Calibrar a mudança

A revista HBR de Maio-Junho de 2024 traz o artigo "Transformations That Work". Um artigo interessante e que merece várias leituras.

Uma delas é esta, "3.Explicitly managing organizational energy". Segundo os autores as transformações organizacionais muitas vezes falham porque esgotam mais energia do que geram, levando ao esgotamento dos funcionários e à resistência à mudança. O artigo enfatiza a importância de gerir eficazmente a energia organizacional para evitar estas armadilhas. As transformações bem-sucedidas identificam e abordam os impactes nos trabalhadores e funções mais afectados, garantindo que as mudanças são introduzidas de forma gerível e sequencial.

"Our research shows that if an organization tries to change more than two primary routines simultaneously, the odds of failure increase dramatically. 

...

In successful programs leaders explicitly identify the employees and functions that will be most impacted by each aspect of the initiative and ensure that no group is expected to alter multiple routines at once. Changes are carefully sequenced to limit disruption and prevent widespread organizational fatigue. Success is recognized and rewarded along the way to build energy and enthusiasm for the effort."

Notas para aplicar no desenvolvimento próximo das iniciativas estratégicas de um projecto em curso:

1. Antes de implementar mudanças, identificar que funcionários e funções serão mais afectados pelas mudanças requeridas pelo conjunto de iniciativas estratégicas. Perceber qual a sua carga de trabalho actual e a sua capacidade de lidar com mudanças. 

2. Implementar as mudanças numa sequência estruturada, em vez de todas de uma vez. Esta abordagem ajuda a minimizar as interrupções e evita a sobrecarga de qualquer departamento ou equipa. 

3. Evitar alterar mais de duas rotinas primárias ao mesmo tempo dentro do mesmo grupo de funcionários para reduzir o risco de perda de produtividade e fadiga de mudança.

4. Regularmente, reconhecer os esforços e celebrar os sucessos no processo de transformação. Isto não só aumenta o moral, mas também sustenta a energia e o compromisso necessários.

5. Estar pronto para adaptar a abordagem com base no feedback e nos níveis de energia da equipa. 

"change is always, at some level, about what people value"

Há dias em "Why Change Fails" li e sublinhei:

"All too often, we assume that mere necessity can drive change forward, yet history has shown that not to be the case. There’s a reason why nations fail and businesses go bankrupt. The truth is that if a change is important, some people won’t like it and they will work to undermine it in underhanded and insidious ways. That’s what we need to overcome.

...

Organizations face similar challenges. Sure they invest in tangible assets, such as plant and equipment, but any significant change will involve changing people’s beliefs and behaviors and that is a different matter altogether. Today, even technological transformations have a significant human component.

...

One of the great misconceptions of our modern age is that people make decisions based on rational calculations of utility and that, by engineering the right incentives, we can control behavior. Yet people are far more than economic entities, They crave dignity and recognition, to be valued, in other words, as ends in themselves rather than as merely means to an end.

...

The biggest misconception about change is that once people understand it, they will embrace and so the best way to drive change forward is to explain the need for change in a very convincing and persuasive way. Change, in this view, is essentially a communication exercise and the right combination of words and images is all that is required.

Yet as should be clear by now that is clearly not true. People will often oppose change because it asks them to alter their identity. 

...

In other words, change is always, at some level, about what people value. That’s why to bring change about you need to identify shared values that reaffirm, rather than undermine, people’s sense of identity. Recognition is often a more powerful incentive than even financial rewards. In the final analysis, lasting change always needs to be built on common ground."

Bom material para uma futura conversa oxigenadora.

Interessante esta proposta, OpenSpace Beta para fomentar a transformação: 

"Explain the case for transformation.

Explain that specific practices have not been determined. 

Explain the challenges the business is facing in terms of competition, pricing pressure, organizational effectiveness, etc.

Invite everyone involved into the process of writing the transformation story. Communicate clearly that the managers do not have all the answers and that they are looking for the very best ideas to make the move to Beta genuine, rapid and lasting.

Make it plain that the organization will work with a wide array of Beta practices. The results of each intervention on the system (or "Flip") will be inspected to determine whether to continue the specific practice."

Porque falham as transformações

"The Four Most Common Failure Modes for Transformative Innovations in Large Organizations

.

Too late.  Leaders recognize the need for new growth but don’t commit to it until their competitors have already seized the opportunity.

Too few resources.  Leaders appropriately organize and adopt long-term growth initiatives but fail to allocate sufficient dollars, the right people, and enough of their own mindshare to sustain them.

