EAVESDROPPING

Sometimes a mere conversation says it better than we do.  Here’s what we overheard one day in the coffee shop queue:

Barista:  “I wanted to let you know:  We won’t have any more of these tea bags in a few weeks.  Our warehouse is out.  Like, permanently out.”

Customer:  “Why?”

Barista:  “We’re changing to looseleaf tea.  Tea that will brew for a few minutes while customers wait.  And that will be interesting!”

Customer:  “Why is that?”

Barista:  “Because corporate hasn’t figured out yet that many of our shops attract buy and run customers, especially before work.  Customers here simply won’t wait five minutes for tea.”

Customer:  “I don’t understand … .  Isn’t tea the up and coming beverage?”

Barista:  “Yeah, I guess it is.  But we haven’t yet reached the trendy point, where customers, like in Asia, will stand on line for many minutes for a cuppa.  Don’t worry, we’ll change back to tea bags as soon as corporate sees the numbers!”

Sound like any of your clients or employers? 

DOWN ON THE FARM

General Motors and silos continue to be linked in the media.

And in our minds.

According to new GM CEO Mary Barra in her Congressional testimonies, the auto company’s managers operated in isolation, failing to connect and act on evidence that’s now been linked to fatal accidents.  That, in the words of Harvard guru Ranjay Gulati, smacks of protectionist behavior, decision-making conflicts, and just general inside-out perspectives.

Sound like any business you know?

Regardless:  In the mid-Aughts, after studying a number of different companies (e.g., GE Healthcare, Jones Lang LaSalle, Cisco, Starbucks), Gulati proffered his four-C solution to silo-busting:

• Coordination to share customer information and labor
• Cooperation, along with metrics, that will dethrone the current power structure
• Capability development, when customer-centric generalists also see a clear career pathway and
• Connection, or strategic alliances with other companies.

Later in the decade (or in this one), he holds up IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative as an example of a sword that demolishes silos, saying that values and concomitant images, symbols, and stories, will support the beginnings of a new culture.

Ahem. 

There’s one ‘c’ he’s forgotten:  Communications.  A discipline that, better than any others inside companies, can explain, educate, and elucidate employees on ‘what customers want.’  A function that, almost automatically, delivers awareness and drives actions on behalf of the corporation.  A mindset that will, either alone or in tandem with L&D/HR, establish parameters and ways in which an outside-in perspective reigns.

Ee-i-ee-i-oh, Mr. MacDonald.

CUSTOMIZED CHANGE? DUH.

We call ourselves “change agnostics.”

As many do.  There are so many change management frameworks to apply that it doesn’t matter which is chosen.  Really. 

You could be a disciple of John Kotter.  A devotee of William Bridges.  Even ProSci certified card carriers.  To us, if clients prefer one architecture over another, so be it.  We’ll adopt it, embrace it, even.

But what we won’t do is slavishly follow the principles, from Point A to Point Z.  Why?  If you think about it:

• ·       Change is never linear.  Though the business case/reason for the shift might be apparent to some, trust us, it won’t be to all.  Somewhere, someone (or most likely, some group) will either have a hard time recalling the “why” or are troubled about the connection between the why and the what.  Too, a number accept the change at first, without whimpers.  Then, suddenly, in media res, they start questioning and erecting barriers.
• ·       Corporations are not the same.  Even if they inhabit the same industry.  There’s that elusive, differentiating culture, for one.  Everyone will admit that a Lenovo differs from Dell – not just in terms of products, but also in how things work around here.  And though many internal programs might appear to be the same, say, HR benefits or performance management, the determinant is in how employees think and feel about them.  So why would the same framework and tools work for each?

What caused our tirade?  One not-to-be-mentioned global professional services firm recently issued a white paper about the mandate for tailored change, driven by analytics, precision, and insights.  It advocates pairing objective and subjective data, ensuring leadership is on board, and following three roads to sustainable change through head, heart, and wallet.

Our response?  [The quick one:  See our headline.]  The more thoughtful answer:  Tailoring or segmentation is something our marketing and communications and advertising brethren have practiced for years.  Today, most of us apply customized change inside as well as outside, along with good hard looks at big and small data and a philosophy that uses change as a momentum, not isolated events. 

It’s never an easy path, this notion of change.  What are your thoughts, dear reader?

PSST, PASS IT ON: Whaddayou watching?

By the Keurig machines.  Over cubicles.  Via Facebook or texting.

Today, everyone wants to be first ‘in’ on the latest and hottest television show – whether viewercast on cable, Web, networks, YouTube or other talking animated media.  Now, PBS’ Downton Abbey is almost passé, with Monday Mornings and Girls vying for the lead [depending on what kind of viewer you are].  Or it could be seasonal sports events or reality show suspense, usually communicating the most recent iterations in the challenge or drama.

That yen to be vision-trendy started, critics and pundits insist, with HBO’s The Sopranos (though we contend it really caught on with Mad Men).  Or fueled by the amazing trajectory of YouTube, now calculating four billion hours of eyeballs a month. 

Whatever.  More important is the convenience of choosing to listen to talented artists and intriguing series at our convenience, wherever, whenever.  There, the thanks is due to all of the above:  Folks like Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey and Maggie Smith vying for small screen opportunities.  The at-your-fingertips access of old-fashioned audiovisual media, on new-fashioned instruments, from smartphones and iPads/Nooks to, maybe, Google glasses in the near future.  And the prolixity of channels, with Netflix now challenging traditional broadcast and cable TV in the production of original content.

But the whispering about watching is what’s got us thinking.  It’s more than just a conversation insert, like “what did you do Saturday night?”  It’s grown to infuse and infect our activities – perhaps in generating content à la reality shows or creating a pastiche of the 1970s’ ad era in presentations.  It has, in short, got us talking and thinking, across generations, spanning cultures and attitudes.  It represents, in short, exactly the kind of ideas we might want to adopt for internal corporate dialogues, a way to help ensure our business messages go viral in the right ways.

“If you don’t stop watching the idiot box,” as teacher Mom and retailer Dad used to warn us, “your mind won’t develop.”

Not.