"Opportunities are not just out there, ready to be plucked"

Part I.

"Behavioral failures are impediments to firms’ abilities to compete for opportunities. Such failures are behavioral insofar as these impediments are mental in origin. Behavioral failures can be viewed in terms of limits to strategic leaders’ abilities to manage and overcome such mental impediments.
...
These failures revolve around three key dimensions: rationality, plasticity, and shaping ability.
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Rationality. Strategic opportunities must reflect asymmetries between prices and the rent-generating potential of some of their constituent elements. The first necessary condition for eliminating such discrepancies is that competing economic agents have the ability to spot all undervalued courses of action. This condition requires that competing agents can identify all possible courses of action and accurately evaluate them. If this condition is not met, untapped opportunities can remain ignored by firms, even if competition is intense. Because of the resulting lack of competition for these opportunities, the market prices for some of their constituent elements will not converge to their true values.
...
economic agents are generally myopic; they are more reliable and effective at identifying and predicting the outcomes of courses of action that lie in the neighborhood of their firm’s current activities than they are at finding and estimating outcomes of more distant ones.
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distant foresight is not impossible, but it involves mental processes that are more difficult to perform reliably.
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Plasticity. Full rationality is necessary but not sufficient to negate opportunities. Competing firms might be fully rational and know where superior opportunities lie, but they might also be inert and thus unable to act on and compete for such opportunities. In landscape terms, agents could know the entire landscape and decide to act on a specific opportunity, but their firm might unexpectedly get stuck on its way to the peak because of bounded plasticity, with dire effects on its survival prospects. In this case, when identifying a superior opportunity does not translate or translates only partially into competitive behavior, the discrepancies between elements’ current and true values would remain or be eliminated only after major time lags. The theoretical condition for superior opportunities to be absent must therefore also encompass a lack of bounds in firms’ plasticity.
...
It was argued that most local opportunities are noticed. Even if inertial forces prevent some firms from acting on such opportunities, the fact that many profitseeking players spot and decide to pursue the same or similar opportunities attenuates, in the aggregate, these forces’ impact on competition for them. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that incremental changes typically face less resistance than long jumps do. Consequently, existing opportunities tend to be distant.
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Accordingly, if valuable opportunities are hard to find within firms’ current basins of attraction, firms will have to adopt novel representations in order to pursue them. To the extent that the strategic representation is well established and central to the firm’s identity, that firm’s pursuit of the novel opportunity will likely violate some elements of its own identity. This pursuit is problematic. Identity-violating changes are typically destabilizing and associated with high mortality rates because they generally trigger cultural opposition or asperity, especially when central identity codes are infused with moral value, have an emotional component,
...
“If a leader tries to march toward strange destinations, the organization is likely to deflect the effort.”
Here, “strange” can be interpreted as violating taken-for granted identity codes.
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In addition, identity violations imply complex changes. Firms’ strategic representations are at the core of what firms do. Violating them usually sets off cascades of changes that generally require firms both to acquire new capabilities at the subsystem level, which is difficult, and to change the architecture governing said subsystems, which poses more challenges.
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Shaping Ability. Full rationality and full plasticity together are still not sufficient to negate the existence of opportunities. Competing firms might be fully rational and fully plastic but substantially bounded in their ability to legitimize new courses of action. Even if the identification of a superior opportunity translates into competitive behavior, firms’ inability to legitimize it means that discrepancies between some of the current values of its elements and their potential values are preserved.
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Opportunities are not just out there, ready to be plucked. Courses of action that can be superior often require proactive efforts to shape selection criteria for their potential to be expressed.
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To meet the condition of unbounded shaping ability, a firm must have unbounded ability to shape the sociocognitive processes that persuade multiple parties (which are only partially known) that a particular conception or course of action is viable. It is implausible that this requirement is met fully, particularly if the new course of action is significantly cognitively distant from the status quo, and it is thus more likely to challenge beliefs about what is legitimate in a given context. There is strong evidence that institutional actors such as financial analysts tend to delegitimize courses of action that are especially distant from the cognitive status quo, and firms that meet such resistance tend to shy away from their intent to implement these initiatives. Stated differently, when the pursuit of cognitively distant opportunities is at stake, the average firm fails to persuade external audiences."

Trechos retirados de "Toward a Behavioral Theory of Strategy" de Giovanni Gavetti, publicado por Organization Science - Vol. 23, No. 1, January–February 2012, pp. 267–285

Practicing the noble art of cheating (part II)

Parte I.

Let us consider the case of a for profit organization.

What do we want for our organization?
We want our organization to be successful.
What will be the consequences of being a succsseful organization?
We will get good financial results.

Where do these financial results come from?
Saving money is not the same as earning money. The money earned will come from the customers pocket. Of course, this statement is increasingly simplistic these days. And as you can see in the third video in this series, to be published in October, it is becoming increasingly relevant to work with stakeholders, not just customers.

An organization may receive money from a customer while considering and acting with other interested parties as the real target of the business. So we get into the logic of the strategy map of a balanced scorecard:

Financial results come from satisfied customers.
Satisfied customers are the result of critical processes excellently operated. Beware of using the word excellent. We are not talking about whole excellent companies, we are talking about critically operated critical processes. Whole excellent organizations are very expensive and customers don't want to pay that cost.
Superbly operated critical processes require aligned resources and infrastructure. As I exemplified in Part I, it makes no sense to choose to work with customers who want flexibility and then to have a super efficient, single-product, rigid production structure.

Choosing strategic goals from a financial perspective, I risk writing, is the easiest, it's a matter of looking inward and understanding how to best measure the statement: sell more and spend less (sales and productivity).

When we come into the customer perspective I propose to think of three aspects: an organization needs to gain new customers; an organization needs to satisfy its customers; and an organization needs to maintain and/or develop relationships with current customers.

Why do I separate each of these aspects?
Because each of these results requires specific actions.
Winning a new customer implies making the company and the offer known, enticing seducing that potential customer with a promise that meets what he or she seeks and values. It also means working to know and minimize their fears and concerns, which can create friction and prevent them from trying the new option and sticking to the current solution.

Now, let's go to the whiteboard and look into the name of the best customer (the one mentioned on Part I) and fill the figure:

Try putting on this client's shoes, remember the conversations with him, remember the problems with him ...

Why can a potential customer who has never worked with your organization take a risk and work with you?

What could help developing the relationship with this customer X?

So, the big picture is:

Your organization's satisfied customers with their word of mouth help you win new customers. Satisfied customers have the potencial to become loyal customers.

