrid SUV

This morning on Squawk Box I heard about the Lexus Hybrid SUV, I thought what an oxymoron? Seems like product differentiation working hard. What is interesting though is the marketing dollars with a convincing messages are effective enough to get a large portion of the consumers in buying the SUV.

Let me try and trace the genesis of the SUV – The Sports Utility Vehicle. The vehicle for ones driving pleasure on the not so trodden road. The rough terrain and the speed adding to the excitement.

So does a Hybrid make sense for an SUV? I guess it does, at least for some of the gas guzzlers. But doesn’t hybrid work only in a start and stop environment like inside a city? So why a Hybrid SUV? An off road vehicle where would be have to stop?

I guess we have redefined the SUV not what for what it was designed but for what its turned out. Soccer moms driving for safety… but aren’t these supposed to be very unsafe on account of their high center of gravity? Oh boy too many contradictions. I am lost!

Life cycle & Reapplication

You know how kids start being attentive open to listening, learning and absorbing until the hormones kick in and they become stupid before they get smarter, that what we call adolescence. Teenage passes and they get attentive open to listening, learning and absorbing new knowledge again.

Wonder if we relive the same experiences at a smaller scale with every new life stage in life? Not that I have performed any real research in this area, but the joy of observations. I have noticed how individuals learn and quickly get to a point where they believe they know all they need to know.

May be this is a people and organization thing only since most traditional life cycle management cycles have the traditional “S” curve. Or may be I just see humans mature too soon like the “S” curves or may be they do as they seek new interests at regular intervals. That should explain midlife crisis.

The Gap

No not the store, not that I have anything against it. They are a great store believe me if only my girl friend’s closet can speak. Anyway the point of the gap was a thought I had on the bus to work today.

I started to think, growing up how close I was to my grand father. Isn’t that weird… we hate our parents but love our grand parents. Think about the generation gap and how often did we bring that up when it came to our parents? It doesn’t seem to bother us when it comes to our grand parents, some how? That’s the gap I am talking about?

Some how I feel that’s true at work too. No really! I have noticed how we work hard to make our bosses feel great about our work, but are they really the ones who can make your career move? There is a gap there too. It’s not the boss, but the bosses’ boss who can make it happen. The boss can only present a case supported by ones actual accomplishments.

Wonder how many such things in life have a natural gap?

Terror Inc

Al Qaeda, IRA, ETA, LTTE, LeT, FARC, ELN, HAMAS, are just a couple. The list is long and penetrating. What can we, our businesses and our political leaders learn from these terror groups in terms of their leadership, business continuity, collaboration, their purpose, principles and values, their execution and singular focus.

It is an interesting to think of how these terror groups communicate, collaborate with various regional factions, identify and unite on a common cause, how they maintain the motivation not withstanding the constant blows from governments and other global law enforcement organizations. I began to wonder about the same with respect to businesses, public interest organizations, NGOs and even groups like G8 and the UN that conflict with each other and often lack unity.

To me these terror groups are no different from a corporation of the new world. They have goals and objectives, they need to raise funds, they need to recruit, they obviously need to motivate, they need to make judicious funding decisions when making choices and above all regroup and recover from failure. To me that sounds like a regular business!

So what makes these terror groups so effective? Is it strong leadership? Is it ‘Leader speak’? Is it good marketing? Is the religious fanaticism? What is it? Can’t be leadership by itself, because there are regional factions that operate under separate leaders. Also the destruction or capture of the leader will only give rise to a successor with greater vigor. Can’t believe it is oration by itself, although a very powerful tool, its influence is often short lived. Religion seems to be the strongest argument, but if that was the sole driver new world corporations would have had justified establishment of business units by ‘religion’ to drive volume growth and profit in those segments.

The last element that seems the strongest link “marketing”, a constant brainwash may just do the job!

So in our fight we terror, may be its time we focused on the root cause “Marketing’, to deal with than just the symptom ‘The leader’?

Core Competency

Buzz words are the most abused! “Core Competence” is not unlike any other buzz word ever since Prahalad and Hamel introduced it in The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review, May/Jun90, Vol. 68 Issue 3, p79, 13p. Igor Ansoff made early contributions to this theory in a book from 1965 McGraw Hill publication, “Corporate Strategy: An Analytic Approach to Business policy for Growth and Expansion”. That was not the point of this article though. This is my attempt to translate the idea of core competence into a line and staff management concept.

In my mind core competence is an asset that differentiates an organization from its competition and create a sustainable edge. Various functions constitute an organization. All the way from Marketing, Finance, Information Technology, Operations, Logistics, External relations, etc. each of these add a unique value through the services they render to the organization. These organizations have their own overheads.

In today’s world almost everything is expansible. About 25 years ago corporations did everything from making, packing, advertising, shipping and in some cases even sourced their own raw materials. Our ability to better understand and control the right performance measures has made it possible to outsource and collaborate with partners through the process of making, packing, advertising and shipping. Inspite of this business enlightenment we continue to hold certain functions and activities within the corporation.

The ratio of overhead dollars of a particular function to revenues as the headcount in the function varies is an interesting plot. A comparison of these curves simultaneously for multiple functions is an interesting exercise. Staff organizations typically end up with curves that have positive slopes, the line organizations end up with a 0 or negative slopes. Core competencies will have potential discontinuities and sharp piecewise negative slopes.

Let the slope be the driver!

Goals & Process

With my travels I go through I often have plenty of time to sit at the airport and think about things, pretty much any and everything. Recently my thoughts got me wondering how we make plans to visit friend and family or even just vacation and suddenly the destination is all we crave for. All that matters from there on is the GOAL! But this time the process of getting there is not much more than a hurdle.

