"Who is your right customer"

“Remember, Your focus determines your reality.”
                        (Qui-Gon Jinn em "The Phantom Menace")

After "Why the Customer Isn't Always Right"

"Who is your right customer.
The right customer is one you are prepared to serve in every sense. It is the one you are targeting—not the other way around. You have the capability, you understand what the customer wants and needs, this is the customer around whom you have proactively designed your service offering, and a customer whose business you can realistically win—that is, win and serve profitably.
"Design is about decisions and trade-offs and therefore everything is designed.
...
"Positioning is the art of sacrifice, and it goes for selecting customers as well as defining brands." Selecting customers, like so many things, is both art and science. It is easier to define the customer experience—that is, the one you want your customer to have—than it is to define the customer, because odds are you have more than one right customer.
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And it is easier to define your wrong customer than it is your right one: By definition. the customer who you are not designed to serve profitably is wrong for you.
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One way to determine your right customer is to examine your most valuable customers.
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The stats on retention are compelling: clearly, keeping customers matters. But there's a premise hidden behind those stats, and it might not be true: that all those customers are equally worth retaining.
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companies focus too much on customer retention rather than deriving maximum value from the right customers."

I recall three criteria for defining target customers in "Quem são os clientes-alvo?" and a warning in "If you don’t know the difference between the right and wrong customers ..."

"It is really important to understand who your valuable customers are, to find ways to enhance their value, extract it for your shareholders, and find more like them," he says. "Given that magical extra dollar, I want to spend it on acquiring great customers—premium customers  [Moi ici: Never the power of Marn e Rosiello's numbers]—and keeping them happy. It is always tougher to change customer behavior than to find new customers similar to your misting top-buyer profiles." 

Keeping nonpremium customers happy is fine as long as they remain profitable,  [Moi ici: Never forget Stobachoof curve] but that is not where you should focus your efforts. There is a natural tension between staying focused on that sweet spot—the groups of customers for whom you are perfect and who am perfect for you—and the pursuit of growth. By focusing on customers with the greatest potential in terms of repeat purchases and large average transactions, marketing and customer service efforts (and costs) can be allocated where they matter most. Growth focused solely on building a larger customer base may be the wrong strategy.  [Moi ici: I never forget my 2006 lesson]

Volume is Vanity

Profit is Sanity

Trechos retirados de "Woo, Wow and Win" de Thomas Stewart e Patricia O'Connel.

Serviços e a abordagem por processos

Em Novembro de 2008 aqui no blogue escrevi:

"A abordagem por processos é uma ferramenta excepcional, por exemplo, transformamos um serviço, algo de difuso, algo de escorregadio, numa realidade semelhante a um processo industrial, muito mais fácil de analisar."

Agora, em "An 8-step guide for improving workplace processes":

"“It's easy to get caught up in a situation where you're doing so much firefighting that you don't ever have time to put out the fire permanently,”
...
“You don't have time to make things better. All you're doing is just getting up every day and trying to avoid disaster.”
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This is a common scenario for knowledge-based workers. It’s difficult for workers to even acknowledge they are struggling, let alone find and fix the source of the problem.
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Visualizing work processes with tools like Post-it notes leads to efficiency...
“Most knowledge work processes have hardly been designed at all. People just start doing them and then they make ad hoc changes as they go.”
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“For managers, the huge potential there is to start looking at their knowledge work processes with the same level of systematization or rigor that you would with the physical work.”

"be the only one who does what you do"

“For companies and brands that aspire to do something truly extraordinary, what you believe has become as important as what you sell. The job of leadership today, the essence of strategy and competition, is about more than introducing marginally superior products or providing better-than-average service. It is about developing a set of deeply held principles that challenge received wisdom, and helping your organization get to the future first.
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But the most important trait, the distinction that separates high-impact entrepreneurs from those who don’t make such a big difference, is less about what they do and more about what they believe and how they behave.
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mercenaries are motivated by “drive,” while missionaries are motivated by “passion.” What’s the difference? “Passion and drive are not the same at all,
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Drive, he says, “pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do.” Passion “pulls you toward something you cannot
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As a company or as an individual, the goal is no longer to be the best at what lots of other people do. It’s to be the only one who does what you do.[Moi ici: Mongo passa por isto, por um mundo de weird people, quer do lado da oferta quer do lado da procura]
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You don’t have to be in a cutting-edge business to develop some edgy ideas on how to compete and win.
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I have a lot of respect for average,” he told the group. “In most industries, it is not easy to be average. But we choose to be extraordinary. And it is a choice. The world will not demand it of you. You have to fight for it. Every day, people have to ask themselves, ‘What am I willing to do that the ordinary leader is not willing to do?’ The world will not force you to be extraordinary. You must demand it of yourselves.”

