Winning on the Job

Many Businesses Get Started from an Unmet Personal Need

October 21, 2019 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Many successful entrepreneurs never set out with the goal of launching a large company, let alone hiring scores of people. They are motivated enough to develop solutions to a direct problem they are facing. Before long, they discover that they are not the only ones with that problem—and, like so, a successful business is born.

How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

How 'The Cult of Lulu' Got Started Consider the genesis of Lululemon, the Canadian athletic apparel company (from The Atlantic‘s narrative of how sports changed the way Americans dress.)

In 1997, a retail entrepreneur in British Columbia named Chip Wilson was having back problems. So, like millions of people around the world, he went to a yoga class. What struck Wilson most in his first session wasn’t the poses; it was the pants. He noticed that his yoga instructor was wearing some slinky dance attire, the sort of second skin that makes a fit person’s butt look terrific. Wilson felt inspired to mass-produce this vision of posterior pulchritude. The next year, he started a yoga design-and-fashion business and opened his first store in Vancouver. It was called Lululemon.

[Yes, that’s the Chip Wilson who gained notoriety for blaming in-poor-shape women for ruining their Lululemon yoga pants by rubbing their thighs together too much. “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it [his apparel],” he condescendingly declared on Bloomberg TV.]

At present, Lululemon has the highest sales-per-square-foot of any American apparel retailer. Its pricey workout clothing has become a wardrobe staple, prompting other retailers to launch competing apparel lines to cash in on the growing market.

Lululemon kindled the prevailing fixation on a healthy appearance. Its brand continues to be an elite fitness status symbol for the skinny and wealthy set. More broadly, over the last two decades, Lululemon has redefined how the current generation dresses and lives. The company pioneered the “athleisure” fashion revolution, which has blurred the lines between yoga-and-spin-class outfits and regular street clothes.

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

Sara Blakely's entrepreneurial journey for Spanx In a similar vein, entrepreneur Sara Blakely started the Spanx hosiery company after searching for a solution to improve the way she looked in a pair of her cream-colored pants. Blakely started her wildly successful entrepreneurial journey by making sure that the specific type of undergarment she ideated to solve her clothing problem did materialize commercially. From her biography on Wikipedia,

Forced to wear pantyhose in the hot Floridian climate for her sales role, Blakely disliked the appearance of the seamed foot while wearing open-toed shoes, but liked the way that the control-top model eliminated panty lines and made her body appear firmer. For her attendance at a private party, she experimented by cutting off the feet of her pantyhose while wearing them under a new pair of slacks and found that the pantyhose continuously rolled up her legs, but she also achieved the desired result.

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

Many entrepreneurs initially got their start by first recognizing and responding to a personal need or a localized problem and later discovering that they struck a universal chord.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, find out if you can solve a problem that you’ve personally experienced. Uncover opportunities that you may otherwise have missed by asking, “Does this have to be time-consuming, arduous, expensive, or annoying?” “How can I improve on this?” and “Can I do this better or different from the other fellow doing it over there?” Then expand your opportunity by asking, “Who else may be experiencing the same problem?”

“The Business of Business is People” and Other Leadership Lessons from Southwest Airlines’s Herb Kelleher

September 24, 2019 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Herb Kelleher (1931–2019), the larger-than-life cofounder and long-time CEO-chairman of Southwest Airlines, passed away earlier this year. He is celebrated for establishing a people-oriented company culture that any leader would envy.

Leadership Lessons from Southwest Airlines's Herb Kelleher

What started as a doodle scratched on a cocktail napkin (this account has been disputed) changed the face of flying. Herb’s then-revolutionary vision of low-cost air travel boiled the business down to its essentials. The disciplined execution of this strategy broke the mold of the aviation industry, brought the freedom of travel to millions of people, and encouraged successful copycats the world over—from JetBlue to Ryanair, and IndiGo to Air Asia.

