JT Pedersen » Leadership

Why Apple & Starbucks Failed

JT — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:20:42 +0000

Was It Just Leadership?

Apple, Starbucks, Dell, and others are frequently lauded for their incredible successes. Yet each was on the verge of becoming failures…at points after their initial successes. Why?

In each case, they had founding CEOs that had led their early successes. And then they left, voluntarily or involuntarily. The companies’ subsequent CEOs were all highly respected executives. So why did the companies lurch, falter, and begin spiraling downward toward failure?

In each case, bringing the founding CEO back allowed them to regain—and exceed—their earlier prominence.

Much has been written about why some of the founding CEOs departed. For instance, the attraction, later repulsion between Sculley and Jobs at Apple, followed by Jobs’ expulsion, plays a key theme in The Elephant in the Room. But that’s a discussion of why they left, not why the subsequent leaders couldn’t make their companies succeed.

I believe the answer is simple. The founders were the ones with the dream. They were the ones with the, ‘fire in the belly.‘

From my perspective, both Apple and Dell had follow-on CEOs that came in to ‘run a business.’ That certainly seems true in Sculley’s case at Apple. Great guy, but could you expect ‘technology fire in the belly’ from a soda-pop exec?

Was It Process-Based?

Wall Street is known to place a premium on stocks for any number of reasons. One of these is the promise of ongoing innovation, process execution, and in general an attempt to use historical performance as an indication of future success.

In the case of each of these companies, stock performance has certainly been given healthy premiums for exactly these reasons. How else can you define Apple’s market value trading at its current levels? There is the assumption the company can, and will indefinitely, continue to deliver the way it has in recent history.

Now, as Apple begins moving forward with new CEO Tim Cook, it is fair to ask the question, “What is more important: Ongoing Innovation or Business Process Excellence?

Going beyond was it just leadership, asking about business process excellence seems a logical extension. Yes, process is important for ultimate success. But, like quality, it is simply expected.

When I pick a vendor to partner with or outsource to, I look at things like their financials, their processes, and industry reputation. Process is important. It is a key component I look at for any company I consider working with, or for.

But process does not define a relationship. For those of us with an iPhone, iPad, or other iDevice, we feel we have a relationship with our devices, with the ecosystem they let us participate in. When we go to a Starbucks, its often not because of their sterilized same-thing-everywhere approach. (While traveling we may, because we have no time for relationship. We just want a known-good-product.). We go because of the atmosphere.

We form relationships, real or imagined, with companies that espouse their dreams, drive hard to achieve them, and that tend to deliver. I know nothing of the assembly/delivery process for my iPad. I simply appreciate it’s delight-factor and the relationship I have with it and, by extension, Apple itself.

What makes me excited about going to work for, or with, a company is it’s fire. Do I feel a fire in my own belly about working with them? In these cases, Fire in the Belly trumps business process.

(My thanks to Teresa Jurgens-Kowal for planting the seed for today’s post.)

Image credit: S. Braswell

JT Pedersen

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Obama Birth Certificate | Failure To Lead

JT — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:44:56 +0000

What a debacle. What a failure to lead.

It does not matter whether you are a supporter of President Obama, or not. Really doesn’t. His failure to fully, properly resolve the ongoing ‘obama birth certificate’ issue demonstrates a failure to lead.

Pretty much any US citizen* can produce their birth certificate, or reasonable facsimile, on demand. You can, can’t you? I know I can. It’s in my safe and I can procure it for you in a few minutes. When I applied for my first passport, I had to produce it. When I enlisted, I had to produce it. Of course, now, my passport tends to serve as a more-effective stand-in, but there are still times when I have to produce it.

Now, for sake of discussion, let’s say I decide to run for President of the United States. And, my U.S. Citizenship is challenged. You know what? I would immediately be able to produce it, provide a scanned copy, as well as let a select few forensic folks verify it’s authenticity. Oh, and we can get a fresh, certified copy, from the State of Michigan if necessary.

Done. Over. Finished. In like :05 minutes.

