We've Always Been On The Moon

Dick plans to offer custom services (N=1) to every customer, big or small; each will receive a service unique-to-them. From watching my daughter and her friends accept unique-to-them services as a given, like air or electricity, I realize N=1 is not an academic exercise but a reality, indeed a tsunami racing towards us.

Old people everywhere tend to remark, usually with a negative moan, that the young people today think differently, act differently, dress and speak differently. Luckily still remembering my hippie, counter-culture, long-hair (well, everyone else had long hair) background, I can see the situation from both sides. The young are different. They "see" things differently. And, as the pace of change (in culture and society as well as technology) gets faster and faster the difference in "seeing" increases as well. A story.

A few years back my good friend Robert told the story of the first moon landing to his young daughter. A space and technology buff, Robert explained the excitement of that day, his family (and mine, and most) glued to the grainy black-and-white TV images, thrilling to the time-lapse, echoey, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," Neil first-foot-on-the-ground Armstrong homily.

Patience worn thin from listening to her dad wax on and on--as old people tend to do--about how the wonder of the event, his daughter answered,

But Daddy, we've always been on the Moon.

Yikes. To our generation the landing was a true seminal event, the culmination of Sputnik and of seeing the blue, green and white world suspended in the blackness of infinite space; we never felt more like global citizens than we did on that July 20, 1969 day.

Yet to Robert's daughter the moon landing was old news, just part of the furniture that makes up her world. Nothing special, no wonder attached.

(Which makes me wonder what might make this generation (X? Y? Z?), weaned on cell phones, text, Facebook, MySpace and iWhatevers, feel wonder? I recall the founding of Greenpeace for example, and wonder at what Rachel Carlson and her book, Silent Spring, created, the green movement that today has largely taken over--even if not always accepted. What will make my daughter feel wonder?)

Good Friends?

Anyway, I began this post with the intention to describe a truly fascinating example of N=1, the offering in India of 100% customized medical insurance based on each person's health and lifestyle, monitored on a daily basis by an R=G grouping of partners. An amazing example!

I will continue this post tomorrow (I promise!), my goal to use the medical insurance example to examine: a) what such a system requires; b) the obstacles facing implementing it today in Western countries (especially the US); and c) how the new generation (above) might accept this "based on lifestyle" method.

To bring this back to Dick and Acme, it is crucial that Dick and his key team do not simply use the way they "see" the world and the market to set policies and plans. In argument logic this is called the fallacy of Provincialism, that the way you and your friends think is the only (or the only correct) way to think. Dick must be able to step outside of his generation's and his culture's way of "seeing" if Acme is truly going to embrace the N-1, R=G world.

To SOP or not to SOP

Enter an old (to me anyway) argument: should you treat employees like factory machines, making them follow detailed SOPs (standard operating procedures, or rules), or should you treat them like people and let them find their own ways to get the required results? My answer? Both.

Okay, let's start with the company. What does the company require to succeed? Results. For now let's forget the macro, "pick right strategy/business model/product or service mix" issues. That to me is a given: without the right macro choices no level of achievement matters. High achievement in a failed strategy still equals failure.

But the twain is not true: poor achievement in a perfect strategy also equals failure. Certainly there is more to success than making the right macro choices. The company still needs to perform, to achieve, to succeed.

Fine. Now, achievement, or, even better, the "work" of a company can be divided (loosely) into repetitive and creative tasks. The former are akin to production line steps, including the entire list of bureaucratic, file this, make three copies of that, tasks, as well as areas like shipping, finance and, well, production. Repetitive tasks make up the bulk of "work" done; using Pareto and the ever-useful 80:20 rule, maybe 80% of the "work" is repetitive.

