A força da testosterona é demolidora... (parte II)

Na parte I o Azrael recomendou-me a leitura de "How Volvo Lost The Plot":

"You see, that scrappy car company was doing so well that in 1999 it caught the eye of Ford, who was creating the Premier Automotive Group, simply called, inelegantly, PAG.
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PAG was an umbrella corporation that included Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Lincoln and, as of 2000, Volvo. It was all run by a guy whose name sounded like European royalty: Wolfgang Rietzle. Then CEO of Ford, Jacques Nasser, wanted Volvo so badly, he paid $6 billion with Ford family money for it.
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In 2001, people I had known for years were gone and replaced with Ford people, and they saw Volvo as part of the collective PAG group, which I deemed to be lacking some soul. That soul was replaced with chaos that I experiences personally.
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Between then and 2009, Volvo introduced the XC90, XC60, C30, S40, XC70 and much more. Yet Ford, and the marketing people it hired, felt that safety was really of no interest as a talking point. All those people who had been trained to buy a Volvo were thrown under the bus. A new direction was taken."

Resultado:

"Geely paid $1.3 billion and the sale was completed in 2010. That’s a loss of $4.7 billion to Ford."

Agora:

"Volvo’s saga over the past 30 years has seen billions of dollars invested or lost. Ford killed what Volvo stood and the brand has yet to recapture its original focus, despite the tinkering of too many people to count." 

Como não voltar à biologia e recordar os anfíbios e as noites de temporal que convidam à exuberância das vacas gordas.

"The granddaddy of all [strategy] mistakes"

Only helping customers get a Job Done better/cheeper/faster = race to the bottom. Think how to change the Job or create new ones #jtbd pic.twitter.com/hG1RR8SnEZ

— Alan Klement (@alanklement) July 1, 2017

Como não recordar "Nem de propósito!!!":

"The granddaddy of all [strategy] mistakes is competing to be the best, going down the same path as everybody else and thinking that somehow you can achieve better results."
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"really robust strategy is based, instead, on delivering unique value on both the customer side and the ‘supply’ side."

Apostar nas forças

Excelente reflexão, útil para empresas que sentem que têm de mudar de vida:

"In their efforts to compete, business strategists often forget a basic principle: Build from your strengths. [Moi ici: Começar pela análise do ADN] The most successful companies have a clear, well-articulated view of what's important to them and their customers. They understand that the way to win consistently is through what they do rather than what they sell.
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These companies also understand that “what they do” is unique to them; they have their own capabilities and practices that no other company could quite duplicate, even if it tried. In that sense, building from your strengths is the most reliable way we have found to differentiate your company.
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when you understand what you’re great at, and design your capabilities and strategy accordingly, you can define how you want to compete, and shape your own future rather than waiting for others to do it for you.
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1. Accept Your Weaknesses
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All of us — individuals, teams, and organizations — have weaknesses. These are not skill gaps; those can be corrected with learning. Weaknesses are inherent deficiencies of talent or capability that do not change even after aggressive efforts to improve them. Pride and our ingrained work ethic may cause us to deny our weaknesses, but acceptance is the first step toward designing for strength.
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2. Recognize Your Specific Strengths
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Weaknesses tend to be universal and broad. ... But strengths are often extraordinarily specific.
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3. Solve the Right Problem
A moment of magic accompanies the willingness to quit. It involves gaining a better perspective. Prior to this moment, it is almost impossible to be objective about your challenges. Too many emotions and pressures intrude. But now, you can evaluate your options more dispassionately, and — in the language of design thinking — learn to ask better questions. The problem you are trying to solve may not be the right one to address.
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In my case, fixing my weaknesses was the wrong problem to solve. I have since come to think that the same is true for many other people and organizations seeking breakthrough performance. Instead of solving for “how do I fix my weaknesses?”  [Moi ici: Isto é o que critico quando escrevo aqui sobre o Return-of-Attention das organizações patronais. Gastam demasiado tempo a combater a última guerra quando o mundo entretanto mudou, em vez de procurar uma nova guerra onde tenham vantagens únicas] I asked myself, “how can I design for my unique strengths?”

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4. Double Down on Your Strengths"

Trechos retirados de "Design for Your Strengths"

Num país que faz leis por tudo e por nada um tipo desconfia

"Indeed much of the work of investment banks my days was to play on regulations, find loopholes in the laws. And, counterintuitively, the more regulations, the easier it was to make money."

