A week ago I brought IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future to your attention and said I’d be discussing it in the future, but there’s so much material in the three studies that I decided to make it a Saturday staple for awhile.
Additionally, if you or someone you know, would like to provide a guest post based on or related to any of the three IBM studies (CEO, CFO and HR) I would love to have them.
The first is that to be a powerhouse, no matter your size, you must be “hungry for change,” not scared, tolerant or even willing, but hungry for it.
You must see “change within the organization as a permanent state” and build your culture accordingly.
According to Masao Yamazaki, President and CEO, West Japan Railway Company, “The key to successful transformation is changing our mind-set…it is easy to be complacent…company culture must have a built-in change mechanism.”
While corporate culture is the reason that “employees are comfortable with unpredictability. In an environment in which products, markets, operations and business models are always in flux, values and goals provide alignment and cohesion,”it’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that provides the underpinnings for it all.
And it’s not just organizational change that’s moving so quickly, but positions, including CXOs, are, too.
In an insightful article in MIS Asia, Chris Potts says, “In less than five years’ time, the CIO role, according to CIOs themselves, is destined to become either an executive leader of business change or absorbed into another role,” and walks you through the reasoning and the changes that need to happen.
“There is a pressing need for integrated leadership of business and technology change. With enterprise architecture and investment portfolio management, CIOs have the two strategic tools onto which that leadership depends. The CIO’s cultural challenge is to explain that these tools are primarily about people and collaboration, not technology.”
Change requires talent and a paucity of talent was rated as the greatest barrier to growth, more so than even regulatory and budgetary considerations.
Moreover, the kind of talent needed has changed radically from the descriptions so often heard as has the ways to remunerate them. Now, it’s “people who question assumptions and suggest radical, and what some might initially consider impractical, alternatives” with the potential for “differentiated rewards, such as a stake in the business they helped create.”
Managing this kind of talent takes more than good people skills or charisma, it requires MAP that’s secure and willing to hire people smarter than itself, share a vision of the needed results, turn them loose and trust them to accomplish it.
IBM has surveyed 1,130 CEOs who are collectively responsible for 2.224 trillion dollars of revenue.
The 2008 study uses their “collective insights and wisdom” to formulate what IBM calls “The Enterprise of the Future”—an enterprise that encompasses these traits
hungry for change;
innovative beyond customer imagination;
globally integrated;
disruptive by nature;
genuine, not just generous.
“This Global CEO Study report presents findings related to each of the attributes of the Enterprise of the Future. It draws on the rich insights from our CEO s through statistical and financial analyses as well as the voices of the CEO s themselves. Each chapter concludes with some implications and thoughts about how organizations can move forward toward becoming an Enterprise of the Future and a case study to illustrate a leading company.”
Additionally, there are two other reports available, the IBM Global CFO Study and the IBM Global Human Capital Study.
No matter the size of your company, they’re worth downloading (free registration required) and reading. There’s plenty of food for discussion and I plan to refer to them on and off over the next few weeks.
CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts. Read the first half of this post here and all of his posts here.
Now, these are kids that don’t want to go to school in the first place. Giving a lecture about school is boring to them. It is not the way to reach out to them. Instead of a Powerpoint presentation, I have some demonstrations. I have a table full of equipment. I show them several things, and then ask them questions about what they think will happen. I force feedback. They are not just going to sit passively.
Then I say that the mathematics shows that certain things will happen. Lo and behold, what happens is what the math says will happen! I pick some of the more showy demonstrations—things that I remember from decades ago, and things that my students still find exciting. Then I show a couple of 30 second videos, such as the famous Tocoma Narrows bridge collapse (after showing a demonstration of a similar phenomenon). I explain how each phenomenon relates to everyday life.
The kids wake up. I get started only three minutes before they are supposed to leave. The secretary asks the person in charge if I need to stop since it is time for them to go. He decides that the bus can wait. This is important. Finally, someone is engaging the kids.
When I am done I caution the kids that this is all fun and it was what got me interested in the field. But that if they want to study science and engineering they need to STUDY in high school. They need to take the tough science and math classes even if they don’t want to. They won’t make it in college if they are not ready to come here.
