Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

I’ve been interviewing business leaders in preparation for my presentation at next month’s It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival.  I won’t give away too much before the March 17th event, but there are a few common topics that have come up.

One topic, Flexibility, was mentioned, unsolicited, in each interview. Their respective domains included Manufacturing, Finance, and Human Resources.  As you may expect each brought the topic up in a different context.

From a manufacturing perspective, there is a need to be flexible in how companies are organized.  Many manufacturing concerns use organizational models first developed in the post-World War II era.  Companies like IBM, United Technology, Ford, GM, and the like, developed rigid, deep, hierarchical organizations.  As a result, their ability to change to meet current needs was all-but beyond their grasp.  Not until experiencing near-death experiences, such as with the Domestic 3, were they finally desperate enough to change.

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Leadership opportunities can be found in all kinds of places. Sometimes they pop up in the most unusual of circumstances and you adopt the role without even thinking about it.

Not too long ago, I led a group of motorcyclists on a ride. We started out in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. Traffic was heavy enough that even with GPS, safely and correctly leading the group through the lump of spaghetti masquerading as a series of closely clustered interchanges proved challenging.

15 minutes, and I’ve already had to make a half-dozen impromptu leadership decisions—each one with 5 friends mentally critiquing my every move.

So about 10am in the morning, we’re somewhere north of Asheville, as our small group begins to work its way westward. We’ve left the big city rush well behind us, we’ve unwound ourselves, and eventually roll into a small town that the crush of time seems to have left alone. It’s the sort of town where everything’s almost sleepy, peaceful, with that small town ‘clean’ about it.

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[Hey! They made me:)] I’m rather tickled actually.  This week I received word that Alltop has added this blog (www.jtpedersen.net) to their Leadership section.

This is something of a big deal for me, personally.  It shows you’re not alone in feeling there’s content here worth reading…adding value.

So, here’s my thanks to Alltop, to Guy Kawasaki & Team, for including www.jtpedersen.net in an increasingly important site.

Cheers!

From my perspective, Seth has written perhaps his most impactful book yet. The Linchpin is a new category of person, one who engages their personal ‘art’ in what they do, who can see the course to take when a map doesn’t exist.

This book is a mix of looking at how we think; how we decide; how we got here; and, what is going to be needed to be successful moving forward.

To become a linchpin is to become indispensable.

Seth does a good job encouraging the reader to apply their ‘art’, that ‘extra something’ you enjoy doing, to become indispensable, to leader your organization forward–regardless of your position within it. Rather than simply be a cog in the boss’ machine, do more, be more, whether you reap direct reward (e.g. $$) or not.

Along the way, you might learn a few other things. One of which, led me to post, "Mid Life Crisis Explained.”

The world has changed. Permanently. We can struggle to maintain status quo, or, at least contemplate the options Seth presents.

Recommended.

In Seth’s latest book, Linchpin,  he spends a lot of time talking about maps and artists.  That being an artist means you create your own map, your own path.  And, that society is changing.  Rather than spending your life following a map someone else created, to be successful you’ll need to create your own map moving forward.

While I’ve not been an assembly line worker in a literal sense, it took me awhile (couple dozen reiterations) for what Seth was talking about to truly sink in…appreciating how much of it related to my own life.

Life was relatively easy, for a long time.  With a clear goal in front of me, I could move mountains to achieve it.  I would feel a sense of accomplishment, and life was grand.  So, for the first 3/4 of my life, this is how it worked.  Goal, after goal, after goal.  Going into the service, I bought a map out of the carousel, having chosen to go into aviation.  Once there, the Navy gave me a nice [flight] bag of additional maps to follow (exams, flight certifications, instructor certs, regular performance reviews, etc.).

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This paraphrases the situation a friend of mine, selling a sophisticated yet simple product, frequently encounters.  The fact the company he’s selling for can’t get past the objection reflects an indifference to customer sensitivity.  A lack of customer-centricity.

The question today is how to compete moving forward.  If you’re in a market like the U.S., Western Europe, or Japan, you face a mature slower-growing economic environment—current economic challenges notwithstanding.  Using the automotive industry as an example, growth of 20, 30% annually is considered good.  In North America, 2-3% is considered good.

So if your market is mature and you can’t count on a rising tide to float all boats, how do you prosper?

The days of competing primarily on product and price, particularly for commodity-oriented offerings, are dwindling.  If you’re selling a car, there are numerous ‘family sedans’ with almost identical feature sets, for nearly identical prices.

This suggests a new way of competing must become prevalent.

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One can argue whether economists are cheapskates, or not. The debate can certainly be entertaining, such as in this Wall Street Journal article.  There’s even an old economics joke tied to their, umm, stereotypical tendencies.

It goes something like this, “…an economist is walking down the street with a friend when they happen upon a $100 bill laying on the ground.  As the companion reaches down to pick it up, the economist says, ‘Don’t bother—if it were a real $100 bill, someone would have already picked it up.’” (Andrew McAfee and Andrew Lo.)

Andrew wrote an article comparing companies’ use of IT with that $100 bill.  The notion is that ‘everyone’ has the same technology.  We all have, or have access to, tools like email, internet, smart phones, computers, and the like.  So, technology itself should be a non-competitive tool. Right?

While Andrew continues to discuss inconsistent use of these tools—fewer than 5% of all firms do the job well—I’d like to briefly look beyond just ‘IT’ per se.

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Ann Arbor SPARK hosts a monthly series,  Starting Your Own New Business.  The day-long seminar includes presenters on finance, accounting, marketing, product development, and other topics related to launching one’s own business.

Below, is the high-level presentation I’m giving today.  The focus is on moving the Idea for a product, through development, and ensuring it survives to reach fruition.

Does your company stand for anything? Do you just go to work each day to, ‘make money?’  If you don’t have an answer, why not?

The best place to find it, if there is one, is in an organization’s Mission Statement.  Too many mission statements though are simply great places to collect a bunch of fancy words used to simply obfuscate any underlying meaning. Hmm.  Obfuscate: to confuse, hide the meaning of, be ambiguous.

Google has a 10-point Philosophy.  The most famously quoted is, ‘…do no evil.’  While one might question this basic tenet, it is there, it is understood, and it can be used to help align the organization toward a common purpose.

Even if your organization has lost its way, its never too late to start on a path toward recovery. Maybe this is part of what Google’s doing today, with it’s recent stand against Chinese censorship.  Is what Google’s doing noble?  It’s an interesting question.  See what HBR has to say in, “Why Is Google Doing Government’s Job?”

It’s never too late to Pick Your Fencepost and decide whether to Focus or Flounder.

(Photo Credit: Rainer Topf)

Had a good conversation with a friend today.  As we talked, we seemed to circle around a common thought that has been all too apparent to many of us these days.  We have increasingly become a nation of specialists.  The foremen (and women) have largely been sent packing.

Sometimes the essence of this thought comes to mind, even though you might not do so tangibly.  For instance, my family has had a spat of medical ‘things’ going on.  10 years ago, most of our time was spent with our general practitioner.  You know…the one doctor you went to for just about ‘everything.’  Now, the GP seems to simply be a glorified gatekeeper.  Skin your knee, see the GP.  If you need a band-aid they’ll set you right up.  Otherwise, you’re off to for visits to any number of point-practitioners.  Ok, I exaggerate a bit…‘just’ a bit.

This problem is also very evident in our professional lives as well.  Today I met with a number of folks in a regional networking group.  The group reflects what is already known about this recession…most of those effected are mid/senior careerists.  What seems unspoken though, is these are also the folks known to a different generation as foremen.

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