Por alma de quem?

Ontem no JdN comecei por ler:

"A inflação está a diminuir e a principal razão é que é uma inflação estranha, causada pelos lucros. A inflação está elevada porque as margens estão a subir e isso não é sustentável. Mais cedo ou mais tarde há concorrentes a entrarem no mercado com preços mais baixos e no final, as margens acabam por comprimir. Já está a acontecer nos EUA."

Achei uma justificação estranha.

Depois, mais à frente o mesmo entrevistado afirma:

"Ignacio de la Torre, cconomista-chefe da Arcano Partners, espera um movimento de "reshoring" regresso da produção para o pais de origem ou para próximo, em oposição à deslocalização para outras geografias -, que poderá beneficiar paises como Portugal e Espanha. Em entrevista ao Negócios, explica que este processo terá implicações na evolução salarial. 

...

Por causa da demografia. Não há jovens suficientes a entrar no mercado de trabalho. Com o processo de "reshoring", os trabalhadores começam a exigir salários mais elevados. A implicação disso é que provavelmente as margens vão sofrer no futuro, porque hoje temos as margens mais elevadas de sempre e isso não é sustentável. Penso que a evolução salarial vai começar a melhorar."

E a inflação vai baixar? Por alma de quem?

A inflação veio para ficar. Durante mais de 20 anos a globalização reprimiu a inflação à custa do nível de vida dos trabalhadores. Agora, com o reshoring o ajuste vai ter de ser feito

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) April 24, 2023

 

Cuidado com as modas (parte II)

Parte I.

"The maker of Post-It notes, automotive adhesives and roofing granules said on Tuesday that it would eliminate 6,000 jobs as Chief Executive Officer Mike Roman follows through on a pledge to take a “deeper look at everything we do” after a series of disappointing earnings updates and a more than $50 billion slide in 3M’s market value during his tenure."

Conversa de académico

"Perante isto, a minha expectativa é que vamos manter algum consumo e as exportações continuarão a crescer razoavelmente bem. A actual política monetária vai afectar as famílias mas de um modo geral eu penso que podemos sobreviver. Precisamos de sair para uma economia diferente.[Moi ici: Sim, concordo, precisamos de uma economia diferente. No entanto, como é que se consegue isso sem deixar morrer as empresas da economia de baixa produtividade?]

O que é que defende para se conseguir essa saída diferente?

Os empresários portugueses têm que ter uma noção muito clara que têm que investir em valor acrescentado por unidade de posto de trabalho. [Moi ici: Recordo Maliranta e Nassim Taleb em Deixar a produtividade aumentar] Porque só assim é que conseguem remunerar bem o trabalhador. Qual é a diferença entre um café no centro de Lisboa ou na Praça de São Marcos, em Veneza? O café é igual, mas lá paga-se cinco euros porque se consome um enorme intangível, [Moi ici: Eheheheh! Baboseiras!!! Paga-se 5 euros pela mesma razão que um motorista de autocarros tuga sai de Portugal e vai para a Suécia conduzir autocarros e recebe 4 ou 5 vezes mais por fazer o mesmo, ou um barbeiro tuga sai de Portugal e vai para Londres ganhar 5 ou 6 vezes mais. Como escreve Reinert "Why is the real wage of a bus driver in Frankfurt sixteen times higher than the real wage of an equally efficient bus driver in Nigeria, as the World Bank recently calculated? I set out to find an answer, and this book is the result." Ver citação abaixo] além de que nós ainda não temos marca. É esse valor acrescentado por posto de trabalho que depois permite remunerar bem. Alguns sectores conseguiram, como o tecnológico, o calçado, o vinho.[Moi ici: Eheheheh! A sério?! Produtividade é uma coisa, competitividade é outra. Pode-se ser competitivo sem ser produtivo. Recordo o Uganda. Acerca do vinho recordo Subir na escala de valor. Acerca das tecnológicas recordo "É só fazer as contas!". E sobre o calçado, volto a Reinert e à cidade de St. Louis, "The "flying geese" model, ou deixem as empresas morrer!!!"]

O que defende é sempre um trabalho em valor. O tecido empresarial português ainda olha mais para o volume em detrimento do valor?