I don’t think anyone else told them that. But it is wrong to lead them on to make them think that all they need to do is enroll in college to get a college degree. Too many slackers in high school come to us with the same mind set. They don’t make it. And, I think that too many people let them think that they can get away with it.
Where I live, as well as in other states, there is a move to get more students to go to college, particularly the “at risk” students. They try to get more of the students who had no plans on college to go to college. BUT there is not much plan on what to do with them once they get here. The state is moving towards “performance based funding.”But performance is not defined as teaching. Performance is not defined by how well students are prepared for the workforce. Performance is defined by the number of students coming to college from under represented demographics. Performance is defined by how many students complete classes and get degrees. Performance is not defined by the quality of those degrees.
This tends to put us in a bind. They want more at risk students, most of whom are not prepared to go to college, to be accepted. And they want those students to graduate. So, come colleges drop standards. They water down courses. They put pressure on faculty to pass students no matter how poorly they perform.
Already, the beginnings of this movement have had their effects. Degrees are weakening. And many American educated students are having difficulties competing in graduate school with foreign educated students. At my institution, academic standards are still being held high. But, if our funding is eventually tied to how many students finish, those standards will have to drop. If standards drop all over the country, then what will a college degree mean?
We’ve seen this before. The states took a look at pre-college education, and they saw that not enough students were completing high school. Too many students failed classes. They began tying teacher pay to the number of students who passed. So students began passing even if they had not learned. Any teacher that added work to students to make them learn more was disciplined.
In the city where I live, the local suburban school district had a case of a mathematics teacher who was noted for being far tougher than other teachers. The parents of the students in this teacher’s class complained that their kids were working too hard. The teacher gave far too much homework. Too many of her students did not pass. Eventually she was fired.
Then word then came out that her students scored FAR higher on the state assessment tests and the SAT than other students in the district. But that did not matter. Learning and scores on those tests are not performance measures.
Sometimes, I get very discouraged at the direction that education is heading. But it is important to keep going.
Someone needs to hold to standards, and that is what an effective leader does. You hold the standards even if it is unpopular.
It’s not that I’m a big lover of laws and regulations, but they’re necessary these days, since it seems to take the fear of jail to affect the myopia of executives and Boards.
The games played, messes created and the just plain malfeasance done by executives, whether backed or ignored by Directors, have a global reach beyond anything that could be imagined just a few short years ago.
Sarbox has been reviled by corporations since its inception and every effort has been made to water it down, but it still has the very real effect of making execs and directors far more aware and cautious, since their own skin is at risk.
One result is carbox, a far more careful look at the company’s carbon footprint.
“Sarbanes-Oxley, or Sarbox, requires companies to disclose any business risks facing the company to investors in public filings… “Sarbanes is a lens through which management and boards should view climate risk,” said Bob O’Connor, a partner with Palo Alto, Calif.-based law firm Wilson Sonsini and member of the firm’s Carbon Counseling Practice. “In viewing climate risk, management and boards must be governed by the standards that Sarbanes establishes with respect to transparency and accountability.””
The problem with Sarbox and other rules and laws is that they are only passed when there is a very loud public outcry; they are created and passed in outrage.
They pass because they’re designed and brought to vote when emotions are hot—too hot for lobbyists or partisan politics to overcome.
Careful, considered legislation is less likely to pass as is; rather it’s a watered down version acceptable to foes, but falling short of what’s needed that becomes law.
What do you think? Is there any way to change “business as usual?”
In April I received an email with “Greetings from b2logs.com” as the subject.
“My name is Ram Sharma, high school student and Founder of b2logs.com. b2logs is a website featuring the best business news feeds from all around the world, b2logs also hosts a one of a kind blog informing the world of the latest in business news.”
He went on to say that he’d found the content informative and was featuring Leadership Turn on his site.
Nice, but what truly impressed me was the clarity and skill of his writing. So I wrote him back, participated in his prelaunch feedback contest (they gave away an Ipod Touch) and then requested an interview with him.
Background: Ram is a 16 year old entrepreneur from Canada. He’s a junior in high school, has founded two companies, Karma Design Studio and most recently, B2 Business Network. As you might guess, Ram is competitive by nature and competes in many business competitions. Most recently, he represented Canada at the International DECA conference in Atlanta, Georgia. He also volunteers with IMPACT Entrepreneurship Group, a non-profit organization hosting entrepreneurship week in Canada. You may contact Ram through either of his companies.
