A atitude é tudo

Recordando "Atitude e David":

"Time for a new advantage. It might be your network, the connections that trust you. And it might be your expertise. But most of all, I'm betting it's your attitude."

Recordando Weick e o poder de um mapa, ainda que errado, em que acreditamos, "Estratégia, mapas errados e self-fulfilling prophecies".

Recordando Frankl e o espaço entre o estímulo e a resposta.

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Encontro este texto de Seth Godin, "The choice":

"Attitude is the most important choice any of us will make. We made it yesterday and we get another choice to make it today. And then again tomorrow.
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The choice to participate.
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To be optimistic.
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To intentionally bring out the best in other people.
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We make the choice to inquire, to be curious, to challenge the status quo.
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To give people the benefit of the doubt.
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To find hope instead of fear in the face of uncertainty.
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Of course these are attitudes. What else could they be?
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And of course, they are a choice. No one does these things to us. We choose them and do the work (and find the benefits) that come with them."

O truque da atenção

"Pre-suasion" é uma leitura viciante:

"The Importance of Attention . . . Is Importance...
WHAT’S SALIENT IS IMPORTANT
...
anything that draws focused attention to itself can lead observers to overestimate its importance.
...
“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
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a communicator who gets an audience to focus on a key element of a message pre-loads it with importance. [Moi ici: Quase que jurava que as redes sociais minam esta possibilidade daí que os agenda-setters não gostem] This form of pre-suasion accounts for what many see as the principle role (labeled agenda setting) that the news media play in influencing public opinion. The central tenet of agenda-setting theory is that the media rarely produce change directly, by presenting compelling evidence that  sweeps an audience to new positions; they are much more likely to persuade indirectly, by giving selected issues and facts better coverage than other issues and facts. [Moi ici: Lembrei-me do nome Alberto Gonçalves. Por que será?] It’s this coverage that leads audience members—by virtue of the greater attention they devote to certain topics—to decide that these are the most important to be taken into consideration when adopting a position.
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This sensible system of focusing our limited attentional resources on what does indeed possess special import has an imperfection, though: we can be brought to the mistaken belief that something is important merely because we have been led by some irrelevant factor to give it our narrowed attention. All too often, people believe that if they have paid attention to an idea or event or group, it must be important enough to warrant the consideration.
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Thus, the persuader who artfully draws outsize attention to the most favorable feature of an offer becomes a successful pre-suader."

Em linha com o aviso que faço aos líderes das PME quando acreditam que o que os media relatam acerca das empresas grandes é aplicável e desejável nas suas empresas.

Um exemplo que muita gente podia copiar.

Um exemplo que muita gente podia copiar. Ainda na Terça-feira ao almoço conversei com um apaixonado por carros antigos. Podia ser um bird-watcher, um motoqueiro, um maker, o meu amigo dos aquários, ...

"After I made my BMX Pinterest board, I sent a tweet out saying how excited I was about my new project to build the ultimate retro BMX powered by the connections the internet makes possible. I already had a few posts of bikes for sale on eBay and links to old-school BMX forums. The tweet had a link pointing to the Pinterest board. After I got back from lunch I checked my Twitter feed to find someone had sent me a reply tweet about the BMX project. It was from a local BMX store. They informed me they had an old-school BMX section in their store for big kids like me. The way they did it was really cool. The tweet said, ‘Cool project Steve. Here’s a link to the best forum for Old School BMX … If you wanna reminisce, pop in some day’.[Moi ici: Reparem, não vendem, não empurram, convidam, partilham]
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Needless to say, I went in the very next day to get some advice on the project, on where to get parts (it’s a bit like car restoration) and on how to get the genuine stuff. They earned my business in 140 characters.
This was such a clever play on so many levels. There are a lot of subtle marketing lessons to be learned from this tweet. I’ll spell them out clearly.

• Make it personal. They addressed me as Steve. You’d be surprised how few people do that when they find you online, even though your name is a mere click away.

• Offer resources first. They provided me with something of value to help me: the link to the forums. They didn’t try selling to me on the first connection.

• Focus on an ecosystem. They didn’t stress about where I went to solve my problem. They chose instead to embrace the fact that I was entering their market space. In some ways they recommended a competitor (the online forum that happens to sell old BMX parts). 

• Use real language and culture. They spoke the natural language of the group. It wasn’t corporate brochure-ware PR speak. It was human and real.