Impatience for growth.  Many transformative ventures are slow to bloom. Perhaps an early business experiment fails or has slower than expected results. Instead of redesigning the experiment to learn more, senior leadership pulls the plug. Or maybe it experiences some early-stage success and senior leadership demands that it be scaled up before all of its premises have been thoroughly tested, causing the venture to make a fatal stumble.

Competition from the core.  A challenge with growth in the core may cause resources to be diverted away from a promising new venture. Or, in a misguided attempt to restore organizational efficiencies, leadership might “cram” a successful new venture back into the core prematurely, causing it to lose the unique attributes that were responsible for its success."

Eu acrescentaria um quinto factor: a falta de foco, a falta de instinto de matador. Até se indentifica a necessidade de mudança, mas não se muda, mas não se tem fogo no rabo.

Trecho retirado de “Lead from the Future” de Josh Suskewicz.

"The ability to learn from experience in the present — from moments, not models"

Ontem li esta citação num postal que escrevi em 2008:

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

O mundo está a mudar rapidamente, e não vai voltar ao que era. Enquanto os dinossauros teimam em agarrar-se ao passado, "Professores "estão a ficar exaustos" por causa das aulas à distância", os pequenos maíferos procuram adaptar-se.

Também li numa mensagem que me enviaram:

"A maior crise da atualidade não é o vírus, é a crise de liderança."

Vemos governantes aos papéis, governantes que ou não contam a verdade ou mentem:

"The ability to learn from experience in the present — from moments, not models — is just what is needed when the past has become a hindrance and the future is unclear.
...
Notice the experience. The work of transformative learning begins with the simplest but most radical of steps. Pay attention to your experience in the present — the hum within, the buzz around. Notice where your attention flows. What is easy to see and do? What are you missing or leaving out? Try to set aside the past and the future; pause the what-if train of thought. Use your brainpower to notice what is in as much detail as you can.
...
Voice it. Share your experience and inquire about the experience of others. Start from what you see around you, but don’t neglect what you sense within.
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Interpret it. Ask yourself why you and others are having those experiences. Continue to resist judgment about what should or could have happened or what you need to do next. Focus on the meaning of your experience.
...
Own it. Once you put aside interpretations that focus on external factors, you can begin to learn a lot about yourself and the people around you. Here you can bring past and future, your relationships and culture, into the conversation at last.
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Experiment. There is freedom that comes with transformative learning. If you can notice, voice, interpret, and own your experience, you can also begin to imagine how to change it. Once you have one or more plausible hypotheses out in the open, it is time to test them to confirm them, to dissuade yourself of their truth, or to refine them. All of that can be done through little experiments aimed at eliciting new experiences and drawing further conclusions.
...
I often meet people who say they want to learn from experience and really mean it, but they find that it is hard to muddle through without clear parameters. They want to be told what to focus on, assess their progress (and be assessed), and have a plan for putting what they’ll learn to immediate use. That response is understandable, and it’s compatible with incremental learning, which fosters alignment at work. Incremental learning makes us fit the mold. But transformative learning makes us misfits. It invites responsible subversion. That takes courage. It takes courage to own our complicity in the status quo, and it takes courage not to remain captive to it. Just as shame impedes learning and hampers leadership, having the courage to learn gives us the courage to lead."

Trechos retirados de "Learning for a Living - Learning at work is work, and we must make space for it."

Corona, pessoas e melhoria

Ontem numa conversa por Skype com o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras apanhei várias pérolas. Uma dessas últimas pérolas foi acerca da beleza das coisas pequenas.

Queremos fazer cortes radicais com o passado, queremos criar momentos fundacionais, e o meu parceiro escolhe outro caminho: começar com coisas pequenas, um bocadinho todos os dias, uma melhoria por semana, e ir documentando o confronto entre o antes e o depois.

Um bocadinho todos os dias cria rotina.
Um bocadinho todos os dias, mais o confronto entre o antes e o depois, cria a sensação de recompensa que motiva a continuar a rotina.

Outra das pérolas foi acerca da segurança. Há anos que o meu parceiro martela a tecla da segurança, para ele a segurança está na raiz de tudo o resto nas empresas. Quando um trabalhador na altura do começo da preocupação com o surto de Coronavirus perguntou:

- Como é que eu me posso sentir em segurança?

E a resposta foi magistral e plena de ensinamento profundo:

- A segurança está em ti. A segurança que vais ter é a que vais fazer. (Muito antes de haver circular para as empresas a exigir plano de contingência, já ele existia na sua empresa, já as pessoas estavam a par de boas práticas de protecção)

O que é que é mais importante para um trabalhador neste momento? A sua segurança!