In my phone conversations with Ram I found no hint of the entitlement mentality so common today. I found Ram to be thoughtful, verbally fluent and downright charming. Ram represents the best of what’s coming down the line.
I sent Ram these interview questions and the responses are exactly as he sent them.
Who are the founders of b2logs (names, ages, a bit of background)
The founders of b2logs.com are myself, Ram Sharma and my partner, Zan Zhang, both 16 year-old senior high school students.
I am one of Canada’s youngest entrepreneurs; I founded my own website design and development firm, Karma Design Studio.com last year. I am also a technology enthusiast, political debater, and avid volunteer. Furthermore, I am part of many organizations such as Impact, FIRST Robotics, and DECA. In high school, I am a dedicated student and part of the International Business and Technology Program at Gordon Graydon Memorial. I am also the President and CEO of B2 Business network, parent company of b2logs.com.
My partner, Zan Zhang is an enthusiastic student in the same program and high school. He has many talents and hobbies ranging from chess, piano, and robotics, to volleyball, investing and DECA. Zan Zhang is the Marketing Director of b2logs.com and lead author of b2 gurus.
What got you interested in doing a business oriented blog/site as opposed to something else (sports, etc.)?
The idea of b2logs.com started when my partner and I were looking for an easy way to organize our business news feeds without using traditional RSS feed readers. Focusing on only business news feeds allowed us to create something that interests us, plus no one really simplified “business news” for the average Internet user.
What difficulties have you had to deal with in moving your project forward?
My team encountered a few problems. Since I am the main developer, I had to handle layout and browser compatibility issues. Also, while developing the project I had to look into features which allowed my website to stand out and finding the right features was a bit tricky. Plus, we had to juggle this project with many others.
What do your parents/teachers/peers think of b2logs?
Overall, the response was positive, many people found this website useful and easy to use. During the PreLaunch process I received great suggestions that made the website even better. But, I still have to continue to improve the website and make it the best business news network on the web. My parents are especially proud the work that I accomplished.
Do you have any mentors? What have you learned from them?
My personal mentor is my father, Raghu Sharma. He is also a technology enthusiast in the web domain industry. There have been many lessons I have learned from him. In this case, the most important lesson I learned was how to create a website that kept bringing people back. This lesson helped me focus on the “sticky” features of my websites and allowed me to keep the most important people in mind at all times, the user.
What’s the best advice you have ever received and how has it worked for you?
Both my partner and I have learned to always question ourselves in order to find ways to improve and although planning is essential, it is all about the execution. Most of the time this piece of advice would be very helpful because I have very intricate plans and ideas that never get put into action. I believe there is a level of fear when one does something new, but when I overcome this fear the exhilarating adventures begin.
What’s YOUR best advice to others?
Here is what my partner has to say and I think it is what I would say to others: “My best advice is to all the young people out there. If you think you are busy now, and that you will hold off your plans until later, YOU ARE WRONG. I always thought I was too young to do anything, not enough experience, insufficient responsibility, yada yada, but a friend pointed out how busy I would be when I have a mortgage, kids, a job, grandkids… So don’t procrastinate and follow your dream”
What are each of your career plans?
I would like to go into engineering with a background in business and in the future I would like to continue building tech-based companies.
Zan’s career plan is to go into finance, perhaps getting a degree in accounting or a CFA or a business degree, and eventually one day run a hedge fund.
Do you think that Ram and Zan are representative of today’s youth or exceptional?
James Heskett is a Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus at Harvard Business School and posts some of the most intriguing research questions I see at HBS Working Knowledge (FREE registration).
“According to Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, though it is the subconscious level that really determines behavior.
Online forum OPEN for comment until June 26. Jim Heskett asks: What is your organization—and what are you—doing to bring more deep thinking into work and life?”
I hope you’ll take a moment and share your thoughts both here and at WK.
By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.
Most employees of larger corporations would agree that the majority of the persons they see being moved upward are not leaders.
In many cases, they aren’t even very good managers. They just happen to be willing to stay around and put up with more #*&@ than other people around them.
