"Estratégia para outros, a minha empresa não precisa"

"I frequently get challenged by leaders of companies in highly fragmented industries as to why I am I so obsessed about them winning. They argue that they don't need to think about winning over every other player. They just need to do a good job serving their customers."

Parei a leitura deste artigo, "Strategy in Highly Fragmented Industries" para recordar experiências com este tipo de lideranças:

• Falta de fogo no rabo - Análise do contexto (parte VIII)

Por falar em rabo, alguns leitores deste blogue hão-de lembrar-se da estória de um destes líderes dizer:

"Os clientes são como os peidos, uns vão e outros vêm"

Voltemos ao artigo: 

"That was the case because playing in my highly fragmented market taught me how to play at a level of competitiveness that was completely inadequate for the world outside my little market."

Tão verdade que até dói!!! 

Recordo outro tema: Bruce Jenner - A sua empresa tem cada vez menos espaço para ser um Bruce Jenner

Um último recorte:

"But, if those inside the industry aren't making the investments that produce a better way of serving customers, somebody else outside the industry will. And the best targets are fragmented industries in which no single player thinks that it needs to invest to Play-to-Win."

Pois, gente que acha que pensar estratégia é para outros, não para a sua empresa. 

 

Será bom que corras!

Em 2010 escrevi este postal The Knowledge Funnel (parte I) onde usei esta imagem de Roger Martin:

Há dias Martin escreveu, "Strategy & Artificial Intelligence - A Story of Heuristics, Means & Tails" de onde retiro estes trechos:

"The world is full of mysteries, which is what makes life interesting. In addition to being interesting, tackling a mystery and developing a great heuristic for dealing with the knowledge in question can be extremely remunerative. 

...

Codifying one’s own heuristic is an enormous challenge. 

...

Beyond the enormity of the challenge, there is the problem of what economists call ‘moral hazard.’ People in possession of a heuristic have strong disincentives to shift it from specific knowledge exclusively in their heads to general knowledge, even though doing so would be good for humanity. If they cause it to become general knowledge, the supply of people in possession of the heuristic would grow and the value to its creator would fall. 

...

If a heuristic becomes evenly distributed general knowledge, it is more readily advanced to an algorithm so that even a machine could do it. 

...

LLM/AI has the power of pushing knowledge more quickly through the knowledge funnel by de-partitioning heuristics, making them more ubiquitous faster, which I believe will hasten their further advancement to algorithms — which is good for the world.

...

As a manager/professional, you need to work on creating a uniquely valuable heuristic. If you simply run an algorithm, you are probably out of a job already. If you haven’t done the thinking work to formalize the heuristics that you employ in your own work, good luck, it is only a matter of time until you will be replaced. And if you have aimed for a heuristic of average quality, you are directly in LLM/AI’s kill-zone.

To have a great career in the modern economy, the only path is to have an above average heuristic for creating value in the specific domain of your job. LLM/AI won’t find your heuristic because that is not what it is looking for if your heuristic is out on the right tail of the distribution. Creating an above average heuristic is a high bar — but will increasingly be reality in the LLM/AI economy."

Entretanto, ontem li:

• Ano arranca com despedimentos coletivos a aumentar. Comércio e indústria destacam-se
• Mais que nunca, o DN

E volto ao provérbio africano que aqui escrevi em 2006:

Em África, todas as manhãs, uma gazela acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que o leão, ser mais veloz ou será morta.Todas as manhãs, um leão acorda. Sabe que tem de correr mais depressa que a gazela mais lenta, ou morrerá de fome. Não interessa se és um leão ou uma gazela. Quando o sol se levantar será bom que corras.

E a vida económica é esta corrida incessante para servir melhor os clientes. Claro que alguns conseguem fazer batota, por mais algum tempo: Big Man economy.

BTW, desde um final de tarde na estação de VFX à espera do Intercidades em 2007 que deixei de comprar o DN. Não me faz falta. Mas não posso deixar de me sentir incomodado com "Uma nova administração da GMG que mais de um mês após tomar posse nunca falou com a direcção do jornal, e uma nova Comissão Executiva que só a chamou uma semana após entrar em funções para lhe indicar a porta da rua." O jornal pode não ter futuro, ou os despedimentos até podem ser críticos para que o jornal tenha um futuro. No entanto, não é assim que se lida com pessoas.

"Mais vale ser rico e com saúde do que pobre e doentio"

 Mais um excelente artigo de Roger Martin sobre um tema que já não é novo nele e que deu origem ao meu:

"Mais vale ser rico e com saúde do que pobre e doentio"

Recordar:

• Não esquecer os "mas" (Setembro de 2015)
• E estamos reduzidos a estas elites da treta (Novembro de 2013)

"I realized that the single list contained two very different kinds of items. And the distinction revolves around the question that I have written about before: Is the opposite of your choice stupid on its face?

For some on the list, the answer is yes: the opposite is stupid on its face. For example, one item on the list was ‘suitability,’ i.e., the IT solutions need to aim for suitability for the internal users it served. Nobody strives for unsuitability in their IT solutions. That would be stupid.