Can you now unzoom and instead of customer X, characterize the segment where it belongs?

They are international brands of medium-high quality with quantities between A and B units per season. Most likely they are based on German or Nordic markets.

The ideal scenario will be having  3-4 anchor customers and complement production with emerging, growth potential brands requiring between C and D units per model and 1-2 models per season.

You know who are your target customers, you know what they want and expect.
Now, you need to know what does the organization have to focus on and be excellent at.

Each outcome in your clients' lives must be a perfectly normal product of the organization's work. The figure above speculates which internal work objectives are crucial to being able to aspire to succeed. An organization, any organization, has a lot of things to do but the most critical are the ones that contribute to win, satisfy and retain target customers.

For a full strategy map what is still missing is the resources and infrastructure perspective (yes, I don't follow the standard name of "Learning and growth").

In this particular case with the development of the strategy map so far we already had a good idea about what to include in the resources and infrastructure perspective: some investments in machines and some investments and changes with people.

A way of developing the strategy without theory and abstractions, just focus on a particular client.

Stay with me for the part III of this series to see how we develop the strategic initiatives and how I normally, develop the resources and infrastructure perspective.

Estados Unidos terra do liberalismo?

Há sempre uma forma rápida, simples e ... errada de encarar os Estados Unidos.

Entretanto, na terra da saúde totalmente privada entregue à eficiência do mercado das seguradoras, onde os cidadãos têm a "liberdade de escolha" que os liberais prometem, há manifs por causa de insulina. Estranho, não é? https://t.co/RIjjQ6Q4Ev

— Vega9000 (@Vega9000) September 15, 2019

Uma dessas formas é a de os tratar como o paradigma do liberalismo.

Já ligaram para a CMTV ou para outro canal de televisão e apanharam com 2 ou 3 anúncios de aparelhos para melhorar a audição? E já viram desses anúncios nas DICAs do LIDL?

E nos Estados Unidos?
Os Estados Unidos são o "paraíso" das empresas grandes. As empresas grandes não gostam da concorrência, ou antes, não gostam da concorrência livre, gostam da concorrência que podem controlar ou, sobretudo, se o campo estiver inclinado a seu favor.

Quem é que tem o poder para inclinar o campo a favor de um interveniente?

Ou os clientes, ou o poder do estado.

Por isso, é que as empresas grandes gostam sempre de ter o poder do estado do seu lado. Por isso, é que as empresas grandes gostam de estados com muito poder. E quando um político é eleito com uma agenda que não interessa às empresas grandes, não há problema para elas. Um goa'uld entra dentro desse político e, passada uma legislatura é o candidato apoiado pelas empresas grandes.

Voltemos aos Estados Unidos e ao negócio dos aparelhos para melhorar a audição:

“For starters, hearing aids are expensive. In 2017, the New York Times reported prices ranging from $1,500 to $2,000 or more per ear. Medicare does not cover hearing aids. Barbara Kelley, executive director of the Hearing Loss Association of America, reports that “the number one complaint we get in phone calls every day is, ‘I need help, I can’t afford hearing aids.’
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But that isn’t the only problem. The traditional hearing aid business is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and access to the technology is tightly controlled by incumbents. Audiologists, their lobbying associations, and the few (six—actually, soon to be five) companies that manufacture hearing aids have strictly limited the options available to patients. The incumbents insist that what all patients want is the “gold standard.” As one observer described it, this involves buying a hearing aid only after a thorough diagnostic evaluation that includes otoscopy and bone conduction testing, speech-in-noise testing, real-ear measurement/speech mapping, aural rehabilitation, and hands-on hearing aid fitting. Even if they have the means, for many people this seems like overkill."

Recomendo a 1ª Lei de Arroja e a 1ª Lei de Pereira da Cruz - A minha primeira lei sobre a concorrência?

Trechos retirados de “Seeing Around Corners” de Rita McGrath.

"Overcoming focal behavioral failures" (parte I)

"to identify the behavioral drivers of superior performance systematically, it is useful to reason against the benchmark of market efficiency. When markets are efficient, opportunities for superior performance (also called superior courses of action or strategic opportunities) do not exist, or, if they do, they are short-lived because they are competed away by many rival firms. Therefore, establishing what causes violations of market efficiency shows what causes opportunities to exist. Following this logic, the behavioral roots of superior opportunities can be understood in terms of behavioral factors that hinder efficiency. The theory proposed in this paper seeks to isolate such factors by identifying systematic behavioral bounds or impediments to competition. These bounds are behavioral in that they reflect limitations in strategic leaders’ ability to manage mental processes. They will be called behavioral failures, short for behavioral market failures. Such failures ensure that opportunities whose pursuit requires leaders to manage very hard-tomanage mental processes are not competed away, even if competition is intense. Hence, superior performance rests in part on a strategic leader’s superior ability to overcome focal behavioral failures.
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Superior opportunities tend to be cognitively distant, and critical sources of superior performance lie in strategic leaders’ superior ability to overcome the behavioral bounds that make it hard for the average firm to pursue them. This proposition does not imply that local opportunities do not exist or that “persistent performance differentials among seemingly similar enterprises” do not exist or are negligible.
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The proposition does, however, affirm that cognitively distant opportunities are likely to be less contested than more proximate ones are and are therefore potentially more rewarding. For this reason, the strategic leader’s role should be regarded as more expansive than is commonly acknowledged, provided that what is entailed to exercise it reliably can be understood.
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Thus, in heavily competitive environments, existing superior opportunities tend to be those that most firms have an especially hard time pursuing. The difficulty of pursuing them therefore isolates them from competition. It will be shown that central to this limitation are behavioral failures: mental processes that the average strategic leader has a hard time managing. On the one hand, these failures play an important role to the existence of superior opportunities; on the other hand, a superior ability to counter them results in superior performance."

Trechos retirados de "Toward a Behavioral Theory of Strategy" de Giovanni Gavetti, publicado por Organization Science - Vol. 23, No. 1, January–February 2012, pp. 267–285

Contexto

Um conjunto de textos sobre o sector do retalho (nos Estados Unidos) e sobre a moda (na Europa). Talvez seja útil para as análises de contexto que as PME são convidadas a fazer no âmbito da certificação da qualidade:

• De los ecosistemas a las ‘joyas’ regionales: los cinco modelos para el retail del futuro

"El retail, a por nuevos modelos de negocio. El 30% de los retailers de Estados Unidos están llamados, según la consultora Bain&Co., a desaparecer o ser absorbidos a corto plazo. [Moi ici: Apesar dos exageros americanos na construção de lojas, acredito que esta tendência também acabará por chegar à Europa, talvez de forma não tão pronunciada] El sector debe competir en un contexto desafiante y cambiante, en el que aparecen nuevos modelos de negocio y los viejos se adaptan a contrarreloj. ¿Cuáles son las claves para sobrevivir en este entorno?
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La consultora estadounidense ha definido cinco modelos de negocio para adaptarse a este nuevo escenario y competir en el retail del futuro: jugadores del ecosistema, guerreros de la escala, campeones del valor, el polizón y las joyas regionales."

