Propaganda

Que melhor alternativa para celebrar a republica e o seu feriado do que participar neste evento "Free webinar – ISO 9001:2015 clause 4 - Context of the organization, interested parties, and scope"?

Também cá chegará a vez

Engraçado como por cá ainda não se ouvem muitas queixas acerca do comércio electrónico por parte das lojas tradicionais:

"Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz warned that a move away from stores to online shopping was intensifying, hurting its profit margins and sales, and sending its shares sharply lower.
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Net profits for the world’s second-largest clothing retailer fell 20 per cent in the third quarter as it aggressively discounted its summer collection in an attempt to boost sales. Karl-Johan Persson, chief executive of the family-controlled group, said that while H&M’s autumn collection had got off to a good start, sales had “slowed somewhat” at the end of September.
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Mr Persson added that the “competitive landscape is being redrawn [with] new players coming in and customers’ behaviour and expectations changing”. H&M’s online sales were going well but have not compensated for fewer customers visiting its shops, he said."

Trecho retirado de "H&M profits suffer after aggressive summer discounting"

"Las grandes empresas de distribución de España piden cambios. Desde la Asociación Nacional de Grandes Empresas de Distribución (Anged) solicitan al Gobierno una modernización de la legislación para ser capaces de competir de forma directa con las plataformas de ecommerce que operan en España, como Amazon o Alibaba."

Trecho retirado de "La patronal de las grandes empresas de distribución demanda cambios en la legislación para competir con Amazon y Alibaba"

Cuidado com os apoios envenenados

"O que seria aconselhável, então, para empresas que estão começando e têm que entrar nessa disputa? Focar em expansão internacional?.
Eu tentaria o máximo possível fazer sem subsídios. A Itália, por exemplo, é uma economia muito incomum. Na maioria dos países, as exportações são feitas por um pequeno número de companhias muito grandes. Na Itália, a maioria das exportações é feita por pequenas empresas. Lá, existe uma brincadeira que diz que, quando você se torna uma grande empresa, o governo decide que vai te ajudar. E quando o governo começa a te ajudar, tudo fica burocrático e pára de ser efetivo e competitivo. Eu não ficaria surpreso se o Brasil se tornasse um país semelhante à Itália. No fim, as empresas estarão melhores trilhando seus próprios caminhos em vez de usar dinheiro do governo [Moi ici: Dos contribuintes passados ou futuros]. Embora soe vantajoso obter dinheiro grátis, não é necessariamente bom sempre."

BTW, não perder as bicadas às campeãs nacionais.

Trecho retirado de "Martin, da Rotman: “empresas precisam crescer sem subsídio”"

Curiosidade do dia

É difícil não ser cínico quando se tem memória.

Consigo recordar a ladaínha dos governos europeus acerca das emissões de CO2. Conseguem recordar as caras de preocupação com o aumento das emissões?

Depois, recordo o activismo desses mesmos governos em defesa da produção de leite e do modelo de produção intensiva.

Por fim, leio "Rod Oram: Farming’s bankrupt, time for natural capital"

Pois...

O preço é o adequado?

A pergunta que convido sempre as empresas a não incluírem nos seus inquéritos a clientes:

- O preço é o adequado?

A propósito de "Why You Should Never Ask Customers What They’ll Pay":

"It is not your customer’s job to set pricing.
An optimal price is one that is accepted but not without some initial resistance. It is your job to both set that price and convince the customer. Apple is a master at this. They manage to charge a premium for their products and get people lining-up for their products.
...
Principle 1: Pricing is Part of the Product...
Here, the price can change your perception of the product.
...
Principle 2: Pricing Determines Your CustomersPricing doesn’t just define the product but also your customers.
...
Principle 3: Pricing is Relative...
Because pricing and product are inseparable, you should not directly bring up the price of your product until you have a clear understanding of what you are building, for who, and know what alternatives already exist."

O que devemos mudar dentro de nós?

Um exemplo fresco, bem fresco, da variabilidade do desempenho dentro de um mesmo sector económico.

Ontem o INE publicou este relatório "Empresas em Portugal (2015 - 2016)" onde se pode ler "Melhoria nos principais indicadores das empresas não financeiras em 2016" e:

"Em 2016, assistiu-se à melhoria generalizada dos principais indicadores das empresas não financeiras. O VAB e o emprego aumentaram 5,1% e 2,5%, respetivamente. A produtividade aparente do trabalho aumentou 2,5% atingindo, 23,14 mil euros. A rendibilidade das sociedades aumentou em 2016, a par com o aumento da proporção de sociedades com resultados líquidos positivos (+2,2 p.p. que em 2015).
O VAB das sociedades sem perfil exportador evidenciou um crescimento superior (6,5%) ao verificado nas sociedades com perfil exportador (3,1%).
Por setores de atividade, o Alojamento e restauração destacou-se como sendo o que apresentou uma melhoria mais expressiva em 2016 na generalidade dos indicadores económicos, embora continuasse a ser aquele em que foi maior a proporção de empresas com resultados líquidos do período negativos."

E a certa altura aparece a figura:

Claro que é mais fácil perder tempo com "Confederação do Turismo Português defende criação de ministério próprio para setor" do que questionar-se por que é que num mesmo país, com as mesmas leis, com os mesmos trabalhadores, com a mesma moeda e ... existem disparidades tão grandes a nível de resultados. Talvez um dia percebam que em vez de mais ligação ao Estado precisam de fazer o by-pass ao Estado e olhar para dentro de si e perguntar o que devemos mudar dentro de nós?

"And the critical competence moves from production competence to relationship competence"

"Customers were - and basically still are - described in economic theory as an abstract congregation called 'the market'. They were the recipients at the end of a chain which moved raw materials, which gradually had 'value' added to them, until they reached the buyers.
...
Thus was born the idea of product differentiation and market segmentation, which was a first step towards a new paradigm. But it was an adjustment within the old paradigm, in which the product remained in focus, in which the critical competence was production, and in which the customer was seen as the receiver at the end of a 'value chain'.
...
The movement from craft to industrialism
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Much later - in the 1960s and 1970s - the same principles [industrialism] were applied to services. Levitt (1972) vividly described the benefits of the industrialization of services ... but when these principles were applied to certain types of services the results were sometimes absurd.
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Companies found that customers were no longer captive; they had to be seduced. Relationships had to be based on loyalty not on captivity.
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The customer became much more than a 'receiver'
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Business did not come from the assets of the company, but was generated by the customer relationship. The customer relationship, not the factory, represented the decisive business potential. The key flow was not from the factory outbound, but from the customer inbound. Skillful utilization of the customer relationship was the key.
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Instead of seeing the business as a flow of materials to which value is continually added and ending with the customer, we now see business starting from the customer and flowing to the company. The perspective changes from inside-out to outside-in. The market as a sink is replaced by the customer as a source.
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Companies now are seen as having customer bases in which customers are individuals (institutions or persons) and representing sources of business; they are no longer anonymous markets and receivers/sinks. And the critical competence moves from production competence to relationship competence."

Num breve resumo a mensagem do capítulo 1, "Evolution of Strategic Paradigms" de "Reframing Business - When the Map Changes the Landscape" de Richard Normann.