Here are some key lessons that Herb (he preferred to be called just that) had to teach.

Companies are built in the image of their founders. Herb was well known for his competitive chutzpah, his extroverted antics, and his knack for unforgettable publicity ploys (e.g. his paper bag commercial or the ‘Malice in Dallas’ arm wrestling contest.) To the flying public, Southwest became a brand infused with the unconventional, flamboyant, free-spirited personality of its boss. That culture will continue to reflect his vision even after he’s gone—the tone he set at Southwest is not unlike those set by Steve Jobs (foresight) at Apple, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (social values) at Ben & Jerry’s, and Walt Disney (teamwork.)

Ego is the enemy of good leadership. Southwest stands as the paradigm of the power of a lighthearted culture. Herb’s stewardship of the well-being of employees started with the ego at the top. At a 1997 testimony before the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, Herb introduced himself saying, “My name is Herb Kelleher. I co-founded Southwest Airlines in 1967. Because I am unable to perform competently any meaningful function at Southwest, our 25,000 Employees let me be CEO. That is one among many reasons why I love the People of Southwest Airlines.” An ego-bound leader with no sense of humor can cast a shadow across everyone’s work, whereas a self-effacing leader who engages a genuine, self-deprecating humor can help create an environment in which employees take risks, work as a team, and enjoy themselves more. “Power should be reserved for weightlifting and boats, and leadership really involves responsibility.”

Focus on your people, they’ll take good care of your customers. Southwest’s successes are widely attributed to its highly committed and motivated workforce. From the very beginning, Herb fixated on looking after his employees, so they looked after each other and took care of their customers. And, the devoted customers ensured the growth of the business. He famously declared,

The business of business is people—yesterday, today and forever. And as among employees, shareholders and customers, we decided that our internal customers, our employees, came first. The synergy in our opinion is simple: Honor, respect, care for, protect and reward your employees—regardless of title or position—and in turn they will treat each other and external customers in a warm, in a caring and in a hospitable way. This causes external customers to return, thus bringing joy to shareholders.

Hire committed people who’ll fit your company’s culture. Under Herb, Southwest pursued job candidates who exemplified three characteristics: “a ‘warrior spirit’ (that is, a desire to excel, act with courage, persevere and innovate); a ‘servant’s heart’ (the ability to put others first, treat everyone with respect and proactively serve customers); and a fun-loving attitude (passion, joy and an aversion to taking oneself too seriously.)”

Herb Kelleher Evolved a Lighthearded Spirit and a Competitive Culture at Southwest Airlines

Hire for attitude, train for skill. For Herb, recruiting was not about finding people with the right experience—it was about finding people with the right mindsets. “We will hire someone with less experience, less education and less expertise, than someone who has more of those things and has a rotten attitude. Because we can train people. We can teach people how to lead. We can teach people how to provide customer service. But we can’t change their DNA.”

Get your employees committed. “We have been successful because we’ve had a simple strategy. Our people have bought into it. Our people fully understand it. We have had to have extreme discipline in not departing from the strategy.” Herb’s magic extended to making employees think like long-term business owners. He once reflected,

We don’t just give people stock options. We have an educational team that goes around and explains to them what stock options are, how they work, the fact that it’s a longer-term investment. From 1990 to 1994, the airline industry as a whole lost $13 billion. Southwest Airlines was profitable during that entire time, but our stock was battered. Eighty-four percent of our employees continued with Southwest Airlines stock during that four-year period. That’s the kind of confidence and faith that you have to engender, so people have a longer-term view, and they’re not trying to outplay the market every day.

Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines: 'The Business of Business is People' Southwest has never been in bankruptcy, nor has it had to layoff or furlong employees—an extraordinary achievement in the turbulent airline industry.