• Find tools of connection. I asked the owner how he found me. I mean, unless I was in his stream how would he know about my project? He said he does a social-media search every day with only two simple data parameters: the hashtag for #BMX and the geography of Melbourne. Very clever stuff. 

• Focus on one customer at a time. They focused on direct connection, one new fan at a time. They didn’t try to build an audience. They helped a person, which is a very different approach. It seems old-school BMXers are a little bit smarter than old-school marketers. What a great way to build a community; one that I’m now a part of.

While everyone gets enamoured with ‘big data’, there’s probably a lot more we can do with ‘little data’."

Trecho retirado de "The Great Fragmentation"

ISO 9001: riscos e oportunidades

Alguma evolução no meu pensamento sobre este tema.

A ISO define risco como o efeito da incerteza num resultado esperado.

Esse efeito pode ser negativo (risco) ou positivo (oportunidade)

Ontem de manhã estive numa PME industrial que tem como um dos seus indicadores o valor médio dos serviços prestados em euros.

Vamos supor que essa empresa em 2016 teve um valor médio de 103,1 euros por serviço. Agora, suponhamos que a gestão de topo estabeleceu uma meta para 2017 de 111,5 euros em média por serviço.

Uma coisa é a meta, o desejo. Outra coisa será o valor real que será atingido no conjunto do ano.

A verdade é que entre Janeiro e Dezembro de 2017 muita coisa pode acontecer, no interior e no exterior da empresa. Por isso, existe alguma incerteza quanto ao resultado que realmente vai ser atingido no final do ano:

Na verdade, em teoria, podemos equacionar duas variações em relação à meta:

Em teoria podemos equacionar um cenário em que o valor médio ultrapassa a meta e um outro cenário em que o valor médio fica aquém da meta.

A incerteza pode afectar um resultado esperado:

Se essa afectação for positiva então estamos perante uma oportunidade, algo que queremos que aconteça, algo positivo que queremos agarrar.

Se essa afectação for negativa então estamos perante um risco, algo que queremos que não aconteça, algo negativo que queremos evitar.

Será que as duas alternativas têm igual probabilidade de ocorrência? Aí entra o texto da cláusula 6.1.1 da ISO 9001:2015:

"Ao planear o sistema de gestão da qualidade, a organização deve considerar as questões referidas em 4.1 (Compreender a organização e o seu contexto) e os requisitos mencionados em 4.2 (Compreender as necessidades e expectativas das partes interessadas) e determinar os riscos e as oportunidades que devem ser tratados"

Por exemplo, relativamente a 4.1 podemos ter:

Por causa de factores internos como:

• (+) Lançar novo produto - o preço médio pode aumentar
• (-) Não sabemos defender os preços - o preço médio pode baixar

Por causa de factores externos como:

• (+) Procura está a crescer - o preço médio pode aumentar
• (-) Taxas de juro podem subir ou Preço das matérias-primas pode disparar - o preço médio pode baixar

Quais são os factores que acreditamos serem mais prováveis?

O governo fragilista por um lado, o aumento da cotação do dólar e o aumento da inflação alemã vão forçar uma subida das taxas de juro. Como os nossos clientes são maioritariamente do mercado interno (4.2) é muito mais provável que haja uma forte pressão para baixar o preço médio dos serviços restados. Ou seja, identificamos um risco.

Comentários?

Curiosidade do dia

O amigo Aranha mandou-me uma provocação via Messenger:

Empreendedorismo é uma coisa positiva.

Emigrar é ser empreendedor.

Portanto, segundo a propriedade distributiva: Emigrar é uma coisas positiva!

Notável!

Quantas vestes não se rasgariam se fosse PPC a dizer isto!

Qualquer dia até a Todos Socialistas Felizes faz um fórum dedicado aos piegas que não querem sair da sua zona de conforto e estão contra o aumento dos impostos.


Oh, wait!

Estratégia em todo lado - não é winner-take-all (parte III)

A leitura deste artigo "Instead of Optimizing Processes, Reimagine Them as Platforms" chamou-me a atenção para uma citação de “Products to Platforms: Making the Leap“: 

“In a product business model, firms create value by developing differentiated products for specific customer needs, and they capture value by charging money for those items. In a platform business model, firms create value primarily by connecting users and third parties, and they capture value by charging fees for access to the platform. Platform models bring a shift in emphasis—from meeting specific customer needs to encouraging mass-market adoption in order to maximize the number of interactions, or from product-related sources of competitive advantage (such as product differentiation) to network-related sources of competitive advantage (the network effects of connecting many users and third parties).”