Trechos retirados de “Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways” de William C. Taylor.

"That's our edge!"

Interessante, "AI 'outperforms' doctors diagnosing breast cancer", com base neste artigo "International evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening".

Acredito que em muitas áreas a Inteligência Artificial poderá substituir com vantagem os humanos. No entanto, nunca esqueço as palavras de Kasparov acerca do trabalho conjunto entre humanos e inteligência artificial.

"relatively weak computers working alongside human players will wipe the floor with the most advanced supercomputers. Collaborative rather than oppositional thinking has yielded radical advances in chess theory, and opened up whole new areas of play." (fonte)

"humans and machines will work together, and we, as customers, will be allowed, once more, to lazily beg for help" (fonte) 

Nunca esqueço:

- That's our edge! (fonte) 

ISO 9001 - Video V - A useful quality policy and objectives, not mumbo-jumbo

My experience about quality policies is very negative. I see a lot of trivia and mumbo-jumbo and not many alignment with any strategic orientation.

I prepared a video with a template that I use to write useful quality policies, aligned with strategy and target customers.

Deixem as empresas morrer!

Em "Só o penitente passará", do meu candidato ao Parlamento Europeu, sublinho:

"As empresas portuguesas, como as suas congéneres europeias, beneficiariam de maior qualidade de gestão. Mas beneficiariam ainda mais da sua incorporação em sectores de maior valor acrescentado. Esta incorporação está relacionada com a qualidade de gestão, mas uma e outra não constituem exactamente a mesma coisa.
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É possível ter boa qualidade de gestão e, apesar de tudo, continuar num segmento de baixo valor acrescentado. [Moi ici: Come on! O que é que é característico de um segmento de baixo valor acrescentado? Um produto básico, um produto standard, um produto commoditizado. Um produto destinado ao centrão, ao segmento mais populoso. Se a isto juntarmos boa qualidade de gestão, temos o MacDonalds, temos a IKEA, temos a Amazon. Margem curta, mas uma rotação dos activos muito elevada. Como escrevo aqui, talvez desde 2007, o negócio do preço baixo é legítimo, é honrado, e pode dar muito dinheiro se for aplicado por quem pode, não por quem quer, e a uma escala cada vez maior] É o que tem sucedido em alguns segmentos de serviços nos últimos anos, sobretudo aqueles relacionados com o turismo e viagens. E também é possível estar num segmento de alto valor acrescentado, de grande visão estratégica, mas sem qualidade de gestão e em condições precárias.[Moi ici: Acho difícil estar num segmento de alto valor acrescentado de forma sustentada, sem ter qualidade de gestão. Sem qualidade de gestão, sem visão estratégica, confia-se que o passado continue a assegurar o futuro e num mundo VUCA isso é a morte do artista. As estratégias são como os iogurtes, têm prazo de validade. Recordo o antigo presidente do Vitória e a sua frase-assinatura "O que é verdade hoje, amanhã é mentira"]
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Assim, para facilitar a evolução para níveis superiores de valor acrescentado, a par de uma maior qualidade de gestão, há na minha opinião três domínios de base que terão de melhorar."[Moi ici: Acho os três domínios apresentados demasiado genéricos e desligados da realidade do país. Em linha com o meu reminder para 2020 - cuidado com as soluções off the shelf. Para mim só há um caminho - Deixem as empresas morrer, ponto. Baixem as barreiras à saída. Recordar a quantidade de empresas-zombie e a facilidade com que o politicamente correcto se gera para as proteger.]

For frequent future use - a reminder that predictability is for suckers

The economy is a complex system.

A complex system is anything but linear.

It is not because we change an input, or because we change something within the system, that we can get or modify an output to get a desired result.

When acting on a system you can never guess what the result will be. In my country we have a saying that goes like this: “Hell is full of good intentions”

That's why I wrote some days ago:

“You know how scared I am of the fragilistas, the naive interventionistas. You know how I learned to appreciate the Via Negativa: first, do no harm!
You know how scared I am of social engineers who want to change the world.
...
With biology, innovation has to go with small experiments”

It is so easy to forget this.

So easy.

So easy to delude ourselves with ideas about our power, our predictability powers ...

The truth is that when we dive into the complex system we have this:

This blogpost, written on this day, is for me to be able to come back to it regularly for a bath of humility, for a good and sound slap in the face - in the style of Templar initiation.

Beware of system interventions, beware of the illusion of power and predictability.

