artdiamondblog.com

(p. 163) Some of my detractors, and I've acquired a few over the years, say that my penchant for experimenting with new menu items is a foolish indulgence. They contend that it stems from my never having outgrown my drummer's desire to have something new to sell. "McDonald's is in the hamburger business," they say. "How can Kroc even consider serving chicken?" Or, "Why change a winning combination?"

Of course, it's not difficult to demonstrate how much our menu has changed over the years, and nobody could argue wish the success of additions such as the Filet-O-Fish, the Big Mac, Hot Apple Pie, and Egg McMuffin. The most interesting thing to me about these items is that each evolved from an idea of one of our operators. So the company has benefited from the ingenuity of its small businessmen while they were being helped by the system's image and our cooperative advertising muscle. This, to my way of thinking, is the perfect example of capitalism in action. Competition was the catalyst for each of the new items. Lou Groen came up with Filet-O-Fish to help him in his battle against the Big Boy chain in the Catholic parishes of Cincinnati. The Big Mac resulted from our need for a larger sandwich to compete against Burger King and a variety of specialty shop concoctions. The idea (p. 164) for Big Mac was originated by Jim Delligatti in Pittsburgh.

Harold Rosen, our operator in Enfield Connecticut, invented our special St. Patrick's Day drink, The Shamrock Shake. "It takes a guy with a name like Rosen to think up an Irish drink," Harold told me. He wasn't kidding. "You may be right," I said. "It takes a guy with a name like Kroc to come up with a Hawaiian sandwich . . . Hulaburger." He didn't say anything. He didn't know whether I was kidding or not. Operators aren't the only ones who come up with creative ideas for our menu. My old friend Dave Wallerstein, who was head of the Balaban & Katz movie chain and has a great flair for merchandising--he's the man who put the original snack bars in Disneyland for Walt Disney--is an outside director of McDonald's, and he's the one who came up with the idea for our large size order of french fries. He said he loved the fries, but the small bag wasn't enough and he didn't want to buy two. So we kicked it around and he finally talked us into testing the larger size in a store near his home in Chicago. They have a window in that store that they now call "The Wallerstein Window," because every time the manager or a crew person would look up, there would be Dave peering in to see how the large size fries were selling. He needn't have worried. The large order took off like a rocket, and it's now one of our best-selling items. Dave really puts his heart into his job as a director, now that he's retired and has plenty of time. There's nothing he likes more than traveling with me to check out stores.

Our Hot Apple Pie came after a long search for a McDonald's kind of dessert. I felt we had to have a dessert to round out our menu. But finding a dessert item that would fit readily into our production system and gain wide acceptance was a problem. I thought I had the answer in a strawberry shortcake. But it sold well for only a short time and then slowed to nothing. I had high hopes for pound cake, too, but it lacked glamor. We needed something we could romance in advertising. I was ready to give up when Litton Cochran suggested we try fried pie, which he said is an old southern favorite. The rest, of course, is fast-food history. Hot Apple Pie, and later Hot Cherry Pie, has that special quality, that classiness in a finger food, that made it perfect for McDonald's. The pies added significantly to our sales and (p. 165) revenues. They also created a whole new industry for producing the filled, frozen shells and supplying them to our stores.

During the Christmas holidays in 1972, I happened to be visiting in Santa Barbara, and I got a call from Herb Peterson, our operator there, who said he had something to show me. He wouldn't give me a clue as to what it was. He didn't want me to reject it out of hand, which I might have done, because it was a crazy idea--a breakfast sandwich. It consisted of an egg that had been formed in a Teflon circle, with the yolk broken, and was dressed with a slice of cheese and a slice of grilled Canadian bacon. This was served open-face on a toasted and buttered English muffin. I boggled a bit at the presentation. But then I tasted it, and I was sold. Wow! I wanted to put this item into all of our stores immediately. Realistically, of course, that was impossible. It took us nearly three years to get the egg sandwich fully integrated into our system. Fred Turner's wife, Patty, came up with the name that helped make it an immediate hit--Egg McMuffin.

Source:

Kroc, Ray. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's. Chicago: Henry Regnary Company, 1977.

(Note: ellipsis and italics in original.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the challenges of efficiently running a business is when to encourage experimentation and innovation among employees, and when to enforce standardization. Sam Walton seemed to have handled this well at Wal-Mart.

In the passage quoted below, Ray Kroc gives a glimpse of how he handled the issue at McDonald's.

(p. 137) . . . , the quality of our french fries was a large part of McDonald's success, and I certainly didn't want to jeopardize our business with a frozen potato that was not up to our standard. So we made certain that the frozen product was thoroughly tested and that it met every condition of quality before we made it part of the system.

There was another product being tested at this time that would prove to have a tremendous effect on our business. This was the (p. 138) Filet-O-Fish sandwich. It had been born of desperation in the mind of Louis Groen in Cincinnati. He had that city as an exclusive territory as a result of some horse trading he'd done with Harry and me back in the days when we were using everything but butterfly nets to catch franchisees. Lou's major competition was the Big Boy chain. They dominated the market. He managed to hold his own against them, however, on every day but Friday. Cincinnati has a large Catholic population and the Big Boys had a fish sandwich. So if you add those two together on a day the church had ordained should be meatless, you have to subtract most of the business from McDonald's.

My reaction when Lou first broached the fish idea to me was, "Hell no! I don't care if the Pope himself comes to Cincinnati. He can eat hamburgers like everybody else. We are not going to stink up our restaurants with any of your damned old fish!"

But Lou went to work on Fred Turner and Nick Karos. He convinced them that he was either going to have to sell fish or sell the store. So they went through a lot of research, and finally made a presentation that convinced me.

Al Bernardin, who was our food technologist at the time, worked with Lou on the type of fish to be used, halibut or cod, and they finally decided to go with the cod. I didn't care for that; it brought back too many childhood memories of cod liver oil, so we investigated and found out it was perfectly legal to merchandise it as North Atlantic whitefish, which I like better. There were all kinds of fishhooks in developing this sandwich: how long to cook it, what type of breading to use, how thick it should be, what kind of tartar sauce to use, and so forth. One day I was down in our test kitchen and Al told me about a young crew member in Lou Groen's store who had eaten a fish sandwich with a slice of cheese on it.

"Of course!" I exclaimed. "That's exactly what this sandwich needs, a slice of cheese. No, make it half a slice." So we tried it, and it was delicious. And that is how the slice of cheese got into the McDonald's Filet-O-Fish.

We started selling it only on Fridays in limited areas, but we got so many requests for it that in 1965 we made it available in all our stores every day, advertising it as the "fish that catches people." I (p. 139) told Fred Turner and Dick Boylan, both of whom happen to be Catholic, "You fellows just watch. Now that we've invested in all this equipment to handle fish, the Pope will change the rules." A few years Later, damned if he didn't. But it only made those big fish sales figures that much sweeter to read.

Source:

Kroc, Ray. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's. Chicago: Henry Regnary Company, 1977.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rita Gunther McGrath is a member of the faculty of the Columbia Business School. Source of photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. R2) BUSINESS INSIGHT: You and Prof. Ian C. MacMillan of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania wrote a book called "Discovery-Driven Growth." What is discovery-driven growth?

DR. MCGRATH: Discovery-driven growth is a way of planning to grow that doesn't require a lot of analytical information at the outset. It recognizes that many of the data that you need to make decisions don't exist at the time that you have to make the decisions. It's a plan to learn.

I think we all live with a conceptual overhang from an industrial era when things were more predictable. You had big production runs. At least if you were an American company, you had a lot of markets with very little competition, and what competition there was was more or less predictable. In many businesses you could use the past as an adequate guide to what the future held for you.

In more and more industries, those conditions no longer apply. You're seeing temporary advantages, very rapid swings in who's on top competitively, new technologies that make older ones irrelevant at an ever-faster clip--the usual litany of things people moan about today. But I think one of the things that has not yet quite been fully recognized is that these have an impact on our management processes--or should.

For the full interview, see:

Martha E. Mangelsdorf. "Executive Briefing; Learning From Corporate Flops; When starting new ventures, companies should revisit their assumptions early and often." The Wall Street Jounal (Mon., OCTOBER 26, 2009): R2.

(Note: italics in original.)

Source of book image: http://events.roundtable.com/iguru/DiscoveryDrivenGrowth.gif.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Entrepreneurs may develop a good sense of people, even though they cannot articulate their judgment. Yet their firms, and our economy, might be more efficient and productive if they were allowed to follow their judgments, rather than follow Human Resource Department credentialism and paper trails.

The entrepreneurs might make mistakes, but in an open economy they would pay a price for their mistakes in profits foregone, and hance would have an incentive to correct the mistakes. And there would be plenty of alternative jobs for anyone mistakenly fired.

(p. 91) I've been wrong in my judgments about men, I suppose, but not very often. Bob Frost, one of our key executives on the West Coast, will remember the time he and I were checking out stores, and I got a very unfavorable impression of one of his young managers. As we drove away from the store I said to Bob, "I think you'd better fire that man." "Oh, Ray, come on!" he exclaimed. "Give the kid a break. He's young, he has a good attitude, and I think he will come along."

"You could be right, Bob," I said, "but I don't think so. He has no potential."

Later in the day, as we were driving back to Los Angeles, that conversation was still bugging me. Finally I turned to Bob and yelled, "Listen goddammit I want you to fire that man!"

One thing that makes Bob Frost a good executive is that he has the courage of his convictions. He also sticks up for his people. He's a retired Navy man, and he knows how to keep his head under fire. He simply pursed his lips and nodded solemnly and said, "If you are ordering me to do it, Ray, I will. But I would like to give him another six months and see how he works out."

I agreed, reluctantly. What happened after that was the kind of (p. 92) personnel hocus-pocus that government is famous for but should never be permitted in business, least of all in McDonald's. The man hung on. He was on the verge of being fired several times in the following years, but he was transferred or got a new supervisor each time. He was a decent guy, so each new boss would struggle to reform him. Many years later he was fired. The assessment of the executive who finally swung the ax was that "this man has no potential."

Bob Frost now admits he was wrong. I had the guy pegged accurately from the outset. But that's not the point. Our expenditure of time and effort on that fellow was wasted and, worst of all, he spent several years of his life in what turned out to be a blind alley. It would have been far better for his career if he'd been severed early and forced to find work more suited to his talents. It was an unfortunate episode for both parties, but it serves to show that an astute judgment can seem arbitrary to everyone but the man who makes it.

Source:

Kroc, Ray. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's. Chicago: Henry Regnary Company, 1977.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Members of the public watched the first test flight of the Boeing 787 on Tuesday in Everett, Wash." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

In their stimulating business best-seller Built to Last Collins and Porrus have a chapter in which they argue that one way to attract and retain the best employees is to give them a difficult but important project to work on. They call such projects "BHAGs," which stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Among their main examples (e.g., p. 104) of BHAGs were Boeing's development of the 707 and 747.

Boeing's latest BHAG is the 787 Dreamliner.