It drives me nuts to see the Nation continue to waste its time on this matter. Mr. President, you should be ashamed with yourself for letting this debacle continue. Produce the document, let some nationally-credible folks (heck, let Limbaugh look at it) see it, and verify it’s real. And, while you’re at it, ask the State of Hawaii to open up and help resolve the issue.

The failure to lead lay in the unwillingness to produce the document. This is a choice. Any reasonable leader would immediately resolve this problem. A true leader how distractions can have tremendous negative impacts…and they can grow over time if not addressed.

That is where we are today. Over three years later, the issue continues to fester. Fester to the point it is not unreasonable to wonder, "…what’s going on here? Is he a citizen, or not?" We even have folks like the Maricopa County Sheriff saying what has been provided is inconsistent. My word: fraudulent.

The only people who cannot effectively respond to this issue appear to be illegal aliens. And, apparently, the President of the United States of America.

I’m proud to be an American. And happier yet to demonstrate I am an American. Time to properly fix this issue Mr. President. Or, fess up.

* There are always exceptions.

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This Is My Brain on a Motorcycle

JT — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:14:09 +0000

Now we know, that motorcyclists, like Leaders, are different people:). Seriously. But, why is that? In short, what studies repeatedly show is, what we do more of, we get better at.

Todd Halterman wrote a piece, This Is Your Brain on a Motorcycle, pulling together results of numerous studies involving cognitive functioning, with a particular focus on riding motorcycles. A notable difference was found between the control group, and those riding to work daily for two months.

Motorcycling is healthy for you. Simply thinking about it stimulates your brain.

As a motorcyclist I can say, yes, that’s true. You know you’re a motorcyclist, if you go stare at your bike in the garage more than once during Winter. Odds are, the studies’ organizers could have saved a lot of money: motorcyclists already know the truth .

Seriously though, what I found most telling is that the parts of your mind you use more, grow. Parts left unused, shrink.

Sharon Begley, of Train Your Mind—Change Your Brain, concurred:

“The brain devotes more cortical real estate to functions that its owner uses more frequently and shrinks the space devoted to activities rarely performed,” Begley wrote. “That’s why the brains of violinists devote more space to the region that controls the digits of the fingering hand.”

Should we expect it to be any different for others? Say, for Leaders? There has been an age-old debate about leadership. One side believes you are either born with leadership skills, or you are not. The other side believes the skills can be learned.

Personally, I’m in the latter camp. Leadership does require certain basic components to your personality. But to become a good, effective leader, you need to practice. And as the studies are showing, the more you work at something, the more your brain changes to support the activity.

The moral of the story: To be a good leader, you need to continually work at it.

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Product Manager Seeking to Involve Internal Customers?

JT — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:26:18 +0000

Product managers have a challenging role. They are the keeper of the dream for the product(s) they’re charged with giving direction to. They distill input from a range of sources; delve into research and marketing studies; look at competitors’ offerings; and, craft the dream, the strategy, for everyone to follow.

One of the most challenging groups to effectively capture input from, is the product manager’s own internal teams. This can include Sales, Development, Services, Product Support, Marketing, Executive Leadership, Operations, to name a few.

Successfully capturing input from these varied groups is both a process and leadership issue.

From a process perspective, capturing input needs to go beyond email and two or three annual conference calls. Capturing feedback must be an ongoing process. Product managers cannot have one-time meetings and expect input-on-demand. Yes, they’ll get some, but they’ll miss even more. It is important to solicit, and be open to, feedback on an ongoing basis.

And this is where leadership is important. Doing this requires establishing a reputation with all the concerned stakeholders, being consistent, and avoiding being (even if only accidentally) dismissive when comments are given.

The process, the mechanisms used, need to support capturing feedback 7/24. Not just when the product manager happens to be in his or her office. There are a number of tools that can support this.

Email is certainly one medium. However I like transparent inputs. Tools like SharePoint, wikis, micro blogs like Yammer, all provide the means for anytime-input and open discussion. Some, like Yammer, have grown in sophistication helping to manage the process—specifically for internal use. (Think of Yammer as Twitter for private, corporate use.)