For some, the answer is no: the opposite is not stupid on its face. And that is demonstrable because other players in the industry make the opposite choice and it doesn’t prevent them from succeeding. For example, another item on the list was ‘modularity.’ Many other players attempt to achieve their desired IT outcomes with systems that are more integrated and not modular at all.

I realized that I could go down the list of items and pretty quickly categorize them as yes-the-opposite-is-stupid or no-the-opposite-is-not-stupid.

So What?

The latter meet my definition of a Strategic Choice. Since the opposite isn’t stupid, it represents a real choice to do something meaningfully different than some or all competitors/peers. The former don’t meet the definition. Does that mean they are unimportant and shouldn’t be mentioned in a strategy document? No. This is what I have come to call an Operating Imperative. Because it is smart and there is no other obvious approach, we will fall behind if we don’t do the positive thing that everybody else is doing.

We make Strategic Choices when we want to gain an advantage over our competitors. That doesn’t happen when we do the same things as competitors. We follow Operating Imperatives when we want to avoid falling behind competitors on a meaningful dimension.

The two require very different thinking approaches.

With respect to Operating Imperatives, this is the domain in which you should be doing rigorous benchmarking to determine best demonstrated practices.

With respect to Strategic Choices, this is indeed where Benchmarking is for Losers, as I have written about before in this series. This is the domain in which you need to focus your bold choice-making. This is where you need to make sure that the opposite of your choice is what your competitors are doing. This is where you are going to get zero help from those who spend their lives figuring out what your competitors are doing and telling you to do the best version of that. In fact, zero is the best you can expect. They are actually most likely to convince you to replicate your best competitor, which is a recipe for losing. These unique choices are going to be the source of your competitive advantage."

Trechos retirados de "Is or Is Not The Opposite Stupid on its Face?" 

Acerca da análise SWOT

Ontem li "It's Time to Toss SWOT Analysis into the Ashbin of Strategy History" e fiquei com uma sensação estranha. 

Concordo e não concordo com o autor. Julgo que é outra vez a estória da culpa ser da caneta e não de quem a usa também referida aqui.

Concordo quando ele refere:

"I am tired of reading SWOT analyses. [Moi ici: Eu também, o meu detector da treta está sempre a apitar]

...

Who can tell me a blinding insight that came out of any such SWOT analysis? [Moi ici: O que levanta a questão sobre para que fim é a SWOT usada?]

...

Consider the strengths analysis. To be able to analyze one’s strengths, one has to have a definition of what is contained in the category ‘strengths’ and a way of measuring whatever is included. But a strength is only a strength in the context of a particular Where-to-Play/How-to-Win (WTP/HTW) choice. [Moi ici: O mesmo se pode dizer das fraquezas, o que me leva a este postal "Assim, partem já derrotados" de 2015. Usar uma SWOT para desenvolver uma estratégia, é pôr o carro à frente dos bois. Primeiro é preciso ter uma estratégia que contextualize o que são forças, fraquezas, oportunidades e ameaças]

...

The superior approach is to perform an analysis only when you are clear on the specific purpose so that you can go a mile deep and an inch wide. That means you don’t do it up front as with the SWOT and you don’t attempt to make it excessively broad like the four-pronged SWOT. [Moi ici: Confesso que só cheguei a isto depois de desesperar com tantas análises de contexto, de acordo com a ISO 9001 e a ISO 14001, que não passam de pura perda de tempo. Por que é que se há-de competir por criar a maior lista possível de factores interos e externos? Recordo Running away from a plain and hard brainstorming (part Il)]

...

Start by defining the strategy problem you are seeking to solve. That is, what is the gap between your aspirations and the outcomes you are seeking. Then specify the form of the solution by way of a ‘how might we’ question. That is, how might we eliminate the identified gap that we currently face. Then imagine possibilities of WTP/HTW choices that have the potential of answering the how might we question to eliminate the gap between aspirations and outcomes."

Quando eu era criança usava a SWOT como criança. Agora que sou mais velho uso-a mas de forma muito diferente.

1. Formular uma estratégia.
2. Traduzir a estratégia num conjunto de objectivos.
3. Determinar que factores do contexto interno e externo são relevantes para o cumprimento dos objectivos (daí o título Running away from a plain and hard brainstorming (part Il) não se trata de um brainstorming livre, mas condicionado ao que pode afectar cada um dos objectivos.
4. Classificar os factores internos e externos em vectores positivos ou negativos e traduzi-los para Forças, Fraquezas, Oportunidades e Ameaças.
5. Usar a SWOT para criar uma TOWS
6. Usar a TOWS para identificar riscos e oportunidades no caminho para cumprir os objectivos.

