Avainsana: Change

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Mullainathan & Shafir: Scarity

Kirjasta

Kirja oli pitkään kiehtonut minua, koska aihe on meidän yltäkylläisessä länsimaisessa maailmassa itsestään selvä. Puutetta ei tarvitse kärsiä, mutta silti sitä on ympärillämme monenlaisesti. Scarity sana ei suoranaisesti käänny sanaksi puute, vaan enemmänkin täsmällinen käännös on pula tai vähyys tai niukkuus. Kirjan sisältöä kuvaa paremminkin sana puute tai niukkuus, joten käytän niitä sanoja muiden puutteessa. Taloustiede toimii samanlaisten lainalaisuuksien varassa.

Kirjan ajatukset ovat paljon köyhyydessä, joka on ymmärrettävän konkreettinen lopputulema niukkuudesta ja puutteesta. Kirjaa ei kannata lukea köyhyystutkimuksen popularisointina, vaan ymmärtääkseen milloin ja miten niukkuuden psykologia operoi ihmisen mielessä. Sen sanottuani, niin pakko myöntää että järkyttävin tieto on, että puolet amerikkalaisista lapsista elää ruoka-avun varassa. Toivottavasti on tilastovirhe! “Nearly 50 percent of all children in the United States will at some point be on food stamps.”

Minkälainen kirja oli?

”Siitä puhe mistä puute?” sopisi tämä kirjan tunnuslauseeksi. Miten me ihmiset toimimme kun olemme ajautuneet niukkuuteen. Ilmiönä lopputuotteena me voimme kokea köyhyyttä, kiirettä tai lihavuutta. Tämä kirja kertoo siis niukkuuden tai puutteen psykologiasta.

Toiseksi kirja on sukua kahdelle maanmainioille kirjalle – Charles Duhiggin ”Power of Habit”-kirjalle ja Walter Mischelin ”The Marshmallow Test”-kirjalle.

Mitkä ovat kirjan keskeiset ideat? 

Puute operoi ihmismielen hämärässä ja sen prosessit ovat tiedostamattomia, mutta voimme itse aktiivisilla valinnoilla vaikuttaa ko. mekanismin toimintaan. Puute johtaa tyytymättömyyteen ja kamppailuun. Pahin lopputuote puutteesta on, että kapasiteettimme käsitellä asioita kutistuu – kaista jossa ajattelemme kapenee. Ja tämän johdannaisena ymmäryksemme heikkenee, emme pytsy katsomaan tulevaisuuteen ja kykymme kontrolloida asioita heikkenee. Esimerkiksi köyhyyden kokemuksen konkreettinen ilmentymä on, että ihmisen toiminta on yhtä tehokasta kuin jos hän on valvonut koko yön. Miltä tuntuu olla köyhä? Valvo yksi yö ja yritä siinä sitten elää tasapainosta elämää. (Kirja puhuu köyhdeestä akuuttina tilana, jossa ihminen joutuu koko ajan kamppailemaan rahanpuutteessa). Sellainen niukkuus luon ansan, josta pois pääseminen vaatii erityisiä toimenpiteitä, jossa taas tarvittaisiin ymmärrystä, tulevaisuusorientaatiota ja kykyä hallita asioita. Puutteella on oma logiikkansa ja se ei ole yksistään selitettävissä kulttuurin, talouden tai persoonallisuuden kautta. Esimerkiksi janoin ihminen tunnistaa nopeammin vesi-sanan kuin ei-janoinen ihminen.

Kirja opit ovat tässä:

  • Automaattista. Emme pysty kontrolloimaan niukkuuden luomaa tilaa, jolloin emme tee valintoja tai kustannushyötyanalyysejä, vaan toimimme automaatiolla tai tunteen varassa.
  • Tunneli. Niukkuus nappaa huomiomme ja joudumme tunneliin, jossa näemme vain tiettyjä asioita. Tunnelointi ryhtyy perimään veroa, joka maksaa tai kustannukset näkyvät toisaalla. Tunnelivero on voimakkaampi kuin esimerkiksi fyysinen harjoitus. Kirjan sanoin: ”Scarcity captures our minds automatically. And when it does, we do not make trade-offs using a careful cost-benefit calculus. We tunnel on managing scarcity both to our benefit and to our detriment.
  • Laiminlyönnit. Emme toimi arvojen mukaan, vaan jätämme aktiivisesti huomiotta arvot. ”We have already seen one primary reason we stay stuck in scarcity: tunneling leads us to borrow. And when interest rates are high—such as with the vendors—then this very basic impulse creates more scarcity.”
  • Kapeampi kaista (bandwith). Niukkuus vuorostaan tarjoaa vastineeksi kapeaa kaistaa, joka heikentää ihmisen luonnollista kykyä ajatella ja lopputuloksena niukkuuden loukkuun, josta emme pääsee eroon.
  • Putkiaivot tai loukku (scarity trap). Käytännössä lopputuloksena on tila, jossa laiminlyönneistä tulee vakio ja olemme vähemmän kyvykkäitä tai tehokkaita.
  • Likinäköisyys. Puute ja tunnelimaisuus aiheuttavat likinäköisyyttä tulevaisuuteen. Ei nähdä seuraavaa hetkeä pidemmälle. Mutta puutteen luoma likinäköisyys ei ole henkilökohtainen ominaisuus, vaan tilanteeseen sidottu ilmiö. “But what is remarkable in this account is that myopia is not a personal failure. Tunneling is not a personal trait. In fact, as far as personality traits go these people are anything but myopic; rather, it is the context of scarcity that makes us all act that way. Tunnels limit everyone’s vision.
  • Joustava älykkyys. Puute tai niukkuus tyhmentää, mutta ei tee tyhmäksi. Joustava älykkyys (fluid intelligence), jonka avulla järkeilemme ja erityisesti ratkomme ongelmia, heikkenee merkittävästi. Siis ongelmanratkaisukyky jota tarvitsemme voittaaksemme ongelmat. Niukkuudesta ei pääse eroon ilman erityisiä toimenpiteitä. Aika hankala yhtälö. Tarvitsemme ongelmanratkaisukykyä päästäksemme eroon niukkuudesta, mutta se itsessään heikentää kykyä ratkoa niitä ongelmia.
  • Tahdonvoima. Sen puute on ratkaisevaa ongelmista eroon pääsemiseksi. ”As Mischel put it, “Once you realize that willpower is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.”
  • Löysä. Löysä (slack) mahdollistaa niukkuudesta erossa pysymisen. Jos ihmisen kalenterissa on tilaa, niin hän pystyy reagoimaan asioihin ja välttämään kiirettä. Jos organisaatiolla on ihmisiä tai rahaa, niin se pystyy ennakoimaan tai reagoimaan asioihin. Jos ihmisellä on säästöjä, niin hän ei työttömyyden tullen ajaudu kodittomaksi.