Quando oiço/leio a tríade, acredito que ainda se encontra no primeiro parágrafo deste resumo. E chegando ao último parágrafo e a "the critical competence moves from production competence to relationship competence" penso logo naqueles que se concentram pura e simplesmente na automatização e esquecem o poder da autenticidade da interacção e da co-criação.

Curiosidade do dia

"Que políticas podem ser implementadas nas economias avançadas para reduzir a desigualdade?
Há três elementos importantes: acesso a educação de elevada qualidade por todos; a redução da desigualdade na distribuição do capital financeiro, onde há uma grande concentração em parte porque as regras fiscais ajudam os ricos; e uma maior tributação sobre heranças."

Por aqui temos o constante ajavardamento e baixar dos níveis de exigência nas escolas do Estado e a redução drástica da possibilidade dos filhos dos menos abonados poderem aceder a escolas privadas que ainda não desistiram de lutar por um ensino de qualidade.

Entretanto, os que defendem o dito ajavardamento têm os seus filhos em escolas privadas.

A minha irmã disse-me que em Inglaterra onde vive, saber se os filhos de um político, sobretudo do Labour, estão numa escola do Estado ou privada, é assunto de campanha.

Acredito que a falta de exigência e a falta de qualidade dos professores é uma traição tremenda do regime para com as perspectivas de futuro das crianças que são jogadas na roleta russa do ensino em Portugal.

Trecho retirado de "Branko Milanovic: "É importante garantir o acesso dos mais pobres às melhores escolas""

Derrubar/baixar barreiras à entrada

Ontem li "En Bretagne, une personne sur trois est surqualifiée pour son job" e foi um festival de pensamentos que emergiram... lembrei-me da caridade, metáfora para os que acreditam que é uma questão de oferta e não de procura.

Lembrei-me da previsão que faço acerca de Mongo e da ascensão/regresso dos artesãos. Lembrei-me que quanto mais as pessoas têm formação menos predispostas estão para empreender. E os artesãos do futuro serão, muitas vezes, gente com formação superior mas capazes de serem fazedores e artistas  que interagem com tribos com as quais reforçam laços e co-criam valor.

Lembrei-me das barreiras fiscais que os Estados conluiados com os incumbentes ergueram, mantêm e até reforçam, para reduzir a probabilidade de gente com ideias fora da caixa aparecer e disrupcionar o status-quo.

É preciso derrubar/baixar as barreiras para que mentes livres de modelos mentais do passado arrisquem com mais frequência na criação de experiências de co-criação mais poderosas e que requeiram naturalmente e possam suportar gente com mais formação.

DISCOVER ISO 9001:2015 THROUGH PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

Saiu! Pode ser adquirido aqui.

Esta equipa croata foi super exigente mesmo! E ajudou a melhorar a versão final de forma a torná-la mais simples, mais directa e mais útil.

"in the real world WOB often shifts faster than WOM"

E eis que chego ao capítulo final de "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik onde apanho:

"Our colleague Richard Normann used to differentiate between World of Business (WOB) concerning the organization's interactions with its external context - and World of Management (WOM), or what happens inside the organization. While in an ideal world WOM supports WOB, in the real world WOB often shifts faster than WOM in established companies and in established societal processes, and WOM becomes a prison or obstacle for new WOB possibilities, preventing WOB to develop as fast as one would hope."

A primeira coisa que me veio à mente foram os números desta tabela:

 E um tweet de Nassim Taleb que vou tentar recuperar:

"The Romans judged their political system by asking not whether it made sense but whether it worked."

The clear minded @holland_tom

— NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) September 5, 2017

Só a PAX ROMANA durou pelo menos 300 anos.

BTW, naquela citação lá em cima acrescentaria o WOG - o World of Government que transmite sinais errados para o WOM e aumenta a descolagem entre o WOB e o WOM até à inevitável derrocada.

Já depois de fechar este postal recomecei a leitura de "Reframing Business - When the Map Changes the Landscape" de Richard Normann onde encontrei:

"As change increasingly comes to characterize the world around us, more often than not the problem is that the dominating ideas reflect a 'reality' of the past, not the 'reality' of the present nor of the future. And sometimes dominating ideas may have been so successful that they are adhered to even though they should really have been abandoned and replaced. Thus, 'the failure of success'. Such misfits between the dominating ideas and an evolving context are often easy to see with hindsight, but we should bear in mind that every reality is open to innumerable interpretations and descriptions, and that in the heat of the moment there are always good reasons for defending many such sets of dominating ideas (as management guru entertainers who sarcastically tell stories about the wrongdoings of managers of earlier eras tend to forget)."

Curiosidade do dia

"Secretário de Estado da Saúde: É "um tormento" governar nas actuais circunstâncias"

Eheheh espalham ao vento facilidades e amanhãs que cantam, depois choram porque não conseguem controlar o elefante.

A propósito de ver ao longe

Ontem, numa empresa disseram-me:

Se você for ver a idade das pessoas que trabalham aqui na empresa vai descobrir que dentro de 10 anos cerca de 80% delas não vão estar cá. Estarão na reforma.

Pensei logo, e onde vão conseguir gente nova para substituir essa geração?

Esta manhã, no local onde tomei café estava uma cópia desactualizada do JN, dei uma vista de olhos rápida e ainda tirei esta foto:

Vamos esquecer o título porque acredito que se trata de treta simplista, como se fizesse sentido apoiar empresas que tinham a procura insustentável. O que me interessa é o lead:

"... o Homem [Moi ici: ehehe, vê-se logo que é um machista heteropatriarcal] é cada vez menos o factor-chave da produção e os empregos serão escassos"

Aqui no blogue estamos numa outra onda. A demografia vai ser implacável e a breve trecho vamos ter um choque de falta de mão-de-obra neste país pouco recomendável para quem trabalha, dado o jugo fiscal que vigora. E em Mongo, vão descobrir que o factor-chave de produção será o humano capaz de interagir e co-criar com uma rede de outros humanos. Automatização e robôs terão o seu lugar a produzir o que restar do modelo do século XX e das grandes séries. No entanto, o grosso da economia será baseada em artesãos modernos apoiados por algumas máquinas.

"systems or webs, not as lines or chains"

"Letting go of value as "added" and dropping the view of it arranged along "value chains" has important implications that need to be taken into account for strategists who design configuring offerings as systems of relations, and not as linear ones. ... in a co-creation world, one value manifested in a first interaction would be contingent on how it enables the co-creation of a second value.[Moi ici: O truque que aprendi a usar desde 2004. Para reforçar a co-criação de valor com um cliente, uma PME pode ter de pensar na relação de co-criação de vapor desse cliente com os seus clientes, ou com outros actores com quem interage]

For VCSs operate as systems or webs, not as lines or chains."

Quanto mais um actor trouxer para o ecossistema de criação de valor (VCS) outros actores que co-criam valor e tornam as interacções mais ricas e mais densas, mais valor emerge.

Trechos e imagens retiradas de "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

A gentrificação de Lisboa vai acelerar (parte II)

Há os que, com as calças na mão, perguntam o que está a acontecer.

Há os que observam muito à frente e dizem: vai acontecer.