De um modo geral, sim. Olho para a economia portuguesa e o que vejo é que o valor acrescentado, nomeadamente nas nossas exportações, não é o que poderia ser. Se todos os sectores fossem exportadores de elevado valor acrescentado por unidade produzida ou trabalho criado. Mas há bons nichos e esses sectores deviam ser estimulados. Devia-se estimular a escala das empresas." [Moi ici: Acreditar que são as empresas nos sectores existentes mas maiores que resolvem a baixa produtividade é ... desesperante. Não é isso que nos conta a experiência irlandesa e os flying geese]

Eis o que escreveu Erik Reinert em "How Rich Countries Got Rich . . . and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor":

"Rising wages and inflation made it very profitable to substitute capital for labour. Higher real wages came back as increased demand and consequently created more jobs, while the very same increasing wages also gave incentives for new mechanization, which created new productivity increases, which again increased wages, all in an ever increasing spiral of increasing welfare. People employed in sectors with little productivity increase, such as barbers, got richer by increasing their prices in step with increasing industrial wages. Even if the barbers have experienced relatively little productivity increase, barbers in rich countries could improve their welfare dramatically compared to their equally productive counterparts in poorer countries. In other words, wage increases in the service sector rode on the wave of the productivity increase of the industrial sector. The real wages of a barber became dependent on who he shared a labour market with, not on his own efficiency. Based on these mechanisms, wages in the richest and poorest countries thus went from a ratio of 1 to 2 to one of 1 to 16 over time. Barbers who had no manufacturing in their labour markets stayed poor."

Trecho inicial retirado de entrevista com João Duque no número de Fevereiro deste ano da Executive Digest.

Como se faz frente a aumentos de 20% ao ano nos salários?

Lembram-se da festa nos jornais tugas que referi em Ultrapassados pelo Leste ?

Vamos ter mais festa, suspeito. 

Depois de ler, "How important is an adequate EU minimum wage in a high-inflation context? The Latvian case":

"The minimum wage has recently increased across Europe. In Latvia, it rose by 24% in 2023, the highest increase in the European Union. But is it enough to cope with the rising cost of living?"

Por cá não ouvi falar disto:

"To fight against in-work poverty, a new European directive requires member countries to ensure that their minimum wage is adequate." 

Como se faz frente a aumentos de 20% ao ano nos salários sem morte de empresas? 

Empresas que não conhecem os seus clientes-alvo

"When stakeholder capitalism demands you be everything to everyone, you become nothing to anyone."

Li e sorri.

Sexta ao final da tarde, alguém me dizia que o seu chefe estava farto de ir atrás de todos os pedidos dos clientes e, no fim, ficar com uma empresa frankenstein, sem uma linha coerente.

Na última quarta-feira, durante um coffee-break, alguém me referia o mesmo a propósito do efeito de dizer sim a todos os pedidos dos clientes.

O que é que aprendi em 2008 e nunca mais esqueci? The Most Important Orders are...

"the most important orders are the ones to which a company says 'no'."

Não acredito que um capitalismo que tem em conta as partes interessadas obrigue as empresas a serem tudo para todos. Acredito é que muitos "líderes" empresariais ainda não percebem que não podem ser tudo para todos, que têm de ter uma estratégia, e que uma estratégia a sério começa com a escolha de quem são os clientes-alvo, de quem são as partes interessadas que nos podem ajudar e porque é que o farão.

Acredito que estes episódios tipo Gillette e agora Bud Light revelam empresas que não conhecem os seus clientes-alvo.

Citação inicial retirada de "Have a Cold Bud Light, Not a Woke One" 

Uma pergunta inocente

A propósito de "Multipessoal está a recrutar 200 para a hotelaria nos Países Baixos"

Uma pergunta inocente, mas inocente mesmo: estes 200 que vão trabalhar para os Países Baixos vão com salários tugas mais um cheirinho ou vão com salários holandeses?

Keeping optionality

"Successful businesses have always endeavored to satisfy customers. But the customer was traditionally treated as a separate entity whose needs were knowable only partially and episodically. Since physical and informational limitations made it infeasible to address each customer - or each usage episode - individually, companies typically aggregated customers into market segments according to features such as age, social status, gender, and geography. The tastes and interests of each group were averaged:

...

Companies are not competing for theoretical market segments anymore but rather for the attention and expendable cash of the individual consumers or organizations that they target. Doing so means emphasizing personalized and tailored offerings.

