Lados positivo, negativo e arriscado

Um lado positivo:

""Um dos nossos principais vetores de sucesso é o desenvolvimento de novos e inovadores produtos,
...
Apesar de a produção nacional estar ao nível dos melhores e a preços competitivos, Manuel Brasil refere que não podem competir só pelo preço ou pela qualidade. "Trabalhar exclusivamente pelo preço é demasiado perigoso e redutor, visto que as mais-valias são muito reduzidas, e porque continuarão a existir países cuja conjuntura local seja mais favorável a este tipo de fabrico", alerta. "A qualidade é algo que tem de ser inato a todos os produtos e serviços. A premissa que deve ser garantida é a de não cair em situações de "excesso" de qualidade, ou seja, tudo aquilo que esteja incluído num produto que não tenha valor para o cliente é de facto um custo para o fabricante.""[Moi ici: A aposta na diferenciação pela inovação]

Um lado negativo:

"Se não for criada e colocada no terreno uma estratégia nacional de formação na indústria de metalomecânica, não sei por quanto tempo este crescimento possa ser sustentado."[Moi ici: O ainda não ter percebido que vão ter de ser as empresas em associação a criar soluções locais e específicas para este problema. Se calhar em conjunto com uma escola privada mais virada para o ensino profissional oficinal, e que agora atravesse um mau momento com o fim dos contratos de associação]

Já agora, a propósito de "O têxtil vive em castelos de areia". Não é o têxtil, é toda a actividade económica privada. Afinal, não foi de ânimo leve que sublinhei: "For an entrepreneur, every day is a crisis". Todas as actividades económicas que dependem de clientes que são livres de escolher a quem comprar, são como os iogurtes, têm um modelo económico que, mais tarde ou mais cedo, e sem avisar, vai ficar obsoleto. Por isso, toda a actividade económica privada vive em castelos de areia, literalmente. E fugir disto é deturpar a economia.

Outro lado positivo:

"Como "não podemos competir pelo preço", o foco está em manter a flexibilidade que permite produzir séries pequenas em espaços de tempo apertados.[Moi ici: Ainda me lembro de quase só o anónimo da província ousar escrever sobre isto]
...
"O crescimento das vendas online dá vantagem a Portugal porque as marcas não podem ir à Ásia buscar mil peças em quatro meses, mas nós fazemo-lo. Cada vez mais, as lojas físicas vão encerrar e o comércio online pede rapidez." 

Um lado arriscado:

""Fizemos um estudo, que só será apresentado no primeiro semestre deste ano, que contabiliza o custo de armazenamento de toneladas de peças de vestuário que as marcas têm guardadas por essa Europa fora. Vamos resolver esse problema: propomos recuperar essas peças e dar-lhe uma vida nova, sem que percam valor."[Moi ici: O modelo que gerou/gera essas peças que não se vendem está a morrer. Por isso, também, é que o reshoring está a acontecer... recuar a Maio de 2006]

• Flexigurança, fiscalidade e competitividade (Janeiro 2007)
• Acerca da competitividade (Dezembro 2010)
• Hora da batota? (Março 2012)
• Como aproveitar a proximidade entre a produção e o consumo? (Julho 2012)
• Rapidez, rapidez, rapidez (Março 2013)
• Escrito nas estrelas (Abril 2013)
• E quem puder dar esse acompanhamento superior (parte III) (Novembro 2014) 
• Uma década à frente da tríade* (Junho de 2017)

Trechos retirados de "Exportações: três histórias de sucesso"

Provocação para PME certificadas (parte III)

Este tipo de reflexão, "Creating urgency amidst comfort - a leadership agenda for 2018", é cada vez mais importante para as PME portuguesas.

As que se dedicam ao sector transaccionável da economia estão a crescer desde 2010, quando comparamos as exportações desse ano com as de 2017 verificamos coisas como:

Por exemplo, o sector da Metalurgia e Metalomecânica cresceu mais de 56%. Nesse sector encontra-se o subsector dedicado à produção de moldes com este desempenho impressionante. Portugal, este pequeno país é o 3º maior fabricante de moldes na Europa e 8º no mundo.

Parece que tudo corre bem, e corre. No entanto, um antifragilista deve estar sempre em guarda. Por exemplo, há tanto trabalho a fazer para subir na escala de valor ou, estando este subsector tão concentrado na produção para a indústria automóvel, como o preparar para um inevitável período de baixa neste sector?