Em Outubro de 2015 escrevia, "A gentrificação de Lisboa vai acelerar" e este tweet resumia:

Eheh os mesmos q andam em eracção psicológica com a Web Summit em Lx são os mesmos q estão contra a gentrificação de Lx. Definam-se

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) October 6, 2015

Agora, estamos quase em Outubro de 2017 e leio "“Estão a mudar-se, e a fazê-lo em massa”. Lisboa é o novo destino dos ‘millennials’, escreve o Independent":

"O jornal britânico descreve como freelancers e trabalhadores em áreas digitais, com flexibilidade para trabalhar a partir de qualquer local, estão a transformar Lisboa num hub.
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“Bem-vindos à ‘gig’ economia”, escreve o jornal. “Lisboa tem sido a cidade europeia por excelência desde há algum tempo; a nova Barcelona, ​​se quiser”. E enumera as razões: um clima subtropical, o custo de vida baixo, o número de bares e restaurantes e o acesso fácil às praias algarvias.
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Contudo, realça que os millennials não escolhem a capital portuguesa apenas como destino de férias: “Eles estão a mudar-se, e estão a fazê-lo em massa”."

O turismo de alojamento local é o alvo fácil em que para alguns é, não só fácil bater, como motivo de cruzada cultural e ideológica. No entanto, há muito mais em curso do que o alojamento local.

Curiosidade do dia

A propósito de "Ricardo Reis: “Não vejo razões para estar muito eufórico com crescimento”" este trecho:

"O economista Ricardo Reis prefere "não embandeirar em arco" com o desempenho da economia. "Temos de recuperar de um enorme buraco que criámos em 17 anos", explicou."

O que dirão os que nos últimos 10 anos culpam o euro de todos os nossos males económicos?

Por mim, continuo a conseguir explicar a nova realidade económica com o mesmo argumento do passado: Não é o euro, é a China!!!

Portanto, espero que o PIB continue a crescer nos próximos trimestres, apesar deste governo, à boleia do reshoring massivo que está em curso provocado pela alteração do modelo económico chinês.

Claro que olhando para o panorama europeu...

... é triste termos uma moldura de contexto que nos leva a não aproveitar tanto quanto os outros países do mesmo nível que o nosso.

"Now we need to be focused on the state of the customer"

"In the Age of the Product, customer service ensured that the product lived up to its specifications. Everything after that was the customer’s responsibility, not the vendor’s. In the Age of the Customer, the bar has been raised. Now it is the outcome that must live up to the customer’s expectations, else it is the vendor who is left holding the bag.
...
First of all, we still need customer service. Products still break, implementations still go awry, and parts still wear out, and they all need to be attended to. The traditional CRM customer service model is admirably suited to the task. It is organized around a trouble ticket generating a case which is managed through to a resolution with the data captured in a knowledge base to better inform the next case.
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What this system does not measure well is the customer side of the equation. In a B2C world we call this the customer experience. In a B2B world, the critical variable is the customer outcome. In both cases it is the reason the customer bought the product in the first place. The problem with this variable is that it is, well, so variable. Experiences and outcomes are in the eye of the beholder, and there can be as many as you have beholders—even more if some of your customer tend toward schizophrenia as they so often seem to do.
...
The point is, in the past we were focused on the state of the product. Now we need to be focused on the state of the customer. That means there is market both for programs that can help change state and for systems that can help maintain state."

Trechos retirados de "From Customer Service to Customer Success: Taking the Next Step"

Experimentar e iterar (parte II)

Parte I.

Com o fim do modelo do século XX e do seu ajuste à realidade:

"Strategy is considered "contingent" in the sense that its success depends upon obtaining fit between an organization and its environment. It is thus not surprising that notions of the "environment" have a long history in both strategy and scenario work. Successful strategy involves the discovery or generation of new and effective ways for the organization to relate to its environment."

É interessante perceber o quanto as organizações mais pequenas são mais rápidas a ajustarem-se a uma nova paisagem competitiva:

• Why neighborhood toy stores are thriving while Toys R Us goes bankrupt
• This 1 Crafty Underdog Could Dethrone Amazon and Whole Foods in the Grocery War--Before It Even Starts

"If Toys R Us is a private-equity horror story (not one for the kids), then mom-and-pop neighborhood toy shops are more like a fairy tale.
...
On a recent weekday afternoon, the store bustled with children. Their parents in tow said they come to the store regularly because they like the carefully curated selection, helpful employees, Lego-building events and the gift wrapping, which can come in handy when you drop in on the way to a birthday party.
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Throughout the country, experts say, independent toy stores are seeing a revival as parents — and their children — look for unique shopping experiences that stand out at a time when so many of their shopping habits have been reduced to impersonal clicks of a button. While adults may be inclined to compare prices or shop from their living rooms, children would rather take their allowances and birthday money to a store that allows them to play and explore."

Recordo logo aquela citação:

"When something is commoditized, an adjacent market becomes valuable" 

Trecho inicial retirado de "Strategy For a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik .

Uma terceira vez

Ao aproximar-me do final de "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik já decidi. Vou pôr em stand-by o início da leitura da mais recente aquisição, "Value First then Price: Quantifying value in Business to Business markets from the perspective of both buyers and sellers" e vou ler pela terceira vez (a primeira vez em 2008, a segunda vez em 2012) "Reframing Business: When the Map Changes the Landscape".

Acho que nunca li um mesmo livro técnico 3 vezes.

O prefácio do livro é de Mintzberg o que é engraçado pois é dele a citação que uso tantas vezes:

Nunca é tarde para aprender, às vezes é demasiado cedo.

Quando li o livro em 2008 apanhei umas pequenas pérolas. Quando o reli em 2012 apanhei e percebi muitas mais coisas.

Espero com a terceira leitura apanhar muito mais e relacionar com mais experiências pessoais e outras leituras feitas entretanto. (Olha, há um tipo que já o leu sete vezes!!!)

Curiosidade do dia

"Demissão irrevogável de Portas foi combinada com Ricardo Salgado para fazer cair o Governo?"

Faz todo o sentido!

Obrigado Passos!

A importância dos indicadores não-financeiros

Para um fã do BSC isto é óbvio:

"Principle 4. Include Nonfinancial Targets
.
Our final recommendation is to incorporate targets that are not directly related to sales and profits in any CEO performance contract. Although the research we base this article on didn’t explicitly measure the effects of nonfinancial targets, it’s clear that many of them are hard to game. To begin with, it often takes a significant amount of time for the results of decisions related to them to become apparent. Investments in employee training, for example, may not translate into employee productivity for a while. Additionally, many nonfinancial metrics, such as brand, reputation, and sustainability rankings, are set by outside agencies and so are hard for managers to manipulate.
...
Creating a compensation package that adheres to the four guiding principles is not easy for a board. Directors need to debate multiple metrics (financial and nonfinancial alike), align them with the company’s strategy and values, [Moi ici: E relacionar com Bruce Jenner e os salami slicers] calibrate them with the risk appetite of the firm, and select an appropriate peer group to use as benchmarks. But this is ultimately what a board is there to do. If it uses executive compensation packages as a way to reinforce the company’s competitive strategy and manage its risks, so much the better. Not only will it be more effective at communicating the strategy and rationale for top management pay with shareholders but it will also ensure that senior managers execute against the right objectives. Remember: Executives will do their best to hit whatever goals are set. So set targets that work for the corporation."

