Fluxo e reservatório

O FT de ontem trazia um artigo sobre a evolução dos chips de computador. Por coincidência, também ontem, durante a caminhada matinal vi este video no Youtube sobre o mesmo tema, "The end of Apple Silicon's reign".

O artigo do FT, intitulado "Chip wars set to change the landscape of personal computing":

"One sign that something is stirring has been the flurry of news around CPUsthe general-purpose processors that power PCs and servers. This week, as Apple unveiled its latest high-end Macs, its new M3 chips were very much the focus.

...

Last week, mobile chipmaker Qualcomm unveiled an Arm-based PC chip of its own. It is the first chip based on designs from Nuvia, a start-up founded by some of Apple's top chip engineers that Qualcomm acquired two years ago, and a sign that a real technology race is breaking out in PC chips.

...

Intel, which dominates the market for PC chips, is doing its best not to sound rattled by all of this. Given the high barriers to entry, it has good reason. 

...

All of this sets up a race in the normally staid world of personal computing, with Intel trying to pull off a rapid series of manufacturing upgrades over the next two years to get back in the lead, Apple digging in to protect the clear lead it has established with its Mac chips, and a new wave of Arm-based PCs hitting the market."

E comecei a pensar na impermanência das empresas grandes; as empresas grandes podem reinar por algum tempo, mas há sempre um momento em que falham. Empresas grandes, mais tarde ou mais cedo resvalam para o foco na eficiência, e isso dita a sua queda. E qualquer coisa neste pensamento fez-me pesquisar no blogue e encontrar, de Setembro de 2012, Contrarian, sempre!!!

E ao ler esse postal ... comecei a fazer ligações para o que tenho escrito aqui recentemente, ou tenho lido recentemente:

"Por isso, enquanto muitos continuam a acreditar na vantagem de ser grande, cada vez mais acredito nas vantagens de se ser pequeno, na paciência com a quota de mercado ou com o volume de vendas.

Ser pequeno pode significar: decidir rapidamente; agir ainda mais rapidamente;    experimentar em escala reduzida; estar mais próximo da tribo; corrigir o tiro inicial muito mais rapidamente; ter mais  paciência e não se amesquinhar por causa do próximo relatório de contas; ter mais paixão.

O que mais me entristece e ver empresas pequenas a pensarem como empresas grandes... uma empresa pequena nunca poderá competir de igual para igual com uma empresa grande. Uma empresa pequena devia concentrar-se em tornar-se uma grande empresa.

Uma empresa pequena pode ser uma grande empresa, assim como uma empresa grande pode nunca ser uma grande empresa.

Uma empresa pequena a caminho de ser uma grande empresa é a empresa que reconhece que o seu campeonato não é o da eficiência, mas o da arte, o da originalidade, o da rapidez, o da flexibilidade, o da proximidade, o da autenticidade, o da tradição, o da diferença... o caminho menos percorrido."

Quando era miúdo muito miúdo, ainda nem andava na escola primária, ouvi a minha mãe a comentar com alguém que "somos um fogo", ou seria "somos uma chama". E nunca me esqueci disso, não sei porquê.

Também as empresas são chamas, são transição, são fluxo até que passam a comportar-se como um reservatório, e em vez de aspirarem ao futuro e à novidade, focam-se na defesa do presente. E o futuro morre, mais depressa ou mais devagar, mas morre. E estas empresas não precisam de ser grandes, também podem ser pequenas. 

"The "autotelic self""

E aplicar o que segue a empresas? Atentas ao contexto, prontas a abraçar a mudança, e sentindo-se ao volante,  estabelecem indicadores e objectivos, monitorizam o desempenho e tomam decisões com base no feedback. Não porque seguem uma receita, mas porque vivem.

