"helping them break through the limitation of this thinking"

"There is a difference between price and cost. Price is what you pay for something, and the cost is representative of the value (of which price is only part of the equation). Some people prefer to use price as the value, eliminating all other factors from consideration. Helping clients to recognize and address the other factors can shift them away from looking only at price.
...
Sometimes ... you have to engage your client about what else they value outside of price, or you have to prompt them with the value by addressing it directly. You have to point them at the additional costs they are going to incur by being cheap, things like missed deadlines, rework, reordering, waiting for product, additional labor, poor speed to market, falling behind their competition, more labor, disappointed clients, lost clients or customers, poor experience, frustrated internal employees, loss of reputation and on and on.
...
When your dream client weighs price more heavily than other factors that are equally—or more—important, you are responsible for helping them break through the limitation of this thinking. You are also responsible for not allowing them to underinvest in the results they real need—and avoiding the higher price they pay by being cheap."

Trechos retirados de "Helping Your Clients Understand Value"

Altos e baixos

Ontem, durante uma caminhada matinal de cerca de 7,7 km comecei a ler "Leal: “How to thrive in a world where everything can be copied" de Howard Yu.

De rajada li quase 1/8 do livro (pensei logo em 60 km de caminhadas para o completar) e encontrei uma série de coisas interessantes. No entanto, gostaria de começar por um relato, o relato da experiência de vida do autor, natural de Hong Kong:

“my fascination—or perhaps, obsession—with industry dynamics and the constant displacement of early pioneers goes back much further to a time before I thought of joining academia. Born and raised in Hong Kong, I watched the inevitable migration of knowledge and capital. I remember my elementary school teachers describing the economy of Hong Kong as an “entrepôt,” a term the British applied to my city when it served as the only window between China and the rest of the world. Virtually all merchandise and goods—cheese, chocolate, automobiles, raw cotton, and rice—had to pass through Hong Kong on their way in and out of China.
.
With its low labor costs, Hong Kong rose as a major manufacturing hub for labor-intensive industries. The once-sleepy fishing village became “the Pearl of the East,” a shining example of economic development. By 1972, Hong Kong had replaced Japan as the world’s largest toy exporter, with garment and apparel manufacturing forming the backbone of our economy. Li Ka-shing, one of the richest men in Asia with an estimated net worth of $30 billion, started out as a factory man, a supplier of hand-knit plastic flowers, before he moved into property development, container port operation, mass transportation, retailing, telecommunications, and much else.
.
But in the early 1980s, Hong Kong’s manufacturing cluster imploded. Factories moved to mainland China and, with them, manufacturing jobs. They first moved across the border to Shenzhen, then to Guangdong Province, and then to the rest of China. Unemployment in Hong Kong soared, crushing the optimism that had characterized residents for so many years. “In the year of my graduation from college, my classmates were speaking of the need to acquire new skills to remain self-sufficient. That was before we had landed our first jobs. To survive, we told ourselves, we had to reinvent.
.
And Hong Kong did just that. It cast aside its former manufacturing and colonial identity and reinvented itself as a financial and logistics hub for the region. That reinvention of Hong Kong was where I grew up. It happened at the time when policy makers throughout the world were singularly praising outsourcing as “efficient.” It all happened before any free-market economist became alarmed that emerging market firms might one day catch up with established ones in the West. It was an era of unbridled trust in globalization. But for us Hong Kongers, including myself, it was the age of distrust. Everyone I spoke to yearned for stability and continuity. I wanted to find out how to achieve just that.”

Por cá a maioria das pessoas associa os altos e baixos da economia, a azar, a ignorância ou a falcatrua. No entanto, a economia é uma continuação da biologia, com os seus altos e baixos mesmo para quem trabalha bem. Em vez de confiar que o ovo vai estar no cu da galinha, em vez de confiar que os planetas se alinharão quando for preciso, é preciso tentar estar um passo à frente e, mesmo assim perceber que pode não ser suficiente.

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa (parte II)

Parte I.