(p. A25) EVERETT, Wash. -- The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner lifted into the gray skies here for the first time on Tuesday morning, more than two years behind schedule and burdened with restoring Boeing's pre-eminence in global commercial aviation.

"Engines, engines, engines, engines!" shouted April Seixeiro, 37, when the glossy twin-engine plane began warming up across from where spectators had informally gathered at Paine Field. Ms. Seixeiro was among scores of local residents and self-described "aviation geeks" who came to watch the first flight.

Moments after the plane took off at 10:27 a.m., Mrs. Seixeiro was wiping tears from her eyes. A friend, Katie Bailey, 34, cried, too.

"That was so beautiful," Ms. Bailey said.

For the full story, see:

WILLIAM YARDLEY. "As 787 Takes Flight, Seattle Wonders About Boeing's Future." The New York Times (Weds., December 16, 2009): A25.

(Note: the online version of the article has the title "A Takeoff, and Hope, for Boeing Dreamliner" and is dated December 15, 2009.)

The reference for the Collins and Porras book is:

Collins, James C., and Jerry I. Porras. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York: HarperBusiness, 1994.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The failure of Xerox to take advantage of the innovations developed at Xerox PARC, is a legendary example of management failure. A couple of books have been written on the subject that I hope to read sometime.

(p. 194) Beyond his efforts in VLSI design, Bert Sutherland had supported the work at Xerox PARC that led to the "windows" and the "mouse" on nearly every workstation and many personal computers, from Apple and Atari to Apollo and Sun. He formed the research department that made Ethernet the dominant small computer network and that conceived the "notebook" lap computer. Xerox's lead in IC design gave the company the tools--if the firm had only understood them--to lend new special features to every copier and printer and even to create the kind of electronic "personal copiers" later pioneered by Canon.

Bert Sutherland was the hero of Xerox PARC: that is history. But that was not life. In real life, Xerox fired him in 1979. While he worked day and night on the novel projects in Palo Alto that were to give Xerox an indelible role in the history of computer technology, jealous rivals conspired against him at headquarters. They said that his research, which would fuel the industry for a decade, was irrelevant to the needs of the company. In corning years, the research leadership that replaced him would make the company nearly irrelevant to the needs of the world.

Gilder, George. Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology. Paperback ed. New York: Touchstone, 1990.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not Microsoft. "Mark Clemente, a Steinreich Communications vice president, in the firm's smaller Hackensack, N.J., office." Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

The article quoted below documents the trend in business toward small, and more open offices. I believe that this trend is largely a mistake.

Another trend in business (see Levy and Murnane 2004) is for more jobs to involve thinking and creativity. Thinking and creativity are harder in an environment of noise and frequent and unpredictable interruptions.

David Thielen's book on the secrets of Microsoft's success that said that Microsoft emphasized hiring really good people, and then respected them enough to give them an office with a door, so they could have the space and privacy to think and create (e.g., pp. 17-35 & 147-150).

Microsoft had the right idea.

(p. B7) The office cubicle is shrinking, along with workers' sense of privacy.

Many employers are trimming the space allotted for each worker. The trend has accelerated during the recession as employers seek to cut costs and boost productivity.

. . .

Tighter quarters and open floor plans also can present challenges. David Lewis, president of OperationsInc LLC, a Stamford, Conn., provider of human-resources services to more than 300 U.S. companies, says open floor plans and low cubicle walls can create discord and lead to increased turnover.

"Now everybody knows everybody else's business," he says. "It actually starts to create a level of tension in an office that never existed before. People can't focus on work because they're on top of each other."

For the full story, see:

SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN. "THEORY & PRACTICE; Office Personal Space Is Crowded Out; Workstations Become Smaller to Save Costs, Taking a Toll on Employee Privacy." The Wall Street Journal (Mon., DECEMBER 7, 2009): B7.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

The Levy and Murnane book mentioned above, is:

Levy, Frank, and Richard J. Murnane. The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

The Thielen book is:

Thielen, David. The 12 Simple Secrets of Microsoft Management: How to Think and Act Like a Microsoft Manager and Take Your Company to the Top. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clayton Christensen has shown how good management, following respected practices, can fail in the face of disruptive technologies. It would be interesting to investigate whether Fairchild was an example of what Christensen is talking about, or whether it just did not have good management.

(p. 89) Andrew Grove . . . had played a central role in bringing Fairchild to the threshold of a new era. But Fairchild would not enjoy the fruits of his work. Following the path of venture capital pioneer Peter Sprague were scores of other venture capitalists seeking to exploit the new opportunities he had shown them. Collectively, they accelerated the pace of entrepreneurial change--splits and spinoffs, startups and staff shifts--to a level that might be termed California Business Time ("What do you mean, I left Motorola quickly?" asked Gordon Campbell with sincere indignation. "I was there eight months!").

The venture capitalist focused on Fairchild: that extraordinary pool of electronic talent assembled by Noyce and Moore, but left essentially unattended, undervalued, and little understood by the executives of the company back in Syosset, New York. Fairchild leaders John Carter and Sherman Fairchild commanded the microcosm: the most important technology in the history of the human race. Noyce, Moore, Hoerni, Grove, Sporck, design genius Robert Widlar, and marketeer Jerry Sanders represented possibly the most potent management and technical team ever assembled in the history of world business. But, hey, you guys, don't forget to report back to Syosset. Don't forget who's boss. Don't give out any bonuses without clearing them through the folks at Camera and Instrument. You might upset some light-meter manager in Philadelphia.

They even made Charles Sporck, the manufacturing titan, feel like "a little kid pissing in his pants." Good work, Sherman, don't let the big lug put on airs, don't let him feel important. He only controls 80 percent of the company's growth. Widlar is leaving? Great, he never fit in with the corporate culture anyway. Sporck has gone off with Peter Sprague? There are plenty more where he came from.

"It was weird," said Grove, "they had no idea about what the company or the industry was like, nor did they seem to care. . . . Fairchild was just crumbling. If you wish, the semiconductor division management consisted of twenty significant players: eight went to National, eight went into Intel, and four of them went to Alcoholics Anonymous or something." Actually there were more than twenty and they went into startups all over the Valley; some twenty-six new semiconductor firms sprouted up between 1967 and 1970. "It got to the point," recalled one man quoted in Dirk Hanson's The New Alchemists, "where people were practically driving trucks over to Fairchild and loading up with employees."

Gilder, George. Microcosm: The Quantum Revolution in Economics and Technology. Paperback ed. New York: Touchstone, 1990.

(Note: the first ellipsis was added; the others were in the original. The italics were also in the original.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image: http://bobsutton.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b75569e20120a5fa1e26970c-800wi.

(p. W8) Mr. Brown argues . . . emphatically for the close observation of users in their natural habitats. Traditional market-research tools--focus groups, surveys--rarely produce breakthrough findings, he claims. IDEO and others follow users around--making video recordings of them as they go about their routines, recording conversations with them--to build an understanding of what they really need. An IDEO employee in the health-care area, for instance, pretended to have a foot injury and checked himself into an emergency room with a hidden video camera to get a better view of the patient experience. This anthropological form of market research, Mr. Brown notes, has been adopted by companies such as Intel and Nokia.

For the full review, see:

DAVID A. PRICE. "The Shape of Things to Come; Design is more than aesthetics and ease of use. It's a way of doing business." The Wall Street Journal (Fri., OCTOBER 9, 2009): W8.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Reference the book being reviewed:

Brown, Tim. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. New York: HarperBusiness Publishers, 2009.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The unusual suspects, 1969: top row from left, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam; bottom row from left, Terry Jones, John Cleese and Michael Palin." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 24) "A lot of contemporary comedy seems self-conscious," Mr. Palin said. "It's almost documentary, like 'The Office.' That's a very funny show, but you're looking at the human condition under stress. The Pythons made the human condition seem like fun."

He added: "I'm proud to be a Python. It's a badge of silliness, which is quite important. I was the gay lumberjack, I was the Spanish Inquisition, I was one-half of the fish-slapping dance. I look at myself and think that may be the most important thing I've ever done."

Mr. Cleese and Mr. Jones, in rare agreement, both suggested that one reason the Pythons have never been successfully imitated is that television executives nowadays would never let anyone get away with putting together a show like theirs. When they began, they didn't have an idea what the show should be about or even a title for it. The BBC gave them some money, and then, Mr. Cleese joked, the executives hurried off to the bar.

"The great thing was that in the beginning we had such a low profile," he said. "We went on at different times, and some weeks we didn't go on at all, because there might be a show-jumping competition. But that was the key to our feeling of freedom. We didn't know what the viewing figures were, and we didn't care. What has happened now is the complete reverse. Even the BBC is obsessed with the numbers."

So obsessed, Bill Jones pointed out, that in the case of "Monty Python: Almost the Truth" some people encouraged the documentarians to see if they couldn't squeeze the six hours down to one.

For the full story, see:

MATTHEW L. WALD. "Industry Built From Scratch." The New York Times (Thurs., October 15, 2009): B1 & B10.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the article is dated October 14th.)

"Above from left, Mr. Jones, Mr. Gilliam, Mr. Cleese, Mr. Idle and Mr. Palin at the premiere of "Spamalot."" Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Intel CEO Craig Barrett. Source of caricature: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A9) Craig Barrett is spending the last days of his tenure as Intel chairman the same way he spent his previous 35 years at the corporation: moving at a superhuman pace that leaves exhausted subordinates in his wake.

Mr. Barrett has maintained this lifestyle since he replaced Andrew Grove as CEO of Intel in 1998. "Was it hard to follow a legend?" he asks himself in his typical blunt way, adding, "What do you think?" Mr. Barrett barely broke pace when he became chairman in 2005, and shows no sign of slowing even now, at age 69, as he faces retirement.

. . .

The latest thing that has him animated is the record $1.45 billion antitrust fine levied against Intel by the European Union this week. Mr. Barrett shakes his head and says, "The antitrust rules and regulations seem designed for a different era. When you look at high-tech companies, with the high R&D budgets, specialization and market creation they need to hold their big market shares, it's so very different from the old world of oil companies and auto makers that the antitrust regulations were designed for. They are out of sync with reality.

"And how do you reconcile European regulators, who don't believe that any company should have more than 50% market share -- even a market that company created -- with the way we operate here? Of course, now it seems as if our Justice Department is preparing to march in lock-step behind Europe. In the end, all they are going to do is create barriers to companies growing, entering into new markets, and bringing new technologies into those markets. And when we stop being the land of opportunity, all of those smart immigrant kids getting their Ph.D.s here are going to start heading home after they graduate. Then watch what happens to our competitiveness."

For the full story, see:

MICHAEL S. MALONE. "OPINION: THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW with Craig Barrett; From Moore's Law to Barrett's Rules; Intel's chairman on antitrust silliness and the secrets of high-tech success." Wall Street Journal (Sat., MARCH 16, 2009): A9.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"BOOK VALUE: Berkshire Hathaway's Charles Munger reads businesses well -- and, as a bibliophile, he goes through several books a week." Source of caricature and caption: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

At a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting a few years ago, I remember hearing Warren Buffett say that he stays away from technology stocks because he does not know how to judge which technologies are likely to succeed in the long-run. So I was a bit puzzled by the news that Berkshire Hathaway was investing in BYD, a Chinese company producing an electric car.