• La fábrica de Europa: Turquía, Italia y Rumanía copan el 66% del empleo en confección

"Turquía, Rumanía e Italia, las fábricas de Europa. Estos son los tres países que lideran el empleo en la confección en el sector de la moda en la región, el 65,7% del total, según los últimos datos de la agencia estadística Eurostat.
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Aunque en los últimos años algunas compañías internacionales del sector han acercado su producción a Europa, el número de empleados en la confección todavía se sitúa a gran distancia de los datos de 2009, cuando la industria empleaba a 1,5 millones de trabajadores. En 2018 en Europa, alrededor de 1,07 millones de personas se dedican a la confección, un 41,6% menos que en 2009." 

• Estrategia de aprovisionamiento de la moda 4.0

"Saber a dónde se quiere ir y cómo llegar es crucial para las marcas de la moda. En su búsqueda de una cadena de abastecimiento según demanda, las empresas del sector deben modelar diferentes escenarios económicos y financieros que les permitan desarrollar una base de datos cuantificada para utilizarla como guía hacia una óptima estrategia de aprovisionamiento.
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Este modelo consta de tres fundamentos que están interrelacionados: velocidad de llegada al mercado, valor del tiempo y equilibrio entre neorelocalización y orígenes asiáticos."

• La producción textil continúa a la baja: desciende un 5% en mayo

"La producción textil mantiene la tendencia bajista. El Índice de Producción Industria (IPI) del sector volvió a caer en mayo con un descenso del 5% en relación al mismo mes del año anterior. Con este retroceso, el sector encadena siete meses consecutivos de caídas." 

"Moments that shape our life"

Em menos de uma semana li “The Power of Moments” de Chip e Dan Heath.

Um excelente livro que recomendo a quem quer trabalhar o mundo das experiências.

“Defining moments shape our lives, but we don’t have to wait for them to happen. We can be the authors of them. What if a teacher could design a lesson that students were still reflecting on years later? What if a manager knew exactly how to turn an employee’s moment of failure into a moment of growth? What if you had a better sense of how to create lasting memories for your kids?
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When people assess an experience, they tend to forget or ignore its length—a phenomenon called “duration neglect.” Instead, they seem to rate the experience based on two key moments: (1) the best or worst moment, known as the “peak”; and (2) the ending. Psychologists call it the “peak-end rule.
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What’s indisputable is that when we assess our experiences, we don’t average our minute-by-minute sensations. Rather, we tend to remember flagship moments: the peaks, the pits, and the transitions.
This is a critical lesson for anyone in service businesses—from restaurants to medical clinics to call centers to spas—where success hinges on the customer experience.
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to please customers, you need not obsess over every detail."

Que acaba assim:

“Once you realize how important moments can be, it’s easy to spot opportunities to shape them.
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That’s how we imagine you using the ideas in this book. Target a specific moment and then challenge yourself: How can I elevate it? Spark insight? Boost the sense of connection? ”

Practicing the noble art of cheating (part I)

Yesterday, during a night walk, almost tropical, I was surprised to discover 4 geckos in Vila Nova de Gaia where I live

Along the same walk I read "Method for Strategic Objectives in Strategy Maps" by Luis E. Quezada, Felisa M. Cordova, Pedro Palominos, Katherine Godoy and Jocelyn Ross, published by Int. J. Production Economics 122 (2009) 492–500.

I'm a big fan of the balanced scorecard and even more of strategy maps.

"The BSC establishes cause–effect relationships among strategic objectives, even though they do not state the way to establish and quantify those relationships. The relationships are represented  in what the authors called strategy map, which is the main subject in this work.
...
The objective of this paper is to present a simple tool for identifying strategic objectives in order to build a strategy map. A strategy map is a component of a balanced scorecard that represents the cause–effect relationships among strategic objectives. Performance measurements are defined for each strategic objective."

This figure shows an example of a strategy map:

The authors studied 12 companies and describe 3 methods used to develop strategy maps:

"Method 1 carries out a strategic process, including the definition of a vision and mission, internal and external analysis from which a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis is undertaken. The strategic objectives are defined from the SWOT analysis. Fig. 2 depicts the process."

"Method 2 is similar to method 1, but the difference is that two types of objectives are defined: global and specific. Global objectives are defined directly from the vision and mission, while specific objectives are defined from the SWOT analysis. This method has an advantage over method 1; it translates the vision and mission into general objectives, helping the organisation to identify the strategic directions within the strategy map.
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Method 3 identifies strategic themes from the organisation's vision and mission, which are the basis for defining the strategic objectives."

Then, the authors present their own method described by this figure:

When I saw using the SWOT analysis to develop a strategy map I smiled.
What is a strategy map?
A strategy map is a diagram that shows an organization's strategy as a chain of cause-efect relationships on a single page. And someone uses a SWOT analysis before getting the strategy? Come on!
Nothing is intrinsically a strength or a weakness, an opportunity or a threat independently of the strategy. I believe that only after formulating a strategy one can use the SWOT analysis. I can state that our organization has a tremendous strength: we have a very efficient high throughput production machine. But if our strategy is to work for customers that want small amounts, that want flexibility, that want customization... then that machine is not a strength. Most likely it is a weakness.

I smiled even more when I saw that the four methods started with "Vision and Mission". I smiled and while smiling I began to repeat Paul's words to the Corinthians: When I was a child (child-consultant) reading management books I also believed in these childish-scenes and I was amazed and said yes...

Then I started to work with SME's and I realized that it is a lot of BS.

Management books present this kind of method:

I learned long time ago that the order must be almost completly changed, and in October 2015 I wrote the blog post "From concrete to abstract and not the other way around" (in Portuguese).

A typical SME in Portugal cannot start with a blank sheet, and start from scratch in a rational strategy development exercise.
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Stay with me and try to put on shoes of a SME in need of developing a strategy. Why do they need to do that? Normally, for one of two possible reasons:

• to seize an opportunity that it inadvertently discovered; or
• to stop a competitive bleeding that is weakening it, and find a way to recover.

