Purpose and the Employee

Economist reports on research on what motivates employees.

The story identifies six different archetypes, far too few to reflect the complexity of individuals but a lot better than a single lump of employees. “Pioneers” are the people on a mission to change the world; “artisans” are interested in mastering a specific skill; “operators” derive a sense of meaning from life outside work; “strivers” are more focused on pay and status; “givers” want to do work that directly improves the lives of others; and “explorers” seek out new experiences.
These archetypes are unevenly distributed across different industries and roles. Pioneers in particular are more likely to cluster in management roles. The Bain survey finds that 25% of American executives match this archetype, but only 9% of the overall us sample does so.

Click on the picture to play the full story.

Employee

VW CEO uses history to explain why VW needs to speed up change to avoid the fate of Nokia

This is a Deepl AI translation of the speech of VW CEO to employees in January 2029. The complete speech of the VW boss in the wording:

“Ladies and gentlemen,

the world is on the move. Politically and technologically, we live in an incredibly dynamic time. A turn of an era stands before us - from the dimension of the industrial revolution. And Volkswagen is in the midst of the storm of the two greatest transformation processes:

- Climate change and the associated pressure to innovate towards emission-free driving.

- And digitalisation, which is fundamentally changing the automobile as a product.

Our Group is not always in the best position to react quickly and systematically enough to these developments. Measured against this, we have not done badly so far. This is also acknowledged by market observers. In 2019 in particular, analysts have gained new confidence in our strategy.

At the beginning of this year, Kepler Cheuvreux attested: “We think VW is the best positioned player in the industry to master the CO2 challenge. And Goldman Sachs says: “We expect VW Group to continue to prosper this year as a result of ongoing positive sales developments at VW brand, a pick-up in sales at Audi, and broadly flat margins.

In the Litigation area, we are making the risks from the diesel crisis more manageable step by step. In terms of corporate culture, we are seeing tangible and measurable progress. I am pleased that we have increased our integrity by three points in the sentiment barometer.

Our modern MQB-based model range in terms of volume and the new Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis and Bentleys are convincing customers. We are improving the quality of our business. Revenue and earnings are growing faster than unit sales. In China, we increased our market share by 1.4 percent in a sharply declining market. This is a great achievement, which hardly anyone would have expected from us. Congratulations to Stephan Wöllenstein and his team on their outstanding performance!

In South America we are back in the black for the first time, and we have also turned our business around in Russia. In North America, we have significantly improved our earnings and are aiming to break even this year. Volkswagen Financial Services will have a record year in 2019, and the component has taken decisive steps in battery development and production.

At Audi, the e-tron got off to a successful start, development costs were reduced and a comprehensive cost reduction programme was launched. Porsche has once again delivered excellent figures and cars and set an example with the Taycan. Seat conquers new and young customers with Cupra. Skoda is running at full speed and will present the new models in India, an important future market for us, at the beginning of February.

VW Commercial Vehicles has put the extremely important Ford cooperation on track, and Traton has completed its IPO. We are seeing positive trends at Bentley, Ducati, Bugatti and Lamborghini, and Bentley in particular is back in the black. The Volkswagen core brand has worked hard to further increase returns. All in all: good developments.

“The storm is just beginning”

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Framework and Toolkit for Improving Peripheral Strategic Vision

Day and Shoemaker have developed a useful framework and toolkit for assessing how much peripheral strategic vision your company needs.

An MIT Sloan article lays out the ideas in three steps.

More details on the toolkit are in their HBR article that can be assessed here.

On Strategic management, leadership & the success of Huawei

I did a four-minute interview with the HSG Focus Magazine.

“We do not do PowerPoint at Amazon”

Jeff Bezos explains in an annual letter to shareholders that Amazon bans PowerPoint presentations.

 

Six-Page Narratives

We don’t do PowerPoint (or any other slide-oriented) presentations at Amazon. Instead, we write narratively structured six-page memos. We silently read one at the beginning of each meeting in a kind of “study hall.” Not surprisingly, the quality of these memos varies widely. Some have the clarity of angels singing. They are brilliant and thoughtful and set up the meeting for high-quality discussion. Sometimes they come in at the other end of the spectrum.

In the handstand example, it’s pretty straightforward to recognize high standards. It wouldn’t be difficult to lay out in detail the requirements of a well-executed handstand, and then you’re either doing it or you’re not. The writing example is very different. The difference between a great memo and an average one is much squishier. It would be extremely hard to write down the detailed requirements that make up a great memo. Nevertheless, I find that much of the time, readers react to great memos very similarly. They know it when they see it. The standard is there, and it is real, even if it’s not easily describable.
Here’s what we’ve figured out. Often, when a memo isn’t great, it’s not the writer’s inability to recognize the high standard, but instead a wrong expectation on scope: they mistakenly believe a high-standards, six-page memo can be written in one or two days or even a few hours, when really it might take a week or more! They’re trying to perfect a handstand in just two weeks, and we’re not coaching them right. The great memos are written and re-written, shared with colleagues who are asked to improve the work, set aside for a couple of days, and then edited again with a fresh mind. They simply can’t be done in a day or two. The key point here is that you can improve results through the simple act of teaching scope – that a great memo probably should take a week or more.