Creio que esta tendência não passe de um sintoma da juventude dos modelos de negócio baseados em plataformas. Recordar:

• Estratégia em todo lado - não é winner-take-all
• Estratégia em todo lado - não é winner-take-all (parte II)

Ao criar uma estratégia

"The Four Fundamental Questions You Must Answer When Creating a Strategy
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What Propels Us Forward? [Moi ici: São produtos e serviços? São clientes e mercados? São capacidades? São tecnologias? São canais de distribuição? São matérias-primas?]
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What Do We Sell?
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Who Are Our Customers? [Moi ici: Um tema clássico neste blogue]
When determining whom you’ll sell to, you are once again faced with a choice: Which customer groups (and geographies) do we place more emphasis on in the future, and which deserve less of our attention? The first step in answering this question is acquiring a clear understanding of your current group of customers  reviewing standard metrics such as Net promoter score, profitability customer group, retention, and market share. It’s also vital to experience from your customers’ point of view in order to glean insights not visible within the walls of your corporate headquarters.
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How Do We Sell?
This is perhaps the most crucial of the four questions, as it determines value proposition. In other words, how do you add value for customers, or to put it even simpler: Why would anyone buy from you? Despite the importance of the question, the choices awaiting you are limited and basic: You can either attempt to offer the lowest total cost of ownership to your customers or you can put forth a differentiated product or service.
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Companies that compete on lowest total cost invest deeply in capabilities, processes, and assets that allow them to standardize their operations, and create a repeatable formula that results in low prices for the consumer. Think of Wal-Mart in the retail world or McDonald’s in the fast-food industry."

Com uma PME prefiro pensar em:

• Qual a nossa identidade?
• A quem servimos bem com vantagem para ambas as partes?
• Qual a melhor forma de chegar a quem servimos? 

Trechos retirados de "Objectives and Key Results - Driving Focus, Alignment, and Engagement with OKRs" de Paul Niven e Bem Lamorte

Interação, relação e Mongo

Mais uma opinião em sintonia com o que escrevemos e defendemos aqui ao longo dos anos acerca de Mongo e da tendência para empresas mais pequenas, mais ágeis e mais apaixonadas:

"over the next 25 years, will likely mean that more and more large organizations, business models, and even governmental functions will be supplanted, evaded, or made irrelevant by self-organizing groups of individuals, connected ever more seamlessly by robust computer and telecommunications technologies.
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no matter what your line of work is, and no matter how commanding a position your industry has today, every business still needs to be prepared for the consumer-led disruption of radical decentralization.
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the best way to prepare for this disruption or nearly any other kind of technological asteroid strike, is to follow one or all of these three strategies:
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Concentrate on earning the trust of your customers now, by constantly acting in their interests. When the asteroid hits, you need your customers to be on your side, wishing you well;
Deepen the context of your relationships with customers by tailoring each customer’s service to that customer’s individually different needs and preferences; and
Create a more frictionless customer experience by facilitating the disruption, rather than simply trying to resist it. You want to be Uber, the company, coordinating the interactions, and not just the highest-volume Uber driver in the new network."

 Recordar o recente "the relationship is the holy grail" e a ênfase que aqui damos à interacção.

Trechos retirados de "Radical Decentralization: Consumers Are the Ultimate Disruptors"

Tendências que estão a mudar o mundo da moda

Em "No More Athleisure, Brick And Mortar, Made in China? How Fashion Will Change In 2017" algumas notas sobre as tendências que estão a mudar o mundo da moda. Saliento a decadência das marcas do passado e a ascensão de novas marcas nascidas no online.