“A gap in knowledge prompts the collection of more data. ... Seeking to improve its information-gathering and processing capability, the company became more complex, adding committees and overlays, some permanent, some ad hoc. ... So it pumped more data through its existing systems. No one took a decision to do so. It was just the natural result of how the organization as a system was programmed. ... the data flow paralyzed decision making, because no matter how much there was, there was always more to obtain. Meetings were about analyzing problems rather than resolving them.
...
A gap in alignment is often indicated by top-level frustration and lower-level confusion. ... Top-level managers felt increasing pressure to specify exactly what they wanted people to do. They began to stress actions rather than outcomes, in the one case by spelling things out “in painful detail” and in the other through SOPs and central processes.
...
A gap in effects is typically responded to by an increase in control. The favorite control mechanism is metrics. As time goes on, the emphasis is switched from outputs to inputs, so that in the end everybody’s actions are detailed, analyzed, and controlled by a few people who look to everyone else as if they are seeking to become omniscient about the world outside and omnipotent in the world inside. Controls have a cost. Overhead builds up around the controllers, and the reporting burden increases for the controlled.
...
These natural reactions do not simply fail to solve the problem, they make it worse. Because the cause-and-effect cycles are systemic and reciprocal, all three reactions interact with and exacerbate each other."

Quantas empresas caem nesta armadilha?

Lembram-se dos relatos dos bombeiros em Monchique, parados enquanto populares combatiam fogos a poucos metros? Parados porque não tinham autorização superior para agir!

Há muitos anos ouvi falar em Blitzkrieg, como "Guerra Relâmpago", e sempre pensei que tinha a ver com surpresa e velocidade. Só há cerca de 10 anos aprendi com Boyd o que estava por trás da Blitzkrieg. A origem da Blitzkrieg assenta lá atrás no tempo, quando os exércitos de Napoleão limparam o sebo ao exército prusfsiano, uma eficaz máquina de combate da guerra anterior.

Uma catástrofe militar tem o poder de acabar com direitos adquiridos e colocar como objectivo número um a sobrevivência da comunidade. Isso, liberta as pessoas para colocar tudo em causa, até a impossibilidade de militares do povo poderem subir na hierarquia militar até ao topo por não serem de boas famílias.

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

O Espírito Santo providenciará uma resposta!

Tenho um tio com mais de 90 anos que é padre.

Há anos perguntei-lhe como é que a ICAR iria resolver o problema da falta de vocações sacerdotais. Eu a pensar que o tinha entalado recebi uma resposta que me desconsertou:

- O Espírito Santo providenciará uma resposta!

E quantos mais anos passam mais eu acho a resposta cheia de sabedoria.

Reconheço que em certa medida é o que eu escrevo aqui quando falo da tolice que é acreditar que os modelos de funcionamento da economia, que hoje nos são familiares, têm centenas de anos, mas parecem ser eternos. Mentira!

Talvez por isso, em inglês se diga que:

- Trends are for suckers!

Muita gente faz previsões assumindo que uma variável muda e que todas as outras se mantêm constantes. Por exemplo, assumir que vão faltar empregos por causa da ascensão das máquinas e considerar como constantes aquilo que é variável:

• demografia; e
• Mongo com a sua exigência de mais diversidade, de mais customização.

E esquecer que o emprego, algo que nos parece tão natural como a chuva ou a noite e o dia, é uma criação recente. E como sublinha Nassim Taleb com o efeito Lindy, é mais fácil que o livro em papel ainda exista daqui a 100 anos do que um iPad. Se a humanidade prosperou durante milhares de anos sem empregos e sem escola pública poderá prosperar outros tantos depois dessas realidades serem abandonadas.

Escrevo isto depois da leitura de "A World With Fewer Babies Spells Economic Trouble". Sigo aqui no blogue há muitos anos uma postura do contra. Não creio que seja uma catástrofe, um futuro onde os humanos têm menos filhos, se calhar investem mais nesses filhos, se calhar esses filhos serão vistos pela sociedade em geral como algo escasso e, por isso, de maior valor. Escrevi aqui algures que um dia seríamos (os nossos descendentes) todos tratados como Figos.

Catástrofe será caminhar para um mundo com uma população mais envelhecida, com menos gente nova, e não fazer nenhuma alteração no funcionamento das sociedades por causa de direitos adquiridos.

Este trecho:

"4. What happens when a country’s population stops growing?
Its economy can still expand, but the pace over the long run would be limited to the speed at which productivity -- output per hour worked -- is rising. Since the 2007-2009 recession, productivity gains have been relatively meager, making low fertility rates an added problem. If fewer people work, there’s less income to go around. Fewer workers also mean less tax revenue for retirement and health-care programs. And that means governments might have to cut benefits, raise taxes or borrow more, pitting the old and young against each other."

