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Is a superstar more valuable than 100-non superstars? If you had the choice of either or, which would you go for?

Here is an article on the Harvard Business Review website that’s creating quite a stir on this subject. So much so that the author, Bill Taylor, felt compelled to publish a “part two” here.

With all discussions of talent and superstar behaviour, I feel people tend to miss the importance of context.

In different contexts (i.e. environments/cultures, plus general states of mind) individuals can excel or not. People need a opportunity and the platform / project / problem on which to demonstrate performance; either individually or within a team.

Individuals facing similar opportunities in difference contexts may not perform to the same level as before.

What I find particularly interesting is that someone who doesn’t perform exceptionally well at a lower level, can then surprise everyone by blossoming at a higher, in theory more challenging, level. One example I instantly think of from current Formula 1 motor racing is Kamui Kobayashi.

Environmental conditions are therefore significant in terms of empowering people to perform well; the talent, if there is any, is in recognising that argument and then having the guts to create an organisational structure where people can do what they are best at, appropriate to the task at hand.

This goes for every organisation you’re part of; business and social.

Well, that’s my view based on the research I did studing Talent development in some detail for my MBA dissertation. In the context of developing Formula 1 drivers, I found that there are distinctions to be made between “high-achievers” and others, however, invariably this was down them having massive opportunity to perform / practise their art (i.e. Gladwell’s 10,000 hours) and doing that within a cultural organisational structure that allowed them to fail.

Great topic … comments welcome.

Nice article on the 100 year history of IBM. Particularly it focuses on an importance of strong relationships to sustaining market disruption; If people are happy you solved their problem with one technology, then if you have a good relationship with them and they feel you understand the problems their trying to solve, then they will be more willing to accept you providing them with new disruptive technology too.

Interesting perspective.

Nicholas Bates, my inspiration to start blogging during my MBA, is trying to raise votes for a manifesto based on his book – Instant MBA.

Could you go to http://changethis.com/proposal/index and vote for ‘Instant MBA, The Manifesto’, you will need to register and log into the site to do it (at the top of the page), but it only takes a few seconds. Thank you.

It’s explained here: http://blog.strategicedge.co.uk/2011/06/i-need-your-vote.html

… if there’s anyone you can forward it on to who would vote??

Plus, what ever you decide to do, you now get to know about this amazingly inspiring blog, which you can read for free everyday!!

In four words: Nicholas Bates defines professionalism.

Enjoy!

This is a great article for those looking at a tech start-up. It is a little biased towards young people starting a tech start-up but generally the 18 mistakes that kill start-ups is a good read.

Two parts resonated particularly strongly with me, and other (non-programmers) might have found the same:

Tip 6: Hiring Bad Programmers – the issue here is how to find a good programmer if you are not a programmer yourself, because you don’t have the skills to recognise one (if you can even find one!)

Tip 17: Fights Between Founders – “Don’t start a company with someone you dislike because they have some skill you need and you worry you won’t find anyone else. The people are the most important ingredient in a startup, so don’t compromise there.” - something I totally agree with but (as a non-coder) rather related to the above point.

This though could be the reason its so difficult to find good people who want to help you because “no one really good wants a job implementing the vision of a business guy.” And so lies the problem! … Perhaps its a case of ‘can’t beat them join them’ who knows.

Comments, thoughts and suggestions welcome!

This is a theory I have been working to. It is a process for selling consultancy services and one that aims to side step the hourly / day rate hurdle completely. Its a concept, an idea and a way of approaching this thorny subject. Credit for its inception must go a friend of mine who is working as a Director at a major consultancy firm, although, interestingly this isn’t they way they do it. I like the idea so thought I would put it in a slide and share it.

Please let me know what you think, or try it even and let me know how you get on.

How to sell consultancy?

With the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 4 I thought I would share these kind of life thoughts from Steve Jobs of Apple.  Linked here.

I like his perspective.

Having come from an automotive engineering world where simulation has long since been adopted as the way to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs of design and manufacture, it is surprising to discover lower adoption in other sectors, industrial or otherwise.

Recently I took on a new customer who is in the engineering software sales field. They offer solutions to automotive but also in any industrial sector; aerospace, energy, motor sports etc.

This has led me to really think about simulations place and what the benefits really are. Have we all been duped by awesome software sales teams (possibly), or, (as it more probably) does simulation provide a tangible and quantifiable benefit to business capability and therefore its competitive advantage?

The fundamental physics of mechanics, fluids and electrics don’t change so why has there been lower adoption of simulation in other industrial sectors so far?

Its a question I don’t have a definitive answer too, at the moment at least, but its something I am now deeply considering for my new customer.

As ever, I would welcome your comments.

I now run a “digital marketing” strategy consultancy. Bit of a mouthful. However, after much debate with learned and not so learned friends and colleagues, that is the term we decided best describes what the business, Entia Limited, does.

I felt a slight irony therefore while having a haircut in the barbers recently. This is a place I have used regularly for years after one day chancing them because I was stuck in traffic and decided I could do with a trim, while the commutes got their acts together.