Trechos retirados de "Comp Targets That Work"

Experimentar e iterar

"As for remaking its stores, Toys “R” Us is going to try: According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the company will convert “its remaining locations … to be more experienced-based, incorporating amenities such as in-store play areas,” a gambit to be not just a place where parents can get things for their kids but one where they can entertain them. This move places the store in line with many other retailers in this moment, claiming they are not, in the end, shopping destinations but places to have “experiences”—something Millennials are believed to prefer. As my colleague Joe Pinsker reported last week, retailers from Apple to Starbucks to Nordstrom are pivoting to providing spa services, classes, restaurants and cafes, and so on.
.
Catering to Millennial parents is not an impossible task, ... Millennials, he argues, will “pay a small premium for exceptionally easy-to-use brands, exceptionally strong brands—brands where they feel like, ‘They get me.’"
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That, of course, is tough to do when working under a giant debt burden and investors who want to see a quicker return. Most Millennial parents just aren’t going to pass on the convenience and prices offered online, even for a brand whose aisles seemed like heaven when they were growing up."

Por todo o lado sinais desta evolução no mundo do retalho com a ascensão do comércio electrónico.

O português-tipo, carregado de locus de controlo externo, quando abalroado pela evolução dos modelos de negócio, resvala para a esmola do papá-Estado como se pressente com a imprensa.

Gente com locus de controlo interno procura alternativas, refaz o mundo onde actua, experimenta e itera.

Trechos retirados de "Toys Aren’t Us"

Desenho de ecossistemas de co-criação de valor

A leitura de "Strategy For a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik fez-me recordar e voltar a este esquema:

"in scenario planning we distinguish between the more immediate business (or "transactional") environment that a strategist influences through their interactions with counterparts (who, from their point of view, are "actors" or "interactors") from the "factors" around these interactors, which remain beyond the strategist's influence - and which constitute and are situated in the broader "contextual" environent.
...
by definition, the "contextual environment" is that part of the environment of every organization that it cannot influence; whereas the organization has offerings in relations to all parts of its transactional environment, and therefore can influence it to a smaller or larger degree.
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A new design of a VCS by any one firm (typically carried out with others) can challenge the existing distinction between the individual firm's transactional and contextual environments.
...
probing the boundary between contextual and transactional environments not only helps to surface tacit assumptions about roles and relationships, and to challenge established beliefs about constraints that may no longer be valid
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This redrawing of the transactional/contextual environment boundary by coming together with actors that remained outside the existing VCS with a new offering that configures a new VCS"

E dei conta que na semana passada fiz exactamente isto numa empresa.

Começámos por retratar a situação actual, muito "pobre":

E acabámos numa primeira versão de ecossistema da procura no futuro que pode ser representada por:

A formulação da estratégia começa por equacionar que sistema de co-criação de valor pode ser organizado juntando um conjunto de actores num ecossistema.

Biologia e economia

Cuidado com a eficiência.

Every small company  thinks and acts biologically because it lacks the resources to shape its environment through brute force, it lacks the scale to buffer change, and it's constantly thinking about the though odds for a startup to survive.

O veneno do activismo

"we consider scenario planning to be a good approach to support search and research approaches that can be adopted by managers seeking to either test existing VCSs or innovate new VCSs. Existing practices - particularly if they have encountered success for some time - can conceal tacit assumptions about existing and future roles. these assumptions may have made sense in the past but with changed conditions may now appear to be arbitrary demarcations between "what is (or can be) ours" and "what cannot be". Obsolete assumptions that remain unsurfaced and unquestioned may render potentially valuable strategic configurations difficult to explore."

Enquanto lia isto veio-me à mente Nassim Taleb: "Stressors are information" e uma notícia da manhã, "Vinho da Madeira: Excesso de produção leva Governo a comprar uvas a baixo preço".

Quando o activismo governamental mascara os sinais de stress, distorce a realidade e está a minar a realização de transições de modelo de negócio por alguns ao longo do tempo. O activismo cria uma espécie de reserva onde as premissas tornadas obsoletas no mundo real continuam válidas. Como o mundo real continua a evoluir, o gap entre a realidade real e a realidade distorcida da reserva continua a crescer até que algures, o activismo do governo deixa de ser capaz de suportar a reserva e a barragem rebenta obrigando muita gente a um choque brutal para o qual não estavam preparadas.

No Douro, o vinho DOP, as marcas e o enoturismo conjugaram-se com o vinho do Porto para criar um ecossistema muito mais estável e atraente. Até que ponto esta intervenção governamental na Madeira não impede a evolução do ecossistema da vitivinicultura da Madeira para uma nova realidade onde o vinho da Madeira se conjugue com outras formas de transformação das uvas da região em vinho com marca e DOP?

Trecho retirado de "Strategy in a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

Para reflexão

"we humans, when thinking about risk, need to develop policies that take into consideration our inherent cognitive limitations.
...
Most modern approaches to risk management start by analyzing the objective likelihood and consequences of risks faced by individuals or communities, then design measures that could mitigate these risks—and hope people choose to implement them.
...
But since people often don’t adopt these measures, we argue, effective risk management has to proceed in the reverse order, starting with an understanding of why people may not choose to adopt risk-reduction measures and then designing approaches that work with, rather than against, our natural biases."

Trechos retirados de "Why You’re Not Prepared For Disasters (And What To Do About It)"

O top-down é uma doença

Quinta-feira à noite enquanto conduzia ouvia este artigo, "O palavrão que vai trazer o futuro às empresas já" e não consegui chegar ao fim horrorizado com o grau de visão top-down tão ao estilo de o Grande Planeador.

Primeiro, o benchmarking com a Alemanha. Portugal não é a Alemanha! O que funciona na Alemanha provavelmente não será adequado para a realidade portuguesa.

Segundo, as empresas não devem mergulhar na Indústria 4.0 só porque está na moda ou há dinheiro público para torrar. As empresas têm ambições, as empresas têm desafios, as empresas têm problemas e constrangimentos e, a Indústria 4.0 pode ajudar quando surgir como uma resposta a desafios/problemas concretos não como algo de intrinsecamente bom independentemente das empresas e da sua orientação estratégica.

A melhoria não começa porque alguém resolve planear uma melhoria, esqueçam o velho PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act). A melhoria começam quando se compara o real com o desejado e se resolve mudar (CAPD) (Check-Act-Plan-Do). Recordo Scott Berkun:

"We didn't need a Department of Innovation to achieve the greatest technological achievement in human history: putting a man on the moon. We did create NASA, but its goal was not the vague and distracting mandate to "promote innovation", but to solve a specific set of problems, problems so hard that they demanded a huge amount of innovation."

Ou "For Successful Social Innovation, Start With The Problem, Not The Solution":

1. "Start with the problem, not the solution. If you start with a solution, it may not actually solve the problem.
2. Identify the “binding constraint” that is causing the problem. Be careful of coming up with a solution that doesn’t actually remove that constraint.
3. Work with the user. We think we know what is best, but then we get it wrong. Listen to them and co-create a solution."

Visão sem acção não é mais que fantasia

Sinto que provavelmente padeço desta doença:

Para quem tem um martelo, ou sabe usar um martelo, todos os problemas são pregos.

Ao assistir a uma tertúlia/debate ouvem-se muitos argumentos, ouvem-se ideias interessantes mas no fim arruma-se a trouxa e a realidade continua na mesma.

Às vezes esses debates descambam para o pensamento de que Portugal é assim desde há não sei quantos séculos e não há volta a dar.

Quando trabalho com empresas, muitas delas PME, os empresários até podem apreciar algum nível de diagnóstico mas querem é acção, querem é mudar a realidade.