"A person who is healthy, rich, strong, and powerful has no greater odds of being in control of his consciousness than one who is sickly, poor, weak, and oppressed. The difference between someone who enjoys life and someone who is overwhelmed by it is a product of a combination of such external factors and the way a person has come to interpret them - that is, whether he sees challenges as threats or as opportunities for action. [Moi ici: Recordar as reflexões sobre os que resistem à mudança versus os que a abraçam - Abraçar ou resistir à mudança? ou Resistir versus abraçar]

The "autotelic self" is one that easily translates potential threats into enjoyable challenges, and therefore maintains its inner harmony. A person who is never bored, seldom anxious, involved with what goes on, and in flow most of the time may be said to have an autotelic self. The term literally means "a self that has self-contained goals," and it reflects the idea that such an individual has relatively few goals that do not originate from within the self [Moi ici: Recordar as reflexões sobre o locus de controlo interno e externo - Isto é mesmo um desafio digno de Hercules e Calimeros - não obrigado!].  For most people, goals are shaped directly by biological needs and social conventions, and therefore their origin is outside the self. For an autotelic person, the primary goals emerge from experience evaluated in consciousness, and therefore from the self proper.

The autotelic self transforms potentially entropic experience into flow. Therefore the rules for developing such a self are simple, and they derive directly from the flow model. Briefly, they can be summarized as follows:

1. Setting goals. To be able to experience flow, one must have clear goals to strive for. A person with an autotelic self learns to make choices-ranging from lifelong commitments, such as getting married and settling on a vocation, to trivial decisions like what to do on the weekend or how to spend the time waiting in the dentist's office--without much fuss and the minimum of panic.

...

As soon as the goals and challenges define a system of action, they in turn suggest the skills necessary to operate within it. If I decide to quit my job and become a resort operator, it follows that I should learn about hotel management, financing, commercial locations, and so on. Of course, the sequence may also start in reverse order: what I perceive my skills to be could lead to the development of a particular goal that builds on those strengths - I may decide to become a resort operator because I see myself as having the right qualifications for it.

And to develop skills, one needs to pay attention to the results of one's actions-to monitor the feedback. To become a good resort operator, I have to interpret correctly what the bankers who might lend me money think about my business proposal. I need to know what features of the operation are attractive to customers and what features they dislike. Without constant attention to feedback I would soon become detached from the system of action, cease to develop skills, and become less effective.

One of the basic differences between a person with an autotelic self and one without it is that the former knows that it is she who has chosen whatever goal she is pursuing. What she does is not random, nor is it the result of outside determining forces. This fact results in two seemingly opposite outcomes. On the one hand, having a feeling of ownership of her decisions, the person is more strongly dedicated to her goals. Her actions are reliable and internally controlled. On the other hand, knowing them to be her own, she can more easily modify her goals whenever the reasons for preserving them no longer make sense. In that respect, an autotelic person's behavior is both more consistent and more flexible."

"resistance is an emotional process"

"When we ask for help, we want both a solution to the problem and confirmation that everything we have done has been perfect.

A colleague of mine, Neale Clapp, mentioned one day that people entering therapy want confirmation, not change. On the surface, it would be ridiculous for a client to bring in a consultant for help, and then tell the consultant that no change was desired and the client did not really want to learn anything. This would not be rational. But that is the point: resistance is an emotional process, not a rational or intellectual one.

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Not surprisingly, organizations that are in serious trouble tend to be the most difficult clients. They need to change the most and are least able to do it. For low-performing organizations, the tension of failure is so high that they are unable to take one more risk, and so instead they hold on to their unsatisfactory performance. In these extreme cases, there is probably not much consultants can do to surface the resistance to change. We may just have to accept it."

Julgo que já escrevi sobre este tema, Procrastinação e falta do sentido de urgência, sobre empresas que adiam a aplicação de micro-mudanças ao longo do vector tempo, ampliando o gap entre o que são e o que deveriam ser, até que só uma grande mudança a pode ajudar, mas não há experiência sobre como mudar, e há um medo tremendo de falhar ... mudar significa avançar para algo desconhecido, mudar significa medo.