…But isn’t that true of everything? I remember my very first resume. The objective on the resume was an inflated “I want to BE so and so…”, “I want to DO so and so…” and each of those jobs a couple years into would begin to seem like a drag. I wanted to get to where I wanted to be but not the usual torques route.

Today I feel a lot more matured as I sit back and think all the big and small things I did in those roles. The goals I delivered against, the growth I contributed to, productivity I improved and lastly people I made happy.

Could it be that the process is the goal?

Priorities?

Each time I take my SUV to the gas station I wonder, if I should just get myself one of those hybrid cars? Not that I drive too much, I take public transport for heavens sake. I can certainly afford the gas, but I still feel I could do my part for the environment. More importantly the government is offering huge TAX rebates… and it all eventually adds to our own wellness!

Talk about wellness and you cannot resist thinking about healthcare plans today. I have read articles comparing healthcare companies to financial firms especially with the financial stewardship that the consumers are being empowered with. But there is a fundamental problem with the way people think about healthcare and wellness!!!

The concepts on healthcare are obviously messed up. For example I eat out quite often and find it unusual that a good self serve salad costs as much as a regular entrée on the menu? At times the salad dressings are fattier than some of those fried meaty burgers? Corporations will invest in programs offered by healthcare companies to track regular checkups and monitor known conditions but don’t offer a fitness program? Healthcare companies evaluate the fitness conscious with the guy next door alike? There are no tax rebates for my gym membership? Any meetings we attend today that are catered typically have donuts, soda and high sugar and fructose concentrated juices and this is the same corporations that are trying to cut healthcare costs?

I could just go on and on with that list. I think the bottom-line is it’s time to revaluate our priorities and that includes gas prices and the health and wellness of our citizens.

I – I – I

No, no, no I am not egocentric! I am just referring to the 3I’s of growth.

I – Invent
I – Innovate
I – Imitate

I hate shopping, like most guys Need-it, Find-it, Get-it! That’s a rip off from a Hero Honda bike ad from my teenage days, Fill-it, Shut-it, Forget-it. Anyway… as much as I hate shopping whenever I am in there I love to check out the stuff on the shelf. Be it at a Wal-Mart, Target, Mejier’s, Staples, Home Depot, Lowe’s you name it. New stuff is always exciting, the reality is I find it exciting to compare them in light of their genesis.

In a world where most stuff is made in developing countries in the east and imported to the west world product development takes a whole new dimension. Without enough protection to limit duplicates, and a complex maze of demographic segments combined with continuous movement of people creates need for new products all the time.

Off hand imitation seems easier than anything else, but it has its own challenges. That include the need to differentiate, legal constraints to avoid patent infringement, aggressive marketing to address late market entry. These are after the operations management and supply economics have been addressed.

In a world where we move towards mass merchandising to create scale, innovation creates mass customization as we segment an already segmented market place. Similar to imitation innovation has its very own set of challenges associated with market entry, establishment of equity, generation of trial and repeats. Obviously after the operation management and supply economics have proved favorable.

Invention is certainly the toughest! It’s like blind date with a long wait at a really expensive bar where every drink is worth a gold nugget. But guess what ‘High Risk, High Reward’.

Leaders and Appearance

How often do we see an obese CEO? Or a disabled CEO (Mr. Flynt being exceptions)? I have thought about this a couple times, how important is appearance for a chief executive? Ever tried to watch a couple of our great nations chief executives notice how their hair is immaculate, their stride never changes whether is a news conference or a walk off the Air Force 1, they rarely if at all put on any visible weight. I do remember Teddy Roosevelt was in a wheel chair but it was the time without television and JFK was always upright on TV.

Anyway… back to leaders and appearance, I tried to evaluate on first principles. We love ourselves more than we love anything else! The sooner we realize that the sooner we start investing in ourselves. The right timing combined with right opportunity and plenty of self confidence can catapult one into a leadership position. Loving myself to me means health upkeep, fitness upkeep, mental upkeep and social upkeep, especially with regards to family and friends and finally professional upkeep in terms of networking, networking, networking! With heavy emphasis on visibility in today’s age and time health, fitness take the form of Appearance.

Couple years ago I watched a movie on television, ‘Good Girl’. Jennifer Aniston who is the main character, she makes a comment saying “You don’t dress for the job you have, but for the job you want”. Come to think it makes a lot of sense! I strongly believe that applies to health and fitness as well.

Do we have the right performance measures in place?

Success implies there exists failure! There cannot be great without fair performance. It is all relative. Individuals, Organizations, Governments can all be victims of flawed performance measure.

Trade, Titles, Compensation, Promotion, are all tied to performance. The criticality of right measures and controls cannot be overstated.

Here are some I have ruminated over:

• Media covers the number of Ph.D. graduating from schools in China and India. Is this really a matter of concern if 50-80% of them end up moving to the US and or working for US corporations?
• Number of airline accidents. Doesn’t it make more sense to talk about this as a ratio of number travelers each year and report it in relation to car drivers or bikes and cycles riders each year?
• Scarcity of gasoline and heavy dependence on foreign sources, but how dependent are they on our Intellectual Property and weapon sales?

…and its not just now but 10-20 years out.

It is the exact same story in the corporate world… people, processes and projects lack a clear definition of success and miss a measurement system to track and control.

It’s not my job!

We have all heard it, may be even said it. It can be an annoyance to hear it but comforting when saying it. Consultants unfortunately have little luxury when it comes to saying, “It’s not my job”.

