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3.03.10

Mesnerhof-C

Wir arbeiten mit Georg Gasteiger gemeinsam an seiner Vision, den Mesnerhof zu einem Ort für (profund) Neues zu gestalten. Im Jänner verbrachten wir wunderbare Tage in Tirol, um uns den Hof und die Umgebung vor Ort anzusehen und dort auch gleich zu arbeiten. Georg hat dazu ein paar Zeilen geschrieben und Fotos gemacht. Unser Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Enabling Spaces, also der Frage, wie dieser Ort gestaltet sein muss (sozial, architektur, kognitiv, emotional, etc.), damit bestimmte Wissens- und Innovationsprozesse unterstützt werden.

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30.07.09

Disruptive Innovation

Already published in 2008, this is nevertheless a worthwhile podcast: Scott Anthony of Innosight speaks about disruptive innovation. Key points are in line with our thinking.

It is not about doing it better, it is about doing it differently (and thereby tranfering existing markets or creating new ones). I am also convinced that disruptive innovation does not mean requiring a lot of resources. Maybe in a later phase, but certainly not at the beginning of a “project”.

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24.11.08

Design Thinking by IDEO

Tim Brown von IDEO hat im Harvard Business Review einen interessanten Beitrag zu Design Thinking veröffentlicht. Ich bereite gerade im Rahmen der net culture labs das nächste Trendcamp vor (Thema des letzten Jahres war Open Innovation) , genau zu diesem Thema. Paul Hughes hat auf Flickr seine Aufzeichnungen reingestellt, auch interessant.

Update über die knapp 2 Tage folgen noch.

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28.01.08

Customer satisfaction at the heart of value generation

37signals reflect on Amazon’s obsession with customers. It is really amazing what the company takes as granted in the name of superb customer satisfaction:

The Amazon customer service guy didn’t blink. After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy. So, of course, was I.

Some months ago, I ordered several books via amazon’s website and to my surprise, I saw a charge on my credit card account for an item named AMZ*Prime Club. After some research, I figured out that I seemingly became a member of amazon’s prime club what I didn’t choose (or at least not explicitly). In different blog entries I read that there were several other surprised and angry customers, feeling that they were ripped off by amazon. However, after complaining about this issue, amazon reacted quickly and transfered the money back on my account. I am still using amazon’s offerings.

It it is obvious that Jeff Bezo regards customer satisfaction as a building block for his company’s success. It is not a PR-gag. It has filtrated through the entire company and from my experience, this process takes a long time.

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28.08.07

Richard Rumelt on strategic thinking

In an inteview (registration required) with Dan Lovallo and Lenny Mendonca (McKinsey), Richard Rumelt speaks about the difference of strategic work and activities that mainly focus on resource allocation (such as property acquistion, construction, training etc). However, many organisations take these “long-term resource plans” (as Rumelt terms them) for strategic plans, what is not the case. He proposes to keep both activities separate from each other. This corresponds well with my experience, especially since also the timing is different. Budget/resource-planning is mostly annual and analytical, whereas strategic work should be nonannual, dialogue-based, and hypothesis-driven.

The quote from Rumelt’s encounter with Steve Jobs describes this well:

Then in 1998 I had the chance to talk with Steve Jobs after he’d come back and turned Apple around. I was there to help Telecom Italia try to do a deal with Apple, but after that business was completed I couldn’t help asking a question. “Steve,” I said, “this turnaround at Apple has been impressive. But everything we know about the personal-computer business says that Apple will always have a small niche position. The network externalities are just too strong to upset the de facto “Wintel”3 standard. So what are you trying to do? What’s the longer-term strategy?”

He didn’t agree or disagree with my assessment of the market. He just smiled and said, “I am going to wait for the next big thing.”

Jobs didn’t give me a doorknob-polishing answer. He didn’t say, “We’re cutting costs and we’re making alliances.” He was waiting until the right moment for that predatory leap, which for him was Pixar and then, in an even bigger way, the iPod. That very predatory approach of leaping through the window of opportunity and staying focused on those big wins—not on maintenance activities—is what distinguishes a real entrepreneurial strategy.

