Alternatives, Analysis, Change, Decisions

Good, Fast, Cheap and the Future

I was casting around for a topic to write about. I had several candidates. Whenever I get an idea I write down the basics of it in my notebook. This happens to be a real notebook, with paper pages and a bound cover. Not a computer. I very rarely type at a moment’s notice, but I sure can pick up a pen and scribble with the best of them.

In any event what finally tipped the scales toward this topic was the NCAA selection committee’s decisions on who gets to play in March Madness (who gets to go dancing as they say) and who doesn’t. It wasn’t so much the actual selections that got my attention, as it was all the hype and fury that goes into the prognostications associated with filling out the tournament brackets and predicting the winners, losers and future match-ups.

It seems that what comes next is of more than passing interest to some people.

Being in a technology-based industry, in an increasingly technology-based world, I have been doing some reading as to what comes next in technology as well. It may seem like a stretch to compare filling out your NCAA March Madness bracket to predicting what comes next in technology industries and business sectors, but there you have it.

I have read and seen many methods used for predicting the next steps in our technological future. Some are internally focused (business focused). Some are externally focused (customer focused). I saw some that were citing universal constants and the laws of physics as the driving factors. Anything that equates physics to business always intrigues me.

But as I thought through all of the hype and hoopla surrounding predicting the future, as I stared somewhat forlornly at my unfilled NCAA bracket, I realized that while I had absolutely no idea beyond what I saw on ESPN regarding who’s who in college basketball, I had been in business and the technology industry for a while, so maybe if I relied on that instead of what others said I should rely on, I might be able to make some sense of what was coming.

Despite every pundit’s proclivity to try and make things seem complicated, I have found business to come down to, and be reasonably explained by the holy trinity, as it were, of business: Good, Fast, Cheap. I think these are the factors that affect and in effect, can be used to predict the future.

Simply put, they are: Good, or quality. Fast or speed of acquisition or delivery. And Cheap, how much you are willing to pay.

Now I agree that there are other influences, such as governmental regulation, and social and environmental consciousness, and even marketing and advertising, but I think Good, Fast, Cheap dominate the decision and prediction landscape. I’ll look at a couple of disparate industries to see if these ideas hold true.

The auto industry is always one of my favorite industries to look at. It has changed from a labor intensive “we’ll tell you what kind of car you’re going to buy”, to an automated, highly competitive customer driven, “We’ll tell you what kind of car you’re going to make if you want our business” industry. That’s what makes it fun to look at.

It is well known that there are market segments within both the automotive industry and its customer base. These tiers are based on car size and pricing levels. Smaller economy cars, all the way up to larger, more luxurious cars. This is because not everyone has the same level of “Cheap” or price. However, there are various sub-markets that do seem to behave similarly based on this factor.

Fast, for the most part, is going to be a given for cars. Dealerships abound, and interestingly enough seem to occur in close proximity to each other. This means that you can go in, compare products relatively easily, and select and drive home with your purchase. You can’t get much faster than immediate gratification.

That leaves Good, or quality as to what I would expect the primary differentiator to be, at least for now within the automotive industry. This is where things can get interesting. If you can’t spend any more money than you can afford for a car, and you can’t get it any faster than now, the perceived quality of the car will be one of the major, if not deciding factor on what you buy.

Yes, I know design and style, etc. are going to come into play. Have you noticed how similar in appearance cars within the same market segment look. If you don’t think so, look again.

It is interesting (at least to me) that the New York Times noted that General Motors first offered a Three-Year bumper to bumper warranty in 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/17/style/consumer-s-world-for-1989-new-cars-and-warranties-come-in-all-lengths.html

Now such warranties can extend to six-years and in some instances 10-years, and I would suggest that they are viewed as a competitive advantage / disadvantage capability.

Now Elon Musk and Tesla have created a very high quality, electric car, and they are challenging some of the status quo in the industry. And the industry is reacting, as all competitors work to bring out competitive electric models as quickly as possible. But again, I would position that the economics of quality will be the driving factor of what the future holds for the automotive industry.

Now I’d like to look at the technology industries. I’ll focus somewhat on communications and networking, but I think much of the topic will be applicable across most technology industries.

Good, or Quality used to be the driving force in communications. Reliability, redundancy, etc. were the required thresholds to cross. But they cost money and they took time. People learned that they could get “Good Enough” for a whole lot less than what they paid for Good. I have referred to this as the race to the bottom. How low a quality for how low a price was acceptable. It turns out in retrospect, pretty low.

It seems now that there are generations of people who have never known high quality communications, or anything other than disposable platforms and devices, so they have no baseline to compare to. To them Good Enough is all they have ever had, so it is acceptable. So that leaves Fast and / or Cheap as the driving forces for the networking future. Maybe.

I also think that Cheap has also run its course in communications. Who here remembers when communications providers would “give” you a mobile phone as part of your service agreement? They don’t do that anymore. In fact, it seems that they have now established an upper boundary for what people will pay for a phone, in addition to their service contract. That limit seems to have been explored by Apple and its iPhone X at around One Thousand Dollars. https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17763322/iphone-x-galaxy-note-9-smartphone-pricing-2018

That brings us to Fast, or speed of availability. It has been approximately Ten years since the last generation of wireless capability (4G) went into trial and delivery to the market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G 5G is now just hitting the market as well, but probably won’t see ubiquitous coverage for another year or two. The speed we are talking about here is measured in years, if not decades.

The last major evolution / revolution in non-wireless communications, be it the analog to digital, digital to Internet Protocol, or the advent of cable providers entering the non-TV communications market, has also been years if not decades in the past.

So where does that leave us? The Good (quality) of communications has already been taken down. Can it go lower? Maybe, maybe not. The Cheap of communications has already been taken down, hit the floor, and started to bounce back up. This is obviously in response to the communications providers desire to continue to make money and stay in business. The Fast of communications has never been that fast to begin with.

I think it is going to be a combination of “Good” and “Cheap”. Quality is already low. However, if we are to believe the new applications and uses of communications, quality will probably have to come back up. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want my self-driving car operating on the quality of networks that we have come to accept as “Good Enough”. Either that or the definition of Good Enough is going to have to be revised upwards, drastically.

Basically, this means that people will be expecting more, but probably will not be willing to pay more for it. The past technology iterations will have already taught them this behavior.

Cheap, as I said has already hit the bottom and seems to be coming back up. But not everyone will want or need the “luxury” service. Many will want, or only be able to afford the “Economy” service. I think you will see in far more granularity than is available now, a tiering, or set of communication strata put in place, very similar to what we see with the automotive industry: Luxury models to Economy models.

The issue will be that how do you create communications networks able to deliver Luxury to Economy levels, that are priced at levels that are already ingrained in the user’s market segment? That would mean that the capability to deliver Luxury would have to be built, but the ability to deliver Cheap, where desired or required would have to be available.

I think the technology to be able to deliver this type of capability is in development now. I don’t think the “Cheap” capability of the service providers being able to make money on that type of technology-based capability has quite been worked out yet. It will cost the providers a lot of money to build this capability. This will probably engender a price that their end user customers are probably not willing to spend. That and it will probably a fair amount of time before the technologies are truly available. I think we have an economically induced wait in order to see what’s next, at least in communications.

Uncategorized

A Great Service Story

I got a call from Travis the other day. I didn’t know him, but he works for Godaddy, the domain registrar and web hosting company that I use for this Blog. Up to now I don’t think I have had much call or reason to interact with them. I have my site on automatic renew and electronic pay from the bank. About the only thing I see from them is an email notification when then automatically renew my site and get paid for doing that. As long as the site has stayed up, which it has, I have been content.

I thought we would both happier with this kind of arm’s length, long distance relationship.