SME have no money, no culture, no resources to be free and go after the next big hit. They have to start with what they have at hand.

To avoid daydreaming and to motivate participation I start the strategic thinking with the result of a competitive advantage: one or more sustainable satisfied customers.

My approach is based on their clients. Please tell me the name of one or two good clients you have. Those clients are your best clients, or the clients with whom you have the best margins or make more money. Give me a name.

And I put that name on the whiteboard.

Now, look at that client as a person, look into their eyes and answer me: customers are selfish, they only think about themselves. Why on earth do these customers think it's best for them to work with you? What do they get in their life for working with you? Why do they continue to choose your organization?

I don't care about vision or mission, at least for now. I just want a safe rock on which to lay the foundation of their competitive advantage. And they have to have a competitive advantage, the proof is that customer satisfaction and loyalty.

So, we reverse the order:

• Satisfied customers with whom we make good money;
• What is our competitive advantage behind working with them?

Knowing the competitive advantage one can start climbing the abstract ladder and go from the specific and concrete into the more abstract to develop rules and to practice the noble art of cheating. I call it cheating when an organization realizes what make customers satisfied and start to do that in a systematic way, not just hoping for the luck.

I will continue this post showing how to go from a specific customer into a strategy map.

"start with a specific customer example"

"Although strategy is about the big picture, strategic thinking often starts in the weeds. To think about strategy, start with a specific customer example (a “use case”) and ask: How can we make money from this customer? Now change an assumption and see whether the answer changes. This is what good thinking involves: evaluating hypotheticals and pivoting from one hypothetical to another. At this stage, you are not looking for the best solution. What you are looking for are the boundaries that identify where your company can compete effectively (and where it cannot)."

Este trecho saltou-me logo aos olhos...

Por um lado, é o começar do particular, do concreto para o abstracto. Por outro lado, é o fugir da miudagem, é o fugir dos fantasmas estatísticos e dos substantivos colectivos, e olhar na menina-do-olho.

Trecho retirado de "The Lost Art of Thinking in Large Organizations" de Duncan Simester, publicado no Verão de 2016 pela MIT Sloan Management Review.

Não saltar para a solução

"In our work with senior executives, we find that most of them are very good at decision making if the objectives are clear, and if the choice is between a set of specific, predefined options. However, when presented with complex decisions, executives tend to home in quickly on a couple of options,  list what they see as the pros and cons, and spend the bulk of their time calculating — or deliberating about — how the competing courses of action stack up. Executives rarely take the time to frame decisions thoroughly. Rather than exploring the full scope of options, they stick to the obvious ones and use a limited set of criteria. Unfortunately, once decisions are framed this way, the outcome is frequently suboptimal.
...
Important business decisions, according to John Donahoe, former CEO of Ebay Inc., are distinct from everyday decisions “because once you make them, you can’t unwind them.” For other decisions, “you’re better off making [them] quickly, even if the decision is not the perfect one, and then adjusting down the road, rather than taking too much time.” Strategy is about managing difficult trade-offs around scarce resources, with many competing demands and high degrees of uncertainty. In turn, the quality of strategic decisions critically depends on having discerning and well-thought-through options and criteria. However, executives typically focus on too narrow a set of options and criteria without taking out-of the-box possibilities and conflicting stakeholder interests into account.
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Put differently, the options-criteria frame sets the context for the decision. However, executives tend to treat this frame as a given; when they get locked into a suboptimal frame they lose perspective, which undermines the quality of their decision making. More concretely, executives are prone to develop myopia with regard to both the options and the criteria under consideration. [Moi ici: Recordar "Variável em vez de constante"]
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In our experience working with senior managers, the ability to shift perspectives up and down is not the norm. When making strategic decisions, executives often take the first cut for granted, thereby depriving themselves of the opportunity to break out of their current frame and combat myopia. Identifying the golden cut is vital — not just for framing decisions but also for engaging with key stakeholders."

Trechos retirados de "Stop Jumping to Solutions!" Um artigo de Albrecht Enders, Andreas Konig, e Jean-Louis Barsoux publicado no Verão de 2016 pela MIT Sloan Management Review.

Bilhar e biologia

Vivemos num mundo supostamente linear para os amadores que jogam bilhar e ficam pelo imediato sem equacionar a cadeia de consequências.

Vivemos também num mundo em que a economia é uma continuação da biologia.

Por isso, recomendo a leitura deste artigo "Texas Hospital Tries to Stop Birds Living in Nearby Trees, Accidentally Creates Haven for North America's Most Venomous Caterpillar".

O cobrir as árvores com redes para afastar a passarada traz consequências inesperadas. agora imaginem as consequências do activismo de apoiar o passado e não deixar o futuro aparecer.

"Am I willing to be unreasonable?"

"That’s precisely why you’re stuck. Every decision you’ve made, all the status quo you’re holding on to, the fears you have–they’re all reasonable. This is a mature, apparently safe series of choices. Congratulation on being wise and careful.
.
The only way to get out of the spot you’re in is to do something that feels unreasonable, that’s unreasonable in the short term, that a similar person in a similar situation would say is unreasonable.
...
If you truly want to get unstuck, if you want to move to higher ground or do something more worthwhile, the first question to ask is, “Am I willing to be unreasonable, at least for a while?”"

O "punctuated equilibrium". Durante os períodos de equilibrio as decisões são racionais, são razoáveis. Nos períodos de desequilibrio a racionalidade instalada já não funciona, é preciso pensar de forma diferente.

Recordar o optimismo não documentado. Recordar o conselho a Zapatero. Recordar "We find our way by getting lost.".

Trechos retirados de "Being stuck is reasonable"

O que influencia o desempenho?

"Do You Know What Really Drives Your Business’s Performance?". Um artigo de Rhian Silvestro publicado no Verão de 2016 pela MIT Sloan Management Review.

Um artigo que põe em causa algumas relações de causa-efeito que assumimos à priori como sempre verdadeiras.

