Change Management
Often I have been asked what is, in my understanding the ideal cycle to implement a Change in the Company. And my answer can somehow be abbreviated to this, that I want to share with you all today. First is to avoid that anyone thinks this way: “I decided to face reality,so as soon as it’s getting nicer, please let me know” From there on, the Cycle of Change is: To listen To the needs of the shareholders To the management team To each employee as an individual being Understand The culture and the needs of the company The...
read moreStrategy and Change: Really, it’s Globalization truth?
Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Orleans, Orval, Tours, Nantes, back to Tours, back to Paris to finally go to sleep again at home, in front of the soothing sea of Barcelona … And all that in 9 days. And all that to be able to talk with 6 persons, face to face during no more than 2 hours with some of them. And can all that not be done via a video conference? NO. Can it not be done via e- mail? NO None of the tools of the super-globalized Web 2.0, not even the WEB 200.0 that will come, will allow us to ever substitute what we will learn from someone...
read moreEstrategia y Cambio: dirigir…¿es dirigir?
I would like to tell you that a couple of weeks ago I found a description of my occupation that I really liked; I liked it much more than ‘director of the orchestra’, which always made me feel somewhat uncomfortable because of that excess of leadership en having the baton in hand. As time passes I am more and more convinced that leading a company is like directing a movie!! The producers-shareholders start the economic workings, following a script-strategy thinking that the public-customer would like to pay to see the finished...
read moreComunication: (1): the briefing
The term ‘briefing’ was first used in the military and it was immediately taken over by the publishing world, about 20 years ago. Briefing: the act of ‘explaining’ what is wanted if we want to say it in a simple way. And the term has been adopted as the act with which anyone, who has the vision of the strategic needs, tells his team where they want to go to. Therefore, the briefing should be one of the key events, originators of the communication. However, the people in most companies have concluded that talking is a way of wasting...
read moreStrategy and Change: Empowerment and trust
We have talked a lot about Empowerment. We have said that directing people is making them grow, is guiding them to be better, broader, deeper, stronger, more profound,… Because as our people are, is how our company will ultimately be. Lately I have been thinking a lot about this. About the way empowerment is used, about what this ‘granting power’ really implies. And I have certainly arrived at the conclusion that Empowerment can only start with trust; by granting our trust to those who work with us, for us, in our area of...
read moreEstrategia y Cambio: Valor y Precio
It’s that simple … His name is Joshua Bell and he is one of the most renowned violinists today. In the first video, played at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, playing Beethoven: Violin Concerto-3.Rondo. Allegro, accompanied by chamber orchestra. From 8 minutes, you can hear almost a minute of applause. In the second video, the same Joshua Bell plays in a subway station at Washington. The instrument, neither more nor less than a Stradivarius of 1713, for which he paid more than $ 3 million. The repertoire of the best classical pieces...
read moreDuring this time….what did I learned?
That firms belong to their owners, but the destinies of their people do not. That’s why the owners can do with companies that best fit, but people can do with their destinies, exactly the same thing. I learned the value of “briefing” and the “debriefing” I learned that learning is an attitude, not an activity. I’ve learned that neural structures are woven on respect, on good manners, on the ability to recognize the other, any other, all the others in their uniqueness, in its entirety, and that this must be...
read moreEstrategia y Cambio: ¿dónde ha de situarse el CEO? (5)
In the future. Searching how it will be, wondering what shape it will have, which will be the playing ground. Preparing the different roads as alternative routes to get to a horizon which after five years, at least, will continue to be sustainable and consistent with the Vision that exists today. And if necessary, preparing the alternative messages to start adapting the Vision to new markets, new competitors, new ways of doing business, new ways of trading. Preparing the different head models which have to get to that future (including the...
read moreChange: Men who did not love women
They asked them for sweetened coffee with their university titles They looked more at the girls’ lower back than at their eyes They gave them a position way below their capacities They told the girls to make photocopies to save time They had them sit in the smallest offices They were scolded for being pregnant They were denied well deserved promotions The girls were always called by their names as if they had no last names They doubted their abilities They doubted their skills Their possibilities Their proposals Their attitudes Their...
read moreEstrategia y Cambio: del burnout al boreout al knockout
A few days ago, this article appeared in La Vanguardia this article referring to a recently detected new syndrome: the boreout. I believe it is missing a “d”, because in fact it speaks about something like “bored to death”. It is related to the other syndrome, the “burnout”; that is, burnt out by work. The truth is that it is a term I kind of like, because it is a fitting term. There are people utterly bored at work. Bored of not knowing where they are headed to; of not knowing to do; bored of not doing more than going around in...
read moreChange: Because restructuring is a process not a project
Therefore, more than half of the restructures in the world eventually are ‘useless at best and harmful at worst’. That is, they have ephemeral effects and then they fall into the same wells where they first started out. Because ‘to restructure’ is, and I will say it one more time, ”change of structure” It is not to reduce the costs, it is not throwing people in an identical order to disembark from the shipwreck: “the weaker ones, first!”. It is not changing some executive and leave all Information Systems intact; it is not...
read moreEstrategia y Cambio: ¿dónde ha de situarse el CEO? (4)
He should place himself far away from his original occupation. Whichever that may be. Far away from Sales if he comes from the commercial area, far away from Product Development if he comes from the Engineering area; and definitely far away from that which keeps him away from the ‘family picture’ Since very many years I have suffered from the harassment by those people who ask me what my profession is and then they get wide-eyed when I tell them that “I direct companies”. And the questions start: “but, what companies? what do you...
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