Posts Tagged ‘business models’
I listened to Warren Buffet speaking to MBA students a few nights OK. Lest I forget them, here are some of the pearls of wisdom that I jotted down. They work as a healthy reality check.
- Make money out of stability (inactivity). Strip out transactions and movement that just make money for brokers.
- Go away for 20 years. Will the business opportunity still be there?
- What will the industry look like in 10 years time? Who will be making money in ten years time?
- What are the barriers to entry? What is the moat to the castle?
- If you had all the money in the world, how would you break the company?
- Stay in your circle of competence. You may have 6 wonderful businesses. You won’t get rich from your 7th best idea.
- Don’t expect more than one really good idea a year.
- Do what you love.
- Don’t risk what is important for a marginal gain.
- Don’t confuse the terms of a deal with the quality of the business itself. (Find out what is for sale before you look at the price.)
- Identify what is knowable and what is important.
- Use businesses to generate revenue not to generate a quick capital gain.
- Support designs for the world which create 8 billion lives that you wouldn’t mind living if your were born into anyone of them
Fill each other’s cup but not drink from one cup
I am reading Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. His words on marriage might well be a manifesto for modern day careers and organization.
“Fill each other’s cup but not drink from one cup.”
Careers & work of the future
Switching to contemporary times, if you want to skate to where the puck will be rather than where it is now, find opportunities to work in exchange with others, “to replenish their cup”, rather than subsumine yourself to the goal of a larger institution or one boss or teacher.
Careers & sustainability
But also remember, Khalil Gibran’s words
“When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
In prosaic contemporary terms, think about a wider system that provides enough to drink for everyone. We don’t need to share one cup except when there is only one. When we make many cups and fill each other’s cups, then we we are in a healthy place and we want to strive to make that so.
- Take your cup, allow others to fill it.
- Take your cup, and fill those of others.
- Ponder those who have no cup and no one to fill it.
Using the old wisdom of Khalil Gibran to extend management theory
All this is obvious though not so if you teach management theory. Old management theory charges us with drinking from our line manager’s cup and ultimately from the company’s cup. There are legal reasons (and mainly legal reasons) for this.
We could also train young people to understand the company as a mega-system that must benefit all stakeholders ~ all stakeholders ~ if it is to sustain itself.
We can train young people to understand power, its use and misuse, and how to work thinkingly yet safely with people who deny others their own cup. But never to give up their own cup.
I want to see young people exploring the whole system in their online portfolios. I would like to see youth support systems put youngsters in situations where they must sort out which cup is which, who is filling which cup, and how they can act in small & gentle ways to drink from their own cup, to fill the cups of others, and to influence the wider econ-system. It’s an important skill to learn and many of us lose it along the way.
“In the next five minutes, my intention is to transform your relationship with sound . . .”
So said Julian Treasure at TED. This 5 minute video is worth watching . . . for the sake of your health . . . and as a example of a great elevator speech.
In 5 minutes we find out what Julian Treasure can do for us. Oh how we wish we could sum up what do quite so neatly!
If you are serious about developing your business plan and your pitch, you may find these slides useful from Simon Stockley of Imperial College Business School. I found the slide on the order in which VC’s read business plans particularly useful for understanding what people want to hear when they think about a business.
Fast Break
There is nothing I relish more than a “fast break”. I love the way that we can turn a rebound into a few deft passes and race the opposition to a slam dunk.
Carpe diem ! Sieze the day!
Can you take the Fast Break when it comes?
The conditions are right. The rewards are there.
Are we organized to dispatch our fast break specialist, take that rebound and pass it down the court, with ball and fast break specialist arriving together – right foot down, left down, into the air, done! 2 points?
Are we organized?
Well, there are the permanent spectators in life. There are some who have a go, but don’t really get it.
And there are some who understand the game. They get ready in advance. They practice with others. And when the opportunity breaks, they are running immediately, moving at speed in coordination with their prepared team, and they score. Sweet!
What are you ready for?
1. What is the equivalent of the ball and the equivalent of the basket in your business? 2. What do you win by putting the ball in the basket?
And when you can tell me that, tell me this.
- 3. Who is working with you? 4. And who must you outpace to pull this off?
- 5. What is the signal that sends the fast-break specialist off? 6. Who is taking the ball off the back-board? 7. Who is the play-maker (mid-fielder) in the middle?
- 8. When do you train together? 9. When do you celebrate your wins? 10. How long will you play together?
10 questions . . . oh, but do remember this is a game. When we are straining too hard, to get this done, it is time for a coffee break to think again.
- Image via Wikipedia
On Saturday, Umair Haque published the ‘Sun Tzu’ rules for the networked world. It is an important list. I am sure people who need to defend themselves against networked attacks will study the rules closely.
I wondered, if the rules could also tell us something about social media strategy in non-crisis situations.