Stay focused on the core mission. During Herb’s era, Southwest never wavered from its core operating strategies. “We basically said to our people, there are three things that we’re interested in. The lowest costs in the industry, the best customer service, a spiritual infusion—because they are the hardest things for your competitors to replicate.” Herb’s low-cost recipe, however, did not expand to pinching on his employees’ earnings during tough times.

Herb’s Idea for Impact: “The business of business is not business. The business of business is people.”

Herb left a colossal impression not only on the airline industry and on those who worked with him, but also on people-management as a practice.

Volumes have been written about Herb’s exemplar of how organizations can be responsibly people-centered. Read Kevin and Jackie Freiberg’s Nuts: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success—it provides an insight into the unique culture and legacy that Herb shaped at Southwest.

Ask This One Question Every Morning to Find Your Focus

July 29, 2019 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Here’s a précis of psychologist Ron Friedman‘s HBR article on how to spend the first ten minutes of your day:

Ask yourself this question the moment you sit at your desk: The day is over and I am leaving the office with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. What have I achieved?

This exercise is usually effective at helping people distinguish between tasks that simply feel urgent from those that are truly important. Use it to determine the activities you want to focus your energy on.

Then—and this is important—create a plan of attack by breaking down complex tasks into specific actions. Studies show that when it comes to goals, the more specific you are about what you’re trying to achieve, the better your chances of success.

Idea for Impact: Organize Yourself Good Concentration

Ask This One Question Every Morning to Find Your Focus Starting your day by mulling over proactively on “what should I have achieved” is a wonderful aid in keeping the mind headed in the right direction.

Planning is easier when your energy levels are highest, which, for most people, is first thing in the morning.

Knowing what your goals are before you launch your day can help you focus the mind and hold it steadily to one thing at a time and in the right order.

Benefits, Not Boasts

July 18, 2019 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Just about every interaction is about selling something, whether you realize it or not.

When you try to be persuasive in a pitch or a presentation, you may come to pass as being overconfident at best, or boastful at worst.

Here’s a method that can help you transform your boasts into benefits in support of a prospective customer.

“I have 15 years of experience in this field,” may sound boastful. Instead, say, “I bring to you 15 years of experience in this field, promising you that, should any problems surface, they will be handled promptly and proficiently.” This tolerable way to promote yourself also won’t make you seem forceful.

More to the point,

Avoid self-superiority declarations such as “I am better than others.” Instead, couch your claims as endorsements from others: “My past clients have told me that … .” According to a study by organizational theorist Jeffrey Pfeffer, you’ll be regarded more likable and competent if you can get somebody else (even a paid agent) to sing your praises for you.
Steer clear of humblebragging, i.e. masking a boast as a self-deprecating statement as in “I’m a perfectionist at times; it is so hard!” Humblebraggers appear less sincere than blatant braggarts do.

Make Friends Now with the People You’ll Need Later

June 10, 2019 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Addison Schonland of the commercial aerospace consulting firm AirInsight describes how the 737 MAX hullabaloos have exposed shortfalls in Boeing’s crisis communications and public relations:

The MAX crisis demonstrated to everyone in aerospace media how poorly Boeing was prepared for the recent crashes. More importantly, Boeing was unprepared for the onslaught of information that started to flow freely after the crashes. … In the absence of communications from Boeing, subject matter experts, whether highly qualified or not, become media stars overnight. An information vacuum cannot exist in today’s 24-hour news cycle and the Internet. The demand for information is great, and somebody will fill the vacuum.

The fact that Boeing had to clam up about the crashes for legal reasons is well understood. But the lack of transparency about design decisions, how the company made trade-off choices when creating the MAX, and issues related to the certification process left Boeing exposed.

Boeing Crisis Management and Public Relations Shortfalls: Leadership Lessons from the 737 Max Disaster Rival Airbus has traditionally reached out and established relationships with the aerospace media:

Airbus spends a lot of money once per year inviting the media to an event it calls “Innovation Days”. A week ago, at the most recent event, there were 130 media members from almost every country. Airbus briefed the media on both their products and plans …. Airbus provided access to the key leaders so attendees could speak with them and ask questions, with unrestricted Q&As with C-Suite executives who stayed for a substantial period of time.

