Appearance matters. It’s the theme of the book “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. Or the saying “You only have one chance to make a good first impression.” Cheryl Cole wouldn’t be on TV if she wasn’t a beautiful woman. A pit bull has street cred in a way that a poodle doesn’t. Interviewers look closely at body language – eye contact, smiling, hands folded and so on. There’s a big increase in cosmetic surgery and recent books about “erotic capital”.

But appearance is a poor predictor of business or management success. I liked the 2011 film Bridesmaids. The glamorous but unhappy heroine turns to the plain fat girl for comfort. It turns out that the latter owns 18 houses, has the best campervan on the market and the highest security classification. And she gets her man!  The Rain Man was brilliant, despite appearances to the contrary.

Getting the right people on your bus is critical to success. But don’t decide just on appearance. It’s wasteful and possibly discriminatory. And men need to be particularly careful when judging women. Remember that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did; only she had to dance in high heels and backwards.

Instead suspend judgement and have an open mind. (Think umbrella – it’s only useful when open.) Consider their achievements, personality, knowledge, competencies and attitude. Speak informally to previous employers. Test them out with a small project or exercise. When putting together client project teams, I always give a small piece of work to someone and judge them by the result.

Picture by jo-h. It shows a rose with rain drops on it. Its appearance is fragile but it survived a rain storm.

Sometimes processes resemble a spaghetti plant

Process improvement is not new. It started as ”principles of scientific management” in the early 1900s.  Now it is rebadged as ”re-engineering, quality, value for money, efficiency and lean”. An organisation is seen as a collection of processes that can be measured, compared and improved. Successsful processes  are PROMPT.

Priorities

Processes should reflect priorities. Think compass and clock. I once worked with a car sales force who only spent 20% of their time on selling cars.

Resources

Processes are only one part of work, organisation, management and behaviours. (WOMB).

Outcomes

View processes as a customer. Go and look.  Take service, safety, risk also into account.

Measure

Understand current processes. But the point is to change, rather than map them. So look for bottlenecks, silo working, complexity, information and waste. But remember ACED.

Processes

Processes should be joined together across departments and partners to avoid the ”weakest link”.

Technology

Technology should be a servant, not a master. Aim to do things differently, not just automate.

 Picture by Lukadian

Superficial

They can become the ends, not the means. The box tick without relevance. “Bureaucracy rules.OK.OK.OK.”

Action

There is no action, sometimes compounded by jargon and arrogance. The risks aren’t managed and the business case isn’t completed.

Demotivation

Staff lose heart when completing forms becomes more important than the basics. (For example, with projects, things like understanding steps and stages, being clear on outputs, identifying potential bottlenecks, involving users early and testing things out.)

So make sure you get the benefits rather than the burdens. Be glad not SAD.

The Spice Market at Istanbul

A brand can be a symbol, sign, slogan and many things. The problem is that many brands are bland. They should be SPICED up; here are the ingredients.

Simplicity

Do you present your brand in a way that people can grasp? After reviewing a specialist hospital’s branding I still didn’t understand what they did. A past editor of the Economist advised young journalists to “simplify, then exaggerate”.

Passion

How do you behave? I like the fun of the meerkats, the humour at Innocent Drinks and the “antidote to the panel show” that is I’m sorry I haven’t a Clue.  I don’t like “your call is important to us”.

Integrity

Do you observe the letter and spirit of law? Think criminality at Madoff and Enron and mis-selling of mortgage protection services.

Competition

How are you different? Many services and products are “me-too”. Difference are usually about price, quality or customisation. I like “The Dyson Airblade: The fastest, most hygienic hand dryer.”

Execution

What’s it like for your customers, clients and stakeholders? Word spreads quickly these days through social media.

Dynamism

Do you respond quickly when you make mistakes? Toyota mishandled the brakes problems on their Prius cars but David Cameron corrected his Royal Wedding dress code error quickly.

Picture by Alaskan Dude of the “fragrant and colorful” Spice market at Istabul Turkey

Goals?

Do Mourinho’s goals match up to my criteria (ACED) for successful performance targets?

He was quoted in the Daily Telegraph of 16 March 2010 “I have three things to do in my career: to come back to English football, to win the Spanish championship because no one has won the Italian, English and Spanish titles and, when I am old, to coach my national team. But, for now, I would like to keep winning with Inter.”

My answer is yes because they are actionable, coherent, effective and developmental.

Here are two other statements of goals. Are they also ACED? What do you think?