Trechos retirados de "Flawless consulting: a guide to getting your expertise used" de Peter Block.

O que aconteceu? (com as calças na mão)

Auditar uma empresa e perceber que não alteraram a análise do contexto feita em 2022. Segundo a empresa não há mudanças relevantes.

O que podemos pensar disto?

Primeiro, deste artigo de Abril passado, "Building optionality: Balance sheet discipline is both timely and timeless", sublinho:

"The macroeconomic outlook might be even more uncertain now than it was a year ago, which is saying something. Geopolitical risks, strong labor markets, persistent inflation, yo-yoing consumer sentiment, and a host of other confused signals have left business leaders with little certainty about the future. [Moi ici: Mais incerteza significa mais riscos e mais oportunidades] As central banks lift rates, external financing is becoming more difficult for companies across sectors."

Segundo, também de Abril passado, este postal, "Understanding the growth opportunity presented by volatile times", sublinho:

"Today, many companies are experiencing a global economy that feels different to anything they have ever encountered before. It is not just that firms are cutting forecasts, cutting headcount and beset with uncertainty. It is that uncertainty has become the default.

"Businesses are facing all sorts of volatility," says Brad Soper, Partner and Head of Industrials at the commercial growth specialist Simon-Kucher. "There is geopolitical uncertainty, there is banking volatility, there is demand volatility. This is systemically different to what has gone on before, in terms of the frequency and the amplitude of the ups and downs. And there is no doubt that makes it very difficult to sit down and just run a business."

...

"When you have periods of great volatility, that's when a company should be looking at what made them competitive in the first place," says Prof. Kavadias. "Look at what has added value. You can't cut your way out of a downturn, you can only innovate your way out. Cutting without innovating only sets you up for bigger failures in the future.""

Terceiro, também de Abril passado, esta reflexão, "Why uncertainty is your friend if you're looking for big returns", sublinho:

"It's tempting to invest in areas that promise certain returns for a given investment. Unfortunately, by the time an opportunity has become so well understood that anyone could pursue it, it is well on the way to commoditization. To find big payoffs, you must be willing to explore high uncertainty bets.

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So yes, the transformational space is where the big returns are to be made. But only if you manage them as options on a transformational outcome, not as tweaks to an existing process you understand well.

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And if you don’t invest in transformation? The commodization monster awaits." 

Os que abraçam a mudança em vez de lhe resistir são os que ganham um lugar no futuro. 

Recuo a 2007 e a "Perceber o futuro" onde escrevi:

"A frase é conhecida "Uns cheiram, percebem o que vem aí e perguntam: "O que vai acontecer?". Outros perguntam: "O que está a acontecer?". Por fim, outros, admirados, confundidos, perguntam: "O que aconteceu?""

Por que engonhamos tanto?

Na capa do JN de ontem:

O futuro em Portugal anda à velocidade de um caracol. Estamos em Fevereiro de 2023. 

Aqui no blogue em Abril de 2007 - "Estava escrito nas estrelas ...". Depois, em Abril de 2008 "Um caminho para a farmácia do futuro?" e esta série até Janeiro de 2018 - A farmácia do futuro (parte VII).

Por que engonhamos tanto? Tanta gente a defender o passado, tantos responsáveis com medo de abraçar o futuro. Tanto tempo perdido, tantos recursos desperdiçados, tanta gente prejudicada.

"Transforming An Obstacle Into A Design Constraint"

  "Transforming An Obstacle Into A Design Constraint" 

Li esta frase ontem, durante a minha caminhada matinal junto ao Atlântico (finalmente acabou o Verão, e tenho a praia só para mim) aqui. 

