Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution

Business leaders can't develop and execute effective strategy without first gathering the right information, says Harvard Business School professor Robert Simons. In his new book, Seven Strategy Questions: A Simple Approach for Better Execution, Simons explains how managers can identify holes in their planning processes and make smart choices. Here's an excerpt outlining the seven questions every manager should ask.

1. Who Is Your Primary Customer?

The first imperative—and the heart of every successful strategy implementation—is allocating resources to customers. Continuously competing demands for resources—from business units, support functions and external partners—require a method for judging whether the allocation choices you have made are optimal.

The BestWork™ People - The Keys to Cultural Change

The BestWork™ People - The Keys to Cultural Change

The BestWork™ People - The Master Moves™

The BestWork™ People - The Master Moves™

The Psychology of Liking

I couldn't help but bring forward the powerful notion of belonging which anthropologists have written about at length.

So here is view of the sense through the facebook "like" experience.

The Psychology of Liking

We all know that person on Facebook. The one who Likes everything—let's call him Mike. Whether your cat got sick or you got a raise or went for a walk or had sushi for dinner, are feeling blue or just biked five miles, it's all Likable to Mike. How can we understand Mike's affability? As we use social media tools more frequently to connect with and communicate with others, the act of Liking is a means of creating alliances. But can Mike over-use this tool?

The Facebook Like button began as a quick and easy way to interact with others. If someone posts anything mildly positive, all Mike has to do to acknowledge the moment is click the Like button and his commentary and recognition are duly noted with a thumb's up sign. The Like button lets Mike reaffirm his connection online. It tells the person that he is an active node in the social network, and that he wants to be connected with the poster. Liking presents a means of belonging or securing attention online. To Like something announces Mike's presence loudly and connects not only to the poster, but also to the poster's connections. The entire network is made aware of Mike's relationship to the poster.

However, it's important to Like appropriately, which unfortunately many in the social sphere don't seem to understand. If Mike Likes simply for the sake of Liking, he can quickly be labeled an interloper. In the absence of a close relationship, Liking every single thing that someone posts sends a message of being inauthentic, particularly if Mike Likes statements that warrant some sympathy. If the relationship is not a close one, then Liking major events (e.g., an engagement, new job, new home, obvious excitement) adds to the connection. Liking the random, everyday events shared by a poster is reserved for more familiar connections. It is noticeable and a bit strange when someone within the network with weak ties to the poster, Likes or comments on a post.

As the Like feature filtered through the web, Liked items have become an extension of one's digital persona. The items affiliated with your Like "signature" construct your reputation online. Liking items that others within your network already Like, reaffirms your connection with the group by identifying points you hold in common. So there may be pressure to Like. Some of this pressure may account for large responses to major events; there may be certain points that even peripheral members of the network need to acknowledge. This could then lead to a shaping of Liking so that you choose to Like only items that create a specific image of you. If you over-Like—both personal items and items from the web—then there can be questions about the nature of your digital profile.

Take a moment to consider what you may have Liked lately, and the message that your Likes may be sending about your personality.  Do you pay attention to who Likes your statuses? What's your reaction when it's a peripheral member of your network?

Ethnography

One cannot understand a culture without becoming its component part. Therefore we have to live with the people we study, learn from them and listen to them. These are the basic rules of ethnography as the basic anthropological research method. Based on interviews, group discussions and particularly participant observation and fieldwork, we study how people (co)operate and what the relations are between them. The essence of ethnography is in the presence of the researcher or counsellor in the environment they wish to explore. This environment can be very diverse as the researcher may explore organisations, foreign markets and new target groups as well as works among customers and employees, i.e. in any group of people that might be interesting for the client.

http://www.ergo-institut.com/en/316/Ethnography.aspx

Culture

The notion of culture can be explained in many different ways. However, when transferring anthropological knowledge into the business world, the trouble with definitions is quite limited since culture is understood as an endless and constantly changing process of people's activity and consideration. Typically its limits are not clearly defined, it has no geographical or national limitations.

 It is therefore impossible to comprehend and understand, if not explored professionally. Only when proper methodology is used, we can analyse and interpret cultural differences and similarities, and explain the influence of cultural particularities on the business environment, consumerism, relationships within organisations, as well as needs and desires of customers.

