Bob Sproull’s “Focus and Leverage Blog”
Jack Vinson’s “Knowledge Jolt with Jack”
Kevin Rutherford’s “Silk and Spinach”
Andreas Scherer on Business and Science
Here is how it feels to have momentum. The phones are ringing. We don’t have time to read the morning newspaper because we have a tough time keeping up with the proposals we need to review and the contracts we need to read. Our delivery teams are busy. At the water cooler people talk about their premier airline status. We try to squeeze more functionality into the next release to make clients happy. We look at new hires, we even find more office space. The company is buzzing.
Here is how it feels if momentum is slipping. Customers are tough to get hold of. Deals are postponed. There are sudden departures from your own ranks. All and all, it’s quiet.
We all like to see the former, and we all dread the latter. The recession is over, but we are very far away from a booming economy. What are the lessons learned from the last few years operating in an economy that is trending sideways at best? How do you create momentum? What can we do to make our customers believe in our company and our solution? What can you do to make your own people believe they can make the “impossible” possible?
Here are my five lessons learned while operating successfully in a tough market environment.
1. Messaging – In any economy, our messages should be customer-focused, not product-focused. We need to know what the pain points are of our customers and how we can address them. Keep in mind that in a tough economy, customers’ needs and concerns change. We need to adjust our messaging accordingly
2. Laser focus on target markets – If business gets tough the natural inclination is to chase every opportunity in order not to miss out. Someone drowning in the ocean flails frantically trying to keep his head above the water. I would recommend the opposite approach. Use coordinated strokes to keep your company’s head above the waterline.
3. Pricing – Take a look at your approach to pricing. This doesn’t mean you should enter deals at steep discounts, but here are some options to consider.
4. Engage customers – Focus the marketing on “conversations” with customers. The days of one-way marketing are over. Customers want to talk with you on their terms, so narrow the gap. Make it personal. Be accessible.
5. Internal communication – Make sure that the people in the organization share your convictions. They get the news, too. Some will have doubts about the company’s future. Others are afraid of rising prices and a stagnant economy. As much as you are convinced of the viability of your strategy, your people need to be convinced as well. They need to believe that the goals for the company are achievable. And they need to see the path. Be authentic in the way you deliver your strategy within the organization.
Over many years Clarke Ching – founder of TOC Thinkers – has developed a valuable series of interviews by talking to authors and practitioners in the field of “Theory of Constraints” and “Critical Chain. He is interested in the story behind the story. I consider myself very honored to be included in Clarke’s circle of interview partners. Here you find the entire interview.
To make it short: Humans are not good at multitasking.
Yet, knowledge workers in Corporate America are being asked to do exactly that. They are being expected to stay on top of incoming email exceeding easily hundred, in some cases hundreds a day. They are being asked to be reachable, go to meetings and handle multiple assignments with ease. Multitasking is seen as a virtue. The ability to do so receives praise. However, multitasking comes at a significant cost.
In my work with knowledge workers, I find many examples that show that our brains cannot fully focus when we multitask. People take longer to complete tasks and are predisposed to error. When we attempt to complete many tasks at one time, or rapidly shift between them, errors go way up and it takes far longer. It takes more time to get the jobs done than if the tasks were done sequentially. This is largely because the brain is forced to restart and refocus. A study found that in the interim between each exchange, the brain makes no progress whatsoever. Therefore, multitasking people not only perform each task less suitabe, but lose time in the process.
Even computers are not good at multitasking as we find out when we open too many applications and windows on our desktop machines. Our system slows down and sometimes comes even to a stop. We need to reboot then. In computer science speak this effect is called “thrashing”. Our computers use hard-drives as extended memories. If they cannot hold enough data in their memories they push them out to disk. If you have enough applications running in parallel the system performance is reduced because files have to be swapped from the computer memory to the hard-disk back and forth. You can bring any computer system to its knees by increasing the number of parallel processes.
A similar thing happens with the human brain. Let’s say we write a document (task 1) and get interrupted by a phone call (task 2).
These are the steps that occur between two tasks. Imagine to what extent we are taxed with switching costs in a work environment, where we process daily hundreds of emails, tens of calls and deal with multiple project assignments. Anything that can be done to bring focus in the work day, anything that can be done to bring hours of uninterrupted work time will enhance productivity.
I have found in my work with corporate clients that people who are regularly interrupted take up to fifty percent (50%) longer to finish their tasks. Also, the amount of errors goes up about that much. There are very effective excercises to demonstrate this effect. Keep that in mind when you organize your day.
Over the last few months we have had a number of interesting merger announcements within the pharmaceutical industry. Major top 20 pharma companies were announcing to buy each other up.
The pharmaceutical industry has a history of major mergers. Companies like GSK have been the product of multiple mergers up to this point. However, these major announcements were made within a short period of time. So, what are the key drivers for this recent development?
Without any question, one of the driving forces is the never-ending quest to improve the pipeline of these major players. The hope is that, post merger the acquiring company will have a stronger pipeline of drugs that can be carried forward in their R&D organization. Of course, there is the hope of finding synergies, which is another word for carrying out the same amount of work with less people.
Some experts have voiced the opinion that the availability of freshly introduced TARP funding in the financial system was one of the key conditions for making these mergers possible. Certainly, this argument seems to have some legs, given the general unavailability of any kind of credit funds prior to the US government intervention.
It remains to be seen how successful the post-merger integration efforts will actually be. The final outcome of these mergers cannot be fully assessed for years to come. One thing is for sure though, when all the deal making is over, the regulatory process has resulted in the final approval and all documents have been signed, implementation will be essential. The fundamental necessity to drive execution from the board room level down to each and every project team will decide over a win or loss. Big Pharma just got a little bit bigger.