Still, Travis called me. The calling line ID didn’t say “Travis”. It just displayed a number that I recognized as an Arizona, USA area code. I have later found out that Godaddy is headquartered in Scottsdale (just outside of Phoenix, for those of you who may not be familiar). I didn’t know it was Godaddy headquarters calling when I answered the phone. If it had instead said something like “Travis”, I probably wouldn’t have answered it.

It seems I get so many spam phone calls these days that I always expect that long silence when I answer the phone from an unknown number, while the robo-caller detects my voice and switches me over to a real person. But not Travis. He was right there and immediately introduced himself and who he worked for right away.

I was pleasantly surprised.

He said he knew I was a busy man, so he would get right to the point. He said that Godaddy was seeing a significant amount of activity at my web site and wondered if there was anything going on that they should be aware of, or that they could help with.

Now normally I don’t do much more with the site other than type out one of these articles (using MS Word), edit it to my liking, copy it and paste it in as a new post and hit “Publish”. The web site is just a vehicle for getting it out to the world.

Travis seemed like a good guy, so I responded to his question regarding increased activity by wondering out loud if I had actually won the Nobel Prize for blogging, or potentially the Presidential Medal of freedom I heard rumors that I was up for. Travis didn’t hesitate.

He said that Godaddy normally associates the amount of activity that they were seeing with events of such or similar magnitude, but that he had already Googled me and saw that I was not nominated for either award. It had to be something else.

I thought to myself: Travis Game Level = Mage

After a little more discussion, it seemed to be determined that we could not determine what was causing the increase in activity to my web site. I guess people were just coming from all over to read the stuff I was writing. This is where the Travis upped his game level when it came to service. He started looking over my site.

The first thing he saw was that I was that I had a significant amount of content on my site. I mentally blew on my fingernails and polished them on my chest. I told him that I had been doing this blogging thing for over ten years. He noted the amount of content again and then asked me if I had ever backed up the site and the amount of data that I had on it. That way if there was a catastrophic failure I wouldn’t lose anything.

Uh, no. Can’t say that I have.

He then said the magic words: here let me do that for you. And in the background, I heard the quantity of tapping of keys that reminded me of the speed and quantity of gun shots expended in the latest John Wick movie, only faster. He then said that having finished that, he had now also programed the system to automatically back itself up once a month.

I thought to myself: I didn’t ask him to call me. I didn’t ask for his help, and he has solved a problem that I didn’t know I had before it became a problem. I very much appreciate fire prevention in lieu of future firefighting.

 Travis’ Game Level now = War Mage

But he wasn’t done. He then noted that I was on a pretty old release level as far as the web site itself went. In all the time I have had it, I don’t think I have ever upgraded it. It worked great as it was. It never broke. It was fine. He noted that he believed the only other Godaddy customer on this web site release level were a couple by the name of Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

Well played Travis. Well played.

I said fine. Go for it. Knock yourself out. Again, the veritable buzz saw of key strikes and I then found myself on the latest web site release. He said there should be no problems and that this was a much more robust release.

This was going much better than any of the other spam phone calls I usually got. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He then reviewed and saw that I was on a version of Word Press that was even older that the site release version. I said we’re in this deep. Let’s go big or go home. Update and upgrade that bugger too, if you don’t mind. He didn’t mind, so I them found myself on the latest release of Word Press as well.

I was now thinking Travis’ Game Level = Warlock

I did not know I was having excessive activity at my web site. I didn’t know that my content and web site were not backed up. I didn’t know that my web site and my publishing software releases were so far out of date before the call. Now I felt as if everything had been reviewed and updated. It sounded as though a very knowledgeable individual had gone through everything and reviewed for any potential issues.

I had not asked for all of this service. And, even better, I was not asked to pay for all of this service.

This is my idea of what great service is about. Reaching out proactively to a customer and going through their systems, programs and applications. Updating where necessary, and then thanking them for being a customer.

It is quite possible that Godaddy had put together a program where their service group would comb through their existing customer base looking for customers just like me who were so helplessly out of date that it was of benefit to both Godaddy and the customer to have Godaddy perform the requisite updates and upgrades. It would probably save them money, reduce customer issues and increase customer satisfaction. If I were them, I would probably do the same thing.

I didn’t care. They had reached out and performed a service for me without my asking. They had upgraded and updated my capability to continue to write and publish articles, such as this one.

They also increased my customer satisfaction and loyalty.

In the great scheme of things, I am just someone who has created a small, personal web site, and posts a blog using Godaddy. I am sure that they have many other, and many larger customers than me that they serve. The fact that I got individual attention. That I didn’t have to reach out and call them. That I didn’t have to fight my way through some sort of automated attendant answering system. That I talked to a knowledgeable individual who provided me with what I considered to be valuable service, was not lost on me.

I am not writing a homage to any specific company here. It may sound like it, but that was not the intent. I am merely using the company as an example and illustration.

What I am writing about here is how great service ultimately comes down to an individual, and a one to one interface. It is best done preemptively before there is an issue to resolve. How when each step in the service process is explained, customer buy in and satisfaction are gained. How attitude is important when dealing with customers. How being well trained and knowledgeable really counts.

Great service is doing a great job before you are even asked to do it.

Travis promised he would keep an eye on my blog, just in case the Nobel committee actually did start snooping around, because, you never know. Well done Travis.

Analysis, Budgets, Business, Conflict Management, Finances, Management, Metrics, Performance, Process Management, Time

Time Cards

Time cards have been a symbol of manufacturing productive efficiency for years. I think we have all seen images of production and manufacturing associates dutifully standing in line to “punch in” at their appointed shift on the time clock. It seemed to be a marvelous mechanism to maintain, measure and direct those resources associated with production, in the most efficient manner. It is where the phrase “on the clock” originated. You came in and they started paying you when you “clocked in” and they stopped paying you when you “clocked out”. It was efficient.

By the way, the “Time Clock” that has become so universal when talking about clocking in and clocking out, first made its appearance on the business scene in the late nineteenth century.

” An early and influential time clock, sometimes described as the first, was invented on November 20, 1888, by Willard Le Grand Bundy, a jeweler in Auburn, New York. His patent of 1890 speaks of mechanical time recorders for workers in terms that suggest that earlier recorders already existed, but Bundy’s had various improvements; for example, each worker had his own key. A year later his brother, Harlow Bundy, organized the Bundy Manufacturing Company, and began mass-producing time clocks.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_clock

There then arose the dichotomy in business where there were those that were “paid by the hour” (those on the clock), or waged employees, and those that were paid a set amount per period of time, or salaried employees. Waged employees were referred to as Non-Exempt and Salaried employees were referred to as Exempt. These definitions were laid down in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act.  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/exempt-employee.asp

Below is a brief comparison of the differences between the two:

So, why am I talking about one hundred and thirty year old inventions (Time Clocks) and eighty year old employee definitions (Fair Labor Standards Act)?

The reason is pretty simple. As the production and standardization processes that have been used in manufacturing have found their ways into the other disciplines and aspects of business, so has the cost tracking and charging of those resources responsible for doing the manufacturing.

We are now asking our exempt employees to fill out time cards associated with the work they are doing. This in and of itself is probably not a bad thing, however it engenders a new and different behavior in the exempt employee. It is this new “Time Card” behavior in exempt employees that can a detrimental effect on the business.

For lack of a better definition, exempt employees are paid by the “job” as opposed to by the “hour”. If an exempt employee must work late hours and weekends to complete their assignment, they do not get paid any more. They do however get the satisfaction of knowing the completed their task, regardless of how long it took them.

The idea of having exempt / salaried employees track their time, was to better associate costs directly with specific projects or activities. This association gave rise to the exempt employees who could directly associate their activities with specific items or revenue producing functions, and those that could not associate their work with specific items. Those that could be directly associated with specific products, projects and functions were called “Direct” labor, and those that could not be directly associated were called “Indirect” labor.

