"Making customers better makes better customers. Improving employees and associates is smart business. But so is improving your customers and clients. What — and how — your customers learn to make your business run better should be every bit as important as what—and how—you want your employees to learn, as well. Customers need to learn from you almost as much as you need to learn from customers. Serious customer experience design debates in organizations should focus almost as much on customer learning as customer delight."E comecei a pensar na relação com alguns pontos da proposta que tenho em elaboração...
"the successful innovators I observed spent less time on identifying and developing good ideas and more time testing their hypotheses. In fact, these teams and groups made the testable business hypothesis the center of their innovation effort."
"Custa a acreditar que o Salgado abriu buracos em todo o lado para salvar um grupo com dívida descontrolada que era um sorvedouro."Depois, de tarde, durante uma caminhada, ao ler "The Innovator's Hypothesis: How Cheap Experiments Are Worth More than Good Ideas" de Michael Schrage encontro um conjunto de frases de Warren Buffett, entre elas:
"My most surprising discovery: the overwhelming importance in business of an unseen force that we might call “the institutional imperative.” … For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however, foolish, will quickly be supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation, or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated."
"O que é que lhe está a custar mais nesta nova tarefa?.O que Schrage critica na frase de Keynes, na minha interpretação, está relacionado com a preocupação acima manifestada pelo professor de ética tornado gestor. As nossas ideias, as nossas teorias, as nossas hipóteses de explicação do mundo serão sempre tentativas incompletas e imperfeitas de o descrever e de prescrever uma linha de actuação.
Sair de uma aula de Ética Médica com alunos de Medicina do 5.o ano e, nas minhas tarefas de administração, não conseguir fazer o que ensino. Está-me a custar ver que há uma grande diferença entre os pareceres, artigos, livros e congressos e o que se passa na gestão de um hospital. Sei que a gestão do hospital não se pode fazer estritamente "by the book", mas se seria bom os bioeticistas mergulharem por dois ou três meses na gestão de cuidados de saúde, quem tem responsabilidades de gestão na saúde também devia ter outra formação teórica.
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Só está a ter agora essa percepção?.
Nunca tinha estado numa administração! Fiz a carreira na ética mas era um simples médico que trabalhava numa consulta de grávidas. Fui chefe de banco, fiz urgências, mas nunca tinha tido de decidir e assinar de 15 em 15 dias a compra de 1,5 milhões em medicamentos.
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Mas sente o quê, desilusão?.
Não é desilusão, é a simples constatação de que as coisas estão distantes daquilo que tenho ensinado. Tem de haver transparência, prestação de contas, decisão informada e eu dou por mim a ver que me faltam dados. Como é que posso tomar uma decisão informada se não tenho os dados todos? Admito que os medicamentos que estou a comprar são os adequados porque confio nos meus colegas mas uma decisão eticamente responsável tem de seguir estes passos, o que exige tempo, colaboração, transparência."
"A estratégia inicial não resiste aos primeiros minutos da confusão da batalha"A realidade não só é imperfeitamente percepcionada por nós, como está em permanente convulsão, tornando verdade hoje o que ontem era mentira e vice versa. Por isso, Schrage no seu livro "The Innovator's Hypothesis" valoriza o papel da experimentação sobre o intelectual.
"Too many businesspeople have been bullied, brainwashed, and highbrow-beaten into believing that economic value creation is rooted in intellectual breakthroughs. They’ve been persuaded - perhaps even intimidated - by the eloquent specter of John Maynard Keynes’s famous cliché: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else . Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.”
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Bold words, indeed—but, with respect, what does one expect an elitist Cambridge don with a well-deserved reputation for intellectual snobbery to say? That Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution required the collaborative energies of rigorous tinkerers like James Watt and entrepreneurial opportunists like his partner, Matthew Boulton? That the engineering prowess of Isambard Brunel, Richard Trevithick, and Charles Parsons transformed the world’s railways, sea transport, and energy production? That John D. Rockefeller’s ruthless business practices at Standard Oil altered how ambitious innovators perceived economies of scale and scope? That Henry Ford’s relentless focus on design simplicity and production efficiency redefined what manufacturing meant? That college dropouts like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Mark Zuckerberg might one day lead multibillion-dollar ventures that turned personal computing into mass media worldwide?
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Of course not. Keynes and his intellectualizing apostles are above the practicality of all that. Yes, those innovators may have pioneered new industries, overturned establishments, and improved the quality of life for millions. But, in Keynes’s reality, they’re entrepreneurial ‘meat puppets’ in thrall to the transcendent influence of defunct economists and dead philosophers. For Keynes, ideas from economics and economists - not tools or technologies from scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs - are what really rule the world.
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Who are we kidding? The arrogance displayed here is exceeded only by its historical inaccuracy. Keynes offers little but the propaganda of his professional genius to make his point. The sweeping pomposity of his assertion recalls George Orwell’s tart observation that “some ideas are so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” Indeed. This particular absurdity thrills intellectuals for an excellent reason: it makes them the heroes and aristocracy of innovation.