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1.06.07

Thesen für die Wirtschaft von Morgen

Z_punkt hat 15 Thesen für die Wirtschaft von Morgen formuliert. These 15 sehe ich ähnlich, These 1 sehe ich anders.

These 15: Innovation heißt Selbstreflexion und kultureller Wandel. Wir brauchen ein Gemeinwesen, das Innovationskultur lebt — und auch das Scheitern kultiviert.

These 1: Es gibt keine globale Wirtschaft. Regionen sind die ökonomischen Machtzentren und Erfolge erzielt man nur auf lokalen Märkten.

Wie bereits als Kommentar bei Irving Wladawsky-Berger gepostet, ignorieren (vor allem kleinere) Unternehmen, die hauptsächlich national agieren, oft globale Einflüsse. Die Entscheidung, sich vornehmlich auf dem heimischen Markt zu konzentrieren, hält jedoch nicht Konkurrenten - die am globalen Markt agieren - ab, ebenfalls diesen Markt zu bearbeiten. Daher agieren gewissermaßen alle Unternehmen (außer sie besetzen eine Nische) in einer globalen Wirtschaft, und wenn diese ignoriert wird, dann kommt diese zu ihnen.

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16.05.07

The Strategy Paradox

I stumpled upon a new book on strategy written by Michael Rynor via the Innovation Weblog. The first chapter of the book can be downloaded. Rynor describes his point of view:

The strategy paradox, then, arises from the collision of commitment and uncertainty. The most successful strategies are those based on commitments made today that are best aligned with tomorrow’s circumstances. But no one knows what those circumstances will be, because the future is unpredictable. Should one have guessed wrong and committed to the wrong capabilities, it will be impossible to adapt — after all, a commitment that can be changed was not much of a commitment. As a result, success is very often a result of having made what turned out to bethe rightcommitments (good luck), while failed strategies, which can be similar in many ways to successful ones, are based on what turned out to bethe wrong commitments (bad luck). In other words, the strategy paradox is a consequence of the need to commit to a strategy despite the deep uncertainty surrounding which strategy to commit to. Call this strategicuncertainty. … Perhaps more controversially, applying the principles of Requisite Uncertainty implies that CEOs should not see their role in terms of making strategic choices — that is, commitments. Rather, they should focus on building “strategic options,” that is, creating the ability to pursue alternative strategies that couldbe useful, depending on how key uncertainties are resolved.

Strategy pardoxes are not new to management literature. For example, Danny Miller describes his view on the strategy paradox from another (interesting) perspective:

The paradox, of course, is that his [Icarus’] greatest asset led to his demise. And that same paradox applies to many outstanding companies: their victories and their strenghts so often seduce them into the excesses that cause their downfall. Success leads to specialisation and exaggeration, to confidence and complacency, to dogma and ritual.

However, more important, I don’t necessarily see a contradiction between commitment and uncertainty. Rather, it is crucial on what considerations commitment is based on. If commitment is a clear understanding of what the company can be best at, instead of a definition of a plan or goals, then commitment and uncertainty can be reconciled. In his book Good to Great Jim Collins introduces the Hedgehog concept, which describes the kind of thinking that I have in mind:

To go from good to great requires a deep understanding of three intersecting circles translated into a simple, crystalline concept: - What you can be the best in the world at
- What drives your economic engine
- What are you deeply passionate about

In other words, such a commitment reflects the essence of a company (resources, capabilities, passion, learning) developed in a permanent dialogue. Most executives are well aware that uncertainties exist and that they are unpredictable. The problem of commitment and uncertainty arises when the hedgehog concept is build on uncertain opportunities in which the company has to invest in. If these opportunities fail, then the company most probably do the same. On the other hand, if the company understands its essence, it will manoeuvre through uncertainties as it has further developed its already existing strenghts.

There may be times, when also such an approach fails, for instance when an entire industry is breaking down. But even then, a company can redesign its commitment. As did Philip Morris when they redefined its hedgehog concept from a tobacco company to a not-so-healthy consumables company (triggered by a report from the Surgeon General’s Office that linked cigarettes with cancer).

