Archive for the ‘Innovating Everywhere’ Category

“Companies in the rich world are confronted with a rapidly aging workforce. Nearly one in three American workers will be over 50 by 2012, and America is a young country compared with Japan and Germany. China is also aging rapidly, thanks to its one-child policy. This means that companies will have to learn how to manage older workers better. It also means that they will be confronted with a wave of retirements as the baby-boomers leave work in droves.” (Source The Economist)

So what does this mean for decision makers like you? Two issues. First, in terms of rising up the management ladder, great opportunities are available for innovative thinkers who continually self-educate and build upon their leadership strengths. Are you armed with the right and best mental tools, processes, education, skills, etc. to be able to go beyond the basics of leading and managing others? The winners of tomorrow are building their management ‘tools kits’ today, because they know that in tomorrow’s world even more so than in today’s, they’ll be forced to CREATE opportunities, not just capitalize on existing ones.

Second, in terms of succession planning and building current leadership teams within today’s organizations, the aging workforce means that you’ll have fewer qualified candidates from which to fill open leadership positions, so you need to start  building the leaders of tomorrow now rather than expect to pull these candidates from the currently fast-evaporating pool.  What systems and processes do you have in place to hire the highest-potential candidates, empower others to work independently, achieve results through others, and most importantly, to attract prospective leaders who THINK in ways that capitalize on and create new opportunities?

This issue of the aging workforce–and specifically, the aging leadership force–doesn’t have to be a negative challenge. In fact, taking steps now can give you great advantages over two kinds of competitors: individuals who are vying for the same job positions as you are, and organizations that your organization competes with in the marketplace. In a nutshell, begin with acquiring mental management tools for yourself and then teaching them to others. Here are three examples to get you started:

1. CPM and Ghantt charts that help leaders organize projects, inform and direct the activities within projects on a time line and according to budget, and keep projects on target for completion as planned.

2. New product and service development tools which help you in the selection of best product/service ideas and pull together cross-functional groups to provide input and support throughout the development of the product and service to outpace competitors.

3. Strategic planning processes that structure the ways in which you and your leadership team(s) strategize to move your organization forward not only today, but into the future.

Of course, you probably already have some ideas floating around in your head about other options, too. The key is to formulate a plan and act on it now. Don’t wait, the opportunities arising from the aging-workforce issue are here for the taking.

Have you considered what your organization’s order qualifiers and order winners are? Nearly 3 decades ago, London Business School professor Terry Hill introduced the concept to manufacturers, describing qualifiers as basic characteristics that an organization, product or service needs just to be able to compete and function in the marketplace. They do not cause you to stand out, but they’re essential. Then there are winners. Winners, as their name suggests, are those unique, distinguishing stand-out characteristics that give organizations, products, services, etc. the edge over competitors. For example, they prompt consumers or distributors to buy from one company over another.

Did you know that Jones International was the first full online accredited university? Do you care? Probably not. But their situation is worth noting for the lesson that it teaches. In the 1990′s when online was new and exciting, being the first meant something. Today, being online and first might be a winner only if the organization is developing new and different strategies and tactics to keep them as an industry/sector leader for other winning reasons.   When organization such as Phoenix University and other schools became online resources for education, the public began to see online education as a qualifier. For Jones to retain its winner status, it would have to develop new and innovative winners.

The Madonna Inn, located in San Louis Obispo in CA is a fascinating hotel whose leadership apparently (fortunately) didn’t get the memo on the concept of standardization.   The hotel houses 110 creatively decorated rooms, and each room is different.  My favorite is The Madonna Inn’s Caveman Room; if you’re looking to get away Fred-Flintstone style, this room may be for you.

Caveman Room

Just think of the thought processes planners who developed this project as a fun way to differentiate their product from competitors’ offerings.  If this group’s members were working with an idea bank–electronic or manual collection of ideas–I can’t imagine how creative the ideas were and how much fun they must have had determining the criteria for building their hotel’s rooms. Fun and creativity aside, they still needed a solid process to bring their ideas through the project’s stages and to completion. Just in the early stages, they must have been thinking for a long time about what should they build.  Then they had to ideate about the theme of each room.  What would the theme look like, the selection of the wallpaper or bed style, and more.