Hidrogénio e outras apostas

A propósito de:

o governo português deu 77 milhões a 2 empresas para criarem um bot, que hoje a OpenAI decidiu lançar como feature para os seus clientes. parabens Portugal! pic.twitter.com/bXdjXtv5Ps

— vd (@vd) November 6, 2023

Recordei logo Wardley-Martin. Sem qualquer relação com o tema destes dias, esta é a principal razão para ver com receio a aposta em grande do governo em tecnologias na fase do Mistério ou dos Pioneiros, como se estivéssemos na fase dos Algoritmos ou dos Town Settlers. Quem sabe o tempo que demora a passar-se de uma para a outra? Cada vez menos tempo. Esta manhã, sem fazer a relação com este tweet, pensei na quantidade de AI apps para sumarizar textos, todas numa luta implacável para ver qual a solução que vai triunfar e mandar no terreno como um eucalipto solitário. Acredito que vai ser muito rápido.

Como não recordar Baltimore e as conserveiras na bacia do rio Arade:

"só na cidade de Baltimore, antes de 1920 existiam 19 marcas fabricantes de automóveis" ou "Na bacia do Arade, deste lado do Parchal e Ferragudo e em Portimão, chegou a haver 23 fábricas de conservas."

Noutros tempos, de pioneers a settlers demorava mais de uma década. Agora, ... 

Vantagem competitiva, capital intelectual externo e Mongo

Ontem, aproveitando uma viagem de ida e volta a Bragança iniciei a escuta do livro "The Coming Wave" de Mustafa Suleyman e Michael Bhaskar.

A certa altura, já no regresso fixei este trecho tão ao jeito de Mongo:

“The field of systems biology aims to understand the “larger picture” of a cell, tissue, or organism by using bioinformatics and computational biology to see how the organism works holistically; such efforts could be the foundation for a new era of personalized medicine. Before long the idea of being treated in a generic way will seem positively medieval; everything, from the kind of care we receive to the medicines we are offered, will be precisely tailored to our DNA and specific biomarkers. Eventually, it might be possible to reconfigure ourselves to enhance our immune responses. That, in turn, might open the door to even more ambitious experimentation like longevity and regenerative technologies, already a burgeoning area of research.” 

Ao ouvir isto pensei logo no que pode tornar obsoleta a indústria farmacêutica tal como a conhecemos. E foi então que a imagem de Roger Martin, "For me, the metaphor for competitive advantage is a long row of rooms. In this conception, every company, at any given point in time, exists in a room of its own making", publicada ontem no blogue me assaltou. Quando aqui escrevo sobre a importância do investimento directo estrangeiro, estou na verdade a abordar a possibilidade de capital intelectual vindo de fora permitir unidades de negócio que dão saltos na sequência da "row of rooms"

Mongo e o "Bud Light Fiasco"

O planeta Mongo da série de banda desenhada Flash Gordon é o lar de várias tribos e reinos com culturas, tecnologias e sistemas distintos. Da mesma forma, a economia pós-século XX é marcada pela complexidade e diversidade da oferta e procura cada vez mais atomizada e apaixonada. Foi disso que me lembrei em 2007 para criar uma metáfora que dura até aos dias de hoje (A cauda longa e o planeta Mongo).

Seth Godin usa uma imagem interessante, o século XX via os clientes como plancton, uma massa homogénea. Eu vejo o século XXI como o tempo de Mongo, ou do Estranhistão, terra de Um número infinito de nichos.

Em Novembro passado escapou-me este artigo sobre Mongo, "Strategy in a Hyperpolitical World":

"So what does that mean for strategy?

We define strategy as the art of making informed choices in a competitive environment. Choices are important when differing paths lead to differential risks and rewards. When the social environment is broadly favorable to business, a company's strategic choices can be justified in purely business terms or, as necessary, finessed with carefully crafted press releases. Today, however, choices must be made on an expanded playing field. They are often complex because the underlying ethical, social, and political issues are constantly evolving and defy simple analysis. To make and implement the best strategic choices in this environment, leaders will have to (1) develop robust principles to guide strategic choices, (2) address ethical issues early, (3) consistently communicate and implement their choices, (4) engage beyond the industry to shape the context, and (5) learn from mistakes to make better choices."

Entretanto, há dias li "The Strategy Lesson from the Bud Light Fiasco": 

"A company’s goal should be to present an offering — supported by compelling messaging — that has advantaged appeal to the biggest circle possible. That may be a relatively small circle — Red Bay Coffee — or a relatively big one — Starbucks Coffee. But it should be as big a circle as the offering can support.

The Temptation

In pursuing the biggest circle supportable, companies are forever tempted to send different messages to different parts of their audience — whether inside or outside the confines of their current circle — in an attempt to strengthen and/or enlarge their circle.

...

this kind of thing is getting ever more dangerous with ever increasing transparency,

...

In this age of fuller transparency, brands must think a lot more thoroughly and carefully about the heterogeneity of their Where to Play (WTP), which hangs together now and produces their current market share. But under its apparently calm surface, that overall share hides fault lines — those customers aren’t all the same even if they buy the same product. If a brand isn’t careful, it can take those fault lines that lie benignly beneath the surface and turn them into giant fissures with its actions.

...