That’s why understanding this arrogance is important. This intellectual superiority justifies the condescension so many idealists and ideaholics bring to postindustrial innovation. Contemporary Keynesians aren’t Harvard-trained economists debating how much money governments should print to stimulate demand. Rather, they’re intellectual capital–obsessed idealogues who evangelize that good ideas are more valuable than strong currencies.
Ideas sit at the white-hot center of innovation and value creation in this economic universe. They channel their Lord’s fundamentalist ideal, both in their descriptions of how they think the world works and their prescriptions for how they think the world should work. Ideas über alles.
This describes the power struggle confronting innovators everywhere. Academics, intellectuals, and the peddlers of good ideas have declared ideas and intellect the central pillars of innovation. People who don’t appreciate the power and potential of good ideas are either idiots or apostates. They’re doomed. Pity them or damn them, but please get them out of the way."
"Schrage claims that Blockbuster misunderstood the true nature of innovation: He cites economist Joseph Schumpeter who called successful innovation a feat of will, not intellect. [Moi ici: Um ponto a merecer reflexão profunda] Further, he says the company missed the importance of uncomplicated, cheap, and fast experimentation."
"A new economics of experimentation is transforming innovation investment opportunities worldwide. Simple, fast, and frugal experiments inspire creativity and capability in a way that better analytics and planning can't. In networked industries and global markets, experimentation has become as much an asset class as a core competence."Isto, enquanto muitos continuam, cristalizados no que aprenderam e fazia furor quando tinham vinte anos, a pugnar pelo estado-grande-planeador, estado-grande-geometra, estado-grande-geometra, estado-grande-estratega.
"A customer vision statement explicitly identifies the qualities and attributes the organization aspires to create in its customers. The overwhelming majority of companies, however, don’t possess or publish customer vision statements.Por vezes uma PME pode concluir que só pode ter um futuro, e um futuro melhor, se tiver outro tipo de clientes. Por vezes pode concluir que os clientes actuais que tem nunca farão a transição para o futuro que a própria PME precisa de fazer para ter futuro. É um momento doloroso.
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Successful innovations rebrand your customers, not just your products, services, or your enterprise.
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[Steve] Jobs wanted customers to become as design-obsessed and detail-oriented around digital technology as he was. The ability of customers to embrace the values, craft, and quality of Apple design was essential to its success. Apple trained its customers to become design connoisseurs.
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Customers must “do” something to “become” something. Even marginal innovation improvements may profoundly alter user experience. What tasks and requirements does the innovation ask or impose upon users?
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“What kind of customers are our user experiences trying to create? Why?” “How will making user experiences more innovative make customers more valuable to us?”"
"Successful innovators don’t just ask customers and clients to do something different; they ask them to become someone different.Pensemos numa PME que quer subir na escala de valor.
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Successful innovators ask users to embrace—or at least tolerate—new values, new skills, new behaviors, new vocabularies, new ideas, new expectations, and new aspirations. They transform their customers. Successful innovators reinvent their customers as well as their businesses. Their innovations make customers better and make better customers.
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Focusing on new products, new processes, new services, and new technologies fundamentally misses the point. Yes, they enable new value creation. But value realization comes from how those innovations transform their customers’ perceptions, expectations, and performance. Innovation should be an investment narrative explaining how customers become more valuable."
"Starbucks’ “asks” stress neither convenience nor value pricing. They emphasize the cultivated, fair-trade, good taste of Starbucks’ customers.Quantas vezes as empresas não educam, não cultivam a transformação dos seus clientes? E, depois, culpam-nos por não saberem apreciar o produto/serviço!!!
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Starbucks’ customers should become educated aficionados who’ll treat every Starbucks cup of coffee as a special experience.
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The distinction between profitably selling premium coffees and successfully turning customers into premium-paying coffee cognoscenti is not subtle. Innovative coffees are investments in increasing customer sophistication and appreciation. The greater their sophistication and appreciation, Starbucks calculates, the more valuable those customers become. Discriminating customers are assets. Starbucks innovates to increase its returns on this asset."
"Customers change. Always. Customers are constantly becoming something else. They adapt. They learn. They grow. They’re not finicky consumers passively expecting markets to please, satisfy, or delight them; they’re actually dynamic collaborators and authors of their own futures. They’re not stupid; they’re skeptical. They want to make sure they’re going in the right direction."E a sua empresa?
"A lot of companies ignore beauty. But this utilitarian -- and rather boring -- take on business is going out of favor in many sectors. That’s because we’re not just moving into the knowledge economy, but into the experience economy."Sim, a sua empresa pode oferecer o serviço mais básico, mais simples, mais padronizado, mais barato e... mais copiável.
"“To truly innovate today, designing new products or features or services won't get you there. Only by designing new customers--thinking of their future state, being the conduit to their evolution--will you transform your business.""Designing new customers"? Que maneira esquisita de pôr a questão...