Quantas empresas estão a aproveitar a oportunidade do Coronavirus? Como ele escreveu há tempos, o importante é fazer da empresa um local mais seguro do que a própria casa de cada um. Como? Através do espírito crítico e criativo das pessoas da empresa num esforço de aprendizagem colaborativa.

De tarde, no meu escritório (é esquisito porque nesta altura parece que há ainda mais trabalho, as pessoas em teletrabalho acabam por concentrar-se naquilo que envio e puxam muito mais por mim, quando normalmente é ao contrário) olhei para uma prateleira, mirei um livro e agarrei-o.

Sim, "The Dance of Change" coordenado por Peter Senge.

E comecei a ler o capítulo II seguindo os sublinhados feitos em 2006 (?). Estejam atentos ao paralelismo das cores acima com as cores abaixo:

"All living systems start small.
...
Once we surrender the myth that a "heroic CEO creates change", we understand that all great things have small beginnings - and we begin thinking naturally in terms of "pilot groups."
...
Thus, for at least the first several months, more likely than not, most of the action in a profound change initiative will take place at a pilot group level.
...
Nothing can grow in a self-sustaining way unless there are reinforcing processes underlying its growth.
...
We believe there are at least three fundamental reinforcing processe that sustain profound change by building upon each other, only one of which is concerned explicitly with improved business results:

• enhancing personal results

• developing networks of committed people; and 

• improving business results.

To understand these reinforcing processes, it is easiest to start where most leaders start: investing themselves in profound change initiatives.
...
[Moi ici: Primeiro ciclo autocatalítico] R1: "Because it matters" (personal results)"I believe that people do have passion to produce resultssay," says consultant and writer Fred Kofman, "but not business results. Sure, they care about business results, but they really have passion for the quality of their life. Once they experience living their lives more closely to the way they really want to live, that passion will emerge."
.
We have consistently found that direct personal benefits constitute the first source of reinforcing energy for sustaining deep change. It is inherently satisfying to work in a team where people trust one another and feel aligned to a sense of common purpose.

Indeed, people's enthusiasm and willingness to commit themselves naturally increase when they realize personal results from a change initiative; this in turn reinforces their investment, and leads to further learning (the R1 loop in the diagram). If this reinforcing process is not activated, a significant force for building momentum is lost, one that reinforces each of the other forces. That is why most change initiatives fail to activate this source of reinforcing growth; they are not based on harnessing learning capabilities.
...
[Moi ici: Segundo ciclo autocatalítico] R2: "Because my colleagues take it seriously" (networks of committed people)

Studies of the ways in which innovations diffuse within large organizations have consistently pointed to the importance of informal networks and professional communities. These networks, much more than the formal management structures, seem vital to how people learn about new ideas, coach one another in trying them out, and share practical tips and lessons over time. "Organizations are webs of participation," ... "Change the participation and you change the organization."
...
"Communities of Practice" exist throughout all organizations: networks of people who rely on one another in the execution of real work.
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They are bound together by "a common sense of purpose and a real need to know what each other knows." Seely Brown regards them as "the critical building block of a knowledge-based company.
.
Such informal networks are almost always superior to hierarchical channels for spreading new innovations.
...
[Moi ici: Terceiro ciclo autocatalítico] R3: "Because it works" (business results)

How do enhanced learning capabilities lead to greater business results? Primarly, through new business practices.
...
Setting the "Growth processes of profound change" into motion

Each of these processes operates simultaneously, generating a distinct set of forces that can sustain growth, albeit with different speeds due to the different delays in each process. They are interdependent, in that changes in one can strengthen the effects of others - such as when enhanced business results further increases enthusiasm arising from personal results, or when either type of results makes people in informal networks more interested in their own learning initiatives."

Interessante como as duas abordagens se interligam.

Transformar uma empresa

O país está em transformação.

O governo quer que o país assuma e mantenha essa transformação.

Ontem, ouvi isto da boca do primeiro ministro:

"Até agora não faltou nada [no SNS] e não é previsível que venha a faltar", diz Costa https://t.co/JJshXojF2Q pic.twitter.com/zfP1PRSIpa

— Jornal de Notícias (@JornalNoticias) March 23, 2020

No passado Domingo li este artigo na MIT Sloan Management Review,  "A Noble Purpose Alone Won’t Transform Your Company".

Reparem, o propósito não chega para motivar à transformação. Qual é o patamar inicial que os autores propõe? A Confiança.

