Contra a academia, marchar, marchar! (parte II)

Parte I.

"Ultimately, strategy is a way of thinking, not a procedural exercise or a set of frameworks.
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For a company to beat the market by capturing and retaining an economic surplus, there must be an imperfection that stops or at least slows the working of the market. An imperfection controlled by a company is a competitive advantage. These are by definition scarce and fleeting because markets drive reversion to mean performance
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Good strategies emphasize difference—versus your direct competitors, versus potential substitutes, and versus potential entrants.
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To beat the market, therefore, advantages have to be robust and responsive in the face of onrushing market forces. Few companies, in our experience, ask themselves if they are beating the market—the pressures of “just playing along” seem intense enough. But playing along can feel safer than it is. Weaker contenders win surprisingly often in war when they deploy a divergent strategy, and the same is true in business
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The need to beat the market begs the question of which market. Research shows that the unit of analysis used in determining strategy (essentially, the degree to which a market is segmented) significantly influences resource allocation and thus the likelihood of success: dividing the same businesses in different ways leads to strikingly different capital allocations.
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What is the right level of granularity? Push within reason for the finest possible objective segmentation of the market"

Trechos retirados de "Have you tested your strategy lately?"

Contra a academia, marchar, marchar!

“At its heart, business strategy is all about beating the market, or in other words defying the power of “perfect” markets to push economic surplus back to zero. Economic profit—the total profit after the cost of capital is subtracted—measures the success of that defiance by showing what is left on the table after the forces of competition have played out”

A concorrência imperfeita é vista como uma coisa tenebrosa a abater, como uma chatice que impede usarem-se umas formulas-maravilha, e dá azo ao lado irracional dos humanos ao fazerem escolhas. Chamberlin era um economista americano que até queria acabar com as marcas, porque elas são a base para animar a imperfeição dos mercados.

Aqui, este consultor, não quer outra coisa: fomentar, promover a concorrência imperfeita. Criar monopólios informais na mente dos clientes. Alavancar a chegada de Mongo!

Excerto de: Chris Bradley. “Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick”.

Nesse dia o meu tempo cresceu.

“Experience suggests that managers who have the courage to let go are often surprised by just how much their subordinates are capable of achieving when given good direction. It exploits and develops human potential. Making a start is simply a matter of having faith that the potential is there. It is remarkable how seldom that faith is disappointed.”

Aconteceu comigo. Sempre com medo de delegar. Sempre com a mania de que ninguém faria melhor do que eu. Até ao dia em pressionado pela quantidade de trabalho arrisquei, e fui surpreendido pelo Carlos Ramos com um trabalho de qualidade... melhor do que eu teria tempo para fazer.

Nesse dia o meu tempo cresceu.

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

"an escalation of commitment"

"an escalation of commitment – sticking with a once-successful strategy for too long. So how can companies avoid making a similar mistake when facing disruption? They must challenge mutually reinforcing biases that see people being influenced by a prior commitment to a particular course of action.
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This happens for six reasons:"

As seis razões são listadas em "Why leaders invest so much in failing strategies" e são uma chamada de atenção para os que crêem incondicionalmente na racionalidade humana.

Pequenas experiências

Em defesa da descentralização, da desconcentração, da experimentação, das pequenas tentativas:

“A bold decision always looks good—until it is wrong. To facilitate evidence-based decision making, managers must carry out frequent experimentation to diminish the dark space of ignorance and to arrive at conclusions with the required level of familiarity. Critical assumptions must first be identified and then proved right through rigorous experiments.
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took an evolutionary approach, ran numerous experiments, before hitting a pivotal moment. This is how the strategy process under uncertainty should be managed: create enough opportunities so that relevant evidence can emerge—but once clear, full steam ahead.
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THE REFRAIN “IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING, ANY road will take you there” captures the importance of managers developing a point of view about the world. But awareness is not the same as commitment, so insights alone never suffice. Because strategy and execution are inextricably linked, “unless ideas are translated into everyday actions and operational tactics, a pioneer is still at risk of being displaced by copycats. More often than not, the role of a CEO needs to go beyond strategic visioning and into the substance of strategy implementation, particularly during turbulent times.” [Moi ici: Interessante fazer a ponte para o que os prussianos aprenderam: estratégia é uma intenção geral que tem de ser executada no terreno por gente perante situações concretas impossíveis de prever à partida]

Interessante esta nota:

“The Japanese don’t use the term ‘strategy’ to describe a crisp business definition or competitive master plan. They think more in terms of ‘strategic accommodation,’ or ‘adaptive persistence,’ underscoring their belief that corporate direction evolves from an incremental adjustment to unfolding events.”