"These companies are offering something different from the flashy designers of yesterday: the insight into their supply chain and sometimes even a breakdown of their sales margins, providing the customer with a better understanding of the quality they're getting for their money.
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Over the next year, we'll see how these online brands continue to transform the fashion landscape. We'll see big shifts in brick and mortar stores, fashion supply chains, the athleisure trend, and the idea of value.
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1. Brick And Mortar Makes A Comeback [Moi ici: Atenção! Estas lojas físicas não são as tradicionais lojas físicas que tentam subornar os clientes com descontos]
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"Brands are thinking about what the internet cannot give you,"
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the one thing the internet does not provide is human contact. She predicts that in 2017, customers will increasingly visit stores to get curated experiences from shop representatives. For brands to meet this demand, they need to have well-trained staff who understand products inside and out and can offer personalized advice.
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We will also see a rise in experiential retail, ... To encourage consumers to spend time in their stores browsing their products, brands will get more creative, adding amenities like bars, coffee shops, and yoga classes. In other words, stores will become more like entertainment spots for people who share similar lifestyles and interests to spend time together. "There will be an emphasis on physical brand experiences that will enable consumers to engage with not just product, but brand ethos and community," she says. "The main objective of this kind of blending will be brand awareness, but the scope and reach will be much more than what’s been traditional. These experiences will be leveraging what is happening with social and taking it offline."
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3. Value Matters More Than LabelsCustomers are smart and want to know what they are paying for.
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[Moi ici: E relacionado com o reshoring, com a flexibilidade, rapidez e pequenas séries] Gallardo believes that over the next year, companies that build their business model on making large wholesale margins will struggle to compete with this new flock of brands. Consumers are also losing interest in big discounts since they often come paired with lower-quality products. Gallardo says that brands struggling to survive in this shifting landscape—including J.Crew and the Gap Brands—will need to rethink their entire supply chain so they are making high-quality products with the best materials, then selling them at the best possible prices. This means not only being "direct-to-consumer" but also "direct-to-supplier.
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4. Made In AmericaMore production is returning home.
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The majority of U.S. fashion brands have moved production to Asia, where labor costs are lower. But there's been a shift in recent years as a wave of startups have chosen to make products in U.S. factories because it allows them to better monitor quality and take advantage of the most recent manufacturing technology.
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More and more brands are focusing on smaller, more timeless product lines," he says. "We're not trying to make the cheapest white T-shirt, but the most well-constructed, best-fitting, softest T-shirt, at the absolute best price.""

Curiosidade do dia

E é a isto que estamos condenados:

"Saúdam-se as despesas, as reposições, as reversões, e ai de quem venha falar de endividamento, uma pessoa do passado que não sabe que austeridade e dívida são assuntos que não entusiasmam. Pelo contrário, o melhor é entrar no jogo e prometer mais ainda, fazendo dos restantes uns contabilistas que só querem saber de contas e não das pessoas."

Só teremos o que merecemos

Recordar o que é um fragilista

Trecho retirado de "Temos o debate político que merecemos"

"Your higher price makes it easier to sell"

Recordo "Assim, partem já derrotados" antes de:

"You may believe that one of the primary challenges you have when selling is your higher price. Because you invariably get questions around your higher price, and because you are continually compared with your lower-priced competitors, it’s easy to conclude that your higher price makes selling more difficult.
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This is categorically untrue. Your higher price makes it easier to sell, and a lower price makes it more difficult."

Recomendo vivamente a leitura de "If You Think It’s Hard to Sell with a Higher Price, Try Selling a Low Price" porque o texto é mesmo muito bom!

"It’s easier to sell with a higher price. First, the price itself is an indication of quality. It’s a shortcut that indicates you are investing more in generating better outcomes, whether that be a better product, a better service, or a better solution.[Moi ici: Recordar "Uma das minhas missões" e as "respostas que me satisfariam"]
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A higher price also means that you are doing something different that makes a difference worth paying for. That difference, that ability to solve your perspective client’s challenge and give them what they really want or need is what is worth paying more to obtain. When you sell at a higher price, you are compared to competitors at all price points, which allows your prospective client to look for differentiation worth paying for.
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At a higher price, you have something to sell. At a lower price, the only thing you have to sell is a lower price. If delivering greater value at a lower price was easier, more sales organizations would choose that strategy."

