The Power of Idea Acceptance

For us in change management consultancy, one of the big challenges is to overcome "resistance to change", or get people to accept and implement new ideas.  There are thousands of books written on the subject, usually referred to as change management.

In the book "Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders" by Rajeev Peshawaria, the author discusses an interesting idea about how to increase effectiveness when leading the implementation of new ideas in organizations.  He suggests that effectiveness follows the following equation:

E = Q x A

Where E if Effectiveness, Q is Quality and A is Acceptance.   

Sometimes, we only focus on the "acceptance" part of the equation, and fail to question if the quality of the idea was good enough to begin with.   If the quality of the idea increases, then  the acceptance itself may also increase, so the quality component is the leverage point to increase effectiveness.

There is a review by Matt May of the book that you can read here.

How Will We Read? The Future of the Book Industry

We all know that the traditional book business model is in decline.  Self publishing, electronic books, portable electronic readers like the Kindle have been the rising trends for the last years.   So, what does the future holds for the book industry?

C.M. Rubin interviews David Prichard, CEO of Ingram Content Group, where he shares his opinions about what's next for the book industry.   You can read all about it here.

The Long Tail Revisited

Chris Anderson wrote an article in Wired six years ago  introducing the concept of "The Long Tail", which is still as valid as it ever was.

The main idea behind his original work was to question the way companies were pursuing profit.   Instead of focusing solely on creating a few blockbuster products that appealed to the masses, he suggested to focus also on creating and making available a large variety of products, that appealed to different market niches.

In some businesses, it turns out that the total sales of  "non blockbuster" products is larger than blockbuster sales, an apparent contradiction to the Pareto Principle.   Although creating and ensuring availability for a large variety of products seems like a very difficult and costly proposition in the physical world,  the online world simplifies scaling significantly, reducing the efforts and costs involved.

If you haven't read Chris Anderson's book, also named The Long Tail, please do.

Free Change Management Resources Website

A friend who works in management consulting referred this change management website to me some days ago.  It has several useful things for people into change management, from exercises to implementation advice.

The 50/50 Fundraiser

In some cities in Canada, a different type of fundraiser is held.   Out of the total money donated, 50% goes to the fundraiser cause, and 50% is raffled among the people who donated.  Those who donate the most, have more probabilities of winning the raffle.

I don't know how effective this scheme is to raise funds, but it seems an interesting and "out of the box" solution.   I guess there could be some that have moral issues about it, since there its an event with private and public benefits involved, leading to possible conflicts.

The 20 Most Life-Altering Concepts

Barry Davenport discussed twenty lessons to apply in your life.   

And although many of these lessons are learned by living and making mistakes, always remember the famous Alfred Sheinwold quote: "Learn all you can from the mistakes of others.  You won't have time to make them all yourself. 

The Decision to Trust

A new book by Bob Hurley has come out called the The Decision to Trust, where he discusses the many different points of view about trust.  He also explains his Decision to Trust Model (DTM), which focuses on:

-How trustors, or those who trust others, can make effective trusting decisions
-How trustees, or those who are trusted, can become more trustworthy
-How to create an environment where trust can flourish

Seems like a great read, and it's endorsed by the Trusted Advisor himself, Charles Green.

Why Profit Centers Work Better On Paper Than In Reality

Bill Waddell writes about erroneous policies found in companies, that usually when thinking about them, they just don't make any sense at all.    Using Wal-Mart as an example, he shows how local efficiencies, suboptimal policies, internal transfer pricing systems just makes things incredibly difficult for customers.

Sometimes, you just have to wonder how some companies are still in business, but when you find similar cases everywhere, then I guess it's no wonder at all.

Toyota Kata - Unified Field Theory of Management

A great presentation was recently given by Bill Constantino, where he talked about the essence of the Toyota culture (also known as "Toyota Kata"), showing examples of how improvement "challenges" are tackled under the Toyota mindset.

He also gives some great examples on how to define and structure change initiatives, to improve the odds of success.

Scrap Targets and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Rudi Buckhard writes an article about a company trying to maximize manufacturing yields (by minimizing % of scrap), and how this led to unintended consequences.

Just one more example of how local optima can lead to decreasing the bottom line of a company. 