Excerto de: Howard Yu. “Leap”.

"a framework for decision making is gaining ground"

“The order is critical: first the strategy, then the plan.
.If the notion of strategy as a plan is moribund, the notion of it as a framework for decision making is gaining ground
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strategy as “simple rules” which guide decision making
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the keys to success are “an overall sense of direction and an ability to be flexible.”
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more successful companies are developed through this sort of planful opportunism than through the vision of an exceptional CEO
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We are extraordinarily reluctant to admit that luck plays a part in business success. [Moi ici: Nunca esquecer o que é a "luck" - "Be prepared: "luck" is where preparation meets opportunity"]
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Strategy, then, demands a certain type of thinking. It sets direction and therefore clearly encompasses what von Moltke calls a “goal,” “aim,” or “purpose.” Let us call this element the aim. An aim can be an end-point or destination, and aiming means pointing in that direction, so it encompasses both “going west” and “getting to San Francisco.” The aim defines what the organization is trying to achieve with a view to gaining competitive advantage. How we set about achieving the aim depends on relating possible aims to the external opportunities offered by the market and our internal capabilities.
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A good strategy creates coherence between our capabilities, the opportunities we can detect, and our aims. Different people have a tendency to start with, and give greater weight to, one or other of these three factors. Where they start from does not matter. Where they end up does. The result must be cohesion. If any one of these factors floats off on its own, dominates thinking at the expense of the others, or is simply mismatched, then in time perdition will follow.
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The task of strategy is not completed by the initial act of setting direction. Strategy develops further as action takes place, old opportunities close off, new ones arise, and new capabilities are built. The relationship between strategy development and execution is also reciprocal. Doing strategy means thinking, doing, learning, and adapting. It means going round the loop. The reappraisal of ends and means is continuous.”

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

Curiosidade do dia

"They tend to be naïve. They assume that cooperation should be the basis of all social transactions, and they avoid conflict (which means they avoid confronting problems in their relationships as well as at work). They continually sacrifice for others. This may sound virtuous— and it is definitely an attitude that has certain social advantages— but it can and often does become counterproductively one-sided. Because too-agreeable people bend over backwards for other people, they do not stand up properly for themselves. Assuming that others think as they do, they expect— instead of ensuring— reciprocity for their thoughtful actions. When this does not happen, they don’t speak up. They do not or cannot straightforwardly demand recognition. The dark side of their characters emerges, because of their subjugation, and they become resentful.
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You might think, “if they loved me, they would know what to do.” That’s the voice of resentment. Assume ignorance before malevolence. No one has a direct pipeline to your wants and needs— not even you. If you try to determine exactly what you want, you might find that it is more difficult than you think. The person oppressing you is likely no wiser than you, especially about you. Tell them directly what would be preferable, instead, after you have sorted it out. Make your request as small and reasonable as possible— but ensure that its fulfillment would satisfy you. In that manner, you come to the discussion with a solution, instead of just a problem. Agreeable, compassionate, empathic, conflict-averse people (all those traits group together) let people walk on them, and they get bitter. They sacrifice themselves for others, sometimes excessively, and cannot comprehend why that is not reciprocated. Agreeable people are compliant, and this robs them of their independence."

Peterson, Jordan B.. "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos"

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte III

Parte I e parte II.

"Increase your firm’s bargaining ability In addition to securing a higher added value, firms may also improve the share of created value that they appropriate by improving their bargaining ability towards buyers and suppliers. In essence, this includes different strategies for increasing price without raising the firm’s added value. This may be accomplished by investing in pricing capability, and commercial decision resources, such as IT-based systems, commercial organization, control systems, and commercial experience that improve the quality of commercial decisions made under uncertainty. It may also be accomplished by the development of particular persuasion resources that allows the firm to negotiate more successfully, and ultimately strike a better deal with buyers and suppliers."

Trecho retirado de "What Is Value and How Is It Managed?" de Niklas L. Hallberg, publicado em Journal of Creating Value 3(2) 173–183, 2017.