Será que a confiança assenta em mentiras, em esconder a verdade?

9000 testes

4000 testes

30000 testes

2 milhões de máscaras guardadas no baú.

Pensar em abrir as escolas a 9 de Abril, quando prevêem que o pico ocorra a 14 de Abril...

"How can you establish and nurture high levels of collaboration and engagement in your company? It’s a tiered process: First, you lay a strong foundation by identifying, adopting, and rewarding leadership behaviors that enhance psychological safety and trust. [Moi ici: Recordar a importância de um safe space] That is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition.
.
Once trust is established, you must instill a sense of purpose — the conviction that the work being done has meaning and impact. And once purpose is established, you must generate energy — a day-to-day enthusiasm within the workforce.
...
Trust encourages and enables people to take risks and collaborate in pursuit of aspirational goals. Without trust, people hold back. With it, their reservations dissipate and information flows freely. People openly discuss possibilities, willingly offer their ideas, and help others.
.
Leaders can make it easier for employees to trust them and one another by establishing psychological safety — the feeling that people can offer constructive criticism or a new idea in a group setting without risking disapproval or rejection.
...
For instance, although leaders are usually advised to “walk the talk,” when it comes to trust, they also must “talk the walk.” That’s because nurturing benevolence- and integrity-based trust requires communicating who they are and the intent of their actions in clear, unambiguous ways. When leaders walk without the talk, they leave employees guessing, and in work situations those guesses often take a negative cast. “People have so many different ways they can misinterpret what I am doing or make inferences about my intent,” a manager at a pharmaceutical company told us. “If they just have a slightly better sense of who I am and where I am coming from, this kind of frenzy is less common.”
...
Once people have a sense of trust, it is much easier for leaders to widen the aperture and show employees how the work they do matters to the organization and the outside world. [Moi ici: Recordar daqui - "Some teams do not even know what value they are creating from a customer point of view: the workers have never seen a real customer"] Leaders accomplish this not only by giving people inherently meaningful tasks (which isn’t always possible) but also by creating a context for meaningful collaboration.
...
Once the tiers of trust and purpose are in place, leaders can turn their attention to energizing employees. This is the process of motivating others to bring their best selves to work and fully engage with colleagues. Research shows that energy is a key stimulator of high-quality work connections and collaboration.
...
Energizers provide the jolt needed to quickly produce novel outcomes and speed the transfer of knowledge. This makes them highly effective change agents. But that jolt can be delivered in a strategic manner only if organizations recognize their energizers and deploy their special skills.
...
Leaders often underestimate the power of energizing behaviors. But throughout our study of energizers, we’ve found that their success is driven not by their ability to make things happen but by their ability to attract ideas, opportunities, and talented people."

É nestes momentos de mudança ... (parte X)

Parte I, parte II, parte III, parte IV, parte V, parte VI, parte VII, parte VIII e parte IX.


No último postal desta série escrevi:

Normalmente, prefiro seguir outra abordagem. Ao olhar para a diferença de desempenho entre o Hoje e a Meta, peço que se veja cada um desses resultados como algo de perfeitamente normal.

Se o desempenho actual não é já o desempenho futuro desejado é porque a realidade actual conspira contra nós e nos limita.

Os factos negativos que atormentam a vida da organização são sintomas dessa conspiração:

Factos são factos, factos são realidades inatacáveis sobre as quais se podem construir modelos. Por exemplo, um exemplo desses factos pode ser:

Consultando os registos de reclamação, as notas das reuniões e conversando com os comerciais pode concluir-se que este facto é real.

Depois, entramos no reino das opiniões:

Por exemplo:

Se juntarmos 5 ou 6 pessoas que conhecem a organização e têm pensamento estratégico podemos pedir que listem causas e razões de importância para cada facto negativo que consigam identificar:

Por exemplo, para uma pessoa podemos ter:

Para 5 ou 6 pessoas podemos ter cerca de 40 sugestões de relações de causa-efeito.

Colocando estas 40 sugestões numa parede podemos começar a relacionar essas relações de causa-efeito entre si e, criando uma estrutura hierárquica chegar a (visão parcial):

Olhando para a cadeia de relações de causa-efeito da base até ao topo... podemos equacionar actividades que se realizadas vão originar cadeias de relações de causa-efeito positivas.