...

Business strategy has been predicated on the individual firm as the unit of competition, within relatively stable industry boundaries. Companies made strategies and developed products and services internally, only occasionally and selectively partnering with specific customers and suppliers.

...

But in a more dynamic and uncertain era of competition, owning a proprietary asset can easily turn into a liability; there’s a higher risk of obsolescence, and companies have less flexibility. Therefore, the ability to build or leverage digital platforms and ecosystems is key to achieving high optionality. Firms can multiply their options by complementing their capabilities with those of other ecosystem participants, which means that they can avoid being locked into a specific offering.

...

In a stable context, it is efficient to strive for standardized offerings in order to achieve economies of scale and experience. However, creating optionality for an uncertain future means turning variation from an expensive inconvenience into a valuable source of information, leading to greater optionality and differentiation.

Companies need to treat the execution of routine tasks and customer interactions as opportunities for learning. Standardizing tasks or offerings becomes counterproductive since it suppresses variance, which is the grist for new ideas. [Moi ici: Vejo esta confusão muitas vezes. Escrevem variância (variabilidade) quando deveriam escrever variedade. Variabilidade não é o contrário de variedade] Instead, firms need to leverage their digital presence and use learning algorithms to capture and process lessons from each interaction.

...

Most firms focus on satisfying the immediate and explicit needs of customers. Some go further and try to predict future needs using the techniques detailed above. But few companies interact directly with the customer’s own process of exploration. Serving the exploration needs of customers offers various avenues toward value creation. By facilitating the customer’s search for products or services, companies can learn more about the customer’s needs, which can serve as crucial input for their own search process (akin to Google’s approach). Helping customers find the best solutions to their explicit needs has become the core business for some firms."

Trechos retirados de "Radical Optionality" publicado na HBR de Maio-Junho de 2923. 

"Strategy slowly but surely morphs into planning"

"Those who seek reliability attempt to do so by restricting themselves to reliance on objective quantitative data to make their decisions. They believe (often implicitly but sometime explicitly) that the past will be a good predictor of the future. [Moi ici: As pessoas que acham que basta fazer figas e esperar que o resultado que se deseja apareça por artes mágicas. Escrito assim parece estúpido. No entanto, é mais comum, muito mais comm do que parece. Conheço gente respeitável que pensa assim. Gente que acha que não cumpre as metas por causa do azar, A conspiração da realidade] For this reason, they like to plan based on the assumption (again often implicit) that all the important things in their world are controllable if one plans rigorously and comprehensively enough.

Those who seek validity utilize a wider array of information, because in addition to quantitative data, they also embrace qualitative, to which they add judgment, even if that judgment is always subject to bias. While they believe that the past can sometimes predict the future, they fully appreciate that sometimes it can’t and doesn’t. They are more inclined to attempt to create the future they would like to have happen rather than assume an extrapolation of the past.[Moi ici: Exemplo de balanced scorecard (parte zero)]

...

The tension between reliability and validity generates a critical leadership challenge. A company can generally make costs behave the way it intends because the company is the decision-maker on the costs it decides to incur. Hence it is worthwhile to plan for costs — and rigorously control them. There will virtually always be reliability-oriented team members that will focus on that — unless they are overtly discouraged.

But these reliability-oriented team members will also want to plan revenues and will dedicate countless person-hours to guesstimating revenues and then getting the company to commit to them. The great delusion of revenue forecasting is that you can make revenues occur by projecting them. But, of course, customers couldn’t care less that you projected that they would take cash out of their personal or business pocket and give it to you. They own that decision. Planning for that decision to happen is useless and delusional.

What is valuable, in stark contrast, is to make strategy choices that create an environment in which customers feel compelled to give their cash to your offer instead of the offers of your competitors. That set of choices makes a bet on the future, a future that is not a simple and assumed projection of the past into the future. Good strategy creates a future that is superior to the past and present. Strategy imagines possibilities and chooses the one for which the most compelling argument can be made. That is a validity-intensive endeavor.

...

In companies, there is an inexorable drift toward reliability. Companies typically start with a validity-driven burst of creative energy — and if it isn’t a relatively profound burst, the fledgling company expires pretty quickly. But those who prosper and grow tend to acquire an outside board, professional managers, public shareholders, capital market regulators, etc. Reliability tends to take a more prominent role as various actors ask for more ‘proof’ to justify decisions and the proof needs to take the form of rigorous data analytics.