Business Anthropolgy

Business anthropology

Anthropologists are experts in people and their habits, their particular research approach enabling them an “inside” view on cultures. 

Business anthropology  transfers anthropological approaches into companies and  organisations  utilizing traditional anthropological methodologies  inclusive of  participant observation.


Anthropologists are of the view that everything is connected

Business anthropology is significant in solving the following issues:

• What consumers want?
• User Analysis
• Customers
• User Experience
• What is your competition like? 
• Competition
• Competitive Products
• Product Design
• Reatail Positioning.
• How should the company, service or product be adapted to unknown cultures? 
•  analyse foreign markets  
• new target groups  
• prepare strategies of service and product adaptation
• How to bridge intercultural differences in a company? 
•  explore the cultural particularities of various groups within the company and find the best way for them to cooperate with each other
• Providing pathways to alignment
• How to provide user-friendly products or services? 
•  participate in product and service development, paying regard to user experience and particularities of the cultural environments, which the products and services are intended for.

In the USA and some other parts of the world, activities from the field of business anthropology have been integrated into companies successfully for more than 30 years, whereas in Europe this applicative science has been slowly developing. Whilstin australia we are seeing the emergence of anecdotes (storytelling) as a significant medium to determine approaches culture and strategy illumination.

Digital Media Culture

Dr. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography for Kansas State University explains a very interesting subject. 
A look into Digital Media Culture.

Shamanic Initiations: A Hidden Theme within the Fairy Tale of Hansel and Gretel

MAY 29, 2011

by FRANCO BEJARANO 

"Hansel and Gretel" - Arthur Rackham (1909)

The fairy tale of “Hansel and Gretel” was first recorded by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 around the south western corner of Germany. The tale features a brother and sister who while lost in the forest, encounter a cannibalistic witch, but at the end, Hansel and Gretel rise victorious. The tale actually belongs to a group of European tales popular in the Baltic regions about children outwitting ogres after they have fallen into their hands.[1] While the story is often regarded as symbolizing a rite of passage,[2] there are underlying elements that mimic the universal concept of shamanic initiations, hiding the true nature and origin of the story. To say that by defeating the witch, one becomes a witch would be a paradox, especially in the genre of fairy tales that often demonizes witches, however, given the ambiguity attributed to folk tales, and their controversial pagan origins often suppressed by the Abrahamic religions, it is no surprise such elements are present. 

The story tells that Hansel and Gretel were the children of a very poor woodcutter that could not afford much to eat. After an immense famine settles over the land, the woodcutter’s second wife, a cruel woman, convinces his husband to abandon the children in the middle of the woods in order to have fewer mouths to feed. Hansel and Gretel overhear their plans, and say God will help them. Next morning, they start collecting small white pebbles, in order to form a trail leading to the house as they are abandoned into the forest so they can find their way back home. The siblings follow through the plan and come back home after being deserted. The stepmother orders his husband to desert his children in the middle of the forest once more, so they can die. This time, the siblings form a trail out of bread crumbs, but when they decide to follow them back they find out the crumbs have been eaten by birds. After days of traveling, they follow a beautiful snow white bird and discover a cottage built of gingerbread and cakes with window panes of clear sugar, but as they start eating the rooftop, the witch comes out and lures them inside. The next morning, Hansel is locked inside an iron cage, and is fed regularly so he can become fat and be ready to be eaten, meanwhile, Gretel is made a slave. This goes on for weeks, until the witch decides to eat both of them. As the witch demonstrates Gretel how to check if the oven fire if hot enough to cook them in, she pushes her in, burning her to death. They later return home to their father with the witches’ precious jewels, and find out their stepmother died of an unknown illness. [3]

A shaman is an anthropological term for a trained and very often spiritually selected individual that is in touch with the spiritual and magical world, thus witches fall within the shaman realm.  In most shamanism-practicing cultures, before a person becomes a shaman he/she must be initiated, such as the Native American practice of vision quest, or the Aboriginal walkabout, where the adolescent must venture into the wild, and into a spiritual journey. Joan Halifax, an American anthropologist who has researched spiritual experiences, describes these elements:

“In collecting and analyzing first-person narratives of shamans' initiatory experiences, I have delineated some broad stages of the archetypal journey: (1) an experience of separation or isolation from society and culture; (2) an encounter with extreme mental and physical suffering, including experiences of being eaten or dismembered by local wildlife, or being burned, cooked, or afflicted with disease; (3) an encounter with death; (4) an experience of nature-transmission with creature, ancestor, spirit, god, or element; (5) a return to life, sometimes by way of the celestial realm with the World Tree or bird flight being featured; and (6) a return to society as healer.”[4]

Note should be taken that some of these aspects take place on the astral level – a subconscious and spiritual plane of existence.  