Julgo que é esta a diferença entre os que resistem e os que abraçam a mudança, um tema recorrente aqui no blogue:

• Abraçar ou resistir à mudança? (Setembro de 2021)
• Resistir versus abraçar (Março de 2021)

Julgo que foi esta abordagem que a tripulação do UA 232 seguiu:

"There is almost no reference in the cockpit to the resumption of normal flying after the hydraulics are lost. Instead, the crew of UA 232 define themselves as being in a new, distinct situation that requires a very different mode of operating. Their resilience is embodied in making do with the few resources they have left.

...

The crew of UA 232 kept revising their explanation of what is happening and what is next." 

E ainda:

"Instead, they are dealing with possibilities. “In a contingent world, real-time improvising in the face of what people cannot fully anticipate [is necessary because] having designs that work as planned is only one of the many contingencies we prepare for." 

Talvez a maioria de nós perante um obstáculo comece logo por o ver como uma desculpa para não fazer, para não mudar, para pedir ajuda ao papá-pedo-mafioso aka o estado. 

Abraçar ou resistir à mudança?

Abraçar ou resistir à mudança? Esta mudança é a mudança que ocorre no exterior, com maior ou menor velocidade. É independente da vontade das organizações, está-se marimbando para as organizações. 

Ao longo dos anos escrevo aqui sobre abraçar ou resistir à mudança. E sobretudo, sobre o papel das lideranças associativas em predispor as mentes para abraçarem a mudança e procurarem oportunidades. 

"Human beings are resistant to many kinds of change. However, we are also a species driven by curiosity and programmed to seek out novelty. The difference between embracing and resisting change is rooted in our brain-body hardwiring. Evolution has resulted in a two-channel system, which is responsible for much of our response in times of uncertainty. The Survive Channel is activated by threats and leads to feelings of fear, anxiety, and stress. These triggers activate the sympathetic nervous system and, when working well, direct all attention toward eliminating the threat. By contrast, the Thrive Channel is activated by opportunities and is associated with feelings of excitement, passion, joy, and enthusiasm. These triggers activate the parasympathetic nervous system, allowing our mind to broaden its perspective and collaborate in new ways.

Creating smart, fast change means preventing the Survive Channel from overheating while activating the Thrive Channel in sufficient numbers of people, leading to more innovation, adaptation, and leadership.

Reflecting on recent stories of organizational change, no single lesson comes across as clearly as one related to leadership — specifically, the need for more of it from more people. Leadership as a behavior, not a position, has the capacity to meet the change challenge of today. There is a strong need to reconstruct the modern organization and create an environment that fosters more autonomy, participation, and leadership.

The relative strength of the Survive Channel, combined with the emphasis on reliability and efficiency reinforced by traditional management systems, leads to organizations that generally overheat the Survive Channel and under-activate the Thrive Channel. Organizations that can pivot and change quickly require leaders who can both calm an overheated Survive and amplify Thrive, for themselves and others."

Trechos retirados de "Is Your Organization Surviving Change — or Thriving in It?"

E conjugar isto com o sensemaking que Karl Weick refere nos seus textos:

"The very first image that appeared in this book described experience as a ’sea of ceaseless change.’ I argued that organizing is about creating some patterned recurrence into that ceaseless change."

"The choice is up to you"

E chego ao fim de “Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive” de Jonathan S. Byrnes com uns trechos sobre o gestor do futuro:

"In today’s Age of Diverse Markets, managers’ activities could not be more different from those required of managers in the prior mass-market era. Successful managers today must be overwhelmingly broad and holistic in their perspective; their work is disruptive, innovative, and strategic; and they are primarily team-oriented.

This difference in management is analogous to the difference between a good cook and a great chef. A good cook flawlessly follows a set of predetermined recipes, always creating very good meals. A great chef, on the other hand, has the vision and capability to create an increasingly superb set of innovative, new dishes that continually transform a cuisine—producing the recipes that good cooks follow.

...