The naïve idea — not an unusual one but naïve nonetheless — was that Bud Light could keep all its current customers, and, with this terrific new message, could appeal to some new ones (whether light users or non-users). This kind of naivety has always been dangerous. But it has gotten a lot more so in this hyperpolitical and transparent world.

The Particular Challenge for Broad-Based Companies

It is particularly challenging for broad-based companies and going to get more challenging. The broader-based a company is, the greater heterogeneity its customer base is likely to embody. Every company will have heterogeneity in its customer base. But a giant retailer, like Target, will likely have a greater level of heterogeneity in its customer base than tiny LGBTQ+-friendly clothing retailer, WILDFANG. Ultra Right Beer was launched to woo disaffected Bud Light customers and seemed deliriously happy to hit the $1 million mark in sales. But that is one-five thousandth of the (pre-fiasco) sales of Bud Light. With great size comes more dangerous and pronounced fault lines."

Como não recuar a 2014 e a "-Tu não és meu irmão de sangue!"

O século XX económico (da inauguração da linha de montagem da Ford até à queda do Muro de Berlin) foi um acidente histórico que agora estamos a corrigir, o futuro não é de homogeneidade, mas de heterogeneidade. E mundos heterogéneos não são meigos para com os gigantes. Nunca esqueço: Too big to care.

Estratégia versus planeamento

Um extenso artigo, "How to Thwart Strategy Masquerades" a merecer uma leitura. Sublinho alguns trechos:

"Strategy always involves giving up something to get something else better. If we decide to offer only a single class of service, the consequence is that first class passengers will fly elsewhere. If we choose to offer only index funds, the consequence is that investors desirous of managed funds will invest elsewhere. If the opposite of your choice is stupid on its face, it causes no consequences and it is likely to be planning. Planning involves being non-stupid. Strategy involves consequences.

...

Strategy is centrally about compelling the thing you don't control - your customers - to take actions you wish they would take. No matter what you do, you will never be in control of your customers. If you start assuming that just because you want them to buy a certain volume of your offering, they will comply, then you are planning - and you will be sorely disappointed. Control is a planning illusion.

...

Strategy creates a future that does not now exist. That can't be accomplished by using inductive or deductive logic to extrapolate the past into the future. If your discussion focuses on 'what the data tell us we should do that is a planning discussion, not a strategy discussion. Planning doesn't create. Planning organizes."

"Strategy slowly but surely morphs into planning"

"Those who seek reliability attempt to do so by restricting themselves to reliance on objective quantitative data to make their decisions. They believe (often implicitly but sometime explicitly) that the past will be a good predictor of the future. [Moi ici: As pessoas que acham que basta fazer figas e esperar que o resultado que se deseja apareça por artes mágicas. Escrito assim parece estúpido. No entanto, é mais comum, muito mais comm do que parece. Conheço gente respeitável que pensa assim. Gente que acha que não cumpre as metas por causa do azar, A conspiração da realidade] For this reason, they like to plan based on the assumption (again often implicit) that all the important things in their world are controllable if one plans rigorously and comprehensively enough.

Those who seek validity utilize a wider array of information, because in addition to quantitative data, they also embrace qualitative, to which they add judgment, even if that judgment is always subject to bias. While they believe that the past can sometimes predict the future, they fully appreciate that sometimes it can’t and doesn’t. They are more inclined to attempt to create the future they would like to have happen rather than assume an extrapolation of the past.[Moi ici: Exemplo de balanced scorecard (parte zero)]

...

The tension between reliability and validity generates a critical leadership challenge. A company can generally make costs behave the way it intends because the company is the decision-maker on the costs it decides to incur. Hence it is worthwhile to plan for costs — and rigorously control them. There will virtually always be reliability-oriented team members that will focus on that — unless they are overtly discouraged.

But these reliability-oriented team members will also want to plan revenues and will dedicate countless person-hours to guesstimating revenues and then getting the company to commit to them. The great delusion of revenue forecasting is that you can make revenues occur by projecting them. But, of course, customers couldn’t care less that you projected that they would take cash out of their personal or business pocket and give it to you. They own that decision. Planning for that decision to happen is useless and delusional.

What is valuable, in stark contrast, is to make strategy choices that create an environment in which customers feel compelled to give their cash to your offer instead of the offers of your competitors. That set of choices makes a bet on the future, a future that is not a simple and assumed projection of the past into the future. Good strategy creates a future that is superior to the past and present. Strategy imagines possibilities and chooses the one for which the most compelling argument can be made. That is a validity-intensive endeavor.

...

In companies, there is an inexorable drift toward reliability. Companies typically start with a validity-driven burst of creative energy — and if it isn’t a relatively profound burst, the fledgling company expires pretty quickly. But those who prosper and grow tend to acquire an outside board, professional managers, public shareholders, capital market regulators, etc. Reliability tends to take a more prominent role as various actors ask for more ‘proof’ to justify decisions and the proof needs to take the form of rigorous data analytics.

