Four Groups

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Nick Carr has been writing plenty on computing and the move towards a new approach called cloud computing. A recent piece from Nick seeks to compare Google with Microsoft and their respective attempts to win business customers for their respective ‘cloud’ offerings e.g. wordprocessing and spreadsheet on the internet and in the browser, as opposed to the desktop.

‘But I thought google did search and ads, not word processing and spreadsheets..?’ Exactly!

While Google has a near monopoly with its excellent search and advertising business model, I imagine that stretching this to office like applications and meeting the needs of business users will be a serious challenge. This is not just because the two markets and models are arguably very different (the job I am doing as the end user/customer in both differs dramatically!) but that in Google’s case, having had such success with its first business model, translating that into a second may just stretch its processes and values too far…

Nick captures this succinctly when he writes;

And this is one of the big questions that remains to be answered about Google and its ability to sell to big companies: Is it going to be able to see the world through the eyes of its potential customers, even if that view does not coincide with its own philosophy?

Time of course will tell, but as a third party observer, I’d say that delivering a new business model against the values and philosophies of a currently successful one will be impressive to say the least. (This of course neatly side steps Microsoft’s own circumstance of partially or completely shifting its own business from desktop to the internet, but that is a discussion best saved for another day!)

We’ve just heard from Dan McCarthy that the post ‘The war for talent is over and we’ve won!‘ has been featured in the Leadership Development Carnival. Thanks Dan

You can find out more about the Carnival and submit a post here.

Summary

By making the traditionally intangible aspects of an organisation tangible, managers can benefit from superior information and greater choice. This new perspective combines insights and knowledge that would previously only have been available by chance alone with a comprehensive view of the organisation in question.

Factors that Drive Intangibles

The recognition and subsequent rise in the importance and value of intangibles has been an ongoing feature of management for some time. Examples such as Knowledge Management, Balanced Scorecards (BSC) and Strategic Planning all attempt to quantify and make tangible aspects of an organisation that are initially intangible in nature.

While there are many examples of tools and techniques to make information more tangible, it is also useful to ask why this trend has been put in motion and what advantages are available from it. The three ideas below are by no means exhaustive, but are an attempt to shed light on the factors that drive the importance of intangibles.

• Economics
• Execution
• Experience

The economic aspect of intangibles looks at two main areas. The first is a broad consensus that intangibles contribute to superior financial performance. Examples include linking activities such as brand valuation, human capital and innovation to increased shareholder returns. A second economic aspect of intangibles looks at increasing efficiency and reducing costs through an improved understanding of intangible costs and the factors of production. Activity based costing is one example of this approach and by better understanding the tangible and intangible costs of production[1], it is possible to generate improvements and efficiencies in resource allocation.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve just upgraded our blog software to the latest version of WordPress and hope to start adding some more posts and articles in the coming days.

Systematic HR has an excellent post on HR strategy, both what it is and what it isn’t. While the piece will likely ruffle a few feathers, I think it is interesting to look at the gaps in perception between HR and the business as a whole.

What it basically comes down to is your focus on the business. Each and every task performed should be with your executive team’s strategic business plan in mind. In other words, HR is not strategic when it is not coordinated with the business strategy.

While the above summary is reasonably well understood (or should that be that its been written many times in different forms?!) I still think there is scope to narrow the gap between HR and the business, where such a gap exists. Personally, I think that the use of Christensen’s Values, Processes and Resources, or VPR (diagram here) view of the firm offers people the simplest and most comprehensive means to understand, act on and close the HR/Business gap.

In brief, I think HR has a great claim to two of the three aspects of the above, namely Values and Resources. Talk of culture, missions and values can be owned or significantly influenced by HR. Likewise, Resources is only one removed from Human Resources! This leaves Process and aside from HR processes, having an understanding and making a contribution to this from a HR standpoint is a distinct possibility.

N.B. despite my own enthusiasm for the VPR framework, this page from Google only returns two results!

Thank you to Max Goldman’s blog for the title. We’ve also seen research by Ciampa and Watkins (1999) who claim that 64% of external hires ‘fail to make it in their new jobs’. Max writes;

Apparently, nearly 50% of employees fail in the first 18 months of their jobs. And we’re not just talking about individual contributors, either. Actually, the higher up you are, the more likely you are to fail…

Beyond that, bad managers, personality mismatches and lack of appropriate competencies are all good reasons for why new employees fail.

It’s always been a belief of mine that taking a job (or hiring someone) is like the beginning of a new relationship. There are all kinds of reasons why personal relationships fail. I’m sure we’re all familiar with many of them. Sometimes, even knowing our goals for the relationships is not enough to keep it alive when other parts are missing.

Anyway, on to the possible causes and solutions. We’re particularly passionate to understand why people’s relationships don’t always work out and equally, is it possible to predict them in advance of people joining a new employer or starting a new role? We’ve put together some of our thoughts and a possible solution around this aspect of recruitment strategy on our site.

Reference;
Ciampa, D. & Watkins, M. (1999). “Right from the Start: Common Traps for the New Leader.” Harvard Business School Press, Boston.

My friend Johnnie Moore has been spending some time at Reboot8. Here’s a quick extract that caught my eye from an update from Johnnie;

…here are a few soundbites from Doc Searls who is speaking at the moment. Not sure if they’ll make sense out of context, but it’s good stuff, trust me.

The real killer app is relationships

How applicable is this to many day to day business situations? I think this observation just runs and runs…

Following on from an earlier post, Robert Cenek raises the question ‘Can Job Turnover be Predicted?‘

To me, it seems that Robert’s line of thinking runs in parrell to the earlier post, particularly when he writes;

Can Job Turnover be Predicted? Few readers would say no, and yes would be a safe bet at Caesars Sports Book – but it’s also a “take it to the bank bet” that most people rely on hunches or intuition when selecting employees. It’s no secret: most recruiters have “gut-level” conclusions on what they see as risk factors for turnover.

Yes, interviewing methods, screening and psychometrics all have a part to play, but equally, it seems to me that there must be something more to this that what has already been discussed. On the other hand, is relying on hunches and intuition really the best way?

I’ve been seeing a number of posts and articles on conflict and relationships. Here are some to mull over if you fancy a browse;

Poor conflict management costs business billions

In the UK alone, the CEDR calculates, conflict costs business £33 billion every year. The cost of business disputes comprises not only amounts paid in legal fees but also the damage incurred by business as a consequence of those disputes – in fact the cost of this damage (£27bn) far outweighs the legal fees (£6bn).

Develop Effective Work Relationships

Effective work relationships form the cornerstone for success and satisfaction with your job and your career. They form the basis for promotion, pay increases, goal accomplishment, and job satisfaction.

Don’t Compromise – Take Turns

As part of leading discussions on the keys to great business relationships, I often ask seminar participants what they think the keys to great relationships are in personal life. Frequently, someone will say “Compromise” and I think this is dead wrong. Compromise means neither party gets what they want, and both sides end up unhappy. Instead, the secret is “Take Turns!”

We find that the ability to predict relationships often helps both individuals and their organisations in these sorts of situations.

Research group IDC are reporting growth in the Human Capital Management field from £700m today to £1bn in 2010. Much of this growth appears to come from the increasing complexity in managing the HR function. Bo Lykkegaard, an analyst at IDC said;

“Employers are looking for next-generation HCM software,” he said. “New markets such as workforce management and workforce optimisation are becoming critical areas.”

Perhaps better use of software will help answer some of the questions raised by this Personnel Today piece and tie in with ideas around HR Strategy as pointed out here?