Faz-me lembrar uma reunião de condomínio recente. Um casal de idade, ambos reformados, protestavam contra o valor mensal a pagar pelo condomínio. A empresa que gere o condomínio explicou cada um dos items do orçamento, chamou a atenção para as obras que iriam ser feitas e as propostas que tinham recebido. Então, o casal propôs uma medida para reduzir os custos do condomínio, cortar a luz na garagem do prédio.

O que fará o Espírito Santo neste mundo secular?

Há uma citação que aprendi a valorizar: "nature evolves away from constraints, not toward goals"

Uns hão-de querer manter direitos adquiridos, outros acharão abominável fazer como fizeram este mês os japoneses e marcar a idade da reforma para os 70 anos, no fim algo há-de levar-nos para um equilíbrio.

Lembro-me de um comentador na oposição no tempo da troika dizer que querer ter défice zero, cortar cerca de 4,5 mil milhões de euros, era impossível. Agora, apoiante da geringonça, acha normal apontar a défice zero. Se antes achava o investimento público intocável, agora nem fala dele.

Como indivíduos, somos um resultado fantástico de milhares de milhões de anos de evolução, adaptamos-nos a tudo, com maior ou menor dor. Quando a necessidade se impuser acabaremos por chegar a uma alternativa sustentável.

O outro lado das tabelas

Ontem à noite ouvia a RTP a referir que a evolução dos custos laborais em Portugal tinha sido uma das baixas da Europa e estranhei. Agora, pesquisei no Google e a primeira notícia que aparece sobre o tema é "Salários em Portugal sobem abaixo da média da UE", onde leio:

"Portugal é o quarto país da União Europeia (UE) onde os custos com o trabalho - um indicador onde também são contabilizados os salários - menos subiram."

Na semana que passou, em duas empresas diferentes, em diferentes zonas do país, discutimos sobre um factor crítico: a falta de pessoas para contratar.

Por isso, estranhei os números da RTP. Como imaginei que eram números do Eurostat fui à fonte pesquisar. Encontrei isto:

E continuei a não desistir. Há aqui algo que falta explicar.

E, mergulhando no documento vê-se algo que o jornalismo não refere... será que ainda existem jornalistas?

Atenção à figura que se segue:

A RTP e Correio da manhã falam dos números globais para a economia como um todo. Ora na economia como um todo existem dois mundos à parte: A economia dos negócios e a economia ligada ao estado e imagino que também ao sector social.

Assim, na página seguinte do Eurostat aparece outra tabela que separa os dois mundos:

E agora reparem na diferença dos dois mundos em Portugal:

Deu-me então para comparar a evolução dos custos laborais dos vários países no mundo dos negócios e cheguei a isto:

Engraçado como as coisas mudam: Portugal está com um crescimento acima da média. Em 28 países só temos 12 à frente. E mais, olhando para a composição da velha CEE com 12 países verificamos que o país da Europa Ocidental onde os custos laborais mais crescem é ... Portugal. E tirando a Grécia, que está sair do efeito de um rolo compressor tremendo, e os países que se livraram do comunismo, o país onde os custos laborais mais crescem é ... Portugal.

Por que é que os so-called "jornalistas" não fazem esta análise?

Imagino que para não prejudicarem a imagem do governo... porque há o outro lado das tabelas. O que esta análise revela é a austeridade no estado.

Victor Frankenstein e Mongo

A propósito de "Repair Café: transformar o velho em novo em comunidade", vejo aqui outro sintoma de Mongo. E vejo mais, vejo o fermentar de uma mentalidade que foi eliminada com a ascensão do modelo do século XX.

O século XX assim como criou o emprego, assim como criou a produção em massa, criou o sentimento de massa, de manada, em que todos comprávamos as mesmas coisas e víamos os mesmos filmes. Quem decidia o que íamos comprar, o que ia estar disponível na prateleira? O produtor.

Assim, hoje, temos enraizado na mente que quando precisamos de algo vamos a uma prateleira, escolhemos o que há e compramos. Acredito que em Mongo o modelo será outro. Em Mongo ninguém quer ser igual a ninguém. Por isso, cada um vai desenvolver uma ideia mais ou menos aproximada do que precisa (o job-to-be-done) e irá a um artesão do bairro, da cidade, da região e vai expor a sua ideia, receber sugestões (estou a escrever isto e a lembrar-me do "Pimp My Ride" - levo carro velho, digo o que procuro, mas estou aberto a sugestões dos artesãos com quem interajo e que são muito mais especialistas do que eu sobre materiais, tecnologia).