Airbus clearly has an ROI. From the perspective of an attendee, and having attended several, is that the media comes away from the event informed. But more importantly, attendees feel they understand what Airbus is doing.

Airbus, through these events, communicates with the trade and news media. This communication provides attendees with, de minimis, a sympathetic view. If Airbus had suffered the two crashes, we believe the press would not have attacked the company the same way it has Boeing.

Schonland highlights how such a web of relationships becomes indispensable during a crisis, whether the crisis is self-inflicted or caused by external events:

By not being more open Boeing has helped create a gap between itself and much of the media. … Boeing has lost any control of the [737 MAX disaster] story. Whatever Boeing does provide now is seen as biased and self-serving—there is little goodwill from the media. When [Boeing CEO] Dennis Muilenburg goes on television for the rare interview, he does not come across as well as he might. Why is that? Because everything he says is now filtered through a non-sympathetic, hyper-critical lens.

Boeing needs to invest in the small army of trade and press media that cover the industry—not just a handful of selectees. This small army provides crucial perspective en masse during a crisis and fills the vacuum with educated views and perspective.

Businesses that fail to develop such goodwill or simply lose their way with regard to public relations become vulnerable to condemnation and backlash. This can result in a wide-ranging loss of credibility, as has transpired with Boeing and its leadership.

Idea for Impact: Invest in formal and informal relationships with key external constituents who can help your business—and personal—interests. The Guanxi tradition in the Chinese culture has it just about right in placing a huge emphasis on building social capital through relationships. From Wikipedia,

At its most basic, guanxi describes a personal connection between two people in which one is able to prevail upon another to perform a favor or service, or be prevailed upon, that is, one’s standing with another. … Guanxi can also be used to describe a network of contacts, which an individual can call upon when something needs to be done, and through which he or she can exert influence on behalf of another.

Four Ideas for Business Improvement Ideas

November 1, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Seek fresh eyes. Ask new employees and interns to make a note of every question they have about how things get done in your organization. If anything—reports, approvals, meetings, reviews—doesn’t seem sensible, let them record those inefficiencies. After a few weeks, when they’ve become familiar with the organization and its workflow, have them reassess and report their observations. The best improvement ideas come from people who aren’t stuck in the established ways.
Notice something? Fix it quickly or delegate. Never walk absentmindedly by something that could be improved. A cluttered instruments cabinet in a warehouse? A loose tile in a walkway? A broken link on your customer service website? Don’t take inconveniences and unpleasant situations for granted.
Explore the outsider’s perspective. Notice how trivial stuff can really frustrate you when you’re standing in line at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles or dealing with a slow bureaucracy? While running errands, do others’ rules, regulations, and procedures annoy you? Bump into something that doesn’t have to be laborious, arduous, expensive, or annoying, but is? Examine if your business imposes any of those inconveniences on your customers.
Make it easy for customers to complain. Seek customer feedback in such a way that it encourages people to share their negative experiences. As I’ve illuminated before, many innovative ideas have their roots in prudent attention to and empathy with customers’ experiences.

Idea for Impact: Problem-finding is one of the most significant—and overlooked—parts of innovation. Learn to pay attention to the subtle clues to opportunities all around.

Don’t Use Personality Assessments to Sort the Talented from the Less Talented

October 25, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Personality assessments have featured in personality development and career counseling for almost a century. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and other aptitude tests form the basis for helping people deal with conflict, understand team interplay, outline career search, sharpen decision-making skills, and cope with stress.