Fazedores de experiências - a alquimia do futuro

Acho esta estória uma mina de oportunidades para os que tiverem olhos para ver. Diz-se que vamos a caminho de uma economia de experiências:

“When Doug Dietz set out to visit a local hospital that had recently installed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, he had little idea of what life was like inside a children’s ward. [Moi ici: BTW, a sua empresa faz isto? Vê os produtos ou serviços a serem usados no contexto pelos seus utilizadores?] A soft-spoken midwesterner with a wry, endearing smile, Doug is a twenty-four-year veteran of General Electric (GE). He works as an industrial designer at GE Healthcare, where he is responsible for the overall machine enclosures, controls, displays, and patient transfer units.
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“I see this young family coming down the hallway, and I can tell as they get closer that the little girl is weeping. As they get even closer to me, I notice the father leans down and just goes, ‘Remember we talked about this, you can be brave,’” Doug recalled. As the MRI began to make a terrible noise, the little girl started to cry. Doug later learned that hospitals had routinely resorted to sedating young patients because they became too scared to lie still for long enough. As many as 80 percent of the patients had to undergo general anesthesia.
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After witnessing the anxiety and fear his life-saving machine had caused, Doug resolved to redesign the imaging experience. His boss at GE, who had visited Stanford’s d.school while working at Procter & Gamble, suggested that Doug fly to California for a weeklong workshop. Doug knew he couldn’t launch a big research and design (R&D) project to redesign an MRI machine from scratch. But at d.school, he learned a human-centered approach to redesigning the experience. Over the next five years, with a new team, Doug would elicit the views of staff from a local children’s museum, hospital employees, parents, and kids and create many prototypes that would allow his ideas to be seen, touched, and experienced. Testing and evaluation with young patients and interviews with their parents then revealed what worked and what didn’t, helping Doug to generate even more ideas in a continuous cycle.
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The result was the Adventure Series, through which young children were transported into an imaginary world where the scanning process was part of an adventure. Hospital wards included “Pirate Island,” “Jungle Adventure,” “Cozy Camp,” and “Coral City.” in one of them, children would climb into the scanner’s transfer unit, which had been painted like a canoe, and then lie down. The normally terrifying “BOOM-BOOM-BOOM” noise of the scanner became part of the adventure—it was the sound of an imaginary canoe taking off. “They tell children to hold still so that they don’t rock the boat, and if you really do hold still, the fish will start jumping over the top of you,” Dietz said. Children loved the experience so much that they begged their parents to let them do it again. Sedation rates went down by 80 percent, while parent satisfaction rose by an astounding 90 percent. A mother reported that her six-year-old daughter, who had just been scanned in the MRI “pirate ship,” came over, tugged on her skirt, and whispered, “Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”"

Fiquei a pensar, com um pouco de contextualização, com algum investimento no cenário conseguiram aquele:

“Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”

Em quantos outros sectores um "human-centered approach to redesigning the experience" pode fazer milagres?

Esta manhã, a caminho da camioneta para Bragança passei pela Confeitaria do Bolhão e juro, quase 12 anos depois, ainda me recordei desta cena e deste título: "I'm not an order taker. I'm an experience maker!"

Excerto de “Leap”. de Howard Yu.

Curiosidade do dia

"Finanças não sabem quantos funcionários públicos temos"

Um estado que aspira a controlar todos os aspectos da vida das pessoas e que não sabe tratar da sua própria casa é uma anedota trágica.

"a strategy is a framework for decision making"

“A business is a collective enterprise that has to prosper in a competitive environment. Before the 1970s, business success was widely regarded as a matter of participating in attractive markets. As everybody followed this precept, competition within these markets increased, making them less attractive, and returns became mediocre. To sustain good returns, each business had to work out not only which markets to participate in but how it was going to prevail against the others who were trying to do the same thing. Strategy had arrived.
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How are we going to compete?” A good strategy is derived from insight into the basis of competition.
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Because it involves preparation, we tend to identify strategy with a plan.
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Doing strategy is a craft which, like all practical skills, can only be mastered through practice, by learning from our own and others’ experience.
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Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. [Moi ici: Recordar van den Steen] It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.
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“So strategy becomes “the evolution of an original guiding idea under constantly changing circumstances.” A strategy is thoughtful, purposive action.”