The remaining 20% of the "work" requires some level of choice, some amount of creativity. While the job description may not change--write marketing plan--the innards of the task, the data, the resources, the urgency for examples, change each time it is done. Moreover, while each type of task can be described in the same language ("add column A to column B" and "analyze market situation"), plainly the non-repetitive tasks need more people-input than just following the task description. I can make a machine or a program (or a chimp) add A to B, but neither could analyze the market situation (no matter how many chess grandmasters the program beats).

A company needs excellent results in both types of jobs to succeed. Okay, but what does this mean to Dick and Acme? Where should Dick be expending his effort?

In a startup phase I think the answer is clearly training staff to do the repetitive tasks perfectly every time. The creativity inputs should come from Dick and his senior managers, the core of the startup. That means that Dick and his key managers should be listing each final result needed in each business area then working backwards to the initial inputs, flowcharting each step in the bsuiness process. (Once I get off Blogger I will show examples of flowcharts and process descriptions.) Creating SOPs, helping staff understand and follow the SOPs, then measuring two things: are staff following the SOPs and, if so, are the SOPs achieving the right results?

This "start with SOPs" is especially true in a cross-culture environment (continued anon).

Ah, about now is when the politically-correct beseech me to mend my ways, to treat people like people, not machines. "How can people grow if you don't let them try things on their own? If you won't let them make mistakes?"

Well, quite frankly I am not sure allowing people to choose whether or not to add Column A to B is good or wise policy. Most jobs require SOPs because they are repetitive and that the SOP will achieve the required result, every time. Effectiveness and efficiency, the twin Es of quality, depend upon this "achieve ... every time" outcome.

Yet I still feel there is place for creativity, even in repetitive, SOP'ed jobs. I contend there are two times when people are naturally creative: when facing a crisis and when following the SOP guarantees achieving good results and a bonus is offered for new ideas. Let's hope Acme is not facing crisis yet (though many would argue that the statup phase itself is just one long crisis: I digress).

So, what about non-crises creativity? It requires two inputs: People can not be worried about achieving the right result, making the SOP a security blanket; and people must be rewarded for new ideas that increase either of the twin Es. Built in is the rule that nothing can be tried that will hurt achieving required results.

What ends up is a policy that allows people the time to think of new ways (as good results are guaranteed by following the old) and motivation to think (because of the reward). How it works in real life is Mr. A or Ms. B has a new idea; a real-life test is carried out on a simulated case; if that works more tests are done; if they work out then the SOP is re-written and Mr. A and Ms. retire on their bonus reward. (I can dream can't I?)

The above is a long-winded (sorry: I was channeling Charles Dickens this morning) analysis of how Dick should go about building the company during the start of the startup phase. Crucial to success is that Dick can depend on staff achieving X results every time for the 80% of the tasks that are repetitive. Once that is done great things can happen; without that all that happens is Dick takes more and more aspirin every day.

Bad Communication = Bad Results

Previously I have written that misunderstandings are the biggest Hidden Cost in international business. Actually they are biggest Hidden Cost in all business, and perhaps in life as well.

I shot another "Pop's Garage" video this morning. All about the larger lessons managers should learn, explained by problems I had yesterday with my Mom. Problems caused 100% because of poor communication leading to making bad assumptions.

Bad Communication = Bad Results

Who was at fault, who should be blamed? No one. Frequently no one is at fault, or both are.

Misunderstandings are so dangerous because no one knows there is a misunderstanding until the bad result caused by the misunderstanding happens. Think the Titanic: no one knew it would sink, until it did. And, as no one thought it could sink, no one questioned its sinkability. The same principles apply to communication.

There three things that can happen when you communicate. Only three. They are:

1. success: the audience clearly understands 100% of the speaker's message
2. uncertainty: the audience is unsure what the speaker's message is
3. misunderstanding: the audience thinks they clearly understand 100%, but what they understand is not what the speaker intended.

No. 2, uncertainty, is the most common outcome. No. 1, success, is the least common. And No. 3, misunderstanding, is the most dangerous.