"If You Think It’s Hard to Sell with a Higher Price, Try Selling a Low Price"

Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte X)

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

O trecho que se segue é muito interessante, ilustra bem o que é a explosão de tribos, o aumento da diversidade e a vantagem das empresas com gente apaixonada:

"In a type of paradox, cities are becoming more alike and more different at the same time. Let me explain.
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Cities are experiencing a move to niche, yet global, trends - interest by interest, social group by social group - into a massive subset of connected communities that exists in most geographies. People are self-organising themselves into groups around passions. [Moi ici: Há tantos anos a falar aqui da vantagem de ter gente com paixão... como não recordar "A paixão nas empresas é inversamente proporcional ao seu tamanho"] They can do this now because they can connect easily and find each other, but more importantly because the culture vultures (mass-market tastemakers) have finally left the building. It’s a fragmentation into subcultures that are replicated on a global scale, facilitated by the network connections people have.
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People are self-organising themselves into groups around passions.
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There are now more niches in every city maintained by a group itself, not by mass marketers looking for the next pop-culture hit. In fact, niches can now build themselves sustainable micro-economies around their interest. The community itself becomes the designer, producer, promoter and end user. They can do this because the barriers to entry are inconsequential.
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But at the same time each city has never been more fragmented and differentiated within its walls. Figure 6.1 depicts this fragmentation of cities."

Agora imaginem as empresas grandes, viciadas na produção em massa a tentar interagir com com estas tribos bots e algoritmos, tomando-as por plankton ... tudo para dar errado.

E volto ao:

-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!

As PME deviam estar a pensar em como fazer batota com esta maré:

"We must redefine strategy not as a means of control, but as a means of understanding control."

A importância do essencial

Ao longo dos anos abordo o tema do retorno da atenção e da estreiteza da nossa largura de banda, se dedicamos a nossa atenção a umas coisas não a podemos dedicar a outras ao mesmo tempo. Recordar O retorno da atenção (Agosto de 2009).

Agora em Pre-suasion encontro:

"In the English language, we are said to “pay” attention, which plainly implies that the process extracts a cost. Research on cognitive functioning shows us the form of the fee: when attention is paid to something, the price is attention lost to something else. Indeed, because the human mind appears able to hold only one thing in conscious awareness at a time, the toll is a momentary loss of focused attention to everything else. Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to experience - genuinely experience - two things at once?
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my car’s CD player is structured to work like my brain, allowing me but a single track of music at a time. That’s for good reason, as it would be folly to play more than one simultaneously. I’d just hear noise. So it is with human cognition. Even though there are always multiple “tracks” of information available, we consciously select only the one we want to register at that moment. Any other arrangement would leave us overloaded and unable to react to distinct aspects of  the mongrelized input."

Recordar a contagem de passes e o gorila.

Por isto, também por isto, é importante esclarecer o que não é prioritário, o que não é estratégico, para que possamos dedicar mais tempo ao essencial.

Não perca tempo

Já aqui escrevi, mais do que uma vez, que os líderes de uma associação sectorial ou empresarial devem idealmente vir da vanguarda do pensamento estratégico.

Colocar e manter mentes demasiado agarradas ao passado, demasiado confiantes no direito adquirido ao queijo  garantido, em posições de chefia tem tendência a resultar em erro.

Considerando o tema de Pre-suasion, por exemplo aqui e aqui:

"frequently the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is not the one that counsels most wisely there; it is one that has been elevated in attention (and, thereby, in privilege) at the time of the decision"

Se quem ocupa uma posição de liderança vê a mudança como uma ameaça, vê um futuro com mais nuvens negras do que oportunidades, então, o mais provável é que todo o sector assuma esse posicionamento e se refugie no papel de vítima, de coitadinho que tem de depender de outros para sobreviver.

Esses "líderes" presos ao passado, quando o mundo muda ficam perdidos e como que esperam ser socorridos. Líderes (sem aspas) virados para o futuro acham-se a si mesmos, encontram um novo lar nesse novo futuro.

Numa pesquisa que fiz aqui no blogue fui parar por acaso, não há acasos todas as coincidências são significativas, a um postal de Julho de 2006 intitulado "O futuro para o têxtil português" onde se podia ler:

""In a fast-paced environment where time-to-market and short-cycle production are powerful levers of competitive advantage, proximity has taken on much greater significance in all but "fashion" items, where once-a-season orders still prevail.
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The keys to success in an age of product proliferation, the authors found, are no longer economies of scale and cheap labor but an up-to-the-minute knowledge of what sells and what doesn't, flexible manufacturing capabilities that can respond appropriately to demand, lean rather than fat and costly inventories, and the rapid replenishment of stock."

