Here’s another view of the PowerPoint debate , thanks to Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. Stewart offers a behind-the-scenes look at military’s greatest heroes who use PowerPoint to get their troops motivated for battle.
This obviously provides a bookend to my posting on the subject earlier this week and hopefully brings a smile to your face.
If you only have a hammer in your toolbox, every problem looks like a nail.
Successful problem solvers often struggle to identify the root cause of the problem they’re trying to fix. Ron Ashkenas, the author of a new book called Simply Effective, offers up an interesting way to define organizational challenges, seeing them as either capacity problems and complexity problems.
Capacity problems require more, fewer, or different resources to solve them. Complexity problems require new thinking and a creative approach, says Ashkenas in a recent Harvard Business blog posting.
Too many executives decide their problems are “capacity-based,” and focus on the resources they need to solve them. All too often, they find themselves solving complexity issues with a capacity solution.
Ashkenas uses President Obama’s decision to send troops into Afghanistan as a potential capacity solution to a complexity problem (i.e., the need to leave a functioning and secure country behind when we leave). I believe a lot of companies have similarly used layoffs (a capacity solution) because they couldn’t figure out how to deal with changing customer demand for their products, increased regulatory oversight, or competitors who developed a better mousetrap.
Some might argue that they lacked the will to find a complexity-based solution. Perhaps. But it’s been said that if a hammer is the only tool in your toolbox, than you’re going to see every problem as a nail.
Think back to the last few problems you’ve had to resolve. Would you have dealt with them differently if you had taken the time to consider whether the problem was capacity or complexity?
Preparation enables Peyton Manning to make what he does look easy
I’ve long been a proponent of the adage that preparation is the only things over which you have total control. And I’m always glad to get reminders of that…from the world of sports or wherever.
I was reading Sports Illustrated’s NFL Midseason Report on an airplane the other day and smiled as I read how Indianapolis QB Peyton Manning texted Connecticut running back Donald Brown just hours after he had been drafted by the Colts: “Meet me at the facility at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Warmed up. Ready to go.”
Former Colts coach Tony Dungy talked about Manning’s great season so far — despite a number of challenges — saying, “To understand why he hasn’t struggled, you have to understand the way his mind works. It drives him every day that the offense will be better, not just as good as it was. The new guys will fit in. He’ll make them fit in.”
Juxtapose that with a conversation that Mike and Mike had this morning on ESPN Radio with analyst Tim Hasselbeck about Oakland QB JaMarcus Russell and his challenges. The discussion centered on whispers around the Raiders camp that the now-benched quarterback is always “last in, first out” of meetings and practices. He won’t put in the work necessary to prepare for the next week’s game.
There are other reasons Manning is a future hall-of-famer, but preparation can overcome many things — rookie wide receivers and running backs, injuries in many positions. Lack of preparation just exposes you.
How have you helped yourself through preparation (or hurt yourself because you didn’t take the time)? If you don’t know where to start to help yourself prepare more effectively, please contact me.
Chris Carpenter (L) and Adam Wainwright made each other better in 2009.
Wainwright (19-8, 2.63 ERA, 212 Ks) beat out Giants P Tim Lincicum and teammate Chris Carpenter for the award, but his comments about Carpenter are what will stick with me as I talk to people who continue to fear for their jobs and worry about how they compare to their co-workers.
“In the beginning of the season I really battled and was constantly having to get out of a lot of jams,” Wainwright said, explaining that he sat down with Carpenter for a “big-time film session” that resulted in him adjusting some things and having everything “fall into place.”
When asked about how he got along with Carpenter — who got more publicity during the season because he was coming back from surgery last year, Wainwright responded that Carpenter “was a pacesetter…he’s a special talent…the great thing about Chris is he’s so talented but he is also a really good teacher and finds ways to help other pitchers…He’s got a great eye for it…he can watch a bullpen session and notice something different pitch to pitch and he just helps you get locked back in. And his pitching was solid every time out. He sets the bar and makes you want to be right there with him.
Wainwright went on to give props to a third pitcher in the rotation, Joel Pineiro, for his role in helping the other two perform well.
The message: Seek out the best people in your company and work with them. Competition brings out the best in people.
And if you take a look at Carpenter’s 2009 statistics — 17-4, 2.24 ERA, and 144 strikeouts — and Wainwright’s comments, you’ll also see that it is possible to be both a top performer and a great mentor. Give it a try.
Despite the quality of my Syracuse journalism program, I probably learned even more about communication as a young second lieutenant back in the early 1980′s.
Use the five-paragraph field order to clearly communicate the mission and how you're going to achieve it.
If you like simplicity, you can’t do much better than the five-paragraph field order. Designed for small combat-unit leaders, it provides a way to plan and communicate under pressure that translates well to the business world. Through this format, you can explain a mission and describe the plan for accomplishing that mission. For those of you who like acronyms, it’s SMEAC and breaks down like this:
In recent weeks, I’ve watched a podcast with David Meister (The Trusted Advisor) favorably comparing military experience to a Harvard Business School degree and read a terrific Harvard Business blog by Col. Tom Kolditz about Why The Military Produces Great Leaders. It reminded me that many of my business successes were due to getting the opportunity to lead 50+ people right out of college. As a result, I was able to take on additional responsibilities (e.g., moving from reporter to editor) without having to worry about whether I could handle the people-management part.
Being good at the five-paragraph field order requires practice and a commitment to using it on a consistent basis. You can use it to communicate a mission to your own “troops,” to create marketing and communications plans, and to help your preparation for negotiations.
There’s enough here for you to get started, and I can help as part of my consulting business if you’re interested. Good luck!
I keep a notebook on my desk where I capture great quotes for presentations and other uses.