This is a perfect example of how often sub ideation occurs within the bigger idea’s ideation.  The broadest ideation includes the type of hotel.  Then sub-ideation occurs where planners are asking about what types of rooms to include, and then even further ideation includes the details for each room. Finally, planners must coordinate the tactics (plans) and the execution of those tactics. Wild!

Madonna Inn Website

United Breaks Guitar video goes viral on YouTube with 3.5 million hits.

The issue with this video is more complex than just damaged guitars; it’s that the industry is still in the Stone Age when it comes to operating everything but the planes.

First, the airline industry could easily borrow technologies from other industries to cut the handing of baggage in half by employees. The problem is very much tied to baggage handlers being unionized. There is very little incentive to replace people with equipment and yet if UPS and FedEx worked in the same manner as the airlines do, you’d get your packages a week later.

The solution is baggage that is tagged at the gate and then transferred via RFID (or some other technology) to the plane and then in some situations directly into the hull. This would require sophisticated technologies and cooperation between manufacturers and firms that manufacture robotics and conveyor systems.

The benefits would be huge. FOD (foreign object debris) would be drastically reduced for airlines. Payroll would decrease and so would Workers Comp expenses from bag-related injuries. Passengers would get their baggage to the plane without damage, as well as receive the baggage at the other end. Tracking and total weight can be accessed at any time for CG, the weighting of a plane. The list is endless.

One may argue that the airlines are not doing well, and I’d argue that the airlines are in this position due to poor investment in technology, poor contracts with unions, and poor orientation to the future. Some of this tied to, in the US, the government’s handing of the industry including air traffic control systems that should have been updated long ago.

The good news is that if innovation curves are any indication of the future, the airline industry will be forced over the course of the next 50 years, to either make significant technological changes to keep pace or find itself prey to industries that will,  such as improvements in holographic and digital meetings that eliminate the need for business travel. In other words, business travel, which provides a huge source of income for airlines, will be reduced and/or other modes of transportation will gain traction.

A bullet train from Boston to Washington DC or from San Francisco to San Diego and many other traffic lanes could reduce air passengers.

It’s a shame, because I love to fly.

I showed up at the Arrowwood Resort & Conference Center in Okaboji, Iowa this summer for business, and like most guests, I spent just a few minutes at the front counter checking in.  A few hours later, when I visited the counter again, Paula, the Front Desk Supervisor, responded to me by name as if I had been visiting the hotel for years. I shook the moment off all the while thinking, how did she remember my name.

Later that night, as I once again visited the front desk to ask about a good place to eat, I hear Paula respond to each person who walks up the counter by using their first or last name.  I asked if these were regulars?  “No, I just can remember names.”

She then went on to tell me a story where a guest had walked up the counter and like she always did, she used the persons name.  “Hello Casey.”  The lady stopped dead in her tracks and asked how did she know her name.  Paula said that she remembered Casey from a previous stay at the hotel, and she pays very close attention to people’s names.  Casey, in awe, said she’d not been in the hotel for S I X years!

I’ve heard of hotels that arm employees with ear pieces to make sure they can give each other the heads up on guests’ names so that they and their coworkers can address guests in the same way.  Others post pictures on the walls of VIPs so that on one is overlooked.

If you have face-to-face contact with customers, what does your organization so to make customers feel special?  Paula has a rare talent, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t develop a system that accomplishes the same result.  Maybe you can put in place a call routing software program that picks up a VIP based on their phone number, or you can distribute pictures of incoming guests’ faces on cards bearing their names  before major functions.  If you can’t see a solution for all guests, define your VIPs and target them first.

If you want to go for the gusto and have everyone be recognized, your systems are going to have to be much more complex and may require a unique identifier that a customer carries on their key chain or a facial recognition software so that no one is missed.

Several years ago I read The End of Work by Jeremy Rifkin.  In his book, Rifkin outlined a future filled with too many people and too little work to be done. The premise was that we’d be so technologically advanced that there would be little work left for people to do, resulting in a shift in how we spend our daily lives.

In as much as we’re still very far off from this prediction, there still lies the truth that in the United States we are going to be facing a different challenge along the same line of thinking. It’s not that were going to run out of work but given the transformational change of “hands-on business functions,” there will be a type of End of Work. This will be a type of work that fulfills the needs of those who want to work with their hands and don’t have the same inclination to spend time being schooled.