Puute tai niukkuus ei ole ilman hyötyjä.

  1. Uudet ideat. Vaikka niukkuus myös estää suoranaisten uusien ideoiden syntymisen, mutta juuri poispääsyn mahdollistamiseksi siinä voi yhdistyä erilaisia asioita joista muokkautuu uusia mahdollisuuksia. Eli tavallaan niukkuus kuitenkin syntyy uusia ideoita.
  2. Fokus. Keskitymme tarkemmin käsillä oleviin asioihin.
  3. Pakko motivoi. Valintojen tai päätösten tekeminen saattaa johtua jonkin asian puutteesta – aika, raha, ihmiset jne.
  4. Aika loppuu kesken. Puute pakottaa meidät tekemään asioita tehokkaammin. Esimerkiksi palaverien rajattua aika pakottaa ihmiset toimimaan tehokkaammin. Tai projektit valmistuvat ajallaan, koska aikaa ei ole yllin kyllin.
  5. Niukkuuden hyödyistä on pakko nostaa esille 40 tunnin työviikko. Henry Fordin esimerkki on yksi esimerkki, jota ei voi yleistää, mutta on silti hieno universaali ilmiö. ”Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford recognized the distinction between hours and bandwidth. His decision to institute a forty-hour workweek for his factory workers was clearly motivated by profits as much as by humanitarian concerns. As one commentator observes: When Henry Ford famously adopted a 40-hour workweek in 1926, he was bitterly criticized by members of the National Association of Manufacturers. But his experiments, which he’d been conducting for at least 12 years, showed him clearly that cutting the workday from ten hours to eight hours—and the workweek from six days to five days—increased total worker output and reduced production cost. Ford spoke glowingly of the social benefits of a shorter workweek, couched firmly in terms of how increased time for consumption was good for everyone. But the core of his argument was that reduced shift length meant more output.”
  6. Muita hyötyjä ovat esimerkiksi kuin pienemmät ravintolapöydät kasvattavat myyntiä

Niukkuuden hyötyjä löytyy myös esimerkiksi eläinkunnasta:

  • ”Why do bees create such precise structures and the wasps such messy ones? Scarcity. The wasps build with material that is abundant: mud. The bees build with material that is scarce: wax. The bees’ wax—like space in a tight suitcase or dollars during hard times—must be conserved. Building badly means wasting wax, which is an incentive to be efficient, to pack well. The wasps, on the other hand, have abundant material, plenty of mud to waste. Wasps can afford slack—to build sloppily—because their building material is cheap. The bees cannot because theirs is expensive.
  • The bees create walls that meet at a remarkably precise 120 degrees, forming hexagons that are perfect to the eye. Each wall is less than 0.1 mm thick, with deviations of only +/− 0.002 mm. That’s a 2 percent tolerance—not a bad building standard. By way of comparison, the National Institute of Standards and Technology allows a 10 percent tolerance in the width of manufactured plyboards used in construction.
  • Economists call this diminishing marginal utility: the more you have, the less each additional item is worth to you.”

Köyhyys on yksi puutteen tai niukkuuden ilmentymä. Köyhyys on aina huono asia, koska ihmiset eivät pysty antamaan parastaan. Ja niukkuus luo lisää niukkuutta. Köyhyys verottaa ihmisen kykyä ajatella, joustava älykkyys heikkenee ja kyky laittaa toimeen pienenee. Köyhät ja rikkaat ihmiset eivät ole vertailukelpoisia, koska köyhien ihmisten kognitiivisia resursseja rasittaa kaikki edellä mainittu niukkuuden psykologian elementit. Niin rikas kuin kuin köyhä voi sairastua puutteeseen ja tunnelointiin. Mutta eri tavalla.

Määritelmiä:

  • Scarity. We opened this book with a definition of scarcity: a subjective sense of having more needs than resources.
  • Slack. Having slack allows us the feeling of abundance. Slack is not just inefficiency; it is a mental luxury. Abundance does not just allow us to buy more goods. It affords us the luxury of packing poorly, the luxury of not having to think, as well as the luxury of not minding mistakes.

Kirjan mukaan:

  • Köyhät ovat köyhiä, koska heillä ei ole tilanteeseen tarvittavia taitoja päästä pois niukkuuden luomasta loukusta.
  • Yksinäiset ovat yksinäisiä, koska heillä ei ole taitoja tehdä itsestään sosiaalisesti kiinnostavia.
  • Lihavat ovat lihavia, koska heillä ei ole tahdonvoimaa.
  • Kiireiset ovat kiireisiä, koska heillä ei ole kapasiteettia priorisoida ajankäyttöään.

Suomi mainittu: “To do this, we created a video game based on Angry Birds for our research. In this variant, which we called Angry Blueberries, players shoot blueberries at waffles using a virtual slingshot.”

Mitä meidän pitäisi tehdä kirjan perusteella?

Tässä on kirjan pääviesti meille kaikille:

  • The reason why the abundance-then-scarcity cycle is so bad is that, as we have seen, scarcity can get us trapped. It is not merely that we fail to smooth our activities under abundance; it is that we fail to leave slack for the future.
  • This is the danger of not leaving enough slack, not enough buffer for potential shocks.
  • And that buffer stock needs to be built during times of abundance.

Miten eteenpäin? Kuinka päästä eroon niukkuuden luomasta loukusta?

  • Jos ymmärrämme niukkuuden luoman dynamiikan, niin sen todennäköisemmin voimme vaikuttaa olosuhteisiin, jotka luovat niukkuutta. “Rather than a personal trait, it is the outcome of environmental conditions brought on by scarcity itself, conditions that can often be managed. The more we understand the dynamics of how scarcity works upon the human mind, the more likely we can find ways to avoid or at least alleviate the scarcity trap.”

Kirjan ehkä syvällisin ajatus on, että niukkuuden juurisyyt ovat monesti ylenpalttisuudessa:

  • ”As we contemplate the better management of scarcity, we should remember that scarcity often begins with abundance.”

Mitä minun pitäisi itse tehdä? 

Sotakassa!

Yhteenveto

Kuusi sanaa:

  • “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” (Henry David Thoreau)
  • “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time” (Steven Wright)
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Lafley: Playing to Win

Kirjasta

Kirja on Procter & Gamblen toimitusjohtajan kertomus yhtiön muutoksesta ja siihen johtaneesta strategiasta.