"Some of the core assumptions about what drives financial performance have become so widely accepted that they are often viewed as facts. However, managers are frequently unable to justify the assumptions underlying their competitive strategies with data from their own organizations. The danger is that unless the core assumptions are sound and relevant to your own circumstances, you run the risk of developing wrongheaded strategies that will lead you astray. [Moi ici: Isto para um utilizador de mapas da estratégia é muito importante]
...
Managers often make assumptions about the relationship between, for example, customer loyalty and profitability, even when the presumed links haven’t been fully tested. Indeed, one study found that only 21% of managers who said they implemented strategy maps had actually tested the links within their own organizations, and many of those who had tested the links found their early assumptions were flawed. Failure to test such hypotheses means that critical assumptions go unchallenged, leading to misguided strategies.
...
Although intuitively appealing, strategy maps and models such as the service profit chain have a common pitfall: They encourage managers to embrace general assumptions about the drivers of financial performance that may not stand up to close scrutiny in their own organizations.
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[Moi ici: Os autores referem a utilização da técnica "Topology mapping"] It requires managers to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to their business, measure the correlations between the various KPIs, and then build maps of the positive and negative correlations.
...
[Moi ici: Segue-se um exemplo de uma topology mapping para uma Superstore Retail Chain]

This performance topology map shows that customer loyalty and productivity are strongly linked to profit (see green links), and also indicates that employee and customer loyalty are linked. However, employee satisfaction and employee loyalty are negatively related to store productivity and financial performance.[Moi ici: Foi fácil perceber que as lojas maiores tinham a maior rentabilidade, mas eram as que exigiam mais dos trabalhadores. Por isso, as lojas mais pequenas tinham trabalhadores mais satisfeitos, mas como tinham menos opções, não vendiam tanto]
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The value of performance mapping stems as much from the process of developing the maps as from the maps themselves. Developing and testing performance topology maps is a creative activity that enables managers to engage in debate about performance drivers, which may lead to new narratives that explain performance relationships. Unexpected performance relationships can lead to important insights."

Os saxões que aguentem!

Se há coisa que me tira do sério é a tentativa de fazer de mim (nós) parvo(s).

Aborrece-me solenemente o uso dos saxões contribuintes para pagar a externalização de problemas por parte de actores económicos.

Numa economia saudável o que acontece quando uma actividade económica não consegue sustentar-se com o fruto das suas operações? Fecha, e os seus recursos são transferidos para outros agentes, dentro da mesma actividade económica ou fora dela, onde supostamente são mais bem utilizados. E é assim que uma economia saudável evolui, daí o aumento da produtividade.

Daí ser adepto do: Querem aumento da produtividade? Deixem as empresas morrer!

• Deixem as empresas morrer! (Dezembro de 2018)
• De volta a 2009 e ilusões de um I9G (Setembro de 2019)

Numa pequena economia, habituada a obter apoios e vantagens dos governos de turno, é comum assistirmos a um periódico tocar dos sinos a rebate, seguido do apelo ao actvismo do governo de turno (seja ele de um Capoulas ou de uma Cristas).

A figura que se segue ilustra o arquétipo:

Manifesta-se o sintoma de um problema! E sabem que para mim "stressors are information". Os sintomas podem ser sinais de uma situação conjuntural ou de algo mais estrutural.

O que é que um sistema saudável faz? Desenvolve uma solução interna para o problema. Por exemplo, empresas fecham e o seu espaço competitivo é ocupado por outras mais produtivas. Por exemplo, a empresa muda de produto e/ou de clientes-alvo e/ou de modelo de negócio.

O que é que um sistema doente faz? Sugere a alguém sem skin-in-the-game (a um político que manipula dinheiro impostado aos saxões) que forneça um remédio que evita que os intervenientes tenham de sofrer as dores de parto da sua própria mudança. Como os sintomas são resultado de um qualquer desajuste estrutural a situação repete-se periodicamente. Assim, o risco de uma actividade económica, algo que devia ser específico de cada actor, é transferido para agentes sem voto na matéria, os contribuintes. Desta forma, adia-se a subida na escala de valor de um sector económico, evita-se a pequena mortalidade que não afecta o todo, e vão-se acumulando desequilibrios que acabarão por estoirar quando o político deixar de ter dinheiro para actuar.

Ontem apanhei mais este exemplo:

Produtores de tomate pedem apoios excepcionais ao Governo e União Europeia https://t.co/5xdrFbcgzh

— Jornal Económico (@ojeconomico) September 9, 2019

Segundo o Anuário Estatístico - Portugal 2018, a campanha de produção de tomate em 2018 caiu quase 26% face ao ano anterior sobretudo por causa da diminuição da área instalada. Agora em 2019 temos:

"A Associação Portuguesa de Produtores de Tomate (APPT), filiada na CNA — Confederação Nacional da Agricultura, considera que este é um ano/campanha (até final deste mês de Setembro) com “muitas adversidades para os produtores de tomate para a indústria do Ribatejo”. Dizem estes agricultores que “a difícil situação reclama apoios excepcionais a atribuir pelo Governo e pela União Europeia”.
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No essencial, esta “difícil situação deve-se ao facto de os custos de produção terem aumentado muito nesta campanha — atingem os 7 mil euros por hectare — devido à necessidade de aumentar, e muito, os tratamentos nas terras e plantas invadidas por fungos e outras mazelas, a fim de se evitar a perda da produção”.
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A direcção da CNA diz que “ainda há a esperança de existirem melhorias neste sector. Porém, tendo em conta a gravidade da situação, é necessário que o Governo intervenha para possibilitar o aumento de rendimentos da produção de tomate para a indústria.
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Entre outras medidas, aqueles produtores reclamam a atribuição de ajudas específicas aos pequenos e médios produtores de tomate para a indústria, para os tratamentos fitossanitários desta cultura, assim como apoios para compensar baixas de preços na produção por motivos aleatórios.
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Ainda assim, em geral, os agricultores, “com muito trabalho e com o aumento dos custos de produção devido aos tratamentos frequentes à cultura, acabaram por conseguir produtividades de assinalar, próximas às 100 toneladas de tomate por hectare, mas o preço à produção é que está muito baixo”, realça a CNA. [Moi ici: Portanto, têm de ser os saxões a pagar a incapacidade negocial dos produtores de tomate. Se não compensa, mudem de culturas de produção]
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Aqueles produtores realçam ainda que os custos reais de arrendamento da terra “à campanha”, praticados na zona irrigada mais próxima a Santarém, atingem os mil euros/ano por hectare — na Lezíria Ribatejana mais baixa chegam a dobrar este valor — o que, logo à partida, é um pesado encargo para os “seareiros” (os arrendatários da terra) para este tipo de culturas. [Moi ici: Quer isto dizer que há procura por estes terrenos, se calhar para outro tipo de culturas mais competitivas e ricas]
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Em contrapartida, é cada vez menor o preço final do tomate para a indústria colocado na fábrica de transformação. Nesta campanha, e apesar dos problemas tidos com a cultura, os preços à produção oscilam entre 70 e 85 euros por tonelada, dependendo da qualidade apresentada à entrada da fábrica. [Moi ici: Há aqui qualquer cena que merecia ser bem investigada... desconfio que teremos uma situação semelhante à do leite, uma grande heterogeneidade de produtores. Produtores grandes e eficientes aceitam preços mais baixos e, depois, todos os outros têm de os aceitar. Se os grandes ganham alguma coisa os pequenos nunca conseguem os ganhos de escala e eficiência para conseguirem lucrar.]
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“São preços que, repete-se, não compensam os produtores de tomate pelo investimento feito, e ainda menos compensadores são se entrarmos em linha de conta com a valorização do trabalho do agricultor (e família) tido na faina”, acrescenta o mesmo comunicado. [Moi ici: Se não compensam é simples, mudem de culturas, subam na escala de valor e façam pela vida. Não esperem que sejam os outros a suportar as más decisões de gestão]"

Claro que em ano eleitoral isto é trigo limpo, farinha amparo.