In later posts I will flesh out more on communication in general and, in particular, ways managers and staff can ensure successful communication (as much as possible that is: successful communication is tough. Just ask my wife.).

Now it is off to town with my photos of parents' stuff, trying to put a value on things familiar and strange (including things I had no idea the function of until recently). Wish me luck.

Assumptions: Turning Shovels Into Sticks

"I'll call you if we have power." Hm, not a sentence that easily rolls off the tip of most Western tongues, it is the reality that Dick faces in India.

Making a business plan is never about certainty, nothing about the future is ever "certain," just more or less probable or likely. We assume X will happen for W reasons, which, as long as the W reasons are accurate and inclusive, is the best we can hope for. Certainly there is more, volumes about planning and decision making fill bookshelves and MBA curriculums, formulas to follow and techniques to use abound, but ... in the end it all boils down to making assumptions. Guessing.

I thought we were going to use a truck.

Not all assumptions are equal. Making assumptions in/about your own country is always easier than in a new land, always easier to make in your own field than in a new area. Assumptions are also easier to make in slow-moving fields (like, say, accounting, landscaping or railroads) than in dynamic, fast-changing fields (like high tech, fashion or medical research). Yet equal or no, easy or hard, assumptions must be made.

Rolling blackouts are not something easy for most Westerners to include in a plan, brought up as we were in an environment where electricity was much like air, water or beer, there when we wanted it. No one in an OECD country included a line in a plan that, "We will achieve X if the electricity stays on."

Not so in most of the world. Adding such uncertainties into a plan is a necessary skill in the third world. * A favorite story is when the German company shipped the huge printing press to the client location in China only to find that there was no concrete floor, only dirt. Making things worse was that payment required the press be commissioned, hard to do on a dirt floor. Mind you, most Westerners would assume that the floor would be concrete.

Even the savvyist and most sensitive Westerner can make assumption mistakes. A Canadian from CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) came across farmers in a poor village in India ploughing the dirt with sticks. Realizing that while a tractor was what they really needed, there was no infrastructure (no diesel) for such a high tech solution. Thinking outside the box the official decided that shovels would be appropriate, so sent shovels when back in Canada.

As luck would have it the official was in the neighbourhood the next year and thought he'd look in on the village to see how well the shovels were working. Expecting great things he was amazed when he saw farmers still tilling the fields with sticks, though now nice round oak sticks; the shovel handles. Why?

Well, the farmers didn't have shoes, and you can't use shovels without shoes. The farmers were very happy with the wonderful sturdy stciks though, and benefitted from selling the shovel heads for scrap. They thanked the official for his help.

Not all "unique" events like blackouts have to have bad consequences. If you can think of them beforehand you can plan for them, thus mitigating bad effects. But if you don't think of them ...

Dick and I finally found a time when we both were free and he had electricity. He told me about the effect of an office with no power, and fessed up to a mistake. Sitting in his dead-machine office he lamented, "I should have bought laptops, not PCs, for the office staff. If I had they could still be working (until the batteries died)."

I don't consider it a mistake but a lesson, that he (we) must examine not just our business-specific assumptions but all assumptions, especially the basic ones. In business communication I advise Westerners in Chinese Asia to STOP whenever they make the assumption that "I don't need to explain this; s/he will already know that." It is always easier to assuage someone's hurt feelings--why did you tell me that?--than to find your shovels turned into sticks, or your capital budget spent on PCs sitting silently.

Years ago a French manager explained how the verb "assume" clearly shows the danges, that if you assume you can make an "ass" out of "u" and "me."

* can I still call it the "Third World?" Or is that no longer politically correct? Maybe the proper parlance is undeveloped, or underdeveloped, or less developed, or developing, or ... anyway, I mean no offense by the numerical term I did use. Call it--and myself--a product of my age. I am a fossil.