Uma PME consegue mudar a realidade?

Sozinha não, mas com a ajuda de um ecossistema e com o critério de sucesso do engenheiro, funciona o suficiente para ser útil, consegue mudar a realidade que lhe interessa ou onde está inserida.

Por isso, ao voltar a "Strategy for a networked world":

"For strategists, it is not only important that the key attention in VCS is the configuring offering (as it sets out the relations or interactions), not the actors; but also that these are designed and enacted over time
...
the strategist must have a broad view on who are relevant actors and must explore how they interact. A lesson from Actor Network Theory is moreover that, even though the strategist can aim at orchestrating a VCS, the VCS can never be fully controlled" 

Começo a pensar na aplicação da Actor Network Theory para desenhar um sistema (VCS) que junte n actores diferentes numa rede de interacções que se torne auto-sustentável e promova a mudança que queremos ver na realidade.

O velho provérbio japonês:

"Visão sem acção não é mais que fantasia,acção sem visão é apenas um pesadelo"

Sem este salto, um dia acontecerá o "bardamerda tertúlias/debates"

Salário mínimo - what else?

Quando um mercado está comoditizado, quando há um excesso de oferta face à procura, qual é a primeira regra que os incumbentes poderosos seguem?

Conluiarem-se com os governos para criarem barreiras à entrada ou à permanência dos concorrentes mais pequenos. Em vez de comprarem esses concorrentes, em vez de subirem na escala de valor, em vez de melhorarem face a esses concorrentes, em vez de seduzirem melhor os clientes... pedem coisas como estas: "Patrão da Jerónimo Martins quer “salário mínimo muito mais alto”".

Claro que esses mais pequenos, se tiverem pensamento estratégico, ultrapassam a dificuldade extra do salário mínimo mais alto. No entanto, a maioria não tem capacidade para subir na escala de abstracção para perceber o que está a acontecer e que alternativas tem. Por isso, apostam no que é intuitivo, no que é mais rápido, mais eficiência e menos interacção ... e quinam.

Este senhor sabe muito, dá a mão ao governo, coisa fantástica em Portugal para obter benesses, fica bem na opinião pública, esses sapos que gostam de ser cozinhados em lume brando, e elimina concorrentes.

Os pescadores não são a Santa Casa da Misericórdia

A propósito de "Pescadores ganham mais com menos peixe" repito o que costumo escrever para os agricultores.

O papel dos pescadores não é alimentarem o mundo, não são a Santa Casa da Misericórdia ponto. O papel dos pescadores é ganharem a sua vida ponto.

Por isso:

"O preço médio por quilo do pescado vendido em lota subiu 6,2% nos primeiros oito meses de 2017 face a igual período do ano anterior, tendo passado de 2,01 para 2,13 euros.
.
Segundo a Docapesca, que gere 47 lotas e postos de venda, "esta valorização do pescado permitiu aos pescadores melhorar o rendimento face a 2016, apesar da redução do volume capturado de 66,2 para 64,3 mil toneladas, menos 2,8%".
.
No global, o peixe comercializado nos primeiros oito meses do ano fixou-se em 137,2 milhões de euros, o que se traduz num crescimento de 3,3% por comparação com os 132,9 milhões de 2016."

Num mundo onde se chegou ao fim da fronteira, em que já não há mais fronteira, tem de se perceber que o objectivo não deve ser atingido simplesmente à custa de vender mais e mais quantidade, mas à custa da subida na escala de valor.

Oportunidade ou ameaça?

Para quem, seguindo que orientação estratégica, isto, "Nike’s New Recycled Leather Shoes Look Like They Were Made From The Real Thing" é uma oportunidade, e para quem, seguindo que orientação estratégica, é uma ameaça?

O que seria necessário para isto ser uma oportunidade, ou uma ameaça?

instead of going high-touch...

"On a more fundamental level, the challenge for retailers like Toys “R” Us is that the basic function of a physical location has changed. Traditionally, stores were optimized for driving transactions. Cash registers were plentiful and easy to find, and success was measured with metrics like sales per square foot and average size of transaction.
.
Yet now a transaction can happen anyplace, at any time. From sitting at the kitchen table to waiting for a train, consumers have the power to browse, compare prices, and order from thousands of retailers competing for their attention. The attraction of endless aisles has been replaced by the thrill of instant gratification. Today physical locations need to do something more.
...
A more interesting development — one more pertinent to the challenges Toys “R” Us is facing — is the emergence of “shoppable showrooms.” At places like Bonobos Guide Shops and J. Hilburn’s “The Studio,” customers can get fitted, consult a stylist, and process returns, just like in a standard store, but these locations don’t stock any inventory, which allows for smaller locations and saves on costs. Nordstrom is now testing a similar concept.
.
Imagine if Toys “R” Us followed this model by opening up small playrooms where parents could bring their kids off to test a revolving selection of the latest toys. You can imagine how their little darlings would be begging them to order the toy that had delighted them for the past hour. With traditional physical locations serving as a distribution center, same-day delivery could be arranged at minimal cost.
.
Yet instead of going high-touch, [Moi ici: Em cheio para quem aprecio o poder das interacções] Toys “R” Us has opted for high-tech, rolling out new features like Find It Fast, to let customers see which stores had which toys, and using the loyalty program for better targeted ads and better product life cycle management. None of these ideas are necessarily bad, but they fail to address the shifting economics of retail. Rather, they seek to optimize a failing model."

O mesmo tsunami que varreu o jornalismo e a mesma resposta baseada na comoditização, baseada na corrida para o fundo, e que não resulta.

Trechos retirados de "Toys ‘R’ Us Is Dead, but Physical Retail Isn’t"

"despedir é sempre resultado de uma maldade ou de preguiça da gestão" (parte VII)

Parte VI.

O que dizer da provocação, para muitos, deste título, "As Your Company Evolves, What Happens to Employees Who Don’t?"?

"When companies evolve at a rapid pace, often people cannot keep up. Some individuals who fit our company in its infancy became a weaker fit over time. They may have had difficulty keeping up with our company’s growth rate and the requirements of their evolving roles.
.
Often, I doubled down on an untenable position to keep an employee on because I didn’t understand how much harm the wrong fit could cause — especially when a person had been with us for so long."

O trecho que se segue faz-me recordar o caso concreto de uma empresa que recusava retirar um trabalhador que gerava reclamações, por causa de defeitos no produto em que tocava, porque não tinha posto alternativo para o colocar e não o queria despedir por causa da lealdade mostrada ao longo dos anos:

"People and the needs they fulfill evolve constantly, especially in small companies that grow very quickly. A good fit isn’t just about putting the right person in the right seat, but about putting them there at the right time.
.
One of the things that separates good leaders from great ones is the ability to recognize when those three factors are out of alignment and to act upon that information, particularly in the case of a loyal, long-term employee."

Postura louvável em termos humanos, por parte da gerência, mas depois não me venham falar de produtividade baixa.

Any efficiency measure applied relentlessly ...

Não tenho tido tempo para pesquisar informação sobre o que está na raiz do problema actual da Ryanair.

