"really successful people say no to almost everything"

Numa semana em que me deparei com alguns casos industriais que apontam na direcção oposta, faz sentido recordar:

"Let us return to Warren Buffett. He did not make his billions by cost benefit analysis, rather, simply by establishing a high filter, then picking opportunities that pass such threshold. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”"

Trecho retirado de "The Logic of Risk Taking"

E depois de implementar o sistema de gestão (parte IV)

Parte I e parte II e parte III.

É para avançar com a certificação? Então, há que escolher um organismo de certificação. Que critérios considerar?

Muito mais que o preço.  Quais são os critérios que se podem aplicar ao tomar a decisão de escolher um organismo de certificação?

Claro que o preço é um critério importante. Por isso, é preciso pedir a alguns organismos de certificação as suas propostas e ver o que eles incluem. No entanto, o preço não é tudo - seguem-se algumas outras coisas que podem ser consideradas ao escolher com quem trabalhar:

• Reputação. Se pretende usar o seu certificado para fins de marketing, provavelmente não quer obter o certificado de um organismo que é conhecido por atribuí-los sem qualquer critério. Convém escolher um organismo de certificação com uma reputação sólida.
• Exportação. Se sua organização trabalha para, ou privilegia, um mercado externo, pode fazer sentido usar os serviços de um organismo de certificação desse mercado porque será reconhecido pelos seus clientes.
• Acreditação. Verificar se o organismo de certificação está acreditado pela ISO / IEC 17021 Avaliação de conformidade - Requisitos para organismos que fornecem auditoria e certificação de sistemas de gestão
• Especialização. Se a sua organização é um banco, talvez não seja boa ideia recorrer a um organismo de certificação que até agora tenha certificado apenas empresas industriais. Terão certamente auditores com muita experiência, mas se eles até agora apenas auditaram empresas industriais, terá de perder muito tempo a explicar o bê-à-bá do funcionamento de um banco - resultado, eles estarão a aprender muito mais com a sua organização do que a sua organização com eles .
• Experiência. Mesmo que você pretenda escolher um auditor com pouca experiência para conseguir a certificação sem dificuldades, a verdade é que é do seu interesse ter um auditor experiente, pois pode obter informações valiosas. Assim, não tenha medo de perguntar quem será o auditor e qual o seu CV e / ou uma lista de empresas que ele já tenha auditado.

Depois de restringir a sua pesquisa a dois ou três organismos de certificação que satisfaçam os seus critérios de qualificação, envie-lhes um pedido de cotação. Eles provavelmente solicitarão que você forneça algumas informações necessárias para lhe dar uma cotação de preços pelos seus serviços. Normalmente, eles querem saber o número de pessoas que trabalham para a organização, querem conhecer o código NACE para a actividade económica da organização, querem saber se a organização tem múltiplas localizações fixas, qual será o âmbito do sistema, se a organização trabalha em turnos e se tem sites temporários onde o trabalho de produção possa ser realizado, como nas obras de construção, por exemplo. Depois de considerar os seus critérios de selecção a sua organização estará em condições de escolher o melhor organismo de certificação para suas necessidades.

"an organization's fitness cannot be assessed in a vacuum"

"In 2004 I lacked this immunologist vocabulary, but I began to realize that an organization's fitness—like that of an organism—cannot be assessed in a vacuum; it is a product of compatibility with the surrounding environment.[Moi ici: Análise do contexto ao vivo e a cores] Understanding that environment would be the key to understanding why we were failing and AQI [Moi ici: Al Qaeda Iraq] was winning. We may have had the best equipment and the best special operations units in the world, but we were not—as an organization—the best suited for that time and place. AQI was successful because the environment allowed it to be. A big piece of this was the failure of the Iraqi state, but an even bigger piece was something that extended beyond national borders—something that was temporal, not geographic. A great deal has been written about how the world has become "flatter" and faster. People are more connected, more mobile, and move faster than ever before. By lowering what economists call the "barriers to entry"—prohibitive costs associated with entering a market—these changes have ushered in a universe of new possibilities for players operating outside the conventional systems
...
In some ways, we had more in common with the plight of a Fortune 500 company trying to fight off a swarm of start-ups than we did with the Allied command battling Nazi Germany in World War II.
.
If we couldn't change the environment to suit us better, we would have to change to suit it. The question was how. We were not a handful of renegade fighters operating outside the law and making it up on the fly. The Task Force was a large, institutionalized, disciplined military machine. Though more agile than most forces, we were still a veritable leviathan in comparison with AQI. How do you train a leviathan to improvise?"

