Friday Reflections

You can muck around with different guitars for certain bits, but you have to have your own sound. That's your benchmark....

Benchmarking and competitive intelligence are double edged swords. If used in the right context, they can produce huge benefits. Used without proper context, they can lead countries/companies/individuals on the wrong path or even to disastrous results.

Story Line:

There was a Mogul Emperor in India, Akbar the Great (1542-1605).  One day, while on a hunting expedition in the forest, the Emperor's entourage camped in a small town. While there, the Emperor noticed that women did multiple chores in a day and wore simple clothes, and children seemed to have only one pair of clothes and no shoes. Despite all this, life seemed to go on, and they looked happy.

The Emperor sent his "benchmarking team" to study them and submit a report. This report concluded that the people in this small town were very poor, and managed their day with almost no resources.

The Emperor was very angry. Compared to this, there were a lot of excesses in his own palace. He issued an edict. From the next day, the Empress had to do all the palace chores, many servants were to be removed, and the princes' support structure was to be eliminated.

One of several learned people in the Emperor's court was a man called Birbal, who was valued for his advice, sense of humor and ability to explain different issues in a simple way. Birbal, realizing that the Emperor had acted upon benchmarking information without understanding the total picture of his own situation, decided to help the Emperor realize his imprudence.

A few weeks after his edict, the Emperor noticed that his gardens, the pride of his palace, were in terrible disarray.  The grass had started turning yellow, the flowers had shriveled up, the paths were overgrown. Very embarrassed and upset, he summoned his court, and found out that it was Birbal who had ordered the prized gardeners to leave. Fuming, he asked Birbal to explain his unwise act or face punishment.

Birbal told the Emperor that he had done benchmarking with the forest and realized that there were no gardeners there, but that trees and plants grew naturally. So he ordered the same practices to be implemented in the palace gardens.

Emperor Akbar got the message.

Reflection:

Improvement, continuous or quantum leap, is a noble goal. Learning from benchmarking and identifying "best practices" is also good strategy. But know thy Kingdom first.  What you are about? What business are you in? What does your customer expect from you? Only in that context are "best practices" really best practices. Not everything that is good for one business works well for the other.

"You can muck around with different guitars for certain bits, but you have to have your own sound.That's your benchmark...." - Dan Hawkins

In business, as in life, sometimes it's important to look at the big picture

In business, as in life, sometimes it is important to look at the big picture.

Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance

Happy Father's Day wishes to all friends around the world.

Quotable Quotes:

"My dad was my best friend and greatest role model. He was the person I looked up to more than anyone" - Tiger Woods.

“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.” - Jim Valvano.

Story Line:

"Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance" - Ruth E. Renkel.

And that richest inheritance is in the stories, the lessons and mentoring that he provides to his children. The third Sunday of June is celebrated as Father's day in America. It may be good time to reflect by driving down the memory lane. Many people have the fondest memories of spending time with their fathers. For me, here are the lessons for a lifetime taught by one great person: my father.

1. The most important relations are personal ones. Use the power of your finger to keep in touch on a daily basis. It is people who make things happen, not the machines.
2. In the future, women will be very dominant in all segments of world affairs. They are learning all the hard skills that men have, and they have the soft skills that will be crucial for success in the new world.
3. People with hands-on skills will never go hungry.
4. In sales, the important thing is not what you want to sell but it is what the other person wants to buy.
5. No one gets poor by cashing in their profits. “Bulls will win, bears will win, but it is hoggers who will get slaughtered.” Never buy on margin. Never play naked calls. 
6. Never get in the middle of elephants’ (people with power) fights, because there is an old African saying, “When the elephants fight, it is the grass (a small guy) that gets crushed.”
7. Anyone who comes to your door should not leave empty handed. Treat them with respect, serve them a cup of tea; and when they depart, let them carry a lifetime of good will.
8. The world is too big. There are an abundance of opportunities. If you believe in yourself, there is always a room at the top for your talents somewhere in this world.
9. Relationships of the mind are temporary but the relationships of heart will stay forever.
10. Ask one more question. Try one more time.

Two of his favorite quotes:
"A son is a son until he finds himself a wife. A daughter is a daughter all your life."
“An old soldier never dies. He only fades away.”

Out of the Box Thinking

It's that time again - watch the video above as we rotate a simple image, and let your creativity run free!  Let us know what you can see in the comments section.  The best idea (leaving an email address) will receive a free copy of Friday Reflections.

Have a Kindle or an iPhone? Try our affordable, portable, environmentally friendly Kindle Edition

Constancy of Purpose

Point to Ponder:

“Picture two animals: a fox and a hedgehog. Which are you? An ancient Greek parable distinguishes between foxes, which know many small things, and hedgehogs, which know one big thing.

All good-to-great leaders, it turns out, are hedgehogs. They know how to simplify a complex world into a single, organizing idea -- the kind of basic principle that unifies, organizes, and guides all decisions.

That's not to say hedgehogs are simplistic. Like great thinkers, who take complexities and boil them down into simple, yet profound, ideas (e.g. Adam Smith and the invisible hand, Darwin and evolution).

Leaders of good-to-great companies develop a hedgehog concept that is simple but that reflects penetrating insight and deep understanding.”

 - From the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins

Story Line:

The famous quote “The secret of success is constancy of purpose” is originally attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, a British politician from the 19th century.  This term became well known when Edward Deming, the renowned management guru, presented it as the first of the fourteen management principles in his book “Out of the Crisis.”

