Gobbledigook

From The Times (UK), Dec 13, 2005

Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, has won the Plain English Campaign's Foot in Mouth award for the second time. During a debate in the Welch Assembly on policing he said: "The only thing which isn't up for grabs is no change and I think it's fair to say it's all to play for, except for no change."

An interesting study in Workforce Productivity

A couple of years ago, I was on a business trip to India. I was running out of the local currency (the Indian Rupee) and needed to convert some of my US $ to the Indian Rupee. I went with my dad to the local branch of the State Bank of India to convert $200 to Indian rupees. It was the middle of summer, blazing hot and humid. There were around 200 people standing outside the bank, waving banners and shouting repeatedly. They were protesting the fact that the bank was going to introduce computers at work. India leads the world in the IT outsourcing industry and yet people working for the largest Indian Bank did not want to make their work more efficient through computerization!!! The striking employees wanted the bank to continue being inefficient because that meant more jobs.

My dad and I braved the signs and went inside. There was a sign inside telling us that the bank was indeed functioning normally in-spite of part of the workforce being on strike and agitating outside. In that case, I wondered why the bank needed to employ that many people in the first place! I had my answer very soon.

The receptionist was a young lady. I am sure she had not smiled in a million years (this was a government owned bank, you see). I told her what I wanted done and she gave me a ticket with a number on it. There were over a hundred customers waiting to be served. After what seemed like hours (but was actually 45 minutes), my number was called. I leaped up from my stupor and rushed to the counter. A grim looking clerk with a walrus moustache sat on the other side. "Account Number" he bellowed. "I do not have an account here" I replied. All I want to do is get a few US $ converted to Indian Rupees." "You need an account in this bank to do that" the walrus bellowed again. I could not control myself. "Now why would I want to open an account here. I don't even live in this city." That was a cardinal mistake. "If you do not live in this city, you cannot open an account in this bank" barked the walrus. "Then how do I get my money converted" I bleated. "You need to have an account in this bank" he said, seeming drop into a parrot-like stupor. I realized we were going around in circles.

Fortunately for me, my dad had heard this exchange from a distance. He came over and told the walrus that he had an account in that bank. "In that case, he can get his money exchanged" came the reply. The walrus then gave me another ticket with a number on it and directed me upstairs. He did not ask for my dad's account number or, for that matter, how my dad was related to me. For all he knew, a complete stranger could have walked up and told the clerk he had an account there. By this time, the heat was getting to be unbearable, even inside the building.

My dad and I climbed two flights of stairs. There was a wizened looking man with thick glasses sitting at a desk with a huge notebook on it. The ceiling fan was groaning and moving around as though in great pain. The fan blades looked like they had never been cleaned. The dust and cobwebs on the fan seemed ready to fall on us, wanting to go home with us when we left. I gave the man my ticket and after answering a few more questions, handed over ten $20 bills. He proceeded to count the money at least four times, each time wetting his fingers with his saliva (there was no way I was going to touch those $20 bills again). He then entered the serial number of each of the $20 bills into his big notebook. After what seemed like eternity, me made me sign the big ledger, next to what he had just entered. He then grunted something, gave me another token with a number on it and told me to go downstairs to collect the money. I went downstairs, waited another 20 minutes for my number to be called, and then went to the counter and collected my Indian Rupees. The clerk who finally gave me my Indian Rupees was another young woman who seemed to just sit there doing nothing most of the time. For the life of me, I could not understand why I had to wait 20 minutes.

I was overjoyed and relieved that the ordeal was over but also emotionally drained. I walked out with my dad, holding onto my Rupees for dear life. One of the striking bank employees accosted us as we were walking outside. "This bank is trying to computerize and put us out of jobs," he screamed, "Don't have a bank account in this bank." "Don't worry. I never will," I replied as I hurried out of there.

All this for wanting to convert US $200 into Indian Rupees.

Gobbledigook

A few years ago, I was at a well-known UK university to give a lecture to a group of Executive MBA students. Since I had arrived early, I went to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. A group of Business School lecturers were seated at the next table. A proud young lecturer was bragging to her colleagues about a paper of hers that had just been accepted for publication. Her golden words were, "I have been told that I take a holistic approach to organizational culture, far removed from the temporal mindset that seems to pervade the corporate diaspora." I almost choked on my coffee and immediately wrote down her pearls of wisdom in my notebook.