Barbers are funny places. They are a world away from your posh hair dressers that the girls use, where they somehow manage to spend 3 hours and £100 getting their hair cut, coloured and blow dried. At the barbers you go in, either sit down straight away in the next available chair, or sit on a bench waiting your turn and reading an old classic car magazine.

As they know me in there, the barbers have followed my journey from Engineering, through MBA, fatherhood and now full time business owner. If you’ve ever watched “Desmond’s” its like that, only they are white.

The thing is “digital marketing strategy” doesn’t have a clear meaning to my barber – “Do you mean TVs and stuff?” Websites to them mean nothing either, from their business point of view at least – the barbers is cash only, they have no need for an online booking service and they are not computer savvy (I am not even sure they have a telephone!)

What then, does digital marketing have to offer my barbers? I feel that if I can answer this question, then it will help me understand really what any of this technology has to offer anyone.

Of course the answer is simple, is about value.

If I could show the value of digital marketing to my barbers with demonstrable increases in profits for him and his business, then that would be the start of an interesting conversation.

However, the fundamental point is that my barber really doesn’t want to work any harder, grow the business, hire more staff or buy another shop. His barbers shop, is a kind of lifestyle business and lifestyle businesses are not attractive for investors or digital marketing consultancy’s – there is no win-win, it would appear.

The strategic part therefore is to know the business one is pitching too as well as the technology. My barber had no clue as to how any form if digital marketing could benefit his business. Brainstorming with him, while he had scissors in his hand cutting my hair, was really not the best environment (and potentially dangerous!).

If one is to do this properly, then your digital marketing consultant should know your business inside out and where the win-win’s are. They should know theirs of course too but you want to know what is going to be effective in your industry and not generically.

Searching around my competition it soon become clear that the word strategy is bounded about quite loosely. Just as anyone with a spanner in their hands is an Engineer these days, so, it appears, anyone with a bunch of crude advertising tactics is now a “strategic consultant”.

Business strategy, for me, is about having SMART objectives based on a focused, data-driven objectives that have been derived from sound Market strategy and market validation. In other words, you’ve worked out you can add value and then how, when and where you’ll implement that value. That is what the MBA teaches you – this and how to go about delivering it too.

The challenge for Entia, as I see it, is how to be heard above the spanner wielders and how to find tactful ways of highlighting to customers that they have either been mislead or could really benefit from having a re-think about their business strategy.

But what has digital marketing got to do with business strategy, they may ask??

I am afraid therefore that here be dragons, political in-fighting and general back stabbing; no-one in an organisation wants to be seen to “get it wrong”. Furthermore, less than no-one wants to pay a consultant to tell them this either …

Suggestions on how I tackle this conundrum are welcome … please comment below!

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I am trying to leverage the “link juice” from this blog to use for my digital marketing strategy business called Entia Limited (link also at top of page).  If your business needs a digital marketing strategy, an existing website optimised or website hosting, then Entia can help you do it successfully and cost effectively.

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I am trying to leverage the “link juice” from this blog to use for my digital marketing strategy business called Entia Limited (link also at top of page).  If your business needs a digital marketing strategy, an existing website optimised or website hosting, then Entia can help you do it successfully and cost effectively.

I read an interesting article today by one of our (Warwick’s) MBA professors, Nigel Piercy.  The business schools and MBAs are being blamed by some quarters for the economic meltdown.  Nigel puts forward a balanced and decent repost to this notion in his article, published in the Wall Street Journal – click here.

My view is that greed is human nature.  Everyone was party to taking advantage of easy credit, fuelling the housing price boom and running up credit card bills to buy consumer items.  Its a cycle, a churn of money which spirals up and down; although we can’t directly control it individually, we are all party to the macro economy.

The macro economy is not the issue on its own, it is long established, the issue for the west is the rate of leakage of that money from the spiral.

The big point that people in the west are missing, is that while everyone argues about who’s fault it is and how did this happen, no-one is prepared to tackle the real issues, as I see it.  This crisis would have been much less powerful, ifthe west was still a net EXPORTER of goods, rather than importer.   By importing all our consumer goods, food and clothes from abroad (because we are largely too arrogant and proud to get our hands dirty and make them ourselves – why else is it cheaper?) the west has made itself very vulnerable.  It would not surprise me at all if there was a large swing during my lifetime of wealth and power from west to east, that  critically will have a profound effect on the standard of living in the west – if you look it is already happening really (why else would the UK have to borrow so much?)

Nigel was outspoken on the Warwick MBA course and quite polarised opinion within our class – some totally didn’t connect with his teaching style at all.  My feeling was that he challenged us and didn’t spoon feed us information, which I think can only be a good thing if you are to learn effectively.

Interestingly, other than in class presentations, Nigel never graded me that well in the exams; I never quite figured out what it was he was looking for.  I should therefore be frustrated with him but instead I am a fan.  I like people with a strong opinion and who challenge the status quo, making one think.  Its rare to meet people like this, with the courage of their convictions (to many unabated arrogance!) and its nice the Wall Street Journal feels the same.

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I am trying to leverage the “link juice” from this blog to use for my digital marketing strategy business called Entia Limited (link also at top of page).  If your business needs a digital marketing strategy, your existing website optimised or website hosting, then Entia can help you do it successfully cost effectively.