Por exemplo, desta base de trabalho:

Foi possível listar:

O roxo - representa uma causa raiz (não tem causas a montante)
O cinza - representa uma acção a realizar para eliminar ou diminuir um passo na cadeia de relações de causa-efeito
O amarelo - representa um acontecimento que decorrerá naturalmente da acção cinza realizada
O verde - representa um acontecimento importante que decorrerá naturalmente da acção cinza realizada

Depois, podemos listar todos os cinzas, todas as acções a realizar. Por exemplo:

E agrupá-las em temas relacionados:

Cada tema pode ser tratado por um projecto específico. Dando origem a uma Ficha de Missão.

Continua.

Transformar organizações

Dedicado a uma empresa bem sucedida que procura focar-se ainda mais nos clientes-alvo.

"Inspire people by presenting a compelling vision for the future. During times of uncertainty, people experiencing change want a clear view of the path ahead. It’s important to share what you know – including what’s changing, when, and how. But for most change initiatives, it is also helpful to start with a narrative or story that clearly articulates the “big picture” – why change is important and how it will positively affect the organization long-term.
...
Keep employees informed by providing regular communications. Change communications is never a one-and-done event; keeping employees informed is something that you will have to do throughout every step of the change process.
...
When thinking about how to communicate, keep the following in mind:
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Be clear and consistent: All of your communications should tie back to the narrative that you developed, reiterating the case for change and presenting a compelling future vision.
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You will not have all the answers: Often times, you will not have all the answers employees are looking for, and that breeds anxiety and uncertainty. It’s important to focus on what you know, and be candid about what you don’t. If you do not have an answer, say so. When this occurs, it’s important to let employees know you are committed to communicating openly and transparently, and will follow-up as soon as you know more.
.
Don’t forget to articulate “What’s in it for me?”: One of the most important phrases you may come across in change communications is “what’s in it for me?” If your employees understand what’s in it for them personally, you’re more likely to see individuals commit to and own the change. Failing to articulate “what’s in it for me” will only hinder your efforts.
...
Empower leaders and managers to lead through change. Major changes or transformations often require asking employees to adopt specific behaviors or skillsets in order to be successful. And when senior leaders model the behavior changes, transformations are five times more likely to be successful.
...
Find creative ways to involve employees in the change. When planning for major change events, it is important to solicit feedback and engage people in the process. This helps build ownership in the change, and makes employees more likely to support the change and even champion it."

Trechos retirados de "Don’t Just Tell Employees Organizational Changes Are Coming — Explain Why"

"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.
.
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."

Começar pelo fim (parte II)

Depois de ter escrito "Começar pelo fim", ontem à tarde em "Guided Change" sublinhei:

"Over the past many years I have worked with some powerful teams help clients with change. In every interaction, the clients that were the most successful had a clear picture of what change would look like and feel like. By creating what they wanted to become and mapping it out, could individuals, teams or whole organizations understand the path that they needed to take and the obstacles to overcome. Most importantly, they knew they had a guide to help them when they faltered or got off course."

Recordar Ortega Y Gasset em "O meu presente não existe senão graças ao meu futuro"

O passado não é tão imutável como parece

Descobri a conta de Kevin Dulle no Twitter (@IdeaFreak) onde encontrei esta imagem:

E como um seixo atirado a um lago, o que ficou a ondular na minha mente foi aquele:

Talvez seja impossível mudar o passado e o que nos aconteceu.

No entanto, é sempre possível mudar a nossa interpretação sobre o que nos aconteceu. É sempre possível rever os acontecimentos e reinterpretá-los à luz do que entretanto aprendemos e vivemos.

Estou a lembrar-me, por exemplo, do funcionário que caiu no desemprego com o encerramento da fábrica que o empregava e que se viu obrigado a alargar a sua zona de conforto, sendo hoje empresário numa PME de sucesso. Estou a lembrar-me também da novata que caiu no desemprego para proteger o lugar dos mais antigos e que se transformou em empresária de sucesso.

"Stretch goals"

Um excelente artigo na HBR de Janeiro de 2017, "The Stretch Goal Paradox". Talvez um dos melhores artigos que li na revista no último ano:

"What executive hasn’t dreamed of transforming an organization by achieving seemingly impossible goals through the sheer force of will? We’re not talking about merely challenging goals. We’re talking about management moon shots—goals that appear unattainable given current practices, skills, and knowledge. In the parlance of the business world, these are often referred to as stretch goals,
...
Stretch goals are often viewed as truly important sources of individual and organizational motivation and achievement.
...
“More often than not, [daring] goals can tend to attract the best people and create the most exciting work environments…stretch goals are the building blocks for remarkable achievements in the long term.”
...
No wonder many executives conclude that stretch goals are a great way to magically resuscitate or transform an ailing innovation strategy.
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But that’s not the case. Our research, which we first outlined in a 2011 award-winning Academy of Management Review article with Michael Lawless and Andrew Carton, has shown that stretch goals are not only widely misunderstood but widely misused. Organizations that would most benefit from them seldom employ them, and organizations for which stretch goals are probably not a good strategy often turn to them in a desperate attempt to generate breakthroughs. Neither approach is likely to be successful. This is what we call “the stretch goal paradox.”
...
So, before launching stretch goals in sales, production, quality, or any other realm, how can you be confident that your grand aspirations will trigger positive attitudes and actions rather than negative ones? When facing radically out-of-the-box opportunities or threats, you can’t just rely on intuition. You need clear guidelines for assessing and addressing risk. You have to know when stretch goals do and do not make sense, and when to employ them rather than set more achievable objectives.
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Predicting the Outcome of Stretch Goal Use
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Two critical factors consistently seem to determine success at meeting stretch goals. Though they appear straightforward, often managers ignore them or don’t appreciate how they’ll affect a firm’s abilities."

"Fogo no rabo"

Em 2008, em "Schwerpunkt", usei um termo que uso nas empresas desde 2002: fogo no rabo.

Por vezes lido com empresas, empresas que não são grandes, empresas que deviam ser ágeis mas que têm um ritmo muito lento. Digo-lhes que lhes falta "fogo no rabo" para correrem a sério.

Em "Why CEOs Should Commit to Many Small Battles Instead of a Single Big One", aplicado às empresas grandes, apresenta-se um conselho sobre como fugir ao ritmo de mudança lenta das organizações grandes.

"As CEO, you can fight back by sponsoring micro battles — discrete, narrowly defined, customer-focused initiatives pursued by small cross-functional teams. Micro battles force everyone to behave like insurgents, focusing only on what’s essential to meet a narrow goal.
...
How? Consider a typical corporate goal: Grow sales of electric hand tools in Western Europe by 4%. That might encourage people to work harder, but it doesn’t require that anyone work differently or think outside their own department. A micro battle, by contrast, has a tightly drawn goal: “Let’s win 50% share in Western Europe of the do-it-yourself store business for mid-priced circular saws by displacing our main competitor.”
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To win such a battle, you need a team made up of people who are closest to each market.
...
The team also needs people who provide crucial support—a supply chain expert, who can help drive down the cost of mid-priced saws, and a consumer insight expert, who understands consumer preferences for hand tools."

Claro que estas micro-batalhas têm de partir da orientação estratégica senão resultam em "much ado about nothing"

"taking responsibility for making it a success"

"I also knew that most people in large organizations like ours would have a hard time joining movements like the one we started. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s just that most of the time, executing today’s strategy using current information is the more comfortable path. That’s what we all learn to do in school, after all. But using yesterday’s information to execute yesterday’s strategy is a terrible excuse for not moving forward. All of the information in the world will not guarantee success if it’s based on yesterday. Sure, you can hire third parties to design your vision and strategy for you. But then you’re not taking responsibility for making it a success."

Trecho retirado de "Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation"

Keith Jarreth e as PME (parte III)

 Parte I e parte II.

"When we see skilled performers succeeding in difficult circumstances, we habitually describe them as having triumphed over adversity, or despite the odds. But that’s not always the right perspective. Jarrett didn’t produce a good concert in trying times. He produced the performance of a lifetime, but the shortcomings of the piano actually helped him.
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The substandard instrument forced Jarrett away from the tinny high notes and into the middle register. His left hand produced rumbling, repetitive bass riffs as a way of covering up the piano’s lack of resonance. Both of these elements gave the performance an almost trancelike quality. That might have faded into wallpaper music, but Jarrett couldn’t drop anchor in that comfortable musical harbor, because the piano simply wasn’t loud enough.
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“What’s important to understand is the proportion between the instrument and the magnitude of the hall,” recalls Vera Brandes. “Jarrett really had to play that piano very hard to get enough volume to get to the balconies. He was really—pchow—pushing the notes down.”
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Standing up, sitting down, moaning, writhing, Jarrett didn’t hold back in any way as he pummeled the unplayable piano to produce something unique. It wasn’t the music that he ever imagined playing. But handed a mess, Keith Jarrett embraced it, and soared.
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Keith Jarrett’s instinct was not to play, and it’s an instinct that most of us would share. We don’t want to work with bad tools, especially when the stakes are so high. But in hindsight, Jarrett’s instinct was wrong. What if our own similar instincts are also wrong, and in a much wider range of situations?"

