Expectations, a poem by Kay Ryan.

This week, we have a new poet laureate, Kay Ryan, who was born 62 years ago in San Jose. She joins a distinguished roster of poets laureates, including Robert Frost, Louise Bogan, William Carlos Williams, Robert Lowell and, more recently, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maxine Kumin, Robert Pinsky and Billy Collins.
Ryan went to UCLA, earned a bachelor's and a master's degree there, and moved to Marin County in 1971, becoming a poet somewhat reluctantly. She remembers, "I so didn’t want to be a poet. I came from sort of a self-contained people who didn’t believe in public exposure, and public investigation of the heart was rather repugnant to me. But in the end I couldn’t resist. It was in a strange way taking over my mind. My mind was on its own finding things and rhyming things. I was getting diseased ... when I was 30, I realized I wasn't going to avoid being this poet thing."

I think this little poem speaks well to our past winter here in San Diego.


Expectations

We expect rain

to animate this

creek: these rocks

to harbor gurgles,

these pebbles to

creep downstream

a little, those leaves

to circle in the

eddy, the stains

and gloss of wet.

The bed is ready

but no rain yet.

Why change?

Pathbreaking firms today aim to outperform their competitors in the following areas:

Environmental Clarity.
They see the competitive environment early and clearly. They look for elements that are missing and for patterns that can connect what’s already there in new ways.

Speed.
They respond very quickly to what their customer’s need and want. They incorporate new technologies and new ideas into their products and services faster than the competition.

Flexibility and Agility.
They’re able to adapt simultaneously to many different business pressures and developments.

Innovation.
They continually generate new ideas and combine existing business elements, both
inside and outside the firm, to create new sources of value.

Quality and Consistency.
They produce products and services that unfailingly exceed their customer’s expectations.

To consistently excel in these areas, employees’ actions need to be informed by a clear vision of the firm’s purpose, priorities, operating philosophy and guiding principles. Similarly, vendors, contractors and business partners also need to share a common understanding of the future the firm is working to create.

An effective vision articulates a view of a realistic, credible, attractive future that’s better in some important ways than which currently exists. The leader’s role is to create this unity of direction by orchestrating a process of reflection, collaboration and joint discovery. Leaders learn what to change by looking out. They learn how to change by looking in.

Vision is a dangerous concept in a political context. Leaders have to declare their views publicly if they want others to support them and doing so paints a big bulls-eye on their back. Vision creates high visibility, high expectations and high accountability, which sets up opportunities for a career win - or a career loss. So, change leaders need plenty of air cover. If those above you aren’t suited up for the game, you need to be sure that at least they won’t blow the play dead.

Many companies approach change like the old man who lived in a house that had a leaky roof. Whenever it rained, he was very motivated to fix the roof but he couldn’t do anything about it because it was raining. However, once the weather improved, fixing the roof was no longer a priority.

Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare.

Are any of these statements (from Sydney Finkelstein’s book, Why Smart Executives Fail) an accurate depiction of how your company looks at its world? If so, be warned the risk of failure is high.

1. We've always used the same approach to how we do business - it‘s worked in the past, and it’ll continue to work in the future.

2. We’re too committed to our current plan to change direction at this time.

3. We have our customers figured out. We've known what they want for years.

4. There's one powerful champion driving our current strategy; the rest of the company just follows their lead.

5. We organize and run all our business units in the same way. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


It's wise today to recall the German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who said, “Was is Beakannst ist nicht erkannt” (That which is familiar is not known).


Next, we'll learn more about the second P, Pressure.
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The five stages of effective change initiatives.

As I mentioned yesterday, it helps to follow The Five Ps. The five stages of an effective change initiative are:

(1) Purpose – specifying the kind of change that’s needed.

(2) Pressure – explaining why it’s important to change at this time.

(3) Pace – maintaining the velocity of the change process.

(4) Process – taking steps to implement the change effectively.

(5) Power – driving the change effort.

Let's look at each of these in turn.

(1) Purpose - Specifying The Kind Of Change That’s Needed.