Strategy slowly but surely morphs into planning, a migration that is heavily reinforced by modern business education, which itself is a creature of the modern science-obsessed world. In this world of business, there are many data analysts, but not so many validity-oriented strategists. And the data analysts in companies are supported and encouraged by the outside actors — like equity analysts and boards of directors."

Excelente artigo, mais um, de Roger Martin, "Strategy and Leadership #4" 

Estratégia versus benchmark

"The practice of strategy is the opposite of benchmarking. It is not analysis heavy. It is not linear. Hence it is unattractive for business bureaucrats who can’t be assured that they will produce an answer that they like. It is also uninviting for ‘strategy consultants’ because it is hard to convince clients to pay them millions of dollars for getting into a room and being creative. It is much easier to convince clients to do all of the analysis and PowerPoint deck writing involved in a long and laborious benchmarking exercise." 

Trecho retirado de um interessante artigo que merece leitura integral, "Benchmarking is for Losers" 

Como é possível? (parte II)

Ontem questionava-me, "Como é possível?". Como é possível aplicar a receita da redução de custos a torto e a direito e as empresas que não competem, nem podem competir pelo preço, embarcarem na onda?

À noite, já deitado, um tweet remeteu-me para um artigo sobre Gerd Gigerenzer, que me fez chegar a um tweet de Rory Sunderland onde era citado este artigo de Roger Martin, "Why Planning Over Strategy?". Reli-o e ficou claro como água como é possível:

"As with many things in life, an outcome that doesn’t make sense, ironically, is often the product of a process that makes lots of sense. There is an enormous amount of planning in the modern world of business and very little strategy — for a reason. 

...

The world’s penchant for data analytics causes analysis to be strongly encouraged, supported, and rewarded in business. And planning fundamentally concerns the analysis of the known and setting forth a sensible set of initiatives that collectively manage the known — or at least appear to until things change and then the ensuing problem is blamed on ‘unforeseen chance events.’

Strategy, in contrast, imagines a desirable future and makes a set of choices with the best chance of bringing it about. It is fundamentally not analytical, which causes it to conflict with the analytical bent encouraged in and supported by business. [Moi ici: Agora aqui, recordo Gigerenzer e o que ele escreve sobre a incerteza]

...

This belief in analysis that drives a love for planning renders the business world very friendly to technocrats. Technocrats focus more on inputs than outputs. They are driven to check all the boxes and follow the prescribed procedure (often prescribed by themselves for themselves). Planning is all about inputs: these are all the things that we are going to do, and since we have been thorough and analytical, all these initiatives are justifiable.

In contrast, entrepreneurs are laser-focused on outputs. They don’t check the boxes and rarely follow any prescribed process. And strategy, as I argue in the video, is all about producing outputs that you don’t directly control. [Moi ici: Como não recuar a 2007 e aos monumentos à treta]

...

The planning-oriented business technocrats are more interested in and comfortable with buying planning services from the so-called ‘strategy consulting firms’ than strategy services. They want smart and capable planners, and they find plenty of them in the ‘strategy consulting firms.’

Consequently, strategy is a tiny business within the ‘strategy consulting firms.’ I recently spoke with a partner of one of the ‘big three’ (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) who had recently left to pursue other interests and I speculated that strategy as a percentage of billing at his former firm was probably about 10–15%. He laughed at how high my estimate was and told me that it was closer to 3%."

Ser um melhor estratega

Num mundo de picos na paisagem competitiva, num mundo de assimetrias, num mundo de paixões, é fundamental aprender a ser um melhor estrategista: 

"to be a great strategist, you need to adopt three mindsets (strategy starts with customers; it involves operating and choosing in a complex adaptive system; and it embraces inventing the future) and possess three requisite skills (qualitative appreciation; dialogue; and juggling more balls).

...

Strategy Starts with Customers

Use every opportunity to talk to customers — both end-customers and channel (if your business sells through a channel). You don’t have to be at all formal or scientific about it. Make it easy to get started by doing it in a comfortable situation.

...

Strategy Involves Operating and Choosing in a Complex Adaptive System

...

So, I encourage them to see everything they do as tweaking, watching the results, tweaking, watching, tweaking, etc. That will help them internalize that their choices neither must nor can be perfect, but that is just fine.

...

Strategy Embraces Inventing the Future [Moi ici: Inventar o futuro não passa por análises no Excel]

To get strategists more comfortable with inventing the future, I encourage the practice of always reverse-engineering the status quo by asking the most important question in strategy: What Would Have to be True (WWHTBT)?"

Trechos retirados de "Becoming a Better Strategist" 

O retrato (parte II)

O retrato (parte I).

Para acelerar o processo, antes de fazer o estudo estatístico previsto na parte I, olha-se para o esquema:

E avança-se com:

• escolher 2 clientes que parecem encaixar-se em cada uma das 3 categorias da figura acima;
• recolher todas as encomendas desses 6 clientes;
• investigar e procurar pistas objectivas para explicar porque é que obtemos os resultados que temos com esses clientes.

Interessante que este tema, tenha sido elegido por Roger Martin para o seu post de ontem, "Shutting Down Losers". Basta olhar para esta imagem dele:

Para recordar a curva de Stobachoff.