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European market forecast for the iPhone

Der Standard titelte kürzlich Gartner prophezeit dem iPhone Scheitern in Europa. Begründung:

So meldet sich nun der Gartner-Analyst Martin Gutberlet mit äußerst kritischen Kommentaren zu Wort. So teilte er der englischen MarketingWeek seine Einschätzung mit, dass sich das iPhone am europäischen Markt nicht durchsetzen werde. Dass dem so sein werde, habe eine einfache Ursache: Die Festlegung auf einen Exklusiv-Provider sei ein verhängnisvoller Fehler.

Auch wenn das Argument sich als richtig herausstellt, nehme ich an, dass Apple die Strategie ändern und nicht am Model festhalten wird. Ich erinnere an die Vorhersage eines großen Beratungshauses zum Potenzial von Mobiltelefonen (Kapitel 6):

… when AT&T consulted McKinsey in the mid-1980s for advice on the cellular telephone market, McKinsey concluded that the worldwide potential was 900.000 units.

Anfang 2006 hat der weltweite Mobiltelefonmarkt 2.2 Milliarden Subscriber registriert.

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25.04.07

Life-cycle of companies

Irving Wladawsky-Berger reflects about his time being with IBM.

Reflecting perhaps a somewhat morbid point of view, I am particularly fascinated by the number of once seemingly powerful companies that are no longer around. It is as if, like living organisms, a business is destined to disappear sooner or later, and a very large part of innovation and strategy is all about how to avoid the inevitable death of the organization. In the book she co-authored, Let go to Grow: Escaping the Commodity Trap, my colleague Linda Sanford cited a study demonstrating that of over one thousand companies tracked by the Fortune 500 since 1960, less than one sixth of them are still around.

Generally I think, it is difficult to accept that admirable companies today most probably won’t be around anymore in 30 to 50 years. Especially, for those that are working in such an environment. However, as Richard Pascale pointed out, highly successful companies are especially in danger to sink. One of the reasons may be inertia, another one may be blindness (due to success) - of course, many other factors are contributing.

In this context, I find Charles Handy’s illustration of the sigmoid curve very helpful to explain the reason for this company life-cycle:

The graph sums up the story of life: starting slowly, growth and then waning. However - as opposed to biological life, there is life beyond the curve. The secret to constant value creation is to start a second curve before the first one matures (point A). Unfortunately, most companies only start when looking disaster in the face (point B). At this point in time, it becomes much more difficult, since leaders are already discredited, energy is low and resources are depleted. Now, often a new leader comes into place expecting him to rescue the sinking ship. Though, they also start with a demotivated crew (the best employees left already the company), scarce resources and not much freedom to manoeuvre.

In his own words, Handy states:

I carry that to extremes and say every organization should assume it is at the peak of its particular S-curve - either product or life cycle - and it should create a new and different life cycle. I call this the second curve. To accomplish this, companies must constantly explore different directions. Most don’t do it particularly well until it’s almost too late. I don’t know any that do it continuously.

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22.03.07

Innovation as communication

Irving Wladawsky-Berger’s blog is one of the few in the blogosphere which I appreciate for its strategic thinking qualities. In a recent post, Wladawsky-Berger gives insights into IBM’s Global Innovation Outlook

The GIO is rooted in the belief that the very nature of innovation has changed in the early days of the 21st century. It is increasingly open, collaborative, multi-disciplinary and global. This shift means that the truly revolutionary innovations of our time — the ones that will create new markets, redefine old ones, and maybe even change the world for the better — require the participation and investment across multiple constituencies. This collaboration begins with a series of open, dynamic conversations called “deep dives.” To date, more than two dozen GIO deep dives on four continents have brought together close to 400 influencers from three dozen countries. These free-form conversations, fueled by a diverse mix of expertise and perspectives, are inevitably candid and spirited. Collectively, they result in an explosion of ideas that spark new relationships, policy initiatives, and market opportunities for all involved.