In a fast changing world, the biggest threat is not from changing business conditions (such as outsourcing, mergers, consolidation of suppliers, new technologies, new competitors) but from your hesitation to actively respond to them. In a world of ceaseless change, sooner is better than perfect, certainty is suspect, and risk is inevitable. Path breaking companies aren’t afraid to experiment. They’re willing to try and if necessary fail so they can learn faster than the competition.

Here are three useful ways to think about change. However, remember that it’s important to work on all three of these at the same time:

Change you can figure out.
Not everything about the future is a mystery. Some things are still predictable. But if you can figure out what to do next, it’s likely that your competitors can too. So doing the obvious won’t give you a competitive advantage for very long.

Change you can’t anticipate.
If you can’t plan with certainty, you’d better be very flexible and fast on your feet. Today, it’s the survival of the fastest, not the fittest. Studies show companies that respond to customer demands twice as fast as the industry average grow five times faster and can charge twenty percent more. Flexibility and speed depend on how you’re organized, so having the right skills, structures, processes and partnerships gives a company significant advantages over others in the marketplace.

Successful organizations in the future will be simple, smart, speedy and strategic. They’ll concentrate on developing knowledge, talent, foresight, innovation, speed, mobility, agility and collaboration. To enhance their adaptability, they’ll move from tall complex organizations built around simple boxes to simpler flatter organizations build around more complex boxes.

Change you can initiate.
If you can introduce products and services that are useful, unique and difficult to replicate, this will give you a sustainable competitive advantage. Quick moving firms don’t simply respond to events after they’ve happened. They lead their customers, markets, employees and suppliers to new and better places that no one thought possible before. That’s how Mazda created the Miata and how Holiday Inn introduced Embassy Suites. Winners work to invent, not just to predict the future.

More on how to guide these kind of change initiatives tomorrow.

Thoughts about leading change.

“The search for stability and security - in the law and everywhere else - is misguided. The fact is that security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.” – Justice William O. Douglas.

Doing business today reminds me of a passage in one of Schubert’s piano sonatas marked, “As fast as possible,” which is followed a few bars later with the admonition, “Faster.” In such a dynamic world, change is normal, stability is an exception and the biggest threats come from unexpected places. Avoiding change is like holding your breath – if you’re really good at it, it’ll kill you.

As firms become successful, they usually become committed to their current ways of operating. However, as Mark Twain noted, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll just get run over if you sit there.” The firms that built the best sailing ships in the world didn’t learn to build steamships. The people who manufactured horse buggies didn’t learn to build automobiles. When companies don’t reshape their businesses in response to changing circumstances with new products, structures and services, it’s only a matter of time until some one else does it for them. And in today’s marketplace, it’s likely to happen sooner rather than later.

In this next series of blog entries, I aim to give some practical tips about leading change gleaned from over thirty years working side-by-side with business executives introducing and implementing change in a wide variety of industries.

People who failed at leading change didn’t plan to fail. Mostly, they just failed to plan properly. As a leader, you need to have a plan for what you want to happen and how you want it to happen, even if you don’t have all the details sorted out. Luck is to be found at the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Planning is all about getting prepared so you can have access to the power of your intentions.

I've found that following the Five Ps is a good way to start.

More on that tomorrow.

Working in the movies.

My daughter is a VP with Legendary Pictures and is in New York for tonight's premier of the new Batman movie which Legendary co-financed with Warner Brothers. So I thought it would be interesting to see what some people in the movie business think about the business of making movies.


I don't really like the combination of two-and-a-half-years of total solitude, a year of frenzied production warfare and however many months of being in the feeding pen of the editing room. That's like you're … veal being fattened for the slaughter, immobile in a chair, eating and worrying.
Whit Stillman, Director.

You spend your life training to be an actor, observing people's characteristics so that you can design characters around what you've seen. But as a movie actor, once you've become known, you're observed all the time so you don't get the chance to observe anymore. You still get a taste of life but it's not quite the same and there's something to be said for a more anonymous life.
Clint Eastwood, Actor and Director.