Strategy slowly but surely morphs into planning, a migration that is heavily reinforced by modern business education, which itself is a creature of the modern science-obsessed world. In this world of business, there are many data analysts, but not so many validity-oriented strategists. And the data analysts in companies are supported and encouraged by the outside actors — like equity analysts and boards of directors."

Excelente artigo, mais um, de Roger Martin, "Strategy and Leadership #4" 

É complicado ...

Li ontem "Costa: "Portugal tem muito a ganhar com a reorganização à escala global das cadeias de valor"".

É complicado ...

Choca com a minha experiência do mundo? Não!!!

Ainda ontem contava o caso de empresa exportadora, há cerca de um ano, aumentou os preços para, polidamente, mandar embora um cliente. E ele foi. Entretanto, já no primeiro trimestre deste ano, esse ex-cliente voltou a bater à porta disposto a aceitar os tais preços. Ainda ontem mostrava os dados da tabela neste postal Evolução das exportações. Recordar ainda de Novembro último A grande reconfiguração

Então, por que é complicado?

Porque é mais do mesmo. Porque me faz lembrar a Lituânia e o postal Ultrapassados pelo Leste. O meu interlocutor ontem contava-me que tinha estado a observar uma equipa da concorrência a trabalhar. Pormenor, não viu um português, só chilenos e brasileiros.

É complicado porque o que penso não é linear, tem um lado positivo e tem um lado negativo. O lado positivo é dar trabalho a quem já está no terreno. O lado negativo é ser mais do mesmo, é continuarmos a ser um país que não consegue aumentar a produtividade agregada. Não porque os patrões ou os empregados sejam maus ou preguiçosos, mas porque o aumento da produtividade (num país onde a escala não funciona, país de PMEs) é limitado pelo preço máximo que se possa praticar ... como não recordar a foto e o texto de A brutal realidade de uma foto:

Com mais do mesmo teremos os portugueses a continuar a emigrar em busca de melhor remuneração.

É complicado.

"maximize value for the ecosystem"

"Is a company's value maximized by being shareholder centric, customer-centric, employee-centric, or some-otherstakeholder-centric? In a complex system where every stakeholder influences other stakeholders' outcomes-highly engaged employees improve customer satisfaction, which in turn helps accelerate profitable growth, and so on -are any stakeholders safe to neglect?

...

All that data was clear: The companies that create the greatest total value across all dimensions of performance don't do so at the expense of shareholder value."

Recordar:

"In an ecosystem, the objective is no longer to maximize value for the customer, but to maximize value for the ecosystem." (Daqui, Think “outcome before output”) 

Trecho inicial retirado de "How to Create a Stakeholder Strategy" publicado no número de Maio-Junho de 2023 da HBR.

Há falta de trabalhadores?

"The conventional wisdom in retail and other low-margin service industries has been that bad frontline jobs - with low pay, unpredictable schedules, and few opportunities for advancement are necessary to compete. Yet for decades a handful of companies - including Costco and QuikTrip in the United States and Mercadona in Spain - have been proving that false. They remain market leaders in their very competitive industries without the bad jobs on which those industries supposedly depend - and it's no secret how they do it: by adopting "good jobs" systems. Meanwhile, in a tight labor market, organizations with bad jobs are finding it hard to stay open because they can't attract and retain workers.

If good jobs can make companies more competitive, more resilient, and more humane, why don't more companies create them? I see doubt, fear, and a lack of imagination - which stem from misguided views of the value of frontline workers, how to make business decisions, and the risks of system change as the reasons. 

In my earlier work I have found that companies that continually improve the value and service offered to their customers and the productivity of their employees operate in a system with two key-and mutually dependent-components: (1) A heavy investment in people, in the form of higher-than-market pay, better-than-usual benefits, predictable schedules, full-time jobs whenever possible, and clearly described opportunities for advancement; and (2) an operational model that helps those workers be more productive and serve customers better. The system includes (a) identifying the value proposition and simplifying operations to eliminate wasteful and low-value-added activities, respect workers' time, and enable employees to serve customers well; (b) standardizing processes when that makes sense and empowering employees to help customers, improve their work, and manage customer flow; (c) cross-training employees to perform both customer-facing and noncustomer-facing tasks in an area they own; and (d) staffing units with enough people to handle unexpected surges ant allow time for developing employees and improving work. Companies with a good-jobs system have high customer satisfaction and loyalty, superior productivity, low employee turnover, and greater resilience. Those that rely on bad jobs risk falling-or have already fallen -into a vicious circle of high turnover, poor operational execution, customer dissatisfaction, low unit sales and profits, and vulnerability to a better-run competitor."