2019 gave me an excellent slap in the face when I realized once again that a complex system does not think. A complex system does not pursue goals. A complex system is like a river, it runs away from constraints. When actors in a system act on it, they alter the set of existing constraints, and what they hoped to achieve is often torpedoed by the system, which ultimately found an easier alternative.

Remember what the first settlers of Australia did? They introduced rabbits to maintain their English hunting tradition. Rabbits discovered a habitat where they had no predators and multiplied exponentially. So the settlers decided to introduce foxes, traditional rabbit predators. But foxes, once introduced to Australia, discovered a whole panoply of prey much easier to hunt than rabbits.

For years I believed that the demographic evolution in Portugal, and the continued expansion of the emigration of people of value who do not want to live in a socialist-extractivist country, would bring a time when companies would be forced to raise wages beyond productivity in order to capture workers, a precious resource. Raising wages beyond productivity is a dangerous policy. This policy would have two consequences: shutting down the less competitive companies, and forcing companies to move up the value ladder to compensate for the rising cost of people. Therefore, I have long devalued the issue of the national minimum wage because companies would have lack of people as the most important constraint.

And 2019 ended my theory !!!

By the way, this theory I was hoping for, based on demography, is the same as that followed by the current Portuguese government and the left wing parties, with a small-big detail, while my driving force was demography, theirs is the national minimum wage.

How did 2019 destroy this theory of mine?

The day I realized that it is so easy for a company to import people and get around the national minimum wage. For example, on the last day of 2019 when I visited a certain small company, I watched in amazement at a conversation about the virtues of importing Brazilian versus Colombian versus Venezuelan workers.

You will tell me that they will have to pay the national minimum wage to these workers. No, that's the big slap trick I got. I already had as a neighbor of my office a company that hired Portuguese carpenters for construction works in Belgium and the Netherlands. These carpenters were paid at 12 € per hour (2016 values). They made a contract with this Portuguese company in Portugal, received their wage in Portugal, but worked in Belgium or the Netherlands. How much will a Portuguese carpenter recruited in the Netherlands receive to work in the Netherlands? What I heard in the corridor of the offices where my company was based is being done with workers from Asia and Latin America. The workers are here, they work here, but they are not employees of the company where they work, so they do not receive the Portuguese national minimum wage, they come to provide a service to the Bangladeshi company, their real employer.

I who detest eucalyptus trees and their associated DDTs (Portuguese initials for Owners Of This All, big companies with huge power and benefitting from special "services" from the government), sometimes marvel and tip my hat at eucalyptus trees because they seem to have the will and thought, they seem to have goals just as nature, evolution has prepared them to take advantage of their apparent weakness before fire.

We know nothing about complex systems, stop. We can only be conservative, be pragmatic, do a little experimentation, and observe results. Then back off when things go wrong, or less well, or keep going when things go in the right direction.

Blogposts list on the theme in 2019:

• Uma bofetada que recebo como um aviso (August)
•  Bofetadas e locus de controlo - produtividade é que não. (November) 
•  Mais bofetadas e a turbulência em curso (November)
• And the american source behind this series of blogposts Curiosidade do dia - comunismo e Chega (parte III) (December)

Evolução das patentes

A ascensão da Ásia é impressionante, assim como o arrefecimento Europeu.

"Outcomes are the results the client gets from your work"

"clients only really care about their own business. [Moi ici: Como escrevo há muitos anos, os clientes são egoístas] By this, I mean:
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They don’t really care about how much it costs you to complete the work
They don’t care what you have to do, or how much time & effort it requires on your end
They don’t even care about how well-crafted the work is for its own sake
That’s not to say they don’t care about quality or deadlines (these things obviously matter), but what really matters are the OUTCOMES and the IMPACT of your work.
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Let’s take a second to define precisely what these terms mean.
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When we sell to clients, we sell four things:
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Inputs are the resources used to deliver a project – people, time, software etc.
Outputs are the completed tasks & deliverables e.g. a logo design, a press release, or a new website
Outcomes are the results the client gets from your work, typically characterised as a transformation e.g. unaware prospects start to notice their business or their branding goes from non-existent to some awareness
Impact is the long-term benefit of the work you’ve done – e.g. securing a leading position in their niche, getting many new enquiries, increased sales & profits etc.
Inputs and outputs are easier to quantify, but they matter a lot less than outcomes and impact.
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Focusing on the former two is a hallmark of agencies focusing on the wrong thing and therefore likely to lead to misunderstandings and shorter-term relationships.  Rather than framing their work in terms of how it will benefit the client, they instead spend their time worrying about the stuff that’s easily measured. Sadly, this is one of those cases where choosing the simpler upfront option holds you back in the long run."