Conseguem imaginar o papel de uma revisão do sistema pela gestão que não se fica pelos rituais para auditor ver e se concentra em provocações para PME? (parte I e parte II)

Qual ou quais das sugestões de Reeves no artigo citado no início poderiam ajudar a revisão do sistema da sua empresa?

E na sua empresa?

"A nova lei da protecção de dados resulta da transposição de uma diretiva comunitária e entrará em vigor em maio.
.
As mudanças serão significativas ... são poucas as empresas portuguesas que estão devidamente preparadas. ... um terço das empresas nacionais estão preparadas para o que aí vem.
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O novo regulamento vai aplicar-se a todas as entidades que tratem dados pessoais, tanto as que realizam essas operações como as que sejam subcontratadas para o efeito, que serão diretamente responsabilizadas em caso de infração."

Trechos retirados de "Especial 2018: Qual o impacto da nova lei da proteção de dados?"

VUCA rules!

A propósito da primeira compra do ano, acerca do último livro de Nassim Taleb:

"The problem, says Taleb, is that in modern times we have become increasingly preoccupied with prediction, and blind to the value of antifragility. As a result, iatrogenic damage (harm caused by well-meaning interventions) has become ubiquitous. ...
Taleb describes himself as a skeptical empiricist and a disciple of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher. We tend to think of the Stoics as being able to withstand life’s vicissitudes, but Taleb says they are always looking for situational asymmetries. This quest is the essence of an antifragile strategy: to identify and exploit options in which you can bet against the fragilistas with little to lose and much to gain."

Este trecho acerca da minha segunda compra do ano:

"vivid account of what happens when superbly trained and highly resourced teams that operate as part of a bureaucratic structure confront a decentralized and fluid network of underprepared and barely resourced competitors that are nonetheless fiercely aligned around a persuasive common narrative. And it offers a rich template for effective action. In the process, One Mission demonstrates precisely why 20th-century managerial innovations such as management by objectives and vertically cascading strategic alignment are doomed in an environment characterized by complexity, unpredictability, and speed." 

Primeira compra do ano

Um exemplo a propor, que os bares da Assembleia da República sigam as mesmas regras que os bares do SNS. Só assim teremos skin-in-the-game.

Votos de um Bom Ano!

Votos de um Bom ANO para todos, um 2018 com menos fragilismo

But Our Executives Want A Number!

Sempre desconfiei de números que não nos dão pistas sobre o que fazer para melhorar o desempenho. Cada vez sei menos sobre o que fará sentido fazer quando queremos medir a satisfação dos clientes e ganhar algo com isso.

Por isso, li com interesse, o artigo recomendado:

Great article on NPS failings...Net Promoter Score Considered Harmful (and What UX Professionals Can Do About It) https://t.co/H10e68o4M3

— Miguel Pereira Pires (@mig2p) December 28, 2017

O artigo é muito bom mesmo! E deve ser lido por quem ainda usa ou está a pensar em usar o NPS como indicador.

Sublinho este trecho:

"NPS believers tell us no implementation ever asks only for the number. Every smart implementation follows up with a qualitative question, asking why? Some sophisticated systems will vary the question based on the score, asking promoters “What did we do well?”and detractors “What could we improve?”.
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They’re right. The real value is the Why answer. The customer tells you what just happened, and you could improve it (or make sure you don’t break the things that work well).
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To these NPS proponents, I tell them that it’s great they are getting this valuable data. Why should they bother with the score question at all? Just ask the qualitative question. Their response is usually some mumbling and huff-puffery about segmentation or indicators or some other mumbo-jumbo that makes no sense."

E este outro:

"But Our Executives Want A Number!...
There are tons of numbers. An infinite number of them, in fact.
Yet, there’s no one number that represents a company’s customer experience. Not even NPS. Yet, that won’t stop us from trying.
We could use a business number, like the number of subscriptions or the amount of churn. We could use sales, net revenues, or profits.
These numbers don’t speak directly to the design of the products or services. They don’t tell us whether the customers are satisfied, or better yet, delighted." 

Como não recuar a 2006 e ao auto-incensamento em "Medir o Grau de Satisfação dos Clientes para quê?"

Só 10%!!!