So I’ve re-written the rules for normal engagement.
What do you think?
The rules are in very straightforward language – I hope. I say this to alert you that in each rule is a critical point that must not be lost. In the first, for example, the issue is speed. If you can reach every one faster by sending out runners, then do that. Don’t use social media for the sake of seeming modern!
Sun Tzu rules for the networked world
1 Who and where are our fans? How quickly can we reach our most remote “fan”? Could we reach them faster through Facebook, Twitter or any other social media channel?
2 What is the smallest chunk of information that makes sense? Can we break up our information into sensible small chunks preferably less 140 characters of a text message?
3 How can we send one message about what is happening and why it is important to the fans?
4 How can we break up our communication into cells so that if anyone part goes down, other parts are unaffected?
(Test: is there any one break that would crash the whole communication system?)
5 Can our fans quickly access resources and tools for them to respond to any meaningful scenario without referring back to us?
6 How do we monitor trending topics and join in relevant conversations?
7 What do we think are the appropriate ways for us to behave online and do we explain to our fans why we choose to behave as we do?
8 How do we help off-line groups and what resources do give them to help them organize themselves?
9 How do our fans remix our resources creatively and which formats help them do this?
10 What confuses our fans and where does confusing information emanate from? How can we counter the confusion at the source?
My first test of the Sun Tzu rules for the networked world
My first attempt to use the rules tells me that startups feel stressed on the first point. Startups understand too well the gap between their actual customers and the customers they desire.
The solution I will try is to help them draw their graph. I am going to write out a scenario for them (write out not just imagine) describing an existing customer or prospect.
- How does the startup contact the startup and how does the customer or prospect talk to other people?
- How does the customer or prospect reply to the startup?
- Should someone hear a good word through word-of-mouth, how would a new prospect ask existing customers about the startup?
- And what would they approach the startup about?
I will keep it concrete to avoid panic. Write, write, write will be my plan because activity relieves anxiety.
Any comment about the rewrite?
Have you been able to use the list? I’d be be interested in your experience.
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5 pretty petals of future work
Posted on: July 20, 2009
I can see clearly now
Today, I visited Wirerarchy, Jon Husband’s blog. I was delighted to find the 5 principles of future work in plain language.
I do encourage you to go over and read his version.
To make sure I fully understood what Jon was saying, I rewrote his five points in my own words and compared them to other writings on the future of work.
Yes, Jon’s principles almost perfectly match the work on positive organizational scholarship, poetry and work, Hero’s Journey and positive organizational design. Jon uses much more accessible language though.
Here is my version. I’ll add links to other versions below. And then I’ll walk the talk and tell you how I used the principles in the most unlikeliest of circumstances!
1 Changing focus
The future of work is not about institutions and organizations.
The future of work is about you and me.
2 Listening to the people who do the work
We don’t want to talk about abstract theories any more.
We want to hear the stories of people. Directly. With no translation.
3 Valuing what we can do for ourselves
We don’t want organizations and institutions to decide things for us.
We ‘ll support changes that allow us to do things for ourselves.
4 Representing ourselves
We won’t listen to so-called experts who secretly represent other people.
We’ll listen to people we know or who our friends recommend.
5 Being active and positive
We aren’t interested in being told to wait.
We will begin with what we do well. Right here. Right now.
How would you phrase these rules-of-thumb?
I would love to hear what you think of these rules-of-thumb and the way I have phrased them.
Links to my previous posts and slideshare
All phrased a lot more esoterically –
Previous posts on future work
The essence of a happy life is a point of view
5 point comparison of the Hero’s Journey, Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology
5 poetic steps for exiting a Catch 22
Lighten your personal burden for navigating 2009
Be still: Kafka and Joseph Campbell
Slideshare on future work
Positive organizational design
Positive organizational scholarship
So how will we get things done in this enchanting, new world?
For three years, I taught Management to a very large class of 800 to 900 students in a lecture theatre with 400 seats. You may remember attending lectures in one of these oversized rooms yourself. Hordes of students come in and sit in rows and struggle to stay awake as the lecturer drones on.
Of course, no lecturer wakes up in the morning intent on being deadly dull. But they do feel constrained. After all, how much can you do with this format and the size of the class?
Well, a surprising amount – if you follow the principles above.
The world through the eyes of the individual
I was teaching Management and Organizations. Students simply aren’t interested in perspective of the organization. But if you can think of how they view the organization from the vantage point of their part-time jobs and where their careers are going, then you have their attention.
Give me the whole story at once – circumstances, goal, steps, feedback loops, quirks and fancies
Students aren’t interested in the rules of organizing. No matter how elegant these rules are or how much work we put into thinking them up and trying them out!. They do like case studies, though, where they could follow a story. Then their active intellects take over. They imagine themselves playing a similar role in similar circumstances and start asking probing questions.