Agora pensem nos anos que o sector têxtil perdeu em Portugal porque em vez de olhar para o futuro pelo lado das oportunidades, em vez de divulgar esse futuro possível, em vez de comunicar os exemplos de sucesso, gastou demasiado tempo a defender o passado, a esperar que tudo voltasse à "normalidade".

Este blogue ganhou vida própria entretanto mas quando começou a ser escrito com regularidade tinha como objectivo ser um prolongamento da minha memória. E ter memória ás vezes é um castigo dos deuses:

• Qual é o recurso mais escasso? (Outubro de 2010)
• Arrepiante (Outubro de 2010)
• Algo me diz que Nuno Melo apanhou a maré quando ela já está a mudar (Janeiro de 2011)
• O tempo que se perdeu (Maio de 2013)

Agora imagine que a sua empresa têxtil tinha recorrido aos serviços deste consultor anónimo da província e que tinha feito um gerador de cenários e tinha formulado uma estratégia de trajectória para vir encontrar-se com um futuro mais risonho à custa da batota, comandando em vez de ser comandada, apostando na proximidade, na rapidez, na flexibilidade muito antes dos outros.

Se tiver tempo leia mesmo este postal de ontem "Isto está tudo ligado (parte II)". Consegue sentir como eu o arrepio de descobrir o quão facilmente podemos ser enganados por nós próprios?

E mais uma vez aquela descoberta: sentado num banco no interior do Amoreiras, ao princípio de uma noite de 1998, enquanto aguardava pela minha colega Dores para jantarmos, lia Stephen Covey em “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”:

"Não é o que acontece que conta, é o que nós decidimos fazer com o que nos acontece."

E aquela outra mais recente mas igualmente bela proporcionada por Gonzales:

"É como se a nossa economia fosse um conjunto de pessoas que viajava de avião. O avião despenhou-se e, agora, as pessoas encontram-se numa floresta tropical cheia de perigos e riscos. Há uns que querem aventurar-se e procurar a salvação atravessando a floresta, há outros que querem permanecer junto ao avião esperando que ele volte novamente a levantar vôo, há outros que gritam por ajuda e esperam um milagre. O que aprendi com Gonzales, e chocou com o que ouvi de Lobo Xavier, é que os que decidem aventurar-se e procurar a salvação, enfrentando o desconhecido, ao fazerem essa viagem, acabam por se transformarem a eles próprios e o mais interessante é que quando chegam à "civilização", ou quando são encontrados, já não estão perdidos, já se encontraram, já se adaptaram a uma nova realidade." 

Não perca tempo com líderes que fazem do seu sector um coitadinho, procure gente com o locus de controlo no interior.

BTW, se precisar de apoio estamos por aqui.

Curiosidade do dia

Ás vezes aparecem pequenas estrelas brilhantes no meio da noite da burocracia, da noite da regulação, da noite do cronyism, nem acreditamos que estamos em Portugal.

Eis um desses exemplos bons "Docapesca diz que venda direta de pescado antes de entrar em lota é legal".

E sobre isto:

"A empresa reconheceu que “a insatisfação manifestada pelos compradores resulta do facto de os armadores que têm contratos homologados estarem a fazer o escoamento do seu pescado, maioritariamente, através desses contratos, dando origem à escassez de algumas espécies de pescado fresco em leilão”."

Há uma solução fácil. paguem mais aos armadores.

O mundo não é plano

"Thomas Friedman is renowned for claiming that the world is flat, in not one but two best-selling, highly lauded, and widely quoted books— The World is Flat (2005) and Hot, Flat, and Crowded (2008).  Friedman posits that information technology is revolutionary in that all people and countries bear an increasing resemblance; he suggests that borders between countries are becoming increasingly irrelevant. It follows that companies that fail to globalize and capitalize on this convergence trend will be left behind.
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While advances in information technology are indeed increasing at a rapid rate, and those advances have certainly facilitated the coordination, connectedness, and efficiency of communications across borders, it does not follow that all peoples and countries will converge so as to become nearly indistinct. Despite what business pundits who exhort globalization would have us believe, important differences between countries remain, and information technology simply does not fully bridge the political, economic, and cultural divides between countries.
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Pankaj Ghemawat and Richard Florida, for example, have demonstrated that the world is not as flat as Friedman purports. There is still substantial difference in the world. People are not the same the world over. Countries vary on a host of dimensions, and the ways in which they differ have important implications for how companies ought to globalize and how globalizing businesses will perform. These differences make it incredibly challenging to manage far-flung global corporations.
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And therein lies the managerial challenge. It seems that managers of global and globalizing companies have taken Friedman’s words to heart, and as a result they are either unsure or unaware of how differences between countries will impact their business. They therefore make dangerous assumptions, underestimating the extent to which such differences are likely to negatively influence the bottom (or top) line, only to learn through a series of costly and painful lessons that the challenges of globalization are real and complex."