Há dias o amigo Hélder no FB protestava porque tinha um PC com ano e meio e já estava meio "pôdre". Em Mongo, ninguém compra PC's novos. Em Mongo todos fazem como o ET do filme com o mesmo nome. Pega-se no PC velho, na carcaça, e vai-se a um artesão (como nos anos 70/80 ia com o meu amigo André a esta casa comprar componentes eléctricos para montar rádios ou detectores de metais)

E o artesão comporta-se como um alfaiate (tenho uma vaga ideia, mas confesso que não sei se estou a inventar, de quando tinha 6 anos e morava em São João da Madeira a minha mãe levar-me a um alfaiate que havia no rés-do-chão do meu prédio por causa de um fato para um casamento): o cliente explica o problema, explica o desafio, explica os desejos e necessidades. O artesão pega no portfólio de materiais e de trabalhos feitos e lança possibilidades. Chegam a uma primeira versão de entendimento do que se pretende, estabelecem um preço e combinam timing para o trabalho final e para visitas de revisão.

O artesão será uma espécie de Victor Frankenstein - misturará o novo com o velho, muitas vezes sem desenho, porque não faz tenção de repetir para uma produção em série e porque é um artista que se deixa levar pelo que acordou com o cliente e o feeling do momento.

"too much bread?" (parte II)

Parte I.

"If “the essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” as Michael Porter famously said in a seminal HBR article, then the essence of execution is truly not doing it. That sounds simple, but it’s surprisingly hard for organizations to kill existing initiatives, even when they don’t align with new strategies. Instead, leaders keep layering on initiatives, which can lead to severe overload at levels below the executive team.
.
Sometimes leaders are unaware of all the initiatives under way and their impact on the organization. In other cases organizational politics conspires to let initiatives continue long after they should have run their course. Either way, overload can result in costly productivity and quality problems and employee burnout."

Há dias escrevia aqui:

"E para deixar tudo claro, não faz mal nenhum explicitar o que não é o nosso negócio"

Agora encontro:

"Establishing overall priorities without deciding what to cut.
Leadership teams often engage in prioritization exercises that define and communicate where people should focus their energy. However, they undermine those efforts if they don’t also do the hard work of explicitly deciding what trade-offs to make and what has to stop."

Trechos retirados de "Too Many Projects"

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa

“Clausewitz describes the effects of friction in terms of two gaps. One gap, caused by our trying to act on an unpredictable external environment of which we are always somewhat ignorant, is between “desired outcomes and actual outcomes (as in the example of the simple journey of the overoptimistic traveler). Another gap, caused by internal friction, is the gap between the plans and the actions of an organization. It comes from the problem of information access, transfer, and processing in which many independent agents are involved (as in his example of a battalion being made up of many individuals, any one of whom could make the plan go awry).

...
The problem of strategy implementation is often reduced to one issue: the gap between plans and actions. How do we get an organization actually to carry out what has been agreed? However, because of the nature of the environment, even if the organization executes the plan, there is no guarantee that the actual outcomes will match the desired ones; that is, the ones the plan was intended to achieve. The two gaps interact to exacerbate each other. In both cases there is uncertainty between inputs and outputs. The problem of achieving an organization’s goals is not merely one of getting it to act, but of getting it to act in such a way that what is actually achieved is what was wanted in the first place. We have to link the internal and external aspects of friction and overcome them both at the same time. There is a third gap, the one between the two, which we must also overcome
...
So these two gaps collapse together, leaving three in all: the gaps between plans, actions, and the outcomes they achieve.

In the case of all three elements – plans, actions, and outcomes – there is a difference between the actual and the ideal. The ultimate evidence for this is that the actual outcomes differ from the desired ones. That means that the actions actually taken were different from those we should have taken. This in turn may have been because we planned the wrong actions (as in the case of the traveler) or because although we planned the right actions, people did not actually do what we intended (as in the case of the confused battalion). Or it may have been because of both. The causes of those shortfalls are different in each case.
...
And even if we make good plans based on the best information available at the time and people do exactly what we plan, the effects of our actions may not be the ones we wanted because the environment is nonlinear and hence is fundamentally unpredictable. As time passes the situation will change, chance events will occur, other agents such as customers or competitors will take actions of their own, and we will find that what we do is only one factor among several which create a new situation. Even if the situation is stable, some of the effects of our actions will be unintended. Reality will change...
So in making strategy happen, far from simply addressing the narrowly defined implementation gap between plans and action, we have to overcome three. Those responsible for giving direction face the specific problem of creating robust plans, and those responsible for taking action face the specific problem of achieving results in markets that can react unpredictably.
...
These real uncertainties produce general psychological uncertainty. We do not like uncertainty. It makes us feel uncomfortable, so we try to eliminate it.
...
[Moi ici: Isto gera uma tendência para mais informação, mais detalhe, mais controlo, mais procedimentos, mais...] show a consistent drive toward more detail in information, instructions, and control, on the part of both individuals and the organization as a whole. This response is not only a natural reaction for us as individuals, it is what the processes and structures of most organizations are set up to facilitate."