Blogs are another means of soliciting input. I believe more product managers should consider use of blogs, internal and/or externally facing. Blogs let the product’s leader discuss current thinking, demonstrate thought leadership, while providing a sense of direction. Concerned parties will pay attention, whether they respond through the same medium or not.

The trick to capturing internal stakeholders input is to be Recurring, Relationship-based, and able to support discussion 7/24.

Image credit: Christian Ferrari

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Costa Concordia: Lesson In Failed Leadership

JT — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:26:37 +0000

By now, if you’ve tapped into almost any media source, you’ve heard of how the Costa Concordia ran aground, sank, and created a world of mayhem for all involved.

The initial cause as I read about it in the media, is,”…made an unauthorized, unapproved deviation from its programmed course, a “human error” that led to the grounding of the vessel…,” says the chief executive of the ship’s Italian owner.

We all make mistakes. To do so is to be human. And, while tragic, that mistake is not itself where the real failure of leadership was demonstrated.

Here’s the initial sequence, and thoughts, as I first learned of the event:

A ship, Costa Concordia had run aground.
Thought: Ship’s Skipper’s responsible for everything involving the ship, what could’ve happened?
Heard the, “…the command and crew were sluggish in responding to the crisis.”
Thought: Slow, disorganized crew response…the crew was properly trained, educated, prepared for such an eventuality. Making sure the crew’s ready is one of a ship captain’s primary responsibilities.
Various reports have alleged the captain abandoned ship hours before the evacuation was complete.
Thought: Not present!? Absolute dereliction of duty…whether you’re Captain or not, the crew is responsible for the welfare of its passengers.

As this story continues to evolve, I am really surprised that though there is a preponderance of evidence, no one has picked up on this seemingly complete failure of leadership.

We will continue to learn more. We need be careful not to prosecute the Captain and his crew in the media inappropriately: the black box recorders’ contents have not yet been revealed; the Captain has not spoken publicly; and, even the Costa Concordia’s owners are providing inconsistent stories. For instance, Costa Crociere chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi, “…praised the crew for its handling of the crisis.“ Sorry, it doesn’t work both ways.

Whether your job is to run a ship, or run a business, leaders have certain responsibilities. Chief among them is to:

Remain committed to your cause (no abandonment);
Ensure your crews, your teams, are prepared for the task at hand;
Be accountable, see it through to the end, whatever that end may be; and,
Above all, provide leadership, direction, and ensure execution.

My condolences go out to everyone involved. This has certainly been a tragic event and lives have been irreparably harmed or lost. However grim, this event will serve as a leadership case study for decades to come.

source image credit: Bloomberg
modified image: JT Pedersen

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Product Visioning—How Often Do You Do It?

JT — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:25:11 +0000

Product Managers need to define, own, and communicate the dream they have for their product(s). The process they go through in developing the dream, can be referred to as Visioning. Earlier this week, Dr. Jim Anderson discussed the process in, Why Product Managers Need To Learn How To Do Visioning.

The question was then asked, how often should you go through the process? In discussions that followed, it was interesting to see the range of responses. Some suggested quarterly, others more frequently.

Visioning, defining the dream, for me is a function that varies by product, by industry. Moving at different rates, some demand change more quickly than others.

A well-described vision defines a clear focus. As I discuss in Picked Your Fencepost Yet?, If you’re in the middle of a field and want to get out, you need to pick a point on the fence, any point, and keep heading toward it. Getting out of the field is your vision, your dream. Working in the software industry, I have found formal visioning works best as an annual process.

Changing industry or market conditions are key factors suggesting more frequent visioning exercises. However, Organizational size often acts as a throttle, retarding your rate of change. Changing product vision too significantly, too often, creates havoc and/or disengagement in larger organizations.

Imagine an organization with 2,500 sales people globally, along with tens of thousands of partners (e.g. dealers, distributors…). It takes a while to communicate the message; to get everyone to simply understand the vision; to feel good about it; and, then be motivated to support it. Change your product’s vision more than once a year and they’ll wonder if you’ve a clue what you’re doing. Worse, they’ll get frustrated, demotivated.