Minkälainen kirja oli?

Mistä kirjassa on kyse? Lafley perustaa näkemyksensä Michael Porterin Competitive Strategy-kirjaan. Yritys rakentaa kestävän kilpailuedun “deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver unique value.”

Miten toteuttaa strategiaa? Luodaan sellainen strategia, jossa kerrotaan mitä yritys tekee ja erityisesti, että mitä se ei tee. Lafleyn kasvukaava on siis valintoja, jotka tuottavat pysyvää arvoa asiakkaalle. Päättää. Tehdä asioita toisin. Luoda arvoa.

Mitkä ovat kirjan keskeiset ideat? 

Tultiin voittamaan eikä pelaamaan on kirjan pääsanoma. Kirjan paras anti on mitä toimitusjohtajan _ei_ pidä tehdä?

  1. Tehdään strategiasta visio, koska visio ei tarjoa ohjausta eikä mitään tiekarttaa tulevaisuuteen. Visio harvoin jos koskaan tarjoaa vastusta, että missä liiketoiminnassa ollaan. Saati, että visio kertoisi kuinka luodaan arvoa, josta asiakas on valmis maksamaan.
  2. Tehdään suunnitelma, jossa strategia kuvataan taktiikkana.
  3. Kielletään stragian pitkäkestoisuus ja halutaan toteuttaa ns. emergenttiä strategiaa, jossa reagoidaan markkinamuutoksiin.
  4. Optimoidaan vallitsevaa olotilaa – eräänläinen status quon jatkumo.
  5. Keskinkertaisuuteen vertaamalla kilpailijoihin – tehdään kokoelma parhaimmista käytännöistä ja toteutetaan niitä.

Parhaat yhtiöt päättävät voittaa eivätkä pelkästään pelata.

Lafleyn pelikirja on:

  • Viisi vaihtoehtoa,
  • yksi kehystarina ja
  • ainoa prosessi.

Ne viisi vaihtoehtoa ovat:

  1. Voitontahto.
  2. Pelikenttä.
  3. Miten voittaa.
  4. Ydinosaaminen.
  5. Johtamisjärjestelmä.

Michael Porterin pysyvä kilpailuetu tuo yritykselle ylivoimaiset tuotot ja sitä Lafley haluaa lukijan ymmärtävän. Seuraavaa gurua lainataksemme, niin yhtiön tarkoitus on luoda asiakkuus – the purpose of an organization is to create a customer (Peter Drucker). Voittaminen on ainoa asia, jolla on merkitystä ja se on menestyksekkään strategian ydin.

Välillä pudotaan amerikkalaisten outoiluun: “Many handheld phone manufacturers, for example, would say they are in the business of making smartphones.” <= Mr. Lafley – “do you mean mobile phones?”

Strategia on kuvaus miten voitetaan “strategy is a way to win—and nothing less.”

Paljolti Lafleyn tarina on kertomus perinteisestä liiketoiminnan kehittämisestä – segmentointia, asiakasymmärrystä, hinnoittelututkimuksia, kuluttajakäyttätymistä ja niin edelleen.

Positiivista on, että kirjan pääväittämiä mietitään useammasta näkökulmasta kuin pelkästään P&G:n kannalta. Se on hyvää perspektiiviä ja harvinaisempaa lähestymistapaa amerikkalaisissa bisneskirjoissa.

Yksi mieleenpainuvimpia sanontoja on – “Choosing where to play is also about choosing where not to play.”

Kaiken internet-liiketoiminnan kehittämisen keskellä Lafleyn tarina on hyvä muistutus siitä, että vielä 95 % BKT:stä muodostuu internetin ulkopuolella. Jonnet ei tiedä…😊

Strategiatyön kuoleman laakso on:

  1. Ei tehdä valintoja, vaan pelataan vähän kaikilla kentillä.
  2. Yritetään ostaa itsensä ulos kilpailusta, jossa ei pärjätä koska ei käytetä aikaa riittävästi nykyisen liiketoiminnan mahdollisuuksien hyödyntämiseen.
  3. Hyväksytään, että nykyiset valinnat ovat vääjäämättömiä ja niitä on mahdotonta muuttaa.

Miten Lafley määritteli P&G:n? ” It built brands that became leaders in their segments.” Ja miten:

1. Consumer-centric,

2. Concept-led, and

3. Designed to delight consumers.

4. The best agency partners and won numerous awards

5. Built product portfolios that expanded and strengthened its consumer user base.

Low-Cost Strategies: Alemmat kustannukset kuin kilpailijoilla…. ”In cost leadership, as the name suggests, profit is driven by having a lower cost structure than competitors do.”

Esimerkiksi Marsin kasvukaava oli: Halvempi tuotanto + halvemmat materiaalit + ostettu hyllytila. Tai Dellin kasvukaava oli: Tuotanto + myynti + jakelu = halvemmat hinnat.

Mutta sen strategian heikkous on, että vain yksi voi olla halvin.

Differentiation Strategies: Differoituminen = asiakkaan kokema arvo on korkeampi…. The alternative to low cost is differentiation. In a successful differentiation strategy, the company offers products or services that are perceived to be distinctively more valuable to customers than are competitive offerings, and is able to do so with approximately the same cost structure that competitors use.

Tärkeä muistutus meille kaikille on, että kaikki menestyksekkäät strategiat perustuvat jompaan kumpaan – hintajohtajuus tai differoituminen.

Miten ajaa kumpaakin strategiaa?

  • In other words, life inside a cost leader looks very different from life inside a differentiator. In a cost leader, managers are forever looking to better understand the drivers of costs and are modifying their operations accordingly.
  • In a differentiator, managers are forever attempting to deepen their holistic understanding of customers to learn how to serve them more distinctively.
  • In a cost leader, cost reduction is relentlessly pursued, while in a differentiator, the brand is relentlessly built. Customers are seen and treated very differently. At a cost leader, nonconforming customers—that is, customers who want something special and different from what the firm currently produces—are sacrificed to ensure standardization of the product or service, all in the pursuit of cost-effectiveness.
  • At a differentiator, customers are jealously guarded. If customers indicate a desire for something different, the firm tries to design a new offering that the customers will adore. And if a customer leaves, the departure drives a stake in the heart of the firm, indicating a failure of the strategy with that customer.

