by Charles Plant | Mar 14, 2014 | Leadership Development
Every now and then you discover a new phrase that just seems so…. Today it is “Doing the Gemba.” Gemba or Genba is the Japanese term for the real place, or where the action is.
Doing the Gemba is going to where the action is or in American terms, management by walking around (MBWA). But I like Doing the Gemba so much better as it seems so much more Wabi-Sabi than MBWA.
A fundamental part of lean manufacturing philosophy, it enables a manager to see the actual process, ask questions and learn.
But the real benefit of Doing the Gemba is giving your people some attention, in their space, showing you care about their lives, about their work and that you’ve gone out of your way to do it.
by Charles Plant | Mar 11, 2014 | Leadership Development
Yesterday’s blog on Personal Attention elicited some sharp emails from a few people not least of which was the story from one former colleague.
He related how he had a boss who left him completely alone. So alone in fact that the only time the boss visited his cubicle in the two years he reported to him was once when he needed to borrow a cable.
I’m not surprised when bosses make no attempt to have a personal relationship with their subordinates, never inquiring about their lives or talking about theirs. After all, some people think that you need separation in order to be a good boss.
Other people resent the intrusion. One woman with whom I worked absolutely categorically refused to discuss her personal life. In fact she made it a policy and was quick to tell anyone about her policy. You couldn’t even go so far as to ask if she had a good weekend.
But I am surprised when it goes as far as to leave the subordinate totally alone. If bosses don’t feel comfortable chatting about personal lives, they can at least chat about what’s going on at work, providing context, asking if help is needed, providing extemporaneous coaching.
Plants crave water. Employees crave attention.
by Charles Plant | Mar 10, 2014 | Leadership Development
My father tells a good story about a time when he was running one of Canada’s largest retailers. He was out of town one day visiting stores in one region and it was coming to the end of a packed day. It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to get to the last store on his trip and made a remark to that effect to the store manager he was with.
That store manager pleaded with my father to make time to for the visit as her husband was the store manager of the store he was going to skip. Her husband had been anticipating my father’s arrival for some time and had gone out to purchase a new suit just for the visit.
When you’re in a position of power, you can easily forget what a difference personal attention makes. Your followers crave it, thrive on it and die from lack of it.
by Charles Plant | Mar 6, 2014 | Leadership Development
I’ve had a bunch of interesting discussions lately about valuation metrics for a business. I know I’m straying from leadership and execution a bit here this week but bear with me as I link it in.
Unfortunately, not everyone realizes that valuation is an art, not a science.
(If you’re bored here you can stop reading but you’ll miss some really interesting stuff.)
In the technology industry, valuations have often been on the basis of numbers of users. Investors figure that if a company gets lots of subscribers for free, it can figure out how to get revenue from them later. This has led to some interesting results.
Here are some stats:
This begs the question, what is success? Is success getting the most revenue from each user in which case Google wins hand down. Or is it driving the best value per user given revenue in which case LinkedIn is the winner.
This type of analysis can dramatically affect your strategy. Do you tell your people to go after the most users, the most revenue per user that they can or the stickiest users? This directly affects success if you can figure out how to define it.
by Charles Plant | Mar 4, 2014 | Leadership Development
I usually talk about using metrics to execute strategy. They are also useful to help you develop strategy and are part of the whole Lean Start-up methodology. I have included a video on the subject for your edification and enjoyment. It is a bit long at just under an hour but worth the perspective if you are in any way doing any strategic planning.
Every now and then you discover a new phrase that just seems so…. Today it is “Doing the Gemba.” Gemba or Genba is the Japanese term for the real place, or where the action is.