“The essential difference between direct costs and indirect costs is that only direct costs can be traced to specific cost objects. A cost object is something for which a cost is compiled, such as a product, service, customer, project, or activity. These costs are usually only classified as direct or indirect costs if they are for production activities, not for administrative activities (which are considered period costs).

The concept is critical when determining the cost of a specific product or activity, since direct costs are always used to compile the cost of something, while indirect costs may not be assigned to such a cost analysis. It can be too difficult to derive a cost-effective methodology for the assignment of indirect costs; the result is that many of these costs are considered part of corporate overhead or production overhead, which will exist even if a specific product is not created or an activity does not occur.” https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/the-difference-between-direct-costs-and-indirect-costs.html

The following as a good way to think about this. I promise I will get to my point about Time Cards and why this is important soon.

So, all of this work associated with slicing and dicing the time that salaried employees spend on their various activities is being done to understand what portion of their work can be directly associated with a cost object (Direct) and what portion cannot (Indirect). Why is this important anyway? It’s pretty simple.

All businesses want to reduce, minimize and otherwise exit overhead or indirect costs from the business equation.

Every business has the objective of reducing indirect costs, otherwise known as “Overhead”. As noted, these are the costs that cannot be directly associated with revenue production.

So, when Exempt, salaried employees are asked to fill out time cards, and they have multiple options, both “Direct” and “Indirect” to associate their time with, which are they going to choose? Knowing the corporate desire to minimize, reduce and exit Indirect and overhead costs from the business, they will naturally migrate their time charging to “Direct” functions and charges.

On the surface this might seem like a wonderful way for companies to reduce overhead, and in some instances, it will work. However, if you have the financial responsibility for one of these cost objects, you will want to be able to closely monitor the number of people and the amount they can charge to your cost object. This monitoring, or policing activity and capability again creates an incremental overhead.

It is essentially a transference of the overhead responsibility from the labor pool owner (of salaried, exempt employees), to the Cost Object owner.

Labor pool owners are always going to try and minimize the amount of their labor that is not directly associated with a revenue producing cost object. They will want to show the preponderance of their time, as reported by time cards, as being directly associated with a revenue producing function. Engineering groups, development groups, support groups and just about every other group will begin to display this behavior once time cards are utilized in this fashion.

The fear for them is that if they show too much time spent on overhead functions, they will be subject to a cost reduction activity in an effort to reduce overhead.

The results of this “Time Card” behavior are manifold:

  • With the pressure to be associated with, and charge to only Direct costs, the direct costs associated with specific cost objects can become inflated by excessive charging. Since direct costs are “above the line” in accounting and margin terms, this could result in inflated and non-competitive prices.
  • There will now be a somewhat adversarial relationship in place between those groups wanting to charge directly to cost objects, and those groups that are responsible for maintaining those cost object budgets, and the corporate inefficiencies and friction that this creates. There is also the non-productive time that will be spent challenging, changing and rectifying those charges as they come in.
  • There is non-productive time, effort and cost for increasingly capable corporate tools to maintain, monitor and control this type of charging effort. How do you control who should and should not charge to a cost object?

Time cards, like process can be a good thing. But like process, they should not be viewed as a replacement for judgement. When you move costs associated with time cards from indirect labor to direct labor, it may solve a corporate desire to reduce perceived overhead and indirect labor expenses, but it also creates several new issues and expenses associated with monitoring and controlling those charges. Due to how costs are accounted for in direct versus overhead items, it can also change both the cost profiles, margins and ultimately pricing profiles in the market.

Time cards in the salaried or exempt employee environment can and will change behaviors. Labor resource groups will increase their focus on having cost objects to charge to as opposed to understanding that there is to be expected a certain amount of slack time that they will have. Instead of the labor resource pool manager managing this slack level, time cards in essence transfer this issue to the cost object owners to try and control and manage.

Time cards for salaried and exempt employees can provide a better level of visibility into how time is spent and what employees are working on. It does however carry with it what is known as “The Observer Effect”.

I always try to sneak a little physics into any discussion.

“Observer effect (physics) In physics, the observer effect is the theory that simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner.”    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)

As long as business is aware of how behaviors are changed, and what may need to be done to compensate for these changes, there can be value in them. However, without those considerations they can create an entire new set of issues for a business to deal with, and may result in little to no efficiency gains.

Analysis, Change, Change Management, Data, Leadership, New Ideas, Politics

The Overton Window

I am going to bet that not many people have heard of the “Overton Window”. There can be many reasons for this. One is that it is a relatively new concept. Another may be that is usually used in conjunction with the prevailing political debate. Finally, it was generated in a “Think Tank” type environment and those types of terms do not usually migrate out into the greater population. Be that as it may, I think it is a very interesting term in that to me it is just as applicable to business (and probably many more environments that I have not considered) as it appears to be to politics.

First, a little history and definition as to what the Overton Window is and how I came about looking into it.

I first came across the term “Overton Window” while reading one of the plethora of political analyses purporting to explain what is currently occurring in American politics. It discussed how various individuals were responsible for shifting what was, and what wasn’t politically acceptable to discuss. As I wish to discuss business and not politics I won’t name any of the individuals but suffice it to say there are not as many people as you might think that are capable of or are shifting what is acceptable in the current political discourse. The majority of them are usually just credited with screaming about one thing or another, depending on which side of any given issue they happen to reside.

So, since the Overton Window was mentioned, and I didn’t know what it was, so I then went and searched the term on the web. The following is the simplest description that I could come up with:

“The Overton window is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse, also known as the window of discourse. The term refers to Joseph P. Overton, who claimed that an idea’s political viability depends mainly on whether it falls within the window, rather than on politicians’ individual preferences. According to Overton’s description, his window includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

So, basically the Overton Window is the range of ideas that are “acceptable” to talk about at any given time. That doesn’t mean that they are the correct ideas. It only means that they are politically correct, or ideas that can be talked about without significant fear of a negative response.

We have all seen examples of what the possibly best solution to any specific problem may be, only to find out that the prevailing political climate renders this solution politically unacceptable. It also notes that this window can shift depending on a variety of factors. Ideas that may be in the window at one time, or for one administration, may not be in it at another time or for another administration.

“Overton described a spectrum from “more free” to “less free” with regard to government intervention, oriented vertically on an axis, to avoid comparison with the left-right political spectrum. As the spectrum moves or expands, an idea at a given location may become more or less politically acceptable. Political commentator Joshua Treviño postulated that the degrees of acceptance of public ideas are roughly:
• Unthinkable
• Radical
• Acceptable
• Sensible
• Popular
• Policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

The Overton Window (with Trevino’s degrees of acceptance) is usually depicted as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

As I have noted before, reading about something like this always gets me to thinking, which as I have also noted before can be a dangerous thing for me to do. It got me to thinking about why so many organizations talk so incessantly about the need for change, but then react with an immune system like resistance response to those proposals that can in fact generate real change.

It got me to thinking that the Overton Window is a limiting factor in that according to its precepts, only those changes that fall within the relatively modest window can or will be acceptable. True or significant change would probably place that policy outside of the Overton Window, which would mean that it is politically unacceptable for consideration.

This would explain why only minor or incremental types of changes seem to find their way into the corporate (or political) application. Too great a change, regardless of its potential necessity or benefit would find itself outside the range of acceptable change for the then business (or political) administration.

The only way to compensate for the smaller than necessary amplitude of change is to increase the frequency of change. I think that the idea of many, smaller changes being more acceptable than fewer, larger changes is what has given rise to the now industry standard vernacular of business such as:

“The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.” – John Kotter
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2011/04/1_it_is_not_the.shtml

On the other hand, and probably a little less known or accepted we have:

“If you want to make enemies, try to change something.”
– Woodrow Wilson https://toprightpartners.com/insights/20-transformational-quotes-on-change-management/

I’ll let you guess who’s proposed changes were within the Overton Window and whose changes were probably outside of it.