Trechos retirados de "The Ultimate Guide to Value Pricing & Selling: Earn Higher Fees, Land Bigger Clients, And Outperform Your Competition"

"Why the Customer Isn't Always Right"

Quem seguir o caminho menos percorrido e ler o Anexo A da ISO 9001:2015 pode ler:

"Não há nenhum requisito nesta Norma para que a organização tenha em consideração partes interessadas quando tiver decidido que essas partes não são relevantes para o seu sistema de gestão da qualidade. Compete à organização decidir se um requisito particular de uma parte interessada relevante é relevante para o seu sistema de gestão da qualidade."

Sorrio ao recordar a quantidade de auditores que impõe às empresas não só partes interessadas como requisitos específicos.

Quantos destes auditores já meteram na cabeça que a escolha das partes interessadas e dos seus requisitos relevantes é uma escolha que decorre da orientação estratégica? Quantos destes auditores têm a noção de que os clientes não são todos iguais e que diferentes clientes procuram e valorizam coisas diferentes?

Nem de propósito estes trechos:

"Why the Customer Isn't Always Right ...
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“The customer is always right" isn't a strategy, but rather a comedy of manners born of shop keeping etiquette in the first part of the twentieth century that has been played out (and overplayed) since.
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The phrase is popularly ascribed to Harry Selfridge (of United Kingdom-bud Selfridges stores) but may have actually originated with his former employer. Marshall Field of the Chicago department store chain. Regardless of its origin, it was a well-worn phrase by the early 1900s, and has long worn out its welcome.
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A customer who does not understand your value proposition, or care what you as a company uniquely promise and deliver, is the wrong customer for you. Service design helps you define your right customer, then arrange the links of your value chain to capture and encourage the customers you want, while siphoning away customers whom you cannot serve profitably or well.
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It is not only acceptable but necessary to decide which customers do not make sense for you to pursue or keep. Customers who are not right for you might still pursue you, but if they do not have the sense to look elsewhere, you must make the break, or at least serve them only in a transactional way, without investing to create an experience designed specifically for them. Within your customer base, there may be segments, of course, for which you design different experiences at different prices or in different places. But the first analysis is to determine which customers you want and can profitably win.
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Up till now, we have been writing about customers as if they were all the same. That is not true, of course. Customers differ demographically. They come with different expectations. They come with different missions and motivations. Above all, they differ in how valuable they are to you — and how valuable you are to them.
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In fact, the process of segmentation should start with what's good for you (and what you're good at), with the definition of the right customer coming out of that. Service design helps keep both you and your customers in line, ensuring they feel they are being treated fairly, and that you do not give a level of service that isn't being paid for.
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Making these choices is complicated by business's long tradition of living by the adage "The customer is always right." Is she? Only if she is the right customer for you, and only if you have carefully worked out the design that makes you right for each other.
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In saying that you should start with yourself—with what is right for you—we are not retreating from the idea that service design, starts with empathy, that is, with understanding your customers' needs from their point of view. Of course it does. But before you can empathize with your customers' needs, you need to know who is your customer—and who isn't."

Trechos retirados de "Woo, Wow and Win" de Thomas Stewart e Patricia O'Connel.

"The reality is the future of work is about skills, not just degrees"

O que interessa não é o papel, o que interessa é a contribuição real. Isto também é um sintoma de Mongo. Ai amigo Raul, os milagres que poderiam ser feitos...

"A FOUR-YEAR COLLEGE degree is not the only path to a well-paying job. This outdated thinking is partially to blame for holding back America's growth and blocking many people's access to opportunity. We must consider more inclusive means of hiring the best and most talented people to meet the needs of our rapidly changing economy. The reality is the future of work is about skills, not just degrees. To be clear, we continue to value college and advanced degrees, and there's no question of their relevance. But the talent that fuels a global company like ours is increasingly diverse and includes people who do not have a four-year college education.
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As technology changes the way we work, we must be better at providing pathways to good jobs that everyone—no matter their zip code or background—can access. To start, this is only possible if businesses and educators work together, partnering to develop curriculums and apprenticeships that offer students on-the-job experience and training. In the Washington, D.C., area, this approach has taken root. Employers are working alongside high schools, community colleges, and universities to prepare students to fill well-paying technology jobs including 30,000 open cybersecurity jobs in Northern Virginia alone. Community colleges, which are an affordable and attainable option, exist in nearly every community, educate 13 million diverse students a year, and are often overlooked as a source of talent. Last year, more than three-quarters of the U.S. jobs posted at JPMorgan Chase did not require a bachelor's degree. Schools such as Columbus State Community College in Ohio are increasingly valuable resources for our company and many other employers, from technology to advanced manufacturing and health care."