In every consulting assignment there is a point in time when the client will request for some thing outside the scope of the immediate project. A good engagement management manager can do certain things to control scope, but the fine words of “Goodwill” often take precedence over “By the book”. Fortunately for the internal employees, they have the, “It’s not my job!”

Enough of the, who can and who can’t… the important question is why is it not someone’s job? Could it be stature of the job, may be priorities, may be capacity or may be capability? There are a million theories one can conjure up. It sometimes feels like I am playing 20 questions with myself.

Every case of, “It’s not my job!” is typically followed by check with “Mr. X”. I have always interpreted the later to mean, “I am capable but I do not desire to do this for you. Sorry!”, it could only mean “hey mister there is no reward for doing this work and infact this may become by chore if I do it this one time”.

As far as this Blog goes, it’s not my job… it’s my passion. But that may just be crazy talk…

Forgive and forget, really?

Recently the thought of Martha Stewart crossed my mind, her time in the big house and then the ankle bracelet lead me to think about Punishment and Penance. Punishment is supposed to make someone a better person. It is like the slate was just cleaned.

Personally I am not at all religious in my understanding every religion teaches some common tenets, one in particular being forgive and forget. But what about TRUST?

Considering the fact that religions are all about trust and belief isn’t it strange there is no mention of trust in the ‘forgive and forget’? Huh, strange I might just stay. Is the trust part implied in the ‘forget’ may be? And if that is really so why are we as a society talking about not permitting these leaders on boards of any corporations? Is the penance not complete then? Was the prison term no long enough to have transformed the person? How long is long enough for this transformation to complete? Is this a standard duration for all? Is the courtroom judge qualified enough to decide on what is the right duration? Shouldn’t it be a parole like decision, with decisions at certain milestones? And even after that can we trust the person?

May be a change in name and logo? Pharmaceutical companies have tried it. Strong branding and a whole bunch of resources!

But can trust ever be restored? What does it take to establish trust?

Emotional immaturity

When our 40^th President Ronald Regan was asked “How could an actor become president?” he replied “How can a president not be an actor?” bet he was talking about emotional maturity.

Read the recent issue of Fast Company “IS YOUR BOSS A PSYCHOPATH?” Authors: Deutschman, Alan (adeutschman@fastcompany.com) Source: Fast Company; Jul2005 Issue 96, p44, 8p, 1c, 12bw, fit right in that thought process I had going with emotional maturity. There is a mention of John D. Rockefeller (the man who made the most millionaires), Henry Clay Frick, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Armand Hammer, Harold Green, Martin Davis, Richard Snyder, Ivan Boesky, Leona Helmsley, Al Dunlap, Andrew Fastow. The list is a who’s who of business leaders.

I am only glad to notice unlike "Lessons from the Top: The 50 Most Successful Business Leaders in America and What you Can Learn from Them.", the list does not include Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay, Hank Greenberg, Dennis Kozlowski. May be it is best said through the quote “Hind sight is always 20-20”.

Guess I beg to ask, does any one know what makes a good leader? Couple weeks ago I noticed a quote on one of the HBR articles I received that said “Leadership is action that inspires action”, is that so? Because each time I walk down the block I see a blind old lady playing a flute that some how inspires me to extend a charitable donation to her! She ought to be a great leader!

Documentation

It’s the end of the strategy sessions and I need to document the strategy, capabilities and action plans. There isn’t any other part of my job I hate more than this. My understanding from talking to friends is pretty even on the thought of documenting projects, models, recommendations, etc.

So really how important is documentation?

I started to think from first principles on what happens in the absence of documentations and it revealed itself to me… Earth, Humanity and everything else.

Why do we conduct research? Because we wish to know and understand things better. Isn’t there any other way to understand these things? May be talking to an expert, listening to some tapes or READING an EXECUTIVE SUMMARY? There we go documentation again!

Guess how great would it be if a document was created when the big bang occurred that explained the whole process! A document explaining the genesis of humans, another document explaining the genesis of diseases, etc., etc. Now there we go documentation is certainly necessary. But is it sufficient?

I don’t hate reading documentation as much as I hate putting one together, but I must say there are some that seem an awful waste of time! That’s the sufficiency part of documentation. A document is only good enough if a layman could read it, follow it and recreate the object being pursued, be it a model, an assembly of a cabinet, a strategy or the BIG BANG!

Value

Over the weekend I was watching a movie based on the story of a renowned artist. It was fascinating to see how artists created these timeless pieces of art but it was their patrons who paid for the work and supported their families. Fortunate were those who found wealthy patrons and then there were the Vincent Van Goghs of the world.

For someone working in strategy development, deployment and marketing, this seemed very interesting to notice the irony of value.

Value is a funny thing!
- The creator can only create but not assign value
- The consumer can only realizes value but not create

Do you think these artists needed good marketers?

The though lead to the phrase we come across every day in the business world. “Creating value”,“Long term value creation” and so on. Who is to decided if we are at all creating value unless some one realizes it and above all what does it mean to create long term value?

Staff organizations globally suffer through this curse every where. If the value is not realized today it is often not appreciated. If the value is not measured and called out explicitly it is often lost and forgotten.

Are we really intelligent?

Everyone says so? May be we are. But who knows, we don’t always behave like we do? Over the weekend I met couple friends who have a golden retriever. The dog had lost some weight since I last saw him; it was the chemo therapy for his cancer that had caused the weight loss.

Not too long ago I came across a statistic that alarmed me. About 50% of pets suffer from cancer! I shared this statistic with our friends and they did not seem to be too surprised. I inquired why? The immediate response was ‘the breeders over breed the pet’. ‘bet it has something to do with the diet and the lifestyle’ I said. The response was a luke-warm maybe? I know for a fact they feed the dog top quality food and have a very active lifestyle for the dog with regular walks and a daily run.

