Tag Archives: knowledge worker

Knowledge Work is More than You Know

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Contribution, Customer Experience, Management

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The_Thinker_Musee_Rodin

Think about service businesses for a moment—especially businesses like hotels, restaurants, hair salons, and retail shops. If you peel back current fashions, modern conveniences, chains and franchises, and the cornucopia of offerings, these businesses exist much as they did in the 18th century. Merchants, hoteliers, and shopkeepers operate business models that are hundreds of years old and have very low barriers to entry compared to, say, rocket science.

In these pages, one thing you’ll learn is that service can set one business apart from another.

What’s more, knowledge sets one business apart from another—or even above the rest. Knowledge is such a powerful factor that when applied properly it actually transforms 18th century trades into 21st century businesses. Knowledge in the form of business management, human behavior, art, fashion, customer experience, sales, computer science, technical education, and so on carries with it the potential to separate your business from the millions of “entrepreneurs” who’ve gone before—and who are still out there, just opening and closing each day while conducting transactions in between.

Every day I encounter businesses—many of them national brands—that miss their opportunities to put knowledge to work for the benefit of their customers and the benefit of their own organizations. Think back on situations you’ve encountered:

  • Hotels where the receptionist asks you, “Is this your first stay with us?”
  • Coffee shops or counter-service restaurant employees who call out, “Next person in line.”
  • Hair salons who ask, “Who are you here to see?”
  • Dentists and doctors whose receptionists who say, “Just sign in and take a seat.”

Each of these, and many more, have the option to choose knowledge work over low-level, menial, dead-end jobs—and they don’t need to change careers to do it. When Peter Drucker coined the term Knowledge Worker in the late 1950s it came, rightfully, to mean people who deal primarily with knowledge like accountants, lawyers, engineers, and others.

By accepting Mr. Drucker’s famous challenge to search for the unused potential in every job, even a low level clerk can transform her work as a hotel receptionist into knowledge work by learning that people prefer to be looked in the eye, recognized, and greeted with a smile. See? It’s not rocket science.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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The Three Most Important Management Tools

20 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in Customers, Management, Shared values

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George Zimmer, Men's Warehouse, Lucavia Consulting

Have you played the game where you ask your friends, “If you could only have three ‘albums’ on a desert island what would they be?” We’re so used to having nearly unlimited variety that narrowing down our favorite music, is a strange mixture of fun and irritation. (Today’s answer: Bob Dylan, Biograph; Jovanotti, L’Albero; and The Beatles, Beatles VI.)

With business news all around us everyday, I think it would also be fun, and instructive, to think, “Out of all the management practices we know, which three are the most fundamental?” Of course, there’s probably no single right answer but I’ll argue for these:

  • Know your purpose.
  • Know vision.
  • Constantly communicate these to your customers, team, and partners.

Reading the news about George Zimmer leaving Men’s Warehouse didn’t seem very interesting at first glance. I’m not a customer and their easily recognizable ad campaign (“I guarantee it”) didn’t move me. Their stock is near its 52-week high, revenue and net income are up, and even the category is coming out of its slump. So what’s up? The speculation is that Zimmer, 64, had a tough time letting go of power after relinquishing his role as CEO in 2011.

Then I read this, “Over the last 40 years, I have built Men’s Warehouse into…a company with amazing employees and loyal customers who value the products and services they receive…” Zimmer was noted for his colorful personality and his progressive values, e.g., putting Deepak Chopra on the Board, backing recreational marijuana use, and refusing to do background checks on employees stating, “Everyone deserves a second chance.”

With these clear indications of Zimmer’s impact on company culture, it’s incumbent on the Board to get past the veneer of how to update their advertising campaign and get to: What does this key personnel change mean for our purpose, our vision, and how we communicate these to our customers, team, and partners?

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Change, Change Management

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Concentrating effort, Effectiveness, Management, Shared values

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Change management, Management, Shared Values, Knowledge Worker, Lucavia Consulting

In my experience, change management is too often code for designing “sales plans” to convince workers to go along with something management wants to do with little or no input. In many articles you’ll find advice on change management boiling down to a few useful points—if they’re used to help deploy the change, not to conceive of it. 1) Plan it 2) Communicate it, 3) Manage it, 4) Create a website, 5) Host local town halls/workshops/etc.

Referring to Peter F. Drucker, let’s take as given that it’s management’s job to, “…Plan, set objectives and think through priorities;…think through assignments and set standards…and above all take responsibility for its own work and performance.” (One’s management style may be very high in emotional I.Q. or very autocratic, but at the end of the day management must do its job.) Then, let’s accept that, “…In all these areas the worker himself, from the beginning, needs to be integrated as a ‘resource’ into the planning process.” (We know that knowledge workers tend to be highly motivated experts who derive great satisfaction in making a difference—and it turns out they don’t take direction particularly well.)

Looking at a potential change from this perspective we see how management is able to do its work in a way that doesn’t require intense selling because workers are involved from the beginning. By organizing responsibility, instead of relying on authority, management gets the worker involved in a way that promotes shared vision and shared responsibility based on the values of the organization. Then, when it’s time to implement, plans can devolve into work, much faster with greater concentration of effort.

In other words, like any good product or service, it kind of sells itself.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Because I Said So!

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Management

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Responsibility

It’s likely that every manager has had many of those days where she can barely suppress raising her voice to say, “Because I said so!” Human beings are often baffled by how other human beings behave in situations that, to them, seem like such no-brainers. “Of course you would go the extra mile to make the customer happy.” “There’s no reason not to treat our suppliers with respect.” “I can’t even imagine not returning an email within 24 hours.” The list is endless and leaves managers tempted to think, “What do I have to do to motivate my people to do a good job?”

But is motivation even the point?

We confuse our duty to manage for results with motivating others. If you don’t realize only others can motivate themselves, and if your company doesn’t always create an environment where people can engage in meaningful work and use their talents, and if you don’t remind yourself that your job is to create results; then no wonder you think you need to motivate others in order to, “Get them to do what I want.”

The secret to achieving high levels of performance is to make workers responsible for their work and their results.

Once you’ve established your company’s purpose and vision, communicated your values, recruited talent whose strengths are suited to your team, designed meaningful jobs and measurements, established a track record for rewarding accomplishment, and set the priorities, you’ve taken responsibility for your role as a manager. If you haven’t performed these duties now would be a great time to start.

When one of your workers isn’t performing, the cause is much more likely to be a lack of responsibility for results than a lack of motivation.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Don’t #@!% the Customer

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Shared values

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Atlassian

Hanging from the ceiling, like world championship banners, are five giant statements of the Atlassian company values. In an earlier post I explained how talking about values improves company culture and competitiveness. It looks like Atlassian might tell you the same thing. Jim Collins, in Good To Great, claimed you don’t need perfect values—you just need values—and that alone is enough to make a difference. Imagine the tone that is set everyday when an employee walks into their office and sees this:

  • Open Company, No Bullshit
  • Build with Heart and Balance
  • Don’t #@!% the Customer
  • Play, as a Team [note the comma!]
  • Be the Change You Seek.

That’s pretty clear and powerful stuff when it comes to explaining the accepted rules of conduct at Atlassian to anyone who works there.

Drucker believed a huge percentage of knowledge workers should be managed as if they were volunteers. Not only did he recognize that volunteers do what they do for meaning, control, achievement, etc., but he also saw that today’s workers are well educated, mobile, and carry with them their own means of production—in other words, they can work anywhere they want. He also argued persuasively that knowledge workers, and organizations, excel when the workers themselves seek responsibility for their own work and it’s impact on the whole.

So, if your workforce consists of highly educated, intelligent, super-mobile people who crave responsibility, you’re off to a fantastic start.

Now it’s your job to build the organization’s values, and constantly reaffirm them, so your people know how to excel within your culture and to learn explicitly why they were attracted to you in the first place.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Culture Clash

16 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by in Shared values

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Put your hands in

When was the last phone call, or face-to-face, with your manager where company culture, common purpose, or company values came up in conversation? How about during your last performance review—or business check point meeting? Maybe the topics came up at your annual planning meeting, offsite, or celebration.

People are every company’s greatest asset. Great companies routinely acknowledge they owe their success to their talented people. Clearly, most knowledge workers are high achieving, smart, motivated, experts who know what to do and how to do it. In an earlier post I discussed why the carrot and stick are no longer effective. All too often I hear how employees feel micro-managed or intimidated by their managers as if fear were some kind of virtuous, effective management principle.

In the 2012 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement survey 95% of respondents (figure 10) said communication with Senior Management is Important or Very Important. It is virtually self-evident that the type of communication they are referring to is not function specific. What knowledge workers need to hear from their management is:

  • Why do we exist?
  • What do we believe in?
  • Why is the world a better place because of our work?
  • What will it look like when we achieve our goals?
  • How are we performing compared to customer expectations and the competition?
  • Which innovations must we achieve to ensure our future success?
  • Why can I believe in our leadership team?

Every company has a culture whether they plan it or not. Some are toxic. Most are average. And some, maybe yours, can be exceptional if they make a healthy achieving culture a priority and put their plans to achieve it into action.

You can make your company culture a competitive advantage. Don’t leave it to chance.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Can Innovation Be Scheduled?

15 Saturday Jun 2013

Posted by in Innovation

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innovations

In my post about entrepreneurs, I mentioned how they don’t just create something better they create something different. Creating something new and different is innovation. Many might think that most innovations come from a spark of insight or a flash of brilliance (which no doubt they do—as well as repurposed mistakes). But, what we may not understand is that you, I, and entire companies can approach innovation systematically.

  • The first requirement is that people be measured and rewarded to encourage them to value change—not resist it.
  • Second, management must understand how much innovation will be required to sustain the business over a given period—as well as how many of their current products/services will be obsoleted in the same timeframe.
  • Next, a systematic evaluation of the changes in trends, customers, and the environment must be undertaken.
  • At the same time it is imperative that company’s performance as an innovator be measured and that rewards, relationships, job assignments, structural changes, etc. be adjusted accordingly.
  • Innovations should lead to customers being better served or allow them to do something they were previously unable to do.

More important than this abbreviated list for creating systematic innovation is the fact that once an idea is identified, people need to go to work. The old adage that (art, genius, success) is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration certainly applies.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Reverse Showrooming

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Customers, Innovation

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myrunway-logo-icon

There are endless communities of people who gather on line and in person to exchange ideas and socialize. One of the most popular ways to participate in these communities is through meetup.com. I recently attended a meetup held in Palo Alto at SAP, hosted by First Thursday Silicon Valley Marketing Professionals. In my experience, nowadays the word “marketing” usually refers to ways of using the Internet to get customers to engage with brands—in other words, promotion and sales. Be that as it may, and completely by surprise, I learned about an intriguing new SAP social app called My Runway that evening. Rather than a product review, I’m taking a look at SAP’s My Runway from the point of view of innovation.

In an earlier post, I discussed how entrepreneurs don’t innovate by just creating something better; they create something different. My Runway is hardly alone in the space serving up social fashion apps. Nonetheless, these apps are doing something very innovative, they’re turning the tables on the trend toward showrooming. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve showroomed at least once, that is, you went into a bricks-and-mortar business to see, touch, or try on a product that you ended up purchasing on line. My Runway turns this behavior upside down by letting its community follow, fav, and wishlist products from their favorite brands and direct them locally to where in-store purchases can be made at the moment.

By taking responsibility for their customers’ total experience SAP, well known for backend ERP software, gained a valuable insight. Had they concentrated solely on the past, SAP would never have looked at ways to help their customers’ customers on the frontend. Instead, with My Runway, they not only help their customers build great products, they help them sell-through to an engaged online community.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

What Entrepreneurs Do

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Innovation, Management

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Containers

Most start up and small business people call themselves entrepreneurs. But how many understand the term and the power it unleashes?

In 1803 French economist, J. B. Say, coined the term entrepreneur, “The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” In 1986 Peter Drucker formulated this theory. First, entrepreneurship sees change as normal and healthy. Second, it does something different than what is already being done. Notice it’s not just about doing something better but doing something different.

By this measure, entrepreneurs make up a minority of new businesses and those who are entrepreneurs understand what is expected of them: To create something different.

Popular culture expects this something to be a visible object, like an iPod, for example. But it can easily be argued the iPod is the direct descendant of Sony’s true innovation the “pocket-able radio.” What was really different about the iPod was iTunes—that’s what completely disrupted the music distribution business. Similarly, forgive us for thinking that Facebook created a breakthrough in the way people engage in relationships. In fact, what they’re doing is turning their users into the product they sell to their real customers: Advertisers.

Entrepreneurs often innovate in unseen ways. They standardize a product, systematize a process, redefine what the customer considers value, change a procedure, recombine things, improve the yield from resources, or change the way resources are used. One of my favorite innovations, cited by Drucker, was the establishment of the entrepreneurial bank by Crédit Mobilier. They were the first to use other people’s money to finance large projects rather than using their own.

So, if you’re starting a new company I hope you do well. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you’d do well to understand what’s expected.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved

Two Lessons for Every Entrepreneur

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by in Customers, Innovation, Management

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Bassett Ears

In the 1700’s Edmund Burke said something you’ve heard many times, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” In my opinion, much of the business press exists to exploit the fact that we learn important lessons—and then quickly forget them. Much is known about management, entrepreneurism, innovation, etc. but we somehow forget in our pursuit of the latest meme or in our rush to be busy instead of creating results.

In the 1800’s J.B. Say defined the entrepreneur as “…Shifting economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” Starting in 1939, over seven decades, Peter F. Drucker became the most influential management writer and thinker of all time as he codified the practice of management in over 30 books. And yet, we have an insatiable appetite for relearning what we already know.

In my local Sunday paper two articles caught my eye. One quoted Paul Santinelli of North Bridge Venture Partners. When asked the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make he answered, “…I was always enamored with what we were building…Had I listened to our VP of sales and realized, ‘Hey, the market doesn’t want X, they want Y and are willing to pay for it,’ I might have been able to move faster to a more acceptable solution.” In the other article, Curtis Carlson CEO of SRI, a company well known for sustained innovation, says he, “…Preaches, literally to every SRI employee [that]…each researcher must be able to explain the need s/he is trying to fill, why a new method would be better than what’s already available, and what benefit the new idea would bring to a potential customer.”

So, no matter where or when you learn it the two top lessons for entrepreneurs are:

  • Listen to your customers.
  • Discover what they need.

Jim

Lucavìa
gojimlucas@lucavia.com
lucavia.com
(925) 980-7871

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© Copyright Jim Lucas 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved