In Pursuit of Elegance

I can't wait to get my hands on Matt May's new book In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing which will be published next week.

His recent ChangeThis manifesto provides a sneak preview of th content:



Matt's previos book The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation is one of the most referred to books in my blog. It captures what I have been doing for the past 15 years in my career - applying to knowledge work what I learned from studying industrial management, production control, quality management and organizational development.

I have referred to his book in my previous posts:

Mind of an Innovator:
Innovation, problemsolving and learning employ the same iterative process—blending supposition, logic, creativity and reflection.

Ideas Come from Everywhere
The Toyota organization implements a million ideas a year.

That’s a fact, he says. It is their greatest source of competitive advantage. It’s their engine of innovation. But more than that, Toyota has created a culture where every idea counts. It’s an environment of everyday innovation as a result of fanatical focus on getting little better, daily.

Long Term Goals
Toyota implements 1 million ideas each year. He continues, Do the math: 3000 ideas a day. That number, more than anything else, explains why Toyota appears to be in a league all their own, playing offense on a field of innovation, while their competitors remain caught in a crossfire of cost-cutting.

My Management System
an excellent book about Toyota’s innovation system which is built on learning: “Learning and innovation go hand in hand, but learning comes first.”

In Search of Simplicity
The first step is to start a war on complexity, which can be identified by inconsistency, overload, and waste – all of which unnecessarily consume the resources of time, effort, space, and money without adding value.

His ideas are universally valid and can be easily transferred to knowledge work in the office.

Beer Game

I was reading an article from the Washington Post about how “The sea of new cars, 57,000 of them, stretches for acres along the Port of Baltimore. The customers who once bought them by the millions have largely vanished, and so the cars continue to pile up.” This reminded of the

Beer Game

we once played at the university. OK, we played many beer drinking games, but this one, The Beer Distribution Game is a simulation game created at MIT Sloan School of Management in early 1960's to demonstrate a number of key principles of supply chain management.

The purpose of the game is to meet customer demand for cases of beer, through a multi-stage supply chain with minimal expenditure on back orders and inventory. Communication is against the rules so feelings of confusion and disappointment are common. There are three players in the game including a retailer, a wholesaler, and a marketing director at the brewery. Each player's goal is to maximize profit.
A truck driver delivers beer once each week to the retailer. Then the retailer places an order with the trucker who returns the order to the wholesaler. There's a four week lag between ordering and receiving the beer – just as there is weeks or months lag between ordering and receiving a car.

The following represents the results of a typical beer game as described by Peter Senge in Chapter 3 of his 1990 classic, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization

Lover’s Beer is not very popular sells four cases per week on average at the retailer who attempts to keep twelve cases in the store by ordering four cases every week. On week 2 the retailer's sales of Lover's beer doubles to eight cases, so he orders 8 cases.

From week 3 onwards he weekly sells all the beer in stock (5-8 cases), receives less than ordered and orders extra to be on the safe side.

The wholesaler is the only distributor of Lover's beer and delivers to several retailers. The wholesaler's policy is to keep 12 truckloads in inventory, and he orders 4 truckloads from the brewery each week and receives the beer after a 4 week lag.

From week 6 onward he is out of stock, while the retailers are ordering 3 to 4 times more Lovers' beer than their regular amounts. Also the wholesaler receives less than ordered and orders extra to be on the safe side.

The brewery is small but has a reputation for producing high quality beer. Lover's beer is only one of several products produced at the brewery. Orders begin to increase, but it takes two weeks to brew the beer. Even during week 14 orders continue to come in and the brewery has not been able to catch up on the backlogged orders. The marketing manager begins to wonder how much bonus he will get for increasing sales so dramatically.

The suddenly, on week 16,

• The brewery catches up on the backlog, but orders begin to drop off.


• The wholesaler received zero orders from all retailers – “What is wrong with these people? Four weeks ago, they were screaming at you for beer, now, they don’t even want any.”