Trechos retirados de "Global Vision: How Companies Can Overcome the Pitfalls of Globalization"

Isto está tudo ligado (parte II)

Parte I.

Impressionante o potencial de manipulação em que caímos facilmente:

"Consider the results of an experiment performed by communication scientists San Bolkan and Peter Andersen, who approached people and made a request for assistance with a survey. We have all experienced something similar when a clipboard-carrying researcher stops us in a shopping mall or supermarket and asks for a few minutes of our time. As is the case for the typical shopping mall requester, these scientists’ success was dismal: only 29 percent of those asked to participate consented. But Bolkan and Andersen thought they could boost compliance without resorting to any of the costly payments that marketers often feel forced to employ. They stopped a second sample of individuals and began the interaction with a pre-suasive opener: “Do you consider yourself a helpful person?” Following brief reflection, nearly everyone answered yes. In that privileged moment—after subjects had confirmed privately and affirmed publicly their helpful natures—the researchers pounced, requesting help with their survey. Now 77.3 percent volunteered.
...
frequently the factor most likely to determine a person’s choice in a situation is not the one that counsels most wisely there; it is one that has been elevated in attention (and, thereby, in privilege) at the time of the decision.
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In a companion study, the two scientists found that it was similarly possible to increase willingness to try an unfamiliar consumer product by beginning with a comparable but differently customized pre-suasive opener—this time asking people if they considered themselves adventurous. The consumer product was a new soft drink, and individuals had to agree to supply an email address so they could be sent instructions on how to get a free sample. Half were stopped and asked if they wanted to provide their addresses for this purpose. Most were reluctant—only 33 percent volunteered their contact information. The other subjects were asked initially, “Do you consider yourself to be somebody who is adventurous and likes to try new things?” Almost all said yes—following which, 75.7 percent gave their email addresses.
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Two features of these findings strike me as remarkable. First, of the subjects who were asked if they counted themselves adventurous, 97 percent (seventy out of seventy-two) responded affirmatively. The idea that nearly everybody qualifies as an adventurous type is ludicrous. Yet when asked the single-chute question of whether they fit this category, people nominate themselves almost invariably. Such is the power of positive test strategy and the blinkered perspective it creates. The evidence shows that this process can significantly increase the percentage of individuals who brand themselves as adventurous or helpful or even unhappy. Moreover, the narrowed perspective, though temporary, is anything but inconsequential. For a persuasively privileged moment, it renders these individuals highly vulnerable to aligned requests—as the data of research scientists and the practices of cult recruiters attest.
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The other noteworthy feature of the soft-drink experiment is not that a simple question could shunt so many people into a particular choice but that it could shunt so many of them into a potentially dangerous choice."

Dou por mim a recordar os discursos de Brutus primeiro e Marco António depois e a volubilidade da multidão, na peça de Shakespeare sobre Júlio César.

Trecho retirado de "Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade"