Tudo a conjugar-se para asneira da grossa, para microgestão, para big data...

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”

Para reflexão

Quando a fantochada de 2 + 2 = 22 é levada avante começam os jogos:

"Exposing negative statistics about immigration sparked angry accusations of bigotry"

"sometimes values such as academic freedom and free speech come into conflict with other values to which Penn State was committed" 

E tudo isto se transforma num sketch dos Monty Python.

Exportações YTD - 7 meses de 2018

Continuado daqui.

Um panorama completamente diferente. Os que só olham para os números vão dizer que a situação melhorou. Alguém como eu, com outra perspectiva, olha para a evolução do Parcial I e percebe que há algo a mudar numa direcção negativa.

Tendências

Quando andava na 1ª classe já tínhamos aquela indefinição de saber se éramos 9 ou 10 milhões de portugueses a viver neste rectângulo. Agora, temos a previsão de lá para 2050 poderemos rondar os 7,5 milhões. Ou seja, um mercado doméstico a encolher.

Ou seja, as empresas que trabalham para o mercado interno vão ter de trabalhar cada vez mais só para não encolherem, ou para encolherem menos que o mercado.

Não é só o número de potenciais clientes que mudam, são também as suas expectativas, os seus sonhos, as suas necessidades. Por exemplo:

"The American population – the number of consumers – is growing less than 1% per annually. No product manager, no business manager, no CEO is going to be satisfied with revenue growth of less than 1% per year.
...
“Less population will require fewer stores and less expansion, meaning that existing stores must become more productive,” Sway advises. “This sets up a perfect storm considering the increase in competition from online shopping.”
...
the number of adult Americans in the middle-class, defined as people living in households that have incomes from two-thirds to double the national median, has fallen from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015. And their share of the nation’s aggregate income has declined precipitously, from 62% in 1970 to 43% in 2014.
.
These middle-class households simply have less money to spend on necessities, let alone discretionary purchases.
...
While the middle-class sinks lower, the fortunes of those at the top of the income pyramid are rising. They are taking an inordinate amount of the nation’s income, rising from 29% in 1970 to 49% in 2014, and accumulating a greater share of wealth, more than seven-times that of middle-class households in 2013,
...
One in five Americans live in a household with more than one generation – a record 60.6 million people, according to Sway, including about 40% of Millennials (18-to-34) who live with their parents or other family members, the largest percentage since 1940.
...
“ There are now more households with dogs than there are with children, 43 million vs. 33 million .”
...
“When Millennials do start having children, the numbers aren’t expected to surge as much as with prior generations,” Sway says. “Businesses depending on kids would be well advised to keep an eye on this birth population slowdown.”
...
By 2020 the Labor Department predicts that women’s labor force participation will be lower than in 1990.
...
“Since women account for about 80% of all consumer-purchasing decisions, reducing their presence and power in the economy may not bode well for retailers,” Sway says.
...
Further Asians are going to be the biggest in-bound ethnic group. “Asians are now on target to surpass Hispanics as the largest foreign-born group in American by 2055.” Today they make up less than 6% of the U.S. population."

Trechos retirados de "9 Demographic Trends Shaping Retail's Future"

Sem fugir do hollowing nada feito

Ler "O elevado preço das promoções" e recordar os marcadores "hollowing" e "radio clube".

Sugiro um olhar para este trecho:

"Urge recalibrar as expectativas dos clientes, com benefícios para todos, através de medidas como as seguintes:

• Reduzir a frequência das promoções, idealmente através da sua calendarização, tornando-as previsíveis para os clientes;

• Aumentar a seletividade, reduzindo as categorias abrangidas e direcionando as promoções ao nível da loja ou mesmo do cliente individual (utilizando informação detalhada e competências de analytics);

• Reduzir a dimensão e ritmo de redução nas promoções, mas ajustando também os preços iniciais."