Não me admirava nada que por trás disto estivesse a agro-indústria do tomate para que o governo de turno lhe subsidie os produtores para que possa continuar a baixar preços de compra do tomate e gerar lucros cada vez maiores.

Situação estrutural:

• I see Qimondas everywhere (Novembro de 2017)
• Curiosidade do dia (Maio de 2015)
• Como eu gostava ... (Fevereiro de 2014)
• Sou só eu? (Janeiro de 2014)

"Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" (parte III)

Lembram-se quando o ouro escondia a transformação que já vinha de antes da troika acerca das exportações? É recordar "Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" de Outubro de 2013 e ""Um outro olhar sobre os números das exportações" (parte II)" de Outubro de 2018.

Olhando para o lote de actividades económicas que sigo aqui no blogue há já vários anos, vejamos o desempenho deste ano até Julho inclusive:
Os números são sobre o crescimento das exportações em milhões de euros e em percentagem face ao valor homólogo.

Três anos em que o total acumulado vai encolhendo. Três anos em que o número de sectores a exportar menos que o valor homólogo passou de zero a cinco e agora nove. E esta deterioração não levanta preocupação de maior aos incautos porque está a ser compensada por três sectores: Aeronaves; Óptica e Automóveis.

Eis a evolução do sector da moda:

Basta as exportações automóveis começarem a tossir para se ver o desempenho das exportações começar a preocupar os políticos da situação e da oposição.

O “Mendelian executive” - a intencionalidade na busca de uma resposta (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II. e parte III.

"Mattis reads Roman writers like Marcus Aurelius, but he is no stoic. Decade after decade he is touring some front or another, starting a million affectionate conversations. “How’s it going?” “Living the dream, sir,” is how those conversations begin. He trusts his Marines enough to delegate authority down. He clearly expresses a commander’s intent in any situation and gives them latitude to adapt to circumstances. [Moi ici: Recordar a importância da "commander's intent" (aqui, aqui e aqui)]
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Love is a motivational state. It propels you. You want to make promises to the person or organization you love. Character is forged in the keeping of those promises. If, on the other hand, you are unable to love and be loved, you’re never going to be in a position to make commitments or live up to them. You’re never going to forge yourself into a person who can be relied upon.
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Much of the work is intellectual. He thought the second Iraq war was a crazy idea, but when he was ordered to command part of it, he started reading Xenophon and ancient books about warfare in Mesopotamia.
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“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you,” Mattis and West write."[Moi ici: Daqui - "Aprendemos com o que reflectimos, com o que vemos/lemos e com o que experimentamos.]

Trechos retirados de "The Man Trump Wishes He Were"

Avaliar projectos (parte IV)

Parte I, parte II e parte III.

Este ano descobri uma norma que não conhecia, a ISO 14005:2010. Entretanto, essa mesma norma foi actualizada em 2019.

O que gostei na abordagem dessa norma foi o "time to market".

Implementar um sistema de gestão da qualidade ou do ambiente leva o seu tempo, é preciso montar o sistema, muitas vezes de raiz a partir do nada ou do quase nada. Por isso, até que se comecem a ver resultados palpáveis traduzidos em melhorias pode durar algum tempo.

O que é que a abordagem da ISO 14005 propõe?
Em vez de montar um sistema de gestão completo, fazer um rápido levantamento ambiental inicial, seleccionar um tema relevante (por exemplo, consumo de energia, ou gestão de resíduos, ou emissões gasosas) e atacá-lo de uma ponta à outra. E reduzir o tempo entre o começo do projecto e a obtenção dos primeiros resultados.

Este tema faz-me lembrar um dos meus primeiros gurus, ainda trabalhava por conta de outrém e já lia Robert Schaffer.

Recordo, por exemplo, "Uma sucessão de pequenos projectos que produzem resultados rapidamente".

Fiz a ligação com a ISO 14005 ao ler este artigo "For a successful transformation, start by sprinting":

"When done well, an organizational redesign fosters improved strategic focus, higher growth, better decision-making and more accountability.
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However, a McKinsey survey revealed that only 30 percent of organizational redesigns are successful in terms of achieving overall objectives and improved performance. That means a daunting 70 percent of transformations fail.
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More than 80 percent of executives have gone through an organizational redesign at their current company. They know that a transformation is a marathon. But to get to the finish line, it pays to do implementation sprints. That means taking a simpler, iterative approach; learning as you go; and correcting course more frequently. Under this approach, concept development and implementation are linked, running in parallel.
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To get to the finish line, it pays to do implementation sprints.
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There are six things to keep in mind when going through a transformation:
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Be bold: Set a clear and ambitious target that will help you substantially transform your organization and let it guide your future operating model.
Slim it down: Create a simplified first version of your envisioned end-state that will still deliver a significant amount of impact in the first phase of implementation.
Prioritize change initiatives: Don’t kick off all new initiatives at once. Instead, be clear about how the initiatives will be sequenced and how they relate to one another.
Conduct implementation sprints: Kick off the implementation in short design-test-apply cycles.
Adapt and hone when needed: React to requirements that emerge during the transformation and course-correct whenever needed.
Keep your eye on the ball: Stay focused on the actual end product: a truly transformed organization, not a perfectly designed plan. Embrace constant reality checks and adapt the plan accordingly. This helps to concentrate resources on those areas that contribute the most value.
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Change is not easy, and the odds are hardly in any transformation’s favor. But tackling the root of the problem by simplifying the design and using a pragmatic approach—through implementation sprints—will boost the likelihood of success."

Outra consequência importante da abordagem do ano como um projecto: "React to requirements that emerge during the transformation and course-correct whenever needed." - Aumentar a velocidade de aprendizagem.

