Engagement
In the past five years or so, our transformation work is experiencing a major shift in how to generate the engagement and alignment of all employees in an organization. It is now more common that teams at all levels may not be co-located in a single office, people collaborate across global time zones, and we have learned how to develop social clusters of expertise that extend both through and beyond traditional organizational boundaries and connections. In this post are the beginnings of a list of solutions that are worth exploring. (more…)
While everyone is talking about the need for innovation to serve as the growth catalyst for U.S. businesses, job growth and the economy overall, a group of leaders in the Tri-Valley region is taking action.Last week, the Innovation Tri-Valley initiative (ITV) was launched at a gathering of over 300 regional business, educational, civic and political leaders (news story and press release).
Marty Beard, the key executive leading the Innovation Tri-Valley effort and President of Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, In., recently explained that, “What we are doing in the Tri-Valley may very well be defining a new model for regions around the U.S. to get moving again as leaders in innovation. It is not only an opportunity to leverage the tremendous assets we have, but also a need and an obligation as leaders to do this for our companies and for our country.” Marty’s enthusiasm, determination and drive have helped rally a highly diverse group of leaders into what has become a collaborative effort across the region. (more…)
Someday, the picture on the right of a typical cubicle farm will look just as obsolete as the rows of desks with the boss watching from behind on the left. For some workers, someday is today. And the good news is that the solutions for today are actually less expensive, more flexible, better for effective work, sustainable and to most employees…really cool. It is rare to find this type of business solution.
This week we had an opportunity to meet an amazing group of people at Sun Microsystems. They have developed what is by far the best, most cost effective, most efficient, and cool workplaces that I’ve seen in years. In my work, I have the opportunity to see a lot of different work environments and use a lot of different collaboration platforms…some of which I’ve written about on the blog. However, this one was different…. (more…)
A recent article in BNET was somewhat scolding executives for needing to go to ‘Strategic Planning 101′ in response to a Dartmouth Professor’s claim that newspaper publishers are just sitting around and whining, while their businesses go in the tank.
A clip from the article shows a somewhat insulting list of what Strategic Planning 101 is all about. Usually I just ignore this type of advice, but in this case it was so far off the mark, I had to comment.
______________________ARTICLE CLIP___________________
Strategic Planning 101
- Get a bunch of smart people in a room together … without cell phones and Blackberrys
- Have somebody present a completely honest analysis of the competitive situation
- Throw out all the sacred cows and preconceived notions
- Brainstorm new ideas until you can’t stand to look at each other anymore
- Vote on them, take the top ten, assign each to an executive to develop a business plan
- Meet back, present the plans, debate, decide on one or two to implement, and execute
At least you’d think that’s what they’re doing, right? All those high-paid executives with fiduciary responsibility can’t just be sitting around complaining and waiting to die. Or can they? What do you think? Do Syd and I expect too much from officers and directors that shareholders depend upon to make their investment worthwhile?
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This misguided view of what strategic planning has two major gaps that are the undoing of most efforts to set and execute strategy. (more…)
According to a recent IDC Global Retail Insights survey, 75% of retailers and 58% of consumer products manufacturers rank customer-centricity among top 3 keys to success. This finding aligns perfectly with our experience that the only way big ideas turn into big results is when those ideas are based in a deep understanding of customer needs and are executed by delivering a winning customer experience. There are some breakthroughs in approaches to listening to customers and tapping into their innovative ideas that the most innovative companies are applying today. Below are some simple descriptions and first implementation steps you can take to moving down this path.
1) Listen to customers, but listen closer to non-customers.
This is similar to to the idea of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer. Sometimes you learn more by listening to those who don’t see things your way than those who already agree. This tip is one very commonly overlooked when developing strategies for growth. Many companies listen to their sales force to understand strategic customer needs. This is one perspective, but the conversations tend to be short-term focused, are clouded by the vendor/customer relationship dynamic, and represent people who already see the world the way you do.
With the Wii, Nintendo converted non-customers of gaming systems by listening and creating a solution that moms would love to have in their homes. Southwest airlines converted non-customers of air travel by creating a price point and casual travel feel that matched bus travel, but was much faster. Netbooks are converting non-customers of expensive laptops into mobile computing users.
IMPLEMENTATION: To get started listening to non-customers, set up a specific research effort to call on customers who have left your business, sales leads which were lost, and targeting potential customers who have never been reached at all. Test if there is a lack of awareness of your company, a disagreement about the value proposition, or an unmet set of needs that you could begin to serve. This is where many breakthrough strategies originate.
