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Volume
10, Issue 9 |
September 2008 |
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Note
re: links---certain hyperlinks assume that you are registered as a subscriber
to the site. If you are not a subscriber to certain sites, the links will
fail. If you register, the links should work. Also, certain hyperlinks expire
and may not be available when you try to go to the site. Grasp
Bells are tolling across the
United States to summon those involved in structured education back to the
classroom. What bell reminds executives to reserve some time and attention to
personal and professional learning? Sometimes it’s an introspective
examination that helps a leader realize that there’s much to be learned and
grasped to face current challenges. Other times, it can be the recognition
that a summons to “get a grip” may have a personal application. For Executive Times readers, it’s the articles
covered in the current issue. As you read the articles in this issue, think
about the extent to which you grasp the impact and scope of the key issues
faced by your organization. Reflect on what you and those with whom you work
need to learn to deal effectively with those challenges. Fifteen
new books are rated in this issue, beginning on page 5. One book is highly
recommended with a four-star rating; thirteen are recommended with three-star
reviews; and one book is rated with a two-star recommendation. Visit our 2008
bookshelf and see the rating table explained at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/2008books.html as well as explore links to all
359 books read or those being considered this year, including 24 that were
added to the list in August. If there’s something missing from the bookshelf
that you think we should be considering or if there’s a book lingering on the
Shelf of Possibility that you think we should read and review sooner rather
than later, let us know by sending a message to books@hopkinsandcompany.com.
You can also check out all the books we’ve ever listed at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/All
Books.html. Evolution Most
executives were weaned on the business model that efficient execution is the
best path to success. Some executives have realized that even flawless
execution can fail, and are changing their organizations to adapt more
quickly to evolving knowledge. Harvard
professor Amy Edmondson has been
researching this topic, and begins an article in the current issue of Harvard Business Review with this
perspective: “Most
executives believe that relentless execution—the efficient, timely,
consistent production and delivery of goods or services—is the surefire path
to customer satisfaction and financial results. Managers who let up on
execution even briefly, the assumption goes, do so at their peril. In fact, even flawless execution cannot
guarantee enduring success in the knowledge economy. The influx of new
knowledge in most fields makes it easy to fall behind. … A focus on getting things
done, and done right, crowds out the experimentation and reflection vital to
sustainable success. My research identifies a different approach to
execution—what I call execution-as-learning—that promotes success over the
long haul. … From a distance, execution-as-learning looks a lot like execution-as-efficiency.
There’s the same discipline, respect for systems, and attention to detail.
Look closer, however, and you find a radically different organizational
mind-set, one that focuses not so much on making sure a process is carried
out as on helping it evolve, building four unique approaches into day-to-day
work. First, organizations that focus on execution-as-learning use the best
knowledge obtainable (which is understood to be a moving target) to inform
the design of specific process guidelines. Second, they enable their
employees to collaborate by making information available when and where it’s
needed. Third, they routinely capture process data to discover how work is
really being done. Finally, they study these data in an effort to find ways
to improve. These four practices form the basis of a learning infrastructure
that runs through the fabric of the organization, making continual learning
part of business as usual. Having studied knowledge organizations—hospitals,
in particular—for nearly 20 years, I’d like to offer a new definition of what
successful execution looks like in the knowledge economy: The best
organizations have figured out how to learn quickly while maintaining high
quality standards.”