I think what Overton recognized about politics is probably reasonably applicable to business as well. All organizations have a political aspect to them. This is the personal and interpersonal side of things. Stakeholders have committed to a then acceptable and approved course of action. Significant change or movement away from that direction could cause a perceived loss face or position.

So, how can this change limiting window be moved or enlarged?

In politics, the answer is relatively simple: Elect someone else. If those in office refuse to accept that a new direction is needed because of whatever commitments and ties they have to the current direction (or whichever special interest group), replace them with someone new who’s views more closely align with the new direction or change that is desired.

Okay, so what do you do in business to expand an organization’s ability to change, since you can’t readily elect new business leaders?

Therein lies the issue. Organizations are not elected. They are put in place from the top down. CEO’s are selected in a closed environment by Boards of Directors. The CEO’s then surround themselves with executives that will support and enable their programs. This type of directional change then cascades in one form or another throughout the organization. On the other end of the organizational spectrum, managers likewise look for team members who will also support and enable their objectives and assignments.

With this sort of top-down approach to organizational structures it would appear that in order to affect a desired or needed change of any significant magnitude, you would have to make a change at least one to two levels above the desired change location in order to affect the Overton Window that is limiting the desired change. Normally, as a matter of course, changes of this type, or at this level do not occur easily in a business organization, unless the entire system, and its performance are under a great deal of stress, and by then, many times it is too late.

I think the concept of the Overton Window does a very good job of explaining why organizations talk so much about the need for change but seem significantly limited as to the size, type and amount of change that they can actually affect. As long as the existent organizational team and structure remain in place, change of any real magnitude will be very difficult when the topics and paths lie outside the window of acceptable discourse for the existing team.

While it may be desirable and sought after that change be made from “the bottom up”, this type of change can only really occur when the bottom of the structure, or in the political sense, the voter makes the change by electing someone else, and the management structure (those elected) listens to and responds to the mandate. In a business organization the mandate comes down from the executives, not up from the employees.

Change in any environment is difficult. I think the concept of the Overton Window goes a long way toward explaining why so many organizations say they want to or need to change but fail to make any significant or meaningful changes. It is usually not until the situation reaches a point where it becomes incumbent to replace specific organizational or business leaders with others, who may have a different window as to what is now the new and acceptable discourse on what and how to change.

Analysis, Challenge, Decisions, Humor, Leadership, Risk and Return

Low Hanging Fruit

There are many “executive speak” phrases that seem to dot the business vernacular landscape. I have talked about this before. Many of these phrases seem to have evolved due to the desire of managers to fill a void in a conversation by saying something without actually providing any valuable information. I liken these phrases in business communications as the nutritional equivalent of Pop Tarts to food. There are probably some calories for sustenance in there somewhere, and as a change of pace they are sweet and acceptable on occasion, but if you make a steady diet of them, it is probably bad for your health.

With that in mind, I can’t seem to help myself but to go after the one executive speak phrase that seems to continue to grow in popularity, never ceases to amaze me, and all the while driving me crazy at the same time. Am I the only one that must fight the urge to speak up and call people out when they hear the phrase “Low Hanging Fruit”?

I Googled the phrase, just to see if it was really there as well as to provide a relatively equal basis to start this discussion from. I don’t know what I really expected, but it definitely was not the relatively large number of hits that Google delivered. I guess it is even more ubiquitous that I suspected. I selected Dictionary.com as my initial source, since I seem to go to them quite often for just these types of definitions. They said:

low-hanging fruit
noun
1. the fruit that grows low on a tree and is therefore easy to reach
2. a course of action that can be undertaken quickly and easily as part of a wider range of changes or solutions to a problem first pick the low-hanging fruit
3. a suitable company to buy as a straightforward investment opportunity
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/low-hanging-fruit

Now, I get the first definition. There really can’t be any argument about it. It is logical and follows directly from the phrase. Its fruit and it is low to the ground. Got it. It is the second and to some extent the third definitions that I take issue with.

It is at times like this that I feel compelled to step up on any available soap box, set my feet approximately shoulder width apart for good balance and announce to all who might listen, what I like to call “Gobeli’s First Law of Low Hanging Fruit”. In this case, it goes like this:

“There is no such thing as low hanging fruit when it comes to business courses of action, or investment opportunities. Anybody who says there is, is trying to sell you something.”

It doesn’t seem to matter what the discussion is about, or which business discipline is being mentioned. Everybody seems to want to use the term “low hanging fruit”. At the risk of sounding like I am propellering off on some sort of a rant, I need to start out by saying, I just don’t get it.

The instances where I have witnessed the phrase low hanging fruit being used are relatively succinct: During a presentation. When implementing something new such as a new program, project or product. When describing in a new recovery plan because the last program, project or product failed to enable the attainment of the then described low hanging fruit.

The basic idea that is trying to be conveyed is that whatever is being attempted, is going to get off to a fast start because there are quickly and easily obtainable results, as definition number two above would indicate, that are available. This phrase is designed to get management agreement and approval for whatever is being discussed.

It also sounds good and seems to indicate that this should be a “Oh my gosh, how did I miss that!” kind of moment.

It implies that the person uttering the phrase either knows that much more or is that much smarter than everyone else associated with the then current discussion. It hints at that person having either mysteriously or miraculously unlocked some sort hidden business or universal truth or secret that will enable them to make the difficult, challenging, or here to fore unsuccessful, easily attainable and wildly successful in the future.

I will be the first to say that just because I have never witnessed a miracle does not mean that they do not happen. I will say however, that I have heard “we will first grab the low hanging fruit” exponentially more often than I have ever seen such fruit actually grabbed. This leads me to Gobeli’s Second Law of Low Hanging Fruit:

“There is no such thing as Low Hanging Fruit. There are a lot of very bright people around. If there ever was anything even resembling low hanging fruit, one of these very bright people has probably already been there and grabbed it.”

Most people who truly recognize the existence of low hanging fruit keep their mouths shut and just go get it. Once they get it they will then take a bow, and then usually indicate how much more difficult it will be to get any further fruit, thereby keeping management’s expectations somewhat in check for future fruit attainment forecasts.

They don’t go and broadcast or publish the existence and location of low hanging fruit. It is not up for debate or discussion. It is like “Dark Matter”. There is a lot of somewhat esoteric evidence (that only physicists seem to be able to understand) that it probably exists, but nobody (including said physicists) has actually found some and examined it. If low hanging fruit ever did exist, it was an immediate challenge and all out race to get it first. Once obtained, it is gone. If it continues to exist while remaining only slightly out of reach and requiring only a little more time or investment needed to obtain it, it was probably not low hanging fruit in the first place.

As I noted Low Hanging Fruit is a term that is usually used to try to convince someone to do something. My personal experience is that when the term has been used, it was usually used to try and convince someone to do the wrong thing. This leads me to Gobeli’s Third Law of Low Hanging Fruit:

“Low Hanging Fruit is a term that is used to make something look easy. Nothing in business is that easy. It takes a lot of smart people working hard, together to be successful in business.”

Everyone wants an easy answer. We have all been inured to it by our thirteen second soundbite television environment. Simple answers may sound simple, when in fact they are surprisingly complex and difficult to implement.

I understand that on occasion I can sound something like a skeptic. The good thing about being a skeptic is that it is relatively hard to be disappointed. I also like to remember the old adage: “If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.” This doesn’t seem to stop us from wanting low hanging fruit to be true, though.

There are inevitably other competing ideas and directions vying for management attention and blessing. Several of them also probably have their here to fore unidentified low hanging fruit out there just waiting to be grabbed as well. All that they need is the time, money and management blessing that is currently being sought.

To me, low hanging fruit is a myth. It will always take time, money, effort, determination and possibly even a little luck (as defined by the phrase “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” – the Roman philosopher Seneca) for any initiative to be successful. The idea that success in business can be had as simply as wondering over and picking all the fruit off a tree that is within arm’s reach is not something that I have ever seen occur.

