Insights about enterprise architecture, ROI, Change Management, ERP apps, simplicity, agility & usability

What is competitiveness greatest enemy? Probably it is an organization that chooses to administrate what is instead of leading toward how it ought to be. The result of such behavior is predictable. You cannot improve your competitiveness by just doing the same things again and again.

Over 40 percent of the companies that were at the top of the Fortune 500 in year 2000 were no longer there in 2010. As well this statistics shows that the top businesses in the world are falling behind at an increasing rate! Why? Could there be any other reason than that they failed to be entrepreneurial and sharp their competitive edge?

The classic quote “everything that can be invented has been invented” is wrong, has always been wrong and will continue to be wrong. The world has never been as it always has been. In fact, you change, technology changes, the competition changes, opportunity changes, and the world changes. Everything changes.

Regarding changes and enterprise software; opportunity has increased in the last few years as wave after wave of disruptive technologies have swept across the IT landscape. Just try to imagine any business process that is not affected by social, mobile and cloud technologies as well as big data analytics and in-memory data processing.

The challenge of becoming more competitive is not about lack of opportunity, but making the right choices about where your industry and business is going. The goal of strategy is to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over rivals. Basically this can happen through a cost advantage or a differentiation advantage.

• A competitive cost advantage exists when a company is able to deliver the same benefits as competitors but at a lower cost.
• A competitive differentiation advantage exists when a company is able to deliver benefits that exceed those of competing products.

Competitive advantage is a force that enables your company to deliver superior value for its customers and superior results for yourself.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. And in doing that, why not agree already from the outset that developing competitive advantage is not a straight road with no bumps but a process in which different options are set against one another to achieve a better result.

When engaged leaders and colleges are discussing the company’s competitiveness and how to improve it, it happens that different opinions are expressed. This is not a bad thing. Because, if everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking. By bringing different perspectives into the conversation the frame of reference is broadened and the arguments are tried. A genuine business decision should be based on that different opinions are expressed – at least if it is going to have a chance to be the right choice and be effective.

The answer to the question of which way a company should choose is always a choice between alternatives that are based on different assumptions about the company and the outside world. The answer may pose a risk as it can lead to changes in company business model and behavior. A decision of this nature is too important to be taken with immediate acclamation. It should not be based on divergent opinions being suppressed, but be a fully analyzed and conscious choice between alternatives.

That disagreements become clear is healthy also in the long term. It is a major step towards an efficient management of the company. It enables the organization to collaborate better. Becoming aware of the differences of opinion makes it easier to understand each other’s reasoning, motives and actions. Hidden or only halfway clarified differences in terms of vision, goals, values, methods and processes underlie many of the problems that annoy and threaten to disrupt operations in different ways.

Another strong reason for bringing differences of opinion in daylight lies in that the question of what the company is and how it is portrayed can never have one and only one correct answer for all time. Technology development and the changing needs of customers, partners, employees and competitors constantly offer new business opportunities and challenges.

To continuously and correctly answering the question; how can we become more competitive? is the key to a rich and rewarding future. It is important, because your competitors can hardly be expected to just idle.

Anyone who stops being better stops being good. It is as plain, challenging and scary as if your competitors are thriving and getting better and you are not getting better, you are getting worse!

In the corporate world you may find yourself facing an elephant in the middle of the office. Having an elephant in the office is a metaphor for living with a huge issue. And that’s true whether you’ve seen the elephant or haven’t seen it.

Those who have seen the elephant, sometimes, somehow, manage to avoid it; showing how challenging the prospect of facing the world’s most dangerous mammal can be felt. Avoidance and denial becomes a way to escape from tackling the elephant.

But the elephant is huge. It fills the whole office and it stinks to high heaven. It’ll be difficult, if not impossible, to work effectively as long as it’s in the office.

How do you know there’s an elephant in the office? There are many symptoms of which the following are not uncommon:

• Leading managers are stuck in the mindset Inside-out rather than Outside-in. Customers and prospects are considered disturbing rather than nourishing.
• Complacency is everywhere. Improvement initiatives go on the backburner. Many managers acts as if their business processes are already perfected.
• Targets are set low. There is no effective quality assurance to separate food from filth. Sloppy work is considered good enough.

How do you get the elephant out of the office so you can move on with business? Clearly not by avoiding it, that’s for sure.

The ongoing political dynamics in the workplace makes it easier for employees to voice their opinion. Even so, many people prefer keeping quiet and go with the flow; thinking that is the best way to advance and win the political gaming that takes place at work. For others it’s a survival mechanism.

The dilemma with keeping quiet is that you allow others to define your voice and identity. Passivity contributes to fatten the elephant. What you do becomes a question of who you are or who you want to be? The only thing necessary for the elephant to triumph is that good people with integrity do nothing.

If you accept that an organization is made up of people, then you’ve to accept that people are necessary for getting the right things done. When people with integrity becomes aware of the elephant and its damaging effects on business, their wellbeing and career there are only two options: 1) Change employer or 2) Get rid of the elephant.

If you choose to get rid of the elephant and doing the ethically right thing does however not mean that you can just lead it out. You must prepare for resistance. Integrity in business isn’t for the fainthearted.

Those who placed the elephant in the office and fed it will hardly admit their guilt. To try hiding mistakes is a protective mechanism particularly strong among those who feed elephants.

The elephant supporters first line of defense is probably to ignore you. If that doesn’t work, they’ll will backbite their opponents. So don’t be surprised when they put degrading labels on your person and say things like: “It isn’t like that. He has vivid imagination. He leaves out essential facts. Don’t listen to him”.

Their lack of basis in reality and objectiveness may seem provocative. It’s nevertheless important not to let yourself be dragged down to their level of argumentation.

The key to eliminating the elephant is to accurately assess the situation without prejudice or bias. In its most fundamental sense, doing the right thing is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Hence, you first have to fully understand what the elephant is about:

• When analyzing the elephant it’s recommended to involve some colleagues both for verification and support. The guy who says “we can do this” always trumps the one who only sees difficulties. Pick allies that are reliable and action-oriented.

Shining a spotlight to create awareness is a powerful force to move beyond the limitations imposed by working with an elephant in the office. The key of getting rid of the elephant is to describe its essence in writing – that’s the “spotlight.”

You don’t get any points for being too subtle. Going too hard is not either recommended. Your report must shine – which means it should be interesting, understandable, logical and to the point. The more these criteria are met; the better chance to successfully eliminate the elephant.

*

Where does the elephant come from? It can come from many places, of which one is that a senior manager in the organization have forgotten why the company exists and what must be done to ensure its continued existence.

The business objective of most companies isn’t about internal meetings. An organization built around empty chatter and pushing papers instead of innovating and creating value for customer, employees and shareholders has lost its meaning.

What’s the best way to keep your office clean from elephants, stay competitive and grow? In my next blog post I’ll suggest what you can do within your organization to create and nourish a culture that again and again delivers growth, business results and successful customer outcomes.

Newton did not discover gravity simply by sitting under a tree when an apple fell on his head. He had since long time been preparing his mind for exactly this occasion. Everything worth doing, is worth doing poorly until you learn to do it well. When the right things are done well, we produce good results. A prerequisite for producing good results is to have knowledge of the matter in the form of facts, skills, understanding and familiarity.

Talent plays a role, undoubtedly, but it is a supporting role. No amount of native talent can prepare a knowledge worker for the infinite variety of circumstances she will face or the challenges she must surmount. No gene for resilience ensures that jewelry of wisdom will suddenly appear during challenging times. Neither talent nor genes can compensate for lack of experience. As Nietzsche said: “A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.”

At IBM – where I was educated in the beginning of my career – it is believed that developing business knowledge is 10% classroom instruction, 20% on-the-job coaching and networking and 70% experience. How do we learn from experience? As we can easily find examples where two people have the same experience but entirely different takeaways the answer is not straightforward.

