Matthew Hudson | February 1, 2012
“I am accountable for ensuring on time deliveries for our customers.”
“I am the main conduit for information for our team to stay connected to what is happening in the home office.”
“I am responsible for creating the materials needed to sell our products.”
“I am in charge of customer delight.”
All of these statements are in response to the question, “what do you do?” the most common ‘get to know you’ question we all use in everyday lives. First we say, “where are you from?” then we ask “what do you do?” Its just how us humans are wired.
The paradigm shift we are suggesting is to create a culture when people feel empowered, responsible and accountable for their role. In the above examples, the answers could have been..
“I’m a delivery driver for Staples.”
“I’m the communications manager for Sysco.”
I am the marketing manager for Genesco.”
“I am every employee of the organization.” (Honestly, wouldn’t you love to hear that last line come from all your employees?
If you have culture of titles in your organization, start by shifting the conversation from the title to what they do - after all, that is actually the question being asked! Teach your people to think and behave in this manner. There are hundreds of people who work in your company (if not thousands) and every day the same question gets asked - only his time it is more about “how do you fit here and do I salute you?”
This is another one of our easier said than done suggestions, but one that can have a huge impact on your culture. Try it.
Category: 3rd Degree Shower Burn, Corporate Culture |
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Matthew Hudson | January 19, 2012
We work with companies who constantly tout “empowered” environments and trust in employees. Yet, invariably, we will always find a ton of cultural evidence that suggests the opposite. Things like complicated approval processes or sign-offs.
No matter how empowered the execs think the org is, the proof is in the culture. Its funny how even as we are going through the proposal phase with a client for new business that we keep getting held up because the “empowered” person we have been dealing with this whole time still needs his boss’ and her boss’ approval before moving forward. (actually, we have gotten pretty good at keeping this from happening now.)
Most companies have cultures of “titles”. who you are and what power you have and how I should treat you is based on your title. I remember my time in corporate as a COO. I would always give me card out with my personal cell phone number to employee and tell them to contact me if they needed anything. I really meant it. But how many calls do you think I got? You are right. All they saw was COO, they never saw the person. This was something we had to change in our culture and we went to work on it and did.
But here is my thought for the day. Imagine if you will, a place where when you ask someone what they do instead of answering “I am the Director for Planning and Inventory for a big firm in Austin” they would answer “I am responsible for making sure the sales team in our company has the inventory they need in stock and ready to ship when they sell it.”
See the difference?
We’ll talk more about this in our next post.
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Matthew Hudson | December 25, 2011
Well, last year we were pretty spot on with our predictions. So let’s see if we can do it again this year.
While this year is going to be back to the old days of hype and attendance (should be a record crowd) there will not be any new ground-breaking technology introduced. Mostly improvements on what we already know.
- Tablets will continue to be a big theme. Except you will see lots of names you have never heard of trying to break into the space.
- Tablet accessories will dominate. Lots of people trying to get into the game with their ideas of stands, cases, protection etc
- Waterproof phones. Not sure the pratcial application of this except that my 16 month old daughter (who has had an iPad since she was 4 months old) will probably drop hers in the toilet soon. So, have to watch for that.
- Last year, we predicted that 3D without glasses would be shown and there were. But the images were not solid. This year we should see lots of improvement.
So why not many breakthrough ideas? Well, for the most part the industry is in the infant stages of transforming into a device-driven word versus a fully functioning laptop or TV world. iCloud is just the beginning of what is to come.
The devices in our hands, in our homes, in our cars will merely be portals - screens to display the data and content streaming from somehwere in the cloud. Cloud is not too sexy and not something we will see lots of at CES since it is not something the consumer will hold in their hands.But it is definitely something they will interact with. iCloud has already reached record numbers. And Google and Microsoft will not take this lying down - they will respond.
Windows 8 is planned to be an operating system that is androgynous to the device. In other words, mobile version and PC version are the same. We spoke last year of the coming age where the line between app driven operating systems and software driven operating systems would begin to blur. We still see the day when Microsoft Word is not longer a software package, but an app that you use. Let’s face it, 90% of what we do with Word could be done from an app.
So, what will CES become in the future? Look for an “App Section” in 2013.
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Matthew Hudson | January 1, 2011
Okay, so this may seem like an odd post, but if you have been following me, you read a post I did April of 2009 where I said that Netbooks were a fad and would go away. At the time, every major firm was predicting they would takeover laptops and that the sales of netbooks would eclipse notbeooks. I disagreed, so I wrote about it.
Anyway, some followers (who know I have a long history in CE) asked me my opinion of what was going to be the big stories of this year’s CES. So, I am going on record again and seeing if I am right. (I sure hope so!)
- In general, I think the future of consumer electronics (CE) is that you will be able to do whatever you want no matter the screen size. For example, what I an do on my 2.5″ cell phone, i will be able to do on my tablet, laptop, desktop and television - screens from 2′ to 200″ I think you will see this at CES 2011. People showing “smart” TVs that will marry the love we have with our handhelds with the larger screens. Plus, we will want a “cloud” lifestyle hat allows me to move my settings and apps from one screen to the next with ease.
- 3D TV was all the rage last year. But the problem with 3D - he glasses. I think this year, we will see someone show us 3D without the glasses.
- Integration of handhelds as controllers of other devices. I think we will see some applications where our iPhone or Andorid-based phone will control all our devices in the home and car through bluetooth.
- On the Apple front (by the way, hey will not annoucne during CES but will wait a week to get the press for themselves,) I think we will see a new smaller version of the iPad to create a bridge between the iPhone and iPad.
- Continuing on Apple, I think we will see the convergence of their app based functionality onto their Macbooks and iMacs. I think thier new operating system with bridge the divide betwene the current iOS and Snow Leopard OS. You will be able to disconnet your iMac screen from the stand and then use it as a tablet. Your iTunes account whihc houses your apps will sync all you devices connected to the same account with the same apps.
So, I am on record and online. This way you can hold me accountable if I am way off or continue he conversation with me if I am close.
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