Source: Annual Report 2018


pp

Brick and Mortar Retailers 2006 and Now

Amazon gained a lot more value then the big brick and mortar retailers list.  But would this still be the case if the value destruction at all the small retailers that Amazon put out of business were accounted for? Think of Cody’s bookstore in Berkeley.  Brick and Mortar

What Employers value the most in MBA graduates

A recent survey of CEOs reveals what they are looking for in today’s MBA graduates:

Self-Awareness (62%)
Integrity (60%)
Cross-Cultural Competency (57%)
Team Skills (49%)
Critical Thinking (48%)
Communication (48%)
Comfort with Ambiguity and Uncertainty (41%)
Creativity (27%)
Execution (21%)
Sales (19%)


Source:  PoetsandQuants.com

SAP Founder, Hasso Platter, on the difficulty of changing a firm rather than starting a new one

Hasso Platter co-founded SAP. For the past two decades he has been involved in trying to adopt the SAP to area of internet and cheap clout computing.

When asked whether it is harder to set up a new company or to steer an existing company in a new direction, he does not hesitate with his reply.

“The bigger challenge, I’d say, is the latter one.”

To reinvent a successful company such as SAP is much more difficult. “You have to convince people that change has to come, and that is difficult,” he says, noting that it is easier to convince Americans about the future than people in Switzerland or Germany. “We are more conservative. We are a little bit afraid of the future. Americans are not afraid of the future.”

Source:  Financial Times

The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think

In their new book, The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think, Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed carefully identified from all publicly listed American firms those firms that performed very highly over long periods of time. When they tried to find out what they had in common, they could not identify concrete behavior. What made the companies different, according to the authors, where their mindsets. This leads Raynor and Ahmed to articulate three rules for success.

  • Better before cheaper: Compete on differentiators other than price.

  • Revenue before cost: Drive superior profitability with higher prices or higher volumes, not lower cost.

  • There are no other rules: Change anything/everything in order to abide by the first two rules.

  • The Economist wrote a very thoughtful review about the entire genre of business books that tries to glean lessons from studying successful players.  I agree with their assessment that in the end,

    The difficult question is how to find that profitable niche and protect it. There, The Three Rules is less useful.

    David Gonski on Leadership

    Gonski is a towering figure of Australian life. But his ideas of leadership apply everywhere in the Western world. To appreciate a bit more Gonski’s words, read this profile on him.

    10 Management insights courtesy of Carol Tice

    Carol Tice summarized the 10 lessons in recent management books.

    1. Instead of hiring people with fancy resumes, hire people who fit your culture and are teachable.
    2. Build a strong brand and don’t change it.
    3. Focus all your products on the consumer by studying and listening to customers and innovating accordingly.
    4. Appoint a DRI, or Directly Responsible Individual, for every task.
    5. Create a confrontational workplace culture where workers feel free to challenge others’ opinions.
    6. Have a system of secrecy that builds excitement and a sense of ownership—from launching projects in an outbuilding that flies a pirate flag to erecting walls around off-limits “lockdown rooms.”
    7. Create a recognition culture. Novak was once horrified to find a 30-year company executive who only heard how great people thought his contributions were a few weeks before his retirement. Now, Yum! managers all over the world give out unique recognition awards, from miniature Taj Mahal statues to rubber chickens.
    8. To lead people and achieve big goals, ask three questions: What’s the single biggest thing you can imagine that will grow your business or change your life? Who do you need to affect, influence or take with you to be successful? What prescriptions, habits or beliefs of this target audience do you need to build, change or reinforce to reach your goal?
    9. When you build strong relationships with your management team before you launch, it makes it easier to execute on your vision.
    10. Execution is more important than the idea.

    Full Story on entrepreneur.com.

    Different skills are crucial for managing corporations, non-for-profits and government organizations

    People who have had very successful careers in corporations frequently underestimate how much they have to change their style to be effective in academic and other non-for-profit sectors.  Here is a illumnating quote from Donna Shillalah who was quite effective in the government sector but found academia much more challenging.

    “Everybody thinks university presidents are hierarchical and top-down,” said Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami, and a former president of the University of Wisconsin and secretary of health and human services. “But we are not corporate chieftains, and we cannot rule from the sky. We are more like tugboat captains, trying to get our ships aligned and pulling them in the right direction.”

    The great research universities, she said, have achieved their dominant position in the world through shared faculty governance, and leaving faculty both academic and research freedom.

    “It was a lot easier to run a cabinet department than the University of Wisconsin,” Ms. Shalala said. “There are a lot of different constituencies at a university, and the president cannot be successful without buy-in from all of them.”