O autor chama a atenção para quatro falsas ortodoxias que impedem muitas empresas de criar "good jobs" systems:

1. Our business model won't support higher investment in people. 
2. We can't trust frontline employees.
3. Our financial analysis shows the investment won't pay off.
4. Implementing system change is too risky.

Trechos retirados de "The Obstacles to Creating Good Jobs" de Zeynep Ton e publicado no número de Maio-Junho de 2023 da HBR.

1.  

Para reflexão

"In 2021 companies convinced themselves that the labor shortages they were experiencing were a passing phenomenon, and in response they trotted out the standard short-term fixes: raising wages by a few dollars an hour, awarding signing and referral bonuses, and even offering more flexibility in working shifts. But none of those measures were particularly effective. So in 2022, with the labor situation worsening, some companies resorted to tactics that ran counter to their core strategies. CVS and Walgreens began closing stores earlier or shutting down on Sundays. Domino's, unable to find drivers, reversed its focus on deliveries and instead offered customers a $3 "tip" if they picked up their own orders. Others took extraordinary measures to fill frontline jobs. When it didn't have enough baggage handlers,

Qantas begged senior executives to volunteer to sort, scan, and transport baggage for three months.

Companies blamed everyone but themselves for the labor shortages:

The pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime shock to the system that had provoked the scarcity. The government had exacerbated the problem by issuing stimulus checks. High rates of churn were a fact of life in the world of low-wage work. But that thinking was misguided.

After studying this topic for several years we have concluded that the real problem lies in the way that organizations mismanage their hourly workers: They are underinvesting in those employees and harming their own strategic interests.

How are companies going astray? By not recognizing the contribution that low-wage workers make to executing their strategies. By not measuring all the hidden costs of constant churn. By not implementing management practices that could improve the productivity of low-wage workers and encourage them to stay and prosper at the company. By devoting vastly more attention-when it comes to such basics as hiring, skill building, on-the-job feedback, career development, and mentorship-to salaried workers than to hourly workers, even though the latter constitute more than 40% of the U.S. labor force.

This pattern of denial and neglect hurts workers in ways that have profound societal costs. No matter how hard or how long they work, many low-wage workers cannot climb out of poverty. We studied the fortunes of 181,891 workers who started low-wage jobs in 2012, and we found that five years later 60% of them remained stuck in such positions. People who had managed to escape those jobs had most often done so by quitting industries such as hospitality, food services, and retail, which are classic low-wage traps. Across industries, women were overrepresented in low-wage jobs and most likely to stay impoverished.

The pattern also inflicts all sorts of direct and indirect costs on companies, including lower retention and higher absenteeism, more overtime, a reliance on staffing agencies to provide temporary workers, constant recruitment and training of new employees, a lowering of morale, a loss of institutional and process knowledge, a decline in customer goodwill, a damaged reputation among job seekers, stagnant or lower rates of productivity-and less revenue."

Trecho retirado de "The High Costof Neglecting Low-Wage Workers" na HBR de Abril-Maio.

Evolução das exportações

Evolução homóloga das exportações portuguesas nos dois primeiros meses de 2023.

É claro que dois meses é muito pouco e, por isso sujeito a volatilidade. No entanto, está em sintonia com o que vou obtendo do meu contacto com empresas concretas (calçado, maquinaria, farmacêutica). Fora da minha experiência em primeira mão está o sector agrícola. Interessante a evolução relativa a "Animais vivos" (tudo começou com umas vendas para Israel, não há muito tempo). E já agora as frutas, tudo começou com a invasão da Crimeia em 2014, impedidos de exportar fruta para a Rússia, algo obrigou o sector a mudar.

Diferentes forças em jogo

Na primeira página do WSJ do passado dia 12 de Abril pode ler-se:

"The idea came to Johnny Taylor Jr. early last year, after one of his employees made a case that her technology position could be done anywhere. She wanted to leave Virginia, where she held job at the Society for Human Resource Management, a professional association based in Alexandria. She asked to work remotely in North Carolina.