An example is the farmer who no longer uses horses  to plow his fields but who uses a GPS-guided machine in which he can actually watch TV while the equipment does the work. Even the painter will work differently due to increased efficiency of painting tools and/or paints that last 5 years longer due to nanotechnology. The machinist will be replaced by a robotic system.

It’s these people, with this propensity to lean towards truly hands-on jobs that I started thinking about while working with Mike, my painter, a couple of years ago. We met somewhat by chance while I touched up the paint on my home and Mike and his son were in a car driving down our street looking for some work. We spoke for a few minutes and they ended up quoting a price to paint the entire exterior of our home.

As you might have guessed the price was right and from what I heard it appeared they had worked with some pretty reputable firms. After about 20 minutes, I agreed to the terms and they promised they would start the very next morning.

Yes, I did have the thought they might not show, and they might do a poor job since they were traveling around handing out fliers.
I was happy with my decision. Mike Sr. and Mike Jr. showed up the very next morning at 9 AM as promised ready to work.  They were professional in their demeanor and in the quality of their work.

What I witnessed were two guys who loved working with their hands. Mike Sr. had been painting most of his life and possessed a sort of pride I wished many office employees and managers would have. Mike Jr. was the apple that didn’t fall far from the tree. Often I’d see him step back from his work, look at what he’d done from two or three different angles and then proceed. Even his business card defines his philosophy. It says, “Picture Perfect,” and his interpretation is that when he’s done with a job, you’d want to take a picture of it.

The truth is, Mike and Mike love working with their hands.

I thought about the pair along with all the other craftsman, mechanics, and stone workers I know, and I realized we will have a challenge different than the one discussed in public. The challenge is one that is not about further educating our population so that people can have jobs. It’s about giving people choices so they can make a living at a reasonable pay scale and still be who they want to be. It’s not about jobs being shipped off shore given that many of those jobs are at low paying wages that most likely will be eliminated in their future as automation envelopes the economies that have chosen to be the next outsourcing country.

It’s about people.

What do we do with Mike Sr. and Mike Jr.? What does the individual who has no interest in working in an office do? What is their future?

Quite honestly, I’m not sure that manual labor or manufacturing will change not because of “evil” executives but because technology will replace manual tasks as it’s the nature of automation to remove people to drive down costs, increase efficiency, and improve products and service experiences. There’s no stopping it.

Just imagine having no computers in your accounting department, and you get a sense of what I mean. No computers? You may have 74 people to do the work of just a dozen. No computers may mean that JIT and inventory replenishment grind to a halt.

Here’s my long shot.

What’s on my mind.

Mike and Mike will continue to exist; it’s just that we need to:

1. Channel other activities that can create the same stimulation in our culture. Mike needs to swing a hammer at home.

2. Give opportunities to those that can work with their hands to do the same, utilizing tools such as virtual reality systems. I know the heavy equipment operator loves the power of the machine even though he or she is using levers and not their hands to accomplish the same task.

3. Leverage the feeling of accomplishment in other areas such as taking the creative hands-on feel and translating it to outdoor activities on a global scale where these individuals find themselves working in South America, Central America, or other parts of the world where technology and hands on co-exist for now.

4. We need to balance life work so that those that would prefer the other can do it on their own time.

Nothing brilliant in the above. I’d just like you to be thinking about the ramifications of losing our hands-on worker who’s not interested in the corporate life style to be productive. Yes, they will learn to use the current technologies to do their work. More importantly, we need to insure that they don’t get lost. This is a challenge that can be overcome if we not only address the need for continuous learning but address the issue of choice. Otherwise, our oversight is going to run over the US workforce like a steam roller.

Our problem is not our problem.

If you fly, you know that if an aircraft is late, there’s a good chance that you’re going to miss your connection or be late for something else in your day.  It’s the reason the government and outside companies monitor the on-time arrival of airlines.

Here’s a simple solution. You might apply this thinking to your own business.

Let me give you the background first.  During each college semester, I make 4 to 5 trips to NYC to teach two courses at NYU.  In each case, I couldn’t tell you if the plane left the actual gate early or late.    But I can tell you that on all 5 flights, the plane arrived before the scheduled time.  I felt, and I believe others did, too, that we got a bonus of time by reaching our destination early.  Although it’s a mental game, it’s mentally real.