How to keep innovation from being smothered by bureaucracy

Issue Date: November/December 2009, Posted On: 12/1/2009 CEO’s Conundrum – Profit Now or Later How to keep innovation from being smothered by bureaucracy By Bob Donnelly Innovation is the lifeblood of every company. To maintain that delicate balance between keeping the firms overall value proposition relevant while enhancing it with neat new innovations is the challenge for all CEO’s. While we all wish that we had that rare innovative talent of Steve Jobs that perpetuates the continuum of cool new life changing devices from Apple that make us “blink” with surprise and then “tremble” with desire to have them, the typical CEO struggles with the more mundane aspects of just keeping innovation alive within their organizations. It’s easy to get lulled into the comfort zone of complacency as a result of the profitability of some earlier unique solution to consumers problems. However, as we have seen time and time again, yesterday’s innovation is quickly surpassed by today’s enhancement and the hubris of success has been the demise of many well known CEO’s. While change is inevitable the majority of managers are by nature not comfortable with change, especially when current operations are profitable. Instead of looking for ways to enhance the company’s value proposition to insure future profitability they are busy exploring ways to increase existing profitability by cutting costs, watering down the brand identity with more expensive varieties, and generally confusing their customers with their behavior. Planning anticipates the inevitable – change, but if you aren’t studying the changing requirements of your customers they will get to the future before you do and will leave you behind. A great example of what is required of every CEO is what AG Lafley did when he took over as CEO of P&G in 2000 and found that the company was slowing down, becoming insular and management enamored with their own publicity. His strategy was to get his team refocused on the customer and their needs and on innovations to enhance their lives. He even went so far as to personally visit a housewife in her small apartment in Venezuela to see what she had developed in the form of creams, lotions, and shampoos for herself. She had created two lotions for her feet, one for her body, one for her hands, and another for her face because she could not find what she was looking for. Lafley’s message from his personal visit to a typical homemaker was that “these creams and lotions are what she says they are, not what we would create for her”. His powerful conclusion from this experience is “it’s not about us, it’s about her”. Lafley captured this and other experiences in his book (co-authored with Ram Charon), “ The Game Changer.” If the CEO of a company the size of P&G can visit a homemaker in her apartment in Venezuela to see firsthand what she created because she couldn’t find what she needed – why can’t you visit with some of your customers who are just around the corner? Likewise, don’t let your company get into the “death by committee” syndrome where the complacent naysayers and bean counters snuff the life out of every new idea that comes along. Without new ideas and innovations emanating from customers changing requirements it is easy to become a victim of your past success. Another lesson can be learned from another classic innovator – Frank Perdue. He took a dull lifeless commodity and by talking to housewives in supermarkets about their desires and requirements turned it into a quality product. Like the homemaker in Venezuela they had unsatisfied requirements for simple things like “no pinfeathers” and a “plumper yellower chicken”, for example. He went on to solve another problem by creating the innovative “pop-up thermometer” so that housewives would know for sure when their chicken was done. Perdue also developed “oven stuffer roasters”, recipe cards stuffed into Perdue chickens, and a variety of other simple innovations that certainly resonated with consumers. So my question to you is if Perdue did what he did with a dead chicken – imagine what you can do with your technology? Growth is a business imperative, and the lifeblood of any growing business is great ideas that can be converted into cool new product innovations a la Apple’s life changing i extensions. It’s a known fact that as time moves on your propensity to grow or improve declines. And the longer a company stands still or only moderately extends its current business, the less chance it has to continue to grow the value of its customer base. Once a company unconsciously morphs into a bureaucracy innovation evaporates. Likewise, the larger a firm becomes the harder it is to create new initiatives that are big enough to significantly alter the law of diminishing returns. However, when annual planning is done properly, it ensures your short term profit goals as well as your long term potential for greater profits. If you are struggling to keep innovation alive in your company or have “hit the wall” and don’t know what to do about it, let’s start a dialogue on how to get back in touch with the changing dynamics of your marketplace. An entrepreneur himself, Bob has spent most of his career involved with starting, growing and selling businesses. Having held managerial positions with IBM, Pfizer and Exxon, he draws upon extensive organizational experience with large and small companies in advising CEOs of growing firms. He is available online to answer questions from Chief Executive readers, as well as offer workshops, tips, books to read and a monthly online column about common issues facing CEOs of growing firms. Bob has been featured in USA TODAY for his work with Inc 500 firms and is associated with NYU's Stern Graduate School of business in their Center for Entrepreneurial Studies where he is a Venture Mentor, Marketing Strategist and Business Plan Reviewer. He is the author of GUIDEBOOK TO PLANNING - A Common Sense Approach to Building Business Plans for Growing Firms, which has recently been reprinted. He is a past contributor to Chief Executive and one of his articles was featured in The Best of Chief Executive. Email Bob at: rmdonnelly@chiefexecutive.net