Personality Assessments Cannot Predict Performance

Even as their use has grown significantly over the last two decades, personality assessments—including strengths inventories, and emotional intelligence assessments—have been criticized at length:

An individual’s personality cannot be summed up by a personality assessment. Individuality is described best by continuous (not discrete), normally-distributed attributes. For example, the MBTI Step I classification of individuals into 16 categories (or 4 dichotomies from Carl Jung‘s book Psychological Types (1921)) does not encapsulate the full range of personality variance.
An individual’s behavior cannot be limited to one side of a dichotomy. For instance, every person can be outgoing and assertive in the external world (extraversion,) while requiring time for some contemplation (introversion).
Many academic studies question the tests’ predictive validity and poor reliability. Moreover, personality assessments have poor test-retest consistency. Test takers have been shown to change at least one dichotomy when they take the MBTI Step I survey a second time.
Personality assessments can initiate confirmation bias (“Barnum Effect”)—the test scores are self-fulfilling because people tend to behave in ways that are predicted for them. In other words, a person who learns that he or she is “outgoing” according to MBTI may behave that way.
Personality tests are decidedly fakeable, especially when used to evaluate future career opportunities. All personality assessments are contingent on a degree of honesty, but MBTI test-takers are often motivated to match up to extraverted, sensing, thinking, and judging (ESTJ) proclivities in the modern organization.
Assessments are regularly offered as universally applicable. Not only do they tend to mirror the biases of the test developers, but also they are skewed in preference of the social groups the developer studied.

Personality Assessments are Starting Points for Change, Not a Predictor of the Outcome

Academics have long acknowledged the previously mentioned criticisms of personality assessments. They’ve argued fruitfully that many of the criticisms should be directed to how HR practitioners understand personality tests and use them in the development arena.

MBTI and many other personality assessments were never intended to sort the talented from the less talented. They are designed for the individual who takes the assessment, and not for the HR practitioner. In other words, personality assessments were designed to help individuals discover their underlying preferences regarding learning styles, problem-solving styles, self-awareness, ethical inclinations, emotional intelligence, and stress management.

Intended for Increasing Self-awareness, Not Appraisal

On the contrary, HR practitioners tend to interpret test scores speciously to gauge behavior, rather than as pointers of categorical preferences. Besides, HR practitioners often fail to factor in the test-takers’ past and current environmental influences.

And then there’s the risk of people being pigeonholed or pushed into a particular course regardless of his or her preferences. HR practitioners and career counsellors who put too much emphasis on personality assessments may compartmentalize people into rigid categories. This flies in the face of a central tenet of the MBTI premise—that individuals could choose to act against their preferred type if the occasion demands it. People’s attitudes and behaviors often change over time because of emotional experiences or socialization into specific work and social cultures.

Idea for Impact: Use Personality Assessments to Facilitate Self-Awareness, Not for Categorization or as Predictors of Achievement

If you’re a manager or a HR practitioner, don’t use personality assessments to categorize people or as predictors of achievement. Encourage people to take personality tests, but help them interpret these pieces of data about themselves—only they could make sense of test results in the context of their life history, social environment, and ambitions for career and life.

Creativity by Imitation: How to Steal Others’ Ideas and Innovate

October 22, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Innovation by Imitation: Many Innovations Come from the Outside---How Henry Ford Developed the Moving Assembly Line for the Model T

Emulating others’ ideas is an underappreciated learning tool. Many creative innovators set forth as remarkably astute mimics of others. “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” prods a creator’s maxim often misattributed to Picasso.

Imitation is a leading pathway to business innovation, even if being an imitator is anchored by a sense of derision. Ever more businesses are nicking great ideas wherever they can obtain them—in their own industries or beyond. Hospitals have adapted safety and efficiency procedures from the military and the airline industry. Aircraft manufacturers have adopted the car industry’s lean supply chain management concepts. Ritz-Carlton, the luxury chain of hotels and resorts, runs the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center that has helped trained its legendary cult of customer service and employee empowerment best practices to managers from companies across industries.