The theory of the Black Swan (just because you have never seen something does not mean it doesn’t exist. Swans were only thought to be white until black ones were actually discovered) suggests that such improbable events can occur. However, in all the world, up to this point, only one species of black swan has ever been discovered. And it does prove that there are indeed exceptions to just about every rule.

On the other hand, I have heard that we will be grabbing the low hanging fruit twice already today.

The only story regarding low hanging fruit that I think truly applies comes from the Bible, of all places. It involves a serpent, the first woman and low hanging fruit. It doesn’t seem that that one turned out very well either.

It doesn’t seem to stop us though, from looking for that supposedly easy win.

Analysis, Change, Differentiators, Employees, Leadership

Not Invented Here

I had the opportunity to read an interesting article about Apple the other day. For the first time in a very long time Apple missed its top line guidance and market expectations by a little more than eight percent. In September of 2018, Apple had a market value of over a Trillion dollars, becoming the highest valued company ever. Today they are worth a little more than seven hundred Billion dollars. They lost more than four hundred Billion in market value because of this miss to expectations.

This seemed to be an overreaction to a relatively small miss to expectations, and has been directly blamed on the Apple CEO, Tim Cook. He is an excellent operations person who has continued to make Apple one of the most efficient companies in the world. https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/tech/apple-tim-cook/index.html

However, it seems that he is no Steve Jobs.

Apple has been a paragon of inventive and creative product and market genius. However, their then resident genius, Steve Jobs, passed away in 2011, and they have been unable to generate the next big technological thing ever since. Apple has gotten admirably more efficient under their now operations based and influenced leader, but they have not demonstrated the creative technological leadership that enabled them to get to the top. When they missed their forecast last quarter, this lack of perceived creativity was identified as the greater reason for the value decline.

I have had the good fortune to have had the opportunity to do a lot of different things in my career. Sales, Marketing, Product Management, Operations, Delivery and Customer Service to just name a few. I have never been anywhere near the stratospheric levels of Jobs or Cook, but it has been an interesting and enjoyable ride none the less. I also think that the opportunity to experience that kind of broader or varied career is going away. As companies continue their drives toward being process driven, nominally in the name of efficiency, the opportunity for people to step outside of their slotted functional lane and get that broader business experience continues to diminish. The result seems to be a pervading feeling that once you have become categorized within an organization, you cannot become anything else.

I am sure we have all felt that way at least one time or another within our respective careers. We see an opportunity, possibly to do something different, and we are judged as an improper fit for it simply because we have been performing a function that is not deemed to be an appropriate precursor to the desired role. Whether or not we may have been able to perform, or even excel in the role was secondary. It was not in our “lane” so we did not get to even try.

People within specific functions within an organization seem to have hit the point where they, as a business entity realize that since they may not be able to move outside of their assigned and expected responsibilities, that they also do not want anyone coming in from somewhere else to perform those same assignments and responsibilities. This role protectionism then becomes an ingrained and self-perpetuating attribute of the organization.

I think that this is the genesis and essence of what we have all come to refer to as the “Not Invented Here” syndrome. This is the bias that arises within organizational functions that simply states that if you have not previously been in that function, you are not an acceptable candidate for that function. The idea is that if you are not currently in a sales role, you are not qualified for any potential sales role. The same could be said for almost any other functional discipline (Marketing, Finance, Accounting, etc.) within the organization.

It is probably reasonable to say that in many instances they are a good thing. There are several disciplines that do require extensive, and specific training. I am not sure I would like someone in the admissions office of a hospital to apply for the job of neurosurgeon just because they both work at the same hospital, at least not without the proper medical training to support the application. But that is just the point. Any discipline can be learned by just about anybody, if they are given the opportunity to learn it.

I think this is the reason that it seems that companies are turning increasingly to external candidates when it comes to innovation. The existing people within an organization are already categorized, rightly or wrongly into a role. It doesn’t matter that the Sales person may have some very good ideas about how to Market a product or service due to their experience in directly interfacing the customer. They are a sales person. If a Marketing person is needed, the company will go out and get one of those.

Just as Apple was led to its present position by an inventor (Jobs), his internally sourced replacement, Cook, was not an inventor, but an operations specialist. It is also interesting to note that while Jobs was one of the people associated with the founding of Apple, he was actually sourced externally from the company when he was made the CEO in 1995. In 1985 John Scully was the CEO of Apple, and Steve Jobs was the head of the Macintosh group when he was fired. He had spent the previous ten years in roles outside of Apple.

My point with all this history and comment is that organizations create their own resistance to internal change. Ideas that are not generated within the organization are resisted. The cross pollination of people, and their ideas between organizations within a greater company is becoming more and more difficult to achieve.

The age of specialization, and the codification of it into process, continues to reinforce the internal “Not Invented Here” resistance to change and innovation. It is in essence the creation of the internal position that if one group cannot have input into, or movement into any other group, then no other group can have input or movement into the first group.

This leads to the position that in the future true change will probably have to come from outside of the organization, but from outside of the company. Since the internal resistance to movement between organizations within the company will continue to increase, the only way for an organization to change will have to come from entities that are not bound by having to deal with that internal resistance.

Getting back to Apple briefly. Apple still generated two hundred and sixty-five Billion dollars of revenue in 2018. They still have over two hundred and eighty-five Billion dollars in cash on hand. This makes Apple the equivalent of the eighteenth largest country on the planet (approximately the size of Switzerland) as measured by Gross National Product (GNP).

I don’t think Tim Cook’s job as Apple CEO is in any immediate danger with that kind of performance.

But what I do think is that if Apple wants to resume the growth and market leadership that is associated with it being an inventive and creative bellwether within the industry, they will eventually have to look outside of their organization to find that new inventive and creative leader. Their current leadership and structure are probably not conducive to enabling that sort of creative and inventive executive evolution.

This would also seem to indicate that unless organizations can find a way to overcome the continued creation of walls limiting inter-organizational movement, or the inertia associated with process codification, true change for organizations will also probably need to come from external sources as well. Meaning, it will need to be sourced to those who do not have any vesting in the current roles or processes.

In many instances Not Invented Here refers to the concept that external ideas are met with resistance by internal organizations. I think at a little deeper level it extends more to the people within organizations. The idea is ingrained that only the finance organization can generate people and ideas that are versed in and capable of benefiting the financial aspects of any issue or organization. The same goes with the other disciplines within an organization.

As an aside, I have found this to be the case almost in the extreme with lawyers, but that is possibly due to my own personal bias due to my past dealing with lawyers. Many lawyers believe only they can be versed in legal issues, while also believing every organization issue is rooted in legal topics. I once worked for a chief operating officer who said that he believed that lawyers within his organization needed to be periodically “flogged”, just so they would understand what their specific role was within the organization. While this is definitely not the approach with all lawyers, I have met many who could probably benefit from such treatment.

Generating change requires that an organization does something different. Doing something different generates risk associated with the doing, the result of which is unknown. Organizations, and processes are designed to reduce just this sort of risk. Once these types of organizational people, opinions and processes are rooted, anything idea or activity other than what is currently being done is “Not Invented Here”.

I guess what this means to me is that if people truly want to have an impact and make a change, then they will probably have to go somewhere else, regardless of where they currently are, to do it. And, if organizations want to change, they will probably have to look outside of their own structure to locate those change agents that they want or need. That will probably be because the with the way they are currently working, they are also not invented here.