Agora, a situação de Keith Jarrett começa a ter semelhanças com a mensagem do livro de Malcom Gladwell sobre David e Golias...
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Quantas PME, quando o mundo muda, e o mundo muda cada vez mais e mais depressa, não querem mudar, lutam contra a necessidade de mudar ou pedem ao governo um apoio para que não precisem de mudar?
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E as que mudam e descobrem que depois da tempestade chegam a um porto melhor do que o anterior?

"Amazon didn’t kill traditional commerce; it helped shift it"

Via @armando_moreira cheguei a "Fitness is getting disrupted?!?! Not so fast, my friend...":

"So yes, disruption is here and it’s real and it’s happening in a lot of industries.
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But … the way we think about it is often wrong.
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Some health club industry leaders will claim that nothing can replace human interactions, so clubs and trainers can’t be threatened by these new business models. I’d have to disagree. It is true that there is no replacement for human beings, but technology is enabling business models to do things in ways that humans on their own can not at scale.
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Many of the most successful brands will blend human interaction with technology tools to create even higher levels of service -- and trainers can support hundreds of clients with a combination of digital and physical delivery.
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By 2020, you’re going to see a global wellness community of over 1B on traditional brick-and-mortar health clubs, wearables, and apps. Each aspect of the ecosystem is going to inform the others. It’s not that MyFitnessPal or a newer, cooler FitBit is going to “kill” the traditional health club industry. It’s going to be a partnership where each side informs the other.
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That’s what we often get wrong about disruption. Amazon didn’t kill traditional commerce; it helped shift it. [Moi ici: Recordar este exemplo recente] Uber hasn’t killed yellow cabs, but it’s made them think differently about their business models. When we view disruption in terms of “X will destroy Y,” we create fear-based, short-term thinking in traditional executives -- and that’s bad for everyone.
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The fitness industry is about living your best life and being your best self -- with a few people making some money along that arc. There are disruptive technologies reshaping how the industry thinks about and presents itself, yes, but ultimately these technologies will help to create a massive global ecosystem rooted in an omni-channel approach to delivery."

Uma mensagem na linha da de Suzanne Berger em 2006:

“… there are no “sunset” industries condemned to disappear in high wage economies, although there are certainly sunset and condemned strategies, among them building a business on the advantages to be gained by cheap labor” 

Keith Jarreth e as PME

Na passada quarta-feira, enquanto descia o Marão, literalmente, resolvi espreitar o último livro de Tim Harford, "Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives".
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O autor sabe como captar o interesse do leitor, começando com uma estória:

"On the 27th of January, 1975, a seventeen-year-old German girl named Vera Brandes stepped out onto the vast stage of the Cologne opera house. The auditorium was empty, and lit only by the dim green glow of the emergency exit sign, but this was the most exciting day of Vera’s life. She was the youngest concert promoter in Germany, and she had persuaded the Opera House to host a late-night concert of improvised jazz by the American pianist Keith Jarrett. The concert was a sellout, and in just a few hours, Jarrett would stride out in front of 1,400 people, sit down at the Bösendorfer piano, and without sheet music or rehearsal would begin to play.
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But that afternoon, Vera Brandes was introducing Keith Jarrett and his producer Manfred Eicher to the piano—and it wasn’t going well.
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“Keith played a few notes,” recalls Brandes. “Then Eicher played a few notes. They didn’t say anything. They circled the instrument several times and then tried a few keys. Then after a long silence, Manfred came to me and said, ‘If you don’t get another piano, Keith can’t play tonight.’.
Vera Brandes was stunned. She knew that Jarrett had requested a specific instrument and the Opera House had agreed to provide it. What she hadn’t realized was that, caring little for late-night jazz, they’d failed and didn’t even know it. The administrative staff had gone home, the piano movers hadn’t been able to find the Bösendorfer piano that had been requested, and so they had instead installed, as Brandes recalls, “this tiny little Bösendorfer, that was completely out of tune, the black notes in the middle didn’t work, the pedals stuck. It was unplayable.”
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Brandes tried everything to find a replacement. She even rounded up friends to push a grand piano through the streets of Cologne, but it was raining hard, and the local piano tuner warned her that the substitute piano would never survive the trip. Instead, he worked to fix up the little instrument that was onstage already. Yet he could do nothing about the muffled bass notes, the plinky high notes, and the simple fact that the piano —“a small piano, like half a piano”—just didn’t make a loud enough sound to reach the balconies of the vast auditorium.
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Understandably, Jarrett didn’t want to perform. He left and went to wait in his car, leaving Brandes to anticipate the arrival of 1,400 soon-to-be furious concertgoers. The best day of her life had suddenly become the worst; her enthusiasm for jazz and her precocious entrepreneurial spirit brought the prospect of utter humiliation. Desperate, she caught up with Jarrett and through the window of his car, she begged him to play. The young pianist looked out at the bedraggled German teenager standing in the rain and took pity on her. “Never forget,” Jarrett said. “Only for you.”
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A few hours later, as midnight approached, Jarrett walked out to the unplayable piano in front of a packed concert hall, and began.
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“The minute he played the first note, everybody knew this was magic,” recalls Brandes.
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That night’s performance began with a simple chiming series of notes, then quickly gained complexity as it moved by turns between dynamism and a languid, soothing tone. It was beautiful and strange, and it is enormously popular: the Köln Concert album has sold 3.5 million copies."