• The retailer is receiving the beer he has ordered earlier, but demend is down. The pop song that made the beer popular - Cheap Credit by SubPrime - no longer tops the charts.

At this point all the players blame each other for the excess inventory. Conversations with wholesale and retailer reveal an inventory of 93 cases at the retailer and 220 truckloads at the wholesaler. The brewery marketing manager figures it will take the wholesaler a year to sell the Lover's beer he has in stock.


Car industry used to be the example for supply chain management. But something went terribly wrong. In the game the brewery keeps on sending beer nobody wants, in real life “new cars nobody wants to buy continue to pile up in Baltimore and at ports around the globe. Last month, when space filled up at one Swedish port, Toyota was forced to lease a cargo ship as a sort of floating parking garage for 2,500 unsold cars.”

The problem is an observed phenomenon in forecast-driven distribution channels. Since the oscillating demand magnification upstream a supply chain reminds someone of a cracking whip it became famous as the Bullwhip Effect. The solution for this problem is Lean manufacturing, which Toyota should have mastered.


Beer bubbles photo by Tambako
New cars photo by DennisSylvesterHurd

Coaching

Some years ago I was coached by a management consultant. Looking back the past couple of years in my recent position, I can say

There have been times when I could have used some coaching again.

Two specific features of coaching had a prominent impact on me earlier; the opportunity to openly discuss things without the political pressures and restraints of the organisation and receiving an outsiders perspectives on your situation, thoughts, aspirations and goals. Coaching helped me distance myself from the every day execution of tasks, allowing me to see and handle things more objectively. You can read more about my coaching experience here.

Coaching can be defined as “a structured process-driven relationship between a trained professional coach and an individual or team which includes: assessment, examining values and motivation, setting measurable goals, defining focused action plans and using validated behavioral change tools and techniques to assist them to develop competencies and remove blocks to achieve valuable and sustainable changes in their professional and personal life.”
(Zeus and Skiffington cited in Wikipedia)

The most tangible input my coaching program had was the personal development scheme which I drew up during the coaching. With the help of the tools provided by the coach, I set myself goals to achieve professionally as well as ones to achieve personally during the next six, twelve and twenty-four months. They have helped me ever since.

But coaching can only help you if you are willing to learn and change. The article in Wikipedia continues

All learning leads to nothing when people don’t change their thoughts and actions (read: behavior).

This is exactly what I have said before - I truly believe that learning must start within yourself. Only by first developing yourself, you can start to develop and improve bigger entities – your team, your unit, your company, our planet.

What is your experience and opinion?

Do you think that an outside perspective would allow you handle things more objectively?

Would it help you on setting measurable goals?

How about help on developing competencies?

Are you willing to admit and work on your weak points?


Photo by I'll never grow up

Presentation Skills

Earlier this year I joined one of my colleagues to a presentation by Garr Reynolds, the author of the great book Presentation Zen. During his presentation I realized that

I have given many bad presentations
and
I have seen many bad presentations.

I decided to try a different approach, in the office, and at SlideShare. But as pictures tell a story better than words, I'll show you what I mean.

This presentation by Rowan, or actually the first half of the presentation, best describes bad PowerPoints. Have you seen any?




To get an idea of Presentation Zen, you need to give it a thought and spend some time on Garr's blog, check his presentation tips, buy his book, or take an hour to watch a presentation he gave at Google in March. It's pretty much the same presentation I saw live, and it's an hour well spent!



If you don't have much time now, here is a good example by Justin about points to remember. Not directly based on Presentation Zen, but sharing many of the topics. And nicely simplified!




When was the last time you saw a really great presentation?
How was it done and delivered?

How can we forget such simple hints so often?

How Do We Educate Our Children?

I believe that the

Foundation for Lifelong Learning is laid at school

Living abroad, we often have to answer the question:

"How do you educate your children?"

Some times people want to know about education when living in a foreign country, but most often about education at our home country. To answer that question I made a presentation, which is my entry to the World's Best Presentation Contest 2008.

