The Relationship Geek

Posted on 18. Nov, 2006 by Wayne in General

Not long ago, my boy Quiller posted about the internet supposedly isolating people- just as he and I met for the first time in London for dinner which blew that theory all to heck. Well, Racine, Wi is not London ( by any acknowledged standard) but I met a fellow blogger for dinner last night, once again demonstrating how cool/strange the blogosphere can be.

Phil blogged about it here….

Phil Gerbyshak is the “Make It Great” Guy. His blog and his book-”Make it Great” are relentlessly upbeat. What truly makes my boy stand out, though, is his position in the center of a network of business and personal development bloggers that is truly impressive. Check out his blogroll….if you can’t find something new and interesting there, you’re one tough cookie.

As we sat at dinner we talked about people we “knew” in common- having met essentially none of them face to face but have learned from, laughed with, and grown to appreciate. People like Rosa Say, Dan Ward, Lisa Haneberg and many others, including some folks who you’ll be hearing as guests on the show.

Phil prides himself on being a “Relationship Geek”. I wish I were but I’m working on it. You can help. Drop me an email to say hi, join our Frappr map, join me on Linked In. Like the US television commercial says, “It’s All About the Network”.

The Cranky Middle Manager #70 Intentional Disruption with Michael Urlocker

Posted on 12. Nov, 2006 by Wayne in Podcast

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The Cranky Middle Manger Show #070

First, a big old thank you to all of you, my colleagues, who listen to this show. In October the Cranky Middle Manager Show went over 10,000 downloads in a month for the first time! That’s an incredible milestone (double where we were in January) and I’m truly grateful to you all for your support. Let’s get some more subscribers now and really bring those weasels to their knees…..

Secondly, I think this show is a prime example of what we do. We’ll talk to Michael Urlocker about disruption and why it can (paradoxically) be planned. I had a blast doing this interview and hope you like it. Those of us who try to change whatever corner of the work world we inhabit will find (I hope) inspiration, solid tools, and a laugh or two. This is why I do the show. Enjoy.
Show Notes

0:00 Today we’re talking about disruption in business… you can be the disruptor or the disrupted. We’re talking to Michael Urlocker of OnDisruption.com.

We dedicate the show to King Henry V. I even do a cranky version of the St Crispin’s Day Speech ( you can see the original here- one of the great morale boosters of all time).
Talk about disruptive technology and changing the rules. At Agincourt the English were outnumbered and outclassed. All they had were cowardly, illiterate, filthy, no-class archers. Yeah, well those ignorant nancy-boys just put a foot of willow and feathers through your noggin and kicked your butts- how’s that for disruption?

3:35 Are you dying of a kind of creeping common sense? This week’s quote from Oscar Wilde….

5:00 Welcome Michael Urlocker. I’ve been accused of being a disruption and never as a compliment…so why is it so important? Well, if you’re a radio station, how disruptive to your business is the fact that I can do this show from my spare room?

7:23 We talk about successful examples of disruption. Red Bull (also known as IT Department Crack) and ING Bank are good examples.

10:00 There is a methodology for identifying and exploiting disruption. Michael tells a great story about the Blackberry (for the first time anywhere it gets compared to the Luftwaffe…you try living in my head for a while).

15:23 Why don’t big companies disrupt themselves? The EV-1 should have saved GM, so what happened? Why did IBM get the PC so right?

18:40 On Michael’s website, he has a white paper that’s worth reading. He also has some tools like a brainstorming tool and a disruption scorecard.

A couple of questions that are key:

• What are the attributes customers no longer value?
• What are the attributes people want to pay for?

Clayton Christenson is the godfather of disruption research. Check him out. Especially his two books: The Innovator’s Dilemma and the Innovator’s Solution

24:50 What if you think you see the disruption and need to take it upstream? There are two ways depending on the answer to this question- will it cannibalize your current business?

If not, you can do it as a project on the side with spare change and few resources.

If so, you have to ask the scary question- Do you think our start up competitors have to ask themselves the same question about cannibalization?

28:15 What are the resources you should check out?

The Innovator’s Solution by Clayton Christenson

Christenson’s Strategy and Innovation Newsletter

Watch The Godfather 2.... talk about disruptive business practices. If only all homework came with popcorn…..

That’s it for this week’s show. Drop me an email…. Join our Frappr Map …

Visit www.achismarketing.com and buy a copy of my e-book, Meet Like You Mean It, the Cranky Middle Manager’s Guide to Productive and Painless Meetings.

REORG!!!!!

Posted on 09. Nov, 2006 by Wayne in General

A friend of mine called the other day in a panic. She’s been “reorged”.

Well, that word’s so 1993. The term they used was “change in reporting structure” but it’s the same thing. Now she has to break in another new boss and shepherd her people through yet more change management.

Time to buy more copies of “Who Moved My Cheese” for the staff. I have been through 6 reorgs in less than 10 years. I know where my @#$%$@^&* cheese is, I’m just lactose intolerant. I feel her pain.

Below are some of the trite phrases people have been trotting out to console her. See if any of them sound familiar to you…

• “It’s a top line problem, it’s no reflection on your performance”- which is the corporate equivalent of “it’s not you, it’s me….”. Either way there’s a better than even chance you’re about to get dumped.
• “Just go about your business” - which is the same thing cops always say after a really bad wreck. Pay no attention to the chalk outline under the dumptruck……
• “It will be invisible to our customers”- uh, no. Our sales people have been invisible to our customers which is why we had to reorganize  in the first place. And why would our customers notice when everyone they’ve worked with starts disappearing and the survivors are walking like zombies for the next three months?
• “Your deckchair will look so much nicer on the other side of the ship away from that nasty iceberg.” Okay, maybe I just imagined that one but it would be a heck of a lot more honest than the others…..

Light a candle, kill a chicken, however you invoke higher powers…she’s going to need all the help she can get.

Incompetence At The Speed Of Light

Posted on 09. Nov, 2006 by Wayne in General

No it’s not a description of this blog- well at least not one that’s been used to my face. My latest article is up on Management Issues. You can read it here. In it I talk about why our brains haven’t caught up with technology which is why we use email and other tools so badly. Okay it’s just a theory, but when was the last time Genghis Khan and Roger Bannister were used in the same paragraph?

If you haven’t read Management Issues, you should. They have a great bunch of columnists (and me,but that’s to stop them from getting too full of themselves) and lots of good info, book tips and news about events.

You’re going to be seeing big things from this site in the near future…just a hunch.