The passages quoted below may partially solve the puzzle: the investment in BYD was pushed by Charlie Munger and David Sokol, and was based more on a judgment about the quality of BYD's management, than the prospects for BYD's technology.

(p. C1) Mr. Munger's views have pushed Berkshire into some surprising directions. Several years ago, Mr. Munger learned of an obscure Chinese maker of batteries and automobiles called BYD Inc., which hopes to create a cheap, functional electric car.

A Chinese tech company is nothing like the shoe and underwear makers Berkshire had been buying. But Mr. Munger was enthusiastic, less about the technology than about Wang Chuanfu, who runs BYD. Mr. Wang, Mr. Munger says, is "likely to be one of the most important business people who ever lived."

Mr. Buffett was skeptical at first. But Mr. Munger persisted. David Sokol, chairman of Berkshire utility MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., paid a visit to BYD's factory in China and agreed with Mr. Munger's assessment. Last year, MidAmerican paid $230 million for a 10% stake in BYD.

"BYD was Charlie's idea," Mr. Buffett said. "When he encounters genius and sees it operating in a practical way, he gets blown away."

For the full story, see:

SCOTT PATTERSON. "Here's the Story on Berkshire's Munger." Wall Street Journal (Fri., MAY 1, 2009): C1 & C3.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Reid Hastie, a professor at the University of Chicago, contends that "every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones." " Source of photo and caption: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

The author of the following wise words is a Professor of Behavioral Science at the School of Business at the University of Chicago. One of the main points of the commentary, in the language of economics, is that meeting planners often fail to consider the opportunity cost of attendees' time:

(p. 2) As a general rule, meetings make individuals perform below their capacity and skill levels.

This doesn't mean we should always avoid face-to-face meetings -- but it is certain that every organization has too many meetings, and far too many poorly designed ones.

The main reason we don't make meetings more productive is that we don't value our time properly. The people who call meetings and those who attend them are not thinking about time as their most valuable resource.

. . .

Probably most important, we are blind to lost time opportunities. When we choose where to invest our time, as opposed to where to invest money, we are more likely to neglect what else we could have done with it.

For the full commentary, see:

REID HASTIE. "Preoccupations - Meetings Are a Matter of Precious Time." The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., January 18, 2009): 2.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"German soldier of fortune and American ally Baron von Steuben (1730-94)" Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

(p. W9) The essence of Steuben's achievement was his modification of the brutal, robotic precision of the Prussian system to fit American conditions. He was able to do this because he was one of the first foreign observers, military or civilian, to grasp an essential strain of the American character. "The genius of this nation," he wrote a European friend, "is not in the least to be compared with that of the Prussians, Austrians or French. You say to your soldier, 'Do this,' and he doeth it. I am obliged to say, 'This is the reason why you ought to do that,' and then he does it."

. . .

While Mr. Lockhart tends to soft-pedal some of Steuben's more dubious deeds -- ignoring, for instance, his attempt to interest Prince Henry of Prussia, Frederick the Great's younger brother, in becoming king of the independent colonies before the adoption of the Constitution -- the author generally treats his subject with balance, understanding and great good humor, aptly concluding that, "although he blurred a few details of the past in order to seek preferment in the United States, somewhere between his arrival and the achievement of American independence, the Baron became something very much like the man he had pretended to be."

For the full review, see:

ARAM BAKSHIAN JR. "BOOKS; Revolutionary Scamp." The Wall Street Journal (Sat., NOVEMBER 8, 2008): W9.

The reference to the book under review is:

Lockhart, Paul. The Drillmaster of Valley Forge. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008.

Source of book image: http://robertos-book-picks.blogspot.com/2008/11/drillmaster-of-valley-forge-baron-de.html

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Clayton M. Christensen" Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ interview quoted and cited below.

(p. R2) BUSINESS INSIGHT: . . . There must be, . . . , cases where concerns about the market cause companies to abandon their plans for new products or really retrench. Or do you see that happening less these days as companies realize the importance of keeping up with changing markets?

DR. CHRISTENSEN: In the next two years, I think the answer will hinge quite a bit on the role that hedge funds play in driving stock prices. By now, 95% of all trades on the stock exchange are executed by hedge funds, mutual funds or pension funds that you could not call shareholders. They're share owners, but they don't even hold the shares long enough, on average, to vote the proxy. And long-term shareholders are always better for innovation than the short-term people are.

BUSINESS INSIGHT: So we might see innovation more from private companies?

DR. CHRISTENSEN: Absolutely right. And there's another business model toward which more and more companies need to move. It's a business model you see with Li & Fung in Hong Kong, Tata Sons in India, and Cox Enterprises in Atlanta. In this model, the holding company is privately held, and then certain of the subsidiary companies that have the right characteristics take their shares public on the market.

What that allows those companies to do is, when they have a disruptive innovation that they need to launch, they can just do it under the private umbrella of the holding company, and not have it reduce the near-term performance of the publicly held subsidiaries.

For the full interview, see:

Martha E. Mangelsdorf, interviewer. "Executive Briefing; How Hard Times Can Drive Innovation." Wall Street Journal (Mon., DECEMBER 15, 2008): R2.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."

Source:

Albert Einstein, as quoted in Koch, Charles G. The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(p. 152) The early market is driven by the demands of visionaries for offerings that create dramatic competitive advantages of the sort that would allow them to leapfrog over the other players in their industry.

Source:

Moore, Geoffrey A. Living on the Fault Line: Managing for Shareholder Value in the Age of the Internet. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2000.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer, created the first digital camera." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Kodak's problems in detailed in the article below, fit very well Christensen's account about how difficult it is for incumbent firms to embrace major disruptive technologies.

(p. C1) ROCHESTER -- Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer who invented the first digital camera at Eastman Kodak in the 1970s, remembers well management's dismay at his feat.

"My prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it," Mr. Sasson said. "But it was filmless photography, so management's reaction was, 'that's cute -- but don't tell anyone about it.' "

. . .

(p. C2) The company now has digital techniques that can remove scratches and otherwise enhance old movies. It has found more efficient ways to make O.L.E.D.'s -- organic light-emitting diodes -- for displays in cameras, cellphones and televisions.

This month, Kodak will introduce Stream, a continuous inkjet printer that can churn out customized items like bill inserts at extremely high speeds. It is working on ways to capture and project three-dimensional movies.

. . .

Paradoxically, many of the new products are based on work Kodak began, but abandoned, years ago. The precursor technology to Stream, for example, pushed ink through a single nozzle. Stream has thousands of holes and uses a method called air deflection to separate drops of ink and control the speed and order in which they are deposited on a page.

"I remember wandering through the labs in 2003, and seeing the theoretical model that could become Stream," said Philip J. Faraci, Kodak's president. "The technology was half-baked, but it was a real breakthrough."

Other digital technologies languished as well, said Bill Lloyd, the chief technology officer. "I've been here five years, and I'm still learning about all the things they already have," he said. "It seems Kodak had developed antibodies against anything that might compete with film."

It took what many analysts say was a near-death experience to change that. Kodak, a film titan in the 20th century, entered the next one in danger of being mowed down by the digital juggernaut. Electronics companies like Sony were siphoning away the photography market, while giants like Hewlett-Packard and Xerox had a lock on printers.

"This was a supertanker that came close to capsizing," said Timothy M. Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management, which long ago sold its Kodak shares.

For the full story, see:

CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH. "At Kodak, Some Old Things Are New Again." The New York Times (Fri., May 2, 2008): C1-C2.

(Note: ellipses added.)

"Allan Camp, a technician at Kodak's inkjet development center in Rochester, works on the development of print heads for printers." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image: http://press.princeton.edu/images/k8618.gif

(p. A13) The space shuttle Discovery arrived safely home over the weekend, and I suppose we are all rather relieved - that is, those of us who were aware that the shuttle had blasted off a couple of weeks ago on yet another mission. Space exploration is attracting a lot of excitement these days, but the excitement seems to have less to do with the shuttle and more to do with private space ventures, like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic or Robert Bigelow's plans for space hotels or Space Adventures Ltd., whose latest customer for a private space trip is Google co-founder Sergey Brin. He bought a ticket only last week.

Robert Zimmerman's "The Universe in the Mirror" serves to remind us that NASA, too, can do exciting things in space. Yet the career of the Hubble Space Telescope has been both triumphant and troubled, bringing into focus the strengths and the weaknesses of doing things the NASA way.

. . .

In addition to telling a thrilling tale, Mr. Zimmerman provides a number of lessons. One, he says, is the importance of having human beings in space: Had Hubble not been designed for servicing by astronauts, it would have been an epic failure and a disaster for a generation of astronomers and astrophysicists. Though robots have their uses, he notes, "humans can fix things, something no unmanned probe can do." . . .

But the biggest lesson of "The Universe in a Mirror" comes from the utterly dysfunctional funding and management system that Mr. Zimmerman portrays. Hubble was a triumph, but a system that requires people to sacrifice careers and personal lives, and to engage in "courageous and illegal" acts, in order to see it succeed is a system that is badly in need of repair. Alas, fixing Hubble turned out to be easier than fixing the system that lay behind its problems.

For the full review, see:

GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS. "Bookshelf; We Can See Clearly Now." The Wall Street Journal (Mon., June 16, 2008): A13.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Caricature of Glenn Britt. Source of caricature: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. B2) WSJ: You invested $550 million in Clearwire Corp., which is building a wireless broadband network. Why?

Mr. Britt: We saw that as a defensive move. The business today is largely about making voice telephone calls, text messaging, and some data.

This venture is about very fast broadband delivery, but the technologies and the products are as yet not fully defined. It's a bit of a start-up, leap-of-faith kind of thing.

WSJ: What uses could this wireless network be put to?

Mr. Britt: An obvious one is using your laptop in a portable way just as you might today with WiFi hot spots. Another is going to be the PDA, the smallest device you can use to access the Internet. If you have an iPhone you can start seeing what that might look like with a more robust network.

Out in the future, people are talking about machine-to-machine communication, the idea of heart monitors talking to hospitals, your camera automatically uploading photos to Shutterfly or whatever printing service you might use.

WSJ: What about the idea of mobile video delivered to portable devices?

Mr. Britt: I know people talk a lot about mobile video, and I certainly think there is some application for it. But I quite honestly haven't seen it as a big deal. People do want to get video wherever they are. We already have a robust over-the-air television system which, as it goes digital, will be able to have a mobile component to it. But I don't know how big the ultimate market is in this country. I'm skeptical.

For the full story, see:

VISHESH KUMAR. "BOSS TALK; Cable Boss Airs Growth Plans; Time Warner Cable CEO Sees New Freedoms, Threats After Its Spinoff." The Wall Street Journal (Mon., June 2, 2008): B1-B2.

(Note: the title of the online version of the article is "BOSS TALK; Grappling With Cable's Future; Time Warner's Glenn Britt Sees Freedoms, Threats As Unit Readies for Spinoff.")