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

Mongo: "a kind of reversion to the pre-industrial world"

Um texto que parece retirado deste blogue. Tudo acerca de Mongo:

"the distinction between B2C and B2B is no longer useful. Instead, we should begin thinking about “B2I,” in which the I stands for individual. Companies succeed or fail these days based on their ability to build and maintain lasting relationships with individuals. We have to earn our customers’ trust or those relationships will not grow.
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This reality represents a kind of reversion to the pre-industrial world, when most purchases were personal. In many clothing purchases, for example, the maker was also the seller. Through continued measurements and alterations, the tailor or seamstress came to know the customers: their build, the fabric they preferred, and the way they wanted to look. Mass production and retailing changed all that. Customization disappeared from most purchases as people bought clothing off the rack, with sizes and styles designed to fit many people.
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Today, companies are once again shaping their selling experience to fit each customer individually. That means constantly modifying the standard product or service, like the tailors of a bygone era, but now companies add that type of craftsmanship at scale. No matter what their industry, businesspeople are learning to measure and outfit many customers every day, one individual at a time."

Trecho retirado de "Forget B2C and B2B — We Need B2I"

Validar conteúdos - negócio de futuro

Ontem ao ver este tweet:

Pensei logo neste artigo "Is content validation the next growth industry?".

Mas atenção, isto não é exclusivo das redes sociais. Recordo sempre: "O FMI já não vem".

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte II

Parte I.

Esta parte II serve só para reforçar uma mensagem clássica deste blogue, mas que muita gente ainda não descobriu.

Há dias fiz este comentário no Twitter:

Não quero entrar em polémica, até porque IMPOSTO É ROUBO, mas o exemplo foi mal escolhido. O sector da metalomecânica, excluindo produção automóvel, teve mais de 10 anos de crescimento pornográfico. Só este ano está a decair um bocado face a 2017, o que até é saudável.

— Carlos P da Cruz (@ccz1) September 17, 2018

A parte I refere quatro alternativas para a reforçar a procura pela oferta de uma organização:

1. Diferenciação;
2. Reduzir o valor da oferta dos concorrentes;
3. Ter o custo mais baixo; e
4. Aumentar o custo dos concorrentes.

Competir pela redução do custo da nossa oferta é só uma das possibilidades. E como escrevi aqui há muitos anos, competir pelo preço mais baixo não é para quem quer, é para quem pode.

Qual é a identidade?

Há anos que escrevo aqui que Mongo, um mundo de tribos apaixonadas, não vai ser fácil para as empresas grandes. Recordo, por exemplo:

• "-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"
• Uma novela sobre Mongo (parte X)
• Sou de outra opinião

Uma empresa grande que queira servir a tribo vermelha, vai descobrir que não vai ser bem vista pela tribo azul, e vice-versa. E Mongo não aprecia a simetria: Não é imponentemente que se muda.

Ontem, em linha com isto, descobri este texto "No Matter Your Game, Ultimately This 1 Thing Separates You From The Pack":

""The toughest thing is to have an identity."
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It was an insight with implications and value reaching far beyond a single team, pursuit, or time. His point was this - no matter your assets or the odds, there is something deeply powerful about knowing and consciously seeking to cultivate who you are, an investment that pays dividends in how you show up to do whatever it is you do.
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The New 21st Century Game Plan: Cultural Clarity
Ever-shifting conditions now characterize every environment in which we work, play, and live, and because they do, adaptability is what we most need. What enables it? While many things certainly come into play, at the heart of any successful team is a strong and clear culture. And at the heart of a robust and vibrant culture is identity, both individual and collective. It sounds simple, but somehow we are missing it.
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A 2017 study found that 70 percent of companies will eventually face the impediment of unengaged employees. In that study, a lack of transparency and unclear goals and roles were identified as culprits. But think further, beyond the stats and the typical commentary. Each of these reasons is a symptom of the larger issue of unclear identity."

"absolute clarity of purpose"

“Experience suggests,” he wrote, “that every order which can be misunderstood will be.” The intention should convey absolute clarity of purpose by focusing on the essentials and leaving out everything else. The task should not be specified in too much detail. Above all, the senior commander was not to tell his subordinate how he was to accomplish his task, as he would if were to issue an order. The first part of the directive was to give the subordinate freedom to act within the boundaries set by the overall intention. The intention was binding; the task was not. A German officer’s prime duty was to reason why.
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It recognized that battle quickly becomes chaotic. It emphasized independence of thought and action, stating that “a failure to act or a delay is a more serious fault than making a mistake in the choice of means.” Every unit was to have its own clearly defined area of responsibility, and the freedom of unit commanders extended to a choice of form as well as means, which depended on specific circumstances. The responsibility of every officer was to exploit their given situation to the benefit of the whole.
The guiding principle of action was to be the intent of the higher commander. ”