Texto retirado da revista Fortune de Janeiro de 2020 - "The future of work is skills - so stop worrying about degrees"

Ainda na mesma linha: The future of work won't be about college degrees, it will be about job skills

Tudo em sintonia com "Longevity will force a shift in responsibility for lifelong learning toward the individual"

Por vezes é preciso mudar de mercado

Lembram-se do meu conselho para a artesã de Bragança? Quando uma organização não pode mudar de produto (Real/Real) e, por isso, deve mudar de mercado:

"O bordado Madeira era (e é) olhado como um produto de luxo. Uma toalha de mesa, das mais trabalhadas, pode facilmente chegar aos três mil euros e demorar um ano a ser produzida. O mercado é por isso reduzido, e as vendas quase exclusivamente dependentes da exportação.
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As crises foram-se sucedendo. A indústria, que chegou a mobilizar mais de 50 mil bordadeiras e uma centena de casas de bordado, foi-se aguentando como podia. O modelo de negócio é conservador e assenta no trabalho manual, centenário, moroso, de mulheres espalhadas pela ilha. O bordado é feito em casa, à mão, no intervalo do trabalho doméstico de uma Madeira rural, onde as mulheres (ainda que cada vez menos) continuam a ficar em casa.
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O processo de fabrico e de comercialização sempre foi demasiado conservador. Avesso a mudanças. “Isto aqui era tudo escritórios”, conta João Vacas, abrindo os braços para abarcar todo o espaço, onde hoje apenas duas funcionárias chegam para encher o salão, [Moi ici: Lembram-se do tabu da reengenharia na função pública] que é simultaneamente sala de visitas da empresa e uma das duas lojas que a Bordal tem no Funchal. “Estava cheio de secretárias. Uns dobravam o bordado, outros embalavam, havia os que atavam os embrulhos, e os que apontavam isso tudo...” Era, resume Susana Vacas, mulher e sócia de João Vacas, uma indústria pesada. “Parada no tempo.”
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“A minha ideia passava pela Susana vir para cá, e assumir a parte criativa da empresa, para eu poder concentrar-me na parte da gestão. Eu sabia que tínhamos de mudar as coisas. Mudar rápido. Modernizar o negócio. Se conseguíssemos, apanhávamos o comboio.”
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O plano era simples. Executá-lo, nem tanto. “Foi preciso mudar mentalidades. Dizer a pessoas que durante 30, 40 anos... sempre trabalharam da mesma forma que era preciso fazer as coisas de outra maneira.” Em poucos meses, os cerca de 40 funcionários da fábrica foram reduzidos para metade. “As pessoas foram saindo. Não se adaptaram.”
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[Moi ici: Recordo aqui o tema dos clientes-alvo e da curva de Stobachoff] Os clientes também sentiram as mudanças. A empresa estava “refém” de alguns clientes, principalmente italianos. “Eles é que imponham as condições, os prazos de entrega e de pagamento, os contratos. Quando começámos a fazer as contas, vimos que estávamos a perder dinheiro, e acabámos com aquilo”, conta Susana Vacas. Foi preciso ir à procura de novos clientes, novos mercados. Aproveitando os conhecimentos que tinham de informática, foram para as feiras com um portfólio digital dos produtos. [Moi ici: Mudar de clientes, acção comercial em novos mercados] “Foi uma inovação na altura, e começámos a fazer bons negócios já aí.” A forma de trabalhar também mudou. Antes recebiam as encomendas, produziam, entregavam e depois esperavam para receber. Mudou-se esse procedimento. As encomendas só eram aceites mediante pagamento parcial. João Vacas informatizou a empresa e passou a conseguir controlar todo o processo, passo a passo.
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“Cerca de 20% da nossa facturação é gerada através da nossa loja online”, diz João Vacas, destacando o trabalho que tem sido desenvolvido nas redes sociais e que tem permitido dinamizar a marca, dando um novo impulso a um produto marcadamente tradicional como o bordado.
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Esse trabalho, juntamente com a habitual presença em feiras internacionais, permitiu à empresa chegar a novos mercados e consolidar os mais antigos"

Trechos retirados de “Esta renovação digital deu vida ao bordado Madeira” jornal Público de 29.12.2019

Para auditor ver?