Achievement, Decisions, Employees, Expectations, Management, Planning, Roles

Careers and Gigs

A new year has started and that has got me thinking again. Always a dangerous pastime for me. I watched my dad go through his career. He was and still is a scientist. One of those guys who actually conceptualized and then created things. A PhD in physics. He worked at Bell Labs and got put on permanent loan to the United States federal government for research. Later in life he went on and did some other interesting stuff. He created some forecasting capabilities to predict price movements in the commodities markets. Most recently he started to lose some of his hearing, so he created a new type of hearing aid (which he and my mom sell), and from that technology he is working on the creation of true High-Fidelity ear-buds for listening to music.

That to me was, and still is an amazing career. He will be eighty-nine next month. He is still having fun. I hear it in his voice when I talk to him.

I bring this up because I believe for the most part, that the age of the career in business as we have known it, is just about over. Most people in the workforce, and certainly those that are just entering the workforce are probably not going to be able to enjoy what has in the past been described as a career. Like everything else, the definition, and expectation of a career is changing.

It used to be that a career was built on what you learned and then how you applied it to the next opportunity or situation. You learned, you internalized, you synthesized, and you applied it elsewhere. You built, and you grew. There was an investment in you and you were vested in them.

I’m going to change gears here a little bit and talk about music, one of my other advocations. I like to play in some of the Jazz bands located around here. It has been a long road to get there. I had to learn, practice and apply what I had learned in order to get to the capability to play with some of the musicians in the area. Even then I feel as though I am barely able to keep up. I enjoy that challenge.

However, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of demand for Jazz bands. There is some, but it is a decidedly niche type of audience. What this means is that the opportunities to play for people, particularly people who specifically like and appreciate Jazz are somewhat limited. The opportunity to be a “house band” or have steady employment as a Jazz musician is pretty limited.

The opportunities to play for an audience are usually referred to as “gigs”. Dictionary.com defines “gig” as:

gig
[gig]Slang.
noun
a single professional engagement, usually of short duration, as of jazz or rock musicians.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gig

So, as a Jazz musician, you are usually always looking for the next opportunity to play, or gig. Even if you currently have one, you are looking for the next one because you know that in a reasonably short period your current gig will be over, and you will need to find the next one.

I think you can see where I am going with this. Dictionary.com also defines “gig” in the following way:

gig
[gig]Slang.
noun
any job, especially one of short or uncertain duration
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gig

I looked back over my career and realized that I have had the opportunity to work for no less than eight major corporations. Some of the moves and changes were of my own volition. Some of the changes were due to corporate mergers and acquisitions. Some were due to corporate downsizings and changes in strategic direction.

The point I make here is that my dad worked for basically one company (Bell Labs, even while on loan to the Federal Government) for the vast majority of his career. I have considered myself nominally stably employed for the majority of my career, but even so I have worked for eight companies. I think that going forward that corporate tenures are going to continue to become shorter and shorter, either through the individual’s own volition, or the company’s.

In short, it would seem to me that business employment is going to take on many of the characteristics associated with gigs. Opportunities are going to be shorter term as both the employee and the employer begin to expect and react to the gig environment. It does not appear that there will be the longer-term commitment or investment by either the company or the employee going forward.

In other words, don’t expect a career. It will be a job. And as time goes by, it will probably be best described as a gig. You sign up, work and then sign off.

A side benefit to the company with the new gig business structure will be the corporation’s ability to better control their labor costs. Due to the fluidity and replaceability of labor associated with the gig structure, annual, merit, seniority and cost of living raises will probably become things of the past. Instead of increasing someone’s pay to perform the same gig, it will be cheaper to just hire someone else to do the work.

In the past it was sometimes viewed as a sign of instability if there were too many different positions and companies on one’s resume. I think that will obviously change. In fact, I think in the future having multiple assignments, or gigs, with various companies will be seen as a strength. If you don’t have enough, varied assignments with different companies, employers will wonder why.

Employees should no longer look to or expect to matriculate upwards into management, in a single company. As the horizon continues to shorten, each gig will be viewed as just a step in an overall body of work. (Very similarly to each album is an increment to the musician’s bodies of work.) If you don’t change your direction and content often enough you will run the risk of being type-cast or worse, thought of as lacking in aggression or creativity.

As companies continue the drive toward being process driven, the gig will continue to be defined and refined into smaller and smaller, discrete functions. The only way to get broader experience will be to have multiple, different gigs. The best way to get that will be to go to different companies.

This could have a disillusioning effect on those that are coming into the workforce with expectations that may be unaligned with the current corporate directions and trends. Simon Sinek, the British-American author on business and organizations, had a very interesting video discussion where he addresses the millennial in the workplace topic.

In it he discusses how he believes that organizations are going to have to change and adapt to this new millennial force in the workforce. I think he is partially correct in that there is a mismatch between the millennial generation’s expectations and the direction that business is moving. As business moves to contractor / gig / low-cost labor model, the new employees are going to have less and less of an opportunity to have an effect on the corporation. This is the direction that companies appear to be moving, of their own volition. There is a drive for this inter-changeability.

Just as when a musician becomes unhappy with the band he may be in and leaves, the ability to replace them with another musician becomes paramount. So it will be in business. The process will define your gig. The way to move forward will be to have multiple gigs. The way to get multiple gigs will be to move from organization to organization.

As with any new organizational or employment structure, there will be ways for people to prosper. Just as good musicians are always in demand for bands and gigs, so will competent and capable employees be in demand. It will however change the dynamic between employees and employers in the extreme. Employees will be more and more apt to leave at any time. Employers will more and more structure employment around gig concepts and temporary assignments. When the assignment is up, it will be incumbent on the employee to find something else, either internally or externally to the company.

Just as all musicians, even those with a current gig, are always looking for the next gig, employees will also have to start preparing for their next gig, even when they have one. Times are changing. Cycle times are getting shorter, and so are the horizons that companies are willing to invest in research and development, new products, new markets and employees. The returns will need to be seen almost immediately or they will move on to something, or someone else quickly.

Just as a musician likes to have his next gig lined up even before he is done playing the current one, I think in the coming environment it will be almost a necessity to line up your next business gig before the one you are on is over. No one likes to be waiting on, or without a gig.

Adversity, Alternatives, Analysis, Change, Employees, Long Term

Old Technology

The phrase “old technology” should send shivers down just about everyone’s collective spine. If you have anything prior to an iPhone X you have old technology and are therefore not cool. If you have anything other than an i9 Core PC, with all the associated bells and whistles you are obviously riding jockey on a dinosaur of a computer. Golf clubs are now touting their technological advantages associated with adjustable club weighting and aerodynamics which are designed to improve everybody’s game, even though average golf handicaps have remained relatively level over the last decade.

This is all only sort of interesting until you start looking at what may best be described as “old technology” companies. Then it starts to hit much closer to home.

Companies that have been recognized as technology leaders and driving forces are now racing as fast as they can to try and out run the old technology moniker. Networking carrier giants such as Verizon and AT&T in this country as well as their foreign counterpart’s British Telecom, Deutsche Telecom and many others have all either announced or already enacted layoffs in the multi-thousands of people, each, in 2018. The same goes for big iron providers such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard. The same goes for networking equipment suppliers such as Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and Cisco. Going further upstream, there have also been significant layoffs recorded across the entire semiconductor industry. The total number of technology and large company layoffs in 2018 is more than five hundred thousand people.
https://www.gadgetsnow.com/slideshows/18-technology-companies-that-announced-job-cuts-in-2018/photolist/65031261.cms

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/07/how-to-spot-job-layoffs-coming-even-in-a-good-economy.html

Yesterday’s technology leaders must now deal with all that old technology that they now have. Yesterday’s technology suppliers must now deal with supporting all that old technology. And they must all do it while continuing on the treadmill that brings forth the latest and greatest new technology. It appears to be an unsupportable model.

Just as 3G cellular was replaced by 4G which now faces the dawning reality of 5G, and PC cores became dual cores, which became quad cores, technology always marches on. It becomes faster. It becomes smaller. It becomes more efficient. Then it becomes a commodity.