"some challenges affecting the productivity of Western Europe's workforces are prevalent throughout the region -- among them, low levels of employee engagement. Overall, just 10% of employed residents in Western Europe are engaged -- that is, involved in and enthusiastic about their work. Among the region's 18 countries, this figure tops out at 17% in Norway, and it is well below 10% in France, Italy and Spain. By contrast, among the world's most highly engaged workforces, including the U.S., more than 30% of employees are engaged."

A minha preocupação não é a produtividade. No século XXI, acreditar que a produtividade depende em grande parte do trabalhador é algo que já não faz sentido mas que ainda não saiu das mentes e sebentas. A produtividade aumenta muito mais quando se muda o que se produz do que quando se tenta aumentar a cadência do que se produz.

A minha preocupação é que um terço da vida destas pessoas é visto por elas como uma prisão.

Por isso, sublinhei há dias numa empresa saber, por portas travessas, que têm operárias que mesmo que ganhassem o Euromilhões asseguram que continuariam a vir trabalhar.

Trecho retirado de "State of the Global Workplace"

Acerca de vender

"if you feel like you are asking your customer for a favor when you’re trying to sell something, you’re probably doing it wrong.
...
The reason that so many people hesitate to go into sales is because they feel that selling is asking for a favor. And the idea that for a living you would bother people, whether there’s people you know or people you don’t, and constantly handle them to get them to do something for you, is an unsavory way to spend your day. The alternative is to realize that no one in a free market buys something unless it’s worth more to them than it costs. In essence, everything is on sale, everything is a bargain that you pay $3 for a bottle of water because it’s worth $5. You donated a million dollars to charity because it’s worth $2 million to you to do so. And if you look at it that way, then the salesperson’s job is to create communication so that value is created. Not just value created for the salesperson, but value that’s created for the customer. And if no value is created, then all you’re doing is bothering people and you’re not really a salesperson.
...
if you’re busy selling a product that people don’t wanna buy and creating discomfort as you do so, I think you should sell something else. And this choice of selling the thing you believe in as opposed to rolling your eyes and dealing with it everyday for the rest your life, I think the choice is pretty clear. And if you’re a good salesperson, then they’ll be lining out the door for you, to hire you, to get you to be the person who represents this product.
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Being the salesperson of last resort, selling the product no one else wants to sell, getting the jobs where you only get paid on commission and you’re barely scraping by because you’re selling lousy stuff to people who don’t want it, well, that’s your choice and you should make a different choice. Because selling is a profession and like all the professions, we should do it in a way that we’re proud of.
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not view selling as manipulation, not do selling as something we do to people, but do it as something we do with people.
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So, if you are in a corner where you’re going to have to exert social or other pressure to create the tension to get someone to buy something from you that you actually don’t think they should buy, that you’re doing it for the commission, then you’re not a professional. And I think you should walk away from that and you should walk away for that product or at the very least, walk away from the customer. That the power of being able to say to a customer, “You’re right. It’s not for you. Here’s a phone number of someone who sells something other than what I sell. Good luck with them because it will be better for you.” That’s what a professional salesperson does."

Trechos retirados de "The World’s Greatest Marketing Mind with Seth Godin"

"The best way to beat a problem is to make it work for you"

A propósito de, "De onde vêm as grandes estratégias (parte II)", chamaram-me a atenção para este site delicioso, "44 Inspirational MacGyver Quotes For Knowledge And Resourcefulness":

"1. "I say we trust our instincts, go with our gut. You can't program that. That's our edge." - MacGyver [Moi ici: Lembro-me do episódio onde isto era dito, a luta contra a Sandy]
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2. "The great thing about a map: it gets you in and out of places in a lot different ways."[Moi ici: Um mapa é uma desculpa, uma bengala, um artifício, para que nos levantemos e ponhamos a caminho. Como não recordar Weick]
...
4. "The best way to beat a problem is to make it work for you." [Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar o pressuposto por trás de "A Beautiful Constraint". Como será ver o mundo a partir de um ponto em que aquilo que para nós, hoje, é um problema passe a ser visto como uma oportunidade?]
...
8. "There always seems to be a way to fix things."[Moi ici: Há sempre um alternativa, nada é definitivo]
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10. "That's the way the world gets better... one person at a time."[Moi ici: Sem revoluções, sem ismos, uma empresa de cada vez e à sua própria maneira]
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18. "It's not so bad to be special... you just have to learn to feel good about it."[Moi ici: Ganhar a coragem para ser diferente, para seguir o caminho menos trilhado]
...
29. "If you don't have the right equipment for the job, you just have to make it yourself."[Moi ici: E nós portugueses somos bons nisto]
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30. "My old high school physics and chemistry classes come in real handy sometimes. Not to mention the fact that when you're in a squeeze, necessity always seems to come through as the true mother of invention." [Moi ici: Stressors são informação a dizer-nos que temos de mudar de vida]
...
38. "Only a fool is sure of anything, a wise man keeps on guessing." [Moi ici: A humildade de encarar as estratégias como hipóteses, fazer pequenas experiências]"