At the end of the evening on our drive back I began to wonder… aren’t the same things true of humans? Could we be over breeding too? Aren’t we supposed to be the intelligent ones, shouldn’t we be able to figure this out? Our diets are cursed with fast food; our lifestyle is sedentary in front of the idiot box and computers at work. Above all things the rate of growth in human population. The simplest way to think of is in terms of people per unit land on the planet or people per animal on the planet and that given animals are supposedly less intelligent than us humans?

So I decided to lookup the meaning of intelligence. According to the Oxford dictionary, intelligence is the faculty of thought and reason. Is intelligence only about sending probes in space and building tall structures? Are we really intelligent if we lack common sense?

We know more than we ever did?

I was thinking about things like Product life cycles, Business analysis, Business negotiation, Business strategy, Human adolescence, PMS in women, Midlife crisis in men and women, etc.

Why did we need to know all of these things?
How are we better from knowing about them?
Why the sudden need to know?
What did we do in their absence?
WHAT CHANGED?

Ever so new products have be launched with the intent of gaining larger and larger market share and greater profits, businesses have be compared and contrasted, performance has be measured, regulations met, Fundamentals of bartering have remain the same, creative new tradeoffs developed and compromises made. Don’t remember my mom ever complaining about PMS to my dad? I will do the same thing with my kid when he is an adolescent that my parents did with me. As an adult in midlife crisis I will look for the same gratification that my friends, colleagues and parents did.

SO WHAT CHANGED?

The only things I know that changed are resources!
- We have limited resources and we need to be wise in allocating them against the needs and wants.
- As businesses uncovered gold mines more and more have made a rush to get a piece of the pie. With the advent of the internet there is abundance of data for the consumer and share holders to review compare and contrast thus making it essential to perform.
- Lastly with governments protecting interests of their citizens and special interests have established limits and quotes, created regulatory pressures and trade barriers.

I am not sure we know more today but we have certainly become smarter when talking about it.

The inventor, The scholar and The biter!

I love reading fantasies and some times watching family fantasy movies. There are always so insightful and imaginative, they often give me a reason to think laterally and get my juices flowing.

I watched a movie one last weekend and was so impressed. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, oh what a movie! It was not just at the picturization, the actors but the whole package, beautifully executed by director Brad Silberling. Hope I am not beginning to sound like Sisckel & Ebert with two, three, four and may be even more thumbs up… way up.

What I really loved about the movie was the fantasy itself with the combinations of the kids skills, their interests and the events that lead them to uncover the ominous plot. The perfect balance between inventor as the practitioner, the scholar as the theorist and the little baby bitter for witty comments and wholesome entertainment.

The started to compare the organization to that or a corporation. The visionary executive the practitioner, balanced with a slightly conservative theorist.

Daniel Handler must surely the be a organizational guru!

It’s not voodoo?

Pick a classical text book on organization and management and you will find at least a couple chapters dedicated to dynamics of leading groups and projects. It is still quite funny how roles are designed for to fail and people miss some of these finer points. Projects don’t fail on account of the leadership or lack of knowledge but because the miss the essential ingredients of authority and responsibility.

I believe our understanding has lot to do with hierarchies we are familiar with starting with family, the church, our social and political leaders and finally what we hear from our parents and elders during our impressionable years. Although all organizations are different their structures are based on the culture of the specific organization. Some flatter than others while others deeper than others. Hierarchies result in titles, however unique the organizations structure the titles communicates a certain level of authority.

Accountability is very essential to leverage this authority. As the chief if one is not accountable for the organizations direction, there is little incentive in leveraging this authority. The entire organization can sit relax and enjoy drinks in a pub all day until end of time or end of money which ever comes first. On the flip side if an individual is responsible for the direction of the organization, goals and objectives but does not have access to the right resources and lacks the ability to promise a carrot or a stick in exchange for the services, the individual may be incapable of delivering.

I have come across multiple articles on leadership and often times they sound like voodoo to me. But come to think of it what really is leadership? Recently I received an email from HBR talking about leadership as “Action that inspires action”, I beg to differ because I could work emotions, carrots and sticks to inspire action.

To me it is truly the right mix of authority and responsibility.

First principle

The Nobel laureate Physicist and faculty member at Cal Tech late Richard Feynman, said “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool”.

It is unfortunate that very few people start analyzing issues from first principle. I had some one ask me the question “What is first principle?” I started to think of the most intuitive and simple explanation. Where do I start?

When I bought my first car, I was anxious and excited. I started by looking at all the modes to transport that were available to me. Was a car the most viable option based on my criteria? Then confirmed the fact that I could afford one as a student? The kind I really desired? Define the market, other students, university staff, dealers, etc. What kinds of cars were on the market? Of the ones on the market which ones were within my budget? And the process went on…

Unlike the typical process of working backward when managing a project (although the objective was the car buying decision) and making assumptions at each step, this was forward oriented with a fundamental base and avoiding any unnecessary assumptions. The starting point was what modes of transport were available? even before starting to look for a car. Capacity and capability force us to make assumptions.

Without sounding like the Visine Commercial… ‘first principle’ is clarity of vision!

Assumptions

Some time ago I wrote a short essay on the most important word in our vocabulary “NO”, the second most important has to be “Assume”, “Assumption”, a scary word! Another one of those sweet yet devious words. But what it really means is “I politely apologize for my lack of understanding of the implications of this issue/aspect/variable on the outcome/recommendation”.