2) Engage customers in open and direct innovation online
The most innovative companies are turning to a new set of online solutions to engage customers directly and openly into the innovation process. Cisco has been one of the most forward and successful, perhaps finding it’s next $1 billion product category through an online innovation campaign. They leveraged an online tool set from Bright Idea Software (Dissero’s strategic partner) to launch an open innovation contest that allowed anyone from around the world to suggest ideas, have them voted on by others, and collaborate and shape ideas together. The new solutions provide ways to open up and capture innovative ideas, engage with customers directly, and provide tools that filter the ideas so you can easily harvest only the best and most popular ideas for consideration internally. This allows you to truly tap the wisdom of the crowd, but not be overwhelmed with too many random and tactical ideas…like the old suggestion boxes that we’ve all come to detest. This is new technology, with new capabilities and a real breakthrough in business strategy.
Watch the video on this page to hear more about how Cisco did this and what the program accomplished. http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/iprize/index.html
Lego toys launched a site to let users design and purchase their own kits, which other people can purchase as well. http://factory.lego.com/
Starbucks created the My Starbucks Idea site to gather direct customer input for new ideas of all types. These are voted on by others so the best ideas can rise to the surface. http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
IMPLEMENTATION: If you are interested in creating your own customer innovation site there are many considerations on technology platform, scope of ideas to request, and internal innovation management process to harvest the benefits. Dissero has partnered with Bright Idea Software to provide a full solution to quickly and easily get you in touch with your customers and begin tapping their innovative ideas, creating new revenue streams and great loyalty. The good news is that almost immediately and for the cost of a typical “ideation” brainstorming workshop or offsite with your management team, you can put in place a pilot program to engage customers, employees, and partners in searching for innovations. This will become as pervasive as having customer panels or user groups and much more extensive and powerful.
This week was the most amazing industry gathering I’ve attended in a long time. This meeting was held using Cisco’s telepresence meeting rooms in San Jose, Seattle, New Jersey and New York, as well as a lot of people joining by WebEx. The meeting was a gathering of professionals, across many different companies and industries, who were all responsible in some way for innovation at their companies. I was honored to have the group request copies of BIG Ideas to BIG Results for all of the participants. It turns out that most people in corporations agree that the problem with innovation is not a lack of ideas and creativity. The problem is in effectively hearing those ideas and then organizing to get them implemented, the topic of our book. (more…)
Today I met with about 50 professionals with a variety of experiences with M&A integration at the Association for Corporate Growth. The topic of my presentation was to share the true keys to success that have made the difference in companies who successfuly create shareholder value through business combinations. Several people were interested in getting a copy of the slides so I’m trying out an online publishing tool called DoXtop to easily share these.
In addition to the presentation, I’ve also included a link to a companion article to go with the presentation for those who are interested.
By: Michael Kanazawa
People like to say, “failure is not an option,” in an attempt to motivate greatness and breakthrough results. However, like so many popular business phrases, this one doesn’t even make sense in real life. This phrase was made popular in the Hollywood version of Apollo 13, but business isn’t a movie and employees aren’t actors. We all lead in the real world where not everything gets resolved in a happy ending in a neat 90 minute story. Successful people and companies know that failure is always a potential and it is not something than can or should be ignored. (more…)
By: Michael Kanazawa (picture: Charles M. Jones, 1953, Flickr)
You’ve just been tasked with launching a major change effort, “hmm, what to use?”
A question was raised recently to me about the differences between Change Management, Process Reengineering and Corporate Transformation. Often these terms are interchanged, mixed together and used in confusing ways. I was asked to clarify the differences and discuss how and when each should be applied to solve business challenges. Here’s my shot at clarifying the intangible and helping to select the right tool for the right job.
All of these three terms relate to change, but to different levels and types of change. The problem with the fuzzy definitions is that it leads to people applying the wrong practice to their business challenge. It’s like someone saying, “We need to dig a tunnel from England to France; let me get my Black & Decker rechargeable drill.” Or equally bad, “We need to place a screw in the living room wall to hang a mirror; hold on while I get the dynamite.” (more…)
By: Michael Kanazawa
The American Management Association recently published an article I wrote in ‘Executive Matters’ that highlights the challenges with traditional approaches to corporate change programs and three key tips for making sure that your corporate change efforts succeed. People have become highly skeptical and jaded about corporate change programs…and often for good reason. The article provides a great overview and specific tips for a better and more accelerated approach to change management.
For a full copy of the article, click here.
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.