"The eurozone economy will slow down in 2020 for the third consecutive year, according to a Financial Times poll of economists who forecast it will be held back by political instability, trade tensions and auto industry disruption.
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The European Central Bank expects the eurozone economy to grow 1.1 per cent in 2020, down from1.2 per cent in 2019, 1.8 per cent in 2018 and 2.4 per cent in2017.
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But the 34 economists polled were more pessimistic, forecasting on average that growth would dip below 1 per cent this year — the eurozone’s slowest rate for seven years."

Quando a ISO 9001:2015 refere a análise do contexto é a isto que se refere.

E na sua empresa, que análise de contexto é feita? Para auditor ver, ou para minimizar/aproveitar as surpresas que o futuro pode trazer?





Trechos retirados de "Eurozone to slowdown for third year in row" no FT Weekend 28.12.2019

Curiosidade do dia

Quando um empresário com fraca qualidade de gestão dá cabo da sua empresa é alguém com skin-in-the-game que paga por isso. A menos que faça parte da elite extractivista.

Já um ministro faz parte de um governo que leva o país à falência e não é nada com ele. A propósito de "Ministro diz que empresas nacionais têm "fraquíssima qualidade de gestão"" penso sempre: se a qualidade é tão fraca, por que é que não vingam mais empresas com melhor qualidade de gestão? Por que resistem tantas empresas com a suposta fraca qualidade de gestão?

E recordo o papel do Estado no assunto: "Q. E. D."


BTW, Recordar o meu mote "Deixem as empresas morrer!"

"your methods suck"

Algo que intuí há algum tempo e que exemplifiquei aqui "Causas e 5 porquês":

"E contei-lhes um caso real desta semana: numa pequena localidade do centro do país, entrei num pequeno café que tem um pão d'avó muito bom para almoçar uma sandes. Reparei que estavam duas mulheres com pinta de ucranianas a falar entre si e a interagir com os telefones. Depois, entra um sr. Alberto que veio para ler o jornal do café, depois entra uma outra mulher para tomar um café e beber um copo de água. De repente os quatro começam a falar sobre as "queridas" da encarregada da fábrica têxtil em frente, que tinham sido seleccionadas para fazer horas-extra no Sábado e que só depois de terem confeccionado 700 peças é que descobriram que as tinham feito mal."

Em sintonia com estes trechos retirados de "Change is more like adding milk to coffee":

"There is no such thing as Resistance to Change - only smart response to dumb method
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"People don´t resist change."
Can you say that to yourself, in your head? Now that is a start. But what is behind the behavior, then, that we are observing all the time, in change efforts, if it is not resistance to change? Take a step back and you will see that people act consciously and intelligently (overall), to other things than the change itself. They may resist loss of status and power - which is quite intelligent. They may resist injustice, stupidity and being changed. Which is also intelligent. The change may also cause need for learning that is not properly addressed. And these are the things that we have to deal with in change: power structures, status, injustice, consequence, our own stupidity, top-down command-and-control, and learning.
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"The more resistance to change you observe, the more likely it is that your methods suck."
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Instead of watching out for the possibility of resistance, we should watch out for common mistakes in implementing change and deal with the perfectly natural reactions to (our) poor interventions."

Curiosidade do dia

No editorial do Público de hoje leio:

"A venda ao exterior de activos valiosos da economia portuguesa continua animada. Só este mês a Altice desfez-se de metade da sua rede de fibra óptica, vendida à Morgan Stanley Infraestructures Partners, o grupo Vasco de Mello e o seu parceiro Arcus vão alienar 80% dos direitos de voto na Brisa, a EDP fechou negócio com um consórcio de empresas francesas liderado pela Engie que lhes permitirá controlar seis barragens e, outra vez a Altice, transferiu para um grupo do Bahrein 85% da gestora dos fundos de pensões da TLP, Marconi e TDP. Quem julgava que o fim das restrições da troika, o crescimento económico dos últimos anos, o regresso da confiança ou o alívio da dívida das empresas iriam permitir uma nova vaga de ambição ao capitalismo português desengane-se: o país continua à venda.
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Que haja abertura para que empresários portugueses tenham acesso a esses negócios."

Ainda acrescentaria à lista 30% da Mota-Engil.

Pena que o editorialista se preocupe mais com o nacionalismo económico e o pagamento de impostos e, não se interrogue sobre porquê destes movimentos.

Lembram-se da vida para além do défice? Há sempre um momento em que países e empresas têm de encarar o facto de que a dívida é demasiado elevada. E o que é a dívida senão um somatório de défices.

Todas estas empresas vendem activos para aliviar a dívida. Não podem fazer como o Estado português, vender gato por lebre. Cobrar mais impostos e cortar nos serviços prestados ou pagar as dívidas a fornecedores quando lhe apetece.