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bossidy and Charan's advice below on hiring managers fits with Christensen and Raynor's advice to hire managers who have had the right experiences, in preference to those who have the 'right stuff' (aka 'charisma').

(p. 119) In our experience, there's very little correlation between those who talk a good game and those who get things done come hell or high water. Too often the second kind are given short shrift. But if you want to build a company that has excellent discipline of execution, you have to select the doer.

Source:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image: http://ramz-thoughts.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-addition-to-my-book-shelf.html

I have had Direct from Dell on my 'to-read' list for years, and it finally made it to the top. The book has some interesting anecdotes, and some useful generalizations, but not as many as I had hoped.

In fairness, if I had read the book closer to its publication year, in 1999, maybe some of the observations would have seemed fresher, that today seem like stale clichés.

For example, it is clever to quote (p. 209) the hockey player Wayne Gretzky as saying that he doesn't skate to where the puck is; he skates to where it will be. And then apply the saying to business by advising that managers skate, not to where the profits currently are, but to where the profits will be in the future. Reading this in Dell's book did not excite me, because I had already read it in Christensen and Raynor. But Dell's book came out before Christensen and Raynor, and it's not a failing of the Dell book that I had read the Christensen and Raynor book first.

But some of what Dell writes, was a cliché even back in 1999. For example, it is a cliché that customers should matter; but simply saying 'listen to your customers' is not very useful. Sometimes customers are not very articulate about what they would value, and sometimes they need to be educated, and sometimes your current customers might not buy an innovation that other potential customers might love.

Christensen and Raynor in The Innovator's Solution, have emphasized the desirability of thinking about what job customers need to have done.

One useful bit of advice in Direct from Dell is that companies should segment themselves into different units to serve different kinds of customers. This might be a useful stratagem to make it easier to execute Christensen and Raynor's advice. (But it goes against another common dictum in management books: achieve economies by cutting out duplication and by achieving economies of scale.)

The book has some interesting examples and observations, but the signal to noise ratio is not as high as in the very best management books by former CEOs, such as in Andy Groves' Only the Paranoid Survive and in Jack Welch's Jack: Straight from the Gut.

References:

Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Dell, Michael. Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1999.

Grove, Andrew S. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. New York: Bantam Books, 1999.

Welch, Jack. Jack: Straight from the Gut. New York: Warner Business Books, 2001.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is the latest entry in my continuing effort to document uses of the "leapfrog" concept in business and innovation. The entry below appears in a table entitled "Strategy Milestones" and is under the third of three column headings, which is entitled "Long Term (5+ Years)."

(p. 149) Become pioneers of leapfrog technology

Source:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

(Note: the quotation is presented as being Bossidy's.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(p. 129) Developing leaders begins with interviewing and assessing candidates. I'm not talking about overseeing the HR department and interviewing finalists; I'm talking about hands-on hiring. Most interview processes are deeply flawed. Some people interview well, and some people don't. A person who doesn't interview well may nonetheless be the best choice for the job. That's why it's so important to probe deeply, know what to listen for, and get supplemental data. It takes time and effort to drill down further, but it's always worth the trouble.

Source:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

(Note: the quotation is presented as being Bossidy's.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Omaha culture puts a huge emphasis on surface politeness. (When I first arrived here, I was sometimes thought to be from New York, a thought that I took as a complement, although that was not how it was intended.)

Bossidy and Charan emphasize that harmony is an over-rated virtue--that what they call "robust dialogue" is important for getting things done.

(p. 102) You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue---one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and informality. Robust dialogue makes an organization effective in gathering information, understanding the information, and reshaping it to produce decisions. It fosters creativity---most innovations and inventions are incubated through robust dialogue. Ultimately, it creates more competitive advantage and shareholder value.

. . .

(p. 103) . . ., harmony---sought by many leaders who wish to offend no one---can be the enemy of truth.

Source:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Empirical comparisons between capitalism and socialism are in some ways unfair to capitalism, because many capitalism managers act as though they believed in socialist ideas. The difference in productivity and economic growth would be even greater, if capitalist managers consistently acted as though they believed in capitalism. Consider the following, from a portion of Execution written by Larry Bossidy:

(p. 73) Larry: When I see companies that don't execute, the chances are that they don't measure, don't reward, and don't promote people who know how to get things done. Salary increases in terms of percentage are too close between top performers and those who are not. There's not enough differentiation in bonus, or in stock options, or in stock grants. Leaders need the confidence to explain to a direct report why he got a lower than expected reward.

A good leader ensures that the organization makes these distinctions and that they become a way of life, down throughout the organization. Otherwise people think they're involved in socialism. That isn't what you want when you strive for a culture of execution. You have to make it clear to everybody that rewards and respect are based on performance.

Source:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

(Note: in the book, the quotation is presented as being Bossidy's.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image: http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/8280000/8285699.jpg

Bossidy and Charan's book is not exactly a page-turner of unexpected insights, but the authors say some things that need saying.

Business gurus often forget that success depends on more than vision and inspiration. It depends on courage (to face brutal facts, and to fire the lazy or incompetent), and it requires persistent attention to enough of the details to know what needs to be done, and to know who is doing it.

Much of their practical advice is way easier said than done, but maybe it's still worth saying.

It occurred to me while reading this book, that I sometimes write and speak as though innovation and economic growth are inevitable with the right institutions. But that is not so.

Even under the best institutions, progress still requires entrepreneurs and managers who work very hard, demonstrate courage, and who care about getting the job done.

Reference to book:

Bossidy, Larry, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York: Crown Business, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vovIVI5sL.jpg

(p. D16) One of the insights of "Strategic Intuition" is that business makes progress by following the opportunistic innovation model, while governments and international-aid agencies aim repetitively at rigid social goals. Such rigidity happens partly for a reason that Mr. Duggan is too polite to mention -- bureaucrats, by nature, rarely give off a creative spark. Mr. Duggan prefers to emphasize a structural cause: The public demands solutions to problems of great social importance; thus bureaucrats get stuck with fixed objectives. Yet Mr. Duggan also shows that social progress often happens by emulating the opportunism of business. Among the most powerful of his examples is Muhammad Yunus's invention of microcredit.

. . .

If there are still businessmen who feel compelled to follow a fixed-goal plan -- missing out on the profits of opportunistic flexibility -- then at least there is the free market to punish them. Market feedback is surely one big reason that we have so many innovative entrepreneurs. Where the old approach does most of the damage is in social policy, where the feedback is either fuzzy (as in domestic policy) or absent (foreign aid). Social policy could use a lot fewer commencement speakers and a lot more creative sparkers.

For the full review, see:

WILLIAM EASTERLY. "BOOKSHELF; Surprised by Opportunity." The Wall Street Journal (Weds., November 14, 2007): D16.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

The reference to the Stratetic Intuition book is:

Duggan, William. Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of image: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

 

(p. B3)  What are the traits that chief executives of successful companies share? A new study suggests that hard-nosed personal virtues such as persistence and efficiency count for more than "softer" strengths like teamwork or flexibility.

The findings are sure to intensify debate about how much toughness is appropriate in a CEO. Some famously hard-charging bosses of big companies have retired or been shunted aside in recent years. Successors at companies such as General Electric Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. are seen as quieter, less strident team-builders.

But the new study, by three University of Chicago business-school professors, draws on detailed personal assessments of 313 CEO candidates to present a starker view of good leadership's ingredients. Of these candidates, 225 were hired. Their subsequent performance fuels most of the study's conclusions.

"We found that 'hard' skills, which are all about getting things done, were paramount," says lead author Steven Kaplan, a professor of finance and entrepreneurship. "Soft skills centering on teamwork weren't as pivotal. That was a bit of a surprise to us."

Prof. Kaplan and colleagues Mark Klebanov and Morten Sorensen didn't size up the CEOs themselves. Instead, they tapped into a consultant's database long coveted by academic researchers. It contains assessments of individuals' strengths and weaknesses compiled by ghSmart Inc. The Chicago management-assessment company evaluates CEO candidates on behalf of corporate clients.

For the full story, see:

GEORGE ANDERS. "THEORY & PRACTICE; Tough CEOs Often Most Successful, A Study Finds."  The Wall Street Journal  (Mon., November 19, 2007):  B3.

Included with the WSJ article was an interesting summary table:

LEADING PROFILE

Here are five CEO traits that correlate most closely with business success at buyout companies -- and five that score lowest, according to University of Chicago researchers.

Traits that matter...

• Persistence
• Attention to detail
• Efficiency
• Analytical skills
• Setting high standards

...and not so much

• Strong oral communication
• Teamwork
• Flexibility/adaptability
• Enthusiasm
• Listening skills

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   Source of graphic:  online version of the WSJ article cited below.

The innovation described in the article excerpted below is credited as arising from a 'skunk works' project.  There's a neat book called Skunk Works that describes how Lockheed set up an autonomous unit to develop the first stealth air force technology.  (Their plant was in a smelly part of town, so it was dubbed the 'Skunk Works.')

Clayton Christensen has recommended that established incumbent companies set up skunk works operations in order to develop disruptive technologies that would not survive if they were developed within the main corporate culture and infrastructure. 

(In the article excerpted below, it is puzzling to read that Alaska Air went to the trouble to take out a patent, even though they apparently have no intention of enforcing it.) 

(p. B1)  ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- When the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport was planning a new concourse, prime tenant Alaska Airlines insisted on a counterintuitive design: "The one thing we don't want is a ticket counter," said Ed White, the airline's vice president of corporate real estate.

So the 447,000-square-foot Concourse C, which opened in 2004, has only one small, traditional ticket counter, even though the carrier's 1.2 million Anchorage passengers checked in through that area last year. This unconventional approach -- which uses self-service check-in machines and manned "bag drop" stations in a spacious hall that looks nothing like a typical airport -- has doubled Alaska's capacity here, halved its staffing needs and cut costs, while speeding travelers through the building in far less time.

. . .

(p. B4)  Alaska's design in Anchorage has turned heads in the industry, and in 2006 the airline was awarded a U.S. patent for the check-in process, something it calls the two-step flow-through. Mr. White says his company isn't trying to keep competitors from going down the same path, but pursued the patent more to reward the many employees who helped to bring the idea to fruition.

Other airlines quickly sent scouts up to Anchorage to check out the new concourse, including a team from Delta Air Lines Inc., Mr. White says. A few months ago, Delta completed a $26 million renovation of its check-in hall at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and the finished product looks remarkably similar to that of Alaska Airlines. Greg Kennedy, Delta's vice president for customer service there, says the new layout has enabled the airline to process passengers checking in during the peak spring break travel period in 20 to 30 minutes at most, compared with two or three hours three years ago -- and all in the same amount of square footage but 50% more usable space. Mr. Kennedy says he isn't aware of a visit to Anchorage but doesn't dispute it.

. . .  

Alaska, the nation's ninth-largest carrier by traffic, started a "skunk works" lab a decade ago to figure out how to use technology to make air travel less of a hassle for passengers. Out of that effort came the airline's ground-breaking ability to sell tickets on the Internet and allow fliers to check in online, developments other carriers quickly followed.