Managers today have to spend a significant amount of time actually physically in customers—walking in the customer’s shoes. [Moi ici: Lembrem-se dos que sonham em automatizar as interacções com os clientes] They must be involved in profit-showcase projects with customers, which are opportunities to develop new forms of their customer value footprint, learning by doing.

...

Understanding the company’s history: The key to really understanding a company is to know that most often it is doing what it needed to do 5 to 10 (or more) years ago. These practices—including customer targeting and management, category management, and supply chain and operations management—get embedded in a company’s culture and are passed along from manager to manager, year after year.

...

Each and every manager today faces a stark choice: either try to hold on to the past or focus on building your [Moi ici: Como não recordar a diferença dos que resistem versus os que abraçam a mudança - 2011, 2013, 2021]

The choice is up to you."

Resistir versus abraçar

A propósito deste postal de Seth Godin: 

"The windmills aren’t the problem, it’s the tilting.

In Cervantes’ day, ’tilting’ was a word for jousting. You tilted your lance at an enemy and attacked.

Don Quijote was noted for believing that the windmills in the distance were giants, and he spent his days on attack.

Change can look like a windmill.

When we say, “the transition to a new place is making me uncomfortable,” we’ve expressed something truthful. But when we attack a windmill, we’ve wasted our time and missed an opportunity to focus on what matters instead.

When my dad taught at the University of Buffalo, the heart of his MBA classes was teaching about the ‘change agent’. This is the external force that puts change into motion. The change agent, once identified, gives us an understanding of our options and the need to respond, not to react.

Every normal is a new normal, until it is replaced by another one."

Recordo a quantidade de líderes de associações empresariais mais preocupados em resistir à mudança do que em a "abraçar":

• Abraçar a mudança - Maio de 2013
• As associações e o status quo - Dezembro de 2020

"your methods suck"

Algo que intuí há algum tempo e que exemplifiquei aqui "Causas e 5 porquês":

"E contei-lhes um caso real desta semana: numa pequena localidade do centro do país, entrei num pequeno café que tem um pão d'avó muito bom para almoçar uma sandes. Reparei que estavam duas mulheres com pinta de ucranianas a falar entre si e a interagir com os telefones. Depois, entra um sr. Alberto que veio para ler o jornal do café, depois entra uma outra mulher para tomar um café e beber um copo de água. De repente os quatro começam a falar sobre as "queridas" da encarregada da fábrica têxtil em frente, que tinham sido seleccionadas para fazer horas-extra no Sábado e que só depois de terem confeccionado 700 peças é que descobriram que as tinham feito mal."

Em sintonia com estes trechos retirados de "Change is more like adding milk to coffee":

"There is no such thing as Resistance to Change - only smart response to dumb method
...
"People don´t resist change."
Can you say that to yourself, in your head? Now that is a start. But what is behind the behavior, then, that we are observing all the time, in change efforts, if it is not resistance to change? Take a step back and you will see that people act consciously and intelligently (overall), to other things than the change itself. They may resist loss of status and power - which is quite intelligent. They may resist injustice, stupidity and being changed. Which is also intelligent. The change may also cause need for learning that is not properly addressed. And these are the things that we have to deal with in change: power structures, status, injustice, consequence, our own stupidity, top-down command-and-control, and learning.
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"The more resistance to change you observe, the more likely it is that your methods suck."
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Instead of watching out for the possibility of resistance, we should watch out for common mistakes in implementing change and deal with the perfectly natural reactions to (our) poor interventions."

Prepare-se!

Estou a escrever estas linhas antes de sair para uma caminhada matinal arriscada, está a chover, onde vou ler um artigo que me enviaram ontem. A mensagem principal é: antecipe!

Antecipe a entrada no mundo digital, enquanto a sua sobrevivência é assegurada pelo retalho tradicional.

Nos últimas semanas já devo ter lido mais de 10 títulos onde a palavra recessão aparece. E isso já é um indicador avançado de algo. Quem me conhece sabe que vaticino um 2020 doloroso economicamente, sobretudo para quem vive do mercado interno.