No entanto, no Twitter chamaram-me a atenção para Outubro de 2015:

@ccz1, troca tweets de 2015, não sei até que ponto esta desorientação actual na Ryanair não tenha surgido precisamente do tal DNA que refere https://t.co/wseCWNgQw3

— highalpha (@veryhighalpha) September 19, 2017

Entretanto, na passada terça-feira numa empresa recordei o exemplo dos nabateus por contraponto com o fragilismo do esticar demasiado a corda com sistemas com respostas côncavas:

"Any efficiency measure applied relentlessly ultimately becomes inefficient."

Hoje, apanho estes textos de Seth Godin:

• Building on maximized systems
• Optimized or maximized? 

Claro que a minha proposta é outra:

"As a valuable contributor seeking to build a career, you benefit when you develop a unique asset, because that asset gives you the leverage to choose a niche in a system that respects optimization instead."

O poder da interacção para lidar para com o desconhecido

Mais do que o Big Data, apostar na interacção:

"As opposed to “complicated” systems, where (a) components and and variables, (b) their dimensions, and (c) their purpose in a given system are known; "complex" systems are those in which one or more of (a), (b), and/or (c) is not known.
.
Managing complex systems thus requires managing ignorance, which may even include the system's objectives
...
One way to address the ignorance that complexity entails is to “engage" counterparts with whom one co-addresses this ignorance. Such engagement connects the managers of these organisations together, … In “engaging with” (as opposed to one actively studying and the "other" being a passively studied), both parties co-explore something as well as each other and each other's way of engaging. In working together, they discover how the differences of how each would engage alone, and when compared, can help each party to ascertain the blind spots it would otherwise keep about a given issue.
...
In the management of this multi-relations and multi-role complexity, it must never be forgotten that counterparts themselves have their own agendas."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy for a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

"Build from your strengths"

"In their efforts to compete, business strategists often forget a basic principle: Build from your strengths. The most successful companies have a clear, well-articulated view of what's important to them and their customers. They understand that the way to win consistently is through what they do rather than what they sell.
.
These companies also understand that “what they do” is unique to them; they have their own capabilities and practices that no other company could quite duplicate, even if it tried. In that sense, building from your strengths is the most reliable way we have found to differentiate your company.
.
This advice is easy to state and difficult to follow — not just in business, but in every aspect of human endeavor. Focusing on what you are great at doing is intuitively compelling, but few companies drive their strategy this way. It’s too easy to get caught up in chasing what others do — fixing the inevitably long list of weaknesses in your company, or seeking out what’s new in a world of change.
.
But when you understand what you’re great at, and design your capabilities and strategy accordingly, you can define how you want to compete, and shape your own future rather than waiting for others to do it for you."

Lembrei-me logo de Youngme Moon e "Different"


Trecho retirado de "Design for Your Strengths"

Batota e modelos de negócio

"it has been found that business models cannot be static.
...
business models can be conceived as a set of relations and feedback loops between variables and their consequences, and recommend that strategic management should aim at developing these to create virtuous cycles, leading to an evolution of the business model.
...
it has been argued that business models cannot be anticipated fully in advance and that they rather must be learned over time through experimentation. Such experimentation could lead to business model innovation through trial-and-error learning. In line with these findings, one capability we identify as critical for fuelling business model change is to identify, experiment with and exploit new business opportunities.
...
business models can generate virtuous cycles e positive feedback loops that would strengthen parts of the model over time. They consider such virtuous cycles to be crucial elements in successful business model operation, and thereby suggest that different aspects of managing business models can reinforce their consequences. Similar to their conceptualization, we found in our study that the strategizing actions together with the critical capabilities worked as complementarities, meaning that in combination these elements fuel more sustained value creation through successful business model change over time.

...
The role of strategic management is then to develop such virtuous cycles."

Como não pensar no papel da batota. Tomar consciência do que está a funcionar e forçar a nota.

Trechos retirados de "Dynamics of Business Models e Strategizing, Critical Capabilities and Activities for Sustained Value Creation" de Leona Achtenhagen, Leif Melin & Lucia Naldi, publicado por Long Range Planning (2013).

Subir na escala de valor

"O melhor vinho branco do mundo é português"

Subir na escala de valor passa também por acções deste tipo.

Em vez de confiar apenas no gosto dos clientes trabalhar para desenvolver relações com outros actores do ecossistema. Estes jurados juntos funcionam como influenciadores dos potenciais compradores.

Ao mesmo tempo este activismo que destrói sistemas de criação de valor genuíno: "CDS-PP Madeira pede que Governo Regional apoie os viticultores em mais 0,40€".

Como é possível escrever estas coisas:

"por os viticultores “produzirem a matéria-prima para um produto genuíno e mundialmente reconhecido pela qualidade”"

Tão reconhecido que precisa de apoios...

We are all weird, and proud of it

Ainda me lembro de sair de casa por volta das 19h, já era noite de Outono de 2011, para correr a ouvir o livro "We are all weird" de Seth Godin. Logo escrevi "We Are All Weird - Um manifesto sobre Mongo".

Ao ler este texto de Seth Godin, "Beware of false averages", como não recordar com ironia os fantasmas estatísticos tão típicos do século XX e, sobretudo, sonhar com a esperança de um futuro baseado na metáfora de Mongo e na explosão de tribos.

As interacções como a base para a criação de valor

"As business becomes more system-like with "business ecosystems ("BE") ... becoming the norm and  not the exception, value and its production requires more system-like, networked, and emergent conceptual frameworks.
...
In the strategy frame we use in this book, we place interactivity as the focus for where value is created and assessed. Interactivity is, of course, also a major source of risk as well of value.
...
Our argument is that this central concern with the interactivity that has become so ubiquitous inescapably leads strategists to rethink value creation and strategy.
...
Attending interactivity also involves thinking of value as contingent, always located in a setting - no longer as isolated in things or individuals or groups - and dependent on those whom it connects and who co-create it as well as in termos of those it affects positively or negatively.
...
patterns of interactivity that enable the production or co-creation of value and values arise or can be designed.[Moi ici: Aquela situação da empresa que toma consciência que está bem e pretende perceber porquê, para fazer batota!!!]
...
So perceived patterns of interactivity do not therefore require any intentional design on the part of any particular actor, though they might arise in part because of such intent - and often do arise in this manner in business.
...
the notion of value arises for the strategist when one takes the perspective of an actor within a pattern of interaction.
...
how actors choose which interactions to privilege over others, and how they relate one interaction to another.[Moi ici: Como não recordar tantos postais deste blogue, como estes de 2007, 2012, 2013 e 2014]
.
An organization's managers express its intents - and thus its values - by configuring interactions to establish (more or less) continuing patterns of activity with other actors. Are interactions with employees more important than those with customers? are interactions with shareholders more important than those with employees? For which of these interactions is the strategy primary constructed? These senior managers take views on what possibilities for value co-creation their organization is providing for which actors, and make choices that reflect and reinforce their values.
...
We consider this configuring of interactions as a design activity. We use the term Value Creating System (VCS) for the pattern of interactions intentionally configured by the strategic planning carried out by an organization. The designed interactions become manifested as "designed" offerings.
...
if the key to creating value is to design and co-create configuring offerings that mobilize others (who may have the role in the interaction of customer or supplier or partner or employee or investor, etc.) to co-create value, then a key source of success is to conceive the VCS and make it work.
...
value is not simply "added", but is mutually "created" and "recreated" among actors with different values. These multiple values are "reconciled" or "combined" in co-creating value, and as we shall see bellow, cannot be reduced to a single metric, like the price of a commodity.
...
We characterise VCS as designed activities that are part of much broader business ecosystems or business ecologies ("BE")
...
we consider strategy as entailing reconfiguring roles, actions and interactions among economic actors through designed configuring offerings that result in a given VCS.
...
In co-creation, it is the co-created offerings and the relationships these manifest, not the "business unit" actor, which becomes the central unit of (competitive and collaborative) strategic analysis.
...
Designing co-creation requires the strategist having the role of ascertaining and ideally defining the engagement and the dialogue that underpins designing novel and distinctive value creation."