Arvot ja strategia ohjaavat toimintaa…. If, as a customer, you say to Southwest, “I really would like advance seat selection, interline baggage checking, and to fly into O’Hare not Midway when I go to Chicago,” Southwest will say, “Great, you should try United Airlines.”

Where-to-play and how-to-win choices do not function independently; a strong where-to-play choice is only valuable if it is supported by a robust and actionable how-to-win choice. <= Kasvukaavan….

Yrityskaupoista. Paras yrityskauppa on kahden kannattavan kesken…. “Unlike a lot of acquisitions, it wasn’t a successful company buying an unsuccessful company. It was a successful company buying a successful company.”

Pikku vinkki: Tee visuaalinen kuvaus yrityksen käyttöjärjestelmästä, joka kuvaa yrityksen kilpailuedun. Käyttöjärjestelmä koostuu tekemisistä/osaamisesta: Käyttöjärjestelmä…. An activity system is of no value unless it supports a particular where-to-play and how-to-win choice. Kysy: onko käyttöjärjestelmäsi – erottuu muista (distinctive) ja puolustettavissa (defensible). P&G:n käyttöjärjestelmän pilarit läpäisevät koko yrityksen…. vähän niinkuin kerrostalo – jossa kaikkialla on keittiö, eteinen, kylpyhuone jne. Ne vain ovat eri järjestyksessä….

Mitä tulevaisuus tuo tuollessaan Lafleyn mielestä? VUCA-ympäristön: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous. Ympäristön, jossa kasvu hidastuu ja muutoksen nopeus kasvaa.  

Haluatko voittaa kuin Lafley? Jos kyllä, niin kysy nämä kysymykset:

1. Have you defined winning, and are you crystal clear about your winning aspiration?

 2. Have you decided where you can play to win (and just as decisively where you will not play)?

3. Have you determined how, specifically, you will win where you choose to play?

4. Have you pinpointed and built your core capabilities in such a way that they enable your where-to-play and how-to-win choices?

5. Do your management systems and key measures support your other four strategic choices?

Lafleyn inhokkistrategiat ovat:

1. Pesee ja linkoaa -strategia. The do-it-all strategy: failing to make choices, and making everything a priority. Remember, strategy is choice.

2. Don Quijote -strategia. The Don Quixote strategy: attacking competitive “walled cities” or taking on the strongest competitor first, head-to-head. Remember, where to play is your choice. Pick somewhere you can have a chance to win.

 3. Waterloo-stratregia. The Waterloo strategy: starting wars on multiple fronts with multiple competitors at the same time. No company can do everything well. If you try to do so, you will do everything weakly.

4. Kaikille kaikkea -strategia. The something-for-everyone strategy: attempting to capture all consumer or channel or geographic or category segments at once. Remember, to create real value, you have to choose to serve some constituents really well and not worry about the others.

 5. Pilvilinna-strategia. The dreams-that-never-come-true strategy: developing high-level aspirations and mission statements that never get translated into concrete where-to-play and how-to-win choices, core capabilities, and management systems. Remember that aspirations are not strategy. Strategy is the answer to all five questions in the choice cascade.

6. Ohjelmajohtaja-strategia. The program-of-the-month strategy: settling for generic industry strategies, in which all competitors are chasing the same customers, geographies, and segments in the same way. The choice cascade and activity system that supports these choices should be distinctive. The more your choices look like those of your competitors, the less likely you will ever win.

Mitä meidän pitäisi tehdä kirjan perusteella?

Miten Lafley tunnistaa voittajastrategian:

1. Erottaudu kilpailijasta. An activity system that looks different from any competitor’s system. It means you are attempting to deliver value in a distinctive way.

2. Asiakkaat fanittavat. Customers who absolutely adore you, and noncustomers who can’t see why anybody would buy from you. This means you have been choiceful.

3. Kilpailijoista. Competitors who make a good profit doing what they are doing. It means your strategy has left where-to-play and how-to-win choices for competitors, who don’t need to attack the heart of your market to survive.

4. Vapaa kassavirta. More resources to spend on an ongoing basis than competitors have. This means you are winning the value equation and have the biggest margin between price and costs and the best capacity to add spending to take advantage of an opportunity or defend your turf.

5. Vierestä viedään. Competitors who attack one another, not you. It means that you look like the hardest target in the (broadly defined) industry to attack.

6. Odotukset. Customers who look first to you for innovations, new products, and service enhancement to make their lives better. This means that your customers believe that you are uniquely positioned to create value for them.

Mitä minun pitäisi itse tehdä? 

Tärkeä muistutus meille kaikille on, että kaikki menestyksekkäät strategiat perustuvat jompaan kumpaan – hintajohtajuus tai differoituminen.

Yhteenveto

Tuurilla ne isotkin laivat seilaa: ”And every so often, some luck doesn’t hurt.”

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Dan Heath: Upstream

🔵 Valittajat älkööt vaivautuko – tämä on ratkaisukeskeinen kirja.


✅ ”Paras aika istuttaa puu on 20 vuotta sitten. Ja toiseksi paras aika on nyt” on tämän kirjan teema. Kääntäen se tarkoittaa, että jos on toistuvia ongelmia, niin uimalla ylävirtaan löytää ongelmien juurisyyn ja ne voi korjata. 


✅ Ylävirtaan uiminen on työtä, jolla voidaan pienentää ongelmien syntymisen todennäköisyyttä ja se työ on systeemien muuttamista. Koska systeemien johtaminen on johtamistyötä, niin kirja sopii johtamisen ammattilaisille. Ota tavaksi uida ylävirtaan?


✅ Miten? Kirja antaa kolme neuvoa:- Laita hössseliksi ongelmien korjaamiseksi, mutta odota rauhassa tuloksien syntymistä. – Mene yksittäisestä yleiseen. – Tee tulokset näkyviksi. 


✅ Johtajien pitää pystyä sanoittamaan profeetan dilemma. Tehdä ennustuksia, jotka ehkäisevät ongelmien syntymistä ja auttaa organisaatioita uimaan ylävirtaan. Ryhdy siis profeetaksi?


🇫🇮 Suomi mainittu. Suomalaistaustainen Amerikan verohallinnon ex-pääjohtaja  John Koskinen esiintyy kirjassa sankarina.

⛔️ Kirja toistaa innostuneesti ajatusta, että arki on tuhlattu, koska menneisyydessä ei tehty oikeita asioita. Toisaalta se on kirjoittajan heikkous, koska sen oivalluksen yli ei kurkoteta.

