15 Minute Business Model

For those with about 11 minutes to spare and an interest in business modelling, this video is interesting on two levels.\r\n\r\nFirst, for it’s own sake – the content is ok. But second – and more interesting to me at the moment – the video itself is a good example of how web based media can be used to promote ideas. I’m wondering how I can use this approach … I need a project to prototype\r\n\r\n

Doing Matters

Strategy + Inaction = A Waste of Time

&

Action + Chaos = A Waste of Effort

So apart from occasional pot luck successes it’s better to have

Strategy + Action = Rewarded Success

But if it’s a choice between

Thinking Some More

and

Doing Some More

there has to be a pretty good reason not to just

START SOMETHING

Kevin Kelly: The next 5,000 days of the web

Following on from “Kill It Off?” – Kevin Kelly talking nearly 5 years ago about the web … mind-boggling, and now we’re way beyond this:\r\n\r\n[ted id=319]

A Measurement Scale of Achievement

I LOVE the crazy words of Tom Peters (sometimes? often? not sure) like this scale of 1 to 10 on the value of things we do,\r\n\r\nwhere 1 is pretty worthless\r\nand 10 is pretty extraordinary.\r\n\r\nIt goes like this:\r\n\r\nGive it a 1 – it pays the rent but nothing else\r\nGive it a 4 – we do something of value\r\nGive it a 7 – it’s pretty damn cool (and definitely subversive)\r\nGive it 10 – we aim to change the world.\r\n\r\nThe measure of success is: Does It Take Your Breath Away\r\n\r\nAs this is Tom Peters it’s backed up with a few poster sized quotations from stars:\r\n\r\n“Astonish me” said choreographer Seigei Diaghivev\r\n“Build Something Great” said Nintendo’s Hiroshi Yamanchi\r\n“Make It Immortal” said David Ogilvy\r\n\r\nHow to achieve it in others?\r\n\r\n“Reward Excellent Failures: Punish Mediocre Successes”\r\n… said Phil Davik in the Tom Peters Seminar

Get on with it! Prototyping to move forward …

Crossing the Aisle

A retail company wanted to kick-start its expansion by trying to tempt people to ‘cross the aisle’ in its stores from food to clothing .\r\n\r\nAfter some low achieving sales figures they commissioned some research into why this wasn’t working. The research showed that people didn’t want to cross the aisle, and it was a wasted effort trying to get people to do what they were never going to do.\r\n\r\nInstead the research discovered that people were happy to buy both food and clothing from the company but they wanted more clarity. The store moved to a different strategy where they separated products into different buildings, a clearly differentiated shopping experience but still the same brand. Growth followed.\r\n\r\nIt turns out that the company had just not understood the buying preferences of their customers. What was convenient for the company (doubling up on existing facilities, maximising resources) was not clear for the customer.\r\n\r\nUp-selling and cross-selling are well tried methods of increasing sales success but we should never loose sight of the need to investigate more radical options and to invest in where the growth really is and not where we hope it will be.\r\n\r\nApplying this to the question of church growth, this might explain why so many ventures started in church simply never take off. They draw too heavily on existing church resources, hoping to give the new clip-on ministry a boost from the momentum of the church as a whole. But along with drawing on resources the new ministry also draws on the culture of the church.\r\n\r\nIf the aim is to attract new people with a different profile – for example, a younger congregation – perhaps its better to put the new ministry at arms length from its parent, with greater independence to form its own identity.

Harvard Oxymoron – Creating an Organic Growth Machine

The Harvard Business Review audio library is a great resource and one I use regularly. Over the years it has been an invaluable source of ideas on organisations and personal development (explore at http://hbr.org/multimedia).

But I was puzzled by the title of an interview given by Ken Favaro called ‘Creating an Organic Growth Machine’ (listen here – it’s worth it).

The material was fine, and led me to rethink the way we could approach the funding of Pioneer Ministry in the Church of England (see the posts starting with Problems with Pioneers – Revex v Capex Funding). It was the oxymoron embedded in the title that caught my attention.