"Then a lightbulb went off," said Mr. Taylor, the association's chief executive.

Instead of having the employee work in another state, he outsourced her job to India, where his organization is saving around 40% in labor costs, he said.

Welcome to the next wave of remote work. During the pandemic millions of people in the U.S. worked from home and many decamped to cities such as Boise, Austin and Phoenix. Companies learned that employees could be productive from afar because of remote-working tech like Zoom and Dropbox.

Those moves were usually at the behest of workers who wanted a change of environment, sought more living space or somewhere cheaper. Companies agreed to these arrangements largely to retain employees in a competitive labor market.

Now companies are responding to lingering labor shortages and rising wages by sending jobs overseas, according to labor consultants.

...

The exodus of office jobs overseas is still a trickle. But it is accelerating and some economists see it as the beginning of a new era. About 10% to 20% of U.S. service support jobs such as software developers, human-resources professionals and payroll administrators could move overseas in the next decade, according to Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University."

Entretanto, ontem  durante a minha caminhada matinal li:

• Só 4% das empresas com alta maturidade em people analytics. Falta talento qualificado e compreensão sobre potencial dos dados
• Taxa de desemprego na OCDE em mínimo histórico dos últimos 22 anos
• Playing With Fire - ChatGPT (muito interessante)
• The Great Stapler Crisis: The End Of Tech Company Perks? (muito interessante)

Entretanto, nos últimos dias publicámos aqui:

• Qual será o resultado deste choque?
• Por que se pedem paletes de mão de obra estrangeira barata? (Parte II)

Diferentes forças em jogo e a provocar mudanças ao nível do mercado do trabalho, das empresas e dos trabalhadores. Como é que isto vai influenciar o futuro da sua empresa? 

Entretanto, Carga fiscal dispara para 36,4% do PIB e bate novo recorde em 2022.

Persuadir

"Not surprisingly, almost everyone is relying on the standard approach to drive change: Tell people what to do. Issue demands like: “Don’t go out,” “Stay six feet apart,” Wash your hands,” and “Wear face masks.”

...

Directives aren’t particularly effective in driving sustained behavior change because we all like to feel as if we are in control of our choices. Why did I buy that product, use that service, or take that action? Because I wanted to. So when others try to influence our decisions, we don’t just go along, we push back against the persuasive attempt. ... We avoid doing what they suggested because we don’t want to feel like someone else is controlling us.

...

So if telling people what to do doesn’t work, what does? Rather than trying to persuade people, getting them to persuade themselves is often more effective. Here are three ways to do that.

...

1. Highlight a gap.

You can increase people’s sense of freedom and control by pointing out a disconnect between their thoughts and actions, or between what they might recommend for others versus do themselves.

...

People strive for internal consistency. They want their attitudes and actions to line up. Highlighting misalignment encourages them to resolve the disconnect.

...

2. Pose questions.

Another way to allow for agency is to ask questions rather than make statements.

...

By encouraging them to articulate their opinion, they’ve had to put a stake in the ground — to admit that those things aren’t good for them. And once they’ve done that, it becomes harder to justify the bad behaviors.

...

3. Ask for less.

The third approach is to reduce the size of the ask.

...

A better approach is to dial down the initial request. Ask for less initially, and then ask for more. Take a big ask and break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks."

Trechos retirados de "How to Persuade People to Change Their Behavior" 

O contexto sempre a mudar

"Now we are in a different time, where capital is more expensive, and near-term profitability more necessary. We still need to innovate our way through the challenges ahead, and the management playbook is fundamentally the same, but there are enough nuances to attend to that it is worth revisiting the topic end to end.

...

In a downturn, crossing the chasm—not winning inside the tornado—represents the fulfillment of the Incubation Zone’s real option mandate. You want to create a cash-flow-positive entity that protects your franchise from disruption by coopting an emerging technology while at the same time solving a mission-critical problem for a customer who needs immediate help. That is value, in and of itself, over and above the optionality it creates for future category creation."

Trechos retirados de "Reengineering the Incubation Zone- For a Downturn" 

Qual será o resultado deste choque?

Há dias no WSJ apareceu este artigo sobre o que as empresas procuram e o que as pessoas valorizam.