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28.02.07

Strategie für Wien

Die Stadt Wien hat gestern Experten und Interessierte zur 2. Veranstaltung im Rahmen von Wien denkt Zukunft eingeladen. Zum Titel der Veranstaltung querdenken wurden passend mit den Teilnehmern 4 Subforen gebildet (Internationalisierung des Forschungs- und Innovationsstandort Wien, Attraktivität des Forschungs- und Innovationsstandortes Wien, Diversität am Forschungs- und Innovationsstandort Wien, Marketing für den Forschungs- und Innovationsstandort Wien), die zu den Themen diskutierten.

Interessant - und verwunderlich aus meiner Sicht - war bei dieser Diskussion, dass eigentlich fast nicht über strategische Punkte gesprochen wurde (es soll ja am Ende eine Wiener Forschungs-, Technologie- und Innovationsstrategie präsentiert werden), sondern einzelne konkrete Aktivitäten in den Vordergrund rückten. So wurde die Metapher Leuchtturm intesiv debattiert, es wurde über Kennzahlen gesprochen und die Bedeutung von Netzwerken unterstrichen. Keine Überlegungen über die besonderen Stärken von Wien, Wien’s Geschichte und Erfolgsfaktoren im Vergleich mit anderen Städten. Einzig BOKU-Rektor Hubert Dürrstein hat z.B. die Ressource Wasser ins Spiel gebracht. Es gibt sicherlich mehrere Wege, um eine Strategie zu entwickeln, wie dies jedoch im Rahmen dieser Initiative geschehen soll, ist mir unverständlich.

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14.01.07

LEGO Bausteine

Lego hat Mitte der 90er Jahre mit Unterstützung von Johan Roos und Bart Victor (laut Wikepedia) das Programm LEGO Serious Play entwickelt. Die Bausteine und die dazugehörige Methodik sollen bei diversen Management-Aufgabenstellungen unterstützen, so z.B. bei Stategiefragen, Veränderungsmanagement und Organisationskultur. Gekauft können diese speziellen Sets jedoch nicht, sondern es muss ein Lizenzvereinbarung mit Lego abgeschlossen werden. Zudem muss zumindest ein Berater (das ist nämlich die Zielgruppe) ein 5-tägiges Training absolvieren. Lego begründet dies damit, dass

The five day program is necessary to gain an understanding the vast application possibilities, and particularly to ensure that the facilitators carry out high value and high quality work shops.

Eigenartig, da soll mit Hilfe einer Kreativitätstechnik (Einsatz von Lego Bausteinen, mit denen metaphorische 3D-Modelle die Situation von Organisationen veranschaulicht sollen, um so zu einem besseren Verständnis und/oder zu möglichen neuen Lösungen zu gelangen) eine spielerische Herangehensweise vermittelt werden. Auf der anderen Seite, wird vorgegeben, wie dieser Vorgang auszusehen hat. Also Kreativität ja, aber bitte nur nach unserer Sichtweise. Ich finde die Lego-Idee ja grundsätzlich sehr gut, jedoch sollte den Beratern zugetraut werden, dass sie mit dem Baukasten selber umgehen können.*

*Mir ist schon klar, dass die Realität oft anders aussieht, wenn man den vielen Beratern zusieht, wie sie sich kramphaft an ausgearbeiteten Methoden klammern (und diese auch nicht verlassen, wenn sie eigentlich adaptiert gehören).

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21.12.06

Global Innovators

Booz Allen Hamilton’s annual study of the world’s 1,000 largest corporate R&D budgets uncovers a small group of high-leverage innovators who outperform their industries. One of the key findings is that money cannot buy effective innovation:

There are no significant statistical relationships between R&D spending and the primary measures of financial or corporate success: sales and earnings growth, gross and operating profitability, market capitalization growth, and total shareholder returns. Gross profits as a percentage of sales is the single performance variable with a statistical relationship to R&D spending.