Há muitos anos, ainda na primeira metade da década de 90, o mundo da Qualidade começou a falar no modelo de Kano:

Aquilo que num momento é atraente e faz a delícia de um cliente, passado algum tempo passa a ser trivial, expectável e básico. Com o tempo, aquilo que gerava satisfação, aquilo que era crítico, passou a ser algo que nunca gerará satisfação, só insatisfação se as coisas correrem mal e indiferença se as coisas correrem bem - recordar o meu velho exemplo da EDP - A ausência de insatisfação não gera satisfação!

Voltemos ao trecho citado acima. Alguma das medidas passa por melhorar, diferenciar a oferta?
.
.
.
.
Não!

Portanto, por muito que tentem implementar as medidas acima haverá sempre um concorrente disposto a ganhar menos e a manter ou reforçar a promoção. Num país de incumbentes com a rédea solta, ou seja, sem a protecção da UE, os incumbentes pediriam uma ajudinha às elites que estabeleceriam barreiras à entrada e facilitariam um conluio de preços. Só há uma alternativa viável para fugir ao mundo das promoções: investir na diferenciação da oferta. Ou seja, fugir do hollowing.

Como não recordar os protestos da Centromarca?

Não são parafusos, são pessoas

Um tema que os professores Guedes Miranda e Vitorino me deram a conhecer quando andava no 10º e 11º anos de escolaridade: o indeterminismo. A incapacidade de ter à priori toda a informação, mas mesmo que a tivéssemos teríamos de viver com o facto da mesma acção não gerar os mesmos efeitos ao longo do tempo. Einstein, da velha guarda, dizia que Deus não joga aos dados.

“War is an environment, he argued, in which getting simple things to happen is very difficult and getting difficult things to happen is impossible.
...
The gap is described as the difference between what we know and what we can do, as the gulf between planning and execution
...
It is important here to understand the nature of Clausewitz’s disagreement with von Bülow, and others of the school of scientific generalship. They too recognized that chance and uncertainty played a role in war. The difference was that they believed these factors could be eliminated by a more scientific approach to planning. Certainty of outcomes could be achieved by anyone who could gather and correctly process data about topological and geographical distances, march tables, supply needs, and the geometrical relationship between armies and their bases. They believed that in many cases this would render fighting unnecessary.
...
Clausewitz disagreed on two counts. First, he believed that friction was as inherent to war as it is to mechanical engineering and could therefore never be eliminated but only mitigated. Secondly, he believed that studying march tables and the like was not a fruitful means of mitigation. In fact, he came to think that friction had to be worked with. It actually provided opportunities, and could be used by a general just as much as it could be used by an engineer. The first thing was to recognize its existence. The second thing was to understand its nature. That was and remains more difficult.
...
The very business of getting an organization made up of individuals, no matter how disciplined, to pursue a collective goal produces friction just as surely as applying the brakes of a car. Because of the role of chance, actual outcomes are inherently unpredictable.
...
There is a gap between the actions we planned and the actions actually taken.
...
no one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally. The existence of friction is why armies need officers and businesses need managers. Anticipating and dealing with it form the core of managerial work. Recognizing that is liberating in itself.
...
Not only is an army not a “well-oiled machine,” the machine generates resistance of its own, because the parts it is made of are human. Although Clausewitz’s metaphors are all taken from mechanics rather than biology, he clearly sees where the metaphor itself begins to break down. He is reaching toward the idea of the organization as an organism. While the scientific school sought to eliminate human factors to make the organization as machine-like as possible, Clausewitz sought to exploit them.”

Clausewitz não via o factor humano como um defeito.


Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”

Em vez de abstracções, em vez de masturbações ...

No postal anterior, o primeiro passo é:

"Decide What Really Matters"

Este é o papel da gestão de topo, este é o papel de quem tem o comando. Estratégia ao mais alto nível é a expressão desta intenção, desta vontade, deste imperativo, desta escolha.

"Being strategic means consistently making those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for future.
.
This is, I think, a deceptively simple sentence. It implies that you know where you’re starting from, you’re clear on where you want to go, and you have the means and the will to make consistently good and powerful choices about how to get there. You can use this capability that I call being strategic to guide you through this wild time of ours."