Creativity by Taking Existing Ideas: Applying Them in a New Context

The most prominent example of innovating by imitation is Ford’s development of the automobile assembly line—a system Henry Ford copied (and improved) from the Chicago meat processing business.

Innovation by Imitation: Genesis of the Moving Assembly Line Henry Ford’s relentless ambition to build his Model T a high-volume-low-cost automobile, together with his engineering knowledge and manufacturing experience provided the leadership and creative environment that nurtured the development of the moving mechanical assembly line. Today, the moving assembly line is the epitome of manufacturing. Almost everything that is now industrially manufactured—automobiles, aircrafts, toys, furniture, food—passes down assembly lines before landing in our homes and offices.

The genesis of the moving assembly line is in the American agricultural products industry. During the late 18th century, the movement of grains changed from hand labor to belts and later moving hoppers.

Innovation by Imitation: Many Innovations Come from the Outside

Innovation by Imitation: Chicago Slaughter Houses Pioneered the Moving Disassembly Line Before Henry Ford Started His Assembly Line By 1873, Chicago’s meat-processing industry adapted belts and hoppers to transform beef and pork production into a standardized, mechanized, and centralized business. After cows and pigs travelled to their fate in train cars from farms throughout the Midwest, they were dropped into hoppers and killed. Conveyor belts then moved carcasses past meat cutters, who progressively removed various sections of the animal, cut them into appropriate sizes, and repackaged and dispatched processed meat across the United States.

The meat processors’ task was disassembly (as opposed to putting together automobile parts in Ford’s plants.) Each worker had a specific, specialized job. Production moved swiftly. The American writer Upton Sinclair famously described this industry’s ghastly working conditions in his acclaimed novel The Jungle and said, “They use everything about the hog except the squeal.”

Chicago Slaughter Houses Were the Pioneers of the Moving Disassembly Line Before Henry Ford Started His Assembly Line

In the early 1900s, when Henry Ford wanted to keep Model T production up with demand and lower the price, Ford’s team explored other industries and found four ideas that could advance their goal: interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and cutting wasted effort. Ford’s engineers visited Swift & Company’s Slaughterhouse in Chicago and decided to adopt the “disassembly line” method to build automobiles.

The introduction of the moving assembly line process in 1913 enabled increased production up to 1,000 Model Ts a day and decreased assembly time from 13 hours to 93 minutes. Additional refinement of the process, thanks to reliable precision equipment and standardized shop practices, shortened production time radically: within a few years, a new Model T rolled off the assembly line every 24 seconds. First produced in 1908, the Model T kept the same design until the final one—serial number 15,000,000 rolled off the line in 1927.

Auschwitz-Birkenau and Victims of the Holocaust

Sadly, just as Henry Ford copied the Chicago meat processing and perfected the moving assembly line, the Nazi apparatus copied Ford’s methods of mass production to massacre six million people. While Midwestern butchers processed the livestock carcasses, the Nazis systematically handled corpses of the victims of the Holocaust. Nazi operatives removed victims’ hair, clothing, shoes, gold teeth, hairbrushes, glasses, suitcases, and anything of value to be repurposed for the Reich. The atrocities of this inexpressibly shocking disaster are on display at the train tracks and the museums of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland.

Formal Strategic-Benchmarking Programs

Smart businesses have formal strategic-benchmarking programs to achieve significant efficiency improvements: they pinpoint the strategic capabilities that matter most to their businesses, seek out companies or businesses that currently manage those capabilities best, and try to copy and deploy those capabilities as rapidly as possible. But time is of the essence for the success of these undertakings, as the management guru Tom Peters warns,

I hate Benchmarking! Benchmarking is stupid! Why is it stupid? Because we pick the current industry leader and then we launch a five-year program, the goal of which is to be as good as whoever was best five years ago, five years from now. Which to me is not an Olympian aspiration.