Organic. Growth. Machine.

Machines don’t grow organically. At least not the ones I’ve dealt with.

For example, I analysed the shop floor layouts of the production lines at Transtec PLC in Coventry to see how we could reorganise the machines that produce aluminium engine parts for Jaguar cars. And another time I examined the machines that produce aluminium extrusions in a factory in Holland to ensure we could achieve the shapes and finishes we needed on a glazing contract.

Obviously there was no possibility that these machines could exhibit any signs of organic growth.

I knew what Ken Favaro was getting at. It was the idea that in some way we can combine two ideas into one image to give us a model for organisational development: combining the idea of a well ordered, machined process with the idea of organic growth in the natural world.

The problem when we combine these two images is when we ‘drill down’ (there’s an irony, using an image borrowed from the oil and gas industry) into the metaphor. For example, we treat machines in a very different way from nature.

We tweak machines; we prune plants.

We maintain machines; we nurture plants.

We plan for obsolescence in machines; we allow for re-generation in plants.

We drive machines for maximum consistent production: we tend plants for seasonal fruitfulness.

There’s a “So what?” about all this? Does it matter? It’s just an idea.

Well, I think it does. The images we overlay on our organisations can set the language, the pace, the values, the expectations, and the measures of success. Care is needed when handling powerful images, and it takes a high level of leadership skill to shape metaphors and images into a strong coherent narrative that doesn’t disenfranchise the true resource of the organisation – the people around whom it is built and sustained.

Sowing and Reaping

Many of us experience times when we feel we are not sowing spiritual seeds for a future harvest.\r\n\r\nThis is not about times when we are resting, or when we have stepped out of our everyday routines to gain some perspective. During these times it’s right to hold back and find new energy and direction.\r\n\r\nInstead, this is about the times when we have energy, capacity, and capability … but no opportunity, usually to due to circumstances outside our control.\r\n\r\nLeaders in ministry often experience this, but the problem is not exclusive to leaders. In fact, leaders often have more opportunity and power to change and improve their own circumstances than most people.\r\n\r\nNo, this situation could apply to anyone of us.\r\n\r\nThe solution?\r\n\r\nThe best advice I’ve heard recently is from Pete Davies – church consultant and friend:\r\n

“When you can’t sow into your own field, then sow into someone else’s field\r\nand help them bear a harvest”

\r\n … and then you can do what Pete suggests:\r\n

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant”

\r\n

Creativity – the No1 Skill of the Future

The graphic below was taken from the IBM 2012 Global CEO Study (for the full page on Creativity check it out here or download the study itself here).

The graphic speaks for itself.

Perhaps those of us who have clipped other skills on to our core skill of Creativity will find it easier to move forward in the increasingly compressed and difficult world ahead?

Embrace Creativity if you have it. Get it if you don’t. Or get near people who have it if you can’t get it.

Connected blog … here

Graphic taken from the IBM 2012 Global CEO Study

The No.1 Competency

Last week a friend said to me ‘You’re an ideas person’.\r\n\r\nI baulked. Cringed. Panicked! Defended.\r\n\r\nAfterwards I wondered why, and then I remembered. Those (many) times over the years when the term ‘Ideas Person’ had been used as a way of excluding or confining or sneering or judging.\r\n\r\nAnd … how many of us like to be pigeon-holed? We like to believe that there’s still scope for change and improvement.\r\n\r\nI took note therefore when this week I read about the ‘IBM 2012 Studyof CEOs’ reported in The Times (I would give the link if The Times was accessible without payment). Checking out the IBM website shows this:\r\n\r\n“According to a major new IBM survey of more than 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide, chief executives believe that successfully navigating an increasing complex world will require Creativity – more than rigor, management discipline, integrity or even vision.\r\n\r\nSo, YES! I’m an Ideas Person. I practice Creativity on a daily basis. It is the air I breathe and my second language.\r\n\r\nJust don’t forget that I can deliver too … look\r\n\r\nFor the IBM chart on Creativity see here