Economia, uma continuação da biologia

Economia, uma continuação da biologia:

"Organisms impose themselves on their surroundings, changing them from “environment” to “fitness space.” Each organism creates a kind of “fitness valley” in its surroundings analogous to gravity wells created by bodies in space/time. The space in which organisms have non-zero fitness is Fundamental Fitness Space. The portion of fundamental fitness space accessed is Realized Fitness Space. Genealogical conservatism (also called evolutionary lagload) provides a distinction between fundamental and realized fitness space proportional to selection strength. Realized fitness space may grow, but lagload will keep it a subset of fundamental fitness space. Evolutionary innovations may increase both fundamental and realized fitness space over time. When an organism dies, its fitness valley disappears. If the organism is replaced by another with the same requirements, the fitness valley may appear to persist, but it has no independent existence. The apparent persistence results from historical conservatism of the nature of the organism—to the extent that niches are real, they are products of the nature of the organism, not the nature of the conditions. Organisms thus (re)constitute niches; they do not construct them, nor are the surroundings inherently organized into niches.
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Evolutionary lagload means the genealogical system is incapable of being distributed at maximum density in all places at all times, so there will always be unoccupied or less-than-maximally occupied fitness space. The smaller the proportion of fitness space occupied, the “sloppier” it is. As well, the “sloppiness” should increase over evolutionary time as the total information/fitness space grows, increasing the difference between what is possible and what is realized at any given time. Sloppy fitness space allows room for creativity and innovation because a lot of non-zero fitness space is always potentially available; however, sloppy fitness space does not rule out the possibility of local tightly optimized adaptations.
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The ability to move from surroundings that are deteriorating with respect to your fitness is more important in determining survival than how well adapted you are to any particular piece of the fitness space. [Moi ici: Isto tem tudo a ver com o esquema de Julho de 2008, que republico abaixo, sobre não existirem almoços grátis] And that ability (also called adaptability or resilience) is a function of how many historical alternatives you maintain in your collective genome (only successful adaptations get carried forward, so every bit of your history that you retain is a history of past success).
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Evolutionary lagload also implies that there will be parts of fitness space where reproductive overrun creates conflicts from which there is no escape."

Quanto mais uma empresa estiver ajustada a uma paisagem competitiva, menor é a flexibilidade. Quando a paisagem sofre um choque, a taxa de mortalidade é maior.

Trechos retirados de "The Major Metaphors of Evolution: Visualizing the Extended Synthesis" de Daniel R. Brooks publicado por Evo Edu Outreach (2011) 4:446–452.

Avaliar projectos (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

O que me atrai na abordagem do ano como um projecto está sintetizada nesta frase retirada de “The Power of Moments” de Chip e Dan Heath:

“This is the great trap of life: One day rolls into the next, and a year goes by, and we still haven’t had that conversation we always meant to have. Still haven’t created that peak moment for our students. Still haven’t seen the northern lights. We walk a flatland that could have been a mountain range.”

Isto faz-me recordar a diferença entre empurrar e puxar, um postal velhinho de Setembro de 2006, 13 anos feitos anteontem,  "Puxar, não empurrar".

E agora recordei um outro postal, o da corda dos ninjas, Julho de 2008, "Fazer uma excursão até ao Futuro Imaginado":

Que posso complementar com "imagine o futuro. Tire a foto do futuro. Não vai para lá... JÁ LÁ ESTÁ! Agora, pinte o quadro." e com "Transformar uma empresa em 3 passos".

A abordagem do ano como um projecto obriga-nos a começar pelo fim e cria o tal "Future Pull":

Calçado e Amazónia

Ontem ao almoço, o meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras falou-me deste tema.

Hoje li "Is Brazilian Leather Out of Fashion? H&M Stops Buying Over Amazon Fires", e do seu provável impacte no calçado portugês, calçado conhecido sobretudo pelo couro.

"H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, announced Thursday that it had stopped purchasing leather from Brazil over concerns that the country’s cattle industry has contributed to the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.
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The announcement of the temporary ban is the second to hit Brazil after a spike in rainforest fires this year drew global outcry. Last week, VF Corporation, which includes international brands like Timberland and The North Face, announced a temporary suspension of purchases of Brazilian leather, until its suppliers could prove they weren’t connected to any environmental harm."

Para já são algumas marcas, depois podem ser os consumidores, depois é o consumo de artigos com pele, depois, ...

Lembram-se do efeito "todos vão perder"? Ou de ""E sem intenção, e sem querer, apareceu na minha mente a decisão de pôr de lado o azeite alentejano"".

II - Strategic direction: any connection to your QMS? (part 2 of 2)

First video: I - The Process Approach: Do you really use it?
Second video: (parte 1 of 2)

A short video with a comparison between strategy and different sports




A video demonstrating how different strategies require different priorites, require different processes and different objectives.

"There’s nine times more to gain by elevating positive customers than by eliminating negative ones"

Há anos aprendi uma grande lição com Youngme Moon no seu brilhante livro "Different". Relatei essa lição no postal "Now, something completely different... para nos deixar a pensar".

Ontem, durante uma caminhada matinal li:

“Research suggests that when customers contact you because they’ve had problems with your product or service, you should focus on defense—that is, you should focus on efficiency and not try to “delight” them.)
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“Studies have consistently shown that reliability, dependability, and competence meet customer expectations,” said service expert Leonard Berry, a professor at Texas A&M University. “To exceed customer expectations and create a memorable experience, you need the behavioral and interpersonal parts of the service. You need the element of pleasant surprise. And that comes when human beings interact.” Here’s the surprise, though: Most service executives are ignoring the research about meeting versus exceeding expectations.
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The customer experience researchers at Forrester, a leading research and advisory firm, conduct an annual survey of more than 120,000 customers about their most recent experience with companies from a wide range of industries: banks, hotels, automakers, PC manufacturers, and more. One question in a recent survey—“The US Customer Experience Index (CX Index), 2016”—asked how the customers felt about that experience. They rated their emotions on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 reflected a very bad feeling and 7 a very good one.
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If you were a service executive, what would you do with the results of this survey question? You probably wouldn’t focus on the 7s; they love you, they’re happy. But given that everyone else—from the 1s to the 6s—has room for improvement, who gets the attention? Would you try to fix problems for the 1s, the people you’ve made miserable? Or would you try to delight the 6s to nudge them up to a 7? In an ideal world, you’d do everything at once—finding ways to vault everyone up to a 7. In our world, though, you face trade-offs of time and attention. So which customers would you focus on?
Let’s simplify the decision a bit. Say you had to choose between two plans. Plan A would magically eliminate all your unhappy customers (the 1s, 2s, and 3s), boosting them up to a 4:

And Plan B would instantly vault all your neutral-to-positive customers up to a 7:

Which would you choose?We’ve presented this scenario to dozens of executives who focus on the consumer experience, including leaders from well-regarded brands such as Porsche, Disney, Vanguard, Southwest Airlines, and Intuit, and asked them which plan better described the way their company allocated its time and resources. They estimated, on average, that their companies spent 80% of their resources trying to improve the experience of seriously unhappy customers.