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22.11.06

Befragung von Führungskräften

Österreich habe in Fragen der strategischen Innovation Nachholbedarf, so die Ergebnisse der Neuwaldegger Survey 2006 in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Umfrageinstitut OGM” schreibt am Wochenende der Standard. Unter dem Titel Wo enstehen bei Ihnen Ideen für neue Geschäfte? gaben die befragten Führungskräfte an:
- Durch Marktforschung (42%)
- Durch Ideen des Top Managements (35%)
- Durch Marktnachfrage oder Rückmeldung von Kunden (34%)
- Durch Ideen des mittleren Managements (26%)
- Druch Ideen der Mitarbeiter (26%)
- Durch neue Technologien (19%)
- Durch F&E (10%)

Sehr verwunderlich finde ich Tatsache, dass anscheinend die wenigen Top Manager so viel Zeit und solch geniale Ideengeber sind, dass sie so deutlich mehr Geschäftsideen liefern, als die Masse der Mitarbeiter. Es könnte natürlich aus sein, dass die Mitarbeiterideen nicht gehört werden wollen. Auf der anderen Seite, erstaunt es mich, dass nach wie anscheinend so viele Manager sich auf Marktforschung verlassen. Rückmeldungen von Kunden sind nur an 3. Stelle.

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15.03.06

Free or/and premium content

Red Herring (free subscription) reports on CBS SportsLine’s drop in subcription fee, since they expect a substantial increase of income through advertising: ’The company switched to advertising as its business income model because “free” is the magic word for online advertisers.’

In my opionion, this is a healthy move. At the moment, either premium or free content/services (or if not free, at least a free (reduced) version should be available) seem to take hold.

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12.01.06

Innovation Excellence

Arthur D. Little investigated in a study, which focuses on how companies worldwide improve profitability and growth through effective innovation management. From the announcement:

According to the study, innovation excellence can boost profit (EBIT) margins by 4 percentage points from 15 to 19%. However companies struggle to get innovation management right. The 25% best innovators are still getting 10 times more output (new products, services etc) than the 25% worst innovators!

If you follow the recent discussions about outsourcing (especially India and China) and competitiveness of regions/countries, one of the arguments is that innovation and creativity is one of the main competitive differentiators in future for Europe. So getting this right is not a nice add-on, but crucially important. In my point of view (see also what I have written on innovation recently), the difficulty with innovation management is that every organisation needs a different approach. Consequently, there is not one standard approach or solution. This is different from let’s say ERP or CRM, where you can find much more common activity chains. I am convinced that getting innovation right is one of the most challenging tasks companies will have to tackle.

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5.12.05

Verschiedene Namen, gleicher Inhalt

Schon interessant, wie in Fachgesprächen immer wieder Leute von neuen Methoden, Verfahren, Modellen sprechen, die irgendwie bekannt vorkommen. So geschehen vor kurzem in einem sehr feinen Gedankenaustausch mit einem Kollegen über Managementstrukturen, Unternehmensdiagnosen und Strategieberatung. Ich sprach von clean language, er fand die Prinzipien in einem Storytellingansatz wieder, er sprach von open space leadership, ich von heterarchischen Systemen. So ging es mit einer Reihe von Themen und Ansätzen. Das ganze erinnert mich stark an Kreativitätstechniken, die fast alle auf die Entwicklungen der 50er und 60er Jahre zurückgehen. Gerade in der Organisationsberatung gibt es aber durchaus neue und wichtige Werkzeuge/Modelle. Eines davon ist die Arbeit mit komplexen Systemen in Unternehmungen.

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6.11.05

Thinking about strategy

Victor Lombardi published an interesting post about strategy as design. In a recent paper by Jeanne Liedtka, she argues that a new metaphor of strategy is needed: the metaphor of strategy as a process of design. I came across a similar approach by Van Aken who argues that management can be seen as a design discipline. He writes that architects, doctors, managers etc draw on 2 different kinds of knowledge in messy situations:
. scientifc knowledge (that is knowledge from academic study)
. design knowledge (looser grounded design rules)

However, both elaborate on the failure of definitive strategy formulation (which assumes there is one ’right’ strategy which can be achieved; invented choice, instead of discovered truth) applied at wicked problems. In such situations, strategic planning must be dialogue-based, participative, hypothesis-driven, dialectical etc. All this aims at invention and learning, rather than control.