An Amazonian Yanomami man about to be initiated by a shaman by taking a hallucinogen. In his visions, he will be torn apart, chopped, cooked, and then reborn a shaman. [Source]

The experience of isolation happens when the shaman-to-be “reaches a specific age, usually seven or older, and an older member of the shamanic society appears, and begins their training;”[5] this is clearly illustrated in Hansel and Gretel’s abandonment in the forest, the place where wicked witches lurk. Them coming back home following the white pebbles after the first night might represent their desire to not continue with their initiation. It is only after the birds eat the second trail that they made that they are forced to continue. It is said that a person destined to be a shaman does not need to seek to be initiated, the initiator will find them and they will be called.[6] This is depicted in the beautiful snow white bird that the children follow after wondering the woods, because “following an animal in a forest and being led to a confrontation with an evil being occurs in other tales. [Since] the bird represents salvation, joy, and peace through its color, […] the children are supposed to meet the witch with positive results. The encounter is for their good.”[7]

Then the psychic battle begins. With hallucinations created by exhaustion, a deep sense of enlightenment, or in the case of Peruvian Amazonian Shamans, the psychoactive effects of the Ayahuasca plant,[8] the initiate must fight another shaman or psychic entity.[9] As stated earlier, Joan Halifax described one of the stages of shamanic initiations as experiencing physical pain, often being chopped, and cooked up. In the fairy tale, the witch fattens Hansel in order to eat him, while Gretel is made a slave, but then decides to eat them both. Psychic experiences of initiates being cooked up by magical entities have been reported worldwide, from the Australian Aboriginals, to the Inuit people of the North Pole, and Siberia.[10] Documentation of such experiences in Europe appears among the Sicilian shamanic healers known as Ciarauli, the tales of the Hungarian Táltos, and the Kresnik of Istria and Slavonia, and Inquisition records made during 1575 to 1647 about the Benandanti, a shamanic society in northern Italy.[11]  This traumatizing experience allegedly occurs in order “to teach [the initiate] the art of shamanism”.[12]

In the fairy tale, the witch is simply trying to cook and eat the children. She is a cannibal, and probably depicted as so in order to demonize witches, but one must look at the underlying references. The witches’ attempt to cook them up is her attempt to initiate them into the craft, just like in shamanic initiation narratives, where one emerges as a shaman after being killed and cooked. Additionally, Gretel is fed nothing but crawfish, and crab shells. Originating in ancient Mesopotamia, and working its way through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the image of the shellfish has always been associated with the Moon, which is why the astrological sign of Caner is ruled by the it.[13] Given the natural association of the Moon to witchcraft, Gretel’s shellfish diet is preparing her to fulfill the initiation, however, the siblings refuse. They refused first when they found their way back to their home the first night they were abandoned, when they refused to be eaten, and when Gretel pushed the witch into the fire; they refuse to be initiated, and become a witch just like her. They kill the witch, and she is the one that experiences death, not them. Note that an experience with death is another stage of the shamanic initiatory practices mentioned earlier.

The wicked witch of “Hansel and Gretel” is in many ways similar to the Russian fairy tale figure of Baba Yaga. Being featured in countless folk stories, she is perhaps the most famous figure in Slavic folklore; she’s a hag/witch who just like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel”, lives in the middle of the forests in a very strange house, this time described as standing in chicken legs, having a fence made of human skulls, and containing all sort of witchy items. Many of her stories, in fact, resemble that of the Grimm’s “Hansel and Gretel”:

“The lovely maiden looked at the witch and her heart failed her. Before her stood Bába Yagá the Bony-Legged, her nose hitting the ceiling . . . . Then the witch brought wood, oak and maple, and made a fire; the flame blazed forth from the stove. Bába Yagá took a broad shovel and began to urge her guest: 'Now, my beauty, sit on the shovel.' The beauty sat on it. Bába Yagá shoved her toward the mouth of the stove, but the maiden put one leg into the stove and the other on top of it. 'You do not know how to sit, maiden. Now sit the right way.' The maiden changed her posture, sat the right way; the witch tried to shove her in, but she put one leg into the stove and the other under it.

