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Saturday, July 20, 2002 |
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Friday, July 19, 2002 |
WE'VE SPENT THE LAST COUPLE OF DECADES
Where have all the leaders gone?
tearing down the command-and-control thinking that won two world wars and built a prosperous nation. In our zeal to rid ourselves of tyrants in leadership positions, we also ridded ourselves of many benevolent dictators who could build strong businesses.
We replaced them with pop-psychology management thinking that, while often sound in theory, is difficult to put into practice. Poorly practiced these fads or leadership-by-bestseller concepts lead to some horrible failures. Drucker, Deming, Juran and others had it right. In far too many places, we simply missed it or we allowed endless government intrusion to sap the optimism of our business leaders! Lately, we value style over substance.
The talent myth. I couldn't help being reminded of the steady deterioration in corporate and political leadership over the last twenty years while reading The Talent Myth, Malcolm [Jonathon Delacour]
10:45:02 PM 
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DOES YOUR BUSINESS HAVE A SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
Does your management team know how to develop one?
"There is nothing in sight that will provide an impetus for a spike in growth,'' writes economist William Dunkelberg in his midyear scan of the small business horizon. Call this the desert island economy. As you do all you can to survive, each day brings renewed hope of recovery. Are you going to let the media's mood determine your business success? # [John Henry on Business]
10:29:33 PM
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Thursday, July 18, 2002 |
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Monday, July 15, 2002 |
THE RAT RACE
can be defined in a variety of ways. We define it as:
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keeping up with the Jones's
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materialism as a path to happiness
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everyone knows we've got to get more
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climbing the corporate ladder to say you did it
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working all day and going home too tired to pursue your dreams
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letting the liberal media tell you how things really are
There's more, but that gives you the essence. One of the corporate myths has to do with measurement, compensation and 'getting results.' Nine out of ten organizations don't have metrics that really cause the results they seek. In fact, those metrics cause results that have to then be 'fixed.' Steven and Joel capture those notions with these posts!
Measurement Dysfunction. "As a result, workers began doing just about anything to get customers off the phone" Boy, does that sound familiar. "If you're in a helpdesk or call center, for example, and you're measuring your people on the number of calls they're taking, that's what they're going to do - take calls. [16-Jan]
Today, Joel writes about the oft-seen but (mostly) un-planned-for effect that measurements can have upon individuals' and organizations' performance. We call it "getting just what you measure," and too often the measurements are the only thing looked at by mid-level management. This "metric of the month" leaves employees feeling powerless to really do what's best for the customer; when they do they get 'dinged' by their manager for making the weekly stats look bad. Beat that horse too often and he'll just give up on the customer entirely.
What? You don't want your customers given up on? The trick is to find the measurements that really encourage the behaviour you want... not just the ones that are easiest for "the system" to give you (like number of calls taken, or time per call). [Steven's Weblog]
9:18:16 PM
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HERE'S ANOTHER REASON THAT TELECOM COLLAPSE AND REBIRTH IS INEVITABLE
Few people debate the fact that all of us use the phone at home, in business and on-the-go more than we did even ten years ago. Few people argue with the notion that we will be using one or more of these to an even greater degree in the future. We probably won't stop at Blockbuster, but we may 'order' a movie feed from Blockbuster. Those same phone calls may become video calls. Demand for bandwidth is a given!
The industry is facing the death throws of a 100-year old legacy, copper-based network. This centrally-planned, government subsidized relic is currently operated by a relative handful of monopolists or executives from the monopolists' ranks. Their rule is coming to an end. Some of them don't even know it.
Replacing that old network and its kings and lords will be a modern, continuously upgradable fiber optic network that passes IP packets end-to-end. Running that network will be a group of people who understand Moore's Law, rapid time-to-market and the concept of price-elasticity-of-demand. They're anything but monopolists!
I had an experience similar to the one mentioned below when one of our daughters phoned home from Boston while dancing with the Boston Ballet for a month or two. Little did we know we were facing a $700+ bill until after it arrived. We had done our homework in advance, fortunately, had documentation for the rates we had been quoted and got adjustments made to the bill. The relief was not easy to get nor was it immediate, but in an age of $0.045 per minute long distance rates, $700+ was not going to be paid!
Other than the airline industry, where you can be arrested for inquiring about the sobriety of the pilots, no industry treats its customers the way the telecom industry has. Better times are on their way, though!
SprintPCS Nightmare. I'm broke. I barely have enough money to get by through the next month. And my "royalty" check I received this weekend was only 36.00 - I was expecting 1000.00. Still, I can manage. I can manage...until today. Don't worry... [Burningbird]
5:36:49 PM
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Sunday, July 14, 2002 |
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Wednesday, July 10, 2002 |
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Tuesday, July 09, 2002 |
I READ IT ON THE INTERNET
The post below has factual errors in almost every paragraph. From the spelling of Warren Buffett's name to the conversion price of the bond deal, this article gets it wrong. Please be careful (and I'll do the same) when you are attempting to cover news. Some of the BigPub's have made errors on this story as well. The particulars are covered well by going straight to the horse's mouth.
Part of the problem appears to stem from bloggers trying to write authoritatively about things that lie outside of their expertise.
Buffet and friends sub Level 3 $500m for acquisitions. Chap 11 to predator in 60 seconds... [The Register]
7:59:33 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.
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