Business Blog | Doug Brock

Anecdotes and Damn Lies – Just the Facts Please

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Doug

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about the Disconnect Found Between CEOs and Top Officers in yesterday’s paper. (Need to have a subscritpion to access the online article.) How many of you find that especially surprising?

According to the article, CEOs have a far different perspective of what they think employees including C-level officers want and what those employees really want. How many of those CEOs actually have a process in place that encourages conversation that would reveal the true opinions of their employees. The root cause for the disconnect is the lack of fact-based management processes.

The same thing happens when companies assume they know what customers want. The senior leaders and managers take anecdotal conversations, take the parts of those conversations that support what they already thought and decide they know what customers need. Few companies gather all of the information that’s needed to develop a true fact-based picture of customers. The information should be obtained from current, former, and potential customers as well as competitors customers. The process for gathering the information should also include measures of both customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. All of the characteristics are part of the Customer Focus category questions in the Baldrige criteria.

You have to develop ways that you listen and learn from both customers and employees. The ways you gather information have to work consistently and you have to actually analyze what you learn. If your mind was made up already then why bother asking? That was the problem identified in the article. Right?

Anecdotes whether from customers or from employees make for horrible decision making tools. Facts are far and away harder to find but will make for far and away better decisions.

Posted in Baldrige | Leave a comment

Is Collecting Market Data Like Making a Sandwich?

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Doug

Have you mastered a sandwich? My son makes a pretty mean grilled cheese. He thinks it’s the best grilled cheese sandwich anyone has ever made. I don’t know if it’s that good, but it’s pretty good – every time he makes one. He’s developed his own effective grilled cheese process that’s repeatable.

What do you know about your customers? Do you collect data, do focus groups, conduct surveys, conduct market studies, and rely on feedback from your sales force or other employees? Do you follow the same routine to analyze the data and feed the resulting analysis to all the functional parts of your business that need it? I know it’s hard work to develop Voice of the customer tools. You need tools that provide insight and help you build closer relationships with your customers but at the same time you have a budget. And isn’t it over simplifying things to say a sophisticated marketing function is like making a sandwich?

K&N Management manages Rudy’s Country Store & Bar-B-Q and Mighty Fine Burgers, Fries and Shakes.
K&N Management won the Malcolm Baldrige award in 2010 for having processes not only for making their sandwiches but for everything else as well. They have a process for customer data collection, aggregation, and analysis Just like the process for making their sandwiches. Works for them to the tune of triple their best competitors unit sales and guest satisfaction ratings of 4.7 or better
on a 5 point scale at all their restaurants.

Maybe we all ought to start thinking about our marketing functions and everything else like we think of making a sandwich. Develop the process and improve it ’til it’s right. Then improve it some more.

Posted in Marketing and Sales | Leave a comment

What is Baldrige and Why Should I Care?

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Doug

I am a Baldrige evangelist. You ask me all the time, “What the heck is Baldrige?” when I bring up Baldrige references in conversation. Baldrige is a weapon against complacency. If your business or organization is doing alright and you think that is good enough you’re probably wrong. Too many variables in the world today prevent us from accepting alright and getting away with it for long. If you are already doing well, then you can probably accelerate your efforts with Baldrige.

So, what is the Baldrige criteria and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award? The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was created to enhance the competitiveness, quality, and productivity of US organizations and to award organizations that demonstrate world-class performance and improvement processes. The Baldrige criteria is the set of questions developed to determine winners of the award.

The questions of the Baldrige criteria in the beginning of the award program primarily focused on quality related functions and had a manufacturing tilt to them. It has been refined over the life of the program to become a framework for understanding and managing performance in all facets of an organization not just the quality department and not just manufacturing. The questions are refined by a team of experts representative of industry and academia every two years so it stays relevant to current management practices. The criteria is simply a set of questions. The answers to the questions are powerful though. The answers help an organization and leaders of organizations determine what they do well and where they most need to focus their efforts.

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program and the criteria are used by numerous organizations both in the US and worldwide. Municipalities, educational organizations, hospitals, small and large for-profit and non-profit organizations use the criteria to apply for the national and state awards and for self-assessment. Internationally, Tata Industries the huge Indian conglomerate, has adopted the criteria as their framework for performance improvement. In the US, Cargill is implementing the use of the criteria in its business units. Cargill determined that in the business units with a high degree of Baldrige usage, earnings after taxes are 30% higher than goal compared to 13% higher for units only partially adopting Baldrige, and in their business units just beginning to implement Baldrige, earnings after taxes are 12% below goal.