What if the airlines added a buffer, say 10 minutes to every aircraft’s ETA.  A 9AM arrival time is now stated as 9:10AM.  The airline publishes the times and the passengers and travelers work around the numbers.

Now here’s what’s going to happen.

The plane leaves on time, or late, no one cares unless it screws up their next step.  With the buffer the aircraft then either arrives early….WOW or on time.

Consider the implications.  I travel a lot and very infrequently do I make a call to my ground transportation about a flight based upon 10 minutes either way.  I don’t spend that much time on the length of time compared to the price and the route.  I hate getting stuck in certain airports.  Here the buyer is more interested in on-time arrivals for the purposes of their next meeting (personal or business) than they are for actual flight time.

Then travel agencies could give options differently.  “You can take the 6 AM through DC into Miami arriving at 11:20 or the 7:40 AM arriving at 2.”  With an overall edit to the system, everyone would be on par with similar flight systems and layovers.

Airline management, their unions, and the technology being used today have made limited progress in improving the system.  They still load bags onto planes by hand.  And it appears there is nothing coming down the pipe line that would radically improve the situation, so why not try a simpler fix.  Besides the airlines have cut back on routes so modeling of new traffic patterns most likely would not be a terrific challenge.

Why is it that when people hear about a corporate bankruptcy, they become authorities on how it could have been avoided? It’s always easy to say you know better than someone else. Especially when you’re parked safely on the sidelines or looking at the situation in hindsight. But do you really know what you would do if put in the same position?

There are a lot of reasons why companies get in financial trouble. Some firms die because they deserve it. They’re mismanaged or they have products that stink. Others are good companies that make one mistake and pay a hefty price. Perhaps they don’t adapt to a market change quickly enough. Or maybe they tried to grow too quickly and ran out of cash. With so many elements to juggle, pinning down the “why” is not always easy for the outsider to determine.

Spiegel filed Chapter 11 in 2003. Spiegel was started in 1865. It’s parent to Lifestyle, Eddie Bauer, and Newport News. Its first catalog was produced in 1905. In nearly 140 years, Spiegel managed to do a lot of things right. When it hit a rocky patch, Joe Blow from down the street knew he could have done better. Really?

Look at the photo-film industry. Kodak offers good quality products. It was kicked in the face with the K-Mart bankruptcy, but managed to sustain the blow. Over the past 5 years, Kodak has made major adjustments to its product line to insure future success. Fuji Photo Film was a heavy competitor on price. The growing use of digital cameras threatened all film companies. Yet Kodak and Fuji were operating while Polaroid filed for bankruptcy.

On the surface, it was easy to see that Polaroid wasn’t adapting to the changing market fast enough. It didn’t offer competitive products. It didn’t market as well as other leaders. But WHY did executives at Polaroid make the decisions that they did? WHY would they “white-knuckle” their niche of instant imaging when one-hour photo processing and digital cameras were eroding their market share? What was going on behind the scenes that ultimately forced Polaroid to file Chapter 11?

Enough about everyone else. Your time is better spent focusing on how you can avoid damaging mistakes. Here are some tips:
1. Be an information gatherer. Start internally and look outward. What are your key deliverables? Are you defining what you really do? For example, are you a trucking firm or in the business of logistics? Canon says they’re in optics. Kodak says they’re in “memories.” That’s a selling proposition, but what do they do? Learn markets, talk to experts, and then make up your own mind.
2. Improve your management skills. Quality. Think BASF: “We don’t make the products you use, we make the products you use better.” Improve yourself to keep pace. Take courses to learn new tools. Read books in addition to magazines and papers. Look at trends and where you’re weak. Focus on one or two areas and not 50. You’ll be stronger for it.
3. Envision a realistic destiny. Make sure the picture you paint is one you can truly believe in. Most executives, owners, and managers can’t do this. If you’re one of them, watch out. This is an area where you can’t be wishy washy. Know where you’re going before you set out on the trip.
4. Be the driver. You can collect data and insight from others, but the direction comes from you. Your role as a leader is to lead, not get “group think” to the point that your company is crippled. As you move forward, you’ll gain new knowledge that might steer you in slightly different directions. Flexibility and adaptability are good. But make sure that you’re leading, not reacting.