The Haiku Approach to Elevator Speeches

The "Legal Rebel" shows a way to define your elevator speech, answering three questions with a short answer for each (5 words, 7 words, 5 words).

A very good example of how to "keep things as simple as possible, but not simpler", as Einstein used to say.

See the article here.

Metro Supermarkets - Innovation by Tesco

A local friend sent me this video, about how Tesco redefined their marketing approach in Korea.   The assumptions that were questioned when developing this solution are very interesting.

Is Delighting The Customer Profitable?

Tackling the ever aging question of "what should a company's goal be", Steve Denning offers an interesting point of view, and challenges companies to focus on "delighting the customer".

He also offers several examples of how this works, and why it will be the best bet in the long run, as opposed to focusing on "being profitable" as the primary goal.

Kanban Training

Jack Vinson blogs about a recent Kanban training he attended, based on David Anderson's approach, which he also used in successful implementations at Microsoft.

New approaches that combine methodologies such as Theory of Constraints (TOC) and Kanban have also started to emerge, and some have started to use the Kanban approach to manage task flow and task priorities for both project and non project work.

I specially like the "visually oriented" approach that Kanban takes for task management, which has been common also in many Lean implementations.  It makes priorities easy to follow and visible for everyone involved, facilitating execution.

The "Palchinsky Principles"

Dave Snowden, of the Cynefin framework, derives three principles from Palchinsky, a Russian engineer from early 1900's, that wanted to bring a more humanitarian approach to the communist approach to engineering.

1. Are you actively in the market place to seek out new ideas and try new things?
2. Do you test these ideas on a scale that is survivable should they fail?
3. Do you seek feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along?

The above line of thinking is compatible with "agile" or "iterative" improvement approaches, where you start scaling a change implementation one phase at a time. 

See the article by Dave Snowden here.  

Apple's Retail Success Is More Than Magic

Steve Denning writes about the differences between customer service at an Apple Store vs alternative tech stores.

http://onforb.es/yJTFxv

If you've walked into a Best Buy or Microsoft store, you immediately note the difference in service when compared to Apple stores.  It is how employees are recruited, trained and managed, that makes the experience totally different for consumers.

And of course, there's Zappos.

Developing People - Toyota's Constraint

In Theory of Constraints (TOC) and other continuous improvement methodologies, we talk of the importance of training and developing people to prepare them to understand and operate under a different 'paradigm', that most of the times will bring improved operational performance.

Toyota's CEO, Mr. Akio Toyoda, acknowledges that Toyota's constraint to growth during the last years was the lack of people trained in the Toyota Production System (TPS).  Their past focus on being the "#1 car manufacturer in the world" induced them to pursue goals that were beyond their current capacity.  

http://bit.ly/sH93UJ

Current sales figures have shown that what is currently limiting Toyota's growth is lack of sales, so they are probably at the right time to develop the next generation of leaders to sustain their future growth.  

The key lesson to this story is, in my opinion, that a company must assess correctly their real capacity, to know what commitments can be undertaken.

Taiichi Ohno: The Toyota Mindset Book Review Summary

Shmula provides a summary of the chapters in "The Toyota Mindset", by Yoshihito Wakamatsu, where the "Ten Commandments of Taiichi Ohno" are described.  It gives examples not only of the "what" but the "how to" implement many of the TPS tools..

http://bit.ly/stQ0FU

How Doctors Die

Dr. Ken Murray writes about how physicians die, and having the correct expectations when having a terminal disease.  

http://bit.ly/rW6ZZB

The choice of not undergoing treatment when its effectiveness is very low, and choosing to live your last days "in full" is probably easier to say than to do, and is probably a paradigm shift for many us.  It gives the word focus, as well, another totally different perspective.

Optimizers and Satisficers

Bob Sproull writes about the difference between being an optimizer and satisficer, terms that were originally defined by Herbert Simon, an american researcher. 

http://bit.ly/uyZ3EZ

An optimizer is a person that looks for the "perfect solution" and often suffers from "paralysis by analysis".   In contrast, a satisficer looks for a "good enough" solution and uses feedback to correct the course of action, similar to Boyd's OODA Loop.   

What kind of approach do you take in everyday life?