I have tried to count the number of times people use the word in regular conversation. It is alarming. What makes it worse is the fact that people don’t even understand the assumptions that make and what they mean? The thought of making an argument without knowing the assumption is only analogous to drifting on the ocean on a raft without any idea where destination is. Not very comfortable now is it?

If we think multiple times before we use “a” or “an”, say “the” or “the” before words starting with vowels why don’t we think of the depth and breath of an argument and the basis and assumptions? We will always be limited but out capacity and capability forcing us to make assumptions as we think deeper and harder but what it will be our understanding and knowledge of our assumptions that will lead us to NIRVANA!

Hell…….o!

If I get a “morning” instead of a “Good morning”, “afternoon” for a “Good afternoon”, “night” for a “Good night” why can’t we just say “Hell” instead of a “Hello”?

These days I speak more with my fingers… instant messenger, same time, SMS, cellular text messaging, and the list goes on and on. What is funny is it seems like these models are based on two fundamental beliefs, one is we are either in a hurry or we have weak fingers and hence need to communicate through TLA oh sorry Three Letter Acronyms or maybe the second argument is we have a poor memory to store the stream of thoughts we have as they translate into messages in these devices.

Communication has taken a whole new meaning, from ‘l8r’ for later and ‘g8tr’ gator to emoticons the emergence of emotional icons. The most interesting to me is the ‘Nudge’, how personal are we getting? Should we consider our generation a internet age, data savvy and swift or linguistic with its own short hand.

I guess time will tell. For now I will leave with a TTYL (talk to you later).

Worst enemy + Best friend

Time! No I am not talking about Pink Floyd, not even the magazine, or the scene from “back to the future” when Doc enters the scene for the first time. I am talking about the dimension, TIME!

Time is a very interesting dimension. I could talk about time in the physics domain for a long time, but I am interested in talking about Time in a business domain today. Think about it what can you do when some one says “You are too young.”, you can’t go get a couple years, you can’t buy it, its not training that you read some and put on those years, or eat some to bulk up, likewise what if some one says “You are too old.”? Obviously it can’t be shed off, its not weight or hair.

So what do people really intend to say when they comment on time, either the lack of it or the excess? In my guess the true implication is on experience, that hard teacher that gives you the test first and then the lesson. The flip side is when they doubt your energy, capacity and may even capability. In my opinion it is obviously a flawed concept, especially since the oldest person is not the wisest and the youngest one is not the most energetic, but again there is little value in arguing, I believe we need to pick our battles.

It’s a tough argument, unlike training, weight, space, time is not physical. Although HG Wells in his timeless classic introduced us to the time machine and so did Verne Jules, established scenarios where the dimension and principles challenged. To date any travels in this dimension of time has been science fiction, you never know considering the fact that Mr. Wells articulated the science of genetics and transplants very elegantly in to Dr. Moreau’s Island.

Who is to say in the future we will not be able to go ahead in time gain experience and get back to deliver on the energy promise? Given our obsession with perpetual youth and anti-aging.

Patterns * Patterns * Patterns

Heavy stuff falls when you drop from a height, the sun rises every morning, the sun sets every evening, the moon rises every evening and sets every morning, the seasons they repeat every 12 months, the El-niño, La-niña, the “J” curve … Aren’t these all patterns? So what is the big deal about pattern recognition? We recognize patterns all the time, then we endevour to explain those patterns. Hypotheses are established to explain the patterns.

Often these hypotheses hold for a long time until we invent tools and devices to measure them carefully that confirms or refutes these hypothesis into principles and facts! The dropping of heavy stuff is gravity, the rising and setting to the sun and the moon is the orbital motion of the earth and the moon, that then causes the seasons, the over heating and over cooling of the Pacific ocean leads to the El-niño and La-niña. The resurgence in value of the currency after devaluation, that looks like the “J” curve.

So why are businesses are obsessed with patterns? I have wondered why has pattern recognition failed to gain a strong foot hold. It works well in some situation and does not in others? Couple years ago I started dating my girl friend when we waited for dinner at restaurants she drew me a couple doodles, my task was to recognize them. It dawned on me we have always been looking at a part of it not the whole.

I obviously did not recognize any of those doodles but in the absence of context, lack of theory, knowledge of the right measures, and limited understanding of the non-linear multiplier effects between all the different things (variables) that were visible, some of which I knew and tracked and other I didn’t? I could have spent a couple days thought over, gotten some guidance, built some models, to figure it out.

So when people say “there is a pattern”, but what that really means is “within the unknown boundary conditions that I don’t know anything about there exists a behavior that repeats itself and I am going to try and chase it down”. Isn’t that what the deer in the desert runs after? The Mirage?

Demigod!

I was in an interesting discussion this afternoon with a colleague. She was venting.

I felt sorry for her. Our discussion revolved around capabilities of people or lack of it. I started to think of some people I had worked with. The word that came to mind was “Demigod”. I thought it must be the GRE word list kicking in.

Immediately when I had a spare moment I looked the work on Google. Wikipedia had a description. A "demigod", a "half-god," is a modern distinction, often misapplied in Greek mythology. A "demigod" is meant to identify a person whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human, such as the heroes of Greek mythology.

I began to wonder why did I think of demigods? One thought lead to another and I perched on a quasi static one ‘the frame of reference’. The datum, the base line, the frame of reference can be a very important concept. Gods and Monsters are a figment of this frame of reference. So where does a demigod fit in? I guess towards the god end of the spectrum.

In the absence of eugenics, some of these human exceptions have to be demigod how else can we explain them?

The curtains!

We were at a local store buying some curtains for the home when the variety there got me thinking.

