I have often heard managers refer to their job as “herding cats;” this is especially true in technical fields where much of the work requires individual efforts.

Scientists are probably the most difficult, since they often come from an environment where publish or perish is the mantra and egos are super-sized.

This was the difficulty that David Ferrucci faced when he set about building the team that created Watson for IBM. He not only had to herd cats he had to hire cats.

As most of the world knows, Ferrucci’s team was wildly successful and created a computer that won playing Jeopardy against its two top past champions and is moving on to far greater challenges.

He says, “In the end, the hero was the team, not any individual member or algorithm.”

What do the researchers think? This comment from one of them pretty much says it all, “Compared to the way we work now, it’s like we were standing still before.”

These scientists are all considered ‘stars’ in their respective fields, but none of them could do anything close to Watson on their own.

Nor could they have done it if their egos and desire for personal recognition had stayed their driving force.

“As for the members of the original Watson team, they’d tell you that never in a million years could they have imagined what we accomplished. Just like Watson itself, we all learned that the sum is much greater than the parts.”

Hiring and herding cats is the true talent of a great manager/leader and absolute proof that in today’s world the boss needs to be both.

And Watson is proof positive that the only stars worth having are the ones who join the team.

Flickr image credit: Bengt Nyman

IBM turns 100 this week, which is an impressive birthday for a person or a company, but it’s huge for a company that plays in the high tech world which counts years more like a dog does—seven to one. IBM not only plays, it wins.

It wins by constantly changing itself.

“Its ability to keep on re-inventing itself over the decades has been key to its survival.” –Bob Djurdjevic, of Annex Research

In the late 1980s IBM stumbled badly and over the next few years it became obvious that the stumble could be fatal.

IBM almost died because positive process had morphed into an ossified bureaucracy that was killing innovation.

In 1992, the recession and the company’s failure to keep up with its competitors resulted in a $5 billion loss, more than any U.S. company had ever experienced in a single year.

In 1995 Lou Gerstner was chosen to turn IBM around, but he didn’t focus on products, he focused on culture.

“Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization’s makeup and success—along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like… I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.”

Current IBM CEO Sam Palmisano is still focused on culture.

“I still come to work every day at a company with a unique ability to create — and continually recreate — a culture of innovation.”

The article is interesting, but Lou Gerstner’s book Who Said Elephants Can’t Dance is truly fascinating.

Pick up a copy if you believe in the importance of culture; read it if you don’t—I guarantee it will change your mind.

No person or company lives a century or more without a great culture—one that is strong enough to support the entity and flexible enough to grow and change as the world does.

Fickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Martin Luther King, Jr. was born yesterday and has a holiday in his honor tomorrow, so today seems like a good time so share some of his thoughts. In the abundance of available quotes I looked for those that had broader applicability than the worlds of politics and religion.

Corporate training, mentoring programs and management coaching should have the same goals as King recommends for education.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically… Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

There is a reason that IBM’s slogan is “Think;” that’s right, just that one word encapsulates its culture and everything it asks of its employees. IBM knows that critical thinking at all levels of the company is its true edge on the competition, as do many others. Sadly, more and more people seem to prefer pursuing silver bullets.

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

In a world where the various flavors of ideology encourage blind acceptance as opposed critical thinking, Kings words ring especially true.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

If you do choose to focus on building critical thinking within your organization it is to remember King’s belief regarding progress.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Finally, if you are responsible for another person’s growth, whether at work, at home or in the general world, print out this bit of wisdom and tape it where you will see it every day.

Lukewarm acceptance is more bewildering than outright rejection.

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Check out this goal for life

Image credit: sciengineer on YouTube

This is innovation week and today’s story is about a company that almost committed corporate suicide before changing its ways.

I’m talking about IBM.

If you’re old enough, or you like business history, you’ll remember how what started as one of the most innovative companies to ever exist turned inward, building up a stifling culture that dictated everything right down to the length of socks worn by its sales force.

The company trusted no, one including it’s own employees, and development was spread to different facilities so no one except a chosen few knew how product were developed or built.

IBM’s cultural turn around started with Lou Gerstner and has continued apace under current CEO Sam Palmisano.

In spite of the economy, IBM hasn’t cut its basic research staff numbering 2000 in the US and another 1000 around the world. It dwarfs Microsoft’s (1000) and leaves HP a distant third.

Its newest initiative is collaboration on a scale that’s never been seen.

I call it extreme innovation.

“IBM, meanwhile, is prowling the world to set up what it calls “collaboratories,” which match up its researchers with experts from governments, universities, and companies.” John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, says, “The world is our lab now.”

This is way beyond the open innovation other companies are doing “by making collaboration with outsiders an essential piece of its research strategy.”

Will it work? No one knows.

Is it a smart move? Yes, if your goal is to be a corporate leader decades from now.

Does it make sense?

The brain power to solve the world’s problems has no boundaries, transcending geography, race, religion and is gender neutral.

Is there a choice?

Image credit: hyku

Richard’s recent posts (here and here) questioned what happens to culture and people as assets during a tanking economy.

Is culture anything more than lip service? Glib words to throw around during an expansion, but hollow and valueless otherwise?

Yes—and no

Unfortunately, too many executives still see people as an expendable resource—interchangeable and replaceable.

But not all.

The companies with strong, innovative cultures where executive action supports an environment that challenges and encourages growth will come out of this stronger and miles ahead of their lip-synching competitors.

They also know that keeping their people motivated and as happy as possible is the only option if they want to keep their customers happy.

Think Apple, Nucor, IBM and dozens of others, large, medium and small, where the execs practice what they preach.

But no matter how authentic the culture, the economy happens and companies have to deal with it—and even the best may face layoffs.

The list of basic cultural IBBs prompted a phone call from a reader asking for more information on the dual career ladder. When we were done, he suggested that I put that information on the blog this week. Who am I to argue with a reader?

I’m not an historian, but I think that the need for the ladder was seen first in the technical world at least 40 years ago and although they may not have been the first, IBM and the original Bell Labs were two of the highest profile early adopters.

People work to improve their situation, but companies need only so many managers and only so many people want to manage. This is especially true in tech companies where many people are ill-suited to management roles, yet that was the only road to a raise.

So the two driving facts behind the dual ladder were

• a limited number of management positions—the number is still shrinking as corporate structures keep flattening; and
• recognition that not everyone is suited to management.

Enter the Dual Career Ladder; it’s simple, logical and most easily explained with this graphic

IBM Called their highest level Sr. Fellow, Bell Labs used Principal Engineer. Both positions were more than just an honor for which people strove, since they carried with them the same compensation and status as a director or vice president.

My caller asked why the model wasn’t in wider use if it was so effective.

That’s easy, ego and culture.

Accepting, for example, that a software architect is of equal value to the company as a vice president and should be compensated accordingly is hard to swallow. Few executives are comfortable with the idea that people who do hands-on work are as valuable to the organization as they are. This plays out at every level of management from team leader up.

And it’s not just in tech that this happens. I still remember when the top salesman in a certain industry had his commissioned cut because he had sold so much product that his earnings were more than the company president’s salary. That was deemed “unseemly” and so the decision to cut his commission. His reaction was what you would expect and he gave his notice less than a week later.

Because of that ego, the ladder needs to be deeply embedded in the company’s culture so it can be implemented fairly and evenly throughout the organization.

It’s the egos that prevent that from happening.

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Image credit: flickr; graphic courtesy of RampUp Solutions

I took last week off, but today I want to wrap up the final chapter in IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy)

Chapter Five is called Genuine, Not Just Generous and refers to “an emerging generation of socially minded customers, workers, partners, activists and investors” who are demanding—through their wallets and their feet—a new commitment and level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from companies.

It’s not an accident that three of the nine drivers that continually moved higher over the last three surveys are all part of CSR—socioeconomic factors, environmental issues and people skills—CSR reputation is critical to attract and retain scarce talent.

According to one electronics CEO, “Corporate identity and CSR will play an important role in differentiating a company in the future;” one consumer products CEO said “Consumers will increasingly make choices based on the sources of the products they buy, even the ingredients and processes used in making these products.”

But, like a leopard, these corporations are having problems changing their spots, “They’re very interested in new product and service opportunities for socially aware customers, however, transparency is not currently a top priority.”