The Importance Of Milestones

Every project of any size or complexity goes through stages, usually a "Okay, now that we have X done we can start on W." (Oops, maybe using 'W' is not so good an idea.) Who knows what Homeland Security and the Secret Service might think when reading "we can start on [the letter after U]?" But maybe that is just my Political Science education background showing through.

These end of stages are usually called "milestones." Dating from Roman times and from the Latin milliarium, milestones were originally stone obelisks on the side of the road--the first were on the Appian Way--to mark distance traveled. I digress.

Anyway, yesterday the "Pop's Garage" project reached a key milestone. We moved Mom and Pop into their new home. Phew. While happy certainly, each were more than a little dazed by it all, that in a short 14.5 km (9 mile) drive their life could change so drastically. I left them at 9pm last night, in their chairs watching their new flat-screen TV, or so it appeared: while their eyes were open I am sure they were instead looking inwards, lost in amazement at this latest turn in their life's road.

I mention the above for a number of reasons. One is to continue my examination of projects. In this case the importance of setting then celebrating milestones. In every complex endeavor it is easy to get lost in the sheer size of the deal. Milestones help break the project up into bite-sized pieces, each with goals easier to focus on.

And then to celebrate, another reason. Nothing builds confidence more than success, or in the case of big projects, a series of successes. When we kids were done last night and parents were in their new common dining room we had a beer and patted each other on the back. No one talked about tomorrow, or the (still huge) job yet to be done: last night we celebrated what was completed, a great feeling.

A last reason to mention milestones is to explain why I am not posting every day, and why this post is, well, not Acme-centric. Acme returns tomorrow.

I promised one and all I would take a day off today, which is why at I am sitting here at 7:04AM on a Sunday morning writing this. Why I will go to the old home in about an hour to collect some things we forgot to move (like a garbage can), or why ... I won't rest until the job is done. Sometime in late August. Sigh.

One final story from yesterday. Each vehicle loaded to the gunnels with furniture (see picture of truck above), we pulled into the parking lot like Okies escpaing the dustbowl. Upon entering the new, still empty, suite, both Brother and sister said, "The chairs won't fit ... nor will the bed."

Oh ye of little faith. I assured them I'd measured, thrice, and that everything would fit. The rule here (a rule anyway) is that chaos always takes up more room than tidy.

Partnering. Didn't I Already Learn That?

Talking to Dick is fun. Dogged but gracious, and, so rare, Dick always stays on point. A true logical argument. And bonus, you learn so much too.

Dick doesn't agree unless he really agrees. Last night he didn't. We were discussing "partnering," put in italics as I was arguing against the term, not the practice. The example I used seemed so clear to me, and by the end of Dicks rebuttal, so clear why I was wrong. It's in the video.

When I learned "partnering" it was called Quality Supplier Relationships, QSRs for short. Since then Win-Win, Shared Risk-Shared Return, Share Information, Communicate Roles and Objectives, has become common sense business. To me anyway.

Parents move day after tomorrow. Finally! Today I moved a pile of wood, boards and plywood and peg board and plastic sheet and who knows what, metal rods and these conveyer belt things, all told about half the size of my minivan. About ten hours work. Making it more fun was that it was all covered with 4-5mm of old sawdust, and cobwebs.

I did this all to get to the ShopSmith (expensive) multi-tool set up, get to, move and, yes, clean off sawdust and spiders.

Tomorrow I rise early and, in a borrowed truck head to town, list and credit card in hand. Two flat screen TVs, small home theater, wireless headphones--my folks have lived far from neighbors for near on 50 years, and you can hear their TV for miles--media stand, phone (3 receivers for 550 sq. ft.), small drop leaf table and two chairs, padded, coffee maker, toaster and weigh scales and, well, you get the picture. I hope they like my idea of their taste.

But Acme still goes on. Dick has an apartment now in India, no one likes hotels for weeks at a time, and is rolling up his sleeves in Management 101: staff need to know what you expect and you need to know if staff produce what you want. We will talk about that too. After the move, and the sale, scheduled for 9 days from now.