Trecho retirado de "Why Each One Should Eat His Own Turtles (Revised )"

O artigo é demasiado rico e merece ser lido e relido. Voltaremos a ele.

Curiosidade do dia

"O primeiro-ministro esteve impecável. Em vez de explicar, como os fracos, o dr. Costa exigiu explicações. Em vez de dar respostas, como os pelintras, o dr. Costa fez perguntas. Em vez de pedir desculpas, como os malucos, o dr. Costa pediu um “focus group” para avaliar o impacto dos fogos na sua imprescindível popularidade."

Trecho retirado de "Tudo está bem quando acaba bem"

Alinhar vendas com estratégia

Na sequência de "Fiquei com curiosidade ..." recordei "Executives and Salespeople Are Misaligned — and the Effects Are Costly":

"The results show that executives feel that they have a high level of understanding of their companies’ strategic priorities, while sales reps — who aren’t typically in the planning meetings, on the conference calls, or roaming the halls with the people crafting strategy — said they did not.
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The sales force gets better and better at things that leaders and customers value less and less while remaining unclear about performance expectations.
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In order to achieve alignment, companies need to break these routines and treat causes, not symptoms.
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They linked strategy to behaviors.
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They changed their approach to training.
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They revamped their compensation and performance evaluations."

"A lack of workers"

"China Daily reported in 2015 the building of the first robot-led plant in Dongguan by the Guangdong Everwin Precision Technology company, in which it planned to use 1,000 robots to reduce the labour needed for the factory by 90 per cent.' The gearing is interesting, as the assistant general manager of the company indicated that sixty robots could take an assembly line that needed 600 workers in the past down to 100. So, not fully dark, but a significant reduction in the number of hands involved in the production process.
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This story is repeated in factory after factory, across sectors and companies around China. The Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) wants to replace two-thirds of its workers in a factory making optical networking equipment in Shanghai because labour costs have doubled over the past seven years and they face competition from automated manufacturing in Germany and other traditionally high-cost economies, According to Gerald Wong, the CEO of CIG, 'It is very clear in China: people will either go into automation or they will go out of the manufacturing business:. The main driver for these changes? A lack of workers. Hiring is difficult in the region, with estimates of a shortage of 100,000 workers from the local government. It may seem counter-intuitive to those outside China that there is a labour shortage in these areas, as the narrative was companies moving east to access the lower labour costs where hands were abundant. That has changed, as wages in manufacturing have risen and China's working-age population begins to shrink. According to some estimates, between now and 2050 China will see the number of its population aged between fifteen and fifty-nine shrink by 212 million." For the planners and factory owners across China, it looks as if they are hoping to pivot from labour-intensive manufacturing to robot-intense manufacturing, leaping forward to become a high-tech centre for making."

Tendo em conta o que a Toyota e a Mercedes já aprenderam com a automatização, esta tendência pode contribuir para um acelerar do reshoring por causa da falta de flexibilidade e as exigências de quantidades mínimas crescentes por modelo.

Por outro lado, a "lack of workers" relatada leva-me a fazer um paralelismo com as celuloses e os modelos cancerosos de crescimento. É preciso apostar num crescimento baseado na subida na escala de valor e não na quantidade pura e simples.


Trecho retirado de "From Global to Local" de Finbarr Livesey

Prioridades?

E na sua empresa como é?

Figura retirada de "Closing the skills gap: companies and colleges collaborating for change"

Tour de France 2017

O maior espectáculo desportivo em solo europeu começa hoje:

Força Froome e Cavendish.

Curiosidade do dia

"O ministro da Agricultura afirmou que é preciso disciplinar as plantações de eucaliptos. Novas plantações vão ser proibidas excetuando transposição de áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas."

O que são áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas?

Qual o critério para classificar uma área como bem ou mal localizada ecologicamente?

Recordo:

"Se o eucalipto for introduzido em territórios onde não exista falta de água, ao contrário do seu terreno natural, este crescimento será ainda mais rápido, com elevada voracidade de absorção de água e nutrientes dos solos. E é assim que em Portugal e Espanha temos boas condições para o eucalipto, razão pela qual os mais altos Eucalyptus globulus do mundo se encontram na Península Ibérica e não na Oceânia O eucalipto está perfeitamente adaptado a Portugal, o problema é que Portugal não está perfeitamente adaptado ao eucalipto."

