The implications for global education are huge, of course. And that would be interesting enough. But there are also implications for organizational design and talent management for firms of all sizes. While social stuff is often associated with marketing or customer service, social can affect every part of the business model, including how we organize. This post is part of a series on the Social Era and answers the question: If you were going to design an organization from scratch today, what would you design for? And the answer is: nimbleness.

Here are two different examples of organizations designed for speed, at least in one part of their business.

Nimbleness model #1: Staffing with “concentric circles.” A mark of a good university was to have hired leading-edge researchers into full-time tenured faculty roles, in big buildings. Impressive facilities were a way of showing off the power of your wealthy alumni.

Singularity University flips the concept around. “Rather than a locked down curriculum, full time faculty, and buildings, we organized for latest thinking, no built-in overhead, and flexibility in design,” says Salim Ismail, Singularity’s founding Executive Director. With that design in mind, Singularity delivers 300 hours of lectures with only seven full-time staff.

The seven full time employees form a nucleus, or core group to handle program management, operations, and communications. They also recruit the next rung of talent, a set of 10 thought leaders, one for each domain area in which SU teaches. These experts are highly briefed on the purpose and goals of the SU organization. These leaders then act as curators for the rest of the organization, assembling 10-20 domain specialists each, from around the world. Virtual work teams form as needed to coordinate curriculum intersection points using Skype and other online tools. While the core maintains the mission and continuity, the curators act as talent recruiters for the next layer: the extended outer circle of specialized talent that adds topical expertise and content delivery. The talent ratio is 5% core, 15% curators, and 85% specialists. As the definition of and market for the latest thinking evolves, SU is in a unique position to fluidly respond.

Instead of organizing in a hierarchical way that focuses on “getting the right people on the bus,” this model is about building concentric circles of talent that flow and resize as needed.

A construct of circles rather than hierarchies allows an organization to tap into the so-called “freelance nation,” the global talent pool of the creative class. In 2005, one third if the US workforce participated in this freelance economy, and some measures suggest it could be as high as 50% today, accelerated by the recession. Some would argue — myself among them — that this number would be larger if portable health care existed. But the point for organizations is that this freelance workforce is not a fad, or a trend. And using it fully is a way to organize and design organizations for fluidity and flexibility.

And it doesn’t just apply to whom we employ. It can change how we to co-create value. Model #2 is an example of that.

Nimbleness model #2: Customer service outside the perimeter. Typically an in-house cost center, service is usually viewed as a necessary evil and constantly targeted for “efficiency.” Over time, notable service firms built outsourcing capacity in India, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere to allow any firm to have a global service workforce at low cost. Sometimes lost in that process was the expertise that previously came from experienced in-house employees.

McAfee did something transformative to their service exchange by using social. McAfee formed a strong bond of commitment with the hundreds of unpaid technical experts in the larger marketplace who know (and like) McAfee’s platform of solutions. They invited these “McAfee Maniacs” to participate in much of McAfee’s web-based technical support. The most prolific Maniacs posted responses numbering in the thousands.

These experts participate for a number of reasons: keeping their skills current, building a body of work for their own IT support business, and some for altruistic reasons. McAfee’s competitors were spending between 3-7% of their overall SGA expenses on service; McAfee’s became virtually zero, directly boosting the dollars they could contribute to RD and other innovation efforts.

And did McAfee or its customers lose something in this change? Hardly. Indeed, McAfee gained a first line of defense of loyal, committed experts cooperating in the viability of the platform. Customer satisfaction didn’t decline. There is probably no better defense shield than passionate market experts co-opted with a company — and for free.

Isn’t This Just Another Way To Cut Costs?
At first these examples may seem like they’re just about reducing direct resources. But it’s not just that the “800-pound gorilla” is going on a diet of sorts. The point of these examples is what these organizations got, not what they cut. They gained fluidity and flexibility — important to the demands of the social era. But they also got, in the case of Singularity, the leading edge content people to come together to teach current ideas to what they believe are change-agents who will make the world better. It is entirely possible that no traditional institution could recruit them full time; but the fluid model gives SU an advantage. In McAfee’s case, they got experts who passionately solve problems pro bono — just because they like doing that, because it’s their way of making the world better. And McAfee’s ability to engage with its community means that they have people deeply interested in making McAfee better, thus building a competitive moat.