Quando cheguei aqui parei e fiquei maravilhado.
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Há cerca de 10 anos o meu amigo Eduardo apresentou-me Keith Jarreth e foi amor à primeira vista. E o Köln Concert é pura magia que aprendi a apreciar como companhia durante muitas horas de trabalho ou de viagem.
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Ontem de manhã bem cedo, durante uma caminhada matinal debaixo de chuva miudinha junto aos esteiros de Estarreja, fiz uma ligação entre esta estória e as PME.
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Continua.

Uma preocupação recorrente

"Creating meaningful, long-lasting change must start at the top and filter through the whole of an organization. It requires understanding the depth of the need, developing a smart strategy and high-quality execution.
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the truth is nearly 70% of transformations fail or don’t live up to expectations. Frankly, I’m surprised it isn’t more. They rarely fail in strategy, but in adoption, experience and execution.
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“It is not how you start, it is how you execute.”
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The follow-through on execution is often the missing, and most important, piece of the puzzle. [Moi ici: Confesso que é uma preocupação recorrente na fase das iniciativas estratégicas de um BSC numa empresa. Há uma resistência a essas coisas fatelas como a calendarização, ou prestação de contas] And by execution, I don’t necessarily mean technology implementation."

Trechos retirados de "Your Success is Based on Execution, Not Implementation."

Sem interacção ... vai ser difícil

"Can there be too much personalisation? ... that now the ‘segment of one’ can truly exist, we could run the risk of making marketing too predictable.
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Now that we have the technology to effectively personalise every communication, the concept of mass customisation has been able to move itself forward and the ‘segment of one’ can truly exist.
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The paradox of personalisation is that identifying our past behaviour may not indicate future behaviour and if marketers personalise too much, curiosity is curbed outside of pre-defined preferences. It all comes down to how we use the technology available to us and the extent to which we allow these tools to dictate how we engage with consumers."

Isto chama-me a atenção para 2 pontos:

• a importância da interacção; e
• o desejo de transformação.

Sobre a interacção escrevi ontem em "A importância da interacção".
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Sobre o desejo de transformação quero recordar o esquema de Pine & Gilmore:

E o recente "A economia das transformações".
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Como saber se alguém quer ser transformado sem interagir e criar um projecto de co-criação de um resultado que nenhuma das partes à partida sabe qual vai ser?

Trechos retirados de "Segment of One: Why Personalisation Could Become a Victim of its Own Success"

A importância de criar etapas proximais

"Error 6: Not Systematically Planning for, and Creating, Short-Term Wins
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Real transformation takes time, and a renewal effort risks losing momentum if there are no short-term goals to meet and celebrate. Most people won’t go on the long march unless they see compelling evidence in 12 to 24 months that the journey is producing expected results. Without short-term wins, too many people give up or actively join the ranks of those people who have been resisting change.
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Creating short-term wins is different from hoping for short-term wins. The latter is passive, the former active. In a successful transformation, managers actively look for ways to obtain clear performance improvements, establish goals in the yearly planning system, achieve the objectives, and reward the people involved with recognition, promotions, and even money.
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Commitments to produce short-term wins help keep the urgency level up and force detailed analytical thinking that can clarify or revise visions."

Uma preocupação antiga no nosso trabalho, transformar sucesso distal numa série de etapas proximais, onde cada uma é uma oportunidade para celebrar o progresso.
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Recordar:

• Uma sucessão de pequenos projectos que produzem resultados rapidamente (Dezembro de 2012)
• Desmascarar mitos (parte IV) (Setembro de 2010) 
• Small Wins (Junho de 2009)
• Fazer a mudança acontecer (parte VII) (Junho de 2009)