2019 vai ser penoso para o PS, 2020 vai ser penoso para os portugueses https://t.co/LOvSUOMnAG

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) March 3, 2019

Fundamental a vitória do PS em 2019, para ter de lidar com recessão europeia e lixo debaixo do tapete em 2020 https://t.co/CZaCzetU81 já comprei as pipocas

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) October 7, 2018

Por isso, recomendo aos empresários das PMEs que leiam todos os artigos que possam encontrar sobre esta temática "How to Survive a Recession and Thrive Afterward".

Façam como as vacas, leiam e ruminem sobre a coisa. Ruminem para destilar o que será relevante para o caso de cada um. Alguns tópicos:

"during the recessions of 1980, 1990, and 2000, 17% of the 4,700 public companies they studied fared particularly badly: They went bankrupt, went private, or were acquired. But just as striking, 9% of the companies didn’t simply recover in the three years after a recession—they flourished, outperforming competitors by at least 10% in sales and profits growth. A more recent analysis by Bain using data from the Great Recession reinforced that finding. The top 10% of companies in Bain’s analysis saw their earnings climb steadily throughout the period and continue to rise afterward. A third study, by McKinsey, found similar results.
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The difference maker was preparation. Among the companies that stagnated in the aftermath of the Great Recession, “few made contingency plans or thought through alternative scenarios,” according to the Bain report. “When the downturn hit, they switched to survival mode, making deep cuts and reacting defensively.” Many of the companies that merely limp through a recession are slower to recover and never really catch up.
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Decentralized firms were better able to adjust to changing conditions.
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How should a company prepare in advance of a recession and what moves should it make when one hits? Research and case studies examining the Great Recession shed light on those questions. In some cases, they cement conventional wisdom; in others, they challenge it. Some of the most interesting findings deal with four areas: debt, decision making, workforce management, and digital transformation. The underlying message across all areas is that recessions are a high-pressure exercise in change management, and to navigate one successfully, a company needs to be flexible and ready to adjust."

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

Este exemplo:

É um caso concreto de:

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

"The other “commandment” is to become very suspicious anytime you ask, “Why do we do this like that?” and you receive the answer, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” If no one in the organization can explain why a certain practice is the best, or why the product has to offer certain features, that may reveal a bad habit. I suggest several activities the leaders of organizations can do to get to the bottom of this puzzle. First, write down key business processes and ask yourself if you understand why the organization is doing it this way. Then ask others in the company if they understand why. Finally, ask newcomers to the company — after they have been with the organization two or three months — what processes they have seen in the organization they do not understand.
...
You propose that an organization implement “change for change’s sake.” Why?
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There is value in the process of change itself. Many organizations are attached to certain processes and do not realize that when these processes become less relevant or do not work as well, it is time to change. I suggest not waiting for trouble; be proactive about making changes.
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When processes become routinized, silos develop across firms, communication and cooperation fade away, and certain departments begin to command a disproportionate amount of resources. If the company waits for these things to emerge, it is often too late and too difficult to change. Instead, the company should adopt minor but proactive changes on a consistent basis."

Trechos retirados de "How — and Why — You Need to Break Bad Business Habits"

Sindicatos. “É um absurdo” proibir o corte de árvores durante 15 anos

Com base numa ideia do @joaomiranda no Twitter:

A propósito de "Sindicatos. “É um absurdo” proibir a pesca da sardinha durante 15 anos"

'Playing Not to Lose Syndrome'

Mateus 25, 14:30

"His business suffered from slowing growth, systemic service problems, and aggressive and new competitors.
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However, he seemed unable or unwilling to alter his course. He was worried about changing too much and possibly making things worse. So, he chose to stay the course. Now, here he was having dinner with me, losing his company and unemployed.
...
This senior executive is a perfect example of a person who has the 'Playing Not to Lose Syndrome.' Instead of striving to win and thrive in business, he was merely hoping not to lose and make it through one more day.
...
The real problem with doing just enough to get by and no more is that, like a person treading water, it ultimately doesn't work. At some point, you must swim to shore, or you will drown.
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People believe that if they keep their heads down, nothing will change. Yet they lose anyway and what they are trying so hard to protect gets blown up in the end. And yet, the human tendency is to hold tighter and tighter to the status quo as though it were a security blanket--not understanding that it's smothering them!"