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

"manage value in order to make a profit " parte I

"Entrepreneurs who seek to manage value in order to make a profit should focus on three key items: increasing the added value of the firm, investing in bargaining ability and improving their bargaining position relative to internal stakeholders.
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Increase your firm’s added value in the vertical chain. As a base rule, no firm can appropriate more value than its added value. Raising the firm’s added value is, therefore, crucial. There are four basic strategies by which a firm can increase its added value and, thus, its prospect for appropriating value and making a profit. First, the most straightforward strategy is simply to increase the firm’s V by means of differentiation, improving product quality and the match between product attributes and the subjectively perceived needs of consumers (segmentation). Second, a firm may also improve its added value by lowering the V of its competitors. This slightly less intuitive strategy may for example involve creating switching costs for buyers by building platforms with strong network effects. Third, a firm may also increase its added value by being more cost efficient than its competitors (lower C). This may, for example, involve establishing value-based partnerships with suppliers that reduce transaction costs and increase trust and transparency (traditional value-based management). The fourth and final strategy for managing added value is to increase the cost of competitors. Symmetrical to the previous point, this may involve disrupting competitors’ supplier relationships by making upstream supplier industries less efficient. This can, for example, be accomplished by increasing supplier-switching costs by locking them into a certain platform or ecosystem."

Trecho retirado de "What Is Value and How Is It Managed?" de Niklas L. Hallberg, publicado em Journal of Creating Value 3(2) 173–183, 2017.

"Competitive Advantages Are Transient"

“Competitive Advantages Are Transient.
When industry knowledge matures, copycats will catch up. Because latecomers often inherit a lower cost structure without the legacy assets, they exert competitive pressures on industry pioneers.
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It Is Possible to Maintain Your Competitive Advantage
To avert this trajectory requires executives to reassess a firm’s foundational or core knowledge and its maturity. Circumventing the seemingly inevitable begins by acknowledging where we are. Managers must therefore ask themselves what knowledge discipline is the most fundamental to their company. What is the core knowledge of your business? And how mature or widely available is it?
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How likely will the core competencies of your business be devalued, and how soon?.
If Leaping Is So Important, When Is the Best Time to Leap?
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A performance crisis, whether perceived or real, legitimizes top leaders’ push for an abrupt reorientation. In breaking the grip of the existing organization, top management may simultaneously announce a new strategy and centralize resource allocation to make major investments in new areas or to force divestiture of unpromising projects. But such an abrupt change with such a wide scope also incurs huge risks because it leaves no margin for errors. It is therefore better to experiment, making small bets, while time is still on our side. In fact, one doesn’t need to be a super-forecaster to know where to leap next. The inevitable is often quite apparent. Companies just need to leap while time is still on their side.
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Successful executives often exhibit a bias for action. But it’s even more important to separate the noise from the signal that actually pinpoints the glacial movement around us. Listening carefully to the right signals requires patience and discipline. Seizing a window of opportunity, which means not necessarily being the first mover but the first to get it right, takes courage and determination.”

Excerto de “Leap” de Howard Yu.

O papel dos individuos

Ontem ao final da tarde encontrei este tweet:

Adam nails this one. As @stanford’s Jim March says, leadership requires plumbing and poetry. I would add that organizations would be in deep shit without skilled plumbers. https://t.co/5aEeArBvXk

— Bob Sutton (@work_matters) September 22, 2018

Isto depois de uma caminhada onde comecei a ler esta tese de doutoramento "Micro-foundations of value- based pricing and selling" de Mario Kienzler, onde sublinhei:

"it is not enough to enable customer value creation, firms also have to take value capture seriously. Value capture is defined as the processes that allow firms to claim some of the value created in exchange relationships. For supplier firms, value capture means making a profit from enabling customer value creation.
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value-based selling has on average a positive relation with performance at the level of the salesperson and value-based pricing with performance at the level of the product and the firm.
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since “organizations are systems of coordinated action among individuals and groups whose preferences, information, interests, or knowledge differ”, it is germane to recognize how these differences influence firm performance.
Indeed, evidence suggests that individuals have a sizable impact on firm performance.
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If one accepts that organizational activities, routines, capabilities and processes tell only part of the story, then the individuals within organizations become an important unit of analysis."

Acerca das mudanças

Volta e meia procuro esta imagem e não a consigo localizar. Agora que a encontrei fica aqui para utilização futura.