Don’t leave me out of the story – let me try out parts of it
Students don’t like being passive. Taking notes is better than sitting still. Solving puzzles is even better. I used questionnaires a lot in which they could see illustrations of concepts and relate them to themselves. Or I used two sets of power point slides – theirs had blank spaces and mine had the answers. In this way, they could anticipate (not just fill in) what I was going to say.
The way I relate to other people is part of the story – I’ll do this with others
Learning is social and students are influenced more by their peers than by us. They like to see and hear what other students think. There is a surprising amount of feedback from the noise and murmuring in a lecture room which is why so many students come to class in the first place! We also took polls often with a show of hands. It is active in an minor way. More importantly, students could see how much opinions varied. Developing a keen acumen of how much we vary in our preferences will be important to them as organizational leaders and influential citizens.
Harvard has a video of 2009 Reith lecturer, Michael Sandel, using the Socratic method with 800 students in one lecture theatre. Our students would have liked that – as long as we were able to be as courteous as Professor Sandel. Students really don’t like being put in the wrong in front of their friends, particularly in such a large room. (Who does?)
There is no journey unless I can take the first step
The jobs my students imagined after graduation were, to my surprise, not particularly ambitious. Though I didn’t fully approve at the time, now I think they had a well developed sense of starting with the ‘ground beneath their feet’ and growing from there.
These students particularly liked techniques that helped them do their jobs better, right now, or helped them put in words something that had puzzled them for some time.
Am I exaggerating the good points and dismissing the weak points?
You might be thinking that this was a University – we set the curriculum and the exams and the students did not have much control.
It is true that we began each year with a ‘classical’ textbook. But we would take topics that students had responded to well and use those as cornerstones to introduce new topics -or extend the conversation, so to speak. Thus as the year proceeded, a theme would emerge that was distinctive for that class.
One year, for example, the refrain became: “I will be me as I am. Not who you want me to be”.
You might recognize this line as coming from the film about Steve Biko, Cry Freedom.
Organizing for “Me as I am. Not who you want me to be.”
The challenge of management, as we put it to that class, is to design organizations where each of us can be “Me as I am. Not who you want me to be.”
What do you think?
Can you imagine organizing along these lines? Would you like to give me a case and see if I can rephrase it using Jon’s five principles?
9 questions for strategy at the edge
Posted on: May 7, 2009
Day Three at Xoozya
Before I went in to work today, I pondered the mammoth task of getting to grips with the business of Xoozya. It’s amazing how often organizations don’t bother to explain the business they are in, leaving induction to people who may know where the loo is but have never seen the profit! Xoozya being a self-consciously bottom-up organization will, of course, deliberately not tell me. It is going to wait for me to ask questions!
Organize around strategy
The universe came to my rescue and McKinsey’s Buy, Sell, Keep appeared in my inbox to remind me of the principle of structuring an organization around our strategic priorities rather than our operations.
Hmm, I need to go further than this. Being Xoozya, the priorities are not set at the ‘top’. The people at the ‘top’, who are not necessarily the highest paid either, are there because they are good at holding the conversation, listening, and bringing together our views. They have a knack for understanding what someone with a different professional background is saying, of detecting bottom line and top line, of seeing how people could come together for mutual benefit, and for creating organizations and communities where that can happen.
So how to begin my understanding of Xoozya?
I took the list of factors in McKinsey’s Structure-Conduct-Performance model of industry attractiveness, turned it into a table with two columns – one for me and one for Xoozya, made some coffee, and set to work jotting down a word or two in each cell.
I quickly lost interest in my own column. I must go back to that.
SCP model in plain language
These are the nine questions I found I badly wanted to ask my colleagues about their work.
- Who else does similar work to you?
- How do people tell your work apart from theirs?
- Who comes banging on your door wanting to know what you are doing? Have more people been banging recently or less? Have inquiries been more useful to you, or less useful to you?
- What does it take for someone to get into this line of work? Once they have acquired those skills and resources, how long does it take them to get to your level?
- Who has the greater power? People like yourselves working in the field or the people who come banging on your door?
- Is there anything about the relationship with the people who come banging at the door that could change the relationship? That is, what would lead more people to come or have more useful people come?
- Could you be doing more work or would you prefer to be doing less?
- Is there anyone or anything that holds you up?
- Is there anyone you could work with who could help you achieve more, more quickly?
For those interested in understanding the SCP Model more formally
Economics of demand (Qu 1-3)
Economics of supply (Qu 4)
Industry chain economics (Qu 5-6)
Cooperation vs Rivalry
Capacity utilization (Qu 7)
Forward, backward integration (Qu 8)
Alliances and Joint Ventures (Qu 9)
A good management model asks questions
Yes, there are a few questions there that will make me think about my own work. That’s what good heuristics do. They open up the thought processes. Questions not answers. That’s what management scholars deliver!
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