Trechos retirados de "How Avoiding Harsh Realities Cost These Leaders Their Business"

"The dissatisfaction is fuel"

Não se pode ser um fanático do trabalho, por que tem de haver tempo para tudo. Afinal, por alguma razão na antiguidade, tenebrosa segundo muitos, criaram o dia de descanso semanal e tinham muitos feriados e festas religiosas.

No entanto, o problema da festa constante e da auto-satisfação reduz o stock de um importante combustível:

"For the creator who seeks to make something new, something better, something important, everywhere you look is something unsatisfying.
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The dissatisfaction is fuel. Knowing you can improve it, realizing that you can and will make things better—the side effect is that today isn't what it could be.
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You can't ignore the dissatisfaction, can't pretend the situation doesn't exist, not if you want to improve things.
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Living in dissatisfaction today is the price we pay for the obligation to improve things tomorrow."

"To discover that the unfamiliar is the comfortable familiar they seek"

"People will do a bad (a truly noxious) job for a long time because it feels familiar. Legions of people will stick with a dying industry because it feels familiar.
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The reason Kodak failed, it turns out, has nothing to do with grand corporate strategy (the people at the top saw it coming), and nothing to do with technology (the scientists and engineers got the early patents in digital cameras). Kodak failed because it was a chemical company and a bureaucracy, filled with people eager to do what they did yesterday.
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Change is the unfamiliar.
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Change creates incompetence.
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In the face of change, the critical questions that leaders must start with are, "Why did people come to work here today? What did they sign up for?"
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The solution is as simple as it is difficult: If you want to build an organization that thrives in change (and on change), hire and train people to do the paradoxical: To discover that the unfamiliar is the comfortable familiar they seek. Skiers like going downhill when it's cold, scuba divers like getting wet. That's their comfortable familiar. Perhaps you and your team can view change the same way."

Trechos retirados de "In search of familiarity"

Um punhado de pérolas (II)

Parte I.

"Embrace External Trends.
The outside world can push you into Day 2 if you won’t or can’t embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind.[Moi ici: Abraçar a mudança em vez de lhe resistir]
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These big trends are not that hard to spot (they get talked and written about a lot), but they can be strangely hard for large organizations to embrace.
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High-Velocity Decision Making...
First, never use a one-size-fits-all decision-making process. Many decisions are reversible, two-way doors. Those decisions can use a light-weight process. For those, so what if you’re wrong? I wrote about this in more detail in last year’s letter.
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Second, most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure."

Aceleração

Ao ler:

"The world has been fundamentally changed by digital networks and software. Businesses and customers which are connected by networked digital systems create amplified network effects which means the velocity of business and the level of competition and innovation are higher than they ever been ever been. To survive in this new environment every business, from the largest enterprises to the smallest sole proprietor, must accelerate and fundamentally change their customer development processes. Increasing the ability of a business to adapt to a changing world has never been more important."

Lembrei-me logo da citação de Jack Welch:

“If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.”

O que me fez fazer a ponte com uma daquelas conversas de circunstâncias que se têm enquanto se espera que a escritura de uma casa seja redigida. Ouvi alguém dizer:

- Já compararam a velocidade, a quantidade de estímulos visuais, entre um episódio de desenhos animados de 1980 com um de 2010? Uma criança de hoje não tem pachorra para o ritmo de caracol dos anos 80.