Of course, on the way to your chosen exit point, you’re going to find rocks to avoid, creeks to ford. How you choose to deal with these impediments are your strategies, your tactics. These, may end up being reviewed weekly (or however often). Strategy and tactics are never to be confused with your dream, your vision.

To go through the visioning process too often, suggests the original focus was not set out far enough. Remember, the vision is not to move forward 6′. The Vision is to exit the field—via the point you picked—way over ‘there.’ Discounting the obvious impact of a game changer (e.g. earthquake destroys the fence), the ‘general direction’ you want to head in, shouldn’t be changing all that often.

image credit: Jef Bettens

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Create a Culture of Greatness

JT — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:07:41 +0000

One of the books I am currently reviewing, is by Jon Gordon. He’s an international bestselling author and contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Reviewing his work, I found a mindset and approach that I like. And, as a reader of my blog, I suspect you will as well.

Jon extended the offer of a guest post to me, and I thought it a good idea. This is also the first guest post I’ve permitted until now. Let me know what you think, about future guests posts, as well as your own thoughts on Jon’s article…

By Jon Gordon

“To build a winning a team and a successful organization you must create a culture of greatness.”

It’s the most important thing a leader can do because culture drives behavior, behavior drives habits and habits create the future. As the leaders at Apple say, “Culture beats strategy all day long.”

When you create a culture of greatness you create a collective mindset in your organization that expects great things to happen—even during challenging times. You expect your people to be their best, you make it a priority to coach them to be their best and most of all you create a work environment that fuels them to be their best.

A culture of greatness creates an expectation that everyone in the organization be committed to excellence. It requires leaders and managers to put the right people in the right positions where they are humble and hungry and willing to work harder than everyone else. A culture of greatness dictates that each person use their gifts and strengths to serve the purpose and mission of the organization. And it means that you don’t just bring in the best people, but you also bring out the best in your people.

If you are thinking that this sounds like common sense, it is. But unfortunately far too many organizations expect their people to be their best but they don’t invest their time and energy to help them be their best nor do they create an environment that is conducive to success. They want great results but they are not willing to do what it takes to create a culture of greatness.

A culture of greatness requires that you find the right people that fit your culture. Then you coach them, develop them, mentor them, train them and empower them to do what they do best. As part of this process you develop positive leaders who share positive energy throughout the organization because positive energy flows from the top down. You also don’t allow negativity to sabotage the morale, performance and success or your organization. You deal with negativity at the cultural level so your people can spend their time focusing on their work instead of fighting energy vampires. And you find countless ways to enhance communication, build trust and create engaged relationships that are the foundation upon which winning teams are built.

If creating a culture of greatness sounds like a lot of work, it is, but not as much work as dealing with the crises, problems and challenges associated with negative, dysfunctional and sub-par cultures. While most organizations waste a lot of time putting out fires you can spend your time building a great organization that rises above the competition.

About Jon Gordon:

This post is a guest post by Jon Gordon. Jon is the Wall Street Journal and international bestselling author of a number of books including The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy, and his latest, The Seed: Finding Purpose and Happiness in Life and Work. Learn more at www.JonGordon.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonGordon11 or Facebook www.facebook.com/jongordonpage .

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Social Media & Product Management (Pt. 2)

JT — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:39:10 +0000

(Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 See also, supplement)

Continuing the discussion of employing social media as a component of the product management toolset…

For most people, ‘social media’ tends to be synonymous with ‘social networking.’ You’re familiar with many of them already, whether you personally use them or not: Facebook for most; LinkedIn for the career-minded; Flickr for photographers; or, perhaps Google+ if you’re really on top of things. These site are largely consumer oriented, letting individuals socially interact with others directly, forming their own communities while engaging with others.

Social networking is but a subcomponent of social media though. As Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner write, "…most writing about social media focuses on how to use it for marketing, we believe there’s a larger story to tell." Social media is certainly very useful to help companies build relationships with their customers and, in turn, promote themselves.

