Jeremy Gray – Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems IBGR. Network. The World of Business at Your Fingertips Be sure your business will make money before you launch. Planning ahead leads to success. Episode 41 Need quick results? Use Agility Hacks. (Based on an article by Amy C Edmondson and Ranjay Gultai of Harvard Business School published in HBR November – December 2021) Link to article https://hbr.org/2021/11/agility-hacks Speed Agility and Responsiveness are the keys to future success Anita Roddick Some business processes are well suited to structure and bureaucratic systems. Although the word bureaucracy has negative connotations it sometimes is the best way of getting things done. Payroll processing maybe a good example. If your employees are going to get paid the right amount and on time, there is not a lot of room for flexibility. Approving sales contracts often follow a rigid structure that ensures that the company will not lose money on a deal, or that they will get the value they expect. But such processes do not adapt quickly to changing circumstances. So at times businesses should bypass their standard procedures to deliver speed flexibility and experimentation. This is when Agility Hacks make sense if you have the courage to use them.
Tags: How to start a business, achieve start up success, agility, responsiveness, hacks, business growth, market penetration, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes of business, mistakes in business, IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems Episode 42 Stop Sabotaging Your Ability to Innovate. – Avoid these psychological traps. (Based on article of the same name published in HBR Nov-Dec 21 issue. Authors: Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade) Link to article: https://hbr.org/2021/11/stop-sabotaging-your-ability-to-innovate There’s a way to do it better; find it Thomas Edison Innovators can be their own worst enemies. Confidence optimism, traits that are important for innovation can derail a project when taken to excess. Emotions such as fear, doubt, regret and frustration which are often associated with doing something new can stall or destroy an effort.
Your creativity is what got you into business in the first place. If you manage it, it will be one of your greatest assets. Let it manage you and you could be heading for trouble. Do not be afraid to change your plans. “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do Sir?” Attributed to Keynes but more likely spoken by Paul Samuelson. Tags: How to start a business, achieve start up success, employee strengths, Task execution, profit improvement, engagement business growth, market penetration, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes of business, mistakes in business, IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems Episode 43 Moving novel ideas from mind to market is challenging. How to align folks to get the best results. Based on How Collaboration Needs Change from Mind to Marketplace. Jill E Perry-Smith MIT Sloan Management Review Link to article: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-collaboration-needs-change-from-mind-to-marketplace/ If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” – Reid Garrett Hoffman It can take a long time from initial concept to final product. Most truly novel ideas either stall out during the development phase or lose their originality along the way. Product development is rarely a straight line. Development loops back on itself causing delays. Each of these loop backs can result in the more novel aspects of the product being removed, so a more mundane product can move forward. How can this be prevented?
Tags: How to start a business, achieve start up success, employee strengths, Task execution, profit improvement, engagement business growth, market penetration, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes of business, mistakes in business, IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems Episode 44 The rise and fall of GE. What lessons are there for entrepreneurs?
In November 2021, the company (GE) said it would spin off its last remaining three business divisions – aviation, healthcare and power – into separate publicly traded companies. GE Announcement If you read business articles from the 1990’s to early 2000’s it is likely they will cite GE as an example of a highly successful, well managed business. Yet today, slightly more than decade later it is a shadow of its former self and soon will cease to exist. What went wrong? What can we learn for the rise and fall of this American business icon? Too understand more I turned to two articles on from HBR and the other from Chicago Booth. https://hbr.org/2018/06/ges-fall-has-been-accelerated-by-two-problems-most-other-big-companies-face-them-too https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/three-strategy-lessons-ge-s-decline Starting with the HBR article written Roger Martin (Former dean Rotman School of Management at the University of Management) Mr. Martin argues that GE’s downfall was due to two effects that are common through out today’s corporate world. Clueless but deep pocket activist investors and mergers and acquisition folks masquerading as strategists. On October 25, 2015, activist hedge fun Trian announced an $2.5 billion equity stake in GE. Trian claimed that with Trian’s “help” GE stock could be expected to rise from just over $25 to the $40 to $50 dollar arrange by 2017. Trian insisted that to avoid a proxy fight GE should appoint the founder Ed Garten to the boards. In June 2017 GE’s then CEO Jeff Immelt resigned and was replaced by John Flannery, In October Ed Garten joined the board. From this point it was downhill all the way.
What can we take away from this?
Let’s turn to James E Schrager’s article in Chicago Booth’s Report. Although written a year later than the HBR article Mr. Schrager argues that GE troubles started much earlier. Jack Welch failed to plan for the end of history, what happens when the existing strategy no longer delivers? Mr. Welch took over a sleepy company in 1981. He stripped out layers of bureaucracy, pushed decision making down to the field. Set up management education programs that matched that of topflight business schools. Jack recognized that with capable executives running divisions there was a risk that information flow to HQ could be stifled. He insisted that any issue that might become problematic reached the CEO’s desk promptly. Welch recognized that growth was the magic sauce that Wall Street required. So, he developed a strategy to grow via acquisitions. Not any acquisition but companies that were number one or two in an industry with few players. This assured a leading position within the chosen industry. The problem was that Welch failed to see that there was a limited supply of such companies. And what was worse many companies had seen GEs success and were looking for the same acquisitions. This drove up prices. Not only that but in the 1990’s private equity companies entered the game. The lesson we can learn from this is that no business strategy, market or product will be successful for ever unless re-invented. Always keep the end game in mind. Plan to disrupt your own business before some else does that for you. Now a final thought from my own experience. A company I worked for was also enamored with GE’s success and hired several senior executives from GE. Some of them were very unpleasant to work with. One believed fear was a great motivator, another was just difficult to work with. Some of you may have heard that GE used a forced ranking system of its employees. With the bottom 10% been seen as non-productive and should be terminated. I never worked in GE but I cannot believe that such a system encouraged co-operation. If any listeners did work for GE I would love to hear your views. Tags: How to start a business, inflation, supply chain, procurement, cost control, contract negotiations, achieve start up success The successful entrepreneur; business common mistakes; small business startup; avoid these common mistakes of business; mistakes in business; IBGR.network; Jeremy Gray; Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems
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