These are not stories of less; they are fundamentally stories of more. The common thread is that the involved participants have a shared purpose — and that creates more power.

Shared Purpose as an Alignment System
When you have shared purpose, it doesn’t matter how many people work “in the company” and how many work “with” the company or how many are serving as an army of volunteers who want to advance the mission. What will it look like to lead an organization when only 5% of talent affecting output is directly on payroll, and others come and go? Organizations will not need to be big to have a big impact. But they will need an extremely clear purpose, and shared, decentralized power throughout. When a clear purpose is coupled with shared power, people can self-organize to reach the goal.

In essence, organizations will finally act flat because they will actually be flat. (And, of course, this affects management’s role and how we all manage our careers. More on that in future posts.)

Work is freed. This changes not only how we work at the broadest levels — and how we organize every single part of our organizations — but what we make, how we produce and distribute it, and how we market and sell it. Is that scary? For many, yes. But, for better or worse, social is giving us this freedom. The question now is what we do with it.

This post is part of a series on how the Social Era will reward fast, fluid, flexible organizations. Now that we’ve covered the rules of the social era and the way it affects how we organize, the next post will focus on how companies produce and distribute.

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/wGqhJ4fjvSo/social_means_freedom_for_bette.html

The implications for global education are huge, of course. And that would be interesting enough. But there are also implications for organizational design and talent management for firms of all sizes. While social stuff is often associated with marketing or customer service, social can affect every part of the business model, including how we organize. This post is part of a series on the Social Era and answers the question: If you were going to design an organization from scratch today, what would you design for? And the answer is: nimbleness.

Here are two different examples of organizations designed for speed, at least in one part of their business.

Nimbleness model #1: Staffing with “concentric circles.” A mark of a good university was to have hired leading-edge researchers into full-time tenured faculty roles, in big buildings. Impressive facilities were a way of showing off the power of your wealthy alumni.

Singularity University flips the concept around. “Rather than a locked down curriculum, full time faculty, and buildings, we organized for latest thinking, no built-in overhead, and flexibility in design,” says Salim Ismail, Singularity’s founding Executive Director. With that design in mind, Singularity delivers 300 hours of lectures with only seven full-time staff.

The seven full time employees form a nucleus, or core group to handle program management, operations, and communications. They also recruit the next rung of talent, a set of 10 thought leaders, one for each domain area in which SU teaches. These experts are highly briefed on the purpose and goals of the SU organization. These leaders then act as curators for the rest of the organization, assembling 10-20 domain specialists each, from around the world. Virtual work teams form as needed to coordinate curriculum intersection points using Skype and other online tools. While the core maintains the mission and continuity, the curators act as talent recruiters for the next layer: the extended outer circle of specialized talent that adds topical expertise and content delivery. The talent ratio is 5% core, 15% curators, and 85% specialists. As the definition of and market for the latest thinking evolves, SU is in a unique position to fluidly respond.

Instead of organizing in a hierarchical way that focuses on “getting the right people on the bus,” this model is about building concentric circles of talent that flow and resize as needed.

A construct of circles rather than hierarchies allows an organization to tap into the so-called “freelance nation,” the global talent pool of the creative class. In 2005, one third if the US workforce participated in this freelance economy, and some measures suggest it could be as high as 50% today, accelerated by the recession. Some would argue — myself among them — that this number would be larger if portable health care existed. But the point for organizations is that this freelance workforce is not a fad, or a trend. And using it fully is a way to organize and design organizations for fluidity and flexibility.

And it doesn’t just apply to whom we employ. It can change how we to co-create value. Model #2 is an example of that.

Nimbleness model #2: Customer service outside the perimeter. Typically an in-house cost center, service is usually viewed as a necessary evil and constantly targeted for “efficiency.” Over time, notable service firms built outsourcing capacity in India, Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere to allow any firm to have a global service workforce at low cost. Sometimes lost in that process was the expertise that previously came from experienced in-house employees.

McAfee did something transformative to their service exchange by using social. McAfee formed a strong bond of commitment with the hundreds of unpaid technical experts in the larger marketplace who know (and like) McAfee’s platform of solutions. They invited these “McAfee Maniacs” to participate in much of McAfee’s web-based technical support. The most prolific Maniacs posted responses numbering in the thousands.

These experts participate for a number of reasons: keeping their skills current, building a body of work for their own IT support business, and some for altruistic reasons. McAfee’s competitors were spending between 3-7% of their overall SGA expenses on service; McAfee’s became virtually zero, directly boosting the dollars they could contribute to RD and other innovation efforts.

And did McAfee or its customers lose something in this change? Hardly. Indeed, McAfee gained a first line of defense of loyal, committed experts cooperating in the viability of the platform. Customer satisfaction didn’t decline. There is probably no better defense shield than passionate market experts co-opted with a company — and for free.

Isn’t This Just Another Way To Cut Costs?
At first these examples may seem like they’re just about reducing direct resources. But it’s not just that the “800-pound gorilla” is going on a diet of sorts. The point of these examples is what these organizations got, not what they cut. They gained fluidity and flexibility — important to the demands of the social era. But they also got, in the case of Singularity, the leading edge content people to come together to teach current ideas to what they believe are change-agents who will make the world better. It is entirely possible that no traditional institution could recruit them full time; but the fluid model gives SU an advantage. In McAfee’s case, they got experts who passionately solve problems pro bono — just because they like doing that, because it’s their way of making the world better. And McAfee’s ability to engage with its community means that they have people deeply interested in making McAfee better, thus building a competitive moat.

These are not stories of less; they are fundamentally stories of more. The common thread is that the involved participants have a shared purpose — and that creates more power.

Shared Purpose as an Alignment System
When you have shared purpose, it doesn’t matter how many people work “in the company” and how many work “with” the company or how many are serving as an army of volunteers who want to advance the mission. What will it look like to lead an organization when only 5% of talent affecting output is directly on payroll, and others come and go? Organizations will not need to be big to have a big impact. But they will need an extremely clear purpose, and shared, decentralized power throughout. When a clear purpose is coupled with shared power, people can self-organize to reach the goal.

In essence, organizations will finally act flat because they will actually be flat. (And, of course, this affects management’s role and how we all manage our careers. More on that in future posts.)

Work is freed. This changes not only how we work at the broadest levels — and how we organize every single part of our organizations — but what we make, how we produce and distribute it, and how we market and sell it. Is that scary? For many, yes. But, for better or worse, social is giving us this freedom. The question now is what we do with it.

This post is part of a series on how the Social Era will reward fast, fluid, flexible organizations. Now that we’ve covered the rules of the social era and the way it affects how we organize, the next post will focus on how companies produce and distribute.

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/wGqhJ4fjvSo/social_means_freedom_for_bette.html

The attempt to give corporate buyers and end consumers more sustainability data about the products they are purchasing has had a somewhat tortured history. The Tesco experience in particular highlights a few big questions about green data labeling.

Tesco has been a leader in sharing carbon footprint information with consumers, having reviewed and labeled over 500 products. The company’s efforts came on the heels of Pepsi’s first foray into labeling with its Walkers potato chips brand, also in the UK. Since then, however, it has been running up against the most important questions about how to make data labeling work:

• Which products “need” it? It makes a lot more sense to put information on a car, which is a purchase people research heavily and one that has a significant impact on a household’s carbon emissions. Your potato chips, not so much.

• What type of information should be provided (if any)? Is the carbon footprint the most useful data for customers to have? Or total energy use during the product’s lifetime? The best thing to share will depend heavily on the product – the labels on energy hogs like light bulbs, air conditioners, and cars should tell us the total energy use and cost to operate over a year or the product’s lifetime. For milk or snacks, the energy used to get it to shelves makes sense, but again, may not be helpful for consumers. So even without the specific grams of carbon, a combination of qualitative and quantitative info, like on Chevy’s new labels, could still make sense in many cases.

• Can you even summarize the sustainability of a product in a label? This is perhaps the toughest question and the literally hundreds of highly varying eco-labels out there attest to the challenges of trying. In some cases, like a car, maybe the concept of “sustainability” is fairly straightforward given how much of the impact comes in the “use phase” of the product — if you’re getting 50% better fuel efficiency, you know you’re reducing the impact a great deal. But how sustainable is 80 grams of carbon for a bag of chips? Heck if I know.

• How much work/cost does it take to research and produce the label? Tesco made it clear that a core reason it’s stopping this process is that each product takes “a minimum of several months’ work.” It’s an interesting time to reach that conclusion because the tools for calculating footprint are evolving fast. But, and this is a big caveat, we’re a lot closer to knowing the “hot spots” in most product lifecycles (e.g., for detergent, the largest part of the footprint is the washing machine in the home), than we are to knowing the exact grams of carbon per product. That level of sophistication will come with better data and carbon allocation methods (mirroring, I suspect, the cost allocation tools accountants have developed for a century). But isn’t directionally correct information good enough in most cases?

• Do consumers even care? This is the critical question, but the answer for now may not matter. Did people “care” about nutrition labels when they first came out? Probably not much, and it’s unclear if they do now, given how unhealthy Americans are in general. But then, maybe our obesity problems would be worse without the labels.

But what’s really interesting about all of this is that the consumer side of the discussion, while getting more media attention, has been less important in actually forcing change. It’s in the business-to-business world that the demands for more information on every product have really been rising. From the Sustainability Consortium for retail and consumer products — which saw its own shakeup recently with the exodus of its Executive Director after only 8 months on the job — to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition for outdoor gear and clothing, industry groups are coming together to gather data and set standards for measuring footprints.

I am confident that Tesco and other major retailers will continue to ask suppliers for carbon data and other sustainability data when picking products for their shelves and setting up special promotions. The greening of the supply chain is the most dependable of trends in the sustainability sphere because there is so much clear benefit to companies when they know their value-chain footprint, from cost savings to risk reduction to better brand storytelling.

So much of this data-gathering and ranking work will continue unbeknownst to consumers. Given how much power retailers and other B2B customers have to transform products and pre-select better options for consumers, maybe it’s actually better this way.

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/nW2NiBHWbYE/eco-labeling-the-critical-ques.html

The attempt to give corporate buyers and end consumers more sustainability data about the products they are purchasing has had a somewhat tortured history. The Tesco experience in particular highlights a few big questions about green data labeling.

Tesco has been a leader in sharing carbon footprint information with consumers, having reviewed and labeled over 500 products. The company’s efforts came on the heels of Pepsi’s first foray into labeling with its Walkers potato chips brand, also in the UK. Since then, however, it has been running up against the most important questions about how to make data labeling work:

• Which products “need” it? It makes a lot more sense to put information on a car, which is a purchase people research heavily and one that has a significant impact on a household’s carbon emissions. Your potato chips, not so much.

• What type of information should be provided (if any)? Is the carbon footprint the most useful data for customers to have? Or total energy use during the product’s lifetime? The best thing to share will depend heavily on the product – the labels on energy hogs like light bulbs, air conditioners, and cars should tell us the total energy use and cost to operate over a year or the product’s lifetime. For milk or snacks, the energy used to get it to shelves makes sense, but again, may not be helpful for consumers. So even without the specific grams of carbon, a combination of qualitative and quantitative info, like on Chevy’s new labels, could still make sense in many cases.

• Can you even summarize the sustainability of a product in a label? This is perhaps the toughest question and the literally hundreds of highly varying eco-labels out there attest to the challenges of trying. In some cases, like a car, maybe the concept of “sustainability” is fairly straightforward given how much of the impact comes in the “use phase” of the product — if you’re getting 50% better fuel efficiency, you know you’re reducing the impact a great deal. But how sustainable is 80 grams of carbon for a bag of chips? Heck if I know.

• How much work/cost does it take to research and produce the label? Tesco made it clear that a core reason it’s stopping this process is that each product takes “a minimum of several months’ work.” It’s an interesting time to reach that conclusion because the tools for calculating footprint are evolving fast. But, and this is a big caveat, we’re a lot closer to knowing the “hot spots” in most product lifecycles (e.g., for detergent, the largest part of the footprint is the washing machine in the home), than we are to knowing the exact grams of carbon per product. That level of sophistication will come with better data and carbon allocation methods (mirroring, I suspect, the cost allocation tools accountants have developed for a century). But isn’t directionally correct information good enough in most cases?

• Do consumers even care? This is the critical question, but the answer for now may not matter. Did people “care” about nutrition labels when they first came out? Probably not much, and it’s unclear if they do now, given how unhealthy Americans are in general. But then, maybe our obesity problems would be worse without the labels.

But what’s really interesting about all of this is that the consumer side of the discussion, while getting more media attention, has been less important in actually forcing change. It’s in the business-to-business world that the demands for more information on every product have really been rising. From the Sustainability Consortium for retail and consumer products — which saw its own shakeup recently with the exodus of its Executive Director after only 8 months on the job — to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition for outdoor gear and clothing, industry groups are coming together to gather data and set standards for measuring footprints.

I am confident that Tesco and other major retailers will continue to ask suppliers for carbon data and other sustainability data when picking products for their shelves and setting up special promotions. The greening of the supply chain is the most dependable of trends in the sustainability sphere because there is so much clear benefit to companies when they know their value-chain footprint, from cost savings to risk reduction to better brand storytelling.

So much of this data-gathering and ranking work will continue unbeknownst to consumers. Given how much power retailers and other B2B customers have to transform products and pre-select better options for consumers, maybe it’s actually better this way.

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/nW2NiBHWbYE/eco-labeling-the-critical-ques.html

Mutually beneficial relationships are possible: Just like you need search firms, the search firms need you. While you’re not their client, you may be a candidate for one of their client’s jobs. Someday, you also may be in a position to recommend their services, to become their client on the hiring side.

Before you invest much time or effort in search relationships, build the record of professional success required to be on their radar. Nothing matters more than success in your work. That comes first. Otherwise, few consultants will be very interested.

Once you’ve established that record or are well down that path, take these four steps:

1. Develop search relationships before you need them. The time to return phone calls or to take the initiative to meet search consultants is when you’re not in play. It’s much harder when you’ve just been laid off, you’re about to be, or you’ve just resigned. If the consultant already knows and respects you, then it may not feel risky to try to match you with new opportunities once you’re out of work.

2. Be selective. Look for a search consultant in your field. Boutiques serve particular industries, functions, or regions. Large firms serve a broad clientele, but within the large firms, individuals often focus on an industry, function, or region.

Look for the right, relationship-oriented consultant. A first test is whether they’re willing to talk to you in any depth. If all they’re doing is trying to populate a candidate database or fill an immediate job, you may respond to their call, but be cautious about investing in them.

Then interview the consultant — much like if you were hiring him or her to advise you on your career. Ask questions like “What’s your role in the firm and your practice focus?” or “What are examples of your past clients and positions filled?” Ask about their past experience placing someone similar to you. Their role is to interview you, so it might seem surprising to question them. Do this so you can decide whether investing in the relationship is worth your time. Moreover, questions like these show the right consultant that you’re a serious and thoughtful person.

3. If you’re interested in a job, help the consultant help you. Help the consultant imagine where you might fit with a strong resume that supports a compelling personal value proposition. Be straightforward about your strengths, and don’t try to hide your gaps relative to a particular opportunity. Don’t ask to be proposed for a position if you’re not qualified. One consultant told me this: “If you shift to wanting the job, be authentic, transparent, and honest. You’ll never fool the recruiters.”

Finally, let the consultant manage your pursuit of an offer. “The number one mistake,” the consultant continued, “is to try to go around the recruiter, pinging the CEO you met with emails. If you’re not comfortable trusting the recruiter, don’t work with that person.”