That seems reasonable at first glance—they’re trying to eliminate the worst customer problems. But as a strategic investment, it’s madness.
Here’s why. Forrester’s researchers have built models of the financial value of a customer. They know from survey responses, for instance, that an airline customer who gives a 7 (very positive) rating will spend about $2,200 on air travel over the next year. A customer giving a 4 rating, on the other hand, will spend only $800. The equivalent figures for the package shipping industry are $57 and $24.
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In other words, the happiest people in any industry tend to spend more, so moving a 4 to a 7 generates more additional spending than moving a 1 to a 4. Furthermore, there are dramatically more people in the “feeling positive” 4–6 zone than in the “feeling negative” 1–3 zone. So, with Plan B, you’re creating more financial value per person and reaching more people at the same time.
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As a result, choosing between Plan A and Plan B is not a close call. Here’s the astonishing finding from the Forrester data: If you Elevate the Positives (Plan B), you’ll earn about 9 times more revenue than if you Eliminate the Negatives (Plan A). (8.8 times, to be precise.) Yet most executives are pursuing Plan A.
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To be clear, we’re not recommending that leaders abandon their efforts to fix big problems. Rather, they should reallocate their attention. There’s nine times more to gain by elevating positive customers than by eliminating negative ones.
And that process of elevation—of moving customers to 7—is not about filling pits or paving potholes. To create fans, you need the remarkable, and that requires peaks. Peaks don’t emerge naturally. They must be built”

Trechos retirados de “The Power of Moments” de Chip e Dan Heath.

O “Mendelian executive” - a selecção das opções (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

"The Mendel executive makes a conscious selection among alternative possibilities and does not merely rely on the result of a Darwinian process of contested market selection. [Moi ici: Afirmação um bocado forte. Que dizer das estratégias emergentes?] There then arises the question of when to engage in this selection and what criteria to use for the “culling.” This issue of timing and criteria are clearly related. To the extent that selection is more ex post, then measures of financial outcomes in the market place can be more useful in evaluating the merit of alternative strategies. By contrast, as the timing of evaluation becomes closer to the onset of the initiative, then interim metrics, such as test markets and milestones, become more relevant, and in the limit, an ex ante evaluation must rely on beliefs of possible merit. ... One can speculate about a business strategy, but feedback about its value can ultimately only be evaluated in situ. However, it is important to recognize that such feedback is, in general, ambiguous. Thus, persistence, faith, and psychological commitment are critical elements in terms of how an actor will respond to such ambiguous feedback. [Moi ici: E não esquecer quer o comportamento dos amadores a jogar bilhar, quer a obliquidade. Os amadores ficam-se pelo primeiro nível de pensamento, a obliquidade faz-nos perceber que alguns objectivos não podem devem ser atingidos como objectivos, mas como consequências] Just as a vector in physics is characterized by both momentum and direction, so too does a strategist’s vision have both elements of psychological commitment and a point of view regarding directionality.
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strategic efforts to influence the bases of selection of the external environment, what Teece (2007) terms “shaping” strategies and what Gavetti et al. (2017) develop further as a process of “niche construction.” Firms strive to influence standard bodies, create ecosystems, and legitimate new organizational forms. Such efforts go well beyond the basic marketing function of attempting to influence consumers’ perceptions and preferences to influencing the very economic forces in which the firm operates. [Moi ici: Aquilo que a ISO 9001:2015 inclui na cláusula 4.2. Mais do que o cliente, as partes interessadas] Thus, while the idea of an “artificial” selection environment has been put forth to characterize the potential loose coupling between the bases of selection within the enterprise, in contrast to the immediate selection pressure of the firm’s competitive environment, the notion of niche construction invites an element of a “design” consideration with regard to the external environment. Emergence need not imply a lack of foresight and intentionality. Effective strategic leaders are very mindful of potentially attractive adjacent market spaces into which they could move.
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The Mendel executive is mindful. She is engaged in one course of action but cognizant of other possibilities. She is alert to indicators of both failure and success. The Mendel executive has both the boldness and imagination to design novelty but, at the same time, the humility to understand the inherent limitations of any effort of design and the nearly universal need for refinements and modifications of a given trajectory. [Moi ici: Fundamental esta coragem casada com a humildade. Faz-me recuar a Fevereiro de 2007 e a um mapa: “The generic process involved is that meaning is produced because the leader treats a vague map or plan as if it had some meaning, even though he knows full well that the real meaning will come only when people respond to the map and do something. The secret of leading with a bad map is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having predicted that the group will find its way out, the leader creates the combination of optimism and action that allows people to turn their confusion into meaning and find their way home.”] The Mendel executive is aware of multiple possible “worlds” in which strategic actions can be enacted. There are the current markets and customers, but there are other markets and customers who might be reached by changes to a product, mode of distribution, or shifts in means of value capture. Boldness, imagination, and humility are not generally observed as co-occurring traits; but, when jointly present, they offer the possibility of identifying valuable and novel strategic initiatives."

Trechos retirados de "Mendel in the C-Suite: Design and the Evolution of Strategies" de Daniel A. Levinthal e publicado em 2017 por Strategy Science 2(4):282-287.

II - Strategic direction: any connection to your QMS? (part 1 of 2)

First video: I - The Process Approach: Do you really use it?

We believe that most of the quality management systems have no connection with the strategic direction of an organization. But if strategic direction is fundamental for the success of organizations, then most quality management systems are not aligned with strategy. And if they are not aligned with strategy, their real contribution to business results is very poor or even dangerous.
With this presentation I want to show how different strategic directions imply different priorities and concerns in a business-aligned quality management system.

For example: How does your organization's quality policy relate to your strategy? Are your quality objectives aligned with the strategy? Do the projects of the organization contribute to the operationalization of the strategy? Are your quality management system processes focused on order winners?

This presentation will also connect strategic direction with the topic of the first video of this series, the process approach.

Since the final video, for this second theme in the series, was too long it will be presented in three parts: