Ter uma estratégia significa saber dizer "Não!"

Em Agosto de 2006 recomendei a leitura deste artigo "Strategy Means Saying "No"" de David Maister.
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Agora, depois do choque de 2007, com a ruptura dos modelos de negócio e mentais que vigoravam e, em plena re-calibração, a sua leitura é ainda mais importante.

"Finally, someone said out loud what was on everybody’s mind: “But do we have the courage to turn away business? Do we really have the confidence to tell paying customers that we are not right for them?”.
My answer? “Not only should you do that, but the only way you can achieve any strategic distinction is to do that. Strategy is deciding whose business you are going to turn away.”"

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"The very essence of having a strategy is being selective about choosing the criteria on which a firm wishes to compete, and then being creative and disciplined in designing an operation that is finely tuned to deliver those particular virtues."

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"Staying focused and true to a strategy is something that has always been, and will always be, hard to do.
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The hunger for volume (and the use of managerial scorecards that emphasize it) has meant that many individuals and firms are often uncomfortable with (or even shocked by) the notion that, to achieve a distinctive strategy, they will need to turn away work that a major competitor might reasonably want to serve.
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“Oh, we don’t want to take it that far!” they say. “Our strategy is to emphasize certain things, not to exclude others. If a client opportunity comes along outside the strategic areas we have chosen, we’ll serve that client. We’re under too much fiscal pressure to turn away cash opportunities. Can’t we just develop a clear and crisp value proposition and then let the clients decide if they want to pay for it?”
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My answer is that (as I argued in my previous article “Strategy and the Fat Smoker”) you can’t get the benefits of a strategy that you don’t implement, and half-measures are unlikely to work. Strategy is not about understanding something—or planning to get around to it—it’s about having the courage to make it happen. You can’t let other people, even clients, determine the pace at which you create your distinctiveness."

Estratégia é caminho, é comportamento, não é destino

" “doing strategy” is not really about selecting objectives, targets or future states. (“We aim to be the best”) That’s too imprecise, and too easy to pay lip-service to.
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It doesn’t matter whether you choose to start by discussing purpose, mission, values or culture (or anything else.) Whichever you begin with, it will turn out to be the rules you choose to live by that determine your future, not the targets you aim at.
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You must start by asking yourselves – what are we going to be uncompromising about? This will tell the world (inside and outside the organization) who you are, what you are, and what are your vision, mission, purpose and values.
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“What explains the relative failure of most organizations to create effective strategy? Part of the problem …can be traced to their interpretation of the word strategy itself…
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In war, objectives can often be clearly defined, and so strategy is thought of as a means to a specific end. ....By contrast, goal orientation becomes arguably inappropriate when success has to be indefinitely sustained.”
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I call this “acting as if there is no final whistle.” It means running the organization not to attain particular targets in a particular time frame, but recognizing that, one way or another, the organization will continue into the indefinite future."

Moi ici: Estratégia é caminho, não é destino. É importante estabelecer qual é o ponto de chegada num dado momento temporal futuro, mas isso de nada serve para realizar a transformação necessária. A transformação ocorre através das mudanças de comportamento do dia-a-dia, através das pequenas e grandes opções anónimas.
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"It’s rather like thinking of an organization as a biological entity or a species. It’s not in the choice of objectives that a species differentiates and sustains itself, but through its special ways of adapting and responding to shifts in its environment.
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Consider also the well-known computer simulation that, by specifying, in advance, some basic parameters (including the rules of reproduction) and then allowing the game of begin, wonderful patterns emerge, and some species flourish while others die out. (Moi ici: As simulações de Lindgren, por exemplo. Ainda me lembro do bang que fez na minha cabeça esta frase que se segue: "So who was the winner? What was the best strategy in the end? What Lindgren found was that this is a nonsensical question. In an evolutionary system such as Lindgren’s model, there is no single winner, no optimal, no best strategy. Rather, anyone who is alive at a particular point in time, is in effect a winner, because everyone else is dead. To be alive at all, an agent must have a strategy with something going for it, some way of making a living, defending against competitors, and dealing with the vagaries of its environment.” )
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The differences between these “species” are not differences in objectives, targets, purpose or mission. The differences which really determine the future are the rules they employ to make their decisions when faced with choices."

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Afinal de contas "nature evolves away from constraints, not toward goals"

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Trechos retirados de "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister.

Confúcio e os clientes-alvo?

"Zigong asked Confucius, "What would you say if all the people of a village like a person?"

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"That is not enough," replied Confucius.

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"What would you say if all the people of the village dislike a person?"

