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Tag Archives: management
6 Attributes of an effective strategy
in Leadership, Strategy
Picture credit: Martin Oberhäuser
At its essence, strategy is a guide to behavior. And, when communicating your strategic intent, the most important goal is conveying your unique aspects and advantages with specific and engaging words.
This is hard. But, if you’re not being challenged at coming up with an effective strategy statement, you’re not trying hard enough. Because It is a real challenge to translate strategy into execution, this is something we must continually work at, that is, communicating strategy. Research has found that only %14 of employees understand their company’s strategy and direction.…
3 fundamental lessons about change that strategists must understand
in Strategy
“You must accept the things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Serenity Prayer
Like you, in my neck of the woods, I’ve observed that business leaders have a complete disregard for the forces of change in the world and much less in their industry. They understand their business very well, but not what is changing or will change their business.
And if they think they have an idea of what is changing, they adopt a “wait and see” approach and look at their competitors for direction.
Basically, their business acumen is non-existent. They base their strategy (if any) on luck and hope. And you know very well that luck and hope is not a strategy. They obviously think that because they’ve “been doing this for a long time” and it has worked for them thus far, that they somehow control their fate.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Three fundamental lessons about change are of paramount importance (from the book The Strategist):…
Management Innovation at DJO Global Tijuana
in Innovation, Leadership
I had the opportunity to assist a Corporate Mix at Cetys Universidad yesterday. And boy was I happy I went.
The focus of the talks were about exchanging best practices about how to best develop human capital inside organizations.
One talk stood out from all the rest. Eduardo Salcedo, Sr. VP of Operations of DJO Global and his exciting ideas about developing human capital. DJO Global manufactures rehabilitation products. It has about 5K employees around the world and generates 1 billion dollars in annual sales.
Here are a few takeaways from Mr. Salcedo:
Giving time back to the employee
With the goal of creating a more engaged and happy workforce, Mr. Salcedo’s team asked themselves: What does an employee do in his time-off?
With the goal and question in mind, they started writing down a list of things employees do in their time off like buying groceries, paying for utility services, exercising, etc. As they were creating the list, they started thinking that if employees do all these activities in their time off, then they really “have no time-off” from their work. And with that though, came another question: How can we help employees have real time-off?
One idea they came up with was to bring the supermarket to the office. So, that is what they did. They brought the Tianguis (open air market) to the plant. That way employees don’t have to drive, or take the bus to the supermarket and waste precious time-off from work.
DJO Global, gives back time to their employees.
Rewarding employees like Hollywood Stars
Another story Mr. Salcedo told was about how they honor their employee of the month. Again, they looked beyond the traditional way of doing things. So instead of putting pictures on a wall behind plexiglass (disposable material = disposable people as he explained) like they do at Walmart, at DJO Global they embed a star with the employee’s name onto the factory floor. Just like they do in Hollywood!
As you might imagine, the people who were listening to Mr. Salcedo were highly engaged. This is not common. And compared to the other presenters, Mr. Salcedo put on a passionate display of leadership.
For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, it might not come as a surprise that I’m sharing this with you. At Game-Changer, It is our modus-operandi to be unconventional.
But, I was surprised to hear these types of stories from a company in Tijuana. Like everywhere else in the world, technology gets all the attention. Rarely does speaking about innovative ways to develop human capital get attention.
And, I was even more surprised to learn that DJO Global is #2 on the “Best Companies to work for in Mexico” (yes, all of Mexico) behind Plantronics. Also from Tijuana.
It seems to me that Mr. Salcedo wrote the “Delivering Happiness” book before it ever came out. A Game-Changer to say the least.
There were other ideas Mr. Salcedo talked about, I will try to contact him and get more formal insights for you. To be continued…
Innovation must reads of the week: The fallacy of the “rapid pace of innovation”
- Should Failure Be Rewarded To Spur Innovation? – Slashdot
- Forbes Leadership Highlights of the Week: All About Innovation – Forbes
- The Role Imagination Plays In Innovation – Fast Company
- The Innovation Matrix Explained: Innovation Commitment by @timkastelle
- What Really Replaces Marketing (Madness) by @wimrampen
- The fallacy of the “rapid pace of innovation.” – Slate Magazine
Innovation and Diversity
in Innovation
This is a guest post by Dr. Ralph Ohr. Dr. Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.
A while ago, I came across the following tweet by Gary Hamel:
Tomorrow’s management systems will need to value diversity, dissent and divergence as highly as conformance, consensus and cohesion.
It reflects well the fact that businesses range in increasingly dynamic and complex environments, imposing accelerated and mostly unforeseeable change. The most promising way for organizations to face this unprecedented discontinuity is to develop an ability to adapt to changing conditions and emerging opportunities: Adaptability.…
When employees do not feel understood they resist change
in Innovation
Here’s an ongoing problem:
When leadership tries to implement change within an organization, the biggest objection from employees usually is: “You don’t understand my situation.” What this statement really means is: “You do not know my job. You do not realize what I have to deal with on a regular basis, and now you are instituting yet another initiative that will make things more difficult for me on a daily basis.”
When employees do not feel understood, they resist change more fiercely.…