Read the rest of her article titled, “The Imperative of Learning,” at http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/index.jsp
or order reprint R0807E from Harvard
Business Review. What steps do you take to keep
your organization current with the “best knowledge obtainable?” How does
collaboration change your processes? How do you discover how work is really
being done? What systematic steps do you take to improve your execution? Speed Few
executives are pleased with the pace of implementing change. More often than
not, it takes longer than expected to make things happen, especially in large
and geographically dispersed organizations. An August 2008 article in for McKinsey Quarterly titled, “Rapid
Transformation of a Sales Force,” (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Transforming_a_large_and_distributed_sales_force_2178_abstract)
provides a model for turbocharging change. According to the authors, “Changing the
way a large, dispersed sales team operates is hard, and implementing a sales
program quickly and making it stick is even harder. Yet that was the
challenge facing a direct-service company’s commercial-business unit, which
had 20 area managers, 200 sales managers, and 2,000 sales representatives
spread across North America. The unit was struggling with high staff turnover
and poor performance: each year, for example, a third of the sales leads
coming in through the call center—roughly 100,000 calls—were never followed
up on, because of weak management tools and processes. Investors were looking
for quick results, so the company’s senior leaders insisted on a program that
would raise sales almost immediately. They therefore decided to implement it
in 6 months rather than the 12 to 24 typical for a project of this scale. …
Rather than relying on a central team of change leaders and rolling out the
program in sequence, from area to area, the company adopted a phased
‘university approach,’ which enabled it to launch the program in all areas
simultaneously. The 20 area managers, who had a pivotal role in the sales
hierarchy, attended central ‘academies’ along with sales managers. Here they
all learned to use new tools and processes, including standardized
performance metrics, diagnostic reports, and a custom-designed tool to track
and promote accountability for every sales lead. Once the area managers
“graduated” from the academy, they rolled out the program in phases, starting
with high-priority markets in their own areas. Sales managers and the reps
they supervised applied the new tools. To ensure that these changes endured,
the company instituted recurring structured-coaching sessions where area
managers used the performance tools to evaluate sales managers and to
pinpoint and address their weaknesses. The sales managers in turn coached
their reps in the same way.”
For some organizations, a university approach might be the ticket to speedier
implementation of change. How quickly can you implement
changes in your organization? Do you measure time from decision to adoption,
and is that time period optimal for your company and its markets? Can you
learn something new to improve your time to market? Sync Many
executives become easily frustrated when they face employees who don’t share
a passion about meeting goals, or when they see that top-of-the-house
messages haven’t filtered through the organization. Effective executives are
always looking for improved ways of encouraging employees to get in sync with
shared goals and objectives. In the current issue of Chief Executive, (http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=309B3E40569D4749A91D878F8D643F7F) Communispond founder Kevin
Daley offers these seven steps for executives to take to rally employees
behind common initiatives: “1. Admit to the limitations of chief executive
power. Today's workforce is markedly different from yesterday's. You cannot simply direct employees to meet
their goals. Instead, you must
persuade them. 2. Recognize that ‘one-size-fits-all’ employee communications
will produce disappointing results.
Success comes when you tailor your message to the particular needs of
each audience. 3. Your argument may make perfect sense but to gain employee
commitment to meeting your goals you must demonstrate your passion for
them. The facts do not speak for
themselves. You must appeal to the
heart as well as the head. 4. Capitalize on every opportunity to interact
personally with employees. The smaller
the group, the greater the opportunity for making a personal impact and
getting honest feedback. 5. Fine-tune your presentation skills. You will come across as a stronger leader,
your message will be clearer and the audience will be moved to action. 6.