For the full story, see: 

SUSAN CAREY.  "Case of the Vanishing Airport Lines; Alaska Air Speeds Up Flow Of Passengers by Jettisoning Traditional Ticket Counters."  The Wall Street Journal  (Thurs., August 9, 2007):  B1 & B4.

  Source of graphic:  online version of the WSJ article cited above.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   Genentech CEO Dr. Arthur D. Levinson.  Source of image:  online version of the WSJ article cited below.

(p. B1)  WSJ: You have multiple blockbuster biotech drugs on the market and more on the way. In such an uncertain business, how do you manage scientists to achieve that kind of success?

Dr. Levinson: We are first and foremost committed to doing great science. If a drug can't be the first in class or the best in class, we're just not interested. We're not looking to achieve incremental advances or extend patents or do X, Y, Z unless it is going to really matter for patients. That allows us to bring in phenomenal scientists and encourage them to do the basic and translational research.

We decided 15 years ago that we would be committing (p. B2) to oncology, which at the time for us was new. We are now the leading producer of anticancer drugs in the United States. We took a lot of risks. In many cases, those risks paid off. We are now also in immunology. Again, the role of management here is to set the broad direction and then hire absolutely the best scientists and bring them in and say, 'Do your stuff.'

For the full interview, see:

MARILYN CHASE. The Wall Street Journal "How Genentech Wins At Blockbuster Drugs CEO to Critics of Prices: 'Give Me a Break'."   The Wall Street Journal  (Tues., June 5, 2007):  B1 & B2.

    Source of graph:  online version of the WSJ article cited above.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The excerpt below is from a WSJ summary of an article from the Summer issue of the journal Strategy + Business.

Linux's success isn't as egalitarian as it seems, says Mr. Carr. In 1997, Mr. Raymond praised Linux's founder, Linus Torvalds, for realizing that "given enough eyeballs, all [software] bugs are shallow." However, Linux has always had a central authority -- originally, Mr. Torvalds himself; later, a small group of engineers -- that synthesized the work of the volunteers.

Similarly, the expansiveness of Wikipedia's entries lies in its contributors' wide range of interests. However, the encyclopedia is slowly putting together a management team to identify and improve poorly written articles and correct imbalances like the one where the "Flintstones" entry is twice as long as the one on "Homer."

For the full summary, see:

"Informed Reader; TECHNOLOGY; Small Teams Advance Open-Source Effort."  The Wall Street Journal  (Weds., June 6, 2007):  B5. 

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(p. A7)  Corporate technology managers usually pick laptops, software and other technology for employees. Now some tech managers are finding workers can do a better job when they choose and buy the equipment themselves.

At KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a unit of Air France-KLM SA, employees had expressed frustration at the company's policy of providing and supporting only one type of laptop, the Lenovo A30 (formerly IBM), and one smartphone, the Nokia 6021. Last November, Martien van Deth, a senior technology officer in the Amsterdam office, tried a new system: He gave 50 information-technology staffers an allowance of $203, covering two years, to buy cellphones for corporate use. Those who picked more expensive phones paid the extra. Those who chose cheaper phones kept the change. As long as the phone ran Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Mobile version 5 or 6 operating system, KLM guaranteed access to corporate email. The catch: Users had to deal with technical problems themselves and replace phones that broke.

Not only did the program cost less than the $231 the company paid (p. A9) for phones and support over the same period, it was a hit with employees -- some of whom bought phones with fancy ringtones and video players. Now "no one can complain that their corporate phone doesn't have a camera," says Mr. van Deth, who plans to offer a tech allowance to KLM's entire 1,000-person IT department later this summer, and wants to take the program companywide. He's also about to start a tech-allowance program for laptops.

For the full story, see: 

BEN WORTHEN.  "Office Tech's Next Step:  Do It Yourself."  The Wall Street Journal  (Tues., July 3, 2007):  A7 & A9.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

  Is it Glacier Creek, or Big Thompson River?  Source of photo:  me. 

On May 17, 2007, in Estes Park, Colorado, I was the co-leader of a "two hour" hike with 15 Montessori middle-schoolers from Omaha, Nebraska.  At some point what we were seeing didn't seem to correspond with what our roughly drawn YMCA map told us we should be seeing--we worried that we had taken a wrong turn and were lost.

II we were on course, then the water beside us should be Glacier Creek.  If we were lost, then it was probably Big Thompson River.  (It's appearance didn't help--it looked a bit larger than a creek, but a lot smaller than a 'big river.')

The first person I found to ask was a tourist who admitted upfront that she was extremely uncertain about where we were.  She pulled out a modest map, and pointed to where she thought we might be, which was along the Big Thompson River.

Seeking confirmation, I apologetically interrupted a fellow teaching his girl-friend how to fly fish.  This fellow was dressed as an outdoors-man, and exuded confidence.  He talked about hiking on a glacier the day before.  He helpfully strode back to his SUV with me and pulled a detailed, authoritative-looking map.  With no doubt, he pointed on the map to where we were, on Glacier Creek, as I had hoped.  As we walked back to where he had been fishing, he pointed in the direction that we had been hiking, and said that without question, we should continue to hike in that direction.

The scenery was fantastic, but Cindy began to worry whether we were going in the right direction, pointing out that there didn't seem to be any opening in the mountains in the direction in which we were supposing the YMCA camp should be.  I agreed with her observation, but said that there must be some non-obvious route, because the fellow who pointed us in this direction had exuded credibility.

We finally got to a small museum.  There, an old park service employee asked where we were from.  When I said "Omaha" he jokingly asked if knew his old friend Warren Buffet?  He told us that he had lived in this area all his life, and that we were definitely walking along Big Thompson River.  Then he tried to draw a map to show us how to get back.  He scratched his head, discarded his first attempt, and started trying again.  Then he asked us (again) where we were from?  At this point, I was really worried.

But his second attempt at a map was a good one--it got us back to the YMCA camp.

Maybe we should look for advice from those who are self-critical, as the old man was, rather than from those who exude undoubting self-confidence, as the fly fisherman did?  (Or maybe the key was local credentials?)

Maybe, I made a mistake that Christensen and Raynor warn against in their The Innovator's Solution:  looking at charisma and confidence as signs of who to follow.  (In fairness to myself, at the time, I didn't have much else to go on.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charles Plott, of Cal Tech, co-authored a nifty study several years ago in which he installed a betting market inside of Hewlett Packard to do internal forecasting.  The nifty part was that the forecasts produced by the betting market were generally more accurate than the official forecasts that HP's official forecasters were producing. 

The likely reason is not that the official forecasters were stupid or incompetent, but that they were under considerable pressure by corporate higher-ups to spin the forecasts in a favorable way.  In contrast, the participants in the internal betting market remained anonymous, and received higher payoffs, the more accurate their forecasts turned out to have been.

The result was not surprising, once you think it through.  But what I did find surprising was that HP didn't keep the betting market going, after the Plott study was finished.  (From a long-run perspective, top management should benefit more from accurate forecasts, than from consistently optimistic forecasts.) 

In any case, the excerpt from the commentary below indicates that some other companies have gotten the point:

(p. C1)  Over the last few years, Intrade -- with headquarters in Dublin, where the gambling laws are loose -- has become the biggest success story among a new crop of prediction markets. The world's largest steel maker, Arcelor Mittal, now runs an internal market allowing its executives to predict the price of steel. Best Buy (p. C6) has started a market for employees to guess which DVDs and video game consoles, among other products, will be popular. Google and Eli Lilly have similar markets. The idea is to let a company's decision-makers benefit from the collective, if often hidden, knowledge of their employees.

But there's a broader point here, too. For a couple of centuries now, long before Intrade or even the Internet existed, financial markets have been making it easier to bet on what the future will bring.

In the mid-1800s, contracts tied to the future price of wheat, pigs and other commodities began to change hands. In 1972, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange introduced futures for foreign exchange rates. Treasury bonds tied to the future rate of inflation came along in the 1990s, and last year, the Merc began selling contracts based on the direction of house prices in 10 big metropolitan areas.

In every case, the market price reflects the sum of the traders' knowledge -- about the extent of the housing bubble in Los Angeles, for instance, or the likely size of next year's wheat crop.  . . .

N. Gregory Mankiw, a former adviser to President Bush, who has written about Intrade on his blog, explains it this way: ''Everybody has information from their own little corner of the universe, and they'd like to know the information from every other corner of the universe. What these markets do is provide a vehicle that reflects all that information.''

For the full commentary, see: 

DAVID LEONHARDT.  "ECONOMIX; Odds Are, They'll Know '08 Winner."  The New York Times  (Weds., February 14, 2007):  C1 & C8.

(Note:  ellipsis added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   Source of graph:  online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1)  Like most companies, Office Depot has long made sure that its chief executive was the highest-paid employee. Ten years ago, the $2.2 million pay package of its chief was more than double that of his No. 2. The fifth-ranked executive received less than one-third.

But the incentive for reaching the very top of the company is now far greater. Steve Odland, who runs Office Depot today, made almost $12 million last year, more than four times the compensation of the second-highest-paid executive and over six times that of the fifth-ranking executive in the current hierarchy.

As executive pay has surged in most American companies, attention has focused on the growing gap between the earnings of top executives and the average wage of workers in cubicles or on the shop floor. Little noticed, though, is how much the gap has also widened between the summit and the next few echelons down.

. . .

The pay of chief executives, analysts say, is being driven by superstar dynamics similar to those that determine the inordinate rewards for pop stars and athletes — a phenomenon first explained by Sherwin Rosen of the University of Chicago in (p. C7) 1981 and underlined more than a decade ago by the economists Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook in their book “The Winner-Take-All Society” (Free Press, 1995).

As American companies, American hedge funds — and even American lawsuits — have grown in size, it has become ever more valuable to get the “best” chief executive or fund manager or litigator. This has fueled a fierce competition for talent at the top, which has pushed economic rewards farther up the ladder of success, concentrating the richest pay levels even more.

“There is an interaction between technology and scale which is true in all these businesses,” said Steven N. Kaplan, a finance professor at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago. “One person can oversee more assets, and this translates into more money.”

. . .

As companies grow and expand globally, the value of the top executive can grow exponentially. In a study last year, two economists, Xavier Gabaix of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Augustin Landier of New York University, argued that the fast rise in pay of corporate C.E.O.’s mostly reflected the growing size of American corporations.

Processing reams of data, the economists estimated that hiring the most effective chief executive in the country would, statistically, increase the stock value of a company by only 0.016 percent, compared with hiring the 250th chief executive. But at a company like General Electric, which is worth about $380 billion, that tiny difference would amount to $60 million.

This, the economists argued, helps explain why that top chief executive earned five times as much as the 250th. “Substantial firm size leads to the economics of superstars, translating small differences in ability to very large deviations in pay,” the economists wrote.

For the full story, see: 

EDUARDO PORTER.  "More Than Ever, It Pays to Be the Top Executive."  The New York Times  (Fri., May 25, 2007):  A1 & C7.