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Hoffman: American Icon – Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

🔵 Haluatko lukea kirjan Amerikan kuuluisimmasta käänneyhtiöstä? Tässä on tarjolla sellainen.
✅ Kirjassa on kolme tarinaa:1. Tarina miten dollarin osakkeesta tehtiin 17 dollarin osake.2. Tarina miten selkäänpuukottajista tehtiin tiimi.3. Tarina Fordin kasvukaavasta.
✅ Dollarin osakkeesta 17 dollarin osakkeeksi on seurausta kaikesta seuraavasta. 
✅ Mullally oli prosessijohtaja. Hän vakioi viikoittaiset johtoryhmäkokoukset, oli uskollinen datalle sekä piti kiinni yhdessä asioiden saavuttamisesta.
✅ Fordin kasvukaava oli ilmastomuutos + rönsyjen saneeraus + ennakointi. Mulally otti Fordilla ilmastomuutoksen liiketoiminnan ytimeen, myi ulkoimaiset brändit Aston Martinista Volvoon, saneerasi rönsyt ja lainasi p!rusti rahaa ennen vuoden 2008 lamaa.

✅ Mulallyn johtamisoppi oli pitää johtoryhmällä yhteinen unelma, noudattaa prosessia ja pitää tiimi tekemässä yhdessä töitä. Hän uskoi myös matriisiorganisaatioon, joka muuten harvoin toimii suomalaisessa organisaatiokulttuurissa.
✅ Kuusi sanaa kirjasta… If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself. —HENRY FORD

⛔️ You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do. —HENRY FORD

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O’Reilly: WTF? What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us

🔵 Miksi lukisit 448 sivua? 

  • Paras syy on, että ymmärrät kuinka pienestä liiketoiminnasta Internet-palveluissa on vielä kyse. 
  • Toiseksi paras syy on, että pääset miettimään minkälaiseksi muodostuu työelämä? 

✅ Julkisuudessa on esitetty näkökulmia, että Internet-liiketoiminta on menneen talven lumia ja nyt on aika keskittyä johonkin muuhun. 

  • Todellisuudessa Internetin osuus BKT:sta on vasta 5 % kehittyneissä maissa. Siis 95 % BKT:sta on vielä Internet-liiketoiminnan ulkopuolella. Kasvun mahdollisuuksia on ja paljon.

✅ Työelämän muutos ei ole välttämättä sitä mitä julkisuudessa esitetään. O’Reilly käyttää Lyftiä ja Uberia paljon esimerkkinä kuvastaessaan muutosta:

  • Ensimmäinen muutos on, että algoritmit ovat korvanneet keskijohdon. Miksi? “Apps can do now what managers used to do.” 
  • Toinen on, että alustatalousyhtiöt eivät pelkästään polje palkkoja, vaan ne maksavat parhaille taksikuskeille enemmän – tulevaisuudessa. Miksi? ”Even if there are enough drivers, the quality of drivers deeply influences the customer experience.”
  • Kolmas – em. yhtiöt joutuvat kilpailemaan hyvästä työvoimasta aivan kuten kivijalkaliiketoiminnassa. Miksi? “Uber and Lyft will be engaged in as fierce a contest to attract and keep drivers as they are to attract and keep customers today.”

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Harari: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

About the book 

The ”21 Lessons for the 21st Century” book must have been one of the most expected books of the year. Harari’s previous books – Homo Sapiens and Homo Deus, have been so successful that this book must be at least successful. In that sense and without hesitation we can say that these books should not be compared. The 21/21 book is polemic and contemporary.  

How was the book?

First and foremost Yuval Noah Harari is a historian. He sees and thinks great many things as a historical continuum. Most probably Harari’s latest work will been seen not as book by a professor of history rather than a book by a philosopher of our time. If you are expecting a typical self-help book with a list of 21 things you should do, then this is not a book for you. Harari surely has 21 topics that he covers, but without direct “call-to-action”. The 21 topics are not ”a historical narrative, but rather as a selection of lessons.” Actually Harari has divided the book into five major topics:

1)   technological change,

2)   political change,

3)   despair and hope,

4)   truth and

5)   resilience.

Within these five topics he analyses future of humanity. I enjoyed reading ”21 Lessons for the 21st Century” book, but it is not in the same category as Homo Sapiens or Homo Deus. 

What are the key learnings?

”History gives no discounts. If the future of humanity is decided in your absence, because you are too busy feeding and clothing your kids – you and they will not be exempt from the consequences.”

To start with here are the 21 lessons for the 21st century:

1 DISILLUSIONMENT The end of history has been postponed

2 WORK When you grow up, you might not have a job

3 LIBERTY Big Data is watching you

4 EQUALITY Those who own the data own the future

5 COMMUNITY Humans have bodies

6 CIVILISATION There is just one civilisation in the world

7 NATIONALISM Global problems need global answers

8 RELIGION God now serves the nation

9 IMMIGRATION Some cultures might be better than others

10 TERRORISM Don’t panic

11 WAR Never underestimate human stupidity

12 HUMILITY You are not the centre of the world

13 GOD Don’t take the name of God in vain

14 SECULARISM Acknowledge your shadow

15 IGNORANCE You know less than you think

16 JUSTICE Our sense of justice might be out of date

17 POST-TRUTH Some fake news lasts for ever

18 SCIENCE FICTION The future is not what you see in the movies

19 EDUCATION Change is the only constant

20 MEANING Life is not a story

21 MEDITATION Just observe

Yuval Noah Harari has a task and it is to empower. ”Even if a handful of additional people will join the debate about the future of our species, I have done my job.” He wants to ”zoom in on the here and now” and his focus ”is on current affairs and on the immediate future of human societies.” His agenda is global and he explores the ”major forces that shape societies all over the world, and that are likely to influence the future of our planet as a whole.”

Key learnings are:

– Stay relevant. 

– Teach the four C’s.

– I am the hero of the future.

– Once a lie, always the truth.

– The ambition is to build drama.

– Modern humans have lost their story.

– What we ultimately ought to protect is humans –not jobs.

Stay relevant

When you reach the age of fifty you should start considering to re-invent yourself. ”To stay relevant – not just economically, but above all socially – you will need the ability to constantly learn and to reinvent yourself, certainly at a young age like fifty.”

”The harder you’ve worked on building something, the more difficult it is to let go of it and make room for something new. You might still cherish new experiences and minor adjustments, but most people in their fifties aren’t ready to overhaul the deep structures of their identity and personality.”

”By the time you are fifty, you don’t want change, and most people have given up on conquering the world. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. You much prefer stability. You have invested so much in your skills, your career, your identity and your world view that you don’t want to start all over again.”

Teach the four C’s.