Ontem em "7 Signs That We Have Entered the Age of Empowered Employees" li sobre mais um sintoma deste desfasamento entre o que as empresas procuram e o que as pessoas valorizam.

Qual será o resultado deste choque? O segundo artigo defende que estamos numa época de empoderamento dos trabalhadores. Claro que em Portugal a solução não passa pela evolução das empresas, mas pela importação de mão de obra dócil e barata.

Os culpados são os outros

"A falta de competitividade, de tecnologia, de trabalhadores qualificados e o excesso de legislação são os principais obstáculos para o crescimento da agricultura portuguesa. O problema não é a falta de dinheiro, mas sim a escassez de visão e de capacidade para utilizar os recursos disponíveis, alerta a Confederação dos Agricultores de Portugal."

Tantos culpados, todos externos. 

Estranho, os agricultores portugueses não têm nenhuma responsabilidade no estado da agricultura portuguesa. A culpa é dos outros, aka locus de controlo externo.

Trecho retirado de "Não há um rumo para a agricultura, é um barco à deriva, alerta CAP"

No Sábado passado, a propósito deste tweet:

Escrevi:

"agora fiquei no meio da ponte. trabalhar e ter de receber ajuda é também um subsídio a uma empresa que não consegue gerar riqueza suficiente para pagar aos seus trabalhadores. talvez seja um sinal de que a empresa precisa de mudar de vida ou fechar"

Uma pessoa que trabalha e é apoiada é uma pessoa que não procura um emprego melhor, é um empregador que não se esforça para aumentar a rentabilidade do negócio, é um outro empregador capaz e disposto a pagar mais que não encontra trabalhadores. Mas afinal o país que se queixa da baixa produtividade está cheio de exemplos do que dificulta a subida na escala de valor, e o aumento da produtividade. Empresas e sectores pouco produtivos são apoiados para manterem o perfil de produção actual e os modelos de negócios obsoletos. Como não recordar Spender e o seu trabalho dos anos 80:

• O intervencionismo ingénuo (parte II)
• Apesar das boas intenções

"Time to zag"

Há anos que escrevo sobre Mongo, como o que está a emergir sobre os escombros do modelo do século XX.

Lembro o que escrevi sobre a "suckiness" dos gigantes, uma série com 15 episódios: "Giants invariably descend into suckiness" (parte XV).

Agora em "The age of average" sublinho:

"I believe that the age of average is the age of opportunity.

When every supermarket aisle looks like a sea of sameness, when every category abides by the same conventions, when every industry has converged on its own singular style, bold brands and courageous companies have the chance to chart a different course. To be different, distinctive and disruptive.

So, this is your call to arms. Whether you’re in film or fashion, media or marketing, architecture, automotive or advertising, it doesn’t matter. Our visual culture is flatlining and the only cure is creativity.

It’s time to cast aside conformity. It’s time to exorcise the expected. It’s time to decline the indistinguishable.

For years the world has been moving in the same stylistic direction. And it’s time we reintroduced some originality.

Or as the ad agency BBH says.

When the world zigs. Zag."

Domingo de Páscoa

(Jo 20.1-9)

No primeiro dia da semana, Maria Madalena foi ao túmulo de Jesus, bem de madrugada, quando ainda estava escuro, e viu que a pedra tinha sido retirada do túmulo.

Então ela saiu correndo e foi encontrar Simão Pedro e o outro discipulo, aquele que Jesus amava, e lhes disse: "Tiraram o Senhor do túmulo, e não sabemos onde o colocaram"

Saíram, então, Pedro e o outro discípulo e foram ao túmulo. Os dois corriam juntos, mas o outro discípulo correu mais depressa que Pedro e chegou primeiro ao túmulo. Olhando para dentro, viu as faixas de linho no chão, mas não entrou.

Chegou também Simão Pedro, que vinha correndo atrás, e entrou no túmulo. Viu as faixas de linho deitadas no chão e o pano que tinha estado sobre a cabeça de Jesus, não posto com as faixas, mas enrolado num lugar à parte.

Então entrou também o outro discípulo, que tinha chegado primeiro ao túmulo. Ele viu, e acreditou.

De fato, eles ainda não tinham compreendido a Escritura, segundo a qual ele devia ressuscitar dos mortos.