I simply love it. This book is great and I’ve been waiting for such a book for so long. As a matter of fact, my wait was so long that I was starting thinking “I should write it”. I’m happy to see that Grant McCracken has done it, because this is a much better book than the one I could have been writing 
This book is about business, but more than simply business, is about the role culture is playing in the way we do business.
I’ve been working for 20 years for some of the most successful corporations (Microsoft and Cisco, just to name two) and I’ve experienced the CEO role and the owner role in some much smaller (and less successful) companies. Despite the differences in the roles I’ve covered during my recent life, I’ve always thought that there was a fundamental gap between the culture (*), as Grant McCracken defines it in his book, and the corporate culture as I’ve seen it defined, and sometime enforced, by many enterprises.
If, like me, you have ever got the feeling that there is something fake or missing in the corporate culture message of the company you work for, than this book is a must have. You will see how culture is the place you go for innovation and for granting your business a competitive advantage.
If, like me, you’ve seen some of your best work poisoned by “death by committee” than you’ll enjoy reading this book. You’ll learn how some CEOs have managed to liberate good ideas from bureaucracy.
If, like me, you think you have to do something in your company to grant there is a methodical approach in culture understanding and leveraging , than this book is going to be a great companion for your journey. You’ll learn how your company can minimize risks by embracing culture as a vital piece of a business model design.
To Grant McCracken I can simply say: Thank You!
(*) In the Introduction to his book, this is the definition Grant McCracken gives of culture as he uses it: “By culture, I mean the world outside the corporation, the body of ideas, emotions and activities that make up the life of the consumer”.
If you are working on the next presentation or building a new website, I urge you to read what Garr Reynolds just posted about Sumi-e.
As a matter of fact the all blog is one of the best sources of ideas for building good presentations. But, if time is the only thing you are worried about, take a piece of it to read about Sumi-e.
The team at AYTM has recently released an interesting platform.
What you get is the chance to ask up to 5 questions (with 5 possible answers to choose from) to a target market you choose. You can tweak the demographic filters so that the respondents will likely come from the audience you’d like to ask questions to.
For the time being, the respondents are US Citizens but, if the platform succeed, as I hope, it is likely that they will become soon a meaningful statistical sample for almost any market. And, by the way, getting the world flat, this is likely to be less and less an issue.
The platform is working smoothly, is damn easy to use and is based on an honest SLA concept and truly reasonable prices.
I’ve done my test and I’m pleased by the results. Building my survey online has been easy and at 7pm on Saturday the survey was up and running. In less than 24h (actually by 2pm on Sunday) I got 50 replies to 3 questions from people all around the states. I don’t want to even start thinking how much would have been costing me, in time and money, doing the same with the traditional research agencies.
But the most interesting thing is not just saving big money, and a lot of time. I think this platform, by offering market research on demand (almost real time), offers great ways to do new things with research, not simply to do the same stuff but at a lower cost. We can actually apply market research to new areas of our business that previously was not making sense cost-wise. What about having a survey helping you choose a new logo? Yes, you can attach photos to your questions so that respondents will get a better idea of what are you asking them. How many small businesses could have handled it before AYTM?
I like it! I see some nice disruption going on
Think big! I’ve always been told to do so. And I do believe there’s always something good in thinking big.
In the process of setting up a new company, or opening our business to a new market, we tend to get naturally constrained by our resources, while elaborating our plan.
The entry ticket we have to pay to get into some new businesses is sometimes (varies from segment to segment) prohibitive. This is mostly true if you enter such markets without a disruptive model but with a “me too” attitude. You’ll agree with me that it is not always easy to come up with a truly innovative and disruptive business model. So what can we do if we are missing the great idea? Should we simply give up, or relegate our business to a small niche? Is it than true that you’ve to “go big, go niche or go home”?
The Long Tail opportunity, more than creating new companies that sell less of more, has pushed many entrepreneurs to follow niche opportunities. There’s nothing bad in doing it.
I do believe that we need to realize that our business model should look at our target market size as something that is only temporarily bounded by our resources. Building a platform that houses the relationship we have with our customers is becoming more and more important. What if we start small, with a small market target, and than we are hit by success? Is our model going to require us to linear grow our invested resources? I think this is one of the reasons many small businesses remain small.
What if we build a business model around scalability? This is not needed when you have few customers, I agree. But skipping this step, when you start your new business, it is likely to put your company in a niche forever.
If TV, newspaper and magazine ads were banned by law, than companies should really learn how to use the internet to keep in touch with their customers (existing and prospects). Is never going to happen, but pretending it is could help a lot slow moving companies reinvent their internet presence.
Potrebbe sembrare ironico che, di questi tempi, mi interessi ai problemi legati alla gestione della crescita da parte delle aziende. In realtà, come rileva l'editoriale di oggi del Corriere, le crisi si manifestano spesso come risultato della incapacità di gestire una crescita fuori dal comune, o meglio, le sue conseguenze.
E così sono andato a rivedermi il modello di Greiner, che affronta proprio il tema delle crisi alle quali un'azienda deve prepararsi man mano che cresce di dimensioni.
Il modello è interessante ma datato (1972). Quello che non mi soddisfa più è il fatto che la rappresentazione grafica del modello lascia intendere che le crisi legate alla crescita delle dimensioni di un'azienda si presentino nel tempo secondo un ordine precostituito e che nello stesso ordine si sia chiamati a risolverle.
Nella realtà una crisi legata all'estinguersi della carica innovativa dei fondatori di un'azienda può verificarsi molto dopo il momento nel quale le dimensioni dell'azienda sono diventate tali da richiedere l'ingresso di management che poi non riesce a gestire correttamente un processo di delega.
E' però vero che il modello di Greiner ha il pregio di descrivere l'evoluzione della crescita delle aziende e le sfide che esse si trovano ad affrontare con una lucidità e sintesi che ha tutta le mia ammirazione.
Spinto dal lavoro che Bud Caddell ha fatto con l'impiego di un diagramma di Venn che ho citato in un recente post, ho provato a ridisegnare il modello di Greiner non su una curva, come ha fatto l'autore, ma in un diagramma nel quale la componente tempo si perde e l'attenzione viene posta sull'attività da svolgere. Ho anche sintetizzato ulteriormente lo schema, escludendo le componenti legate alla creatività e alle alleanze e accorpando in un unico elemento i due temi "Co-ordination" e "Collaboration".
Il diagramma si dovrebbe leggere così:
- se c'è Direction e Delegation ma manca la Collaboration bisogna focalizzarsi sulla Company Culture e su i Valori
- se c'è Direction e Collaboration ma manca Delegation allora il focus va dato all'Organizational Set-up
e così via.
Certo è una forzatura, ma risponde all'esigenza di mantenere le cose più semplici. Credo che il risultato stimoli delle riflessioni interessanti.
Il diagramma di Venn, ad esempio, suggerisce che in un'azienda dove esiste un buon livello di delega e di collaborazione ma manca una forte leadership si deve (o si tende a) rimediare con il miglioramento dei processi… certo fino a che non si è trovata una nuova e vera leadership
