May 15, 2023
Good morning! How are you coming along with No Mow May? Happy Holy Feast of Saint Mothers’ Day to all who qualify — or perhaps WANT to qualify. Do you think having a day like this generally helps or hurts? We find it’s more often the hundreds of little things that make life rich, and not so much the occasional big thing. Took a mesmerizing drive through 50 or more miles of freshly-tilled and planted farm fields on Saturday; the fertile earth pregnant with sprouting seeds but not yet showing.
- Had this genius idea of installing a suggestion box on our kitchen counter.
- Underrated skill: “Following Up” (Schwedelson)
- I love it!
- “Everyone talks about how social media is (are) bad for your mental health, but what about Excel?!” (Murray) [James will love this one!]
- Love this one, too.
- “We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us.” (Proust)
- Perhaps another way of saying, Have you seen the elephant?
- If you enjoy sociology, or anthropology, or psychology, or social psychology, you MIGHT enjoy this book.
- It’s chock-full of charts, graphs, and longitudinal data.
- And, a pretty good discussion of those data — perfect for browsing a few pages at a time and then scratching your head.
- The author is Twenge and the book is Generations. (2023)
- In the book she shatters myth after myth regarding presumed generational differences — while sustaining a few as well.
- One tidbit — and then perhaps more in future weeks:
- Trust expressed by adults in the United States is less than half of what it was 70 years ago. (Twenge, 2023)
- Here was the question: “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful when dealing with people?”
- Here’s the analogy: The presentation of a spectacular gourmet meal requires the investment of several hours of planning and preparing.
- No matter how inspirational or aspirational your vision, it’s just a dream (or nightmare) — and a failed meal — without an implementation plan.
- Lots of chopping, dicing, marinating, research, consulting, staging, organizing, testing, tasting, and… the final result is virtually guaranteed.
- Makes sense, doesn’t it, if you want your people to perform productively and proficiently — do the behind-the-scenes prep work.
- What follows is from: (Ton, MIT Sloan, 2023)
- “Companies that reduce and simplify workload on the front lines find that they can position employees to deliver a better customer experience.”
- “Imagine that, as a new executive at a retail company with stagnating sales, you’re tasked with finding new ways to grow revenues…
- …After studying the market, you propose a new line of products to be sold in all of your locations.
- Upon launching the new product line, however, sales aren’t as robust as expected, so you introduce price promotions and give the new lineup…
- more prominent store placement. Yet, sales still don’t budge.
- When you visit stores to investigate, you find that some locations haven’t rearranged the store layout and others haven’t stocke3d the inventory they received weeks ago.
- A sales associate at one location is confused about which of your several products are new…
- … while the manager at your most popular location tells you that overall sales have declined since the store was rearranged around the new lineup…
- … because regular customers can’t find the products they’re used to purchasing.
- Back at headquarters, you study your company’s employee and customer metrics and find a high rate of employee turnover…
- … and harsh customer reviews about the level of service they receive, all dating back years.
- In this environment, what if, before adding new products and promotions, you first considered subtractions?
- ‘Unfortunately, at most companies we’ve worked with, the people in upstream functions rarely considered the impact their decisions would have on the front line.’
- As a result, decisions from upstream functions often reduce value to the customer because they make it difficult for customer-facing employees to provide good service.” (Ton, 2023)
- Get out of the silo and out into the field! They also call this listening — and collaboration — and teamwork — and paying attention.
- So, so very simple, but we are so, so, so slow to learn:
- Should this even be a meeting at all?
- What is this meeting for?
- What is everyone’s role (in this meeting)? (McKinsey, 2023)