"Compared to the academic world, it is almost as hard to stop something that isn’t working, but it is way easier to start something new. Companies start too many things without a lot of thought and struggle mightily with stopping, which is why companies end up continuing lots of things that don’t make sense but form part of the entrenched status quo.

...

[Moi ici: Olhando para o gráfico acima] But whenever I ask about getting rid of the 50% of stuff that takes profits down from 140% to 100%, I get concerted pushback as to why it would be a bad and/or infeasible idea.  [Moi ici: Tão, mas tão comum ...] The arguments take one of two forms, both variants of shared economics.

...

[Moi ici: Só Deus sabe quantas vezes me responderam que não podemos deixar de servir os clientes deficitários porque prejudicaríamos a parte lucrativa do negócio. Lembro-me de mais do que um empresario a expor a sua versão da piada negra "perdemos dinheiro na unidade, mas compensa no agregado". Duhhhhhhh!!!! E eu é que era o burro que não via bem a coisa… 😶] However, if the claim that the wining business would cease winning without continued operation of the losing business is actually true, then the winning business isn’t actually a winning business. In fact, it is not a separable business. The two are one business that (typically) is a mediocre performer. One just looks like it is a winning business because it isn’t being charged the full costs of its operations but rather is being subsidized by the losing business absorbing some of its costs. [Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar as guerras que tinha com um responsável comercial nos anos 90 que não incluía o custo da entrega das emcomendas a clientes a mais de 100 km porque, segundo ele, se incluir esse custo, não ganhamos os projectos] It is important for the combination to be treated as one mediocre business — which is what it actually is. There should be no more heaping of praise on the winning business for winning to such a lovely extent. It is just part of a mediocre business — and in due course, mediocre businesses should be exited."

A paixão pela escala (Parte II)

Parte I.

Uma das coisas que me fascina é a possibilidade de duas ou mais pessoas olharem para o mesmo fenómeno e verem coisas diferentes. Por exemplo, a pessoa que olha para o filme da "Bela Adormecida" e fica-se pela superfície e vê o filme, e a pessoa que vê o mesmo filme e faz a exegése: os pais que protegem a criança de todo o mal, não a preparam para uma vida adulta independente. 

Há anos que escrevo e trabalho com a missão das organizações, com a selecção dos seus clientes-alvo, porque é bom para o sucesso do negócio. Agora encontro em “The Empathy Factor - Your Competitive Advantage for Personal, Team, and Business Success” de Marie R. Miyashiro, a tomada de consciência da identidade das organizações como a base para uma sistema baseado na empatia que promove a ligação entre as pessoas de uma organização.

Na parte I recordámos o modelo de negócio de eleição do século XX, baseado na escala, baseado na ideia de que os clientes acabam por comprar a oferta que serve a moda da distribuição. A oferta mais barata.

No entanto em Mongo, um mundo cheio de variedade de modelos de negócio, a escala não é o factor crítico, o sucesso não passa por trabalhar para a moda da distribuição. Em Mongo, faz sentido pensar em algo que para um habitante do século XX seria um horror: não trabalhar para servir certos tipos de clientes.

Tentar trabalhar para todos os tipos de clientes é importar toda uma série conflitos, é tentar satisfazer uma coisa e o seu contrário. Esse exercício de importação de conflitos destrói valor económico e prejudica a harmonia entre as pessoas que trabalham na organização. Tentar trabalhar para todos os tipos de clientes torna impossível satisfazer todos os clientes e penaliza os trabalhadores como culpados de algo que não depende deles.

O que escolher, o que rejeitar ... algo que se decide baseado numa estratégia. Entretanto, em "Quiet Quitting & Strategy" encontro a mesma relação:

"knowledge workers need to be treated as you would a volunteer. Since volunteers are unpaid, they will only volunteer their time for your cause if they believe in and are motivated by the purpose of the organization. He warned against the assumption that you could attract, maintain, and motivate paid employees by compensating them monetarily to a sufficiently high extent."

 

Sermos a mudança que queremos ver

""The truth about culture is that the only way you can change it is by changing the way individuals work with one another. If you can change that, then you will find the culture has changed."

To change the way people work together, Martin argues, leaders must model the behaviors they want to see. "Literally the only way that I've seen culture change in the 42 years since I graduated from business school is when a leader sets out to demonstrate a different kind of behavior and makes that behavior work. Other people take their cues from that behavior, and, slowly but surely, the culture changes," he says. "Kremlin-watching does not happen only in Moscowit's an incredibly powerful force. People watch the leadership and do what the leadership does."

A notable aspect of this approach is that it does not require a major initiative or investment. Instead, the culture change depends on micro-interventions: small adjustments to the to the structure, dynamics, or framing of interpersonal interactions, applied consistently over time."

Trecho retirado de "When it comes to changing culture, think small"

Entimema

Há dias descobri uma palavra, entimema, para algo que me aborrece quando a pratico, ou outros a praticam. 

Recordo daqui:

"Muitas vezes tomamos decisões e clarificamos e somos claros sobre o que decidimos, mas quase sempre esquecemos de enunciar, de tornar claro e transparente aquilo a que renunciamos, e quais são os pressupostos e implicações das nossas decisões.

Por exemplo, vejo muitas empresas entusiasmadas com a aplicação das metodologias lean desenvolvidas na Toyota, mas poucas sabem que o Toyota Production System parte do pressuposto que o planeamento da produção está congelado 8 semanas para a frente?"

Na Wikipedia, sobre entimema pode ler-se:

"The first type of enthymeme is a truncated syllogism, or a syllogism with an unstated premise.

Here is an example of an enthymeme derived from a syllogism through truncation (shortening) of the syllogism:

"Socrates is mortal because he's human."

The complete formal syllogism would be the classic:

All humans are mortal. (major premise – unstated)

Socrates is human. (minor premise – stated)

Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (conclusion – stated)

While syllogisms lay out all of their premises and conclusion explicitly, these kinds of enthymemes keep at least one of the premises or the conclusion unstated."

Por que escrevo sobre isto? Por causa deste artigo de Roger Martin, "Segmentation & Strategy" onde se pode ler:

"Segments aren’t homogeneous. It isn’t as simple as ‘these are our customers’ and ‘those are yours.’ Instead, there are many shades. Your choices make your offering perfect for someone — portrayed as the black dot in both sides of the illustration above. The circle on the left is a view of the segment from above with the two axes connoting segmentation variables, and the right is a view from the side with the vertical axis connoting value in excess of the best competitive alternative — I think of it as an upside-down bowl sitting on a counter top. For the dot customer, its desires match perfectly with your offering. Because of that perfect match, that customer is at the very center of the circle on the left and at the very peak of the curve on the right.

Radiating out from that perfect customer are customers who value your offering ever less — they are farther from the center of the circle on the left and are farther down the upside-down bowl on the left. If a customer is located at the very edge of the circle on the left, it is indifferent between your offer and that of a competitor (or competitors). And they will be at the lip of the bowl on the right — for them, there is no value advantage of your offer over that of competition. Think about it in terms of heat. Customers in the center are intensely hot about your offer and as you radiate from the cetnter, they get ever cooler about your offer until they are completely indifferent. So, your market is defined by the size of the customer population within the circumference of your circle/to the lip of your bowl.

The bigger the circle/bowl, the more valuable your strategy. [Moi ici: É aqui que a palavra entimema começa a fazer-se sentir]

...

The more successful and valuable offerings have a shallow and lengthy drop-off from the perfect customer. The less valuable — even though highly valuable to the customers within their tiny circle — have a steep drop-off.

The steepness of the drop-off is what makes the difference between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs. Many unsuccessful entrepreneurs design an offering that is extremely valuable to the perfect customer — typically themselves — but the drop-off is so steep that their idea collapses, not because it didn’t create value, but because the steepness of the drop-off makes it impossible to make the economics work. Successful entrepreneurs design their offering in a way that appeals to a much broader audience.  [Moi ici: Quem são os clientes-alvo para o Roger Martin? PMEs? Não! As empresas com que Roger Martin trabalha são empresas grandes, empresas que precisam de volume e que não podem ser muito focadas num determinado tipo de cliente. Para uma PME a situação é completamente oposta]

The implication is that you need to design for your perfect customer but equally think carefully about the decline curve. If you obsess about the perfect customer and not about the shape of the value decline curve, you will be out of business." [Moi ici: Para PMEs o que interessa é a capacidade de gerar paixão assimétrica, a capacidade de falar para uma tribo de sangue. Sem isso, boa sorte a tentar subir na escala de valor e a conseguir aumentar preços para poder competir por recursos]

Nós não mandamos na cabeça das pessoas!!!

Há muitos anos, 2006, escrevi aqui no blogue este texto, "Mais um monumento à treta - parte II". O comentário que lhe acrescentei em 2011 descreve algo que fui encontrando ao longo do tempo em contactos com pessoas que trabalham no sector público, mas também em algumas que trabalham no sector privado. Em Abril do ano passado compilei alguns textos sobre o tema em Sem resultados pelos quais responder não há skin-in-the-game.

O tema é sobre a diferença entre trabalhar para resultados e trabalhar para executar actividades. Muita gente, muitas organizações comprometem-se em trabalhar para executar um conjunto de actividades. No entanto, as actividades não são um fim em si mesmo. As actividades são tarefas que executamos porque pretendemos chegar a um conjunto de resultados. O exemplo clássico aqui no blogue é o do texto de 2006 sobre a redução da violência doméstica. Periodicamente, elabora-se um plano nacional contra a violência doméstica, no qual se assume o compromisso de realizar um conjunto de actividades. Como é que se avalia o sucesso do plano? Pela taxa de execução das actividades, nunca pelos resultados alcançados. Quando pergunto qual o racional desta abordagem a resposta muitas vezes desarma-me: 

- Como nos podemos comprometer com resultados, nós não mandamos na cabeça das pessoas?

Imaginem os responsáveis comerciais, ou os vendedores das empresas privadas a responderem deste modo ao pedido por parte da gestão de topo para objectivos de vendas para o ano.

- Nós não mandamos na cabeça dos potenciais clientes, como nos podemos comprometer com resultados?

Porque volto ao tema? Há poucas semanas Roger Martin escreveu um texto sobre as variáveis dependentes e independentes nas organizações, Planeamento versus pensamento estratégico. 

A figura ilustra como as variáveis dependentes podem ser controladas e manipuladas pela gestão: Quantos trabalhadores? Que produtos produzir? Que fornecedores escolher? Em que mercados trabalhar? Quanto investir?

As variáveis independentes são, naturalmente, as variáveis que uma empresa não pode controlar. 

Será que os clientes vão comprar? Será que os clientes vão gostar do design? "Nós não mandamos na cabeça dos potenciais clientes"

Na semana passada ao ouvir um podcast de Lex Friedman com Steve Keen onde a certa altura se fala do sucesso económico chinês. Dei comigo a aplicar as ideias do texto de Roger Martin ao sucesso chinês e até ao sucesso soviético até aos anos 60.

Quando uma empresa adopta uma estratégia que não a do preço a dimensão da variável independente é enorme. A probabilidade, o risco do cliente rejeitar é enorme.

Já quando a estratégia assenta no preço mais baixo, desde que não se seja a formiga no piquenique, desde que seja aplicada por quem pode e não por quem quer, o risco é muito menor. Sabe-se, pode-se estimar que uma fracção do mercado optará pelo preço mais baixo independentemente do destino, da customization ou da inovação. Quando a estratégia assenta no preço mais baixo parece que tudo decorre como se o cliente não tivesse vontade própria, e se comportasse como mais uma variável dependente.

Enquanto a China apostar/apostou no preço mais baixo, a selecção prévia dos vencedores (picking winners) o risco dos investimentos feitos, associado ao efeito de escala criaram uma espécie de efeito em cadeia "lock-in" que tem/teve sucesso. Assim que se sai desse universo e se procura competir por serviço, design ou inovação as coisas complicam-se.

Planeamento versus pensamento estratégico

Uma boa reflexão de Roger Martin, mais uma. 

"We have things we control, which are called the independent variables. Because we control them, we can conduct experiments in which we vary the independent variables in an attempt to produce desired results on the dependent variable — the variable we don’t control.

...

Customers are the ultimate dependent variable. We don’t control them at all. They make their own decisions. We control all sorts of company assets — people, capital, physical assets, technologies, brands, patents, etc. They are the independent variables. We can utilize them to invest in initiatives of all sorts with the intention of influencing the dependent variable — customer behavior — in the way we want.

I believe that planners do not understand the difference between dependent and independent variables. As a consequence, they don’t think about how their initiatives in combination will compel customers to do the things they wish. Planners are not lacking intelligence. Their initiatives tend to be sensible — or laudable as I have described them. Planners work hard and spend the corporation’s resources at their disposal in an attempt to produce the outcomes they desire. But since they lack an understanding of how independent and dependent variables work, they assume that if they put together enough laudable initiatives, things will work out the way they hope.

...

Strategists, on the other hand, fully understand and appreciate that customers are the ultimate dependent variable. They know that only an artfully integrated set of choices has the chance of compelling customers to act in a fashion that is consistent with the strategist’s aspirations."

Trechos retirados de "How to Compel Customer Action"

"Expert opinion"

E termino a leitura de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin com:

“The scholar, of course, had an answer. Scholars always have an answer. To him, the greatness of an idea should be judged by a panel of experts who opine on whether the idea is “novel” and “technically brilliant.” However, in the business context, “well executed” means commercially successful. When I pointed out that there is no known correlation between expert opinion on novelty or technical brilliance and commercial success, he simply restated the proposition in a different way: “Creativity is the potential of an idea, and execution is the extent to which that potential is realized.” Of course, there was no definition of potential or how it would be measured in his response. I gave up trying any further.”

good strategy is ...

"All executives know that strategy is important. But almost all also find it scary because it forces them to confront a future they can only guess at. Worse, actually choosing a strategy entails making decisions that explicitly cut off possibilities and options. An executive may well fear that getting those decisions wrong will wreck his or her career.

...

important truth about planning: it is no substitute for strategy. Planning may be an excellent way to cope with fear of the unknown, but fear and discomfort are an essential part of strategy-making. In fact, if you are entirely comfortable with your strategic plan, there's a strong chance it isn't very good. ... You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: true strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

In this worldview, managers accept that good strategy is not the product of hours of careful research and modeling that lead to an inevitable and almost perfect conclusion. Instead, it's the result of a simple and quite rough-and-ready process of thinking through what it would take to achieve what you want and then assessing whether it's realistic to try. If executives adopt this definition, then maybe, just maybe, they can keep strategy where it should be: outside the comfort zone of planning."

Trechos retirados de "A New Way to Think" de Roger Martin.