You can’t fix a firm from the sidelines no more than you can play a game from the bleachers. When you see what’s happening in the world around you, don’t waste your time on second-guessing. Take what you can as a lesson and focus on your own firm. What you learn will bring solutions and strategies. You and your firm will be stronger for it.

When you purchase a green car, is the car really green?  Or is it just the engine?  When I see a green car, I see a work in progress. Tires still use rubber and oil, and cast iron and metals come from metal fabrication.  Fabrics and leathers, some which require formaldehyde and other chemicals in their production, are used. So green may not really be green.  The perception is green, or at least GREENER.

Take the GE locomotive.  Was GE trying to produce more efficient, lighter and more powerful products before the push for green?  You bet.  So then pushing harder is just a marketing tactic to suggest that Ecomagination is driving green.

I admit that the green movement has prompted more individuals to try harder to live, work, and produce in more ecologically-friendly ways.  Awareness over the past few years has driven consumers to buy products from firms that have been working on creating sustainable products.   And now you see how firms capitalize on the trend; when firms start moving to green, they promote and promote and promote themselves as going green.

Let’s say a wood manufacturer in the US switches from oil stains to water-base stains.  The firm’s products are greener and can be promoted as more eco friendly than competitors’ products in the US, even though in Europe, using water-base stains is more common. (Apparently water-base stains are not typically as brilliant as oil.)

Attracting market share based on ecological awareness only works if green is “in,” and we’ve seen that with hybrid cars.  Toyota says it took several years to sell 500,000 hybrid cars, yet once the green wave struck, it only took 2 years to sell the next 500,000.  However, with economic challenges, Priuses are no longer in high demand; they are sitting on lots across the US only because a typical hybrid takes 3.5 years to make a return on the additional costs.  When gasoline in the US averaged less than $2.00 per gallon, the payback was even longer.  Toyota can smile again as gasoline prices rise.

So green might have a little more of a challenge to overcome if the product or service is pricier.

What this means is, go green, but don’t expect your buyers in a challanged economy to make the green choice as readily in the past.  If you were to spend $100,000 going green, take 50% and change to green, and use the rest to increase productivity and reduce utility and labor costs.  You might say that going green would then be a double benefit that will not only be green, but even more sustainable since the cost of going green comes in different forms.

I know someone who spent a good deal of his summer lounging by a pool, vacationing with friends, and overall just kicking back and enjoying life.  Oh yeah, he was a manager, too.  How did he have time to manage his employees and amass so much leisure time, too, you may ask.  He didn’t.  He chose hanging out over working hard, but he had a good reason.

As he explained to his superior, a regional manager for the firm, the “economy” was bad in the area.  He was even generous enough with his time to take the regional manager, who was unfamiliar with the ins and outs of this particular city, on a joy ride through its worst slum…boarded up windows and gang-sign graffiti offered “proof” that the man with a tan couldn’t be blamed for his office’s poor sales.

The vast majority of the beautiful city was running quite smoothly, but the regional manager didn’t get that tour.  He was shuffled straight to the airport before he got a sniff of the truth that his local subordinate opted to darken his tan rather than increase his office’s sales.

Yes, I realize the economy has hit most of us in one way or another.  Some of us have gotten pummeled worse than others, too.  And while sales have taken a hit in many industries, I hope that you’re able to separate reality from perception.

Be careful not to discount your ability to perform on the job because the economy is suffering. There have always been and will always be those who bend with the times and create opportunity.

Also, be fair with yourself. The same assets you brought to your job are those that can help you now.  Don’t forget that you have those strengths and you might just need to change your perception of reality to begin to utilize those strengths today.

Companies like ebay and Amazon.com have to adjust to the economy and the current market conditions to continue to realize healthy profits; and adjust is what they do.  So where are you adjusting what you do to continue to thrive in today’s business environment?

It’s not just about persistence it’s about changing tactics to bring in new business.

On the program Hell’s Kitchen, the restaurant undergoing a business makeover gave away food as a way to announce the reopening of the restaurant. Their marketing tactic was successful, and the next day the restaurant was full.

If you suspect that the economy has become your crutch, toss it aside and take responsibility to walk on your own two feet again.  Adjust strategy and tactics, get creative with marketing and sales, and find ways to revive assets that have been nearly dormant since the downturn started.

Someone’s always doing well…it might as well be you.