November 15, 2023
Orchestra or pin factory?
What’s the difference? In a pin factory, people are ‘hands’. In an orchestra, people are players. In a pin factory … Read More “Orchestra or pin factory?”
Category: Responsible Autonomy
November 13, 2023
Masters and management
There was a time when being a Master was to be an expert. To have experience. To have care for … Read More “Masters and management”
November 10, 2023
Why have a score in front of you?
Someone asked an interesting question on James O’Brien’s Mystery Hour phone-in yesterday. It went something like this: “Why do orchestral … Read More “Why have a score in front of you?”
November 8, 2023
A small shift
There’s a famous pair of formulae in Marx’s Capital that describe the difference between trade and capitalism. The first is … Read More “A small shift”
November 6, 2023
Performance
Performance = Potential – Interference. Sometimes. for example in sportspeople, which is where this formula comes from, the interference is … Read More “Performance”
October 30, 2023
Performance management
Imagine what attending a concert would look like if the orchestra’s performance was managed as if it were a pin … Read More “Performance management”
October 25, 2023
Where does leadership sit?
Here’s an interesting debate on leadership and where it fits, kicked off by Michele Zanini. Not just in the article he refers to, but the comments also.
Everyone can be a leader. Most people are already leaders, somewhere in their lives. Just not at work.
But with all the crises we face, don’t we need as big a team as possible of “everyone in the organization who can make amazing things happen”?
Where does leadership sit in your business?
Where could it sit, if you enabled it?
Discipline makes Daring possible.
October 24, 2023
Shopping around
Marketing a ‘brand’ is all about getting customers to stop looking elsewhere. To shrink each individual’s market down to a single option.
Once a customer trusts what the name stands for, the Promise it makes, that brand becomes their go-to purchase, saving them the time and effort of shopping around.
The temptation for the brand is to take that trust for granted, and chip away at the Promise that’s actually delivered, hoping that the customer won’t notice.
Properly functioning markets are better for customers, better for innovation, better for small players.
It’s part of our duty as good consumers to keep them functioning well.
That means shopping around.
Try it.
You might be surprised by what you find. You might find you’re being taken for granted. You might find a much better value option where you least expected it. The least that will happen is that your favourite brands are kept on their toes.
Discipline makes markets possible.
October 23, 2023
Standard Operating Procedures
I don’t know about you, but that phrase “Standard Operating Procedures” makes me cringe. I completely get why they are needed in certain contexts – manufacturing, engineering, military, – anything where you’re dealing with things, or beings that you treat as things.
But as soon as human beings become part of the equation, there can be no such thing as standard – from either side of the operation.
If you’re a business that focuses on delivering a service to humans, by humans, consistency is what you want, not the uniformity of standardisation. However your service is being delivered, and whoever is delivering it, it should feel consistent with your Promise of Value. Since humans are involved, that inevitably means variation – of the kind that standardisation stifles. The kind that allows your people to over-deliver on your Promise and delight individual clients – even when things go wrong.
So, as you design and document the services that enable your business to deliver though others, remember to empower that ability to vary in your team.
Not only will it make for more delight and flexibility, it will be the means by which you discover new needs and desires in your client base.
In manufacturing and engineering, variation is deviation. But for humans and other living beings, and the businesses that serve them, it truly is the spice of life.
Discipline makes Daring possible.
October 20, 2023
From dictatorship to democracy in a single generation
In business, our view of succession is not unlike that of royals. An heir apparent is selected, carefully trained, and groomed to take the helm when we leave.
This approach is fraught with difficulties.
First, as regnant monarch, we put off the selection, training and all that, because we’d rather not face our own mortality, and because to do all that takes time out from running the business.
Next, the heir we select may not wish to be chosen – even if they are family. They may not wish to shoulder the risk of destroying their inheritance. They may have other ideas on what to do with their life.
The people we’ve overlooked may resent that, and start to at least detach themselves from the business, or undermine it, or worse decide to fight over it.
Finally, there may not be an obvious heir.
There is a more rational, modern approach.
- Build your business around a clearly defined customer experience (an OurScore ), that gives people the confidence to know what they are doing without constraining their personality and individuality.
- Give people clear roles to play. Put all the resources they need to play them well at their fingertips. Including the feedback that will enable them to improve both the customer experience and their own ability to deliver it.
- Train them to perform more than one role, so they can have variety of work, you have redundancy in the system and the customer learns that they can happily deal with anyone in the business.
Built this way, a business more or less runs itself.
It gives you far more options for succession, because anyone who works in it can be your heir, if they want.
Or everyone.
A transition from dictatorship to democracy in a single generation.
That would be a legacy to be really proud of.
Discipline makes Daring possible.