Of course then comes preparing the house and property for sale, a 900 pound gorilla no ones likes to talk about. Me included.

Good Night.

Partnering: What Does It Mean?

Partnering is a commonly-used "buzz word" in today's Fast Business 2.0 world. But what does it mean, and after we know the meaning, what does partnering mean to business, Acme and others? Back to the dictionary.

Most online dictionaries only include the common, time-worn definition, that partnering is some form of forming a partnership, in business, sports or whatever. Not very helpful. So, on to the specialized sites. BusinessDictionary.com defines partnering as:

Establishing a long term win-win relationship based on mutual trust and teamwork, and on sharing of both risks and rewards. Partnering arrangement can be between labor and management, subordinates and the executive, suppliers and customers, and suppliers and suppliers. The objective is to focus on what each party does best, by sharing financial and other resources, and establishing specific roles for each participant. See also joint venture and strategic alliance.

Phew. I left in the links so you could peek at how other words you thought you knew, win-win, trust and objective say, were defined in modern business parlance.

What are the keys for Acme and the larger 'partnering' thread here? Win-Win certainly, sharing risks and rewards and establishing specific roles jump out. In time I will look at these, and more, but for now let's focus on the "specific roles" part.

Establishing specific roles implies a high level of mutual understanding and shared knowledge. Back when the ABC Co. made a traditional deal with a supplier there was little or no "mutual," it was all ABC wants to know this [about capacity, ability, track record etc.] and wants you to do this. Period. Basically the only information ABC sends is the exact specs of "this:" how many, what size, when delivered etc. The poor supplier knew nothing else about ABC.

Supplier relationships are thus different than partnering: not only is information flow one way, there is no shared risk for shared reward. The supplier will receive the contracted amount when the contract is completed (properly). It means nothing (or little anyway) to ABC if completing the contract bankrupts the supplier, and the supplier certainly will not accrue additional benefits if the products it supplies helps ABC make record profits.

(I could make the argument that traditional supplier relationships most resemble master-slave pairings, but adding sociology to the blog would bog the blog. And no one wants a boggy blog.)

Setting specific roles requires two-way knowledge transfer. Not the company secrets of course, the "11 herbs and spices" in Kentucky Fried Chicken or the secret formula for Coca-Cola, but at least the broad outines of objectives, capacities and requirements.

And thus the (first) 900 pound gorilla enters the room: measurement. How do you create a fair and transparent way to measure efforts and results, for without this how can you distribute costs, reveues and ... profits? For while it remains to be seen if partnering also requires each company to have its hand in the other's profit pocket, if it does entail mutual risk it then must require some sort of mutual reward.

To be continued ...

Build or Buy

Build or Buy, that's what my good friend told me, that Dick's only real choices [to build capacity] were build it or buy it.


I am not so sure.

"The world is flat" argues Thomas Friedman in the book of the same name. Phahalad and Krishnan (in The New Age Of Innovation) take the next logical step in their R=G formulation. The authors argue that companies depend upon growing/accessing resources (R) and that in the bandwidth age a company can search the globe (G) to find the best partner.

Anyway, this partnering to build capacity is an issue I will look at in more detail in future posts. The next 'partnering' post will examine the role of clear metrics, performance measurements, in creating successful and lasting partnerships. Hint: if you can't measure success then how do you know you are successful?

I am off for the weekend. Dragon Boating. The Dragon Boat videos will be a treat, I promise.

Whither Capacity?

Capacity, must build capacity, you talk to Dick for five minutes (or less) and I promise he will mention capacity. As in, must have, so ... must build?

Build? Internally? Is that the only way to build capacity? Let's take a short walk down memory lane. Back to Henry Ford. Again.