Bába Yagá grew angry and pulled her out again. 'You are playing tricks, young woman!' she cried. 'Sit quietly, this way-just see how I do it.' She plumped herself on the shovel and stretched out her legs. The maiden quickly shoved her into the stove, slammed the door, plastered and tarred the opening and ran away.”[14]

The witch in the Grimm’s tale is just a subtle version of Baba Yaga, who has achieved goddess status as the ruler of the underworld in Slavic folklore.  Baba Yaga is burned alive just like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel”, however, no matter how many times she dies in these tales, Baba Yaga reappears in countless other ones as the same wicked witch, or sometimes as a benevolent wise woman, giving life-saving advice to heroines. Her death is transformation, just like how shamanic initiates rise from the dead being able to call themselves wise, shamans, or healers.

Baba Yaga - Ivan Bilibin (1902)

Gretel, in particular, seems to be the witch’s main apprentice, this is observed in the fact that she isn’t locked up like her brother, but she’s made a slave. In the epic saga of “Vasilisa the Wise” (also known as a the Beautiful or Brave), Vasilisa, a beautiful maiden, is purposely sent by her evil stepmother to Baba Yaga’s house to get a lantern, and once inside, she must perform the witches’ impossible tasks in order to come back home. Although she accomplishes so with the help of a magical doll, Vasilisa passes the witch’s test and completes her initiation.[15]Just like Vasilisa, Gretel must perform every command the witch asks her to do. Additionally, in the Russian story, Vasilisa asks Baba Yaga about the three dark riders outside her house, and she responds by saying they are the day, the Sun, and the night. But we are missing another being – the Moon. Baba Yaga is obviously the Moon, after all, she’s a witch/folk-goddess, and this is connected to Gretel being fed shellfish – lunar food.

When Vasilisa comes back home, the lantern she brings back from Baba Yaga burns the evil stepmother and stepsisters to ashes, which frees Vasilisa from their torture. It seems that whether the witch dies or not, the protagonist always emerges victorious. As Dr. Laura Strong, a mythology scholar, writes, the Baba Yaga archetype represents the shamanic journey that Vanisila and Hansel and Gretel go through:

“[Baba Yaga] dwells in a magical hut that is surrounded by a fence made from the leftover bleached-white bones of her victims […][,which] is a clear signal to anyone who would dare to pass through its gate that they must be prepared for an initiatory underworld experience.[…] ‘Baba Yaga's hut is the place where transmutation occurs; it is the dark heart of the Underworld, the dwelling place of the dead ancestors who are symbolized by the grinning skulls around her house’. From such bones, she also brews new life and her home is a great source of abundance.”[16]

Coincidentally enough, Baba Yaga is also depicted as the guardian of the Waters of Life and Death. The Water of Death kills, but is also often part of a healing process. In many Slavic folktales, the “Water of death heals the wounds of a corpse or knots together a body that has been chopped up. The second, the Water of Life, restores life".[17]Because the witch of “Hansel and Gretel” steams out of Baba Yaga’s figure, just like her, she is also a figure of enlightening resurrections, a part of shamanic initiatory rituals, just in a more subtle version.   

In “Hansel and Gretel”, notice how the snow white bird that the children trusted on to follow, is the same type of animal that ate their bread crumb trail, making them lost, and thus sealing the initiation. It’s obvious the birds wanted them to go into the house, and be initiated; the birds in the story have done nothing but to seal the children’s fate towards the wicked witch. Nevertheless, after the children kill the witch, they take her precious stones and talk to a big white swan that helps them cross an enormous lake. The white swan, although it has another from, it’s the just a reappearance of the snow white bird that they followed earlier. Also notice how traveling by bird when returning home is a stage in the narratives of shamanic initiations mentioned earlier They were meant to kill the witch, it was destiny, just like one is destined to be a shaman, and by killing her, they assume the witch’s role. At the end, the children come home and are victorious. They find out their stepmother has died, and so they end the last stage of the shamanic initiation; they emerge from the wild, and into society with an amazing experience. They completed all the stages, and Hansel and Gretel are now witches, not literally, but symbolically. Notice should given that the siblings were not depicted as being able to talk to animals before killing the witch, yet Gretel is able to talk to a swan, and both of them were able to miraculously, considering how lost they were before, find their way home. These are the results of completing the magic journey. Additionally, since the siblings do mention trusting in God in the tale, it can also be said that the story is a Christian version of  pagan shamanic initiations, with Hansel and Gretel being able to achieve the same results of magical enlightenment without having to give in to the thought-to-be evil pagan practices of the past by actually destroy it (killing the witch), and that's the twist of the story.