In addition to the national Baldrige programs most states have award and education programs based on Baldrige. Tennessee has an established program, the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence or TNCPE. Its mission is “To lead organizations in the pursuit of performance excellence, improving results and contributing to the economic vitality of their region.” That mission is accomplished by providing assessments and detailed feedback based on the Baldrige criteria and by offering educational opportunities to organizations seeking to improve their performance.

The Baldrige Framework The criteria consists of eight sections of questions. Answers to the Organizational Profile describe your unique organization and circumstances. Questions in six functional categories assess improvement efforts, the overall performance management system, and help you identify your strengths and opportunities for improvement in the areas that are critical for any organization to perform well. The last section’s questions determine the results that you actually achieve in each of the 6 functional areas.

Baldrige is just a set of questions. But it is not a set of rules or standards or even recommendations. The criteria does not mandate or even suggest the use of any specific tool or method. It only helps you identify whether your organization does or does not have processes in place for addressing your unique situation as defined in your answers to the organizational profile.

You may be wondering if the Baldrige criteria could be helpful to your organization. You may also be wondering if there are easy ways to determine if it could be helpful. Use this simple tool (it’s only a 10 minute exercise) to determine if Baldrige is worth your consideration. The results you get from the exercise might surprise you.

Now that you have a better understanding of what the Baldrige criteria is I hope you will investigate it further. Consider how powerful the answers to the criteria questions can be in helping organizations determine what they do well and where they have opportunities for improvement. Download the criteria from the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence website or the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence website. Post questions or comments below or seek out the opinion of other examiners or companies that use it extensively. The TNCPE or I can put you in touch with them. Baldrige is a wonderful way for us to fight complacency in all of our organizations and I hope you will help me spread that message.

Posted in Baldrige | 2 Comments

Lower Expectations Result in Average Performance or Worse

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Doug

Goals and expectations are very closely tied together. High expectations typically are matched with big goals. But the reverse of that thinking also applies. Do you not accomplish your personal or organizational goals because your expectations are setting up roadblocks?

Tell ‘em their stupid and they’ll be stupid

John Boehner was asked why entitlement programs were not being considered in the current budget. He said Americans don’t yet know that entitlements are the problem. Isn’t that a bit patronizing. He nor any other representative asked me what I do or don’t know. They think I am stupid and therefore set my expectations both for their individual and our collective performance low.

Do you do that in the workplace? Assume that employees don’t know enough to accept lofty goals and by default, goals can no longer be lofty.

Tell ‘em they aren’t capable and they won’t be capable

Would you ever tell a child they can’t do something? What coach is known for inspiring pre-game speeches telling the team that they probably can’t meet the goal of winning but let’s do our best?

How often are questions of capability used in the worplace? Comments like: “I know this is a big goal but let’s do our best.” or “Just do your best.” What is best if there isn’t a measurable goal associated with it?

Tell ‘em not to try and they won’t try

Are marching orders around the office “Don’t kill yourself on this just try to get it done.” Anyone that has ever undertaken a challenging task knows how easy it is to quit. You also know how easy it is to do half-ass work, to do just enough to get by, to do the minimum to meet an already low standard. Why set the stage for mediocre work by telling people not to try?

So do your expectations of employees or coworkers meet the lofty goals you have? Or do you really just think they’re not smart enough, or not capable, or not willing to try to accomplish the important things?

Posted in Strategy and Planning | Leave a comment

No Parternship – No Vision – It’s not my Job!

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Doug

A number of us that work in the industrial world whether it is actually in manufacturing or selling to manufacturers are exposed to unions or have been in the past. We all have some horror story that we experienced or heard about. In my field it typically involves wanting to look inside a cabinet to see a part or to make some simple adjustment on a device but the engineer you are working with is not allowed to open the cabinet or make the adjustment. As part of the union agreement only a specific tradesman can perform that task. You’ve had a similar experience or heard a similar story. Right?

I don’t know if those types of things still happen. We don’t have near the union presence as there once was so it may be we just aren’t as exposed to it as we were in the past. However, it congers up a certain image of people saying, “It’s not my job!”