(Note:  ellipses added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

  A poster that is displayed in some Wall Street Journal offices in solidarity with a Bancroft family member who has openly expressed doubts about Rupert Murdoch's proposed purchase of the Journal.  Source of the image:  online version of the NYT article cited below.

A lot of the news media imitate each other in viewpoint and content.  The Wall Street Journal is fresh and innovative, and frequently gives us important news that is new.

And there have been times throughout recent decades when the editorial page of the Journal was one of the few voices for truth, justice and freedom.  It would be a great loss for that voice to be silenced.

On the other hand, I have noted in an earlier entry, that the business side of the Journal is in need of improvement. 

I do not know if in the end, the Murdoch bid is the best chance for the long-run survival of what is good about the Journal.  But I do wish the Journal, and the Journal's journalists, well. 

(p. C1)  On May 14, more than 100 reporters, editors and executives clustered in The Wall Street Journal’s main newsroom to mark the retirement of Peter R. Kann, the longtime leader of their corporate parent, Dow Jones & Company.

Mr. Kann, in rolled-up shirtsleeves, was typically self-effacing about his own contributions to the company. But the celebration of the past was muted by worry about The Journal’s future. A few weeks earlier, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation had offered $5 billion to buy Dow Jones. The Bancroft family, owners of a controlling stake in the company, rebuffed the offer at first, but there were signs that some of them were wavering.

Mr. Kann, who had been advising the family against selling, expressed hope that Mr. Murdoch would not prevail, using an image of The Journal as a citadel trying to repel an invasion by tabloid barbarians.

“The drawbridge is up,” Mr. Kann told the group. “So far, so good.”

For employees at Dow Jones, the 11 weeks since they learned of the Murdoch offer have been a wrenching time, raising the prospect of fundamental changes at an organization that had already had its fill of big changes in the last couple of years — with Mr. Kann being replaced by Richard F. Zannino as chief executive, with Marcus W. Brauchli taking over from Paul E. Steiger as top editor; and with a shift of its mission, by adding a Saturday paper and more lifestyle articles to appeal to new advertisers, and investing heavily in its digital properties.

. . .  

(p. C12)  The anti-Murdoch forces enjoyed one of their brief lifts on June 29 when The Journal reported that Leslie Hill, a Bancroft family member, had grave reservations about selling to Mr. Murdoch. Someone enlarged The Journal’s dot drawing of Ms. Hill, a retired airline pilot, adding the words “I Fly with Leslie” above her face. Copies of the makeshift poster appeared in Journal offices around the country.

. . .  

As the chances of an alternative have appeared to wane, more reporters and editors have polished their résumés and approached rival publications about jobs. Some have even talked of starting their own business news Web site.

Many voiced disappointment in the Bancrofts, the family that has owned the company for more than a century and taken great pride in it, for not playing a leading role in running it for more than 70 years.

“We understand that for the Bancrofts this is a choice between getting much richer, and holding onto something because they believe in it,” a reporter said. “What they may not realize is that many of us in the newsroom have made the same choice. There are a lot of people here who could be traders or lawyers, people with M.B.A.’s, who could be making a lot more money. To us, this is not an abstract choice.” 

For the full story, see: 

RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA. "At The Gates; Murdoch’s Arrival Worries Journal Employees." The New York Times  (Thurs., July 19, 2007):  C1 & C12. 

Rupert Murdoch.  Note that the image is a tribute, or humorous small jab at, the hallmark image style of the Wall Street Journal, in which photographs are re-done by artists into an example of something like pointillism.  (True also of the poster image above.)  Source of the image:  online version of the NYT article cited above.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   Source of the book image:  http://images.usatoday.com/money/_photos/2007/03/26/cubicle-bookx-large.jpg

Office humor is an oxymoron. At least that was the prevailing view until Scott Adams's "Dilbert" comic strip and, more recently, British television import "The Office" opened up this fertile ground for mainstream ridicule. The latest entry in the growing corpus of workplace-whacking is "The Cubicle Survival Guide: Keeping Your Cool in the Least Hospitable Environment on Earth," by first-time author and Web-site production coordinator James F. Thompson.

Mr. Thompson's target: the cubicle, or "cube," as it is not so fondly known. It's surprising to learn that this ubiquitous steel-and-fabric prison was not invented until the 1960s, the dubious brainstorm of a Colorado fine-arts professor named Bob Probst. His goal, according to Mr. Thompson, was to encourage co-workers to "freely exchange ideas and inspiration" -- and not, as commonly believed, to breed a legion of the undead who feel they are somehow unworthy of, say, a door.

For the full review, see: 

MARTIN KIHN.  "BOOKS; The Best Way to Labor Away in Our Little Boxes." The Wall Street Journal  (Weds., March 14, 2007):  D9. 

The reference to the book, is: 

James F. Thompson.  THE CUBICLE SURVIVAL GUIDE.  (Villard, 216 pages, $12.95)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 

(p. 53)  Recall the story of Netscape, once the darling of the New Economy.  Netscape was formed in 1994.  It went public in 1995.  And by 1999, it was gone, purchased by America Online and subsumed into AOL's operation.  Life span:  four years.  Half-life:  two years.  Was Netscape a company---or was it really a project?  Does the distinction even matter?  What matters most is that this short-lived entity put several products on the market, prompted established companies (notably Microsoft) to shift strategies, and (p. 54) equipped a few thousand individuals with experience, wealth, and connections that they could bring to their next project.

And Netscape is not alone.  A University of Texas study found that between 1970 and 1992, the half-life of Texas businesses shrank by 50 percent.  Likewise, a Federal Reserve analysis of New York companies found that the type of firm that created the most new jobs (microbusineses with fewer than ten employees) often had the shortest life span.  The life cycle of companies has been that jobs, too, have diminishing half-lives.  Ten years ago, nobody ever heard of a Web developer.  Ten years from now, nobody may remember Web developers.

Most important, at the very moment the longevity of companies is shrinking, the longevity of individuals is expanding.  Unlike Americans in the twentieth century, most of us today can expect to outlive just about any organization for which we work.  It's hard to imagine a lifelong job at an organization whose lifetime will be shorter--often much shorter--than your own.

Source:

Pink, Daniel H. Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live. New York: Warner Business Books, 2001.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   A flywheel lathe from the mid-1700s.  Source of image:  http://www.stuartking.co.uk/articles/lathe.htm

In Jim Collins' book Good to Great, I really liked his flywheel analogy, that makes the point that in business (and life), success often is mainly due to the day-in-day-out exertion of effort and care.  The version below is from a Collins article, based on his book.

Now picture a huge, heavy flywheel. It's a massive, metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle. It's about 100 feet in diameter, 10 feet thick, and it weighs about 25 tons. That flywheel is your company. Your job is to get that flywheel to move as fast as possible, because momentum -- mass times velocity -- is what will generate superior economic results over time.

Right now, the flywheel is at a standstill. To get it moving, you make a tremendous effort. You push with all your might, you make a tremendous effort...and finally you get the flywheel to inch forward. After two or three days of sustained effort, you get the flywheel to complete one entire turn. You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move a bit faster. It takes a lot of work, but at last the flywheel makes a second rotation. You keep pushing steadily. It makes three turns, four, five, six turns. With each turn it moves faster, and then - at some point, you can't say exactly when - you break through. The momentum of the heavy wheel kicks in your favor. It spins faster and faster, with its own weight propelling it. You aren't pushing any harder, but the flywheel is accelerating, its momentum building, its speed increasing.

Source: 

Jim Collins.  "Good to Great."  Fast Company 51 (September 2001):  90.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The WSJ summarizes an April 2007 Psychology Today article.  The study that is discussed sounds relevant to the one-sided push for more collaboration and team production in business, and co-authorship in academics.  The benefits of collaboration should not blind us to the costs.

Amanda Guyer, a psychologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., has found that individuals who withdraw from other people's company are more sensitive than extroverts to a wide range of positive emotional cues. Situations rife with emotional triggers, such as parties, can be wearying for such people, while solitude serves as a refreshing balm.

For the full story, see:

"Informed Reader; PSYCHOLOGY; Loners May Not Fear Others, They Just Need Some Solitude."  The Wall Street Journal  (Thurs., March 1, 2007):  B7.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(p. 205)  The picture palaces were a commercial success.  Between 1914 and 1922, four thousand new Palace Theaters opened in the United States.  Movie-going became an increasingly important entertainment event for Americans of all economic levels.  As Roxy pointed out, "Giving the people what they want is fundamentally and disastrously wrong.  The people don't know what they want . . . [Give] them something better."  Palace Theaters effectively combined the viewing environment of opera houses with the viewing contents of nickelodeons---films---to unlock a new blue ocean in the cinema industry and attract a whole new mass of moviegoers:  the upper and middle classes. 

Source: 

Kim, W. Chan, and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(p. 202)  Wisely, through the 1940s, Boeing had stayed away from the commercial sphere, an arena in which McDonnell Douglas had vastly superior abilities in the smaller, propeller-driven planes that composed the commercial fleet.  In the early 1950s, however, Boeing saw an opportunity to leapfrog McDonnell Douglas by marrying its experience with large air-(p. 203)craft to its understanding of jet engines. 

Source:

Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. And Others Don't. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a major winter storm in Omaha on Thurs., March 1st.  Schools were closed on Thursday and again on Friday.  Throughout the storm, the Omaha World-Herald got a paper delivered every day. 

The New York Times missed Thurs. and Fri., (there is no Saturday delivery).  The Wall Street Journal missed Thurs., Fri., and Sat.

The main difference is that in the end, the New York Times made good on eventually delivering me all the papers that I had paid for.

After a half hour wait to get through to a customer service person, the Wall Street Journal told me that they could not get me copies of the Thursday and Saturday papers.  They were all out, and I "should go to the library."  (During the long wait, every couple of minutes, an automated voice would come on to tell me how important my call was to them---if the call is so important, why don't they hire enough people so that customers don't have to wait for a half hour?)

The weather problem was not a secret.  Wouldn't a good business anticipate publicly known problems, and have a contingency plan for dealing with them?  Wouldn't they increase their production in order to be able to make good on the papers their logistical operation was incompetent to deliver?  Even if they did not have a clue at the beginning of the storm, couldn't they have acquired a clue by Saturday, three days into the storm?

If the Omaha World-Herald can deliver, and the New York Times can make good when it can't deliver, then the Wall Street Journal should be able, at least, to do as well as the New York Times.  The Wall Street Journal insults its customers when it tells them to "go to the library." 

It's no way for the nation's leading business newspaper to run its own business.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

 

(p. 69)  Competition in an industry tends to converge not only on an accepted notion of the scope of its products and services but also on one of two possible bases of appeal.  Some industries compete (p. 70) principally on price and function largely on calculations of utility; their appeal is rational.  Other industries compete largely on feelings;  their appeal is emotional.