The curtain is a fascinating concept when you think of it. The window is open, but one may not be able to see through it? In the classical sense blinds on the window are curtains too… The tinted plastic sheet often stuck on the car window is not much different in that sense then is it?

Anyway, as I sat in a meeting a couple weeks ago I started to think about the mind and psyche of some of the participants in that meeting. The curtain now took on a whole new dimension. The participants all brought to the table their own points of VIEW, perceptions and opinions. The brain and the mind inside these individuals viewing at the presentation through a window with curtains. Throughout the presentation they all asked different questions based on the hue and tint on the glass that represented their experiences and background.

Often through the presentations their expressions changed, some from intrigue to fascination, others to skepticism, yet others to rumination and couple to acceptance. Each of these seemed to be viewing area of the window with the curtains opened or closed.

Blind… spot/s

Like every other part of the human body the human eye is a design of a genius!

Yet there exists a point where things are very clear and another where there is nothing to be seen. “The Blind spot”. Often time’s people seem to have more than just one blind spot when it comes to business/es.

It is an interesting exercise to present a strategy, an analysis to make an argument or refute a hypothesis. It is not always that the entire audience embraces the results with open arms. The team is often scattered along the entire spectrum. The non believers on one end, the believers on the other and the rest some where in between.

I have often wondered how much of this has to do with their experience, their openness to a philosophy, acceptance of an ideology, culture, experience, age and above all their blind spots? So what is a blind spot after all?

Is it something we take for granted? Is it something we believe we know better than the rest? Is it something we leave to fate? Is it some thing we lack knowledge of? Is it something we are too lazy to explore? I am not sure exactly, but I think it is a combination of it all. If nature intended for us to have these blind spots there may be a good reason? I don’t think that is a good enough argument though.

How does it sound if a CEO of a corporation presents the state of business and blames any failures to the blind spot? No investor would ever buy into it. The awareness of its existence is the first step to addressing the outage. Could the answer be DIVERSITY!

Puzzler

Women have made a lot of progress, from politics to religion to business. Just in the past five years women have broken the glass ceiling.

* Jill Barad Matell (exCEO)

* Meg Whitman Ebay (CEO)

* Carly Fiorina HP (exCEO)

* Patricia Russo Lucent Technologies (CEO)

* Andrea Jung Avon (CEO)

* Linda Wachner Warnaco (exCEO)

* Indira Nooyi Pepsico (President & CFO)

These just some I remember. The number is still in a 1%-2% range but that’s a start.

Interestingly though I get the feeling these the deal is not really what its cut out to be. It just seems like when things go really wrong… corporations bring a turnaround CEO. Some how this turn around CEO is a woman.

Is this a case of a scapegoat?

Microscope + Fisheye lens

I love photography. I have learnt some of the finer points through reading literature. Not to long ago I was flipping through the pages of a popular magazine on photography and lenses when a came across a couple adds. On a single page were two separate small ads. One was about lenses for a microscope and the there for a fish eye lens for a camera. My mind had begun to wander as I started to think about the two.

Truly antipodal I thought, although the principles and concepts of optics and physics the very same. The same material, silica and everything else I guess, but yet so different. The ad left me thinking about an incident from years ago. My dad is a Mechanical engineer by training. He still takes active interest in machines and mechanisms. Years ago I remember an important piece of equipment in his factory was down, couple of his engineer friends had spent a day or more trying to figure the problem. A foreman who had learnt the trade on his job and lacked any formal training came along and offered to fix the machine. My dad stepped away and let the old man take a shot. The machine was up and running in no time. As a young boy when I heard the story I was confused.

Like any little kid began to wonder if education and training meant much? Here there were a couple smart engineers trying to figure a problem that a foreman fixes up in a flash. I asked my parents what that mean? My parents simplified the episode into simple things my mind could assimilate. They explained at length, until I understood.

When I read the ad that explanation resonated in my mind once again. It is the difference between an EXPERT and a STRATEGIST, none less important than the other, but yet uniquely different.

Nature – Kaizen – Reengineering

Couple days ago I was reading an article on Reengineering and the corporate obsession for it. The article sprung a thought in my mind about human evolution. It is believed that we have taken us over 5000 years to get to where we are today.

Although it feels like we have accelerated the process in the past couple years, is it just a relative. Ever realized how slow an airplane seems to move in the sky? Anyway the point being we have a sudden obsession with speed and change?

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy on continuous improvement, through process improvement. The belief is many small process improvements will deliver breakthrough overall results eventually. After the Second World War, Japanese corporations focused efforts on productivity improvements on a war footing. Kaizen has been responsible for increase in productivity in many Japanese corporations. Unlike other Japanese philosophies, Kaizen failed to again a strong acceptance in the US management style.

Kaizen failed where Reengineering succeeded. Kaizen’s focus on process where bottom line is never the motivation. Kaizen thus delays dramatic breakthrough that may come about from new technology, on the exact other end Reengineering focuses on disruptive and radical change.

Often Japanese corporations are family run and managed conglomerates and legacy is a big deal. US corporations are vey myopic in that regard. It is about the tenure and not legacy! It is so fascinating to hear us managers to talk about legacy especially when you think of CEOs who receive huge severance even when the company is falling in a debt trap or underperforming compared to its peers.

I am reminded of a quote from an old scripture the Gita where Lord Krishna preaches his brother in-law Arjun at the time of war. Arjun is hesitant to fight evil that has taken the form of his own cousin brother. “Don’t think of the end, do your duty, put in your best and you will succeed”.