O futuro da estratégia

"Traditional strategy thinking is about making long-term commitments that will result in competitive advantage. The problem is we can’t predict the future very well, competitive advantage is rare and temporary, and companies are unable to keep up with the pace of adaptation in their markets.
...
Complex adaptive systems teach us that the only norm is perpetual novelty. Traditional strategic planning was predicated on being able to somewhat successfully plot the future. We should be planning for multiple versions of the future, some that will actually co-exist at the same time.[Moi ici: Gosto desta ideia de múltiplas versões do futuro que co-existirão durante algum tempo]
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While the last twenty years have been marked by leaders in pursuit of the elimination of variance, [Moi ici: Foi aqui que eu comecei. Daí o nome Redsigma, daí a aposta na reengenharia na década de 90 do século passado, daí a abordagem por processos, daí o sucesso dos japoneses, daí o paradigma que os construtores automóveis criaram baseado na eliminação da variância] the next 20 years will be marked by leaders who create variance while maintaining a sense of stability. [Moi ici: Daí o perigo da cristalização. Deixem-me corrigir o autor. O futuro não passa pela criação de mais variância ou mais variabilidade, o futuro passa pela criação de mais variedade. Variância e variedade são coisas diferentes] Tomorrow’s most effective leaders will embrace this new, chaotic world. Planning will be replaced by intelligent reaction. They will proactively anticipate where the next disruption may come from and prepare for multiple scenarios. Instead of relying on proven static methods and processes, leaders will focus on building a learning capability, being comfortable with ambiguity, continually working within a changing landscape and anticipating and reacting to it with agility.[Moi ici: Conseguem imaginar como isto vai ser difícil para quem conta com os direitos adquiridos assegurados por intervenção divina?]
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We must redefine strategy not as a means of control, but as a means of understanding control. All of this isn’t to say that organizations won’t have control, it’s control and chaos.[Moi ici: Profundo!!! Interessante!!! Faz-me pensar no que escrevi sobre a criação de cenários para as PME. Uma PME é uma casca de noz no oceano, não pode mandar nas correntes... mas pode procurar tirar partido delas e aproveitar a sua vantagem de rapidez, localização e flexibilidade potencial]

Trechos retirados de "Chaos Learning: The Key To Mastering Uncertainty"

Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte IX)

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

Uns trechos sobre a explosão de diversidade, sobre a explosão de tribos, sobre o fim da massa uniformizadora.

"The curious thing about demographics is that they were actually shaped by the media, rather than the media reacting to what the demographics liked and believed in. The media loved the idea of demographics so much that they invented pet names for different groups to define them in neat, saleable clusters: the baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, the sea changers. They were all designed to simplify the selling process. The media shaped the demographics itself according to what it chose to expose the demographic to.
...
The probability of aggregating an audience was higher at that time because the media was part of the shaping process itself. The choice of what any demographic group would see was determined by a very thin line-up of media. They all aired the same types of program at roughly the same time. They all ran the same advertisements for the products they thought a demographic may buy, and the retailers would choose to only put those products with national advertising support on their shelves. The limited choice created the profile more than the attitude and desires of the people inside the profiles. It was also hard to escape the ‘norm’. [Moi ici: Recordar que foi a produção em massa que criou o mercado de massas e não o contrário] We all worked and went to school at normal and predictable hours. It was hard work just escaping the message. For want of a better term, people got brainwashed into fitting into their pre-defined demographic behavioural pattern. But this system is breaking down, and beyond age and a few limited geographic constraints, demographics is totally finished as a useful marketing tool."

O trecho que se segue é bem exemplificativo da realidade actual:

"How similar are teenagers who live in the same suburb, go to the same school, with the same ethnic origin profile, with the same average income who are also these different things: goths,[Moi ici: Nuno, era este grupo que nos falhou na conversa durante a viagem, os góticos]  punks, surfers, skaters, geeks, ravers, jocks, musicians, hipsters, preps, emos, gamers [insert your preferred teenager genre here]?
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Would any of these groups listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, hang out in the same places, eat the same food, read the same books or watch the same movies … let alone like the same brands?" 

Curiosidade do dia

Isto cheira-me logo a trabalho encomendado. São capazes de imaginar o que teria sido a evolução da inflação em Portugal se tivéssemos mantido o escudo? São capazes de imaginar Sócrates com a impressora por sua conta?

Sou capaz de imaginar governos de esquerda e de direita pressurosamente a baixar a cotação do escudo para que as empresas portuguesas pudessem competir com a China ao longo da década passada, por exemplo. O euro foi uma ajuda dos céus para impedir a venezuelização acelerada do país.

"O euro foi um fator de destruição para a economia portuguesa, que deixou de ter instrumentos próprios para resolver as suas crises", considera Francisco Louçã, professor universitário. Para o ex-líder do Bloco de Esquerda, o euro foi benéfico para economias fortes, como a alemã, mas se mantiver o modelo atual, "é insustentável e não sobreviverá a outro crash financeiro".

Claro que este senhor preferia enganar os portugueses com a treta da ilusão monetária. O euro torna mais claros os erros que os governantes cometem.

BTW, acreditar que sem o euro a gasolina e o tabaco aumentariam menos é um filme que vai no Batalha.

Trecho retirado de "Custo de vida dos portugueses subiu mais do que os salários"