The first time I heard this statement was in 1984 from the leader of my group, Dr. Craig Barrett, who often mentioned this quote to keep us focused on a singular objective: becoming “the world class manufacturing company”. 

A lofty goal indeed, but here is one example (of countless many) illustrating what it means to "walk the talk" and role model what he preached:

In mid '80s it was a normal industry practice to include capital and people expenditure for product rework as the part of the annual plans. Craig had recognized that in order to become "the world-class manufacturing company", we needed to do things right first time.

He issued the mandate of NO REWORK for our assembly factories. The plant managers gladly accepted the challenge. However, only a few weeks after the policy change, one rather large lot of product with big revenue potential got the wrong marking. The manager of the culprit factory came up with multiple reasons, requests, apologies, begging (let me ship this time, promise it will never happen again!!). Craig stood firm with the NO REWORK directive.

This action had a tremendous impact on people's behaviors.  From then on, there was tremendous focus on preventive actions. Plans were put in place to introduce the necessary and fundamental changes in company structure to create a culture consistent with the vision.

As we know, over the course of time, through this shared constancy of purpose, he succeeded in creating one of the world’s finest manufacturing companies.  Not only that, but he provided a real life lesson in leadership to us all.

Reflection:

Amongst many valuable lessons I learned from Craig Barrett, having constancy of purpose is the most important one of it all. Every great achiever in life that I read about had a singular purpose that drove all of their activities and plans: Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Gandhi, Mandela, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Jumong, Deng Xioping, Kitaro, Akio Morita, Kurosawa, Pele, Don Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Andy Grove. I'm sure you can observe and name your own.

Easy Money

Reflection: Sometimes the result that looks the "easiest" is not the best

The most important secret of successful networkers

Point to Ponder:

"The best prospect is the client who has already dealt with you. The second best is the one referred by a client who has dealt with you previously. The third best is the one referred to you by another trusted professional or friend." - Marilyn Jennings.

Story Line:

"The successful networkers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person's needs ahead of their own." - Bob Burg

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend (let's call him Joe) with whom I had worked a long time ago. During our conversation, Joe mentioned a very lucrative deal that he had signed a few months ago with a new client. He told me that I was indirectly responsible for him getting the deal and thanked me.

I was surprised. I did not know anyone at his new client, and I did not recollect referring him to anybody. So my curiosity compelled me to ask him “How did I help?”

He told me that many years ago, during a previous lunch date, I had mentioned to him that one of our common friends (let's call him Sam) was looking to hire a consultant to help him set up his new company.  Joe talked to Sam to see if he could offer his own services, but learned that Sam was looking for help in a different area.

However, Joe had recently worked with a young kid that he thought might be a better fit for Sam's needs, and so enthusiastically (and successfully) referred him.  Some time after the successful completion of that contract, that kid had joined another company.

It so happened that just recently, that other company needed help in the area of Joe's expertise. So, one thing led to another, and with the kid's enthusiastic referral, Joe got his foot in the door and landed a good contract with a new company.

Reflection: Networking is not about contacting others when you need them. It is about keeping relationships and landing a helping hand to people any time.

Bonus PTP: "More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject." - Peter Drucker

Balance

Reflection:  No matter how hard you try, your work life and your personal life are one interconnected whole.  One affects the other.  You rarely stay at the top unless you can keep them in balance.

Son, you went there. But you still have not been there.

Point to Ponder:

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and know the place for the first time. - T.S. Eliot.

Story Line:

This morning I ran into an old colleague. Over a cup of coffee, he told me a recent incidence with his teenage son who is going to France for an extended period of studies and cultural experience. When they first talked about going to France, his son told him, “Dad, I have already been there (he meant a few days of prior vacation)” His dad told him, “Son, you went there. But you still have not been there.”

This deep meaning wisdom of the ages that my colleague shared made me think about incidences from my career and life. Here are a few:

1. Our US based company sent a few of us for an expatriate assignment to Manila. One of our colleagues ate hamburgers or steak & fries for his meals every day of the year for the entire three years (except on rare occasions when we had customer visit and had to go to local cuisines). He hung around only with other expatriates and did not show much interest in the local culture.

2. Having seen a very impressive resume of a “Process Engineer” we called him for an interview. When inquiring deeper in the interview, we found that he had not “Processed” anything himself even once. Operators were processing the material, technicians were doing measurements and this fellow was doing analysis (excellent one to his credit) of the data that was coming out of the printer. He had no clue how the equipment operated or even once experienced processing himself. As my boss Joe Z told us “He has a lot of years of experience as a Data Analyst. And he is very good at that part. But he is not a process engineer. I need someone who likes to be on the production floor.”

3. During the bus tour of Europe, one tourist constantly kept criticizing local people, their habits and even the historic places we visited. He also kept comparing things in different countries with things back home and had many arguments with the tour manager. Instead of enjoying NOW, he wasted his precious time and great opportunity to understand and appreciate the richness of the local cultures. Yes, he was in Europe. But he has not really been to Europe.

Reflections:

A few years ago, just after checking in the hotel in Japan with my family, I suggested that we go to Maharaja (an Indian restaurant) for dinner. A very strong and unanimous protest from the rest forced me to go to a Japanese restaurant. It had the best Sushi and local Japanese varieties I have ever eaten.

The very first time I visited a supplier and wrote a trip report, my boss Jim Boyd asked, “How much of this information did you collect in conference rooms vs. from direct observation from manufacturing floor and other work areas?” And that was a major turning point in my career. The year was 1981.

Don't Assume - look before you leap!

Reflection: You can't take anything for granted, so don't make assumptions - look before you leap.