Image’ination & Articulation

I often remember the face but don’t remember the name of the person. This morning during while walking to the bus stop I started to wonder… what is it about search that we can search by name of the person, make it more specific with their location, date of birth, social security number, mother’s maiden name, DNA finger printing (depending on the importance level), retinal scan, and so on… but not by their face and features, etc.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could logon to a search engine like Google and describe, black hair, big brown eyes, low cheek bones, average lips, scar on left cheek and left fore head? My guess is that would generate no less than a couple hundred people if not million? So how does our brain register and remember all these many people? What is more interesting is our ability to recognize people after a make over-Hair cut, Age, etc. The same applies to the blind and people with sub-par vision as they recognize acquaintances, friends and family? Are these all the things we see, hear, feel and all the other sensory perceptions.

How many attributes does it take to uniquely identify a person? The question is becoming more and more relevant in today’s day and age with break-ins into secure data at people like Choice point, Citi Group, etc.. How does our brain store the data, how many attributes does it record, an above all how is it all indexed in order to be retrieved in a flash?

The nature still has a learning curve when it comes to articulation of all those things we see, feel and are able to imagine.

The glue!

I arrived in the conference room early waiting for a meeting. I sat staring at the furniture, the table and the chairs and momentarily I went into a state of daze.

How is this furniture held together? Most of them looked like the classic Mortice-Tenon joint with the male, female joints fit into each other. But the Mortice-Tenon is not like the Dovetail that holds together with friction. The Mortice-Tenon is help together by GLUE.

How often do we think of the importance of glue? It is one of those things you just take for granted. But if the furniture falls apart, the glue would be the first to be blamed. So what is the deal with the glue?

Some one walked in the room and I lost my chain of thought, but what I realized was there are organizations in corporations like the glue. I think we know them as staff organizations.

Journey

Just when I had a critical decision in life and was real happy my dad gave me some invaluable advice. He said “life is a train ride, it keeps moving in a certain direction. Your job is to board the right train, get off at the right stations and board new trains in order to reach your destination”. Very profound! I am not sure I understood the depth of what he said until a few years ago.

Rose by another name would smell much better!

Some thing just sounds better with a different name. For example ‘Moisturizer’ certainly sounds better than ‘Lotion’, how about ‘Wellness’ against ‘Fitness’ and ‘Ensemble’ versus ‘Set’.

Changing name does not change the utility or the value but sophistication often times adds a dimension of class and finesse. This could be the difference between success and failure. Bureaucracy and Red tape are two such works that have a negative connotation to them. Lets see if there are replacements out there today that may make the problem disappear?

Clayton Christensen in his book the innovators dilemma refers to success of breakthrough ideas tied to the corporation’s culture and leadership. Organizations today establish a sponsor for such projects this creates the necessary executive advocacy needed for project success.

Much like project success, career path’ing can be a similar exercise. Career transitions and growth often need support and advocacy from rank and file in the executive cadre. The sponsorship and advocacy often helps grease the track to help establish networks where none exist.

Sponsorship and Advocacy certainly sounds a whole lot better now don’t they?

HR-People performance and IRS-Taxation

As we get better with our language skills, this is not just semantics but also articulation and communication we also get better at equivocating. Not too long ago there was a debate in congress about simplifying the tax code. How did it end up getting so convoluted? What is a tax? I tried to look it up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Tax:
· A charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes
· A sum levied on members of an organization to defray expenses

Simply put, it is a sum of money an individual or institutions pay for being associated with an organization, like a membership fee. When and how did it end up getting so complicated? Did someone tweak the system to foster personal interests? Or was it because we don’t understand how to measure performance and thus charge appropriately? Or may be it is simply a strategy to confuse what taxes really mean?

Back in the days when I studied Artificial Intelligence, one of the first things I learnt was Ockham’s Razor. The principle is attributed to the 14th century English logician William of Ockham. The principle forms the basis of methodological reductionism, also called the principle of parsimony or law of economy. Ockham’s Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed. When multiple explanations are available for a phenomenon, the simplest version is preferred. This directly leads me to a quote by Chesterton, “If you can’t convince them confuse them”.

I have seen the exact same thing with staff functions in organizations. People and performance measurement by human resources is much the same, marketing and IT suffers the same destiny in most organizations.

People performance measurement is not much different from the IRS tax problem as defined by human resource development organizations are across more dimensions than they ever were in the past. The process takes months to accomplish, at the end of it more people are dissatisfied than content.

Is the next role that of an internal performance consultant, like a tax attorney?

May be it is a mentor with knowledge of the loop holes in the system.

How important is Branding and Marketing?

I was wondering, what marketing really does? They don’t build a product. They don’t sell the product. They don’t invest the product. What is it that they really do and why are they necessity?

It is important to follow the chain of thought on this one!

I started a random search for branding and marketing and found a bunch of information at TOP B-SCHOOLS (Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Dartmouth, Stanford, etc.). Then there were the TOP MANAGEMENT CONSULTING COMPANIES. A bunch of REPUTED COMPANIES with strong established brands showed up. A list of TOP BRANDS I use and buy.

So what attracted me to the B-Schools, Consultancies and Corporations? The fact that these institutions had set themselves apart from the pack! That leads to two questions, how did they do that? How and when did this pack come to exist?

Obviously these institutions did not build tall buildings or just stick posters all over the place claiming they were the best or give away gifts to all the people on the planet to admit to their supremacy or hold the planet hostage to acknowledge they were the best? So what did they do? BRANDING!

How did this pack come about? The more fundamental question is what are these institutions? To me these are a bunch of very smart individuals current and past associated with a movement. With every movement there are renegades that strive to establish their own style, thus resulting in multiple nucleuses for such movements; thus resulting in a pack of organizations and institutions.