The tales of Baba Yaga, the more detailed version of the witch in the Grimm’s story, expresses the deep shamanic roots within the story. “Hansel and Gretel theme of shamanic initiatory rituals had to be deeply hidden within the story in order to sneak through the serious religious laws of pre-modern times. Yes, the story is about a rite of passage, but not just of physical maturity, but a spiritual one as well, a ritual that is unquestionably of pagan origins. With the oven (or cauldron) being a symbol for death, birth a renewal,[18] it does not matter if the shaman initiate gets cooked by a psychic monster, because he/she will be emerge a new shaman. And just like Baba Yaga’s many reappearances in folk tales despite her many deaths in the oven, it can be assumed that the witch of “Hansel and Gretel” still lives as well.

---

Notes

[1] Iona Archibald, Classic Fairy Tales, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974) p119.

[2] Katherine M. Faull, Anthropology and the German enlightenment: Perspective on Humanity,(Bucknell: Bucknell University Press, 1995) p82.

[3] Jacob Grimm, and Wilhelm, Grimm Grimm's complete fairy tales (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993) p101-107.

[4] Joan Halifax (1990). The shaman's initiation ReVision, 13 (2) : 9607292149

[5] Judical Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, (London: Harpers Element, 2005) p 466.

[6] ^Judical Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. p466

[7] “Annotations for Hansel and Gretel”, SurLaLune.com, accessed May 28, 2011,  “http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/notes.html

[8] Luis Eduardo Luna, Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1991) p30.

[9] ^Judical Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. p466

[10] Mariko Namba Walter, Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Shamanism: an encyclopedia of world beliefs, practices, and culture, Vol 2 (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004). p154

[11] ^Judical Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. p466

[12] ^Mariko Namba Walter, Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Shamanism: an encyclopedia of world beliefs, practices, and culture, Vol 2 (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004). P

[13] Jules Cashford, The Moon: myth and image, (London: Cassel Illustrated, 2002), p112.

[14] Aleksandr Afanasiev, Russian Fairy Tales. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1945) p 432

[15] Marina Balina et tal. Politicizing magic: an anthology of Russian and Soviet fairy tales ( Evanton: Northwestern University Press, 2005) p 34-41 

[16] Laura Strong, "Baba Yaga's Hut: Initatorry Entrance to the Underworld", Mythicart.com, accessed May 29, 2011, http://www.mythicarts.com/writing/Baba_Yaga.html

[17] ^Laura Strong, "Baba Yaga,s Hut: Initiatory Entrance to the Underworld".

[18] Lady Sabrina, Exploring Wicca: the beliefs, rites, and rituals of the Wiccan religion, (Franklin Lakes: Career Press, 2006) p 83.

 -------------------------

Bibliography

Afanasiev, Aleksandr. Russian Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945.

Archibald, Iona. Classic Fairy Tales. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.

Balina, Marina et tal. Politicizing magic: an anthology of Russian and Soviet fairy tales. Evanton: Northwestern University Press, 2005.

Cashford, Jules. The Moon: myth and image. London: Cassel Illustrated, 2002.

Faull, Katherine M.. Anthropology and the German Enlightenment: Perspective on Humanity. Bucknell: Bucknell University Press, 1995.

Grimm, Jacob, and Wilhelm Grimm. Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993.

Halifax, Joan. “The Shaman’s Initiation”. ReVision 13 (1990): p53.

Illes, Judical. The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft. London: Harpers Element, 2005.

Luna, Luis Eduardo. Ayahuasca Visions: The Religious Iconography of a Peruvian Shaman. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1991.