    Souce: NY Times

     

    Daniel Pink: What really motivates us

    For Profit Colleges under Fire

    Steve Jobs’s Seven Rules of Success courtesy of Carmine Gallo

    PM: I have followed Apple since 1985 and I think Carmine Gallo has correctly identified seven principles that Steve Jobs followed. I am presently doing research on why Apple was such a poorly managed company before Jobs was fired. Anyone who has insight on this, please contact me. When Jobs came back to Apple, lead to company to new success that no one including myself would have predicted.  Here is what Mrs. Gallo has crystallized about Job’s method.

    1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, “People with passion can change the world for the better.” Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, “I’d get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about.” That’s how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

    2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, “Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?” Don’t lose sight of the big vision.

    3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn’t have any practical use in his life—until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don’t live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

    4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the “A-Team” on each product. What are you saying “no” to? 

    5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

    6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can’t communicate your ideas, it doesn’t matter. Jobs was the world’s greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

    7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It’s so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don’t care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you’ll win them over.

    From: Entrepreneur.com

    PM: October 25, 2011: Started my research on why Job’s rose from the ashes at Apple by reading the new biography.

    More Information on Steve Jobs

    Apple put on an 70 min celebration of life of their leader on October 17. All Apple shops around the worlds were close so that employees from all over the world could participate live in the event. Watch the Video here.

    The new Steve Jobs biography came out October 24, 2011. It its available electronically for the Kindle

    An excellent, on target, review of the book is available on FT.com

    Rudy Giulani’s Six Principles of Leadership

    I am only a moderate fan of Rudy Giulani, but I strongly agree with the 6 (eight) principles of leadership he recently shared at a conference in Sydney as reported in BRW, June 23-29, 2011, p. 50.

    1. Leaders have strong belief and vision
    You can’t expect to have people follow you if you don’t know where you are going yourself. A leader must convey his vision to his people, “Be clear, consistent and have goals,” he says. Engage your people in the vision. People will help you achieve your vision if they have instrumental in brining that vision through.”

    2. Be optimistic and solve problems
    “You have to be an optimist. People follow people who have hope and who help solve problems.  The only people who succeed in life overcome problems in and find solutions.”

    3. Be courageous
    “If you are not afraid, then you’re not alive, because things go wrong. It’s the unpredictable thing that happen, which you will need to be prepared for,” he says.

    4. Preparation
    Prepare as much as you can so when things go wrong, you’re able to put into practice the techniques you’ve learned. “No matter how much you practice or prepare, something will always go wrong. But by having practices in place, you’re better prepared.”

    5. Teamwork
    Ask your what are your strengths and weaknesses?  Find people who have the skills to balance out your weaknesses.

    6. Communication and Leadership
    Everything you say means nothing if people don’t understand you. Leaders establish loyalty, he says, because they are teachers and they motivate people. “Take good care of people who work for you.”

     

     

    Burt Teplitzky on Using Humor in Sales Pitches

    THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: How do you go about incorporating humor into sales presentations?

    I use humor to reinforce a point in selling a product or service. My formula is punch them with the joke, stick them with the point and leave them with the benefit. When you take a joke and incorporate it into a conversation or a presentation, it carries a lot more power. It carries the power to change people’s minds, reinforce what they think or feel, and to sell something. That chosen joke is no longer just a joke. It becomes a gem, a humor gem.

    Speaking in front of an audience for fun and profit only requires one laugh every three to six minutes. This should be your goal. In a comedy club, you need to have at least three laughs per minute to get regular stage time.

    Remember, your audience wants humor and they fear that if they don’t laugh, you will stop using it. They don’t want to have to suffer through a dry presentation.

    Read full interview in the WSJ.


    PM: The general point being made here is that you need to figure out how to establish a relationship with the person you want to sell to. In the end, you need to provide them with reason to go with you rather than competitor. Everything else being equal, the reason might be that they like you more because it fun to be around you.

     

    Andy Penn’s Tips for Doing Business in Asia

    1. Be patient.
    2. Focus on building relationships.
    3. Get the right people and invest in them.
    4. Have a high level of cultural sensitivity and awareness.
    5. Diversify across Asian markets as the risks are higher.
    6. Build a regional model with a distinct platform that can handle all different tax and regulatory environments.

    Common Mistakes when Doing Business in Asia

    1. Barriers to entry are very high, so don’t overestimate how long it will take to reach objectives.
    2. Don’t underestimate the importance of relationships. Early discussions probably won’t focus on business but on areas such as family and interests.
    3. Don’t underestimate cultural differences and how they can lead to a situation of being exploited or causing exploitation.
    4. The rest of the world is not blind to the opportunities Asia represents. Competition is fierce and there is a higher risk of failure. Don’t go unprepared.

    From BRW, April 14- 20, 2011, pp. 30-31   Biographical Information on Andy Penn

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