E volto a perguntar:

O que são áreas ecologicamente mal localizadas?

Por que é que nenhum so-called jornalista coloca a questão?

Fazem-me lembrar o José Alberto Carvalho a convenientemente perguntar, "Esta assinatura é sua?" Em vez de perguntar, "E este projecto, é da sua autoria?"

Primeiro trecho retirado de "Capoulas Santos: É preciso “disciplinar” o eucalipto" (O mesmo que Abril passado se justificava assim):

Segundo trecho retirado de "Eucaliptugal, o ecocídio da floresta nacional"

Heranças

Cuidado com estas crenças herdadas do século XX.

Onde é que eles não têm vantagem? Onde é que eu sou bom e posso ter vantagem? Quem é que valoriza aquilo que a minha vantagem permite atingir?

Recordar:

• livrarias independentes mais aqui;
• discos de vinil;
• cerveja;

Imagem retirada daqui.

"All models are wrong, some are useful"

Há anos que uso esta frase "All models are wrong, some are useful." Ajuda a não ser fundamentalista, a aprender a tolerar os modelos "infantis" que encontro, segundo os meus padrões, mas que são autênticos quando bem intencionados e funcionam:

"All models are wrong, some are useful.
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Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.
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A model is a simplification which fosters understanding.
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we believe in using models for the purpose of building a massive, but finite amount of fundamental, invariant knowledge about how the world really works. Applying this knowledge is the key to making good decisions and avoiding stupidity.
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“Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power, the better the science.”
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Too many people are caught up wasting time on physics-like precision in areas of practical life that do not have such precision available. A better approach is to ask “Is it useful?” and, if yes, “To what extent?”
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Mental models are a way of thinking about the world that prepares us to make good decisions in the first place."

Trechos retirados de "All Models Are Wrong"

A força da testosterona é demolidora...

A propósito de "Pick-up da Mercedes já pode ser encomendada" que li ontem à noite lembrei-me logo da sensação que tive ontem de tarde quando passei por um SUV da Porsche.

Lembrei-me do hummer da Volvo e de "Reflexões sobre a evolução das marcas".

A diluição de uma marca avança assim... a força da testosterona é demolidora...

A confiança é demasiado importante

Artigos destes "Tem a certeza de que está a comprar comida biológica?" põem em causa todo um sector.

Ao não identificarem os "culpados" lançam um suspeição sobre todos.

Justo ou injusto não interessa, é a vida.

Eu, se fosse um operador biológico procuraria forma de me destacar da massa e estaria a pensar em forma de me distinguir e de reforçar a minha credibilidade.

A confiança é demasiado importante para este tipo de negócio ...

Curiosidade do dia

Além do timing... quem paga?

Estas coisas não lembram à corte lesboeta

Ontem em conversa com um empresário fiquei a saber do caos que reina na zona de Águeda.

Parece que estas coisas não chegam ao mainstream, não lembram aos lesboetas que mandam nos media.

Águeda é um avatar do que vai acontecer em breve no resto do país. Águeda é forte na metalomecânica. Ainda há dias sublinhava isto:

"“O setor não tem número de formandos necessários e isto é uma tragédia e com a taxa de desemprego a baixar, este é um problema que se vai agudizar”, sublinha." 

Este empresário já está a pensar numa resposta: automatização.

Ainda mais especulações

Assim que li o título, "Businesses Scale Back Investment in America" veio-me logo à mente a leitura e a reflexão de um passeio "Mais especulações".

Conjugo facilmente o estarmos a entranharmos-nos em Mongo e o choque com a teimosia anglo-saxónica de continuar a acreditar no século XX: eficiência, volume, escala, custo.

"if investment declines over the long term, it could imply at least two bad trends -- either businesses don’t see many good opportunities, or society is becoming more short-termist in its thinking.
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Net of depreciation, privately held American businesses are only investing about 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in the U.S. itself" 

Constância de propósito?

Os mesmos que diziam isto em Fevereiro de 2017:

Agora dizem que a expansão do eucalipto começou em 2013.

Os mesmos que ainda em Abril deste ano diziam:

"O Governo garante que pretende "aumentar a produção e a produtividade do eucalipto" e que continuará a apoiar o setor do celulose e do papel."