We should be teaching ‘the four Cs’ –critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. ”A baby born today will be thirty-something in 2050. If all goes well, that baby will still be around in 2100, and might even be an active citizen of the twenty-second century. What should we teach that baby that will help him or her survive and flourish in the world of 2050 or of the twenty-second century? What kind of skills will he or she need in order to get a job, understand what is happening around them, and navigate the maze of life?”

I am the hero of the future

The liberal story was the story of ordinary people. The good story of the society and the liberal story and are connected. ””A good story need not extend to infinity, it must extend beyond my horizons.”

We need once again the attitude that ordinary people can say that ”I am the hero of the future”. This is why Trump is so popular, because people can say that they are important. ”Ordinary people may not understand artificial intelligence and biotechnology, but they can sense that the future is passing them by. In 1938 the condition of the common person in the USSR, Germany or the USA may have been grim, but he was constantly told that he was the most important thing in the world, and that he was the future (provided, of course, that he was an ‘ordinary person’ rather than a Jew or an African). He looked at the propaganda posters –which typically depicted coal miners, steelworkers and housewives in heroic poses –and saw himself there: ‘I am in that poster! I am the hero of the future!’”

The liberal story is in crisis. ”In 1938 humans were offered three (the fascist story, the communist story, and the liberal story) global stories to choose from, in 1968 just two, in 1998 a single story seemed to prevail; in 2018 we are down to zero.”

Liberal story has ”triumphed over imperialism, over fascism, and over communism by adopting some of their best ideas and practices. In particular, the liberal story learned from communism to expand the circle of empathy and to value equality alongside liberty. This is not the first time the liberal story has faced a crisis of confidence. Ever since this story gained global influence, in the second half of the nineteenth century, it has endured periodic crises. The first era of globalisation and liberalisation ended in the bloodbath of the First World War. During the Che Guevara moment, between the 1950s and the 1970s, it again seemed that liberalism was on its last legs, and that the future belonged to communism.” And even today – who wants to move to Russia? At least Harari has not met ”a single person who dreams of emigrating to Russia.”

Most humans never enjoyed greater peace or prosperity than they did under the aegis of the liberal order of the early twenty-first century. But liberalism has no obvious answers to the biggest problems we face: ecological collapse and technological disruption. But here is hope ”at the end of the day, humankind won’t abandon the liberal story, because it doesn’t have any alternative. People may give the system an angry kick in the stomach but, having nowhere else to go, they will eventually come back.

Democracy is based on Abraham Lincoln’s principle that ‘you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time’.”

Once a lie, always the truth

Goebbels: ‘A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.’ ”Humans have this remarkable ability to know and not to know at the same time. Truth and power can travel together only so far. Sooner or later they go their separate ways. If you want power, at some point you will have to spread fictions.”

Digital dictatorships might be around the corner. ”In the late twentieth century democracies usually outperformed dictatorships because democracies were better at data-processing. And why? Democracy diffuses the power to process information and make decisions among many people and institutions, whereas dictatorship concentrates information and power in one place. We cannot predict what will be the motivations and powers of digital dictatorships in 2084, but it is very unlikely that they will just copy Hitler and Stalin.”

How can we avoid the mistakes of the past? ”First, if you want reliable information – pay good money for it. The second rule of thumb is that if some issue seems exceptionally important to you, make the effort to read the relevant scientific literature. And by scientific literature I mean peer-reviewed articles, books published by well-known academic publishers, and the writings of professors from reputable institutions.”

The ambition is to build drama

The ambition of terrorist is to build drama. ”Terrorists don’t think like army generals. Instead, they think like theatre producers. The public memory of the 9/ 11 attacks testifies that everyone understands this intuitively. If you ask people what happened on 9/ 11, they are likely to say that al-Qaeda knocked down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Yet the attack involved not merely the towers, but two other actions, in particular a successful attack on the Pentagon. How come few people remember that?

How then should the state deal with terrorism? A successful counter-terrorism struggle should be conducted on three fronts:

1) Governments should focus on clandestine actions against the terror networks.

2) The media should keep things in perspective and avoid hysteria. The theatre of terror cannot succeed without publicity. Unfortunately, the media all too often provides this publicity for free. It obsessively reports terror attacks and greatly inflates their danger, because reports on terrorism sell newspapers much better than reports on diabetes or air pollution.

3) The imagination of each and every one of us. Terrorists hold our imagination captive, and use it against us. Again and again we rehearse the terrorist attack on the stage of our mind –remembering 9/ 11 or the latest suicide bombings. The terrorists kill a hundred people –and cause 100 million to imagine that there is a murderer lurking behind every tree. It is the responsibility of every citizen to liberate his or her imagination from the terrorists, and to remind ourselves of the true dimensions of this threat. It is our own inner terror that prompts the media to obsess about terrorism, and the government to overreact.

Modern humans have lost their story

”A good story need not extend to infinity, it must extend beyond my horizons. Most successful stories remain open-ended. They never need to explain where meaning ultimately comes from, because they are so good at capturing people’s attention and keeping it inside a safe zone. While a good story must give me a role, and must extend beyond my horizons, it need not be true. A story can be pure fiction, and yet provide me with an identity and make me feel that my life has meaning. Not only our personal identities but also our collective institutions are built on the story.”

What we ultimately ought to protect is humans –not jobs

The famous last words are ”Who wants to buy yoga lessons from a robot?” Obviously everybody willl be buying yoga lessons from a robot. ”We have no idea what the job market will look like in 2050. It is generally agreed that machine learning and robotics will change almost every line of work – from producing yoghurt to teaching yoga. Redundant drivers and doctors will just have to find something else to do.”

Automation of different areas of life or process has not ended the original activity. TV didn’t stop people from listening and Internet didn’t stop people from watching. And we haven’t stopped playing chess although Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. ”Rather, thanks to AI trainers human chess masters became better than ever, and at least for a while human–AI teams known as ‘centaurs’ outperformed both humans and computers in chess. AI might similarly help groom the best detectives, bankers and soldiers in history.”

Universal Basic Income could be one way to protect humans, but the the people who really need UBI do not live in Finland. They live in Bangalore. Secondly ”Homo sapiens is just not built for satisfaction. Human happiness depends less on objective conditions and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions, including to the condition of other people.” So to protect people we should avoid the increase in the standard of living.

How should we change according to the book?

We should regulate the ownership of data.

We must set the relevant ethical standards and we cannot rely on the machine to do it.

We should commit to truth and compassion which will result to equality.

What should I personally do?

I should constantly learn and to reinvent yourself.

