As a knowledge worker myself (and most propably many of you) I've found often pondering about the term "working hard". Luckily I noticed a tweet about the issue a while back and we had a quick but an interesting bouncing of ideas and opinions.
Also the blog of @klakhani raises valid points: to the blog!
Are Your Programmers Working Hard, Or Are They Lazy? In other words it's hard to measure knowledge workers http://t.co/V7QMRxtjck
— Karim R. Lakhani (@klakhani) December 12, 2013
@klakhani No it's not. Knowledge workers are working hard if they offer and bring to the table more than they are asked for.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 12, 2013
@klakhani Because if they are doing only what they are asked for they are not using their capacity to the fullest.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 12, 2013
@klakhani Of course. But that's leadership. We were talking about lazy vs. hard if I recall right. 1/2
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 13, 2013
@klakhani If someone wants to bring more to the table than just whats required means (most of the time) that they want their company to win.
— Vili Urpilainen (@vonelone) December 13, 2013
I've thought about the different things that make you a "hard worker" as in you being an investement to the company rather than a cost.
If you're evaluating someone do note that these questions should work as a guideline more than a black and white truth by number. Answers can be either yes/no or go from "never" to "always".
1. Is an employee doing the things what he/she is paid to do?
2. Is an employee sucking energy and time from co-workers or from his or her boss?
3. Does an employee charge others with energy?
4. Does an employee raise difficult issues to the discussion even if it wouldn't be good for him or her?
5. Does an employee spread and enhance trust around his or herself?
I hope that I could dig deeper into these questions right now but not tonight. I'll try my best to get back to these tomorrow.
Vijay's example is simple. If a normal western EKG machine weighs 250 pounds, needs electricity to work, needs an expert to operate and costs 25 000 euros. How many Indians have the luxury of getting EKG scans in the rural parts of India where there is none of the things needed for the machine?
The answer is of course very few. Are there still heart related health issues in the rural parts of India where a EKG machine would be of great help. The answer is of course yes. How did we innovate ourselves out of this problem?
With this. This is a portable EKG system that is easy to use and the cost of a single scans price drops to a mere 2 cents. Something every Indian can afford if experiencing chest pain. And the biggest beauty is that this is still profitable and most importantly (you won't believe this but) the quality is as good as that of an "western" model. To answer the question of the title we'll dive in to the next paragraphs.
Reversing is not about lowering quality
This is one of the biggest ideas of the speech. The way do most of our decisions are actually based on a lot of other factors than common sense.
All businesses aren't evil. They pay taxes (at least the good ones) and make the world go around on many many levels. A businesses goal is to make profit. Some argue why, but Jack Welch gave a great insight (not really an insight. More of a common sense approach, but what can you do when you're not as smart as you think): "Our social responsibility strategy is to win! Because that makes it possible to have be socially responsible." It's true due to the fact that a bankrupt company has very little to share.
The challenge that this profit-to-be-made approach does not lend it's hand most of the time to the best possible answer in innovation. Another example of reverse innovation is in the form of an artifial leg designed by a thailandish M.D.
Why are the western/first world artificial proesthethics made of hard to come by materials that are so costly? The problem is the amount of resources given to different professionals today. Resources are not bad per se. But the problem lies with the unconstrained resources. Let's say you're perfecting a car design. How long would you design the perfect car it if you would have no constrains of time or money?
Now think for a while how fast and cheap could you design a working and good-enough car if your life depended on it?
What do you really have to do for your product?
The real cost of you designing a car is not limited of course to only the designing process. A big amount of all products cost comes from non-production costs associated with business. Administrative costs, taxes and marketing play a big role in the cost of any product. Have you ever studied where non-branded and cheaper products come from. Especially in Finland there is a trend of big chains creating their own lines of everyday items such as groceries and clothing "brands". The idea is simple. Get the stuff out of the same factory that makes their branded and marketed bacon and just pack it and sell it cheaper due to the fact of cutting the need and cost of marketing in the process.
Same meat - Costly Price
Same meat - Cheap Price
Why did chicken take over this post? Because there are numerous costs with most products that can actually be "outsourced" to the users or the people in general. A great way to market a proesthetic limb is to have people actually use it. This beats every other form of marketing when you are actually making profit and gaining marketing potential at the same time.
Cost of use vs. Cost of product
The closing argument of reversing innovation is the everlong argument between the cost of use versus the cost of product.
Do we count the right way?
Having a 25 000 € EKG machine standing unused for 90% of the time. Most of the time with a multi million MRI machine. Just because they are too costly to use. Why is it a costly to use these machines? Because a "smart" MBA has calculated that the "cost" of the device is 25 000 euros divided by the times it's been used in it's life time. Instead of counting the cost by the cost of use if it would be used as much as possible.
This same thing applies to a lot of things. For example in Finland the public transportation in most of Finland is costly because of this ill-adviced equation. Of course you have to be profitable with a business but the most parts of Finland it's actually cheaper to drive your own car from city to city than to take the train. And at the same time trains are running half of the time empty due to the small amount of people who see to get their moneys worth by taking the train.
I would love to get the data from VR on how much more fuel consumption does a single passenger add. If someone knows please let me know.
The example that Vijay used for the use of cost vs. use of product is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvz2JGI-L6Q (Sorry for not being able to embed it. Blogger bugs)
Most of the time as you can see. It's not about product innovation. It's about process innovation.
Ideas that sprung into my mind from the presentation and while blogging
What are good materials to recycle and to what products?
What could I or my company "outsource" to the customers and/or supply chain?
How could I get into a reverse innovation mode from "just" innovating?
Once again thanks for reading this far and comments are highly appreciated!
You can read more about "cheap" innovations from here
As you can see I did not manage to get them all done yet. These take some time but I must say that I'm super happy for taking proper notes (for once!)
Also feel free to comment of course. Especially those who were present at the event.
3 Box Innovation
Is actually a term coined to give a person a different focus point to look at innovation in all of its possible forms related to time. In the end we all know that time is the deciding factor in innovation. It would not pose a huge effect to the world if you were to come up with a new way to build a light up an oil lamp.
With his example Vijay brought up high jump and it's four different styles/ways of jumping in olympics. I won't go into much detail to the example because you'll come up with many of your own once you see what the 3 box thinking is about.
1 Box - Operational Excellence
When most people are given a task their first idea is to see how it is done around them. This is common sense after all. It is of human nature to look examples. This is what some people call: monkey see - monkey do. I've got nothing against monkeys but the truth is that most of the time this way of working won't get you far in business or in life for that matter.
How many of you have trained the high jump sciccor style?
But this is the way hundreds and thousands of companies work everyday. They think that they must work in a certain way only because it's the industry standard. Too bad that most of the time common sense is not common practise. Which leads us to the second box...
2 Box - Best Practise
In this box we can "find" the way the current industry leaders operate. They have found out the best ways to get stuff done for their company and their industry.
These things can be ways of leaderhip or use of the best tools for the job and trade. Sometimes it just means being more stubborn and hardworking than the competitors. Other times it can be just a great "innovative" use of other industrys way of work that suits to you and gives you the advantage over your competition.
The biggest challenge with the "Box 2 company" is that they have the highest fall to fall. To be the industry leader and having blind faith in the ways of your (present) success might actually be the reason for you downfall (This wouldn't be a blog about innovation without a reference to Nokia...) Which leads us to the "last" box.
3 Box - Tomorrow
Now we step into the most complex of the boxes with out of the box thinking (lovely word play isn't it?)
This is something where you cannot still exist but you should be thinking and designing for. So actually you are designing something for a market or a customer that doesn't know about the place yet. Enter Mr. Ford:
So instead of just trying to perfect and lubricate the thing you are currently doing is never enough in the long run. Here lies the best thing about innovation. It is not going to remain the same. There will always be ways to improve the current world and ways of working. Mostly because we still haven't even realized or created the problems that we will be facing in the future.
The biggest learning point for me was the idea to segment innovation related to time. There is a right place and time for (almost) everything.
Ideas that popped into my mind with this talk?
Where do I or my company use energy and focus?
How am I tracking the weak signals to base my innovations about?
What sort of adjecant fields can I find next to myself or my business? Is there something I could add or learn from those businesses (box 2 & 3)?
I've also added here the wonderful visualized notes from Linda Saukko-Rauta.
Malcolm Gladwell on innovation and innovation leadership
My notes and thoughts on Malcolms talks in Nordic Business Forum 2013
As I promised on my earlier post I'm going to go over all the talks of NBF and share the great insights (at least the ones that I was able to find) of the event. If you feel that these posts are not long enough or do not go deeply enough to the matter I'd love for you to let me know. I'll be coming back to these topics on a later notice.
Why is it good to be the third one to innovate?
In the first talk Malcolm dove head first in to innovation via an example from the year 1982. Example was taken from a battle in the 82 Lebanon war. In the battle Israelian air forces took apart the opposing air and anti-air forces through innovation.
1. Innovation order
In Malcolms example there were three distinctive innovations put to an effective use against the opposing forces by the Israelians. These innovations were in no particular order: AEW&C Aircrafts, Homing missiles and a modern aerial combat doctrine. Also you have to take in to consideration the fact that any of these innovations were not made by the Israelians and both forces had the same kind of possibilities to be the "Innovative" one.
Another example was the mouse and graphic user interface by Xerox, Douglas Engelbart and Steve Jobs.
Malcolm gave us three different levels of innovation based on the amount of resources the innovator has:
Early innovator or Inventer. This is most of the time the one who comes up with the idea or invention in the first place. It helps also if you have "unlimited" resources as did the soviets aerial doctrine inventors or Douglas Engelbart.
Fixer or Tweaker. These are the ones who see the first inventions and use them most of the time for their own uses. With the tweakers we see many high-tech guys and companies still with vast amounts of resources but mostly used very decentralized or without a common goal. Here we have Xerox who made a 300 $ mouse to be used with their already expensive products or Americans tweaking their missiles uncoordinated with the AEW&C planes in battle.
Implementer & Perfecter. Are the Isrealians and Jobs of the world. They do not have resources to waste. They have an goal oriented mind and attitude that needs to solve the challenges. What made the battle and Apple's case so uneven was the way they implemented and most importantly coordinated their innovations.
2. Strategic Innovation = Coordinated Innovation
So the thing that matters here is the question why weren't both of the forces familiar with these technologies. And as it is mostly with innovation why did the other one take such a beating. A single innovation rarely wins a war. I'm sure that Syrian forces had made quite a few innovations on their own. What then is the innovation that matters.
In my opinion the term coordinated gives you the answer. A singular innovation, man, woman or say a player in a sports team rarely wins you the challenge. With innovation you need the same amount of coordination and leadership as with any other facet in business. You have to be able to see the different innovations complimentary. When you think innovations more as a single building blocks to a bigger combination than breakthroughs that make all the difference by themselves you'll be able to coordinate and lead your innovations yo your and your company's advantage.
3. Innovators social challenge
In his other talk Malcolm gave a really detailed trip to the discovery of chemotherapy for childhood leukemia.
Here we had a young US doctor who made it possible to cure earlier a 100% mortal disease by the combination of different poisons and so fathered chemotherapy. The challenge that lies with these kinds of innovations is the moral side of the story. When you are truly doing something others have no idea of you always run in to other peoples opinions and morals. So there is most of the time not only economical "risks" that you take when innovating.
To take a lighter example for this we have Henry Fords words
To be an innovator is to try to truly change the world. Not only how the world works but also how the world thinks.
Things that came to me after the speech:
What was the last innovation that I've taken into everyday use and does its value rise when coordinate with an another innovation?
Where do I look for more innovations to take myself or my company to an another level?
When was the last time I thought about innovations that my competitors use and how to counter them?
I've been trying to attend this wonderful (from what I've heard) seminar for the last two years. After having experience this year's program I do feel that I've missed something for missing the earlier Forums. But at the same time I'm super happy that I actually made it this year. A lot of ideas and most importantly talks that really made your brain twist (In the most positive ways imaginable)
Here's a video from last year and their website for those who might not know what's NBF about.
What's next?
I've for once made proper notes (for the first time in my life). Better to start later than never!
I'm planning to go over the talks I found the best and most ideasprouting and write about them to here. I just have to be sure to editor myself and not get carried away. Or how do you feel? Would it be better to try to keep the posts short and focused or go all out and post them as long as they ever might come? You can comment, tweet or send me an email to let me know. After all I'm here (mostly) for you :)
Updated blog
For those who have already been here before have most propably noticed something different about the blog. I've chosen to update the blog to express more about where I'm coming and thinking about right now.
Quickies are a mini blog series which I'm starting to get going as fast as possible. Here you will find a short opener for a tweet of mine. This weeks quickie is about the real need of customers.
#Customer does not care about your execution. They care about how you deliver your execution for them. #business#success
First of all I'd like everyone to take a sec and think about who your customer is. As in who do you provide velue to. It isn't about who is paying to you. For example a teachers customer is not the school. School is a "secondary customer" in terms of value.
Now once you have your ideal and or worst case scenario customer in mind think again. Do you deliver. This is an easy question when you think about it for a while. If the customers you serve seem to be confused or ask a lot of questions it's usually a sign of not delivering. Also note that some times the customer is blinded by the execution of your work that they don't care about delivery. But in the long run they'll start to think about it also.
So next time you are with a client/customer ask this question: "Did I tell you clearly what we are delivering to you?" If the customer can't give you a good answer you could've done better. But if they give you a good answer you've reached the point below...
Pyrin ottamaan osaa "julkiseen" keskusteluun ehkä toista tai kolmatta kertaa elämässäni. Jos muistan oikein olen kirjoittanut kerran tai kaksi jonkin lehden mielipidepalstalle.
Joten pyydän anteeksi jo etukäteen. Älä pahastu kielioppivirheistä tai mielipiteistäni. Tarkoituksena ei ole käännyttää ketään mihinkään suuntaan, mutta toivon, että onnistun herättämään ajatuksia johonkin suuntaan. Onhan kaiken keskustelun pohjimmainen tarkoitus pyrkiä opettamaan, laajentamaan maailmankuvaa tai kertoa virheistä, jotta kuulija ei astuisi samoihin ansoihin omilla retkillään.
Ensin konteksti eli muutama lause itsestäni. Olen 26-vuotias alemman korkeakoulun käynyt ihmisen alku, jonka tavoitteena on hämmästyttää ihmisiä. Olipa kyseessä arkinen tai erikoinen asia. Poliittinen suuntaukseni on kääntynyt vasemmalta jatkuvasti oikealle. En halua puhua politiikka, mutta ikävä kyllä monia asioita voidaan pitää politiikkana tai siihen sidottuna. Tällä hetkellä toimin yrittäjänä omassa yrityksessäni. Tähän asti olen halunnut pitää mielipiteeni pienen piirin tietona mutta toivon uskomattoman kovasti, että tämän tekstin lukisi muutama muukin ihminen perheen ja kolmen kaverin lisäksi...
Sitten asiaan: Sain kimmokkeen kirjoittaa jotain näinkin syväluotaavaa (ainakin omasta mielestäni) asiaa huomattuani kaksi peräkkäistä keskustelua Facebookin uutisvirrassani. Molemmat käsittelivät Aino Kopran Helsingin Sanomissa julkaistua mielipidekirjoitusta opintotuesta. En ota tässä kirjoituksessa kantaa siihen kuka on oikeassa tai miten pääomatulot vaikuttavat ihmisen maailmankatsomukseen tai kykyyn argumentoida asiasta tai toisesta.
Keskustelemmeko?
Pidän puhumisesta. Mutta vielä enemmän pidän kuuntelemisesta. (Tämä on yksi suurimmista kehittämiskohteistani ja olen tietoinen asiasta. Älä huolehdi. Teen parhaani ollakseni parempi ihminen ja kuuntelija.) Tämä johtunee mitä luultavammin tavastani puhua erittäin paljon ja joka paikassa. Tällöin kuuntelusta on tullut itselleni huomattavasti harvinaisempaa kuin kuuntelemisesta. Kuitenkin jokainen tietää, että kuunteleminen on huomattavasti mielekkäämpää puuhaa lopputuloksen kannalta kuin puhuminen. Aikuisen ihmisen mielipidettä on lähes mahdotonta kääntää yhden keskustelun aikana. Varsinkin silloin, kun kyseessä on julkinen tilaisuus/tilanne. Kun puhuminen ja kuuntelu yhdistyy harmoniaksi saadaan aikaan keskustelu. Keskusteluja, kuten kaikkia muitankin maailman asioita on säälittävän ja surkuhupaisan sekä ihmeellisen ja mullistavanlaisia kuin kaikkea näiden väliltä.
Kaiken keskustelun tavoitteena pitäisi olla oppiminen. On surullista huomata, että tällä hetkellä Suomessa ei saa sanoa mielipidettään monestakaan asiasta, ellei se ole tietyn konsensuksen mukainen. Ajattelemme usein, että joku ei saa sanoa mielipidetään (oli se "väärin" tai huonosti argumentoitu), jos ei ole "kokemusta". Kokemuksella tarkoitan: tohtorin hattua, poliittista tai taloudellista auktoriteettiä tai julkisuuden tuomaa arvovaltaa.
Hyvin usein keskustelut ovatkin tyhjänpäiväistä small-talkia, joka ei vie mihinkään tulokseen eikä kehitä keskustelijoita mihinkään suuntaan. Olemme kaikki varmasti osallistuneet useisiin tälläisiin keskusteluihin. Ja myönnän, että aina ei jaksa tai ajatukset ovat muualla. Mutta voisinko silti olla enemmän kiinnostunut kuuntelemaan keskustelukumppanini sanomaa. Yritänhän edes ymmärtää...
Eli mitä yritän sanoa: Sen sijaan, että kyseiselle henkilölle yritettäisiin kertoa miten asiat "oikeasti" ovat tai häntä yritettäisiin muulla tavalla opettaa, tartutaan heti verbaaliseen kiveen ja aloitetaan julkinen kivitys (myös Facebook on julkinen monella mittarilla mitattuna) ja käsketään nurkkaan häpeämään, koska vain opiskelijat saavat ottaa osaa tähän keskusteluun. Kaikki muut ovat väärässä tai eivät ymmärrä mistä on kyse.
Olen erittäin paljon "ilmaisen" koulutuksen kannalla. ("Ilmaisen", koska moni osallistuu tähänkin talkooseen maksamalla esim. veroja.) Mahdollisimman tasavertainen mahdollisuus kouluttautua luo tasa-arvoa parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla ja mahdollistaa monia positiivisia kerrannaisvaikutuksia yhteiskunnassa. Mutta olemmeko me oikeasti niin kyynisiä ja oikeassa, että joku nuori ihminen ei saa tuoda julki mielipidettään (huom. kyse on mielipiteestä. Ei mistään poliittisesta päätöksestä.) Tai kertokaa minulle kuinka paljon kyseinen henkilö pystyy oikeasti vaikuttamaan tähän käsiteltävään opintotuki-asiaan. Lisäksi ymmärrän kyllä Hesarin kyseenalaisen suhtautumisen mielenosoitukseen ja mielestäni Helsingin Sanomat asettivat itsensä erittäin hankalaa osaan tässä koko keskustelussa. Valinta sekin. Paljolta mielipahalta selviää maailmassa, kun ymmärtää mahdollisimman aikaisin, että jokainen ajaa tässä maailmassa omaa tai oman eturyhmänsä asiaa.
Eli annetaan kaikkien kukkien kukkia ja mikä tärkeintä opastetaan ja ohjataan. Erehdysten kautta oppiminen on paljon nopeampaa kuin onnistumisten. Ja onhan suomessa vielä mielipiteenvapauskin... Onhan?
ps. 28% 300 00 eurosta on 84 000 euroa. Kuinka paljon sinä maksoit veroja viime vuonna? (Ei tarvitse kertoa. Tämä oli provo ja trolli ja kaikkea muuta. Ruoskin itseäni näin alhaisestaa tempusta...)