Strong, Laura. “Baba Yaga's Hut: Initiatory Entrance the Underworld”. Mythicarts.com. Accessed May 29, 2011. http://www.mythicarts.com/writing/Baba_Yaga.html

 SurLaLune.com. “Annotations for Hansel and Gretel”. Last accessed May 28, 2011. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/notes.html

Walter, Mariko Namba, and Eva Jane Neumann Fridman. Shamanism: an encyclopedia of world beliefs, practices, and culture. Vol 2. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Social Media and the Brain: A Business Anthropologist’s View

August 1st, 2009

A number of innovations have changed the face of commerce in my lifetime.  Credit cards greatly enabled commercial exchanges.  Email and FedEx both sped up communication and reduced cost.  The internet both transformed information transfer, and introduced people around the world who would not have otherwise found each other.  In each case, exchanges – the fundamental unit of commerce – became easier.  Barriers were lowered and trade flourished.  

Are social media another facilitator of trade?

One of the aspects of social media that I find most fascinating is the proliferation of free – non-monetized, and non-negotiated – exchanges.   There’s an ethos around that practice, to which participants are finely-tuned.  It’s OK to make commercial offers, and to be compensated for touting others’ products,  as long as a) you’re up-front about it,  b) it’s deemed appropriate to the specific site and subject , and c) that’s not the only kind of stuff you talk about.  In the recent surge of activity around the Iran election on Twitter, for example, those few who sought to reach participants with anything commercial were immediately and soundly slapped.

There is plenty of commercial activity on social media. Even so, many corporate marketers are not so happy with its power  – the loss of control is counter-cultural for them - while small businesses are faster to use it to advantage .  The explosive growth of Twitter confounded the pundits and sparked controversy for months.  Much of that chatter quieted when the State Department asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance soon after the Iranian election.  

I’m struck by the way social media simulate community.  The earmarks of community are 1) Shared concerns and 2) Free exchanges addressing those concerns, in addition to monetized or quantified trading. In the 17 years I had my office in Napa, CA, the river flooded half a dozen times.   People of all ages jumped in to assist – with whatever equipment and know-how at their command – with no thought of quantifying the exchanges.  And they loved it; stories abounded for years.  The mood of the entire country shifted when a now-famous commercial airline pilot landed in the Hudson in January of this year, and locals leaped into every available craft to get people out of the water.   This month, untold numbers of people from all over the world changed their Twitter profiles to confuse Iranian secret police, and offered proxy sites as internet communication inside the country was disabled.  

I suspect that our forebears lived by means of free exchanging – in ordinary life as well as in crises – starting with the earliest communities – perhaps as long as 350,000 generations ago.  Human groups are characterized by coordination and cooperation.  When did those exchanges become widely monetized?  After the Industrial  Revolution, perhaps 12 generations ago.  So for 349,988 generations human communities thrived by virtue of exchanging [mostly] without quantification.              

I’m not speaking here of Free as a ‘new radical price’, like the book of that title, though I agree that trend is important.  I’m speaking of exchanging freely, with abandon, the way children learn in play.  Sparking curiosity and enabling Neuroplasticity: the power of our brains to move with the new, in the moment – perhaps the most important skill of this century.  

From Fast Company, “Enterprise MicroLearning”,   

Business is a Social Activity – A Business Anthropologist's View

October 16th, 2009

For many, the insight that business is social is something of a surprise.
In much of Western tradition, work and play are viewed as a dichotomy: business falls in the former, and sociality in the latter.

But that’s not how the brain is organized.

New insights from Neuroscience clarify how the brain functions to keep us focused on others (with emotions – ever heard of them?)


A recent articlefrom Strategy and Business explores the implications for managers.

Through the lens of Business Anthropology, it’s apparent that trading is old as the first human communities. Commerce is in our biology. Though I’ve been writing about that for decades, it’s delightful to see what Social Cognitive NeuroScience labs are revealing with fMRI studies; businesses large and small can seize new opportunities.

Our brains naturally respond to change as though it’s dangerous, and shut down our ‘thinking centers’ rather than firing them up.

But we can train our brains to be ingenious when exposed to risk.


I’m with Jim Collins’ assessment that the ability to face uncertainly with curiosity is the most important skill of our times.Neuroscience illuminates the challenge as well as how to focus on the desired competences.

Unfortunately, our brains are not geared to be effective in the face of ongoing stress like a global recession. We don’t tend to get smart. But we humans have a rare gift: we retain plasticity into adulthood. We can learn new moves. And the current business environment certainly demands that we do so.

Perhaps most important to my practice over 3 decades is understanding how we’re inclined to respond to vulnerability.