E aquele remate final "Que haja abertura para que empresários portugueses tenham acesso a esses negócios". É caricato que o editorialista não perceba que Portugal não tem capital suficiente para esses negócios.

BTW, é sempre caricato jornalistas escreverem sobre a marosca por trás de empresas privados com prejuízos anos a fio, e nunca olharem para as suas próprias empresas.

ADENDA (10h50): Recordei-me dos burros holandeses de agora "Dívida holandesa abaixo dos 50% do PIB pela primeira vez em 11 anos" e dos de 2009 "Ponto de ordem".

Puzzles e mistérios

“Over the years, as I’ve exhorted companies and their leaders to embrace a richly defined values proposition rather than a dollars-and-cents value proposition, I’ve heard all kinds of warnings about the downside to thinking bigger and aiming higher. One common worry is the inevitable competitive backlash: If a braver, more clever, more forward-looking company succeeds at doing something new, the reasoning goes, then surely larger, richer, more established companies will decode that success, “mimic its logic, and upend the innovator who moved first. What’s the point of launching a whole new way to be in a business if you are inevitably going to be shot down by rivals with all the strategic firepower they need?...
No good deed goes unpunished.” In competitive strategy, the worry goes, “No good idea goes uncopied.
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I’m constantly amazed at how unwilling or unable most big, incumbent, long-established organizations are to learn from (let alone copy) the market makers in their field. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s among the rarest forms of competitive response. And it’s certainly no excuse for limiting, in advance, the scope of your strategic ambitions. What your competitors won’t do, despite how much they know about what you’re doing, may surprise you.
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the questions intelligence agencies faced were puzzles:
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Today, the most important questions are mysteries:
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What’s the difference between a puzzle and a mystery? Puzzles, Treverton explains, can be solved with better information and sharper calculations. Mysteries, however, can only be framed, not solved. “A mystery is an attempt to define ambiguities,” he writes. “Puzzles may be more satisfying, but the world increasingly offers us mysteries.” And treating mysteries like puzzles, he warns, can be dangerous and delusional—creating a false sense of confidence that crunching more information will clarify situations that can be understood only with more imagination.
Well, what’s true for intelligence gathering is also true for thinking intelligently about strategy and competition. As puzzles, the companies we’ve met don’t have many missing pieces.
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So the reason these companies are so distinctive is not because other companies lack the information to mount a challenge. It’s because they lack the imagination to match and respond to these “lighthouse” competitors, to summon their passion and patience for doing business their way."

Acham que o problema do SNS, por exemplo, é um puzzle? Acham que mais dinheiro é a solução?
Acham que ter sucesso no mercado é à custa da racionalidade e da ciência?


Trechos retirados de “Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways” de William C. Taylor.

Curiosidade do dia

""The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals," the author declared, for example. "It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.""

Trecho retirado de "Solzhenitsyn Flays the West"

Store brands

"To the surprise of many, a number of store brands have managed to build loyal followings of their own in the last decade. What’s more, they’ve managed to do so even while the economy was strong, which would seem to remove price as a factor and may mark a more significant change in what Americans buy and how companies sell us stuff.
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Traditionally, the draw of a store brand was low prices, not style or quality. The new generics playbook is working, in part, because young, web-first companies such as Dollar Shave Club Inc. and Casper Sleep Inc. have made people feel more comfortable reaching beyond the handful of tried-and-true brands.
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This isn’t merely an “internet changed everything” story—even if, OK, that’s part of it. The same set of tactics has also worked for traditional retailers. Walmart, Costco Wholesale, Target, and others have focused on private-label products to which they can give an identity and appeal beyond price.
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Your favorite brands from childhood probably won’t go away. But they’re going to have to work a lot harder to get shoppers’ attention. And it’s going to get uncomfortable for products that are stuck in the middle ground between the iconic and the cheap chic."

Sempre que leio sobre este tema recordo as metáforas do aristocrata arruinado, da carcaça oca, do hollowing, da radioclubização. Não é o fim das marcas, é a decadência das marcas que não desrespeitaram a sua relação com os clientes. Recordar "Better lemonades".

Trechos retirados de "The Rise of the New House Labels Is Reshaping Retail"

"Longevity will force a shift in responsibility for lifelong learning toward the individual"

Um país cheio de "free riders" e aspirantes a sê-lo.