Yet the appeal of most products or services is rarely intrinsically one or the other.  Rather it is usually a result of the way companies have competed in the past, which has unconsciously educated consumers on what to expect.  Companies' behavior affects buyers' expectations in a reinforcing cycle.  Over time, functionally oriented industries become more functionally oriented; emotionally oriented industries become more emotionally oriented.  No wonder market research rarely reveals new insights into what attracts customers.  Industries have trained customers in what to expect.  When surveyed, they echo back:  more of the same for less.

Source:

Kim, W. Chan, and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

  Source of book image:  http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/7770000/7775266.jpg

When Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts spoke to my Executive MBA class a few years ago, I mentioned to him that I had heard from Bob Slezak that Ricketts was a fan of Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma.  Ricketts said that was true, but that the recent business book that he was most enthused about was Jim Collin's Good to Great.

Ricketts is not alone.  Good to Great has become a business classic since it came out.  Recently I finally got around to reading it.

Well, I think it's good, but not quite great.  I like the empirical, inductive methodology mapped out at the beginning.  And some of the conclusions ring true.  For example the importance of facing the "brutal facts."  And the importance of developing a thought-out "hedgehog" concept.  And the importance of getting the right people on the bus.  And the importance of slowly, consistently building momentum.

But I've got some big bones to pick, too. 

Maybe the biggest "bone" is Collins' assumption that our goal should be the survival and greatness of a firm.  Instead of almost viewing firms as ends in themselves, why can't we view firms as vehicles for getting great things done? 

Maybe great things can be done through firms that last and are lastingly great.  Or maybe great things can be done by shooting star firms, that are glorious while they last, but don't last long.  Collins says it must be the former.  But either way works for me.

A smaller "bone" is the conclusion that "level 5" leaders tend to be modest.  Well maybe.  But some of that conclusion is derived from Collins' defining "great" in terms of high growth of stock value.  A modest leader will be unappreciated by Wall Street, and her company's stock value will show higher growth when she succeeds.  But has she thereby accomplished more than if she had built exactly the same company, but been more transparent and enthused about the company's future prospects, and hence generated more realistic expectations from Wall Street?  Remember, the value of a stock grows, not by the company doing well, but by it doing better than investors expected.  (On this issue, Collins should read the first couple of chapters of Christensen and Raynor's The Innovator's Solution.)

But don't get me wrong:  this is a very good book.  Those interested in how the capitalist system works, should read it, as should those who want to manage well.

The book is:

Collins, Jim. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap. And Others Don't. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

   Source of book image:  http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/1591841380.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V37439749_.jpg

A new book is out on the wiki ("quick") phenomenon.  Chris Anderson has some stimulating comments on this phenomenon in his The Long Tail.  The Wikinomics book appears to be less profound, but may still be of interest.  (It appears to be a quick-read, management guru-jargon type book.)

The wiki issue that interests me is how wiki collaboration processes might substitute for rigorous editing and peer-review, as a way to get a lot of high-quality information out there fast.  (This is what Anderson claims, and the more I use the Wikipedia, the more plausible I find the claim.)

The reference to the book is:

Tapscott, Don, and Anthony D. Williams. Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Portfolio, 2006.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found the following wise comments while reading a short review of an old book by Edgar Monsanto Queeny, who followed his father as CEO of the Monsanto corporation, and who wrote a book called The Spirit of Enterprise which Schumpeter praised in a letter to Queeny.

(The abbreviation T.N.E.C. stands for the Temporary National Economic Committee, which I believe was an ad hoc congressional committee during part of F.D.R.'s presidency.)

Mr. Queeny does not give us a satisfactory analysis of the T.N.E.C. reports but his observations are always commonsensical and suggestive.  What emerges, and what is important, is that the positive Liberal State should not aim at too subtle a plan for freedom.  The referee should not be too quick with his whistle nor too ready to order players off the field.  The rules of the game may well allow for a little hurly-burly.  Economists like Professor Hutt, who are working out the rules of the game of free enterprise, deserve the highest praise.  But they should realize that refinement has its price as well as simplicity, and of the two simplicity costs the less.

Shenfield, A. A. "Review of the Spirit of Enterprise by Edgar M. Queeny." Economica 12, no. 48 (November 1945): 264.

The reference to Queeny's book is:

Queeny, Edgar M. The Spirit of Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

  Microsoft's VX-6000 LifeCam.  Source of image:  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/hardware/WC6_Angle_Silver_lg.jpg

I posted this to Amazon.com, late on Thurs., Nov. 30, 2006:

I have spent a frustrating afternoon and evening trying to install the VX-6000 on a fully updated MS XP pro system. The install took forever, because every couple of minutes the install program couldn't find a needed file (if they need it, why not put it on the install CD?). So I had to browse my system and point them to where the file was (why couldn't they design the install program to search for the file instead of making me do it?). Finally I got a successful install, and then I was informed there was an updated version, and I needed to install that. So I went through the whole time-consuming process all over again, including the schtick about searching for the location of several files. Finally it again said I had installed the program successfully. So I rebooted my PC, and clicked on the Microsoft LifeCam icon. After cranking for awhile I get "initialization error". I try rebooting again---same error. So I type in "initialization error" in the search bar of the "help" section, and I get back "no topics found." So they sell me an expensive camera, run me ragged installing it, send me a repeated error message, and provide me no clue on what to do about it. (I guess now that Bill Gates is saving the world through philanthropy, nobody's left minding the shop?)

The final comment is probably a bit too snide or harsh.  Microsoft has always had the deserved reputation of letting some products out the door before they are ready.  E.g., the first couple of versions of Windows paled in comparison to the graphical-user-interface operating system that Apple was offering at the time.  And the CD that accompanied Bill Gates' The Road Ahead would not work on what was then Microsoft's premier operating system:  Windows NT.

Maybe these kind of glitches result from a conscious operating strategy that gives employees a lot of freedom to make their own decisions.  The upside can be speedy decisions, and creativity.  The downside can be glitches such as the VX-6000 LifeCam.  Taking the broad, professorial view, maybe overall, the upside justifies the downside.  Tom Peters endorses companies accepting this trade-off rather than adopting layered, rule-bound, slow, bureaucratic decision-making.  (See his:  Re-imagine!)

(But did I mention that the VX-6000 LifeCam really stinks?) 

The reference to the Peters book is:

Peters, Tom. Re-Imagine! London: DK, 2003.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wise words from Frederick W. Taylor, who is known as the father of scientific management:

(p. B1) "When a naturally energetic man works for a few days beside a lazy one," Mr. Taylor wrote, "the logic of the situation is unanswerable.  'Why should I work hard when that lazy fellow gets the same pay I do and does only half the work?' "

As quoted in: 

CYNTHIA CROSSEN.  "DEJA VU; Early Industry Expert Soon Realized a Staff Has Its Own Efficiency."  Wall Street Journal  (Mon., November 6, 2006):  B1.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Gerstner's book, there is an intriguing passage in which he defends turning IBM into an integrated services firm.  As an aside, he says that it might not now have made sense to build up IBM's diverse assets, but now, having them in existence, it made sense to use them.  And he points out that even in the age of modularity, many customers needed, and were willing to pay for, a company that was able and willing to put everything together for them.

At first glance, this comment might seem at odds with the economist's dictum that "sunk costs are sunk."  But Gerstner was not advocating the integration of IBM services because IBM had historically invested a lot in building up the parts of the organization.  He was pointing out that diverse parts, if properly integrated, would provide substantial added-value to an important sub-group of customers.

Here is the relevant passage from Gerstner:

(p. 61)  Unfortunately, in 1993 IBM was rocketing down a path that would have made it a virtual mirror image of the rest of the industry.  The company was being splintered---you could say it was being destroyed.

Now, I must tell you, I am not sure that in 1993 I or anyone else would have started out to create an IBM.  But, given IBM's scale and broad-based capabilities, and the trajectories of the information technology industry, it would have been insane to destroy its unique competitive advantage and turn IBM into a group of individual component suppliers---more minnows in an ocean. 

The reference to the book, is:

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr. Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gerstner recognizes that decentralization is sometimes a good thing, but thinks in some ways the trend has gone to far in business---some business functions may be efficient to centralize: 

 

(p. 246)  I'm thinking here of common customer databases, common fulfillment systems, common parts numbering systems, and common customer relationship management systems that permit your customer-service people to provide integrated information about everything a customer does with our company.

On the surface it would seem that these are logical and powerful things to do in an enterprise.  Nevertheless, they usually require profit-center managers to do something very hard---relinquish some of the control they have over how they run their business.  Staff executives, consultants, or reengineering teams cannot do this without active line management involvement.  The CEO and top management have tog to be deeply involved, reach tough-minded conclusions, then ensure that those decisions are enforced and executed across the enterprise.  It takes guts, it takes time, and it takes superb execution.

Reference to the book:

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of the best advice in Gerstner's book concern 'execution' issues of rewards, incentives, and who has the power to make which decisions.  Consider:

(p. 249)  If a CEO thinks he or she is redirecting or reintegrating an enterprise but doesn't distribute the basic levels of power (in effect, redefining who "calls the shots"), the CEO is trying to push string up a hill.  (p. 250)  The media companies are a good example.  If a CEO wants to build a truly integrated platform for digital services in the home, he or she cannot let the music division or movie division cling to its existing technology or industry structure---despite the fact that these traditional approaches maximize short-term profits.

. . .

I knew we could not get the integration we needed at IBM without introducing massive changes to the measurement and compensation system.  I've already explained that the group executives who ran IBM's operating businesses were not paid bonuses based on the unit's performance.  All their pay was derived from IBM's total results.

When a CEO tells me that he or she is considering a major reintegration of his or her company, I try to say, politely, "If you are not pre-(p. 251)pared to manage your compensation this way, you probably should not proceed."

 

The reference for the book is:

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

(Note:  ellipsis added.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Louis Gerstner is well-known for down-playing the 'vision' thing. he emphasizes that seemingly more mundane issues are often more important than the lofty ones. For example, one of Gerstner's key insights is often ignored in business: most workers perform well, when management takes the time and effort to observe performance, and to reward it when it is good:

(p. 250)  I have already pointed out that people do what you inspect, not what you expect.  Leaders who are thinking about creating true integration in their institutions must change the measurement and reward systems to reinforce this new direction.

(Note: italics in original. Also, see related passages on pages 212, and 230-231.)

Reference for the book:

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The antitrust lawsuit against IBM was dropped, and that against Microsoft result in the imposition of only minor legal remedies.  So some may conclude that IBM and Microsoft bore little ill effects from the suits.  But such suits can reduce morale, result in loss of talent, and restrain the efficiency, innovativeness and competitiveness of the prosecuted companies. 

In the case of IBM, Lou Gerstner has made some strong, and plausible, comments on the deleterious effects of U.S. antitrust action:

(p. 118)  The other critical factor---one that is sometimes overlooked---is the impact of the antitrust suit filed against IBM by the United States Department of Justice on January 31, 1969, the final day of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.  The suit was ultimately dropped and classified "without merit" during Ronald Reagan's presidency, but for thirteen years IBM lived under the specter of a federally mandated breakup.  One has to imagine that years of that form of scrutiny changes business behavior in very real ways.