Not My Job I was reminded of this photo the other day while sitting in a grocery store parking lot. I parked and was listening to the end of a song. (’cause the kids won’t let me play the Dobbie Brothers when they’re with me. That’s another post entirely.) There was a newspaper ad at the edge of the parking lot directly in front of the grocery store door. I watched six different people step over the litter even though there was a trash can right next to it. One of the people that stepped over it was a Chattanooga city councilman.

A number of the issues with unions could be dealt with if there was a sense of partnership between the unions and the organizations that they are negotiating with. But there is an overwhelming need to win as opposed to partner. Let’s face it, for years the UAW did not have the auto manufacturers interest in mind and the auto manufacturers never treated the UAW as a partner. There are examples where partnerships are effectively formed and working. I caught the clip below from a post on the Baldrige blog showing how the 2010 Baldrige educational service winner partnered with unions.

One of those school districts was Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS), a winner of the 2010 Baldrige Award. In an online article published recently on the Web site of the American Association of School Administrators, MCPS superintendent Jerry Weast gave some insight into the district’s partnership with its unions. “We have built a trusting, respectful relationship with our employee associations, and they are at the table as we are building our budgets and making difficult decisions,” he said.
Link to Baldrige Blog Post

Posted in Leadership | 1 Comment

Change may be Good or Bad but It’s Always Hard

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Doug

Change is inevitable but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. But you can make it easier by playing the role of Change Agent as opposed to being the Change Guard.

The past week’s events in the Middle East made us all reflect on how major changes occur and what the implications can be. No plan can account for everything that can happen. But the people in any organization can greatly influence how quickly and how successfully changes are deployed. The images from Egypt were both moving and disturbing to me and probably you. One of the video clips that
Horse Riders with Whips in Tahrir Square bothered me the most was of the guys riding horses into Tahrir Square whips in hand. The riders are reportedly involved in tourism and chose this as the method of displaying their opposition to the changes taking place. Other reports accused the riders of being Mubarak’s paid thugs. I don’t know which is true but I know these guys were adamantly resisting change.

This is in contrast to Wael Ghonim the young Google marketing executive that was involved in coordinating the initial demonstrations. Wael Ghonim in Tahrir Square He is now one of the voices of the change movement. I saw a few minutes of an interview with Ghonim on Bloomberg. He demonstrated such optimism and enthusiasm for change that it is easy to see how he helped motivate other young Egyptians. His influence as a change Agent was very powerful.

Planned or unplanned change is not automatically a good or a bad thing but you can make it worse by always playing the change guard instead of the change agent.

I’m sure you have spent countless meetings where something new was introduced and one person in the meeting was the outspoken change guard. Change Guards are the self-annointed curmudgeoins that loudly oppose anything new. As I bought school supplies for the kids and a couple of items for my wife today at the office supply store I was reminded of the images from Egypt. My wife is a huge fan of the ultra fine tip Sharpie pens. She uses them exclusively instead of ball points or other ink pens. As I picked out a pack of the Sharpies, I pictured a marketer speaking of the new initiative to expand the traditional Sharpie market by coming out with pens that would directly compete with ball point pens. Then I had this image of the guy on horseback cracking the whip stating that Sharpie could never compete in that market and it was a really bad way to distract them from core businesses…

Be a Change Agent when the cause is fair and good not a Change Guard.

Posted in Leadership | Leave a comment

Leadership in Action and Attitude, because small things matter

Posted on January 24, 2011 by Doug

Have you ever complained to a co-worker that if you were in charge you’d do things differently? That given the authority you’d fix a given problem or improve performance in a certain situation? Would you argue with me if I told you that you do have authority in any situation to make a difference? Through the appropriate display of leadership even the smallest contribution matters. Let me give a couple of simple examples.

Attitude
I was getting my haircut recently and as my barber worked away one of the other hairdressers kind of went on a rant. The other hair dresser complained that the flow of traffic that day had been so steady that noone got a break and they all worked through lunch. He went on to say that the manager never could get the schedule right expressing his frustation pretty loudly. Rather than piling on the barber cutting my hair matter-of-factly said, “The other day we were all complaining that we didn’t have any business. You should be grateful and pay attention to the customer in your chair.” The atmosphere immediately changed based on my barber’s words. It didn’t come across as being too judgmental and while the other hair dresser might have been slightly agitated, my barber through his leadership put the focus back on customers and quelled what was probably the start of a large bitch session.