When an employee asks a question or disagrees with you, conduct the
discussion without relying on the power of your position. 7. Say it and say
it again. For any message to get
through, it must be constantly repeated.” There are
few substitutes for the personal presence of an executive who expresses
passion and listens attentively to the concerns of employees. Are your employees in sync with your passion for achieving
the organization’s goals and objectives? Do your interactions with employees
lead to improved results? How can you learn to become more effective in your
engagement with employees? Reboot Many leaders have heard of that watershed conversation between
Intel’s Andy Grove and Gordon Moore in the mid 1980s, when
the company’s only business was the declining margin memory chip. When Grove
asked what he and Moore would do if they were new management coming in to fix
the company, they both agreed that they would exit memory chips. They decided
to do that themselves instead of hanging on to chips and probably being
replaced with new management because of their poor results. There’s a lesson
here for those managers who are so committed to the current business that
they may be blind to the possibilities that could be achieved by taking a
fresh approach. In the current issue of Fast
Company, (http://www.fastcompany.com/article/meet-law-firm-acts-startup)
there’s a profile of Quinn Emanuel
Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, a Los Angeles law firm that operates in
ways that are very different from that of their competitors. Lead partner John Quinn “… attributes some of the firm's success to its decentralized
structure. ‘Good lawyers don't need to be managed,’ he says, figuring that
the best way to run a law firm is, in effect, not to run it. Meetings are
rare; the firm's only committee is for determining contingency fees. … Peter
Zeughauser, a California-based law-firm consultant, is convinced that
Quinn Emanuel's growth will force it to do more managing -- dealing with
staffing shortages, conflicts of interest, and recruiting. Quinn and the
other senior partners shrug off such conventional wisdom. Not having any
extra management layers, they say, is what makes the place so exhilarating.
And besides, the money keeps rolling in.” According to Fast Company, the firm’s
profit margin was 62% last year, and the firm’s 109 partners took home an
average of $3 million in 2007. Do
you need to reboot your business to stop doing what doesn’t work and start
producing something profitable? Follow-up Here’s
an update on stories covered in prior issues of Executive
Times: Ø
In
the September
2002 issue of Executive Times we opened with an article titled “Tap the
Keg,” which called attention to academic research questioning whether
anything useful was learned at business schools, noting that “the researchers
cite one report that characterizes life at one top business school as a
two-year-long networking and bonding ritual revolving around alcohol.” We
read in Andrew Leonard’s “How the World Works” column in Salon recently (http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/08/19/beer_and_happiness/)
that researchers who drink a lot of beer produce fewer published papers than their
less inebriated fellows. Read the article for speculation as to the cause of
this phenomenon. The solution, of course, should be to go to the right
business school. Ø The last time Executive Times called attention to Enron was in the May
2007 issue when we noted a profile of Ben Gilson’s life behind bars. Readers who have not yet tired of
the lessons of Enron will enjoy reading Malcolm
Salter’s opinion piece in Business
Week at http://www.businessweek.com/print/managing/content/aug2008/ca20080821_499957.htm
in which he describes seven propositions about performance pay, “drawn
directly from Enron’s experience with perverse incentives-that collectively
address the potentially perverse effects of turbocharged financial
incentives.” Legacy
Backbone Some
leaders never quite convey where they stand, as they shift positions with
popular and changing sentiments. Others can be counted on to take clear
positions and stick with them. Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa was one political leader with backbone. In 1994,
he resigned as vice president because “corruption had infested the
government,” according to The New York
Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/africa/20mwanawasa.html).
In 2001, he was elected President with 29% of the vote. Once elected, he
brought corruption to light, instituted financial austerity policies that
brought Western money back to invest in Zambian copper, and reaped the
benefit of billions of dollars of debt forgiveness. He was a rare voice among
African heads of state who spoke forcefully and critically about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. What
Mwanawasa said was always more powerful than how he said it. Some said his
campaigning style was so uninspiring that he was called “the cabbage.” In
January 2005 Mwanawasa apologized to his nation for failing to solve the
country’s poverty. 75% of Zambians live on less than $1 a day. They
re-elected him to another five year term in 2006 with 43% of the vote. He
died in mid-August at age fifty-nine, seven weeks after suffering a stroke. Zambians
began a seven day mourning period that was increased to twenty one days. This
outspoken leader will be missed. Latest
Books Read and Reviewed: (Note: readers of the web version of Executive Times can click on the book covers to
order copies directly from amazon.com.
When you order through these links, Hopkins & Company receives a
small payment from amazon.com. Click
on the title to read the review or visit our 2008 bookshelf at http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/2008books.html).
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Hopkins & Company, call Steve Hopkins at 708-466-4650 or visit www.hopkinsandcompany.com. |
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