Mr. Ford senior is famous for many things--the assembly line, anti-semitism, "any color as long as it is black"--among them is the River Rouge factory complex. Upon completion River Rouge was the largest integrated factory in the world. Ford believed efficiency came from controlling all aspects of production, vertically (raw materials to parts to power) and horizontally (all types and ranges of vehicles). Building capacity to H. Ford meant adding another building or coal mine.

Verticle integration went out of vogue in the 50s, replaced by building a chain of suppliers. The thought was, I concentrate on what I am good at, you on what you are good at, and by working together we'll both benefit.

Consider the Nike runners you own. While the shoes--and the shirt, tennis racket and golf balls--have the Nike swoosh logo, Nike did not make the shoes! Nike does not make shoes! Nike does not make anything. Nike designs and markets; others make and distribute the actual "swooshed" products.

This "do only what you are good at" business model reaches its most modern incarnation in Prahalad and Krishnan's, The New Age Of Innovation's idea that R=G. As the authors say,

Resources are accessed as needed from a global resource pool (R=G).

A company need not, nor maybe should not, build up its own verticle capacity and ability when other companies around the world already have, and are willing to rent/sell such to you.

Back to Acme. In our Skype yesterday Dick told me of his day-trip to an established company that offers the writing services Acme needs. The two entrepreneur owners, one Western, one Indian, discussed how to make cooperation work. Buy out? Buy in? Long term lease?

Both recognized that this was new territory, and they were making the map as the went along. Acme has never outsourced such a critical part of its service, and the Indian company had never met such a demand for its entire service. Wisely they put off making any final arrangement, deciding first to date rather than rush into a wedding.

I am unsure about Acme outsourcing (partnering, whatever) such a key part of its business. Maybe that is my age showing though: I gained business maturity (sic) during the time of "core competencies." I learned (and taught) that it was okay, even good, to outsource non-core fuctions (HR and IT are common examples) functions, but everything must be done to protect/build the company crown jewels, the skills that set the company apart from the corporate hoi polloi.

To my thinking, anything that touches the customer is core, but then Nike doesn't make the shoes that caress the soles, making production a core competency. Maybe I must broaden my thinking, must add "managing coutsourcing/partnering relationships" a new, R=G world. No doubt Dick and I will continue this discussion.

Before leaving, a word on horizontal integration. Horizontal integration, the ability to reach many different markets with essentailly the same service or product, is still in vogue. Rupert Murdock sells the same basic story (for example) in different types of media outlets in different countries. Yet I wonder how far the horizon will continue to stretch, how homogenous--one size fits all writ large--buyers worldwide will allow products and services to become. Prahalad and Krishnan suggest (strongly!) that the global marketplace is/will be guided by N=1 (see "Plans Are Decided By Customers" post), the concept that each service/product is unique to the purchaser. Will alterations around the edges offer the required level of customization (meaning horizons can stretch on uninterrupted) or will N=1 require a smaller and shorter horizon?

No answer today though, just the question.

The Myth of Empowerment

Empowerment sounds like a good thing. The Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary defines it thusly:

empower, verb (T), to give someone official authority or the freedom to do something

How could gaining authority, official authority no less, be bad? What could be wrong with getting freedom? Isn't that what we all want? Sure, except that is not what the empowerment craze became.

I was there. It was the mid-late 80s, and the new buzzword, empowerment, swept the boardrooms of corporate America (to a lesser extent Europe: Europeans are normally late to get involved and early to give up, but that is another post). Dressed in consultant garb, power tie and suspenders, I listened to many an executive speak like this, that:

We need to empower our staff. You need to find a way to free them, to let them grow. You have to unlock their hidden potential.

Or words like that. Mom and apple pie, how could I disagree? I nodded intelligently--s/he was the client after all--while wondering what I was supposed to free the staff from? What were they supposed to grow into? Just how was I supposed to turn the cocooned staff into butterflies flying free?

Ah, but those are the gritty details, words and realities that rarely disturb boardrooms and corner offices. In hindsight it was just like W's inner circle, not bothered by "realities" of Iraq, terror, Katrina or ... governing in general. I digress.