If you like it, please exercise your right to vote and spread the word.

Thank you!

Samuli

I made this presentation based on some 20 years of education, and some 15 years of lifelong learning, and with the help of some books I have been reading lately

About creating and presenting a message

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heat and Dan Heat

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds

About distributing the message

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

The Word of Mouth Manual by Dave Balter and Seth B. Minkin

And as word of mouth is free, the book can be also downloaded for free as a pdf from
ChangeThis.com - spreading important ideas and changing minds.

Does Your Boss Know You Are Blogging?

Mine does, I told him, and his boss and his boss. But due to generation gap, I do not know if they understand (yet).

This presentation should help understand how blogs work
and how they can be useful at work.

| View | Upload your own

Some facts about Generation Y: 97% own a computer, 76% use Instant Messaging, 44% read blogs, 28% author a blog.

I am not really Generation Y, since I was born in the 60s. This explains why I refer to John Lennon or The Blues Brothers.

But I am not a baby boomer either – according to a recent survey they in contrast have little or no interest in writing blogs or in participating in general social networking.

I try to balance somewhere in the middle. I am not looking for a job at IBM as Sacha, who made the presentation. I aim to continue on my journey of Lifelong Learning. I am finding more and more useful resources based on blogs, social networking and Web 2.0.

I also told about my blog to our head of HR, because I wanted to make sure I am not crossing any line. Her reaction was quite the opposite from this one on a Harvard Business Review cartoon:

"Frankly, we were looking for someone who's able to think outside the blog."

That is exactly what I am trying to do – think outside the blog. Just as Sacha outlined on her presentation:

1) Read and learn as much as you can (and not just books, but blogs and news feeds)
2) Write and share what you've learned
3) Reach out - find mentors, make friends
4) Rock - do a good job and tell how you would make it even better
5) Repeat from #1

I do that by collecting best practices in this blog and sharing them with my colleagues and with you. And I do that on my own time, not by Working in the Gray Zone.

Do you have a blog?

Do you follow blogs?

Do we share some of the same ideas?

Should we establish a connection somehow?

Which generation are you? (Does it really matter?)

Learning by Doing

I just can’t help quoting Josh Kaufman the editor of Personal MBA:

“The Personal MBA is a DIY approach to business education - it's taking responsibility for learning into your own hands. The best way to learn about business is to spend time gathering the most useful concepts you can, then putting them to use in the real world. Experience teaches better than any professor can.

Sure, you'll make a few mistakes along the way - everyone does. The important distinction is that, instead of doing meaningless homework, you're actively building your own business or improving your career.

When it comes down to it, formal coursework is overrated. You can learn more (and have more fun) by doing it yourself.”

That is exactly what I started doing long before I learned about PMBA - gathering the most useful concepts to this blog in order to be able to use them.

This week I spent two days in a strategy meeting. I was asked to make a summary of a discussion based on balanced scorecard viewpoints (which I happen to know inside out, having just prepared a presentation of them).

I also had two days of leadership training this week and we discussed among other things the 7 habits, which I had blogged last week.

Manager’s Toolbox really proved to be useful during strategy and leadership workshops and is serving its purpose in improving my management and leadership skills.

Now I will to return to my office and start using the new skills in real life – learning by doing. Nobody ever learned to play piano by listening to others or reading notes. They have learned by practicing. The same way I have to start doing what I heard from other people and what I read from several books. Start the real learning by doing.

Is there any skill you have learned without practicing it? Without learning by doing?



ps. During the four days I spent in workshops, over 4000 people around the world watched my BSC presentation and almost 500 of them downloaded it, causing my customer satisfaction to reach high levels!

Personal MBA

Post graduate studies have tempted me ever since I graduated from the university. I have had an urge to combine theory and practice. Earlier I did not have sufficient time for that (and was too busy with the practice), but now I have found a way

This blog is my personal MBA
- one page at a time.