Using this new medium primarily as a push tool, is very short-sighted.

The New Tools

Social media is an incredible intelligence gathering solution as well. And, specific to product managers, an established social network is also a powerful source of input; one that can be leveraged to garner product-minded input—much less expensively than, say, a focus group.

There are uncounted numbers of publications discussing social media. If you are looking to study its depths, dimensions, and gnarly innards, one example is presented by J.H. Kietzmann et al. in their ScienceDirect publication, and their honeycombs of social media (pg. 243, 248).

Simpler is better whenever possible. For our purposes here, there are four buckets that social media components fall into. They are Media, Analytics, Advertising/Marketing, and Platforms.

Media

Media encompasses a number of different forms. In general, it is the mechanism enabling interaction between participants. Whether it is video, blogging, or social networking, it is the means by which you convey your message to others, and for them to respond.

The tools you choose might be Facebook for B2C (business to consumer); and, LinkedIn, Google+, Slideshare, or others for B2B. As I write this, Google+ has the potential to work equally well for primarily consumer and business interests. How it ultimately develops remains to be seen. Regardless, the tool you use is tied to your comfort level, available time to invest, and most importantly—where your audience(s) typically exists.

Analytics

In social media circles you will hear reference to using ‘analytics.’ Typically the discussion gets shunted off to the side which is unfortunate. Tools like Google Analytics are free to use, easily installed, and provide a wealth of information.

For the non-computer minded product manager, tools like Google Analytics populate a database with information each time someone visits your website. Depending on whether you’re using a free or fee-based analytics tool, there is a range of data captured, such as:

Location
- Country
- Municipality
- City
Visitors
- # Return
- # Unique
Device
- Screen Resolution
- Operating System
- Browser type & version
Platform
- Mobile
- PC
Source, where’d they comefrom
- Direct (they typed it in, clicked your email sig link)
- Referral (via LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, or other social network)
- Search (via Bing, Google, Yahoo!, and what it was they typed in to find you)

The usefulness might not be immediately apparent. Here are a couple things analytic data can help you uncover:

Where do you customers tend to come from? (e.g. is where you think?)
Who sends you most of your traffic? Does it reflect your activity on social networks, your blog, or email efforts?
How long did they stay on a particular page? Which pages did they navigate from/to? Are specific product features capturing extra attention?
What OS, Screen resolution, or device type did they use? Useful for software developers, UI design, etc.

In the next piece, I’ll round out the 4 buckets. We’ll also discuss the constraints you can face using social media in product management. Subsequent parts will discuss Benefits as well as why it doesn’t work for everyone.

(image credit: Jacek Brams)

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Social Media & Product Management (supplement)

JT — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:52:45 +0000

(Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 See also, supplement)

New Tools in the Bag

In Part 2, I will discuss the ‘new social media tools’ available to the Product Manager. However, consider this segment a ‘supplement,’ or an appendix, to the overall discussion.

Why? Because I continue to run into a tendency that needs to be addressed, without unwittingly diverting the larger topic’s focus.

Time and again, I go to social media friendly events and hear the same comment. It goes something like this: Everybody is using…(take your pick). Well, it still isn’t true. Speakers, marketers, developers, and yes bloggers, need to take care to avoid an assumption of widespread social media literacy.

For many people, their understanding does not extend past posting what they just had for lunch on facebook. In the November ’09 issue, Fast Company discussed Twitter, saying,’…69% of U.S. adults still have no idea what it is.’

We tend to assume everyone else is ‘just like us.’ And why not? For each of us, our closest friends, colleagues, and acquaintances generally tend to reflect, well, us.

According to Pew Internet Research (August, 2010), 66% of American adults have broadband internet at home. The University of Maryland’s R.H. Smith School of Business, partnering with network solutions, released a 2011 report pointing out that 56% have a website and almost a third use social media.

Flipped the other way, that means 44% of small businesses have no website. And, more than two thirds do not use social media at all.