What happened was each level of management used "empowerment" as a way to sluff off jobs onto the layers below. In earlier times, or among those with a respect for the English language, it would be called delegation, defined as

delegate, verb (T), to give a particular job, duty, right etc. to someone else so that they do it for you

Note the difference: nothing about some vague "freedom" but very clear about "do it for you." And that is what happened (and happens)--managers "delegate" tasks/responsibilities but call it "empowerment," like it is a bonus or boon to the poor person now saddled with the extra responsibility.

Well, why is this bad? What is wrong with "stretch goals," with asking more from someone so s/he is forced to summon the inner strengths that until-then lay hidden? Nothing. I quite believe in stretch goals, and thank Socrates (via Plato of course) for his dictum that necessity is the mother of invention.

So, what is wrong? Let's say I want my 16-year old daughter (when she turns 16 that is) to drive across Canada in one week. That is freedom. It is also a stretch goal.

The goal presupposes a number of pre-existing conditions though, that, oh, she has a driver's license would be a good start. That she has a dependable car. Enough money for gas. Oh, and say more than a week's worth of driving experience. Without such "resources" at her disposal my request is dangerous and irresponsible. And probably impossible to acvhieve, no matter how "necessary" the drive is.

Back to Dick and Acme. The idea for this post came from our discussion about the mass hiring he did/is doing/will do. Of course hiring begins with the resume, but, as Dick says, "learning to read Indian resumes is an art," an issue again for another post. Once culled, interviewed and hired, now what? How do you identify the ones you want to keep?

By giving them rope and seeing if they hang themselves (what Pop might have said). Use the skills they say they have and "empower" them to perform tasks they should be comfortable with, and measure the results.

Back to family: my daughter says she can drive so I give her the keys. If she hits a tree backing out of the driveway, well, maybe she padded her resume. Just like the now-identified Indian new hires who could not complete the tasks. You then let them go, invest in training or give them a new, usually lessor, position.

Like me, Dick also suffered through the "empowerment" craze, but from the inside, being the one often being "empowered." He survived, but then he is also trying to start a global company from the get-go.

Motivation: We Are All Human

So, Dick has grown the India office from zero to around thirty in 5+ weeks (with another 30 or so to be added ASAP). Not bad, but which is more important, quantity or quality? Are fifteen excellent employees worth more than thirty so-so staff? Can so-so staff be turned into Acme assets? How do you keep excellent staff motivated?

Hard questions, but then if they were easy everyone would want to start a business.

In yesterday's post I touched on how Western managers have to adjust their ideas when working outside the rich, first-world crust. But not everything changes, and therein hides a big lesson: just because some things are different does not man all things are different.

I've seen many an expatriate manager 'discover' that his/her local staff are different--usually after bad results from refusing to treat them differently--and then throw out everything in the Western manager handbook. This 'baby and the bathwater' disposal leads to more bad results. To paraphrase (badly) the "serenity" poem/prayer, success comes from knowing what should/can be changed and what shouldn't/can't, and how such affects your actions.

There are two broad strategies: dumb down policies and procedures to meet local conditions or raise local staff abilities to match normal policies and procedures. Dick is trying the latter, a good choice.

No matter where you manage, no matter the culture, economic level or societal type, people are people. Every (?) human is motivated by the same things: being treated with respect; being thought of as capable of learning and doing more; being treated fairly; and ... by being paid on time.

Certainly there are an uncountable number of unique characteristics between people of different cultures, characteristics savvy managers need to know and pay attention to.* But there are also equally-important "human" characteristics to pay attention to. This is what Dick is doing.

Continued tomorrow, along with what "empowerment done properly" means.

* to be a subject of a later post, for now let me say that there are three types of expatriate managers, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. All can "know" about the unique cultural characteristics, yet only Good managers pay proper attention to such.