Promover a assimetria

"If possession of a positive added value is the key to value appropriation, we must next determine how a player comes to have a positive added value. In particular, how can a firm come to have a positive added value? The answer is that the firm must enjoy a favorable asymmetry between itself and other firms. We identify four routes that lead to the creation of such asymmetries, terming each a ”value-based’ strategy for the firm.
...
it is evident that for a firm to have a positive added value it must be “different” from its competitors. That is, it must enjoy a favorable asymmetry between itself and other firms.
...
Favorable asymmetries can also arise on the supplier side. Specifically, suppliers may have a lower opportunity cost of providing resources to one firm than of providing them to other firms. Notice that each of these asymmetries can come about in either of two ways. An asymmetry in willingness-to-pay may arise because the firm finds a way to raise the willingness-to-pay of buyers for its product. Or it may arise because buyers end up with a lower willingness-to-pay for other firms’ products. A favorable asymmetry results in either case. Similarly, an asymmetry in opportunity cost may arise because the firm finds a way to lower the opportunity cost of suppliers of providing resources to it. Or it may arise because suppliers end up with a higher opportunity cost of providing resources to other firms. Again, a favorable asymmetry results in either case.
We call each of these routes to enjoying a favorable asymmetry a ”value-based’’ strategy for the firm.
...
In the top left box is the strategy of raising the willingness-to- pay of buyers for the firm’s product. This is the classic differentiation strategy. It involves the firm’s finding ways to meet the needs of buyers better than do other firms. This strategy is well known and well understood, and so we do not dwell on it here.

In the bottom left box is the strategy of lowering the opportunity cost to suppliers of providing resources to the firm. One way the firm can do this is by reducing a supplier’s costs of doing business with it. This type of value-based strategy, the existence of which follows logically from our analytical approach, thus has close connections with the sorts of ideas that have been emphasized recently in writings on supplier relations. It is also closely related to the consulting prescription, currently in vogue, that firms should establish ”value-managed partnerships” with their suppliers.
Other ways in which the firm can lower suppliers’ opportunity costs are found in the area of human resource management. An example is offering employees nonsalary benefits which other firms cannot readily match.
In the top right box is the strategy of lowering the willingness- to-pay of buyers for other firms’ products. In its most literal form, this strategy might include negative advertising (“bad-mouthing” competitors). A more subtle variant involves the creation of switching costs for buyers. These are present if existing buyers of a firm find buying from a competitor in the future less attractive than buying from the same firm again-say, because of retraining costs associated with switching to use of a competitor’s product. This says exactly that buyers have a lower willingness-to-pay for the products of competi- tors than for those of the original firm.
Finally, in the bottom right box is the strategy of raising the opportunity cost to suppliers of providing resources to other firms. This largely mirrors the previous strategy. Influencing suppliers’ perceptions of other firms fits in here, as does the creation of switching costs for suppliers."

Trechos retirados de "Value-Based Business Strategy" de Adam Brandenburger e Harborwne Stuart

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

"The other “commandment” is to become very suspicious anytime you ask, “Why do we do this like that?” and you receive the answer, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” If no one in the organization can explain why a certain practice is the best, or why the product has to offer certain features, that may reveal a bad habit. I suggest several activities the leaders of organizations can do to get to the bottom of this puzzle. First, write down key business processes and ask yourself if you understand why the organization is doing it this way. Then ask others in the company if they understand why. Finally, ask newcomers to the company — after they have been with the organization two or three months — what processes they have seen in the organization they do not understand.
...
You propose that an organization implement “change for change’s sake.” Why?
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There is value in the process of change itself. Many organizations are attached to certain processes and do not realize that when these processes become less relevant or do not work as well, it is time to change. I suggest not waiting for trouble; be proactive about making changes.
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When processes become routinized, silos develop across firms, communication and cooperation fade away, and certain departments begin to command a disproportionate amount of resources. If the company waits for these things to emerge, it is often too late and too difficult to change. Instead, the company should adopt minor but proactive changes on a consistent basis."