There is a whole community of like-minded people out there. The Personal MBA (PMBA) is a project designed to help you educate yourself about advanced business concepts. It is easy to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.

I am not actually following them literally, nor reading all the books they recommend. But I share their ideology. And that's what matters.

And yes, I read a lot on my own time, just take a look on how my bedside table looked yesterday. OK, I cleaned up a little bit, but all those books and magazines where actually there.

What unifies us is the inbuilt need for Life Long Learning, which is also my personal Mission. I truly believe that learning must start within yourself. Only by first developing yourself, you can start to develop and improve bigger entities – your team, your unit, your company, our planet.

It's all up to you. And who could say it better than Peter F Drucker

“Knowledge can’t be taught, but it can be learned”

Here’s a list of the books on my bed side table at the moment.

Zen Lessons - The Art of Leadership by Thomas Cleary

Meaning, Inc - The Blueprint for Business Success in the 21st Century by Gurnek Bains

Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heat & Dan Heat

Execution - The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck

The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning by Philip Friedman and Gail Eisen

Latest Harvard Business Review and one earlier issue

A small book of Sudoku to reboot my brain after too much reading...

I am my own manager

I am not talking about managing self. What I mean is

I am my own CEO

"Each of us is a CEO" managing his own career, says Peter F Drucker on the final pages of The Definitive Drucker. The book is based on interviews Elisabeth Haas Edersheim had with Peter Drucker during the last years of his life. It can be called, as is printed on the cover “Final Advice from the Father of Modern Management”. When all the pieces started to fit together for this blog, his final advice became my first advice.

To become your own CEO you need the same three characteristics as a CEO
1) Maintaining broad field of vision requires having a sense of where you are going and what you are building
2) leaving your thumbprint on the organizational personality by knowing yourself and what gives you passion
3) influence others and be influenced by them

My intention in this blog is to maintain a broad field of vision and cover many aspects of management. I have a clear idea of where I am going and what I am building, but you have to wait a couple more posts before I get to my strategy.

I got the original idea for this blog last year, January 13 2007, to be precise. I read a book called Good Luck by Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes. I realized then that I need to act according to the

Fifth Rule of Good Luck:
If you postpone the creation of new conditions, Good Luck never arrives.
Creating new conditions is sometimes hard work, but ... do it today!

But only when I realized that I also need to be my own CEO many things became crystal clear. I will cover topics listed on the first post, Original Idea, and many other topics one by one.

My next post will be about the organization – if I am my own CEO, what is my organization? Do I leave a thumbprint on my organization personality by knowing myself and knowing what gives me passion? After all, I am not a CEO of any company, just a middle manager managing my own career.

And for the last characteristics I need to interact with you, hopefully influencing you and definitely being influenced by you if you give me comments. Which I hope you would give to my posts.

Are you managing your own career?

Are you actively creating conditions for Good Luck?

Being active gives better results than just waiting for something to happen.

Another year has passed

A year has passed since I decided to start this blog. A year ago I though of this as a project, but it was not. It's a hobby. A year ago I was thinking of making a project plan for this blog, but how could I do a project plan for a hobby? And that's what has been taking all this time.

But I have not forgotten the idea. How could I forget a hobby?

Actually, this was just another year that passed. The hobby started around April 8, 1997 when a made a summary of Nonaka's article The Knowledge-Creating Company in Harvard Business Review. Since then I have been collecting these best practices. For some years now I have been planning to put them on paper. I decided to document them here virtually instead. They are usefull in my work, and I am more than happy if somebody else finds them usefull in his/her work also.

I am not worried at all about the slowness of the start. During this year I have collected more best practices and this week I finally realized how all the pieces fit togehter. Besides, one of my favorite novelist, Milan Kundera in his novel Slowness says

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.

I may have been slow, but I have had my sensors out and I remember more of what I have read. My concious became clean when I realized this is part of my life long learning - not a project, and thus there is no schedule and there are no dead lines!

Nevertheless I intend to post more frequently in the future.