This begs the question, can people become “old technology”? Technology companies of all types now find themselves in a race to divest themselves of their old technology as quickly as they can, in order to stay relevant in the new technology environment. With this shedding of old technology also comes the shedding of those workers and employees associated with that old technology.

As the Chinese curse states, we probably do live in interesting times. What was once the vanguard of new technology companies are furiously trying to reinvent themselves as they try to avoid becoming the old guard of old technology. What was once viewed as a competitive advantage in having technology savvy people is now becoming a burden as technology life spans and cycle times continue to become shorter and shorter.

Moore’s Law states that we should see a doubling of the number of transistors on a dense circuit board (re. processing power) every 2 years, and sure enough this has been very close to the case. The first cellular network was put into service about thirty-five years ago (1983) and today (2018) we are seeing the fifth generation of mobile communications make its appearance. If my math is correct, that equates to a new mobile network build out about every seven years. The same sort of progression in capabilities can be seen in just about every technology platform in existence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

So, what does this all mean.

I think to start, that it means if you are tied in some way to a specific technology, any technology, you risk becoming so associated with that technology that you as an employee in turn risk becoming considered outdated and past your usefulness when that technology hits its “old technology” finish line.

Now this is not a hard and fast rule. Those radio engineers that understood the 4G cellular network are probably your best bet for resources to understand the new 5G network engineering requirements. Probably. But as the lessons learned in the previous generations of mobile communications are applied to the next generations, are all of those resources going to be required? I point you back to the list of resource shedding companies that I noted earlier.

Supporting previous generations of technology continues to decline in importance as the next thing is now the best and most important thing. And the next thing is usually more efficient than the previous one.

And just as off-shoring and automation permanently changed the employment landscape for the manufacturing industries, so it is now coming to pass for the technology industries. As the relative cost of technology comes down (its price is actually remaining relatively level as its capabilities and speed expand), so the relative cost of the people required to implement and support that technology continues to rise.

I think the technology labor market is changing. It was not so long ago that business careers spanned one or possibly two iterations of a specific technology. Now with the two to seven-year generational technology horizons, a career should anticipate covering at least five and as many as ten or more technology shifts.

Being associated with a specific technology is no longer going to be good enough. It will more and more come down to which generation of that technology you are associated with, not just the type of technology itself. As businesses come to grips with the significant costs associated with supporting any technology other than the most recent iteration, the chance to be considered “old technology” will continue to grow.

It will no longer be good enough to be considered a subject matter or technology expert, because the subject matter and the technology will continue to change, and so will its strategic importance. And, if you are too closely tied to that technology, so will your strategic importance.

Customers too are facing this new market with increased issues. As they try to stay technologically current and relevant, they too will need to redirect resources away from the support of previous generations of technology. That doesn’t mean that the technology will be removed by the customer. It just means that the resources associated with sustaining it will by necessity be reduced. These limited resources will need to be continuously redirected toward the next generation of technology.

The old generation, both the technology and the associated people will continue to exist for some time. However, the market for them will change considerably. We have already started to see this market evolution in action. The cost associated with companies supporting old technology is starting to force them to sell off their outdated or older product lines to third party companies for continued support. These are companies that are making a business out of supporting old technology.

This is however, a double-edged sword. It is true that new technology companies will no longer face the cost and resource drain of supporting their old technology products, nor have to pay their old technology people, but they will now have to compete directly with their own old technology for the customer’s order. If the old technology can continue to be supported, will it be possible for the customer to delay the new technology purchase?

Buy selling off their old technology lines to other companies, they will in effect extend the life cycle of the old technology, otherwise no one would buy them. Customers could effectively delay buying decisions until prices, applications and values are more in line with their economic means.

So, what does this mean for the half million technology and large company employees that have been shed this year?

I think it means that there are probably more to follow in the coming near future as the new (and old) technology models and markets start to take hold. New technology companies cannot support their old technology businesses and structures. Old technology companies will have to become more efficient at support in order to make their business models work. They both will continue to drive all aspects of their business that do not directly interface with the customer i.e., Sales and Installation / Operations, to lower cost labor sources as the drive to reduce costs continues to intensify.

It used to be in the technology industries, that if you were a technology subject matter expert, you were in a relatively desirable position. Now, being too closely associated with a specific technology should at best be considered a short-term advantage as that technology will invariably age out rather quickly and receive the old technology tag. Technology careers and opportunities will not so much be about the depth of knowledge one has or accumulates about a specific technology, but the capability to move to and learn the latest technology quickly, before they get classified as old technology.

Leadership, Product Life Cycle, Questions, Sales, Self Analysis

What Can They Sell?

Over time I think I have the opportunity to sit through innumerable Product Line Management (PLM) meetings where various product managers described and extolled the virtues of their specific products. These meetings seemed to follow a similar pattern: The product manager described the product, told everyone how much better it was than anything else they had ever produced, how much better it was than any competitor’s product, how big the market was for the product and how much the company would sell and make from the product. Then they would spend the rest of the meeting describing how the sales team was supposed to sell the product in order to take maximal advantage of all the product had to offer.

What I think I learned over time from attending these meetings was that there invariably was an inverse relationship between the volume of information provided by the product managers regarding how to sell their product, and the actual success that their product resultingly enjoyed in the market. The more they described how they wanted and expected the product to be sold, the worse the chance the product had of ever being successful.

Could this be because we had people who were experts in the product, and not experts in sales, trying to dictate to the people who were experts in sales, how they should go about doing their job?

I would say yes.

Too many times it seems that we have product and technology experts trying to explain why the product or technology in question could and should be sold in ever greater quantities.

Customers are not usually buying the technology. They are buying what the technology delivers. Back in the dim, dark past, both 8-track tapes and cassette tapes delivered portable, recorded music. It was demonstrated that cassette tapes delivered an inferior recording technology, yet they were unarguably viewed as the preferred delivery medium. They were smaller, and hence viewed as more portable than the 8-track competition. In this case it was not the technology that won the decision criteria. It was the portability.

As an aside, I shudder at the thought of an 8-track tape equivalent of the seminal Sony Walkman…..

I am sure that there were probably innumerable 8-track product managers who spent inordinate amounts of time trying to explain to sales people why their product was better than cassettes, and then tried to educate them on how to properly see the superior product.

Believe it or not, I can remember all the way back to 8-tracks and cassette tapes, but only as a childhood user. But contrary to popular opinion, I was not in the business world at that time, so I really cannot confirm what if anything the 8-track product managers did or did not do.

To be fair, sometimes this product and technology driven approach works. Stephen Jobs, who seems to be rapidly ascending in the pantheon of business icons, was one of the notable exceptions to this standard. But even he did not approach his highly technical products (Mac’s, PC’s, iPhones, iPads, iPods, etc.) from a technology advantage point of view.

He made Apple products “cool”.

He relied on designs, user interfaces, displays, etc., as his customer product differentiators. He made them sleek and appealing so that customers would want them. He made them intuitive to operate. He knew that technological advantages would be ephemeral at best, and that design and cache would create a brand loyalty that would continue.

Jobs is famously quoted as saying:

“Some people say, “Give the customers what they want.” But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!'” (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/988332-some-people-say-give-the-customers-what-they-want-but)

But, as I have said, the number of product technologists that can successfully do this has been limited. Even Jobs had to look back more than a half-century to quote Ford on his visionary product success.

So, what should a product technologist do in a situation such as this?

The simple answer, and the first place to start is with the sales team. Ask them what their customers need. Ask them what they can sell. Ask them how what they currently have can be better. Ask them can they sell it.

But just as the product technologists should not be allowed to try to dictate how a product should be sold, sales people should not be allowed to try and dictate what technology or product should be supplied. Henry Ford was probably right in that if he had asked the sales team what was needed, the response would have been a faster horse. The horse was the then best technology of the time. That response would have been technology dependent.