4. If you’re not interested in a job, add value. Be helpful, in much the same way as being helpful builds the rest of your professional network. Make the consultant’s call worthwhile even if you’re not interested in the job. Provide feedback on the job they’re filling — perhaps reasons why you’re not interested or how it might be more appealing. Provide feedback on the client’s reputation. Help the consultant keep up with nonconfidential developments in the industry or function.

Suggest others to call, but not just anyone. Choose those you think are high quality and match the job spec. Another search consultant put it this way: “Anyone referred is a reflection on you. If not an ‘A’ player, it demeans your value.”

Search consultant relationships can be part of your long-term career strategy once you’re far enough along to get their attention. What have you done to find and build these relationships?

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/XtbKZAB-ci4/how_to_network_with_executive.html

Mutually beneficial relationships are possible: Just like you need search firms, the search firms need you. While you’re not their client, you may be a candidate for one of their client’s jobs. Someday, you also may be in a position to recommend their services, to become their client on the hiring side.

Before you invest much time or effort in search relationships, build the record of professional success required to be on their radar. Nothing matters more than success in your work. That comes first. Otherwise, few consultants will be very interested.

Once you’ve established that record or are well down that path, take these four steps:

1. Develop search relationships before you need them. The time to return phone calls or to take the initiative to meet search consultants is when you’re not in play. It’s much harder when you’ve just been laid off, you’re about to be, or you’ve just resigned. If the consultant already knows and respects you, then it may not feel risky to try to match you with new opportunities once you’re out of work.

2. Be selective. Look for a search consultant in your field. Boutiques serve particular industries, functions, or regions. Large firms serve a broad clientele, but within the large firms, individuals often focus on an industry, function, or region.

Look for the right, relationship-oriented consultant. A first test is whether they’re willing to talk to you in any depth. If all they’re doing is trying to populate a candidate database or fill an immediate job, you may respond to their call, but be cautious about investing in them.

Then interview the consultant — much like if you were hiring him or her to advise you on your career. Ask questions like “What’s your role in the firm and your practice focus?” or “What are examples of your past clients and positions filled?” Ask about their past experience placing someone similar to you. Their role is to interview you, so it might seem surprising to question them. Do this so you can decide whether investing in the relationship is worth your time. Moreover, questions like these show the right consultant that you’re a serious and thoughtful person.

3. If you’re interested in a job, help the consultant help you. Help the consultant imagine where you might fit with a strong resume that supports a compelling personal value proposition. Be straightforward about your strengths, and don’t try to hide your gaps relative to a particular opportunity. Don’t ask to be proposed for a position if you’re not qualified. One consultant told me this: “If you shift to wanting the job, be authentic, transparent, and honest. You’ll never fool the recruiters.”

Finally, let the consultant manage your pursuit of an offer. “The number one mistake,” the consultant continued, “is to try to go around the recruiter, pinging the CEO you met with emails. If you’re not comfortable trusting the recruiter, don’t work with that person.”

4. If you’re not interested in a job, add value. Be helpful, in much the same way as being helpful builds the rest of your professional network. Make the consultant’s call worthwhile even if you’re not interested in the job. Provide feedback on the job they’re filling — perhaps reasons why you’re not interested or how it might be more appealing. Provide feedback on the client’s reputation. Help the consultant keep up with nonconfidential developments in the industry or function.

Suggest others to call, but not just anyone. Choose those you think are high quality and match the job spec. Another search consultant put it this way: “Anyone referred is a reflection on you. If not an ‘A’ player, it demeans your value.”

Search consultant relationships can be part of your long-term career strategy once you’re far enough along to get their attention. What have you done to find and build these relationships?

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/XtbKZAB-ci4/how_to_network_with_executive.html

Since joining the Harvard Business School in 2007 (after a long career at IBM, Kodak, Silicon Graphics, and other companies), I have visited hundreds of factories. They include ones that produce a million notebook computers a week, a significant proportion of the world’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen, sophisticated biopharmaceuticals, microchip engine controllers for 40% of the world’s cars, key components for iPhones, commercial jet engines, scientific instruments, heavy construction equipment, tools for making semiconductors, and solar panels.