Como não recuar a Janeiro de 2007 e recordar as tropas israelitas e o Hezbollah no Líbano. Completamente aplicável às empresas que querem triunfar em Mongo!!!

Trechos retirados de "Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World" de Stanley McChrystal e Chris Fussell

E depois de implementar o sistema de gestão (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

Depois de considerar os prós e contras da certificação da sua organização, a equipa de gestão deve decidir se a certificação é o próximo passo no seu plano de implementação.

Uma vez tomada a decisão de avançar há que considerar:

• quando é que todos os requisitos relevantes do sistema de gestão estarão no seu lugar (como, por exemplo, um ciclo completo de auditorias internas e uma revisão de gestão concluída)?
• qual será a melhor data para a auditoria de certificação?
• que quantidade de dados históricos será necessária como evidência na auditoria de certificação?
• que critérios usar para escolher o organismo de certificação?

1ª Temporada

"learning to say “no.”"

"Southwest has a winning formula that aligns process, people and purpose. But the real coup in responding to a changing competitive landscape lies in learning to say “no.” Operations are all about customer service, which means delivering on a promise that a customer wants kept. Deciding what promises to keep always means saying no."

Trecho retirado de "Why Southwest Airlines’ competitive advantage might be saying ‘no’"

Perceber o ecossistema

"We believe business leaders need a new mental model to better understand the complex interplay between companies, economies, and societies. To do so, they must shift their focus to the broader business and social ecosystems in which their companies are embedded. These ecosystems are nested complex adaptive systems: multilevel, interconnected, dynamic systems hosting local interactions that can give rise to unpredictable global effects and vice versa. Acknowledging the unpredictability, nonlinearity, and circularity of cause-and-effect relationships within these systems is a notable departure from the simpler, linear models that underpin traditional mechanistic management thinking."

Recuar a 2010 e a "Como é o ecossistema da sua organização?"


Trecho retirado de "The Five Steps All Leaders Must Take in the Age of Uncertainty"

"There is only one thing that you can focus on to beat your competitor for deals"

"If focusing on your competitor would improve your sales results, it would be worth the time spent talking about them and the emotional energy invested. Your results, however, are not changed by this outward focus on what your competitor does.
...
There is only one thing that you can focus on to beat your competitor for deals, and that one thing is you and how you sell.
.
You win when you create greater value and justify the delta between your competitor’s price and yours, explaining in a way that is both clear and compelling what they give up by investing less.
.
You win when you poison the well by explaining how certain things can’t be done, why they can’t be done, and how there are people who suggest that they can do these things who you follow to pick up the pieces (without naming names, and without any sour grapes).
.
You win when you develop the reputation of being a trusted partner, doing the things that you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do them, and how they are supposed to be done.
.
None of this has anything to do with your competitor. There is no reason to let your competitor live rent-free in your head, carrying them around with you into every meeting. Instead, decide to be so good that they have to think about how they are going to beat you."

Trechos retirados de "Stop Focusing on Your Competitor"

"what we don’t do matters as much as what we do"

"completing an endurance event has little to do with vision. My vision helped get me started, but it didn’t get me across the finish line. What got me there was focus: being absolutely clear what mattered most, investing my energy disproportionally, following through on a plan, and making the right choices about what to do and saying no to other opportunities. In short, focus enabled me to make the trade-offs I needed to achieve my vision. It always does, in training and in business. The first Rule of Intelligent Restraint, “focus overrules vision,” reminds us that what we don’t do matters as much as what we do.
...
While some visions are motivating and many are translated into specific goals, too many become empty exhortations. Broad statements of hope—whether they are called a vision, growth goals, or aspirations—often mean little to employees and fail to drive growth.
...
Too often, we create a great vision for growth and then allow ourselves and others to get distracted. We fail to build the capabilities needed to achieve the vision because we don’t know where to focus or don’t have the discipline to follow through on the focus.
...
Strategy is only strategic when it allows you to choose what not to do. Focus is only focused if it helps you do less or say no more often."