Em vez de abstracções, em vez de masturbações, começar com o concreto:

• em que é que somos bons?
• em que é que fazemos a diferença?
• o que nos dá pica?
• o que nos faz ganhar dinheiro?
• o que nos afasta da guerra dos descontos por causa da concorrência ter baixado o preço deles?
• o que nos faz crescer intelectualmente?
• o que nos dá orgulho?

Este é o nosso negócio. 

E para deixar tudo claro, não faz mal nenhum explicitar o que não é o nosso negócio:

• porque não nos dá margem;
• porque é um lago de tubarões;
• porque é uma corrida para o fundo;
• porque teríamos de competir com quem tem outra estrutura de custos;
• porque não teríamos tempo de qualidade para os clientes que interessam;
• porque é aborrecido;
• porque ficaríamos estagnados;
• ...

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy"

Bom senso, simplicidade - coisas que normalmente estão em défice:

“1 Decide What Really Matters .
You cannot create perfect plans, so do not attempt to do so. Do not plan beyond the circumstances you can foresee. Instead, use the knowledge which is accessible to you to work out the outcomes you really want the organization to achieve. Formulate your strategy as an intent rather than a plan.
.
2 Get the Message Across.
Having worked out what matters most now, pass the message on to others and give them responsibility for carrying out their part in the plan. Keep it simple. Don’t tell people what to do and how to do it. Instead, be as clear as you can about your intentions. Say what you want people to achieve and, above all, tell them why. Then ask them to tell you what they are going to do as a result.
.
3 Give People Space and Support.
Do not try to predict the effects your actions will have, because you can’t. Instead, encourage people to adapt their actions to realize the overall intention as they observe what is actually happening. Give them boundaries which are broad enough to take decisions for themselves and act on them.”

Recordar von Molkte:

"no plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force
...
No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy."

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.

"Unfortunately, these reactions do not solve the problem"

"“We can measure the results until the outcomes we want are achieved. We can make plans, take actions, and achieve outcomes in a linear sequence with some reliability. If we are assiduous enough, pay attention to detail, and exercise rigorous control, the sequence will be seamless.

In an unpredictable environment, this approach quickly falters. [Moi ici: Imaginem ter um Estado-Maior numa sala, longe das operações no terreno, a dar ordens aos bombeiros sobre quando devem actuar e como. E comparar com o blitkrieg] The longer and more rigorously we persist with it, the more quickly and completely things will break down. The environment we are in creates gaps between plans, actions, and outcomes:

•  The gap between plans and outcomes concerns knowledge: It is the difference between what we would like to know and what we actually know. It means that we cannot create perfect plans.
•  The gap between plans and actions concerns alignment: It is the difference between what we would like people to do “and what they actually do. It means that even if we encourage them to switch off their brains, we cannot know enough about them to program them perfectly.
•  The gap between actions and outcomes concerns effects: It is the difference between what we hope our actions will achieve and what they actually achieve. We can never fully predict how the environment will react to what we do. It means that we cannot know in advance exactly what outcomes the actions of our organization are going to create.

Although it is not common to talk about these three gaps, it is common enough to confront them. It is also common enough to react in ways that make intuitive sense. Faced with a lack of knowledge, it seems logical to seek more detailed information. Faced with a problem of alignment, it feels natural to issue more detailed instructions. And faced with disappointment in the effects being achieved, it is quite understandable to impose more detailed controls. Unfortunately, these reactions do not solve the problem. In fact, they make it worse.”

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”. iBooks. 

Riscos e impactes

Um artigo interessante sobre diferentes alternativas para incorporar a análise de risco no desenvolvimento de um sistema de gestão ambiental em "Environmental Management System Risks and Opportunities: A Case Study in Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Kamojang".

E para um visual como eu, o uso de esquemas é muito bom. Pessoalmente uso algo deste género:

Não sigo a abordagem que se segue, mas concordo que é bem possível alguém optar por ela:

Ou seja, considerar que os impactes ambientais significativos são o mesmo que os riscos e oportunidades prioritários.

Não consigo deixar de pensar que há muito a melhorar nesta norma ISO 14001:2015.

"The problem is getting the right things done"

Acabei de ler até à última página  “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”de Stephen Bungay. 

Valeu a pena!

O livro começa com uma introdução sobre o blitzkrieg, tema que já abordei aqui há anos (2010 e 2009) e que os relatos do recente incêndio de Monchique avivaram.