I call it ‘automatic pilot.’ It takes over and does for you what you can’t do yourself. Performers have to have it. Almost everybody has it to some degree. It’s a relative of acting.
Marlon Brando, Actor.

Preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial.
Robert Wise, Director.

I don't storyboard anything. I go on a set and, unless a scene requires a lot of props, I won't even tell the crew what I'm going to shoot first. I know what the set-up is and which actors are required. But I have to see what occurs and like to shoot in sequence if possible. It makes for a lot of editing but I like to go on a journey with the actors. I also love working on ensemble movies like Nashville, Short Cuts and Gosford Park. Having multiple narratives makes my job a lot easier: if something doesn't work, it means I can cut away to something else. I also like the audience to use their necks to take in everything happening in the frame. I'd hate to do something where there were just two close-up faces to look at.
Robert Altman, Director.

When you are trying to direct, they will tell you there are a lot of rules. Of course these rules are important, but in reality the way to tell a story is the way you would tell it to your friends in a cafe. And if you have a talent as a narrator, you will tell this story well. Otherwise all the technique in the world will never help you.
Federico Fellini, Director.

I have a motto: Be wrong as fast as you can. Which allows me to know that I’m just going to make a lot of mistakes, that it’s expected. It’s part of the process. But as long as I do it really fast I’m buying time on the back end to solve whatever I do wrong. So I rely on four years. I’ve never gotten anything right in under two years.
Andrew Stanton, Director and Screenwriter.

How the game, at least in modern Hollywood, is played … what’s mine is mine, the thinking goes, and what’s yours might be mine too.
David Carr, Columnist and Biographer.

You have to be self-reliant and strong to survive in this town. Otherwise, you will be destroyed.
Joan Crawford, Actress.

Why I am not a painter, a poem by Frank O'Hara.

My wife is a painter (see www.ferncliffe.com) and I love (and sometimes write) poetry. So I like Frank O'Hara's poem because it brings the two together. It also reflects the complicated and unexpected nature of the creative process. I've been thinking about this recently because I believe that managers will need to be much more creative, like artists, as the business environment becomes faster, more turbulent and less predictable. I'll write more about this next week.


I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
'Sit down and have a drink.' I look
up. 'You have sardines in it.'
'Yes, it needed something there.'
'Oh.' I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. 'Where's the sardines?'
All that's left is just
letters, 'It was too much,' Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is

and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it Oranges. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called Sardines.

The 20 most annoying habits at work.

We all have annoying habits but in the close environment of a typical workplace, people should at least try to be more considerate of their fellow employees. Here are the Top 20 most commonly mentioned office complaints based on a recent New York Times survey:


Being interrupted with personal stories and small talk by coworkers about their lives, their children, their families, their hobbies, etc.

Using speaker phones in an open or cubicle office space where others are trying to work.

Talking on cell phones in public places, such as toilets, as though they're in a closed phone booth.

Talking repeatedly and unnecessarily in a foreign language while conducting business calls or personal / phone conversations.

Radios playing too loud.

Eating while talking on the phone, also during conference calls or while speaking at meetings.

Slurping coffee, eating noisily with mouth open, etc.

Making chewing gum noises such as popping, cracking, blowing bubbles.

Fidgeting, incessant pen-clicking and pen-twirling.

Leg shaking, twitching, and moving during staff meetings which usually shakes the whole table.

Cooking smelly foods in the community microwave – fish, burritos, onions. garlic. etc.

Leaving messes in the staff room.

Leaving dishes/cups/silverware in the sink day after day.

Raiding the employees’ refrigerator and eating someone else's food.

Using up the last supplies and then failing to order replacements.

Jamming the copy machine and then leaving it for the next person to take care of.

Personal body odor or its opposite, the use of excessive perfume.

People who come to work when they’re sick and contagious.

People who constantly use their Blackberries at meetings and during conversations with coworkers.

People who leave voice mails or e-mails with the message "Call me...", without providing any context whatsoever.


Let me know if I've missed your own pet peeve.