Trechos retirados de "Pacing for Growth: Why Intelligent Restraint Drives Long-term Success" de Alison Eyring.

"Adaptability, not efficiency, most become our central competency"

"Our struggle in Iraq in 2004 is not an exception—it is the new norm. The models of organizational success that dominated the twentieth century have their roots in the industrial revolution and, simply put, the world has changed. The pursuit of "efficiency"—getting the most with the least investment of energy, time, or money —was once a laudable goal, but being effective in today's world is less a question of optimizing for a known (and relatively stable) set of variables than responsiveness to a constantly shifting environment. Adaptability, not efficiency, most become our central competency."

Trechos retirados de "Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World" de Stanley McChrystal e Chris Fussell

“That’s how we’ve always done it.”

Este exemplo:

É um caso concreto de:

"it's created by connection"

"The false scarcity is this: we believe that shutting out others, keeping them out of our orbit, our country, our competitive space—that this somehow makes things more easier for us.
.
And this used to be true. When there are 10 jobs for dockworkers, having 30 dockworkers in the hall doesn't make it better for anyone but the bosses.
.
But today, value isn't created by filling a slot, it's created by connection. By the combinations created by people. By the magic that comes from diversity of opinion, background and motivation. Connection leads to ideas, to solutions, to breakthroughs.[Moi ici: O papel da interacção, da co-criação, da proximidade]
.
The false scarcity stated as, "I don't have enough, you can't have any," is more truthfully, "together, we can create something better."
.
We know it's the right thing to do. It's also the smart thing."

Trecho retirado de "Justice and dignity, the endless shortage"

"but what really matters is succeeding"

Aprecio esta abordagem e postura, mas ao mesmo tempo faz-me impressão pensar nas organizações e instituições pesadas e prisioneiras de conceitos teóricos quando o mundo muda tanto. Recordo um texto de Nassim Taleb que dizia que os Romanos adoptavam as leis que resultavam.

"We'll then look at the leaders we've traditionally sought, and why they are perhaps an endangered species in the new environment.
...
to succeed, maybe even to survive, in the new environment, organizations and leaders must fundamentally change. Efficiency, once the sole icon on the hill, must make room for adaptability in structures, processes, and mind-sets that is often uncomfortable.
...
The first was that the constantly changing, entirely unforgiving environment in which we all now operate denies the satisfaction of any permanent fix. The second was that the organization we crafted, the processes we refined, and the relationships we forged and nurtured are no more enduring than the physical conditioning that kept our soldiers fit: an organization must be constantly led or, if necessary, pushed uphill toward what it must be. Stop pushing and it doesn't continue, or even rest in place; it rolls backward.
.
Before we begin, a thought. There's a temptation for all of us to blame failures on factors outside our control: "the enemy was ten feet tall," "we weren't treated fairly," or "it was an impossible task to begin with." There is also comfort in "doubling down" on proven processes, regardless of their efficacy. Few of us are criticized if we faithfully do what has worked many times before. But feeling comfortable or dodging criticism should not be our measure of success. There's likely a place in paradise for people who tried hard, but what really matters is succeeding. If that requires you to change, that's your mission."

Trechos retirados de "Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World" de Stanley McChrystal e Chris Fussell

Acerca do activismo agrícola

Sou um defensor da manutenção de Portugal na UE. Ao mesmo tempo, sou muito crítico do activismo agrícola da UE. Por isso, olho para isto, "Brexit and agriculture: British farmers to plough new course" e penso nas oportunidades que se podem criar dando azo à liberdade.