I think the design metaphor is very well suited for organisations operating in turbulent environments as personal experience proved that traditional approaches are often too slow, put to much emphasis on control and don’t grasp the big picture.

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13.05.05

A reflective mindset

Joseph Weizenbaum in derStandard about the Internet:’Das Ganze ist ein riesiger Misthaufen, der Perlen enthält. Aber um Perlen zu finden, muss man die richtigen Fragen stellen. Gerade das können die meisten Menschen nicht.’

This seemingly obvious description about the value and importance of reflection in not at all trivial. In my own experience, there are very few individuals who take time and reflect about their activities, professional life, and interests. Usually, in a professional environment, both managers and employees are not educated to allow for reflection. Instead, they are pushed from one obligation to the next, focusing on delivery time rather than content. It is indeed abashing to see that the most reflective element in a daily corporate life is a project filing at the end of a project. Even this is not a standard routine for most organisations, since the next project already waiting. The Japanese approach a project delivery very differently, there is a ceremony-like project finish phase with time provided to archive the project files, write about the most imporatant aspects (project results, lessons learnt etc) in order to allow a deeper understanding and learning of the involved individuals. In this context, it is almost unthinkable not to mention Kolb’s learning cycle, explaining the importance of this reflective learning:

Refering back to Weizenbaum, I agree that the Internet (most prominently via Google) misleads to confusing information with knowledge. I experience an increasing number of people sitting in front of computers and surfing the Internet, thereby assured to learn and become knowledgable. However, this is not the case. Rather spend one hour less in front of the Internet and discuss a topic with a friend or take a walk and think about the issue. This is not effortless (it makes a big difference if you ’just’ think about something or if you also write it down). It needs to be trained (allow at least half an hour every day to sit back and reflect about what happened during that day). But it pays back, since this is the only way to generate in-depth knowledge.

Since a few years, MBA-programs have been criticised on several fronts. Most prominently, Henry Mintzberg (from McGil University) is one of the them, arguing that you cannot create leaders in classrooms. There are only few MBA-courses that reacted to this allegation, I think - since I am a MBA-student there and thus know how they changed their approach - the Open University Business School is one of them advocating a reflective and cyclic teaching methodology. Mintzberg and colleagues created their own non-MBA education, the International Master’s Program in Practising Management, where the emphasis is on reflecting (through so-called ’reflection papers’) on the lessons-learnt at the different workshops.

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3.03.05

Bouncebackability

It may be that this term will be included in the Oxford Dictionary soon. According to the Times, the word was first used by Iain Dowie, the Crystal Palace manager, after his team had equalised against Arsenal. It describes a process of having the ability to regain former strenghts.

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4.02.05

Marketing new services

Rojo has launched its beta-service for blog-aggregation via RSS. Cnet has more information about this. As it seems, Rojo is following the same tactical approach as Google did with Gmail: Send out few inivations to testers and allow new subscribers only, if they have been invivited. This approach might work well for Google I suppose (brand, marketing surprise), but I doubt that this will be a successful route to a unknown company. Especially, since there is a competitor already on the market, offering an open system.

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28.01.05

Procter & Gamble kauft Gillette

Die Aktionäre freuen sich, die 6.000 zu entlassenen Angestellten wohl eher nicht. Ich frage mich zum wiederholten Male, warum den Managern im Zuge von Fusionen/Übernahmen nichts besseres einfällt, als Personal abzubauen. Wir sind Teil einer Wissensgesellschaft, jedoch werden für die Firma wertvolle und langjährige ’Wissensinhaber’ vor die Türe gesetzt (und bei Bedarf wieder eingestellt). Bei solchen Aktionen sinkt wohl auch die Loyalität der verbleibenden Belegschaft gegenüber der Firma. Gibt es wirklich nur so wenige Manager, die mehrdimensionale Zusammenhänge verstehen und auch argumentieren können?

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