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"That is not enough," replied Confucius.

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"It is better when the good people of the village like him, and the bad people dislike him"

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"You cannot and should not try to please everyone. Make sure that the right people like you, and it will be expected that others will not. That's how the world works."

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Quem são os clientes-alvo da sua organização?

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E fica preocupado por nem todos os clientes da sua empresa manifestarem satisfação total nos inquéritos ISO 9001?

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E é induzido a melhorar o desempenho face a todos os clientes pelos auditores e consultores?

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Trechos retirados de "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister

Courage is one of the scarcest commodities there is

“Too many firms have made growth and size, rather than differentiation, their strategic priority. Instead of identifying and executing a clear market positioning, many companies and firms have consciously pursued a policy of “If you need it, we can do it!”
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“staying focused and true to a strategy has been, and always will be, hard to do.
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The hunger for volume has meant that many individuals and firms are uncomfortable with (or even shocked by) the notion that, to achieve a distinctive strategy, they will need to turn away work that a major competitor may reasonable want to serve.”
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“you can’t get the benefits of a strategy that you don’t implement, and half measures are unlikely to work. Strategy is not about understanding something – or planning to get around to it. It’s about having the courage to make it happen. You can’t let other people, even clients, determine the pace at which you create your distinctiveness.”
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“Courage is one of the scarcest commodities there is. That’s why it’s a significant source of competitive advantage!”

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Trechos retirados de "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister

Ganhar competitividade reduzindo a complexidade

"A strategy is not just choosing a target market, but actally designing an operation that will consistently deliver the superior client benefits you claim to provide." (Moi ici: O sumo que se encerra nesta frase!!! Quando escolhemos um mercado-alvo, quando escolhemos um tipo de clientes-alvo, se os queremos servir bem, se os queremos servir com vantagem competitiva, temos de transformar a nossa organização numa máquina dedicada, concentrada, alinhada, sintonizada em servir esses clientes-alvo)

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"Strategy is deciding whose business you are going to turn away" (Moi ici: Assim, se escolhemos um tipo como os clientes-alvo, se transformamos a nossa organização numa máquina dedicada a servi-los bem, transformamos a nossa organização numa máquina pouco competitiva para servir outros tipos de clientes)

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"As companies keep discovering to their detriment, it is certain business decay if you try to plase all possible market segments. The broader the group of clients to which you try to appeal, or the wider the range of services you try to provide, the less customized your operation can be to each segment within that group.

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If you never say "no," you will just be one more undifferentiated firm, trying to do a little bit of everything and, as Skinner pointed out, will almost certainly be superb at none of them" (Moi ici: Esta semana tive uma reunião com o gerente de uma pequena empresa cheia, repleta, atolada de trabalho, que já descobriu isto sozinho. Em vez de ter uma empresa que faz tudo e recorrer a subcontratados que não cumprem, que não têm qualidade, que não sabem dizer não... Por que não ter duas empresas: uma para as grandes séries e trabalhos baratos e, outra para a nata. Para uma o preço como factor competitivo (order winner), para outra o preço como factor higiénico (order qualifier) (Terry Hill))

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Trechos retirados de "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister

Por que a abordagem por processos é fundamental

"No one diet idea is free of flaws or drawbacks. The best diet for you is the one you will stick to.
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Your firm needs to debate the following questions if you really want to pursue this or any other strategic goal:

• Which “diet,” if integrated into the normal running of the firm, would actually get us to perform at the level required to achieve the benefits we seek?
• Which would we be prepared to adopt as a central part of our regular lifestyle?
• If we don’t like any of these diets, can we think of another that will have as much force as these, but that we could live with more easily?

If there is no specific diet that all your people can agree to follow, then you must conclude that you are not really willing or able to pursue that strategic goal.
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If all business improvement is like curing a fat smoker or helping an alcoholic recover, then what actually motivates people and organizations to change?
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We all know the main thing that works: a major crisis! (Moi ici: A velha burning platform... a grande criador do sentido de urgência)
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A major source of failure in implementing sensible business strategies is that we underestimate how much effort is truly required to bring about significant improvement. Individuals and organizations frequently fail to incorporate the new activities into their dayli lives. Strategic actions are viewed as special, separate events rather than regular business activities. In other words, there’s real life, and then there’s the diet. (Moi ici: As acções estratégicas, as iniciativas estratégicas, são projectos, são transientes, são eventos especiais. É fundamental incorporar, embeber, as mudanças trazidas pelas iniciativas naquilo que é permanente, naquilo que é a rotina, nos processos. Ou seja, a abordagem por processos.)
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Viewed that way, all improvement programs are doomed to failure. As my trainer has pointed out, you don’t really get the sustained benefits of exercise until it has become as routine and is as natural as brushing your teeth and taking a shower each day.
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Anything less than that will jeopardize any short-term gains you may obtain with bursts of activity. It’s about routines, not special events."

