Feedback

Another solid business book from my library is Jim Collins' "From Good to Great". I'm hardly the first to write about it, but for me the success or failure of feedback loops comes down to one thing: The feedback.

I've found organizations have tremendous difficulty evaluating their work and deciding how to improve it. The crux of the problem is that it can be hard to deliver criticism, even when correct and deserved, without it becoming personal. It is hard to pass judgment on work without our feelings about the person or department coloring the comments, thus making it personal criticism. Yet we often equate our jobs and our work with our self-worth, so when our work is criticized, we internalize the criticism. The coin has two sides.

But honest feedback is the beginning of improvement, if the individual and the group are able and willing to move forward. Placing blame must be avoided, and the focus must be directed on preventing the problem in the future. What caused the failure? A myriad of factors, including: Lack of training, resources, communication or direction. Any can create problems down the line, and must be ferreted out.

The inability or unwillingness to ask why something happened ensures that a similar problem will occur again. Every organization can be great, but most lack the intestinal fortitude to take the first step, break some eggs, and be honest with everyone involved.

Peter

Value

One of the bloggers I follow asked what business books his readers found important. My first choice is Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Yes, it's a book about running a baseball team, but its also a book about business.

What Moneyball really focuses on is the value that individuals bring to their organization. Lots of talented people are undervalued by their organizations because they are not flashy or do the high profile work, but their efforts bring greater value to the company, dollar for dollar, hour for hour, that the best paid staff.

Your organization is probably overpaying for the flashy help, too. Dump them and cherry pick two undervalued staff from the shop down the street.

Peter

Fail Points

Every system has Fail Points- they are unavoidable. Nobody, from the corner malt shop to NASA, can afford to engineer every single fail point out of a system. The key is to put them in places they are least likely to do damage, and are easily monitored and accounted for.

I recently visited an organization that had inexperienced, just-above-minimum-wage staff at the beginning of their process. The green staff was then tasked with generating product at a very aggressive rate. While management loved the margins on their products, as labor costs were very low, they couldn't understand their big variance in quality. The front-line workers also struggled to keep to the schedule, costing the company both cash costs in overtime and opportunity costs in production delays.

A giant Fail Point had been placed at the front of the production line- the process clearly exceeded the staff's ability to produce a quality product. The result was that high skill (and high-wage) staff further down the production chain spent time fixing the quality issues that were initiated by the cheap, inexperienced staff. But in a classic "garbage in-garbage out" example, not all of the issues can be fixed down the line. The garbage is baked in.

Customers notice the varying quality of the final product. These inconsistencies will always limit the products potential in the marketplace, especially compared to its peers. The long-term growth of the company is hindered, too.

But the product delivers a fat margin, so everything is fine, right?

Right?

Peter

The Theater of Work

Airlines sometimes refer to staff as either "Front-Stage" or "Back-Stage" personnel.

Translation: Some personnel the customers see and interact with, some do the behind-the-scenes work that make flying the experience what it is. (Please save your jokes for the comments)

Perhaps our experiences with the service world would be different if everyone viewed their work not as a transaction but as a show, a performance, a bit of theater.

Perhaps your workday would be different if you approached it as entertainment others sought out.

Peter

Opposites

Managers often confuse "Lean" and "Agile". In athletics they are often similar. In business, they are opposites.

A lean business does one thing really, really well, with steady volume. There is no extra staff, facility or capital. A hot dog stand is lean: One guy and a cart. He can make money as fast as he can complete an order and exchange cash. If 12 people show up at once, Hot Dog Man can still only complete one transaction at a time, so 11 customers wait.

An agile business is the opposite- it actually has extra capacity this is sometimes unused. Restaurants don't use all of their capacity in the afternoons, but that's when staff are prepping materials for the evening rush, washing dishes, wrapping silverware,etc. When customers start arriving the staff moves from prep to driving revenue. When customer traffic slows later in the evening its back to the "non-revenue" activities that have to be done to later drive revenue.

But just as Hot Dog Man can't serve 12 people at once, the restaurant can't approach the degree of lean Hot Dog Man enjoys. Each has accepted it's trade off: flexibility or simplicity. High fixed and variable expenses vs. low.

You can't do both. The expectations of your customer will define which way you need to set up your plant.

Or rather, the kind of customer you wish to attract will determine if you need to be lean or agile.

Peter

Review

Of all the things you do in your work life what do you think you are best at?

What do you think you are worst at?

Does your thinking match what your boss thinks? Your coworkers? Your vendors?

Ask them. You might be surprised what you hear.

Then get busy maximizing your strengths and fixing your weaknesses.

Peter

Viral Video

Successful viral video has some entertainment value. If you can wrap your message or marketing pitch around it, all the better.

This has high viral potential.

Heck, the only reason I found it was a friend posted it on his Facebook feed.

OK Go may have sold an album to me. Mission Accomplished.

Its an idea that should be at the core of everything we do- entertainment first, message second. Otherwise, nobody is going to watch, or read, or listen.

Peter