Num país com esta distribuição etária:

É cada vez mais comum ouvir polícias, professores, enfermeiros, motoristas, ... dizerem que trabalhar até aos 66 anos é uma violência ... e eu, quando os oiço, penso sempre:

- Por que é que um operário tem de saltar de emprego para emprego, por causa das vicissitudes da economia, até chegar à idade da reforma e um polícia/enfermeiro/professor/...  não pode terminar a carreira de polícia/enfermeiro/professor/... e mudar de profissão e fazer algo mais até chegar à idade da reforma?

Entretanto, o @walternatez enviou-me esta imagem

retirada de "The Corporate Implications of Longer Lives". O texto é também um argumento para o advento de uma economia baseada em empresas mais pequenas e mais próximas.

"People are living longer and working longer — but few organizations have come to grips with the opportunities and challenges that greater longevity brings.
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There is growing awareness that increasing longevity will have major implications for how people manage their work lives and careers. Rising life expectancy means the level of savings required to provide a reasonable income for retirement at age 65 is becoming increasingly infeasible for most people. We predict that, given the average level of savings in advanced economies, many people currently in their mid-40s are likely to need to work into their early to mid-70s; many currently in their 20s (many of whom could live to be over 100) will be working into their late 70s, and even into their 80s.[Moi ici: Pensam que isto só acontece ou acontecerá nos outros países?. Pensem outra vez!]

Across the world, people are becoming more conscious of their lengthening working lives — but frustrated by their working context.
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The purpose of our research was to consider the impact of longevity on individual and corporate practice.
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Most companies, especially those operating in the advanced economies, still view life in terms of three stages: full-time education, full-time employment, and then a “hard stop” retirement around the age of 65. This is the life structure that emerged in advanced economies in the 20th century and continues to underpin much thinking about the workforce. Although this structure worked when life expectancy was 70, it cannot be stretched to support a healthy 100-year life.
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In response to the pressures resulting from longer working lives, individuals are starting to experiment with new stages of life and creating different career structures.
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The generation just entering the workforce has the longest expected lifespan in history, perhaps 10 to 15 years beyond that of the generation approaching retirement. In contrast to older workers, many younger workers are aware that their working lives are apt to involve many different jobs in a variety of sectors. A long and shifting career will force them to create a sense of coherence with their values and preferences, and to adapt and develop new skills and interests.
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Members of this group are beginning to focus on options, which become more valuable as the time horizon over which they can be exercised becomes longer.
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A primary focus during the traditional work-oriented stage of life has been financial matters: earnings, retirement savings, and home ownership. However, as life extends and careers become longer, different types of assets take on new importance.
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The first category is productive assets: the individual’s skills, knowledge, reputation, and professional networks. It is these productive assets that will enable a 40-year-old to find interesting work during a career that spans several more decades.
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The second category consists of what we call vitality assets, which include strong mental and physical health, a good work-life balance, and powerful regenerative relationships. Having such assets will enable people approaching the traditional retirement age to continue working.
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The final category, which we believe will become increasingly important, is what we call transformational assets, which involve self-knowledge and the types of diverse networks that support personal change and transitions.
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As traditional life patterns become less relevant to many people’s needs, individuals will want to pursue working lives that are more flexible and multistaged. However, this desire for flexibility will clash with current corporate practices and processes. Specifically, we anticipate three tension points, involving: (1) people’s desire for personalization; (2) their interest in flexibility; and (3) their desire not to be pigeonholed on the basis of age.
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People want personalization; corporations want conformity.
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People want flexibility; corporations want standardization.
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People want to be age-agnostic; corporations want age markers.
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Given that people are living longer, many want opportunities to contribute throughout their long working lives. Careers have many different stages, each with different aims and different needs. How people sequence the stages will be based on their own motivations, preferences, and financial requirements — not just their age.
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In a three-stage life, the core of the employee-employer relationship was tangible assets. Corporations found that the best way to recruit and retain workers was to offer a promise of tiered earnings based on promotion and length of service, along with the prospect of a pension to finance retirement. However, for many employees, this dominant role of tangible assets has been waning in recent years.
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As working lives become longer, the need for lifelong learning will increase. As working lives become multistaged and the sequence of those stages becomes more customized, individuals will take an interest in skills with value that extends beyond the current employer and sector. This will weaken the one-size-fits-all approach to learning and development. Instead, there will be a growing need for more decentralized and flexible approaches to learning, curated more by individuals than by employers. Skills and knowledge that are portable and externally accredited will be particularly valuable. Longevity will force a shift in responsibility for lifelong learning toward the individual."

E recuo a Janeiro de 2008 para recordar:

"A formação profissional de cada um, é um assunto demasiado importante para ser delegado em regime de outsourcing a quem quer que seja."