The last question is why a BRAND? With multiple products in the market place and millions of dimensions to measure performance and quality the common man needs a basis. Some time that dimension is just the loudest voice and at other times it needs to be a lot more strategic.

SO THE ANSWER IS BRANDING IS ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT

Leadership

With the war in Iraq looming over and state of affairs with our political leadership. I am reminded of the quote by Henry Miller “One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea whether a good one or a bad one.”. So what’s the deal in the corporate world? What makes a leader and how are they different?

We have had a bunch to think about lately; The Carly issue at HP; The Phil Condit issue at Boeing; The David Kearns issue at Xerox not too long ago.

A month or so ago I read the a clip the “The urge to merge”, “Boardroom Barons”, “Viacom's Troika”, “Leaving Loaded at HP” (April 23^rd, 2005) in the column “The CEO hall of shame”, published by The LA Times. The editor spoke about how some of these leaders have not delivered on the promise.

Try searching for a book on leadership at the world’s largest bookstore and you will find thousands over thousands of books and articles. I spent time reading a couple, some I really liked, some I really enjoyed and some they just occupy space on my bookshelf. They all seem to have some things in common:

• Develop strategies that capitalize on strengths and capabilities
• Anticipates competitive trends
• Deliver short term objectives and develop capabilities to meet long term targets

If leadership can be summarized into a couple bullet points why is it so difficult to spot the likes of ‘Neutron Jack’? Why do we associate Chain saw Al with Neutron Jack with Jac the Knife and Harold Sydney together?

Do we really know why some of these turn around kids performed so poorly? If these succeeded to get to the top why weren’t they able to stay atop? Can we measure and spot true leadership or it is a something very nebulous? Is strong and successful leadership a matter of luck? Or is it just a misstep by an individual in to the limelight that catapults him or her to the top spot?

Bias-O-Meter

We are all biased. That does not sound right, does it? But yes, WE ARE ALL BIASED!

We refer to BIAS in various ways: style, personality, approach, etc. Over time I established an evaluation criterion for bias.

When bias has a positive influence we refer to it as CULTURE and negatively influenced bias is referred to PREJUDICE. But guess what a given action may be biased positive in a certain situations and negative in others. Worse yet inaction could also mean a bias! Wow now this gets confusing.

Here is a list of questions I started to think:
- What kinds of biases do we harbor?
- Are our actions biased, positive or negative?
- Is there a gadget to check our bias?
- How about advice to adjust the bias?
- Can/May I test?
- Is there a trend in our behavior to it or is it random noise?
- How often should we test?

No this not from the Frequently Asked Questions of an Omron Equipment site.

So where do I find this Bias-O-Meter?

Globalization & Divorces!

Every day we read and hear of outsourcing, imports from china, call centers in India, large corporate mergers, foreign acquisitions, international joint ventures, etc.

Last weekend as I sat in front of the idiot box surfing channels I heard we have become a ‘nation of divorces’. Approximately 50% of adult Americans who have ever been married are divorced. This makes little sense!

If our corporations invest millions of dollars in acquiring other companies, setting up businesses in a new market in a far off country, enter into a joint venture to market a new brand developed and managed by an unknown partner. We are willing to commit to a relationship with a partner who looks different (racially), speak a different language (dialect and script) and hold cultural beliefs that may be different from ours.

Why do we struggle with our life partner who most likely was someone we were able to meld minds with not too long ago. Today we can instantly converse with our business partners on the other end of the world, we can hear them, read them, write to them and even see them multiple times a day over the internet, video conference calls but we cannot communicate with our life partner who is very much local? We have scaled physical distances but there exist chasms in the mental connection with our very own life partner.

What does it take to hold a family together that is so different from corporate GLOBALIZATION? I tried to brainstorm:
* Objectivity
* Understanding of trade offs
* Agreement on compromises
* Common goals
* Uninhibited communication

I guess I could go on and on….

What is the most difficult word in your vocabulary?

NO!

Believe me! It is tough to say no. As a teenager my mom gave me a book Don’t say yes when you want to say no by Herbert Fensterheim and Jean Baer. Good book!

I started to think what do people do when they genuinely wanted to say NO?

• They make an excuse as against a real NO
• They try to be polite (and fail)
• They never really say NO
• They differ the NO for some one else
• They hope the person forgets to ask
• They change topics

The list goes on and on…

NO is really like the Zero in the number system. The zero means nothing when it comes before a whole number, but can change the value significantly after one.

Saying NO can be a sign of confidence, conviction and may be even EGO.

How short lived is our memory?

Years ago I read a quote that said “To get into the history books, you need to read a history book”. I did not gather the depth of the quote until years later.

As a kid the school system forced me to study a bunch of subjects from English literature, Grammar and Composition, History & Geography, Math, Science, Moral Science & Religion and a long list of extracurricular topics. During my college years I wondered why? I could not make the connection between a course in History & Geography to a career in Engineering.

After I started working I realized how little we remember and how little we apply from our coursework. How about the Russian and French revolutions and corporate organizations; Regional and natural resources to global sourcing; Asian economic systems as related to regional instability and risk; Shakespeare’s plays and interpersonal relationships.

A couple years Black and Scholes’ received a Noble prize in Finance for the Black and Scholes Option pricing model based on Brownian motion. Who could have though of comparing stock price movement to Brownian motions and using the ideology to predict financial derivatives.

I know a good friend who built a corporate organizational model based on heat and mass transfer principles to predict career movement.

An article in the New Yorker by Stephen Dubner on Steven Levitt’s research is another great example. Their new book Freakonomics might make interesting reading.