Imitation is a Key Characteristic of Highly Creative People: The Case of Steve Jobs Copying from Xerox

One of the key characteristics of highly creative people is their exposure to and experience with working in several related domains. They are very good at crossing domain boundaries, relating their creativeness in new and perhaps unexpected ways, and adapting knowledge into new domains. The following case of one of history’s most famous innovators illustrates this distinguishing characteristic.

Steve Jobs of Apple introduced the revolutionary Lisa computer in 1983. It featured such innovations as the graphical user interface, a mouse, and document-centric computing. Jobs had taken—and refined—all these inventions from Xerox’s PARC research labs and introduced by Xerox on its commercially-unsuccessful Alto and Star computers in 1981. The biographer Walter Isaacson writes in his best-selling Steve Jobs: “The Apple raid on Xerox PARC is sometimes described as one of the biggest heists in the chronicles of industry.” Isaacson cites Jobs: “Picasso had a saying—‘good artists copy, great artists steal’—and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas… They [Xerox management] were copier-heads who had no clue about what a computer could do… Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.”

Innovation by Imitation: Steve Jobs of Apple copied Xerox's PARC innovations in graphical user interface, a mouse, and document-centric computing

Idea for Impact: Borrow Ideas from Others and Combine Them with Your Own Creativity

Interestingly, many “benchmarking” exercises in the world of business—even academia—do not come “top-down” out of strategy. In other words, innovations by imitation are typically not driven from the top down. Instead, they materialize from everyday operational challenges—those painful experiences that send managers scuttling for solutions in a hurry.

Look outside your industry. To improve your creativity, try spending time researching other smart companies—even those outside of your industry. Learning directly from other companies is a useful, underutilized form of research for finding ways to improve performance.

Attend to developments at your competitors and in other industries. Look for potential opportunities that have been discovered elsewhere. Avoid the “not invented here” syndrome—don’t reject other’s great ideas. Keep an open mind.

No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad

January 16, 2018 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Never surprise the boss, particularly on potentially volatile issues that could affect your project’s timeline, budget, or performance.

Even good surprises can backfire. Many an example exists of employees bringing the boss what they believe were good news, only to realize later that that the surprises weren’t so good after all.

Consider the following example of a Boeing test pilot pulling off a shocking stunt on a prototype aircraft, much to the exasperation of his company’s leadership.

A Reckless Stunt That Created a Buzz

Boeing 707 Dash 80 prototype The Boeing 707 was America’s first passenger jet aircraft. Prior to the 707, which entered service in 1958, air travel was mostly limited to the affluent—and even they were hesitant about air travel’s safety. The 707’s in-service safety record and its economic characteristics quickly made travel more accessible and dependable. The 707 ushered in the Jet Age.

But for Boeing, today’s leading aircraft manufacturer, developing the 707 was a big gamble. The 707 had no orders, and Boeing embarked on its development entirely on the wager of its prospective commercial success. When the aircraft’s design commenced in 1951, Boeing’s estimated development costs were $16 million. That was roughly 20% of the company’s value, and more than twice its yearly profits—nearly all of which originated from military contracts.

The Demonstration That Was Far from What the Boss Had Authorized

Boeing built its first and only 707 prototype aircraft in 1955. The company’s leadership decided to show off the aircraft at Seattle’s Seafare Hydroplane races on August 7, 1955.

The display plan was to have Boeing’s Chief Test Pilot, Alvin “Tex” Johnston, do one low pass over the racecourse so that the airline executives, industry pundits, and government officials who attended the high-profile event could witness Boeing’s new undertaking.

Johnston had other plans. In his mind, the audience needed to be sold on the plane’s performance and safety. Seized by the impulse to flaunt the agility of the 707, Johnston had a little more in mind than just an unpretentious flyby.

During the in-air demonstration (see YouTube video,) with the aircraft soaring over Seattle’s Lake Washington, Johnston suddenly pulled back on the controls, and the plane started to climb at a speed of 400 miles per hour. Then, he did a complete 360-degree roll and flew the plane upside down for a moment. As the crowd watched in shock and amazement, Johnston did a second barrel role.