Just consider the effect on vocabulary---an important element of any culture, including corporate culture.  While IBM was subject to the suit, terms like "market," "marketplace," "market share," "competitor," "competition," "dominate," "lead," "win," and "beat" were systematically excised from written materials and banned at internal meetings."  Imagine the dampening effect on a workforce that can't even talk about selecting a market or taking share from a competitor.  After a while, it goes beyond what is said to what is thought.

The reference to the book, is: 

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change. New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When entrepreneurs, or innovative companies, take large risks, and succeed, we sometimes begrudge them their success.  But we should remember that sometimes they took great risks, and that they could have lost everything if they had lost the 'bets' they made.

One of the most famous examples of 'betting the company' is when Tom Watson, Jr. of IBM 'bet the company' on the development of the expensive, but pathbreaking, system 360.  

This episode is mentioned many places.  One that I ran across recently is in Gerstner's memoir of his own time at IBM.  The following lines appear in Gerstner's brief summary of some important periods in IBM's earlier history:

Much has been written about this period and how Tom "bet the company" on a revolutionary new product line called the System/360---the original name of IBM's wildly successful mainframe family.

To grasp what System/360 did for IBM and its effect on the computing landscape, one needs to look no further than Microsoft, its Windows operating system, and the PC revolution.  System/360 was the Windows of its era---an era that IBM led for nearly three decades.  (p. 114)

The reference to the Gerstner book, is: 

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change. New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gerstner is known for turning around IBM, when many business experts thought it was headed down the tubes.  His book is useful as a report on what happened at IBM during his time as CEO, and also has some more broadly applicable observations.  I'll mention a few of these in this and a few other postings in the next couple of weeks. 

It is interesting how many successful and important business leaders and experts have spent some time associated with the McKinsey consulting group, where Gerstner started his career.  One major McKinsey figure, Richard Foster, is a strong advocate and elaborator of Schumpeter's process of creative destruction. 

I wonder if perhaps some of the success of McKinsey is due to the firm's embracing and applying Schumpeter's ideas?

Those who oppose creative destruction emphasize the destructive effect that the process has on some workers.  In fact the effects on labor are seen by many (e.g., Thomas Friedman) who are otherwise sympathetic, to be the major drawback of the process.  As a result some of them (e.g., Thomas Friedman) propose paternalistic 'safety net' labor policies.

We usually think of government as the main implementer of such policies, but among firms, IBM's labor policies were among the most paternalistic.  This is usually viewed as one of the positives about IBM.  But one of Gerstner's insights is to suggest that some of those in the IBM work force were hurt by IBM's paternalistic policies:

(p. 186)  . . . I came to feel that the real problem was not that employees felt they were entitled.  They had just become accustomed to immunity from things like recessions, price wars, and technology changes.  And for the most part, they didn't even realize that this self-contained, insulated system also worked against them.  I was shocked, for instance, to discover the pay disparities---particularly in very important technical and sales professions---of IBM comployess when comapred to the competition and the industry in general.  Our best people weren't getting what they deserved.

Maybe I should mention that I don't endorse everything in the book.  For example, Gerstner seems to think that a desire to "win" is crucial to success in business.  But I think the analogy between business and competitive sports is usually taken too far.  Can't one also succeed in business from a desire to innovate and to improve the world?

The reference on the book is: 

Gerstner, Louis V., Jr.  Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2002.

(Note:  in the quote, the ellipsis was added, but the italics was in the original.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In late July, I had an appointment for a treadmill stress-test at Omaha's Methodist Hospital.  They told me the process would be over in an hour, but it took about two hours, due to another patient having some sort of crisis during their stress-test. 

They had me put on a gown, they stuck an I-V "dye" drip in back of my hand, and they pasted about six electrodes to my chest, after shaving and applying something like sand paper to the parts of the chest where the electrodes were attached.  Then they had me lie on my side on a hard table, to wait.  It was very uncomfortable.  The first nurse said that there was supposed to be a pillow on the table, but did nothing to obtain one.  Every several minutes some technician or nurse would stop in to ask if I was ready for them.  (I was always ready.)  But it turned out that someone needed to do something to me first, and that person was, I guess, taking care of the crisis next door.  At least one of these visitors also mentioned that I was supposed to have a pillow, but did nothing to acquire one.  If memory serves, the first nurse came back in, and again mentioned that I was supposed to have a pillow, but again did nothing to obtain one.

These people were all pleasant and friendly.  For example, they had a lot of friendly chats amongst themselves, that I could not help but over-hear.  (One of them was pregnant with twins, but did not know the genders of the babes-to-be, and so had not yet spent the time to come up with names.)

But two hours later, when the whole process was over, I still did not have a pillow.

A week or two after the test, I received a several page survey from Methodist Hospital asking a bunch of questions about how I thought they had done during the test.  You see they really "care" about my opinion.  (They also run frequent, slick TV ads about how much they "care.")

Marketers, and management gurus, say that organizations need to invest in surveys and the like to figure out what the customer wants and needs.  And Clayton Christensen advocates spending resources to figure out what "job" the customer needs to have done.  And maybe, sometimes, it does take surveys and research.

But sometimes it is obvious that the customer needs a pillow.

What is missing is not a survey, or statistical analysis.

What is missing is the incentive for someone to go get the pillow. 

P.S.  You may wonder, then, if it is simply a mistake for the hospital to send out the survey?  I suspect that those who send out the survey are not making a mistake, but are trying to get a different job done than the one that appears to be intended.  It appears that they are trying to find out what customers want and need.  But maybe they already know that.  Maybe they are mainly sending out the survey so that if anyone asks if they are "customer-oriented" they can whip out the survey to prove that yes-indeed, they sure are.  In other words, the point of the survey is not to learn about customers; it is to cover rear-ends.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Source of book image:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/078949647X/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-2835260-2878345?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155

Tom Peters became famous as the co-author of the business classic In Search of Excellence (1982).  His Re-imagine! is exuberant, optimistic, exaggerated, and stylistically over-the-top.  I find it fun, bracing, entertaining, and sometimes edifying.  If you like the prose of The Cluetrain Manifesto and Gilder's Telecosm, then you may also like Re-imagine!

Here is an early, very brief passage: 

(p. 9)  My overall vision, in brief:  Business is cool. It's about Creativity and Invention and Growth and Service.  It's about Adam Smith's "hidden hand."  And Nobel laureate Frederick Hayek's "spontaneous discovery process."  And economist Joseph Schumpeter's "gales of creative destruction."  At its best, it's about building things that make life less burdensome than it was in medieval times.  About getting us beyond---far, far, far beyond---the quasi-slavery of the Middle Ages, the indentured servitude of the first 150 years of the Industrial Revolution, and the cubicle slavery of the last three-quarters of a century. 

Yes, business is cool.

(Or at least it can be.)

The citation to the book is:

Peters, Tom. Re-Imagine! London: DK, 2003.

(Note:  the italics in the above passage appears that way in the original.)

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charles Koch.  Source of image:  online version of WSJ article cited below.

I heard Charles Koch speak at the April 2005 Orlando meetings of the Association of Private Enterprise Education.  Part of his speech involved how he has tried to apply in his own business, Schumpeter's process of creative destruction.  For a long time Koch has been a stalwart defender of the free market in word and deed.

Ideas seem to exhilarate him.  This no doubt explains in part why this professorial CEO delivers "dozens and dozens" of lectures around the country to his employees on these very topics.  But what does any of this have to do with explaining his company's prodigious profitability?  Well, everything -- he believes.  Mr. Koch contends that the key insight of his business career was melding these philosophical insights about the way the wealth-creation process works into a business operating system called "Market Based Management."  This system, which he has trademarked, enables every division of his business empire to operate as a separate, autonomous, profit-maximizing unit.  It is intended to reward employees who think like entrepreneurs.

"Long-term success entails constantly discovering new ways to create value for customers and building new capabilities to capture new opportunities," he instructs.  "In this sense, maintaining a business is, in reality, liquidating a business."  Mr. Koch likens the cycle to Schumpeter's "creative destruction" -- where the old and inefficient are ruthlessly swept away by the new.

For the full commentary, see: 

STEPHEN MOORE. "THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW with Charles Koch; Private Enterprise." The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 6, 2006): A8.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cluetrain Manifesto is a thought-provoking, entertaining, uneven, overly-mystical, somewhat dated classic on the impact of the internet on business and life.  Here is the book's startling start:

WE DIE.

You will never hear those words spoken in a television ad.  Yet this central fact of human existence colors our world and how we perceive ourselves within it.  "Life is too short," we say, and it is.  Too short for office politics, for busywork and pointless paper chases, for jumping through hoops and covering our asses, for trying to please, to not offend, for constantly struggling to achieve some ever-receding definition of success.  (p. 1)

Locke, Christopher, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger. The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Cambridge, Mass.:  Perseus Books Group, 2001.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gary Hamel has recently penned some thoughtful observations about what practices of Google have led to its success.  An excerpt from that analysis appears below.  (Hamel earlier wrote a popular book in which he makes extensive use of Schumpeter's process of creative destruction.)

Only time will tell whether Google has succeeded in building an evolutionary advantage.  But consider:  Since it's founding, it has repeatedly morphed its business model.  Google 1.0 was a search engine that crawled the Web but generated little revenue; which led to Google 2.0, a company that sold its search capacity to AOL/Netscape, Yahoo and other major portals; which gave way to Google 3.0, an Internet contrarian that rejected banner ads and instead sold simple text ads linked to search results; which spawned Google 4.0, an increasingly global entity that found a way to insert relevant ads into any and all Web content, dramatically enlarging the online ad business; which mutated into Google 5.0, an innovation factory that produces a torrent of new Web-based services, including Gmail, Google Desktop, and Google Base.  More than likely, 6.0 is around the corner.

Of course Google may ultimately fall victim to hubris and imperial overstretch as it takes on Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay, the occasional telecom giant and pretty much everyone else in cyberspace.  Or like Microsoft, it may simply become like every other big company as it grows.  But that's not the way I'd bet.  Google seems to have grasped the new century's most important business lesson:  The capacity to evolve is the most important advantage of all.

For the full commentary, see:

Hamel, Gary.  "Management à la Google."  The Wall Street Journal  (Weds., April 26, 2006):  A16.

And here is the information on Hamel's most recent book:

Hamel, Gary. Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life. Revised & Updated ed.  Harvard Business School Press, 2002.

 Source of image: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EPFVBE/sr=8-1/qid=1146333251/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5668094-9083929?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sam Walton may have been the grand master of absorbing good ideas of others and then spreading the ideas across the company. Another master was Jack Welch:

(p. 383) Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what the CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important. I tried to be a sponge, absorbing and questioning every good idea. The first step is being open to the best of what everyone , everywhere, has to offer. The second is transferring that learning across the organization.

Source:

Welch, Jack. Jack: Straight from the Gut. New York: Warner Business Books, 2001.

See also pp. 197-198 for Welch's description of the specifics of how Wal-Mart got this job done.

For even more details, see: Walton, Sam. Made in America: Doubleday, 1992.

Posted by Art Diamond at 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)