Still, “CSR investments will grow by 25 percent, which is faster than the other trends…”

There are five key points to CSR

• “Understands CSR expectations;
• informs but does not overwhelm;
• starts with green;
• involves NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) as part of the solution;
• makes work part of making the world a better place.”

and five key questions you need to ask yourself

• “Do you understand your customers’ CSR expectations? How are you involving them in solutions?
• Do you know which NGOs your customers listen to and are you collaborating with those groups?
• Have you gained insights from current green initiatives that can be applied to your broader corporate social responsibility strategy?
• Are you offering employees the opportunity to personally make a difference?
• How do you ensure that actions taken throughout the enterprise — and the extended value chain — are consistent with your CSR values and stated policies?”

Finally, “The CEO s we spoke with are upbeat — not just about opportunities for their organizations (important as that is), but also about a bright future for business and society.”

Are you?

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Continuing the focus on disruptive innovation as discussed in chapter four  from IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy) begs the question as to what is being disrupted? What are companies really doing to drive financial performance?

The most common approach is “revenue model innovations, nine out of ten are reconfiguring the product, service and value mix. Half are working on new pricing structures.”

Changes include offering more services; moving to recurring charges (as opposed to one-time payments); bundling or unbundling depending on products and industry.

The major change in pricing is being driven by more knowledgeable customers who can tap into global choices. “More are starting to price based on value to the customer, rather than on cost plus.”

The truly disruptive innovation, i.e., industry model innovation, you may have been hoping for isn’t as likely.

“CEO s mentioned several reasons for not pursuing industry model innovation. But most can be summed up with: it’s tough to do. For similar reasons, industry model innovators are more focused on redefining their existing industries (73 percent) than on entering or creating entirely new ones (36 percent).”

Not surprisingly, it’s the outperformers that usually focus on industry model innovation—think Apple.

So, what can you do to embed innovation in your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) and strategic planning?

“Think like an outsider; draw breakthrough ideas from other industries; empower entrepreneurs; experiment creatively in the market, not just the lab; manage today’s business while experimenting with tomorrow’s model.” (See the details I the doc.)

And be sure that you can answer the following four questions with a resounding “Yes!”

1. Is a disruptive business model about to transform your industry? Is it more likely to come from you or your competitors?
2. Do you spend time thinking about where the next disruption will come from?
3. Are you watching other industries for concepts and business models that could transform your market?
4. Are you able to create space for entrepreneurs and innovative business models while continuing to drive performance today?

If you can’t, then start working on them today!

Is your MAP in tune with disruptive innovation?

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Post from Leadership Turn  Image credit: nookiez  CC license

Chapter four from IBM’s The Enterprise of the Future (a steady Saturday feature since July 12; be sure and download your free copy) is about extreme innovation, AKA, serious disruption.

Innovative products and services aren’t enough any more.

“As one U.S. CEO explained, “We’re starting to think about things we couldn’t do before.” With the Internet, businesses can now find niche markets for rare, surplus or highly specialized goods — a virtual “garage sale,” as it’s often called. Business processes, as well as some products and services, are becoming more virtual. New delivery channels and electronic methods of distribution are overturning traditional industry conventions. And these advances are not just changing the way individual companies work — they’re creating entirely new industries.”

So what exactly is happening? Is there a direction that the majority believe will work?

“Among those making extensive changes to their business models, enterprise model innovation is the dominant choice. Forty-four percent of CEO s are focused solely on enterprise model innovation or are implementing it in combination with other forms of business model innovation. This trend toward enterprise model innovation is even more pronounced in emerging economies (53 percent).”

What does ‘enterprise model innovation’ mean? It refers to the challenge of offering your customers something truly different all by yourself—a business model that is fast dying in a world of speedy global connections, sophisticated, interconnected consumers and breathtaking speed of change.

“While 38 percent of CEO s plan to keep work within their organizations, 71 percent — nearly twice as many — plan to focus on collaboration and partnerships.“

And the most important point, as pointed out by one Australian CEO, “It’s about deciding when to collaborate, whom to involve, how to lessen the destructive force of competition.”

More on this next Saturday.

Is your company involved in enterprise model innovation?

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