Overconfident Employee, Furious Boss

Alvin Melvin (Tex) Johnston, Boeing Test Pilot In the startled crowd was Boeing’s legendary president William “Bill” Allen. Allen, who had authorized no more than a simple flyby, thought that Johnston’s first barrel role was a mistake. When Allen witnessed the second barrel roll, he feared that either Johnston had lost his mind, or the aircraft was in grave trouble.

According to Robert J. Sterling’s Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People (1991,) Allen summoned Johnston into his office the next day. Allen demanded an explanation and inquired why Johnston had foolishly risked the company’s only prototype.

Pleased with his successful accomplishment, Johnston offered a simple explanation, “I was selling airplanes.” Johnston explained that he had previously tested barrel rolls on the prototype, and it was a safe maneuver. He hadn’t risked the aircraft at all.

Allen reproached Johnston and told him that he appreciated the efforts, but Johnston was never to do anything that had not been approved previously.

Never Let Your Boss Be Surprised by Bad News

If there is only one thing worse than delivering bad news, it’s not delivering bad news as soon as you know that some trouble is brewing.

No boss wants to hear about any looming issue from some third party—especially if it could be worrying—and put her on the spot with her peers and superiors.

When you fail to report any bad news, you are leaving your boss exposed to being blindsided with a potential problem, and the perception that your boss doesn’t have control of her organization.

Idea for Impact: A Good Employee is Predictably Excellent

The surest way to delight your boss is by setting the right expectations, discussing and coordinating on a plan of action, and delivering on her expectations of your performance.

When the status of important any project changes, make it a priority to bring your boss and other affected constituents up to date. If, right from the beginning, you’ve made the true picture clear, your boss may be less surprised with the bad and the good.

Never surprise your boss—just keep her clued-in on a regular basis.

A Sense of Urgency

December 18, 2017 by Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The most successful managers I know are highly attentive of their colleagues’ sense of urgency and incessantly adapt to them.

In his excellent Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson evokes Apple CEO (and operations wizard) Tim Cook‘s responsiveness and a sense of urgency:

At a meeting early in his tenure, Cook was told of a problem with one of Apple’s Chinese suppliers. “This is really bad,” he said. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes later he looked at an operations executive sitting at the table and unemotionally asked, “Why are you still here?” The executive stood up, drove directly to the San Francisco airport, and bought a ticket to China. He became one of Cook’s top deputies.

Idea for Impact: Bosses and customers often respond more positively to your focus on creating a sense of urgency before emerging problems erupt in a crisis.

Winning on the Job

How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

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Herb’s Idea for Impact: “The business of business is not business. The business of business is people.”

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Idea for Impact: Organize Yourself Good Concentration

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Personality Assessments Cannot Predict Performance

Personality Assessments are Starting Points for Change, Not a Predictor of the Outcome

Intended for Increasing Self-awareness, Not Appraisal

Idea for Impact: Use Personality Assessments to Facilitate Self-Awareness, Not for Categorization or as Predictors of Achievement

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Creativity by Taking Existing Ideas: Applying Them in a New Context

Innovation by Imitation: Many Innovations Come from the Outside

Chicago Slaughter Houses Were the Pioneers of the Moving Disassembly Line Before Henry Ford Started His Assembly Line

Formal Strategic-Benchmarking Programs

Imitation is a Key Characteristic of Highly Creative People: The Case of Steve Jobs Copying from Xerox

Idea for Impact: Borrow Ideas from Others and Combine Them with Your Own Creativity

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A Reckless Stunt That Created a Buzz

The Demonstration That Was Far from What the Boss Had Authorized

Overconfident Employee, Furious Boss

Never Let Your Boss Be Surprised by Bad News

Idea for Impact: A Good Employee is Predictably Excellent

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