Action
Have you ever been in a meeting that was poorly run? The person leading the meeting might half-heartedly lead the group through a discussion or suggest that “Maybe we should start this meeting by discussing this topic. What do you all think?” Compare that with the person leading the meeting that takes the opportunity to provide leadership by saying, “Let’s start here. This is the agenda.”

Small opportunities to provide leadership can make a big difference.

Posted in Leadership | 2 Comments

Do you just say you do or do you?

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Doug

This is the time of year where grand ideals meet hard reality. How many of you have thought about resolutions? Even felt motivated towards a grand goal and then two weeks into the new project lost steam and convinced yourself of all the reasons it was not a worthy project to begin with? Drive by any local YMCA and the parking lot is crammed full in January and by mid-February the parking lot seems bare. New habits and big projects of self improvement are tough. It’s hard to make the initial commitment and harder yet to stick with it and accomplish the goal. The hardest part is telling others that you have the goal. To tell yourself that you are making a resolution allows you to remain a little non-committal. Tell a good friend or spouse or co-worker about it and now you have an extra motivational layer. Quit and you have to tell them or lie about it.

I was reading a link to an article that Jon DiPietro put up on twitter or LinkedIn titled “The 10 Best Corporate Blogs in the World“. While the article’s subject was interesting, the thing that really caught my eye was a statement that really verified a little project that I’ve been working on. The comment was, “And even when some companies claimed to have a blog, I couldn’t find it.” I spent a little time following some links of marketing award winners from a trade publication only to find that most of the winners were no longer using any of the tools that were touted in the award descriptions.

A potential client approached me about a disconnect between their marketing effort and their results. Discussions included an explanation of the social media aspects of their efforts. With a little research it was obvious the social media efforts were brief and no longer being developed but they still claimed to be employing social media in their efforts.

If you hired a salesperson and they just didn’t work out after a few months would you continue to hand out their business card?

This potential client made a resolution at some point in the past to use social media as another tool in their marketing efforts. After a short period of time they convinced themselves the effort to follow through was not worth it. Extending the marketing message with social media just wasn’t a worthy project to begin with in their minds. But they had told their friends and just couldn’t swallow pride and say they didn’t keep the resolution.

Just like your friends will think better of you if you just admit that you didn’t keep the resolution, your customers will think better of you if you say you don’t use social media than if you lie.

Posted in Social Media & other New Tools | Leave a comment

The Big Picture aka Personal and Professional Development Opportunity

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Doug

Small and medium-sized companies frequently have a chip on their shoulder when they compare themselves to bigger competitors or bigger companies in general. In discussions I hear business owners and managers say things like: We don’t have the resources those guys do. We can’t put that much time into that kind of a project. We can’t spend as much time worrying about strategy as the big guys.

Strategy Stickies

Here’s a newsflash. All of the time and resources larger companies put into strategic efforts is frequently hap-hazard and wasted. Most big companies don’t do any better than small companies at accomplishing the key things they want or need to accomplish. There are numerous reasons; day-to-day distractions, urgent matters, differing priorities among the leadership team… FranklinCovey in their 4 Disciplines of Execution gives four reasons for not accomplishing goals or executing strategy:

People don’t know what the goals are
They don’t know what to do to accomplish the goals
They don’t have measures that accurately reflect goals
They don’t regularly review or track progress

Actions Stickies

How is that different in a large company than a small company? I say it’s not. It’s the same issues big or small. So what do you do about it? Learn more about deploying and executing. Find instruction personally and professionally that will give you the skill set to accomplish things. Level the playing field big to small!

Innovate TNCPE Conference

Numerous companies use the Baldrige criteria to self-analyze and determine what important strategies should be, how to create action plans, how to deploy strategies, gain buy-in, ensure employees and partners help carry-out strategy…They send their employees to Baldrige training for them to learn a big picture perspective so they can help accomplish the big things that need to be done. There is a great opportunity to learn more about Baldrige and the Tennessee state-level Baldrige program TNCPE in Nashville in February.

If you are struggling with accomplishing your goals or executing strategy contact the TNCPE immediately to book your spot. Because if you don’t change what you’re doing, it’s crazy to expect different results than you are currently getting.