The proper response would have been the desire for the ability to travel faster and farther, with the ability to carry more people and cargo. That was indeed the problem Ford solved.

Too many times product and technologists seem to become too enamored with their own products and technologies. They can get caught up in the idea that the issue is the sales team’s inability to sell the product is a sales issue and not something else. Because the product or technology is so good, it obviously must be related to the sales team either not understanding or not being able to properly sell it.

I have found that by and large, corporate sales teams are usually pretty good at selling. If they were not, neither they nor ultimately the company would be there for long. The competition from other sales teams would see to that. This usually means that if there is some sort of an endemic issue with the sales levels for a product, that it probably has something to do with the product.

Again, one of the best ways to determine this is to ask the sales team. They are incited to sell the product. Their employment and ultimately their livelihood depends on their ability to sell. If they cannot sell the product on their own, chances are that a product technologist will not be able to generate a sales process that will significantly improve the market performance.

It seems that too many times sales teams are viewed as a group that can and will generate orders and sales regardless of products, market conditions, or competition. Sometimes this is the case. Many times, it is obviously not. However, it seems that it is usually the sales team that is the first point of examination if a product or technology is not experiencing the type of success or market reception that the product and technology teams feel that it should.

As I earlier noted, the sales team has the same tendency as the product group, except in reverse. They will almost always try to dictate the technology to use. This input will be based on what has worked in the past. This will result in requests for “faster horses” or “more flexible buggy whips”.

It should be the product team’s responsibility to decode the sales team’s customer product requests, to separate the technology from what is in essence the application. This is what Stephen Jobs was so good at. He could see what the customer would want as being totally separate from any technological constructs or limitations. He would then go about designing and creating the new products to meet these desires.

Unfortunately, Jobs was a pretty unique individual. So, for the rest of the product and technology teams, if you want to get a good gauge on a potential products viability and success in the market, it is probably a good idea to ask the sales team what can they sell.

Sales teams in general rarely lack opinions on what the product needs to be. The key will be separating what they say they need the product to do, as in carry more people and cargo, and go faster and farther, as opposed to what they say they need the product to be, as in a faster horse.

Even Jobs noted that the focus always has to be on the people as opposed to technology, as a recipe for success. He said:

“Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”
https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/steve-jobs-quotes

Activities, Analysis, Certifications, Change, Experience, Planning

Staying Relevant

It’s hard to think of really where to start here. Everyone everywhere has already talked about the ongoing, continuous change that is constantly occurring in business. Even I have written about it, and I actually do try to stay away from those ubiquitous, and somewhat trite types of topics. As they say, no good can come of that.

However, those of us that have had either the good, or bad fortune to inhabit one of those industries that are subject to the technological whims of change, have an added issue with which to cope. In an environment where the “next thing” is always perceived as the now “best thing”, how do you fight what can best be described as career inertia, and remain relevant in your organization, and to a larger extent, your industry?

Charles Holland Duell, was the commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 1898 to 1901. Duell has become famous for, during his tenure as United States Commissioner of Patents, purportedly saying “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” However, this has been debunked as apocryphal by librarian Samuel Sass who traced the quote back to a 1981 book titled “The Book of Facts and Fallacies” by Chris Morgan and David Langford. In fact, Duell said in 1902:

“In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold.”

I bring up this often mis-cited tidbit for a couple of reasons: the first is that even more than a century ago the speed and relevance of change was already being anticipated, and the second, is that relevance seems to be in the eye of the beholder. It is not so much what you think about your relevance to various opportunities, but what others think of it.

For the most part now, Duell is thought of as an out of step, foolish curmudgeon that had the audacity to state that nothing new was ever going to be developed or patented, when in reality he foresaw that both the magnitude and rate of future changes was going to be unprecedented.

An interesting urban myth, but I have digressed.
I think I’ll look at how both time, and technology work against just about everyone in business. I think this is a position that is somewhat out of step with some of the current thinking.

There is a school of thought that says experience is a good thing. But in order to gain experience you have to have been around either a company, or an industry for a while. The up side of experience is that in order to have remained around for a while you probably had to learn a few things. The down side is that time has passed, and that you may have been pigeon-holed into a role which is defined by your experience.

Robert Heinlein is an author of many famous books and multiple great quotes. I have read most of his catalog, and I have cited him often in many of my quotes. One of his most famous, and one of my favorites is:

“Live and learn, or you don’t live long.”

This is especially true in business. If you haven’t learned from your previous experiences, you probably aren’t going to get the chance to have any experiences in the future.

But how much is that experience worth in business? By just being around for a while, chances are that you are also going to experience salary growth. Yearly reviews, pay raises and inflation are an ingrained part of the business compensation structure. The longer that you are around, usually the more you end up costing the company.

Also, in today’s organizations it is reasonably well documented that management would prefer specific subject matter experts as opposed to very broad experiential histories. Again, that means that the longer you are around, the higher the probability that you are going to be associated with a specific business, technology, and capability set.

But what happens when the baseline business or technology changes? Strategic directions change. Digital has replaced analog. Wireless has replaced wire. Optical has replaced copper. Unleaded has replaced leaded. Transistors have replaced tubes. Fuel injection has replaced carburetors. The list obviously goes on and on.

It is not uncommon for relatively more experienced, and expensive people to be associated with what was once but may no longer be viewed as strategic businesses within an organization. In instances such as this, the opportunities for advancement can dwindle, and in the longer term so can the opportunity for employment.

So, what can be done to prepare and avoid such issues? How do you stay relevant in the face of ongoing change?

My suggestion for the first step in maintaining relevance is to understand the current environment. Employment is now a cost – benefit, or value proposition. As long as it is perceived that you are delivering more value to the business than you are costing it, chances are that things will continue.

That would mean that the correlation to the idea that the longer you are around, the more you probably will be making, is that as time passes it is probably expected that you need to be generating greater value. This is usually much easier said than done. It also means that if time is passing, and you are remaining in the same role, that it becomes more and more difficult to be perceived as generating greater value.

Value is normally associated with orders, revenue, costs and earnings. Understanding your relationship with, and ability to quantify your effect on these topics will go a long way toward defining your value. The weaker your relationship with these key metrics, the more tenuous your value proposition may be viewed.

The second step is to align more with a specific business function or discipline, and not so much with a specific business unit or specific product set or technology. Accountants, Financial Managers, Sales Staff, Project Managers, etc., can usually ply their trades across different industries and business units. This doesn’t mean that it will be easy to move from one industry to another. It merely reduces some of the perceived barriers that will normally be erected when someone is experienced in one industry and not another.

Next, as Heinlein said, if you are not learning, you are probably not going to be around for long. Take courses. Take training. Most companies have training programs to help increase both the depth of knowledge in specific disciplines, as well as programs to support external trainings and certifications. Use them.

If you are planning on being around for a while, it will be expected that you will have to know more in order to maintain your employment value proposition. Learn about other technologies and disciplines. Understand and become more conversant in the process and project orientation that most businesses are currently in.

Finally, it is incumbent on you to challenge both yourself and the organization by demonstrating your willingness and ability to move out of your comfort zone, or area of expertise, and take on new roles. Most of the time no one will come looking for you to take on a new role. You must step up, and out on that proverbial limb and make the first move.

Otherwise it will probably be assumed that you are content where you are, and there you will get to stay. Until something changes.

This approach requires an active awareness and participation. Businesses will normally present you with the opportunity to learn many diverse topics, disciplines and technologies. They will also usually present you with the opportunity to at least try to move into something else. It is up to you to search them out and take advantage of them. Very few companies require you to take courses to stay abreast of new trends within business. Fewer still will actively try to reposition you into new strategic product and businesses.

These are some things that you have to do.

It takes extra time. It involves extra effort. It requires your own initiative.

Otherwise you may be risking your relevance expecting the things you have been doing to be as important, and relevant, to the business in the future as they are today.