Summary

The book in six words – ”Do not write off the future ”

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Parker, Van Alstyne, Choudary: Platform Revolution

How was the book?

How AirBnB got started? ”If you’re heading out to the ICSID/ IDSA World Congress/ Connecting ’07 event in San Francisco next week and have yet to make accommodations….” And then Chesky and Gebbia recruited a third friend, Nathan Blecharczyk, to help them make affordable room rentals a long-term business. Their first big hit at the 2008 South by Southwest festival in Austin.

– Uber was launched in San Francisco in March 2009. Today the valuation exceeds  $ 50 billion and is present in 200 global cities.

– China-based retailing giant Alibaba handles 80% of ecommerce in China, it has nearly a billion different products and is “the world’s biggest bazaar” without it’s own inventory.

– ”Facebook is arguably the world’s biggest media company—all without producing a single piece of original content”.

This book is a handbook of platform economy and the book should be part of every leaders curriculum.

What are the key learnings of the book? 

”Why network effects? The reason Instagram sold for $ 1 billion is not its thirteen employees; the reason WhatsApp sold for $ 19 billion wasn’t its fifty employees. The reasons were the same: the network effects both organizations had created.”

Network effect is a kind of:

– growth building strategy and

– new customer acquisition strategy.

Business model for a platform company is Network effect + Price effects + Brand effects = Market building tools.

”Price effects and brand effects have their place in a startup’s growth strategy. But only network effects create the virtuous cycle we described above, which leads to the building of a longlasting network of users—a phenomenon we called lock-in. Curious about what separated the successful companies from those that failed, we examined dozens of cases and found that the failures mostly relied on price or brand effects.”

Key learnings is that…

1) First the industries likely to target for the platform disruption are:

– Information-intensive industries (media/telecom)

– Industries with non-scalable gatekeepers (retail/publishing)

– Highly fragmented industries (Uber / AirBnB)

– Industries characterized by extreme information asymmetries (used cars/houses)

2) Second the industries that are not likely to be target of the platform disruption are:

– Industries with high regulatory control (banking/health care)

– Industries with high failure cost (where risk for the consumer to fail is high)

– Resource-intensive industries

3) Third key learning is that regulators must adjust and adapt their thinking from the pipe-line businesses to platform economy.

Developing the metrics for a platform company one must design those from the core interactions and benefits for producers and consumers? Measure what you are supposed to do. Not normal KPIs. Measure core interactions!

What is a platform?

”A platform is a business based on enabling value-creating interactions between external producers and consumers. The platform provides an open, participative infrastructure for these interactions and sets governance conditions for them. The platform’s overarching purpose: to consummate matches among users and facilitate the exchange of goods, services, or social currency, thereby enabling value creation for all participants.”

”A platform is fundamentally an infrastructure designed to facilitate interactions among producers and consumers of value. These two basic types of participants use the platform to connect with each other and to engage in exchanges—first, an exchange of information; then, if desired, an exchange of goods or services in return for some form of currency.”

”Strategy has moved from controlling unique internal resources and erecting competitive barriers to orchestrating external resources and engaging vibrant communities.”

”Positive network effects are the main source of value creation and competitive advantage in a platform business.”

In the case of Uber, two sides of the market are involved: riders attract drivers, and drivers attract riders. So Uber has created two-sided network effects.

Eight Ways to Launch a Successful Platform

1. The follow-the-rabbit strategy. Case Intel and challenge in demonstrating the value of wireless technology.

2. The piggyback strategy.  Case Paypal. PayPal used this strategy when it piggybacked on eBay’s online auction platform.

3. The seeding strategy. Case Android. When Google launched its Android smartphone operating system to compete with Apple’s, it seeded the market by offering $ 5 million in prizes to developers who came up with the best apps in each of ten categories, including gaming, productivity, social networking, and entertainment. Winners not only got the prize money but became market leaders in their categories, attracting large numbers of customers as a result.

Case Adobe. Adobe launched its now-ubiquitous PDF document-reading tool in part by arranging to make all federal government tax forms available online.

4. The marquee strategy. Provide incentives to attract members of a key user set onto your platform. Case Swiss Post and iPads.

5. The single-side strategy. Case OpenTable.

6. The producer evangelism strategy. Case Kickstarter.

7. The big-bang adoption strategy. Case Twitter/Tinder/Foursqaure.

8. The micromarket strategy. Case Facebook.

Capturing the Value Created by Network Effects:

1. CHARGING A TRANSACTION FEE. Case AirBnB

2. CHARGING FOR ACCESS. Case Dribble.

3. CHARGING FOR ENHANCED ACCESS. Case Yelp.

4. CHARGING FOR ENHANCED CURATION. Case Sittercity.

Defining What Platform Users and Partners Can and Cannot Do

There are three kinds of openness decisions that platform designers and managers need to grapple with. These are:

– Decisions regarding manager and sponsor participation. Case Visa.

– Decisions regarding developer participation. Case API’s and Amazon.

– Decisions regarding user participation. Case Wikipedia / ETSY.

Policies to Increase Value and Enhance Growth

Three fundamental rules of good governance:

1. Always create value for the consumers you serve;

2. Don’t use your power to change the rules in your favor

3. Don’t take more than a fair share of the wealth.

How Platform Managers Can Measure What Really Matters

Startup phase and core interaction: ”In the startup phase, it is critical to have simple measures to guide decision-making around key questions of platform design and launch, including the design of the core interaction; the development of effective tools to pull users, facilitate interactions, and match producers with consumers; the creation of effective systems of curation; and decisions about how open the platform should be to various kinds of participants. The startup phase must track the growth of their most important asset: active producers and consumers who are participating in a large volume of successful interactions.”

Monetization phase and conversion. ”Once the platform has reached critical mass and users are gaining significant value from the platform, the focus of metrics can shift to customer retention and the conversion of active users to paying customers. This is the phase in which monetization becomes a crucial issue.”

Innovation phase and innovation: ”Finally, as the platform matures and a self-sustaining business model has been developed, the challenge of user retention and growth requires the platform to innovate. This is the best way to maintain and enhance the business’s value proposition relative to competing platforms.”

Measure what matters:

1. Revenue. ”Platforms whose revenue is based on claiming a share of the value of any interaction—a commission fee based on a percentage of the interaction, for example—may choose to measure interaction capture.”

2. Content. ”Platforms that focus on content creation require different metrics. For example, some measure co-creation (the percentage of listings that are consumed by users) or consumer relevance (the percentage of listings that receive some minimum level of positive response from potential consumers). These metrics focus on interaction quality and reflect the skill with which production is being curated.”