Is that too harsh? I speak not just from all the research I did into “Alpha” companies for my book, The Alpha Factor, but also from personal experience working for one Fortune 100 and one Fortune 500 company. In most cases, the best (who stick around) eventually do filter to the top, but I have often questioned the process larger companies follow that allows restrictive, managerial personalities to rise so high in the ranks where they can negatively affect so many other people by their focus upon managing more than leading, nurturing, or inspiring.
The result is most often that all the entrepreneurial personalities drift out into the marketplace, when most of them would much rather have been able to practice their innovative thinking within the structure and using the resources of a larger organization.
Yesterday’s NYT Bits wondered who is the smarter of two Harvard dropouts, Bill Gates of Microsoft or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Neither bothered attending class, but Gates caught up “in a single intense burst during a separate reading period at the end of the term.”
Zuckerberg was to busy with Facebook to even do that. “So in an inspired last-minute save, he built a Web site with all of the important paintings and room for annotation. He then sent an e-mail to the students taking the class offering it up as a community resource. In a half an hour, the perfect study guide had self-assembled on the Web.”
Sorry, what Zuckerberg may not have been de facto cheating, but I certainly wouldn’t term it ethical. At lease Gates did the reading himself.
These two men, and other’s like them, are the role models for today’s students. I know, most people think it’s no big deal and a lot of them are very impressed.
I’m not.
No matter how successful they’ve become, they’re attitudes seem to belittle school, essentially saying that it’s OK to not do the schoolwork and pass in any manner you can.
Great examples to set for our future business leaders.
As to the media hype regarding entrepreneurs who start businesses in their dorm rooms, sure, there are a few that make it big. But the great majority of companies are started by seasoned business people and the most successful have advanced degrees.
Am I just a dinosaur, out of touch with acceptable behavior? What do you think?
I have gas pains, you have gas pains and so we rant.
Rants don’t alleviate gas pain, but they do relieve pressure.
We rant about crude prices and the mean oil producing countries that are more concerned with their own internal economy than with being nice and increasing production.
We rant about the oil companies and accuse them of manipulating prices.
‘The alkylate shortage has become the most important driver of summer gas prices, said Doug Leggate, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets. “Supply of [alkylate] will set the price of summer gasoline – not inventory levels.”
What’s alkylate I hear (most) of you ask.
“…a little-known and expensive gasoline additive that some in the industry are calling “liquid gold.” It has become a must-have ingredient since refiners stopped using MTBE two years ago…”
Where does it come from?
“Oil companies deny they are purposely limiting production of alkylate, which like gasoline, jet fuel, and asphalt is a byproduct of the refining process. But only recently have some started studying how they can boost output… “
Of course the effort is recent, planning ahead, AKA, strategic thinking, goes against accepted business practice.
Should the oil companies have seen this coming?
Be sure to check out another other Fun Friday post at Talk Stock Trading
To whom do you listen to when you want to innovate? Early adaptors? Hard-core users? Core market segment?
If you do you may miss out.
Last year I wrote two posts on the error of assumptions in innovation (here and here) focusing on a diverse set of examples.
In all cases the products succeeded because they were fun (Nintendo and Shimano)—they even captured unexpected markets (Toyota’s Scion and Honda’s Element).
Fun as an innovation tool is vastly underrated.
The problem is that experts are people with excessive knowledge and/or rabid interest in the subject, so why in the world would you assume that the general public will respond as they do.
Shimano revitalized the bicycle industry by building an automatic transmission that made riding fun for people of all ages.
“The company was shocked to realize its efforts at making newer, more high-performance bikes weren’t winning over new riders. We come to find out these people not only don’t want high performance, they don’t even care about it.”
Nintendo scored big with games that are fun for the rest of us and will likely score even bigger with the new Wii Fit.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
A week ago I brought IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future to your attention and said I’d be discussing it in the future, but there’s so much material in the three studies that I decided to make it a Saturday staple for awhile.
The games played, messes created and the just plain malfeasance done by executives, whether backed or ignored by Directors, have a global reach beyond anything that could be imagined just a few short years ago.
“According to Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman, nearly all research techniques commonly used today probe humans only at their conscious level, though it is the subconscious level that really determines behavior.
In many cases, they aren’t even very good managers. They just happen to be willing to stay around and put up with more #*&@ than other people around them.
Yesterday’s 
I have gas pains, you have gas pains and so we rant.
Fun as an innovation tool is vastly underrated.