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BTW, sempre que os governos falam de austeridade e PECs é possível visualizar mudanças nos hábitos e nos comportamentos? Ou não são antes suspensões temporárias do regabofe, ou não são antes um "suster a respiração" por momentos até que se possa voltar a respirar em força.

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Eheheh... a densidade, o substrato de quem gere este país é tão superficial como a camada de húmus no deserto do Saara. Há um ano os líderes de Banco de Portugal queriam aumentar-se em 5%... lembram-se?

Trecho retirado de "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister

Strategy and the Fat Smoker (parte I)

Do livro "Strategy and the Fat Smoker" de David Maister retiro:

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"What is very hard is actually doing what you know to be good for you in the long-run, in spite of short-run temptations.
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In the past two-and-a-half decades, I have been trusted to see a large number of strategic plans from a wide variety of professional firms around the world, including direct competitors. What is immediately noteworthy is how similar (if not identical) they all are.
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This is not because anyone is being stupid, but because everyone is smart. Every competitor is smart enough to analyze the market and spot which sectors are growing and which are in decline. Few competitors get it wrong. Everyone - absolutely everyone - can see which services and products are "hot" and which are becoming commodities.
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What is more, everyone understands the basis of business success: provide outstanding client service, act like team players, provide a good place to work, invest in your future. No sensible firm (or person) would enunciate a strategy that advocated anything else.
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However, just because something is obvious doesn't make it easy. Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared to others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do.
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Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared to others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do.
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We know what to do, we know why we should do it, and we know how to do it. Yet most businesses and individuals don't do what's good for them.
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The rewards (and pleasure) are in the future; the disruption, discomfort and discipline needed to get there are immediate.
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The necessary outcome of strategic planning is not analytical insight but resolve."
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Este último ponto "is not analytical insight but resolve" é fundamental... é, por vezes, desesperante, como reflectimos aqui: "O sentido da urgência", "Instilar um sentido de urgência!" e "Procrastinação e falta de sentido de urgência".

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Em linha com um artigo de Junho de 2008 da Harvard Business Review "The Secrets to Successful Strategy Execution":

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"Employees at three out of every five companies rated their organization weak at execution—that is, when asked if they agreed with the statement “Important strategic and operational decisions are quickly translated into action,” the majority answered no.
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Execution is the result of thousands of decisions made every day by employees acting according to the information they have and their own self-interest. In our work helping more than 250 companies learn to execute more effectively, we’ve identified four fundamental building blocks executives can use to influence those actions—clarifying decision rights, designing information flows, aligning motivators, and making changes to structure.)"

O prémio... e as dificuldades, da coerência

David Maister neste postal "Strategy Means Saying "No"" chama a atenção para a importância da concentração de um empresa no que é essencial.

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"Consider McDonalds. For any customer that truly places a premium on low cost and speed, McDonalds is hard to beat, because it has been optimized around a clear market positioning.

However, if someone were to walk into a McDonald’s and say, “I feel like having a curry today,” the service provider would not reply “Sure. That will increase our revenues. Let me shut down the grill and make you one.”

Instead, the reply (except, perhaps, in India) would be, “I’m sorry, but we are not designed to meet every possible need. Perhaps I can help you find somewhere nearby that can give you what you want?”

As companies keep discovering to their cost, it is certain business decay if you try to please all possible market segments. The broader the group of clients to which you try to appeal, or the wider the range of services you try to provide, the less customized your operation can be to each segment within that group.

If you never say “no,” you will just be one more undifferentiated firm, trying to do a little bit of everything and, as Skinner pointed out, will almost certainly be superb at none of them."

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"“The hardest thing in the world for most professionals to do is to turn work away. It offends our desperate desire to be liked by everyone and plays to insecurity that afflicts even the best of us. The moment we aren’t worked off our feet, we think we’ll never work again.”

The situation has been made worse by many firms’ explicit (if misguided) efforts to transform themselves into “one-stop shopping” operations with extensive efforts at cross-selling additional services to clients and customers.

Too many firms have made growth and size their strategic priority, rather than differentiation. Instead of identifying and executing a clear market positioning, many companies and firms have consciously pursued a policy of “If you need it, we can do it!”"

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Esta é uma das maiores dificuldades na minha vida profissional.