Trechos retirados de "How — and Why — You Need to Break Bad Business Habits"

Custos Unitários do Trabalho, salários e produtividade

Lembram-se do tempo da troika e de quanto esquerda e direita nos bombardearam com grandes tiradas sobre a necessidade de reduzir os Custos Unitários do Trabalho (CUT)?

Lembram-se de como aqui sempre estivemos contra essa treta porque os CUT são um rácio e, por isso, os CUT podem baixar, apesar dos salários subirem, se o que se produz tiver maior valor unitário?

Os clássicos, como Teixeira dos Santos ou os direitolas como Ferraz da Costa, assumem o jogo do gato e do rato, e relacionam o aumento dos salários com o aumento da produtividade em termos de produção de unidades por unidade de tempo, assumindo que o preço unitário não varia, assumindo que o que se produz mantém-se constante ao longo do tempo.

Aqui, sempre chamámos a atenção para o aumento da produtividade através da alteração do que se produz, a velha lição de Marn e Rosiello, porque tem um impacte muito superior ao que se consegue à custa do aumento da eficiência.

Regresso a isto ao encontrar estes gráficos:

Chamo a especial atenção para a evolução dos CUT (unit labour costs) da Irlanda. Estão a imaginar a quantidade de analistas a rasgar as vestes e a chorar com dó dos pobres irlandeses. Segundo eles, porque os CUT baixaram é porque os salários reais baixaram... os irlandeses devem estar a pagar para trabalhar.

Reparem agora neste outro gráfico sobre a evolução dos salários reais:

Q.E.D.

Já agora, olhem para a evolução da produtividade irlandesa:

Acham que esta evolução aconteceu porque os irlandeses começaram a correr mais depressa e a ser menos preguiçosos, ou porque se alterou o preço unitário do que produzem?

E como se aumenta o preço unitário do que se produz quando não se goza da prerrogativa de ter armas e de se poder obrigar os "utentes" a comprarem o que se produz?

Subindo na escala de valor.

Recordar:

• O jogo do gato e do rato (parte VIII) (Janeiro 2011)
• Ultrapassado e sem contraditório (Março 2012)
• A redução dos CUT (Agosto 2012)
• Aumentar o "producer surplus", o caminho menos percorrido (parte III) (Janeiro 2013)
• O FT a colar-se ao anónimo de província (Setembro 2015)
• O erro de análise dos Custos Unitários de Trabalho (parte V) (Setembro 2015)
• CUT, produtividade, competitividade e gato e rato (Maio 2016)
• Produtividade para o século XXI (parte IV) (Abril 2017)
• Prisioneiros do século XX (Setembro 2017)

Trechos retirados de "Wages and Nominal and Real Unit Labour Cost Differentials in EMU"

De onde vêm as grandes estratégias (parte II)

Parte I.

"The traditional toolkit of strategy is analytical; business schools teach strategists to ground their thinking on data. Management consultants educated in this way begin strategy projects with an “as-is” analysis, digging deep into the world to better understand it. This might consist of an industry analysis to understand market dynamics, a value chain and profit pool analysis to see where value is being created and captured, and competitive analysis to better understand the direct and indirect competition in a given market. Management consultants review customer data, seeking to understand spending patterns, needs, wants and behaviors, and use those insights to segment the market into more attractive and less attractive customer groups.
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Having done this analysis, and gained an understanding of the world as it is today, management consultants then look for opportunities for their clients to compete.
...
Designers do not see the world as a fixed canvas. They are an optimistic bunch, who see the world as a range of possibilities that can be crafted and bent to our will. Design consultants begin a project by looking for inspiration that will drive their thinking and ideation about the world as it should be. Inspiration can come from within an industry or outside of it. Sometimes a societal trend will trigger an idea. Or it could be driven by ethnographic research observing potential customers. At this stage in the process, design consultants gleefully dance over the “as-is” state, as they generate lots of ideas of the “should-be” state. Only when this creative, generative phase is completed do we bring out the analytical tools to evaluate the ideas. Is there a market and business model that will support this idea? Does the client have the right assets and capabilities to deliver this value proposition? Is the technology required to implement this idea mature enough? How will this idea change an industry dynamics or competitive set? Traditional strategy tools are used to evaluate the ideas to get a sense of what we need to do in order to make them real.
...
As a strategist in a design consultancy, I am clearly a convert to strategy as a creative act.
...
it is true that analytical approaches work extremely well for cost optimization problems. But to enhance revenue and to grow—either through new offerings or new forms of customer experience—creative approaches work better. If you want to do something that is truly new, to create value in a way that has never been done before, to lead rather than follow, and to reframe customer expectations, you need the tools of design. Some management consultants understand this, and are experimenting with design."