O livro começa com o discurso estratégico de um CEO. Depois, alguém coloca a pergunta:

"“what do you want me to do?”
...
she had had the courage to ask the risky question that everyone wanted answered.
The reply was measured, but evinced frustration of its own. As I said, the CEO observed, we do not have all the answers. But surely you don’t expect me to tell all of you what to do? This is not a command-and-control organization. You are big boys and girls. I am not running this company, we all are. We have a strategy, we have long-term objectives, we all have budgets. We are running a business and we have a direction. It is for each of us to decide what we have to do in our own area and to get on with it.
...
Answering that simple question “What do you want me to do?” is quite a problem.
.
GETTING THINGS DONE
.
Generating activity is not a problem; in fact it is easy. The fact that it is easy makes the real problem harder to solve. The problem is getting the right things done – the things that matter, the things that will have an impact, the things a company is trying to achieve to ensure success. A high volume of activity often disguises a lack of effective action. We can mistake quantity for quality and then add to it, which merely makes things worse.”

Activismo e cronyismo

“A market economy is never static. Products that are cutting-edge today will soon become commodified and easy to make. Industries that are on the technological frontier will become mainstream and, later, relics of the past. What is a good job today will inevitably become a bad job in the future. This dynamic was first recognized by Karl Marx, who thought that it was evidence of the inherent instability of the capitalist system. Eighty years later, however, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out that instead of being a flaw, this process of “creative destruction” is capitalism’s greatest strength and its engine of growth.
...
The Princeton economist Alan Blinder recently noted that in the 1950s, companies making television sets were at the heart of America’s high-tech sector and generating tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. After a while TV sets became just another easy-to-make commodity, and today no TV set is made in America. The computer manufacturing industry picked up where the TV industry left off, and for a while it was responsible for 400,000 high-paying jobs. We saw earlier that most of these jobs have now moved elsewhere. But this is not a sign of failure. Indeed, it is a sign of success. To remain prosperous, a society needs to keep climbing the innovation ladder. As Schumpeter argued, it is the dynamic that has been ensuring our prosperity since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
The crucial question for America’s future is therefore whether our innovation clusters can adapt and reinvent themselves to maintain their edge. Clusters, unlike diamonds, are not forever. At some point the industry that supports them matures, stops bringing prosperity, and turns into a liability. The forces of attraction provide an important advantage, but once-mighty clusters have collapsed in spectacular ways.”

Recordo Nassim Taleb: "Stressors are information", são sinais para calibrarmos a quantidade relativa de exploration versus exploitation. Perante os stressors há os que os agarram e, como os ratos do livro "Quem mexeu no meu queijo", interagem com a nova realidade. E há os que, como o Pigarro do mesmo livro, resistem à mudança e solicitam o apoio e a protecção dos governos, gerando toda uma série de doenças por causa do veneno do activismo.

Como não recordar logo o exemplo do leite ou do vinho na Madeira? Entretanto, na semana passada vi várias reportagens em que uns coitadinhos pediam apoios porque o aquecimento global lhes queimou uvas e fruta. Admitamos que efectivamente há um aquecimento global em curso, antropogénico ou não. Então, o melhor é estes coitadinhos mudarem de culturas ASAP.

Outro exemplo da economia deficiente. Nos EUA, "Harvard Business School professor: Half of American colleges will be bankrupt in 10 to 15 years". Por cá, tudo será feito para atrasar a mudança, torrando dinheiro impostado/roubado aos contribuintes para manter o status-quo.


BTW: Os romanos tinham vinhas nos Alpes, sinal de que o clima era mais quente que o dos últimos séculos. Imaginem os produtores de vinho suíço a receberem apoios desde há 2000 anos. Que renda!

Excerto de: Enrico Moretti. “The New Geography of Jobs”

O FMI já não vem!

"Dois adultos de boa-fé olham para a mesma realidade e chegam à mesma conclusão."

Palavras do então candidato presidencial Cavaco Silva (recordar Janeiro de 2010 ou Junho de 2009).

Ontem encontrei:

• Five Reasons Amazon Will Hit $4,000 By 2019; e
• The End of Amazon

Entretanto, ontem de manhã enquanto aguardava boleia li esta pérola:

“everything depends on people. Metrics give us information. Interpreting the information can impart understanding. Taking the right action requires wisdom. Only people can have that.”[Moi ici: E é impressionante o quanto os modelos mentais são críticos]

Excerto de: Bungay, Stephen. “The Art of Action: Leadership that Closes the Gaps between Plans, Actions and Results”.