Promise of Value – Page 19 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

September 19, 2019

Good design is as little design as possible

“Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.” Dieter Rams, Design principle number 10.

Over-elaboration is something we humans like to do. To demonstrate the attention we’ve lavished on the thing we’re making and by extension on the person we’ve made it for, or to show off just how skilled we are. Or most likely, for both those reasons.

The trouble is the result is very often impractical – even unusable, and difficult to adapt when things change around it.

Keeping things simple is the hardest thing, because that means truly focusing on the other person, the one who has to use it or look after it.

September 17, 2019

More than meets the eye.

This man looks like the stereotypical accountant. Formal, old-fashioned, perhaps a bit uncomfortable with people.

Except he is actually one half of the first team to conquer Everest. Tenzing Norgay. Who partnered Edmund Hillary to achieve his dream.

If Mr Tenzing can look like an accountant, perhaps it’s time to revise your view of your accountant. Who knows, they may just be the partner you’ve been looking for to help you achieve your dreams.

There’ll certainly be more to him or her than meets the eye.

PS I’ll be giving a short talk on “How to get the most out of your business accountant” on the 26th September at the Metro Bank in Bexleyheath.

This is a breakfast networking event that runs from 8am to 9.30am and is free to attend.

To book your place, RSVP to jo*******@***********lc.uk

September 12, 2019

Good design is honest

“It does not make a product appear more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.” Dieter Rams, design principle number 6.

Enough said.

September 9, 2019

Embracing variation

Nature loves variation.

Small errors, mishaps and mistakes make a species stronger, not weaker. They make the system antifragile.

Fine china does not love variation. Even the smallest of mishaps can cause irrecoverable damage.

If you want a business that lasts, its better to design it to be more of a system than a dinner service. But that doesn’t mean formless.

Build a strong core of values, purpose and ethos, embodied in simple high-level processes that describe ‘what’ not ‘how’, and you too can get to love variation.

And variation is what leads to evolution.

September 6, 2019

Affiliation

We all have our own way of seeing the world – our own view of how we think it works, what motivates ourselves and others, what’s acceptable and what’s not. That worldview informs how we act in the world – what we read, what we watch, what we buy, who we are drawn to.

Much of that worldview can be based on fact – physics, for example – but a surprising amount of it is opinion. That makes everything political, because everything we do is a negotiation between our worldview and the worldviews of the people and organisations we deal with.

Life is easier if those negotiations mostly take place with people and organisations with whom we share important aspects of our worldview. People and organisations we feel an affiliation with.

But we have to be careful, because some people and some organisations, are willing to pretend to a worldview they don’t really hold, in order to win our affiliation and trust, for their benefit, not ours. And in our always-on, non-stop, social-media-driven globalised world, that is easier than ever to do.

That means 2 things:

As individuals we have a responsibility to each other as honest human beings, to put some effort into not being conned, by digging a bit deeper, checking that deeds match words, that the ‘person’ we are talking to is who they say they are, so that we can to be true to our own worldview.

And as businesses we need to be absolutely clear that what we promise is true, then fearless about sharing it.

If everything is political, we have more power than we think.

September 4, 2019

Buying Customers

Acquisition is a common form of expansion. Especially where customers buy regularly and repeatedly. As the buyer, you add a whole bunch of new customers in one go, in bulk. As the seller you get to cash in on all those years of hard work.

So far, so good.

For employees, takeover or merger often leads to culture shock, as two distinct (and probably inarticulate) Promises of Value clash in the new business. This is a recognised issue that gets attention and effort from the buyer.

But what about customers?

Often, they don’t even know until after the event, when they call for support and find the rules have changed on them, or see the size of their next bill.

What do you think they feel when they find out?

Perhaps they don’t care, as long as there is no difference in the service they get or the fees they have to pay. They didn’t have a relationship with the previous company and they don’t with the new one either. These customers will stay until a significantly better offer comes along, as sooner or later it will.

Perhaps they are delighted – because the new rules make things easier for them, and efficiencies or economies of scale make their bills lower. These customers will stay, and tell everyone why.

Or perhaps they feel belittled, betrayed and angry. They had a relationship with the previous company. They had chosen it because of its values and ethos. They had bought in to its Promise of Value. This company and the way it worked had become part of their life, and now you’ve taken that away. Worse still, you’ve treated them as a commodity. These customers will leave, and tell everyone why.

What’s the answer?

Aim for delighted, every time.

August 27, 2019

Who’s driving?

Most of us business owners are driven by our needs – for autonomy, for self-expression, success, money or even revenge. That doesn’t often build a business that lasts, except by chance.

The promise you make can’t be for everyone. ‘Everyone’, or their close relation ‘anyone’, turns you into a commodity – interchangeable with every competitor in your field, putting all of you in a race to the bottom on price.

And before you work out what your promise really is, you need to work out who it’s for.

There is a community of people who need what you can offer. They are underserved by what’s out there, looking for a change that you can help them to make. They want to become something or someone different, and don’t know how to do it.

As long as there are enough of them, (and enough is less than you think), these people are your market, and by putting them in the driving seat, you’ll start to build a business that lasts.

It’s never about us, it’s about the people we serve.

August 20, 2019

Less, but better

“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.” Dieter Rams ‘Design by Vitsoe’, 1976

Good Design:

is innovative – The possibilities for progression are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for original designs. But imaginative design always develops in tandem with improving technology, and can never be an end in itself.
makes a product useful – A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic criteria. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could detract from it.
is aesthetic – The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products are used every day and have an effect on people and their well-being. Only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
makes a product understandable – It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product clearly express its function by making use of the user’s intuition. At best, it is self-explanatory.
is unobtrusive – Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
is honest – It does not make a product appear more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
is long-lasting – It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.
is thorough down to the last detail – Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.
is environmentally friendly – Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.
is as little design as possible – Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

Imagine if we designed organisations and processes this way too?

August 19, 2019

“keep the human in view”

In today’s ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4, Tina Beatty told us of an insight by Hilary Cottam, which is that many big ‘social welfare’ projects fail ‘not because of a lack of funding, but because of a lack of attentiveness to what people really need.’ For women without easy access to water, a well in their village is a far better – and far cheaper – solution than building a dam.

As Tina said, this seems so obvious, why is it being viewed as radical?

I think it’s because ‘failure’ depends on which side of the funding you are on. Take a look at the diagram in this piece by Richard Murphy to see the kind of thing that often happens.

What actually makes Hilary Cottam radical is that she’s suggesting that the ostensible purpose of these projects should also be the real one.

All too often, we mistake what we want for what the people we claim to serve want.

Once you know this, what you do for the people you serve can get simpler.

August 14, 2019

The beauty parade

The problem with forcing yourself to conform to a particular ideal of ‘beauty’, as an individual or a business, is that over time and space, what constitutes that ideal changes. Plus of course it is an ideal, never actually seen in nature.

Of course this is the point. No one can possibly keep up, but they will spend time, money and energy trying. Time, money and energy that could be spent on things that are more dangerous for the status quo.

Yet, as humans, we find beauty in the things we love. Whatever the beloved looks like, becomes by definition, beautiful.

That means there’s no need to define yourself by another’s standard. Live up to your own.

The right people will see your beauty.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Promise of Value