Acredito, sobretudo ao trabalhar com PME, numa abordagem criativa com restrições, com constrangimentos. A metáfora que me vem à cabeça é a de MacGyver. O que faz MacGyver metido em mais uma embrulhada? Não sonha com o que não tem, olha para o que tem à mão e inventa uma hipótese de saída com isso. Depois, é implementa-la, mas sempre atento ao feedback da procura para iterar se for caso disso.

Olhar para o que se tem à mão de forma criativa, é olhar para o seu ADN e procurar o tal "twist" necessário para ver o que os outros ainda não viram.

Trechos retirados de "Strategy as a Creative Act II: The Limits to Management Consulting"

Para reflexão

"Qual é a estratégia da Medis? [Moi ici: Reparem na pergunta]
A estratégia da companhia é continuar a crescer, de forma sustentada, salvaguardando sempre a rentabilidade da mesma. [Moi ici: Acham que crescimento e rentabilidade é estratégia? Não serão consequências desejadas de uma estratégia bem sucedida?]
...
Queremos ser uma companhia de seguros efetivamente multicanal.
Num segundo vetor, queremos trabalhar na valorização da proposta de valor,"[Moi ici: Recordar o teste do ácido sobre se o que se diz ser uma estratégia é mesmo uma estratégia, "and it's not stupid"]

 Trechos retirados de "CEO da Médis: “Receio que o sector cometa o erro de estar mais preocupando com a quota de mercado e menos com a rentabilidade”"

Acerca dos indicadores

"Here are some rules of thumb for what makes a good metric—a number that will drive the changes you’re looking for.
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A good metric is comparative. Being able to compare a metric to other time periods, groups of users, or competitors helps you understand which way things are moving. “Increased conversion from last week” is more meaningful than “2% conversion.”
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A good metric is understandable. If people can’t remember it and discuss it, it’s much harder to turn a change in the data into a change in the culture.
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A good metric is a ratio or a rate. Accountants and financial analysts have several ratios they look at to understand, at a glance, the fundamental health of a company.[5] You need some, too.
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A good metric changes the way you behave. This is by far the most important criterion for a metric: what will you do differently based on changes in the metric?"

Trechos retirados de "What Makes a Good Metric?"

De onde vêm as grandes estratégias

A doença que identifiquei e associei ao que designo por tríade e as suas manobras lanchesterianas:

"the reality of strategy courses can be rather mechanical, involving the filling in of frameworks and boxes, the itemizing of various factors said to bring about success or failure, and other somewhat formulaic activities. Case studies of interesting organizations enliven and enrich the learning experience. But is something missing? Is it, in fact, an unfortunate reality that courses on business strategy largely fail to address what is probably the most exciting question: “Where do great strategies really come from?”

Aqui no blogue apreciamos a importância da idiossincrasia na formulação de uma estratégia:

"The missing ingredient in what we have talked about so far is this: strategy making is a creative act. That is the hypothesis of this essay. People sense this at an intuitive level. When we first start hearing about and reading stories and cases about business successes (or failures), it is the clever novelty of various people’s thinking and actions in the business world that makes for the most exciting and enticing examples. It is this “aha” feature of the successful move or series of moves that draws many (all?) of us to the area of business strategy.
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successful strategy and performance come from looking beyond what is cognitively close to the status quo (therefore, easier to think about) to what is further out (therefore, harder to think about). Superior cognition leads to superior strategy making. Interestingly, Schumpeter is quoted on this point: “Passively ‘drawing consequences’ is not the only possible economic behaviour. You can also try and change the given circumstances. If you do that, you do something not yet contained in our representation of Reality”
...
Changing the circumstances, or changing the game, or some other similar phrase—these are the cognitively more challenging, but also more rewarding, moves.
But to say that strategy making is a creative act is to take an additional step. This is because creativity is usually thought of as a “whole-brain” activity. The headline version of this point is to say that creativity is a right- brain activity, as distinct from logic and analysis, which are left-brain activities.
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Returning to the role of constraints and limitations, this is, just like the role of combination, much discussed in the creativity world. The arts are full of examples of famous creators who turned obstacles or setbacks not into limits on their lives but into moments that led to great accomplishment. Creators may deliberately choose to impose constraints on themselves—as when someone consciously adopts the rules of a particular form of poetry or music.
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It is not surprising to find that constraints can stimu- late clever thought and action in the business world, too.
...
business strategy is not an exact subject, capable of being reduced to one correct viewpoint. There are multiple viewpoints and many of them very likely offer some degree of insight. If strategy as creativity has some currency in the world of practice today, this is some support for making the creativity of strategy making a theme in thinking about and teaching business strategy.
So, a course on business strategy ends. It has done a good job addressing the question of where great strategies really come from. It has not provided a definitive answer, because a definitive answer would be suspect. But, perhaps, a good answer is that great strategies come, in good part, from great creativity."

Como não recordar:

"There's always a choice, say the Sisters, but there's always a twist..."

Excelente texto de "Where Do Great Strategies Really Come From?" de Adam Brandenburger, publicado em 2017 por Strategy Science 2(4):220-225

Mais um "Mongo é isto"

Depois do recente "Mongo é isto" mais uma história, mais um exemplo da sedução do artesanato, do que é feito por um humano de forma pouco eficiente, "How to Make a Surfboard":

"This last part is important to LaVecchia, not just because of the environmental implications, but because the wood itself—mostly northern white cedar—is milled by a single shop in Maine. Each board is a study in hyper-localism. “The material is grown here, milled here, built, shaped, sanded, and polished by hand, right here,”"

"em vez de enveredar pela race-to-the-bottom"

Isto, "O futuro do jornalismo", é, sem tirar nem pôr, o mesmo tema de "Make better tacos".

Na dúvida, em vez de enveredar pela race-to-the-bottom, procurar uma forma de fazer diferente ou melhor. Como não recordar as três regras de Raynor.

Fugir da eficiência (parte II)

Parte I.

"focal behavioral failures [Moi ici: Coisas que resultam para lá da eficiência], which are argued to revolve around the dimensions of rationality (the ability to identify opportunities), plasticity (the ability to act on opportunities), and shaping ability (the ability to legitimize opportunities and therefore “shape” or “construct” the opportunity space). It is argued that behavioral failures typically become more pronounced as firms pursue opportunities that are more cognitively distant. [Moi ici: Por vezes os gestores estão tão prisioneiros do que conhecem que não conseguem agir como os ignorantes dispostos a experimentar algo novo] To pursue these opportunities, strategic leaders must change their worldview, or they will not spot them. They must also persuade internal and external stakeholders to change their worldview, or these opportunities will be resisted and not acted on and legitimized. Performing these tasks intelligently is hard. Indeed, evolutionary and ecological perspectives show that pursuing cognitively distant courses of action leads, on average, to unusually grave survival struggles. ... Superior opportunities tend to be cognitively distant, and critical sources of superior performance lie in strategic leaders’ superior ability to overcome the behavioral bounds that make it hard for the average firm to pursue them.
...
Distant foresight requires leaders to acquire appropriate cognitive representations that draw cognitively distant opportunities nearer. To persuade internal and external audiences to espouse a new, cognitively distant course of action, leaders must induce them to adopt a new representation of the firm and its position in the competitive space. [Moi ici: Uma das utilidades do mapa da estratégia, traduzir numa figura um conjunto de interrelações] The construct of cognitive representation and what it takes to manage it are thus central to the concept of strategic agency proposed here. Meeting the challenges of acquiring appropriate representations to foresee distant realities and persuading relevant audiences to endorse novel representations involve processes that have a common root in their associative nature.
...
Behavioral failures are impediments to firms’ abilities to compete for opportunities. Such failures are behavioral insofar as these impediments are mental in origin. Behavioral failures can be viewed in terms of limits to strategic leaders’ abilities to manage and overcome such mental impediments."

Trechos que combinam muito bem com: "There's always a choice, say the Sisters, but there's always a twist..."

Trechos retirados de “Toward a Behavioral Theory of Strategy.” Organization Science, 23 (January/February 2012): 267-285 de Giovanni Gavotte.