“I’m not a moral-victory guy” got added to the book during the 49ers-Cardinals game yesterday. I Googled it this morning. Apparently, San Francisco coach Mike Singletary showed up at a State of the Franchise meeting in San Mateo back on Feb. 16 and laid this one on the crowd. For the past few years, San Francisco has looked for rays of sunshine in otherwise dismal games (e.g., close games, goal-line stands, great individual performances). When asked about this, new coach Singletary responded, “I know you don’t know me real well. I’m not a moral-victory guy.”
The crowd erupted and a new ad campaign was born. Travel around the Bay Area these days and you’ll find quotes like “I’m not a moral-victory guy.” and “I want winners.”
The 49ers marketing department concedes the campaign is a bit of a high-wire act, since it implies a promise of a return to winning ways. But Singletary has brought a whole new attitude to the team. And attitude often paves the way to better execution and bottom-line performance.
And Bulldog Simplicity has a new favorite coach.
Great interview with Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, in today’s New York Times, but I have to wonder if his view that employees need to view their roles and responsibilities broadly recognizes the reality of what’s going on these days in large companies.
“People can get trapped by their context,” he says. “The nature of the bubble is that people who are in it can’t see or else it would never have occurred. But other people can exercise a critical facuty based upon their different contexts or their perspective. So asking people’s opinions, getting a lot of information, establishing a culture where people think — it’s not only extra credit but it’s their duty to give you opinions about things that they think, what they’re worried about or isn’t right. And we encourage that.”
In a perfect world, he’s right. Perhaps that approach is working with his direct reports, but many of the people in the trenches in large companies these days are following a mantra of “if I keep my head down, maybe I’ll survive all this.” They’re scared to take chances or speak up.
I would have liked Blankfein to describe how he protects (or maybe the better word is empowers) the people who do step up. Like his Wall Street brethren, Blankfein has cut his workforce and one can’t help but wonder how the spectre of future layoffs impacts execution of his worldview.
Perhaps it comes down to how companies approached layoffs. Those that cut deep once and then moved on — even if they went deeper than they needed to that first time — can build that culture. Those that have gone back time and again with layoffs (or the threats of layoffs) aren’t likely to get many people looking beyond their screen or defined responsibilities. It’s the Whack-A-Mole approach I discussed in a previous post: Pop your head up and it just gets lopped off. Unless you’re very, very lucky.
Thoughts?
When do people perform at peak efficiency? Management consultant David Maister says it’s when they are excited about their daily tasks. That’s why I was surprised to read a quote in the midst of an otherwise very positive New York Times story about Lego’s recent success from its CEO, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp.
“We needed to build a mindset where non-performance wasn’t accepted,” Knudstorp told the Times. OK, so far so good. But he went on. Now, “there’s no place to hide if performance is poor. You will be embarrassed, and embarrassment is stronger than fear.”
I hope that managers who go on to read the rest of the story focus on the specific ways that Knudstorp has aligned strategy and tactics, redirecting some of the long-held beliefs of the company’s founders to take a far more bottom-line approach. Or that they recognize that this turnaround is still in its infancy.
I’d hate to think they’re going to decide that the best way to drive change is to “embarrass” their managers. I’d prefer to think — given all the other good things that Knudstorp has done — that something was lost in translation with the reporter. That Knudstorp shares Maister’s view that excitement has nothing to do with strategy, systems, process and operations and everything to do with managers who are credibly perceived to have an ideology (that isn’t rooted in embarrassing them). Otherwise, I suspect we’ll read a follow-up story in the years to come that focuses on Lego’s short-lived success and long-term failure.
What do you think?
Health care reform is not particularly suited to the simplicity doctrine.
As Barack Obama prepares for Wednesday’s speech on health-care reform to a joint session of Congress, he’s faced with a situation not unlike the fairgrounds game of Whack a Mole. In that game, the mole keeps popping out of holes as you try to pound it back down with a rubber hammer.
He’s got Republicans talking in bumper stickers (Death Squads!). He has a system that doesn’t reward a focus on high-quality, low-cost health care. Individual pieces of his proposal are under siege from special-interest groups. And he’s offered up a watered-down proposal that seems to recognize political expediency over what’s right and audacious.
What we’re likely to hear on Wednesday night are a lot of stories about people who have been let down by the health-care system. Don’t bother. We’ve heard enough of those stories already.
What would I like to see on Wednesday night? A speech that lays out the key issues in a clear enough way that the media can’t screw it up in their summaries — which is how most people will learn what he says. I’d like to see an empassioned speech that recognizes the fact that most of us find this issue incredibly confusing. I’d like him to take back the details of this initiative from people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
I want to be moved by his passion and determination and faith. I want to be forced to think about right and wrong. I want him to make partisanship a dangerous decision. I don’t want a long speech that hammers me with facts and flowery language.
I want him to outline what Alan Webber calls an “iconic project” in his book Rules of Thumb. I want the President to explain how change can happen, focus on what’s doable with economics that actually work (“Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change,” Webber says elsewhere in the book.), identify key partners, and identify projects and actions that will establish his credibility. I’d like him to “eat a frog” and outline exactly how we’re going to eliminate the ugliest part of this whole mess — however he defines that — over the next 90-120 days.
And I’d like a promise that says — in crystal clear terms — “I will veto any bill that doesn’t contain the following…”
It is most important that President Obama draw a line in the sand that’s clear and doesn’t pander. That would be leadership…and that would be Bulldog Simplicity.
Peter Osborne helps businesses -- and, increasingly, individuals -- sharpen their brand and strategic messages and eliminate barriers to marketing success. Throughout his career, he's always been a "bulldog" who brings simplicity (i.e., consistency, discipline, and structure) where it's needed. For more about me, my background, and my goals for this blog (including why you should subscribe), click on my About page.