BTW, algum dos defensores da saída da UE alguma vez falou sobre o que fariam com o fim dos subsídios?

BTW, interessantes os exemplos de quem resolveu fugir da race-to-the-bottom.

"The farm was a family dairy outfit with 350 cows in the 1980s when the government decided to cut support and introduce milk production quotas. Now it is a combined ice-cream factory and theme park, which turns over £6m a year. The few remaining cows are a small part of the tourist attraction.
...
As a dairy farm, it employed a grand total of three people: in its new guise, that number has risen to 292 at its peak."

"once-comforting constants transformed into variables"

"We're not lazier or less intelligent than our parents or grandparents, but what worked for them simply won't do the trick for us now. Understanding and adapting to these factors isn't optional; it will be what differentiates success from failure in the years ahead.
...
Through on-site, practical work with client partners, we've seen firsthand the tornado of changing factors — once-comforting constants transformed into variables that defy predictability and challenge traditional models of leadership and management. For many successful organizations, things that once worked superbly now seem ineffective.
...
We will argue that the familiar pursuit of efficiency must change course. Efficiency remains important, but the ability to adapt to complexity and continual change has become an imperative. [Moi ici: Como não recordar o que escrevemos há "milénios", fora do mainstream, acerca do eficientismo, eficácia mais importante que eficiência] Using our experience in war, combined with a range of examples from business, hospitals, [Moi ici: Como não recordar a treta dos hospitais-cidade] nongovernmental organizations, as well as more unlikely sources, we lay out the symptoms of the problem, its root causes, and the approaches that we and others have found effective."

Trechos retirados de "Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World" de Stanley McChrystal e Chris Fussell


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

E depois de implementar o sistema de gestão (parte II)

Parte I.

Calma! Antes de avançar para a decisão da certificação convém também considerar o outro lado.

O que implica a certificação?

Custo. Obter e manter a certificação é um custo extra e, se os seus clientes não a exigirem, talvez não seja necessária.

Maior transparência. Obter e manter a certificação exige maior transparência perante as partes interessadas. Maior transparência implica maior responsabilização e isso significa mais custo.

É só um certificado. Um certificado só prova que a empresa sabe passar em testes. O certificado por si só não traz vendas nem faz o trabalho diário.

1ª Temporada

"willing to pay more than others"

"The reason why retailers try to offer a personalized price goes back to the downward sloping demand curve highlighted in Economics 101. This fundamental concept illustrates that, for most products, some customers are willing to pay more than others. To exploit that, pricing managers employ techniques that try to discern — and charge — the exact price that each customer is willing to pay. Outsize profits can be extracted from “top of the demand curve” customers, who value the product highly. Meanwhile, if discounts can be discreetly offered to customers with a lower willingness to pay, additional sales (and profit) are reaped. The result is a more profitable customer base, with some shoppers paying more than others."

Trecho retirado de "How Retailers Use Personalized Prices to Test What You’re Willing to Pay"

"focus overrules vision"

"completing an endurance event has little to do with vision. My vision helped get me started, but it didn't get me across the finish line. What got me there was focus: being absolutely clear what mattered most, investing my energy disproportionally, following through on a plan, and making the right choices about what to do and saying no to other opportunities. In short, focus enabled me to make the trade-offs I needed to achieve my vision. It always does, in training and in business. The first Rule of Intelligent Restraint, "focus overrules vision," reminds us that what we don't do matters as much as what we do."

Trecho retirado de "Pacing for Growth" de Alison Eyring.