Agora dizem:

"Capoulas Santos: “Não haverá mais um único hectare de eucalipto em Portugal”" 

Como não recordar o tema da constância de propósito.

"knowing who you are and ... why you exist"

Um texto com uma séries de mensagens deste blogue concentradas num único ponto: "Brand Value Niche, What?"

"Your Brand Value Niche (BVN) involves knowing who you are and just as important why you exist.[Moi ici: O "who" tem a ver com o ADN]
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Your ideal client is not everyone—it cannot be everyone, let me restate—it cannot be everyone.
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You need to step back and take a sharp look at everything that you are doing. Ask yourself what am I doing well? What am I not doing well? What is it that excites me both in my personal life as well as my professional life? What do I think I could do better than anyone else in my field? [Moi ici: Tem de haver alguma coisa em que possamos fazer a diferença, algo que os clientes valorizem, ...]
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The time you dedicate to clearly defining your brand’s value, offering, and audience will come back to you twenty-fold. If you do not give proper attention to this phase it can result in your company completely missing the target with your ideal client, create a lack of direction as to exactly where you fit in and not help you connect the right features and benefits with your most appropriate prospects.
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• You can’t be everything to everybody. Avoid the urge to be everything to everybody–focus, focus, and focus!

• Having a unique selling point (USP) isn’t enough. A customer needs to see the value of your service or product as it relates to their life—not just that it’s unique or different.

• Be disciplined and consistent in your messaging. You only have a few moments to capture their attention and generate enough interest for them to want to learn more.

• Your internal culture reflects your external image. Make sure that everyone on the team is working with the same clear goal and vision.

• Don’t let conventional wisdom determine your customer value proposition. While conventional wisdom may serve as a guidepost, don’t get trapped by its limitations. Just because it works for someone else does not mean that it will work for your business."

No-brainer

Escrevo aqui muito sobre Mongo, sobre a explosão de tribos, sobre a progressiva radicalização de cada tribo e sobre o problema das empresas grandes, habituadas a trabalhar para a grande caixa da massa central, a tentarem continuar a servir todos.

Tribos radicalizadas valorizam a autenticidade...

Como é que as empresas grandes vão lidar com o desafio:

"Startups can do anything..
Companies can only do what’s legal..
Startups can do anything One of the unheralded advantages of a startup is what at first glance appears to be its weakness. Initially, a startup has no business model and no market share to defend. Its employees and investors don’t depend on an existing revenue stream. If they select a business model that targets industry incumbents, they don’t have to worry about upsetting existing customers, partners or distribution channels.
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Yet those very weaknesses give startups an overwhelming advantage in innovation.  Startups can try any idea and any business model—even those that are on the surface patently illegal.
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At times laws and regulations are in place for the health and safety of consumers. But often the legal obstacles confronting startups have been put in place by companies that look to the government and regulators as their first line of defense against new market entrants. (Existing companies also use network effects of monopolies/duopolies, distribution channel kickbacks, etc., to stifle competition.)
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In the past, these anti-innovation tools were sufficient to keep new entrants out. But today, investors realize that companies that depend on regulation and artificial market constraints are actually vulnerable. Once presented with an alternative to the status quo, customers who have been locked into rent-seeking companies flock to innovative startups with business models that provide better service, lower prices, etc. Enormous financial returns are available to startups taking on incumbents, regulators and the law. So, startup investors comfortable making a risk capital bet are actively encouraging startups to go after large, static industries that look prime for disruption.
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Companies can do anything legal In the 20th century companies worried about increasing their market share, profit margins, return on investment and return on net assets. They tenaciously protected their existing markets from other existing companies that were using the same business model. They very rarely worried about disruption from new firms as the barriers to entry (financial, legal, regulatory) were so high.
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Ironically once companies become locked in their entrenched market positions, it became difficult for them to compete by breaking the same laws or untangling their existing channel relationships. In contrast to startups, companies are constrained by local, state and federal laws and regulations.  The risk of breaking laws can result in large penalties and shareholder lawsuits.  The Justice Department and State Attorneys General find large companies attractive targets.
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As a consequence, one of the roles of the legal department in large corporations is to protect the company from straying into any legal or regulatory danger."

Trechos retirados de "Steve Blank Why a Company Can’t “Be More Like a Startup”"