Trechos retirados de "Strategy in a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

BTW, como não recordar Storbacka e Nenonen:

• Não é armadilhar, é criar harmonia, é construir uma sinfonia... 
• Os mercados como configurações (parte III)
• Scripting markets

O contexto tem muita força (parte XV)

 Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII, parte IX, parte X, parte XI, parte XII, parte XIII e parte XIV.

"Many companies do a good job of analyzing and planning for competitive risks, such as new market entrants or the threat of substitution, but they give only pro forma attention to noncompetitive uncertainties, including cybersecurity, natural disasters, and geopolitical risk—even though the impact of these events can be immediate and catastrophic. And herein lies the proverbial problem and opportunity. The problem for companies—and sometimes also economies and societies—is what to do and how to react when things go awry (as they inevitably will) and there is no plan in place."

A importância do contexto. Agora imaginem quando uma empresa é liderada por fragilistas... olha! Veio-me à mente a recordação do "He puffed, and puffed and puffed one last time."

Trecho retirado de "Taking Advantage of Risk"

Curiosidade do dia

"Juros da dívida portuguesa a cair para mínimos desde o final de 2015"

Quer isto dizer que se perderam quase dois anos?

Futurizar

""A crescente automatização de processos gera necessidades de pesados investimentos em processos produtivos que, para serem rentabilizados, exigem taxas de ocupação elevadas, no limite tendendo para a laboração contínua."

Mas Mongo não vai nesta direcção, Mongo é diversidade, flexibilidade, rapidez, irregularidade.

De um lado um exército clássico do outro uma célula da Al-Qaeda.

Mais tarde ou mais cedo as limitações do modelo (que impõem estas restrições de quantidade) vão gerar oportunidades para organizações tipo-Local Motors e quiçá, se os governos não continuarem prisioneiros das corporações, a uma réplica do que aconteceu com a explosão da cerveja artesanal.

Trecho retirado de "Fabricantes advertem que sucesso do setor automóvel depende de ganhos de produtividade"

BTW, a seu tempo veremos pedidos de apoio para os contribuintes, via Estado, apoiarem estas empresas a montarem represas para atrasar a sua inevitável derrocada/reformulação porque os seus clientes terão desaparecido e as Local Motors preferirão fornecedores mais pequenos.

"Work is interaction"

O marcador "interacção" regista a importância que ao longo dos anos dedico ao poder da interacção como fundamental para a co-criação de valor e diferenciação. Algo que agora encontro em "Strategy for a networked world" de Ramírez & Mannervik.

"The system of skills and responsibilities has been made on the assumption that all that has to be done can be known or forecasted with efficiency and insight.
.
In mass-production, work corresponds mainly with what has been planned. But today, in more contextual problem solving, work corresponds mainly with complex engagement with the customer.
.
Instead of skills the focus changes to contextual relevance. The most modern definition of work is “an exchange in which the participants benefit from the interaction”. Interestingly, cooperation is also described as “an exchange in which the participants benefit from the interaction”.
...
Due to the variety of contexts, work requires interpretation, exploration and negotiation. The interpreter is the worker together with the customer, not a manager.[Moi ici: Como não sorrir ironicamente dos morons que se ajoelham perante o bezerro da eficiência e acham que um bot é capaz de co-criar arte com um humano...]
.
What defines most problems today is that they are not isolated and independent but connected and systemic. To solve them, a person has to think not only about what he believes the right answer is, but also about what other people think the right answers might be. Work, then, is exploration both what comes to defining the problems and finding the solutions.
.
Most decision makers are still unaware of the implications of the complex, responsive properties of the world we live in. Enterprises are not organized to facilitate management of interactions, only the actions of parts taken separately. Even more, compensation structures normally rewards improving the actions of parts, not their interactions.
...
To succeed in the new economic spaces we need symmetric relationships and open organizations. When customers are identified as individuals in different use contexts, also the sales process is really a joint process of solving problems. You and your customer necessarily then become cooperators. You are together trying to solve the customer’s problem in a way that both satisfies the customer and ensures a profit for you.
...
The industrial make-and-sell model required (explicit) skills as we still know them. The decisive thing was your individual knowledge and individual education. Today, in new economic spaces you work more from your network than your skills. The decisive thing is your network. Work is interaction."

Trechos retirados de "Rethinking skills and responsibility"

O que é um concorrente em Mongo? (parte II)

Parte I.

Agora acabo de ler estes trechos de "Geographic Patterns of Craft Breweries at the Intraurban Scale" de Isabelle Nilsson, Neil Reid & Matthew Lehnert, publicado por The Professional Geographer.

"The emergence, growth, and success of the craft brewing industry are a David versus Goliath story.
...
as an industry takes on an oligopolistic structure, it often produces an increasingly homogeneous product (American pale lager) that depends on economies of scale in production, marketing, and distribution to perpetuate its success. Although American pale lager has historically satisfied the palates of most Americans, there emerged a growing segment of the population that preferred craft beer. Craft beer drinkers prefer craft over mass-produced beer for a number of reasons, including its greater variety in terms of styles and flavors; the independent, local, and small-scale nature of craft breweries; and the innovative nature of the industry, which means that there are always new beers to sample. The growing popularity of locally produced craft beer mirrors what has happened in other food- and drink-related sectors; witness the increasing number of farmers markets and wineries across the country.
...
Early craft beer drinkers have been referred to as insurgents or rebels, who identified a “hot cause”—a desire for more choice in terms of taste, quality, and styles of beer. Hot causes, however, require “cool mobilization”; that is, someone must engage in actions that challenge the status quo and turn desire into reality.
...
Home brewing clubs provided a venue where individuals could hone their skills, experiment with new recipes, and share ideas with fellow enthusiasts. The clubs were critical in developing the culture of collaboration that is a cornerstone of the industry today. They also became the places where the seeds of revolution were sown, a revolution that manifest itself when, one by one, some home brewers decided to commercialize their hobby. Collaboration was particularly valuable for the early home and commercial craft brewers, as there existed only a small number of books on the brewing process. Hence, home brewing clubs became places where knowledge was traded and collective learning occurred. Home brewing clubs were akin to communities of practice. They were also places where tacit knowledge, such as demonstrating how to make and use brewing equipment, was exchanged."

Quando ontem à noite em "Strategy For a Networked World" de Ramírez & Mannervik li:

"Collaboration is at Least as Important as Competition
...
in the VCS aproach to strategy, collaboration is at least as important as competition. The decisive strength lies in how well the interactions within the VCS enable values to be co-created, i.e. on how well the actors collaborate, and how capable they are to attract and keep actors to collaborate with. This means that the roles they are offered in a VCS have to be attractive.
...
It follows that the ability to invite, interest, enroll, and mobilize others into one's VCS is more important than focusing on competing with opponents who provide similar products or services and have designed competing VCS.
...
competing organizations also can engage each other in collaboration to achieve a common value.
...
Collaboration helps the pie to get bigger for everyone; competition is about what size of a given pie one might take.[Moi ici: Este trecho é certeiro!]
...
The VCS framework invites and allows a focus on how to come together to "make the pie bigger", enabling better, and more varied types of value to be co-created among actors, by actors, and with and for other actors - jointly."