Family Matters

Sorry for the irregular posts. Family matters so I must spend my time right now on family matters.
Thursday afternoon (July 3) was a day and a half. My wife and daughter were there, as was my sister (thank god), helping 'dispose' of the ... stuff. About 2:30PM my father collapsed on the living room floor, pulling a plant down from a high shelf as he fell.

To my name being screamed I ran upstairs and found Pop on the floor, my sister beside him and dirt fanned across the carpet (white). Mom was hovering close by. I called the ambulance.

Ministering to him as best she could, about 5 minutes later my sister exclaimed, "Mom, get there: we are losing him." Sure enough, when I got on my knees beside him I could see his eyes roll back and a slackness come over his facial expression.

The ambulance arrived and, well, after a whiff or three of oxygen he was better. Stable anyway. A bizarre scene, Pop on the floor, the room full of firemen and paramedics and a fan of dirt across the immaculate carpet.

The ambulance left, all but one crafty or smart paramedic. As soon as the sirens faded she turned to Mom and said, "Okay Bunny (Mom's nickname), how are you?" To make a long story short we called another ambulance and 45 minutes later Mom was on her way to the Big House.

Now three days later. Mom's out; she acts okay but really isn't: Pop's still in; he can't even act okay but still will be discharged early next week. (Don't get me started on the medical industry!)

So I apologize if I have not posted in a few days, or if my posts are irregular for the next while. I have made getting them into their assisted living flat ASAP my No. 1 (actually my only) priority. It should happen within the next 5-6 days, then my life will return to normal (sic) and I will be back, blogging Dick and Acme.

Thanks for your patience.

Greg

Pay Them On Time

How do you attract and keep good employees? Give them challenging jobs with real chances to grow. Offer attractive benefits, daycare center, health insurance and gourmet cafeterias. Give competitive-to-high salary/extras packages. Provide quality training. Pay them on time.

Pay them on time? Not an answer on any OECD country's Top Ten list, but crucial to Dick and Acme in India and elsewhere. Probably the biggest concern Dick has--so he thinks--are the size twins, scalability and capacity. "Sure, " I say, "but having that is the dream: how you get there is the reality you have to pay attention to."

Dick needs to attract and keep good employees. Fine. So does every other CEO: It's in the job description. Two problems: managers may define "good" differently and cultures can have quite different motivational hot buttons to press. Pay on time fits into number two. (I'll look at what "good" tomorrow ... or soon anyway.)

This thread began with Dick describing how "crowded" the office has become. He spent last week and this merrily interviewing and hiring, interviewing and hiring, so now, well, in Dick's own words.

We had a conference room, which is nice [to have], but now that is full. That's okay. But my old office, it's now full too and that is hard: I have no place to think. It is becoming quite crowded.

Don't know about you, but I get mental pictures of a sweatshop somewhere, not in color but in sepia and shadow. I asked if such "crowded" conditions would affect employee retention if not recruitment, he said no, that

It wasn't that bad by Indian standards, everyone had their own desk, and a PC that worked. And we pay them on time.

Oh, a desk, PC that works and regular pay: why didn't I think of that? Easy. Because I am from a rich, first world culture.

We from the West (or Japan, or 3 out of 4 Chinas) take regular pay and a working PC for granted, and if not hoteling, a desk as well. These are near the bottom of a business Maslow pyramid, above absolute necessities as heat, light and oxygen but below benefits, training or daycare.

If only the rest of the global pie was the same as the rich crust of first-world cultures. It is not, and thinking it is, because more comfortable and, well, correct, is dreaming, not reality.

Western managers, no matter rank, area or enterprise, must pay attention to other sets of rules, other levels on the needs pyramid.

Dick is lucky; he already knows this as well as I do. I offer this post as a brief introduction to the cautionary tale to follow, that unless you open your eyes to how others see things you go broke. Waste money anyway. Guaranteed.