It is easy to be dismissive of ‘small’ businesses. Before you do, consider the following. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, small firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the total. There were 18,469 large businesses in 2008. (source: SBA FAQ)

So, what does this mean? After all, the numbers can seem to be swirling about us like snow flakes in a blizzard. The short take is this:

Product managers need to make use of social media. It represents a family of tools with incredibly broad reach. Knowing its limitations is important though.

At the same time, it is incredibly important to understand its limitations. If your focus is consumers, and your target customers live in outlaying areas (think farmers), then maybe its worth knowing 34% have no broadband and won’t view your beautiful, large, promotional videos. Or, if your focus is B2B (other businesses), there just might be a reason why you can’t research your target customer online (hint: they don’t exist there).

This post is a bit ‘dryer’ than my usual fare. But rather than continue to propagate unsubstantiated myths, I wanted to give you some hard numbers, with their reference points, so you can go poke around. If nothing else, if you’ve been afraid you’ve fallen so far behind that you can’t catch up, you can now see it probably isn’t true. Well, unless your neighbor the Jones’ have internet and you’re stuck with smoke signals. Then you probably are:)

(image credit: Julia R.)

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Social Media & Product Management (Pt. 1)

JT — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:54:06 +0000

(Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 See also, supplement)

This marks the start of a series on Social Media as it relates to Product Management. Social Media has significantly matured, particularly over the past three years. Yet, given its relative ubiquity, just how to leverage it productively, let alone understand it effectively, remains something of a bugaboo for many.

And, why is that? What is social media? Who can use it? What are the benefits? Why might it work, or not, for different people. These are a handful of the questions I’ll look to address.

Lets Get Started
For today, let’s take a look at what I mean, by, social media for product management? Fundamentally, I’m talking about how product managers, those responsible for charting the course of a product, can use social media to improve their efforts.

Social media enables the building of effective relationships with an interested audience, enabling you to better guide your product through it’s entire lifecycle.

Common Ground
Let’s step back a moment, and clarify the context of ‘product manager.’ The reference to a ‘product manager’ can vary significantly from one company to the next, as well as one industry to another. In some cases, ‘product management’ is undertaken as a team activity.

The team might include, or reside in, Marketing, Sales, Development/Engineering, and Project Management organizations. Each team member may be viewed as having equal responsibility in bringing a product to market. In other contexts, perhaps most common, the product manager is viewed as owning the ‘dream,’ yet without direct resource control, relying on his or her ability to selltheir dream to the other team members (including senior management).

Regardless of how your organizations defines a ‘product manager,’ for our purposes here I ask you to think of this person as the product owner, the person (individually or collectively) who needs to collect feedback and morph it into a dream.

A Traditional Approach
A traditional approach to product management often depends on someone who is a SME, or subject matter expert. The ‘essence’ of what a product is, or will become, is tightly tied to this individual’s sense of what the market needs. Along the way, they will engage various consultants, authors, customers, and internal staff (e.g. Sales, Marketing, & Support), as they pick and chose their path.

The product manager, depending largely on their own expertise, solicits input from various knowledgeable sources. It’s a very demanding position. All these input sources end up funneling their views of what the market needs into a single person.

A key challenge, is that this is only so scalable. At some point, you can only take so many calls; meet so many customers; read so many email; or review data on defect reports and customer issues. Yet, the breadth of input—despite the deluge—can be relatively narrow. Support provides input from your existing customers. Sales provides feedback based on the shifting sands of their daily competitive landscape filled with prospective customers.

As a product manager, I know I am always trying to capture as much input as possible, while also balancing it against all the other input. So, yes, I can hear you now, thinking something like, “…uh, yeah, and he’s about to suggest I spend an extra 3 hours a day twittering away.’” Uh, no. Bear with me, we’ll get there.

The New Tools
With the next section, we will start to look at some of the relatively new tools available. We’ll also spend some time discussing current constraints, such as corporate policies, comfort levels, and yes, the ‘time suck.’

(image credit: Colin Brough)