On this subject, current Neuroscience research is stunning. Even when informed that a situation is simulated – even using cartoons and stick figures – smart people feel intense pain of rejection and strong pleasure of belonging and contributing.

The actions we take, the decisions we make, the possibilities we recognize are determined by this powerful programming. Focusing on the vulnerabilities of others inspires our best work. We become ingenious. We can spark our enterprises and fire customers’ curiosity and commitment.

Solopreneurs and small business have a huge advantage in using this force, because we can be so nimble. We can quickly respond to emerging vulnerability and invent new ways to add value. Our forebears have done so for 150,000 generations – that’s how we got here. Any business can be vulnerability-centric. It’s the most powerful force at hand.
http://www.bestwork.biz

5 Steps to Services Leadership in a Product-Centric Company

June 1, 2007

The Stranger in a Strange Land Series: 5 Steps to Services Leadership in a Product-Centric Company
Step Two: Revise
By Jim AlexanderSuccessfully leading a professional services organization in a product-centric company is not for the faint of heart. Learn what works. In last issue’s discussion of Step One, Analyze, I stressed the criticality of getting relevant, in-depth, current information about key clients, the marketplace, and your professional services organization. In this issue, I will talk about .......



what to do with that information--to rethink, reformulate, and revise your professional services business and your personal leadership plans. First, we’ll discuss how to use the information to test the probability of accomplishing your business goals. Then, we’ll explore how to create a logical yet emotionally appealing case for change that people will not only accept but get excited about. I’ll also introduce two powerful tools to help you along your path. And finally, I’ll give you a real-life example on how to get key players on board. This is how a Stranger earns his or her keep!



Take a Reality CheckAs a smart executive armed with the new, relevant information of analysis, the first thing you need to do is take another look at your goals for your PSO. Are they appropriate based upon what you now know? Realistically, is your mission attainable? Where can you expect resistance within the organization?
The Force Field Analysis (Figure 1) is a great tool for helping make this assessment and answer these questions. It quickly (it takes about 20 minutes) can help you grasp where you are in relationship to accomplishing your PSO mission and identify the "forces" that can help you or hinder you. Here’s how you do it: First, using the information gathered in Step One, you (or you and your team) need to list all of the forces (factors) that can help you accomplish your PSO goals. These are the things that you have going for you. Next, list all the factors that can hinder you in accomplishing your goals. Then, eliminate all but the six to eight most important helpers and hinderers. If you’ve been honest with yourself, you are now facing your current reality, however satisfying or unpleasant it may be. It may confirm the "do-ability" of your mission or cause you to make some adjustments. Either way, next you will need to find ways to leverage the helping factors and eliminate (or at least minimize) the hindering factors as you move ahead. Revisit this tool at least every six months to take the pulse of your change efforts.
The revelations of putting one together can be quite impactful. For instance, a recently hired vice president of professional services (she asked not to use her name) in a hardware company had this to say after completing this exercise in one of our transitioning workshops:

"You know, it just isn’t going to work. When you look at all the factors working against me, there is no way that this box company is ever going to be services-led. I’m going to have to change my approach or get my resumé up to date!"

This was tough to swallow at the time, but better then than later! She was able to lower her sights and develop a much less aggressive plan that was more appropriate to her current situation. Instead of sailing off into a storm that promised some very big waves, she battened down the hatches and waited for the tide of opportunity to rise.
Build an Appealing Case for ChangeOnce we have confirmed or adjusted an appropriate and attainable mission for our professional services organization, we need to make it appealing—appealing enough to the key stakeholders inside and outside the company so that they will consider changing their behavior. As all the Strangers out there know, this can be challenging!
To align the information so that it will have the highest probability of being accepted by the key stakeholders, you first need to have a good understanding of both their business issues and their personal issues. I recommend a very simple, yet powerful, tool to do this: the Stakeholder Analysis (Figure 2). Stakeholders are anyone who have a "stake" (something to win or lose) in whatever you are proposing, or promoting, or promising.