E o bolbo raquidiano deixou-se tocar e fez-me recuar aos anos 80 e à série documental na televisão onde Alvin Toffler visitava uma fábrica abandonada, onde na sua juventude tinha trabalhado, e tentava mostrar como as instituições políticas nascidas no século XIX teriam dificuldade em adaptar-se à velocidade de Mongo.

E fecho com uma recordação dos primeiros tempos da minha vida profissional no final dos anos 80 do século passado. Ainda não se usava fax mas usava-se o telex e o telefone. Em visita com o meu chefe, o director técnico da empresa onde trabalhava, a um cliente. Um deles, ás tantas, diz com saudade:

- Lembra-se de quando as encomendas eram feitas por carta?

 Como é que a sua empresa evolui para aproveitar este aumento da velocidade?

Trecho inicial retirado de "Why has the level of business competition levels been turned up to 11? Or: Why is the lean customer development process important?"

Dar a volta

A vida de uma empresa é, de certa forma, uma espécie de jogo, não um jogo de equilíbrio mas um jogo de turbulência.
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Quem quer manter o equilíbrio acaba por cristalizar e não acompanhar a evolução, às vezes vertiginosa, do contexto. Os outsiders, acham que quando uma empresa encerra há marosca, que a gestão foi má ou que houve ilegalidade, ou que ...
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A verdade é que a maior parte das empresas não dura 20 anos. A anos bons sucedem-se anos maus, porque a uma velocidade superior à velocidade a que uma empresa se consegue transformar:

• os clientes mudaram;
• o governo mudou as regras do mercado;
• os concorrentes mudaram;
• os não-concorrentes mudaram.

E ainda, além de tudo isto, ás vezes também se tomam decisões arriscadas, não são boas nem más, porque tudo depende do desenrolar do futuro. Quando o futuro chega, muitas empresas têm de mudar. Quando uma empresa percebe que tem de mudar, que tem de se transformar radicalmente para tentar voltar a jogar usando outra vida, muitos "outsiders" tentam dificultar-lhe a vida porque vão despedir pessoas, porque vão fechar instalações, porque vão deixar de vender produtos ou serviços com que perdiam dinheiro. Trata-se de um tema já abordado nesta série "despedir é sempre resultado de uma maldade ou de preguiça da gestão" e aflorado nesta reflexão sobre a disrupção em curso no sector bancário.

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Por tudo isto, faz sentido pensar em:

"When a company is in free fall, it makes sense to replace the management team, for all sorts of reasons. [Moi ici: A razão porque Zapatero e Sócrates não deviam ter chefiado os respectivos segundos governos] First, you need to inject new energy into a tired organization under stress. Second, you need to ensure that the team you’re building is made up of people with open minds who want to invent the future, not just defend the past. It’s unreasonable to expect the architects of the strategies and practices that led to your downfall to see the error of their ways, or the right path forward. Instead, you need to find leaders and employees with a rebellious spirit. Third, you need to locate key employees at the front line and promote them — as a source of knowledge and energy, and as a signal that the future will be about merit and open-mindedness. Finally, you need to make change happen relatively quickly. If you replace your team gradually (which can be tempting because it seems less disruptive), you’ll lose valuable time, and the employees you bring in will begin to absorb the organizational biases of the past.
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Reversing free fall takes enormous energy and resources. Leaders who succeed at the job usually do so by combing through the company in search of noncore assets to shed, businesses to sell, activities to stop, functions to eliminate, and product lines to simplify,[Moi ici: Coisas que os outsiders consideram manobras de "direitolas"]
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Companies in free fall have a lot to fix but seldom have all of the tools they need. They usually find that they are missing at least one capability crucial for adapting their business model to new conditions. Nearly all of the 50 cases of successful reversal of free fall that we have studied required at least one major new capability. It’s extremely hard to focus on new capabilities when you’re in free fall, but if you don’t, everything else you try to do may be for naught."

Trechos retirados de "How to Pull Your Company Out of a Tailspin"