"a problem has different solutions on different days"

"Most of us would consider it unwise to do something before we are fully prepared; before the equipment is optimally in place and our workers well trained. But as the reader will discover, that's the situation we found ourselves in. And in researching this book, we discovered that that is the situation leaders and organizations far from any battlefield face every day.
...
The Task Force hadn't chosen to change; we were driven by necessity. Although lavishly resourced and exquisitely trained, we found ourselves losing to an enemy that, by traditional calculus, we should have dominated. Over time we came to realize that more than our foe, we were actually struggling to cope with an environment that was fundamentally different from anything we'd planned or trained for. The speed and interdependence of events had produced new dynamics that threatened to overwhelm the time-honored processes and culture we'd built.
.
Little of our transformation was planned. Few of the plans that we did develop unfolded as envisioned. Instead, we evolved in rapid iterations, changing—assessing—changing again. Intuition and hard-won experience became the beacons, often dimly visible, that guided us through the fog and friction. Over time we realized that we were not in search of the perfect solution—none existed. The environment in which we found ourselves, a convergence of twenty-first century factors and more timeless human interactions, demanded a dynamic, constantly adapting approach. For a soldier trained at West Point as an engineer, the idea that a problem has different solutions on different days was fundamentally, disturbing. Yet that was the case."

Trechos retirados de "Team of Teams: The Power of Small Groups in a Fragmented World" de Stanley McChrystal e Chris Fussell

É para aqui que vamos mesmo, outra vez

Nem de propósito. Ainda ontem, ao vir de um "Jantar de Reis" de uma empresa, conversávamos sobre o preço e a escassez deste tipo de profissionais, "After decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, U.S. needs more tradespeople".

Entretanto, em linha com o que prevemos que terá de acontecer por cá:

"With state budgets in constant flux, colleges and experts say it’s essential that companies help pay for educational programs that directly benefit them. While that kind of cooperation has been rare, Chaffey College’s InTech Center is an example of how it could work.
.
California Steel chipped in $2 million for the education center, which it leases to Chaffey for $5 per year, said Sandra Sisco, the school’s director of economic development. Other local companies and colleges have invested, too. The center served about 1,300 students in the past year and plans to grow, she said.
.
The steel company agreed to work with Chaffey mostly because it was having trouble finding enough trained workers, said Rod Hoover, its human resources manager. And if California Steel’s competitors benefit from the classes on the factory campus, many of which provide skills useful in steelmaking, so be it.
.
“It was the right thing to do for our community,” Hoover said. “The selfish reason was because we needed craft workers and it was inconvenient to send them elsewhere.”"

Como temos referido por aqui em:

• Convém levar o racional até ao fim (Outubro 2012)
• "e voltar a ser sexy" (Março de 2015)
• Parcerias na formação profissional (Março de 2015)
• Um tema que se vai tornar cada vez mais frequente (Julho 2017)
• "é para aí que vamos novamente" (Outubro 2017)

A farmácia do futuro (parte VII)

"Agora, a ANF considera essencial que esse corte nas margens seja revisto, tal como o regime de turnos, a regulamentação de descontos nos medicamentos e a possibilidade de as farmácias oferecerem “novos serviços”, tal como cuidados de enfermagem e nutrição."

Um tema que se arrasta lentamente ao longo dos anos:

• A farmácia do futuro (parte VI) (Fevereiro 2017)
• "farmácia à frente do médico" (Fevereiro 2016) 
• Ameaças à farmácia do futuro (Outubro 2015)
• Outra sugestão para a farmácia do futuro (Agosto 2015)
• Acerca de sectores estáveis e demasiado homogéneos na oferta (parte III) (Maio 2015)
• Acerca da farmácia do futuro (Outubro 2013)
• Um caminho para a farmácia do futuro? (Abril 2008)

Arrasta-se tanto que me faz pensar num tema de "Pacing for Growth" de Alison Eyring. O exemplo é o da Dell. Uma empresa com um modelo de negócio tão bem sucedido que quando o mundo mudou, foi incapaz de agir com rapidez. Por exemplo, ciente do sucesso dos tablets no mercado japonês chegaram a pensar em lançar-se nesse ramo muito antes da Apple ter o ipad, mas engonharam e engonharam até perder a janela de oportunidade. Eu sei que as farmácias têm uma pesada regulamentação, mas não poderiam já ter avançado mais?

Trecho inicial retirado de "Aumentar margens e prestar serviços de enfermagem. ANF traça plano para salvar farmácias"