Schumpeter, an Austrian economist, in the twentieth century, had three goals. To be the best economist, the best horseback rider and the best lover of his generation. 

Abigal Clancy was quoted in 2006, as having three goals. To marry a footballer, get pregnant and then shop and have fun for the rest of her life. 

Picture from US National Archives of Montgomery Improvement Association Booklet c1960

” We trained hard, but it seemed that everytime we were beginning to form a team we would be reorganised. We tend to meet every situation by reorganising and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.”

Petronius Arbiter c. 22-46 AD

“The only constant is change.”

Karl Marx. Philosopher, historian, revolutionary.

In traditional structures, staff have their “face towards the chief and arse towards the customers.”

Jack Welch c. 2000. Ex Chair and CEO of GE (USA)

“For most companies, organisation design is neither a science, nor an art; it’s an oxymoron. It rarely results from systematic, methodical planning. Rather it evolves over time, in fits and starts, shaped more by politics than by policies.”

The 21st Century Corporation, 2005

Picture of the Tower of Babel by fimocculous

I have worked with several organisations that couldn’t see the wood for the trees. They lacked a compass, couldn’t see the big picture and didn’t have a strategy. They failed to recognise new competition, to understand their processes from a customer viewpoint and overcomplicated matters.

I have also worked with organisations that have the opposite problem – they couldn’t see the trees for the wood. They lacked a clock, couldn’t see the detail and couldn’t deliver. They failed to manage projects, identify underlying issues and over simplified matters.

Leaders need a sense of perspective. They need to be able to see both the big picture and the detail. That’s the key to delivering strategies. That’s why they need both a compass and a clock.

Picture of Chaddesden Woods by orangeacid

Mrs C no longer?

I watched Cheryl Cole perform last night at the Royal Variety Show on television. It reminded me of a previous post.

In What Cheryl Cole tells us about communication I identified three good communication principles. I illustrated them by Cheryl’s farewell message to erstwhile husband Ashley Cole.

But the tattoo (“Mrs C” ) illustrates another principle – think about the long term consequences of your communication.

Fire fighting should be left to fire fighters

I have worked with many organisations that fire fight. There’s lots of action but little achievement. Here are common symptoms and solutions that I have delivered. 

Symptoms (“SUIT”)

Shooting crocodiles with a shotgun. This makes much noise but doesn’t kill them. The key is to drain the swamp.

Everything is Urgent. Nothing is planned or anticipated; it’s all reactive crisis management.

Initiative overload. There are lots of initiatives and action plans, but nothing is completed.

Top top team triviality: Little time is spent on priorities, key problems and opportunities.

Solutions

Delivery

• Follow the ingredients of project success (think NOAH!).
• Develop a purposeful portfolio, not a project muddle.
• Get your basic processes right.

Strategy

• Make decisions in a structured way.(Think Jane Fonda!)

Leadership

• Channel talents, efforts and resources at what matters.
• Put time aside to transfer skills and be pro-active.

Picture by National Dakota Training from The National Guard’s photostream

The Spending Review 2010 was recently announced. Top down targets are out of fashion, but other targets are still playing a major role. Here’s my “ACED model” for successful performance targets.  

Actionable?

Targets should be actionable and manageable. The point is to improve performance, not just measure it. 

• A bank wanted to reduce customer losses and relied on a customer survey. But unhappy customers don’t fill in surveys.
• In a hospital, time to treatment targets did not take account of the patient insisting on going on holiday before treatment.

Coherent?

Targets should be coherent and meaningful. As Theodore Levitt in Marketing Myopia said: “Good work in pursuit of wrong purposes is more dangerous than bad work in pursuit of good purposes.”

• In a government department, forty staff produced performance data; yet it was too inconsistent for action to be undertaken.
• Patients may value the availability of a good and approachable clinician more than the colour scheme of the waiting room.

Effective?

Targets should be effective and measurable. Galileo said: “Measure what is measurable. And what is not measurable. Make measurable.” But they need to measure what matters. 

• A Regulatory Agency targeted a group of middle managers to spend 80% of their time on quality improvement; I measured what actually happened – they actually spent 80% of their time on routine administration.
• A Motor Car Importer expected their sales team to spend 80% of their time promoting car sales to dealers; in actual fact they spent 80% of their time answering queries from Headquarters.

Development?

Targets should be forward looking. It’s important to:

• Look through the car window and anticipate the road ahead, rather than rely on the rear view window.
• Get the balance right between manageable, meaningful and measurable targets.
• Aim to be approximately right. It’s better than being precisely wrong.

Picture by Szlea