E:

"In a networked world, co-designed configuring offerings imply that strategy is as important in terms of collaborative advantage as it is in terms of competitive advantage - perhaps even more so. It is a world of business where those who design offerings with others create better design and value than others who do not collaborate in the designing."

Curiosidade do dia

"the trajectory of his interests can be traced in the titles of his books, from “The Moral Economy of the Peasant” to “The Art of Not Being Governed.” His best-known book, “Seeing Like a State,” has become a touchstone for political scientists, and amounts to a blistering critique of central planning and “high modernism,” the idea that officials at the center of a state know better than the people they are governing.
...
Scott argues that a state’s interests and the interests of subjects are often not just different but opposite.
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Scott says, is that there is a crucial, direct link between the cultivation of cereal crops and the birth of the first states. It’s not that cereal grains were humankind’s only staples; it’s just that they were the only ones that encouraged the formation of states. “History records no cassava states, no sago, yam, taro, plantain, breadfruit or sweet potato states,” he writes. What was so special about grains? The answer will make sense to anyone who has ever filled out a Form 1040: grain, unlike other crops, is easy to tax. Some crops (potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava) are buried and so can be hidden from the tax collector, and, even if discovered, they must be dug up individually and laboriously. Other crops (notably, legumes) ripen at different intervals, or yield harvests throughout a growing season rather than along a fixed trajectory of unripe to ripe—in other words, the taxman can’t come once and get his proper due. Only grains are, in Scott’s words, “visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and ‘rationable.’ ” Other crops have some of these advantages, but only cereal grains have them all, and so grain became “the main food starch, the unit of taxation in kind, and the basis for a hegemonic agrarian calendar.” The taxman can come, assess the fields, set a level of tax, then come back and make sure he’s got his share of the harvest.
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It was the ability to tax and to extract a surplus from the produce of agriculture that, in Scott’s account, led to the birth of the state, and also to the creation of complex societies with hierarchies, division of labor, specialist jobs (soldier, priest, servant, administrator), and an élite presiding over them. Because the new states required huge amounts of manual work to irrigate the cereal crops, they also required forms of forced labor, including slavery; because the easiest way to find slaves was to capture them, the states had a new propensity for waging war.
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War, slavery, rule by élites—all were made easier by another new technology of control: writing. “It is virtually impossible to conceive of even the earliest states without a systematic technology of numerical record keeping,” Scott maintains. All the good things we associate with writing—its use for culture and entertainment and communication and collective memory—were some distance in the future. For half a thousand years after its invention, in Mesopotamia, writing was used exclusively for bookkeeping: “the massive effort through a system of notation to make a society, its manpower, and its production legible to its rulers and temple officials, and to extract grain and labor from it."

Trechos retirados de "How Civilization Started"

Sorrio com ironia - go ahed morons (parte II)

Já depois de ter escrito a parte I dou de caras com este artigo, "The Tragic Crash of Flight AF447 Shows the Unlikely but Catastrophic Consequences of Automation":

"Our research, recently published in Organization Science, examines how automation can limit pilots’ abilities to respond to such incidents, as becoming more dependent on technology can erode basic cognitive skills.
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Automation provides massive data-processing capacity and consistency of response. However, it can also interfere with pilots’ basic cycle of planning, doing, checking, and acting, which is fundamental to control and learning. If it results in less active monitoring and hands-on engagement, pilots’ situational awareness and capacity to improvise when faced with unexpected, unfamiliar events may decrease. This erosion may lie hidden until human intervention is required, for example when technology malfunctions or encounters conditions it doesn’t recognize and can’t process.
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This idea – that the same technology that allows systems to be efficient and largely error-free also creates systemic vulnerabilities that result in occasional catastrophes – is termed “the paradox of almost totally safe systems.” This paradox has implications for technology deployment in many organizations, not only safety-critical ones.
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As automation has increased in complexity and sophistication, so have the conditions under which such handovers are likely to occur. Is it reasonable to expect startled and possibly out-of-practice humans to be able to instantaneously diagnose and respond to problems that are complex enough to fool the technology? This issue will only become more pertinent as automation further pervades our lives, for example as autonomous vehicles are introduced to our roads.
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Organizations must now consider the interplay of different types of risk. More automation reduces the risk of human errors, most of the time, as shown by aviation’s excellent and improving safety record. But automation also leads to the subtle erosion of cognitive abilities that may only manifest themselves in extreme and unusual situations."

E embora use essa metáfora muitas vezes, liderar uma empresa não é escolher um destino e um caminho. Durante a viagem o destino ou o caminho podem deixar de fazer sentido.

Processos são fluxo, são caudal

Duas empresas em que estou a trabalhar actualmente, e que pertencem a sectores económicos diferentes em cidades diferentes, identificaram como o seu problema principal a falta de um processo estruturado.

No livro "Balanced Scorecard - Concentrar uma organização no que é essencial" uso a metáfora de uma rua para ilustrar a importância dos processos para o fluxo do trabalho, comparando a moderna Avenida da Boavista no Porto, uma estrada larga e recta, com a Rua do Bonjardim, uma rua pré-Marquês de Pombal, cheia de curvas, constrangimentos e irregularidades.

Na consultoria e formação uso a metáfora do fluxo, do caudal:

"(processos são fluxo, são caudal, são vontade de cumprir um desígnio, são horizontalidade" (fonte)

"A versão obsoleta da ISO 9000, a de 2000, define processo como: “conjunto de actividades interrelacionadas e inter actuantes que transformam entradas em saídas”, não tem nada a ver com papeis, é acção, é transformação, é fluxo." (fonte)

"Um processo existe para cumprir uma finalidade: um processo é transformação, é acção, é fluxo, é aquilo que fazemos para contribuir para o negócio." (fonte) 

Em "Liberate Your Team with Clearer Processes" encontro:

"At their heart, effective processes are not about adding red tape — they are about enabling “flow.”
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Wherever there is an activity that happens repeatedly in your business, there is a potential flow. As a leader, you have the choice to leave this flow to chance, to control it, or to channel it.
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Think of a river. If the banks are not strong and defined, the river dissipates across the countryside and has little force. This is like the operation in which employees are given little guidance, and whose efforts meander or collide. Another river may have locks that strictly regulate how much water can flow when and where. This is a company that tries to control every step every employee takes every day. The entire system is rigid and slow, because management can never keep up with the exceptions and re-prioritizations, and employees’ time is consumed by filling out forms and following procedures.
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By contrast, a company with effective processes is like a river with strong banks. People’s attention and energy are channeled where they will have the most impact. The work environment, habits, tools, and methods guide people into doing things right the first time, based on a continually evolving set of shared best practices. No locks are required: Instead, employees are liberated to focus their creativity on developing new best practices, delighting customers, noticing changes in the competitive landscape, or tackling their company’s next moon shot.
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Designing processes this way involves looking at how work naturally gets done and where simple structures can increase the throughput of value"