3. Market access. ”Platforms focus on market access—the effectiveness with which users have been able to join the platform and find or connect with one another, regardless of whether a complete interaction has occurred.”

4. Producers. ”Some measure producer participation—that is, the rate at which producers join the platform and the growth of this rate over time. Dating and matrimonial sites often talk about number of women registered, since this metric serves as a useful proxy for the value that other users of the site can expect to receive. In a somewhat different fashion, OpenTable tracks restaurant reservations.”

Try to avoid:

”Overcomplex metrics make management less effective by introducing noise, discouraging frequent analysis, and distracting from the handful of data points that are most significant.”

“Vanity metrics,” such as total sign-ups—a relatively meaningless statistic that often increases even as the volume of interactions is flat or actually declining. Vanity metrics fail to indicate accurately whether the business is really achieving critical mass or the liquidity it needs.”

How should we change according to the book?

We should consider two things – unicorns and multipliers.

Why China and USA has the most unicorns? Because of the single market….. How to compete? What could EU do to enhance European platform companies?

Which of these companies you want to be? Deloitte published research that sorts companies into four broad categories based on their chief economic activity:

•                             Asset builders (Ford/Walmart),

•                             Service providers (Accenture),

•                             Technology creators (Microsoft),

•                             Network orchestrators (AirBnB).

A bonus is that platform businesses on average enjoy a market multiplier (based on the relationship between a firm’s market valuation and its price-to-earnings ratio) of 8.2. Technology creators multiplier is 4.8, 2.6 for service providers, and 2.0 for asset builders.

What should I personally do? 

Three things:

1) Design core interaction

2) Design the platform design

3) Curation

1) Participants + Value Unit + Filter → Core Interaction

Platforms are designed one interaction at a time. Thus, the design of every platform should start with the design of the core interaction that it enables between producers and consumers.

When designing a platform, your first and most important job is to decide what your core interaction will be, and then to define the participants, the value units, and the filters to make such core interactions possible.

The core interaction involves three key components:

•                             The participants,

•                             The value unit, and

•                             The filter.

2) Pull + Facilitate + Match → Platform Design

”The platform must pull the producers and consumers to the platform, which enables interactions among them. It must facilitate their interactions by providing them with tools and rules that make it easy for them to connect and that encourage valuable exchanges (while discouraging others). And it must match producers and consumers effectively by using information about each to connect them in ways they will find mutually rewarding.”

”Platform designers should always leave room for serendipitous discoveries, as users often lead the way to where the design should evolve.”

3) ”Quality through curation”

”These early days in the life of a platform can be difficult. However, over time, as the curation mechanism starts to work, the platform improves its ability to match consumers with relevant and high-quality content, goods, and services from producers.”

Summary

The book in six words – ”Measure core interactions! Not normal KPIs”.

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John P. Kotter: Leading Change

About the book

Great many books want to take the place of John P. Kotter’s ”Leading Change. It is by far the best business ever. No need to state that it has sold so and so many millions of copies. When you ’ll read it you will know why it’s the best. All businesses or organizations are in transition all the time. That’s why the learnings of this book are crucial. Read it! By the way – originally ”Leading Change” was a Harvard Business Review article. You can still read it as an article – if you want to cut corners.  

How was the book?

Why to read this book? Reading this book is like combining meditation and product development of your ideas. Include the learning part also for the reasons as well. I have read this book for the first time about twenty years ago and it struck me at once. I knew instantly that these topics are universal and timeless. And the reading experience is even more pervasive than twenty years ago.

I could state that that there is a triangle between Kotter’s ”Leading Change”, ”The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldrattand ”Good to Great” by Jim Collins. With these books you could easily start any change management project.

What are the key learnings?

This is the Eight-Stage Process and it’s the essence of the book:

·      Establishing a Sense of Urgency

·      Creating the Guiding Coalition

·      Developing a Vision and Strategy

·      Communicating the Change Vision

·      Empowering Employees for Broad-Based Action

·      Generating Short-Term Wins

·      Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change

·      Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

These stages will lead into a successful change. Many of the steps are self-explanatory and I won’t start scrutinizing these steps. It would spoil your reading experience. Hence more important is to raise some topics into your radar. Remember that the pace of change has changed from the times that book was originally published. So all time tables that Kotter suggest must be divided by two. The thing that he got right is that the change sticks only when people around you start saying that ”this is the way we work”. Then it’s time to celebrate.

How to fail in a change? Kotter uses a lot of time to explain complacency and why it is bad for any change management activity. Weak sponsors and committees will also deteriorate the change. And undercommunicating vision and where you are going will not either speed the change.

And two notions that we must not forget:

·      Managing change is important, but leading the change is crucial.

·      Training is something that makes the change stick, because culture is powerful and without training the new culture will not be embedded into the organization.

How should we change according to the book?

”If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” seems to be still a valid fact in the change management business. But we often resist change unless it is crystal clear that the alternative is substantially better. For a successful strategy implementation process – however, it is useful to put the default the other way around: Change it unless it is crystal clear that the old way is substantially better. Execution involves change and you should embrace it. Empowering employees means that the leaderships must design a systems that allows the employees to act – ”Strategy implementation requires top managers to design the company’s internal system that does the selection for them.” So change leadership to fit the culture. Read more from these articles.

Drivers behind change have not altered from the days of Kotter. It is clear that globalized economy together with digitalized economy has made the change a default. So make change default in your organization and maybe you can skip stages 1-4? Then make change part of the culture and you will save 6-12 months? It might turn into a competitive advantage for your organization. So by making change your default and you will make change your competitive advantage.

At the end of the book Kotter is trying to predict the future company. How well did Kotter in his prediction of the future company? Pretty well:

·      He was thinking that we will witness higher sense of urgency. And it is here and we migh state that it is even a default.

·      Teamwork at the top – big egos and snakes have been killed. And so it is.

·      Kotter was also seeing that the number of people who can create and communicate vision is rising. He was right although there is a lot’s to do. 

·      Broad based empowerment was also in his agenda. Meh – might be growing, but that’s for start-ups. Right?

·      Delegated management for excellent short-term performance. Might exist, but mostly in lean and flat organizations.

·      Sorry, the unnecessary interdependence are still here. 

·      An adaptive corporate culture can facilitate adaptation and some organizations can witness this, because winning is fun and making a real contribution is pleasing to the soul.

What should I personally do?

Generating short-term wins is my favorite topic.

Summary

The book in six words – Walk the talk and lead by example.