1. First, you need to identify all the main players that might be impacted by your ideas and determine their roles (the Force Field Analysis will help). Depending on your issues, the size of your organization, etc., this could range from six to 60 people. In Figure 2, I just list three stakeholders to give you an idea of how it works.
2. Next, you determine their business issues. In this case, the CEO was most concerned about regaining market leadership and new competitive threats. The CFO was (no surprise here) mainly concerned about cost control and shrinking profit margins. The vice president of sales was concerned about hitting his high-growth target, period.
3. Third, you examine their personal issues. In this case, the CEO took pride in being known as an innovative leader. She wanted to broaden her influence in the organization, as the CEO would be retiring in two years and she wanted to make a name for herself. Hence, anything that demonstrated her prowess would be of interest to her. The vice president of sales considered himself not only an expert in sales, but in marketing, strategy, the industry, just about everything! What was important to him was that he looked good.
4. With all of the above done, now you can think through what you will want to communicate to each key stakeholder, and how you will want to communicate it. Just looking at the three stakeholders above, you’ll quickly see that presenting the same message the same way to all three is a plan of disaster—the best you could do is one out of three, and this isn’t baseball. Each individual needs to be treated as an individual, and your ideas must address their unique issues, showing them how they can benefit on both a business and a personal level. They don’t have to be lengthy, but you need an individual plan of influence for each key stakeholder.

One of the most important aspects of this tool is that it forces you to think through all of the people who might be impacted by your plans. Many times, it is much broader than you originally thought. Furthermore, the first time you complete one of these analyses, you probably will find some gaps. It will force you to do some homework. It also will take the investment of a few hours (sometimes a day or two), but it is well worth it, as it greatly will improve your odds of success. And as services leaders in product companies, we should use all the tools we can get our hands on.
Energize through InvolvementA cardinal enabler of getting people to accept and embrace change is involving them in the process. Nothing works better. So look at all your key stakeholders and think about ways you can involve them. In the last issue of the Professional Services Journal, I showed you how to involve your key clients in the services process, especially with regard to understanding needs for current and future services. This involvement pays off big time when you go back to these same clients and tell them what you are doing and why. In most cases they are ready to buy, mainly because they helped contribute to the process.
The same is true, and maybe even more important, as you try and influence your product peers and superiors in your company. Remember that what makes perfect sense to you may well appear alien to others in your company. You’ll remember that Step One emphasized personal interviews and focus groups of internal personnel. Doing these data-gathering activitiesnot only yields good information, it is setting the stage for buy-in.
Here is another very powerful involvement approach: Have the management team wrestle with the data--problem solving, coming up with options, determining the strengths and weaknesses of each choice, and reaching agreement through collaboration. Correctly done, this is a vehicle for accelerating positive change and advancing your services agenda.
Tony Pajk, president of Branson Ultrasonics, was faced with a tough task. He saw the need to aggressively move to services, but most of the players on his executive team were blinded by their current business success. Following his consultant’s advice, he decided to do a global voice-of-the-customer project to better understand the services potential and the best places to focus. To get his execs on board, he required all of them (including himself) to be involved in conducting the key account interviews, then analyzing the information and sharing it with their peers at a two-day services blueprinting session. This is what Tony had to say:

"My team was very skeptical about services in the beginning. Most felt our current efforts were effective. Nor were they very optimistic about customer reception to the interview process. However, the impact was remarkable. Sitting face to face with key accounts and not talking about products, but listening to the customers’ business issues and organizational problems was very powerful and enlightening. They came to the blueprinting session highly energized and wanting to speak up for the customers they heard! They put aside their past biases and worked together to create a doable services plan. This was the turning point of truly getting the services buy-in at Branson and reinforcing our message to our customers that we were more than a product company, we were a total lifecycle solutions company."

The step of Revise is all about using information to take a hard look at your services business and personal leadership plan, making realistic changes, and taking the right actions to get key folks on board to help you accomplish your goals. It is about the difference between being skeptically viewed as a "stranger" or being admired as a "unique contributor" that makes everyone in the organization more successful.
In the next issue, the journey progresses! Read and learn about Step Three: Survive—buy some time while building capabilities.

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Jim Alexander is a partner at Alexander Consulting, LLP, a management consultancy that creates and implements strategies for professional services organizations. Jim (along with Mark Hordes) is author of the new book SBusiness: Reinventing the Services Organization. Contact him at 239-283-7400, ac@alexanderconsultingsbiz.com, or visit http://www.alexanderconsultingsbiz.com.
This article originally appeared in the May 28, 2004 issue of the Professional Services Journal, a publication of InternetVIZ.