Experience by itself guarantees nothing. For example, what is often mistaken for 20 years’ of experience is just 1 year’s experience repeated 20 times. That type of experience should be avoided as it could create such deep brain tracks it may become impossible to free yourself. But usually we learn from our experience. The factor that more than any other will determine how much we learn from study and work can be summarized in one word: motivation.

• Motivation means that we are focused in the moment and reflect on our experiences which significantly increase our capacity to organize and memorize experience. By then give voice to our experiences and share knowledge with others, we develop our own knowledge. By articulating what we learned, we enhance our knowledge.
• In the book “Talent is overrated” the reason for good performances is scrutinized and the conclusion is: practice, practice, practice. But not just any exercise. If you want to get really good at something your exercise can not be conducted aimlessly. It must be challenging and take place in a reasoned state of mind.

Where does motivation come from? When Einstein was faced with that question he equated motivation with curiosity and said that it has its own reasons to exist. I have seen many who passed IBM’s aptitude test for programming with flying colors but never performed well. To do well on tests does not help against indifference or laziness. During the recruitment of people in the beginning of their career, it is an uncertainty that must be accepted, you cannot know about peoples future interests.

The more experience a candidate has, the less reason to evaluate anything other than her actual level of capacity and match it to what it takes to fill the position. The probability that a person who has been a controller the first 20 years of work can become a good leader is microscopic. And there is not a long track record of people leaving professional sports to become a software developer.

There is an absolute logic in that “you must learn to crawl before you can walk.” Denying the facts and take an arrogant attitude to the fruits of experience is not being progressive. Newton’s gravity, Einstein’s theory of relativity… When you look forward by looking back it is clear that professionalism comes from building on what others have learned. Trying to reinvent the wheel is at best pointless.

For all wide-ranging theories of expert cultivation, everyone agrees that anyone who seeks to perform must have firsthand experience, have had their feet wet and their hands dirty from the field where they aspire to deliver results. Also failures are experiences. Of course you can learn from mistakes. Have you never made ​​a mistake; you have probably done too little! As Dr. Travis Bradberry put it, “Success is what happens after you’ve survived your mistakes.”

You can outsmart Jante by creating an internal compass, using certain experiences so that you can avoid unnecessary conflicts. Of course you should care, but not too much. All things are not equally important. Yet, it may still be tough for an experienced person to be eyed at the seams when applying for a new assignment. But that is not the problem. It is the solution for those who are qualified and for those who recruit for achieving good results.

We each view everything through our personal experience. It is this experience, integrated into our consciousness, which determines what we believe an objective event to be. If you see a great improvement capability but your experience is a limiting one, you will most likely see yourself as limited and view change as difficult and scary. If you, instead, are full of successful experiences, you are not only more of an expert but also better prepared to transform opportunity into advantage.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

Successful companies require managers that can lead with vision and good example. The ever changing business environment also calls for managers who can lead strategically, tactically and ethically. To do so, managers need to question their assumptions, step away from their comfort zones, gain fresh perspectives and stretch their boundaries to position their company for purposefull change.

You can try to fight the need for change. But you cannot fight it and win. Not even the most superior company is immune to change. No one is. It would therefore be extreme arrogance to be satisfied, sit back and expect competitors doing the same. There cannot be any business growth or sustainable profitability without change for better business performance. This reality puts pressure on every company to become more businesslike in their approach.

That was how far I came in my writings to give advice about today’s business priorities. It was my intention to make it more comprehensive. But instead of heading in that direction I became unsure if the word “businesslike” was right for describing the qualities managers need to keep their company successful. The reason for doubt is that I all too often have seen how the term is used as part of a jargon where its meaning is more or less lost.

My search for another term failed in that I could not find a combination of words that so briefly and clearly conveys what it is about. So I decided two things: 1) continue using businesslike to summarize my message and 2) use my next blog post to provide a more thorough explanation about its meaning. I hope you will find it interesting!