With the exception of two jet-engine factories and two plants that make heavy equipment, all were located outside the United States. If that surprises you, you’re not alone. Most Americans have no idea where the stuff they buy comes from and don’t appreciate how much of the U.S. manufacturing base has disappeared.

A Lot of Manufacturing Is Knowledge Work

Most Americans believe factory work is mechanical, snapping together plastic parts or assembling electronic devices. No thinking required; just put in these four screws 2,400 times a day.

There certainly is a great deal of such routine manual labor going on in the world, but there is also an enormous amount of sophisticated knowledge work. Many of the jobs in the most advanced semiconductor-manufacturing plants are as complex as a lunar-landing mission. Making parts for an iPhone is a challenging mix of materials science, mechanical engineering, precision fabrication, and managing mind-boggling complexity in the supply chain. Producing biologics involves enough biochemistry, chemical engineering, and cell biology to make a graduate student wince.

Working in these plants are inventive people who are the source of important ideas for making products better or in different ways. The best factories routinely conduct scientific experiments to improve their processes, and the best factory managers are teachers and innovators as well as leaders of people.

When RD and Manufacturing Must Be Near

Manufacturing provides the foundation for many kinds of innovations. If manufacturing processes are immature or the know-how needed to develop the product or process to produce the product is tacit and not well codified, you cannot innovate in a country if the factories are on the other side of the world. RD and manufacturing must be located close to each other so their people can together figure out how to develop a product that can be manufactured at a cost and level of quality that will make it a commercial success.

This is why I cringe when I see pharmaceutical makers shipping more and more of their production and development capability offshore, or when I see semiconductor tool makers move their manufacturing from the U.S. to Asia.

The bottom line is if a country loses the ability or the capacity to manufacture, its innovation space will be truncated. To me, that is why we have to manufacture in the United States.

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center on American Competitiveness.

Related Blogs

Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/6IldQHqgbR0/just-how-important-is-manufact.html

“Could you do your work from home?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she told me.

How crazy is that? Her boss shouldn’t just be allowing her to work from home, he ought to be encouraging it.

Most employers still tell their employees when to come to work, when to leave, and how they’re expected to work when they’re there. Why not measure employees by the value they create, rather than by the number of hours they sit at a desk?

Too many companies continue to operate by the premise that their employees can’t be fully trusted, and so treat them as children, who must be continuously monitored.

The solution is to hire people you’re prepared to trust, and then treat them as adults, capable of making responsible adult choices. Do that, and it’s a good bet they will. Indeed, considerable evidence suggests that the more confidence managers have in their people, the better they perform.

At the same time, companies who give employees more autonomy have every right to expect accountability. That begins with clearly and explicitly defining what success looks like in any given job, and making that, rather than face time, the measuring stick.

I learned this very quickly in my own company. My first instinct was to have everyone at the office at the same time, because it seemed the most efficient way to work together, and it was convenient for me.

As it turned out, one executive had three young children, and lived more than an hour from the office. Spending that much time commuting wouldn’t have served her or us well. Another employee told me she was much more productive working from home. What I know now is that she gets a ton of work accomplished there.

A third employee’s commute takes twice as long if he leaves during rush hour, so now he comes in early and leaves early, when he’s not working from home. I myself like to write at home in the early morning, and come into the office later.

There are times, it turns out, when it’s important to have our whole team together, so we do try to schedule at least one day a week when that can happen.

What we’ve created is a variation on something called the “Results Only Work Environment,” which was first launched among corporate employees at Best Buy. “The simplest definition of a ROWE,” founders Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson have written, “is that each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.”

Plainly, there are jobs where face-time is critical, such as a factory worker, or a salesperson in a retail store. Even at that, technology has made it possible to do many such jobs from anywhere. Most Jet Blue customer service agents, for example, work from home.

Giving people more freedom isn’t just about when and where they work, it’s also about how they work. Letting go of the “how” was something I found more challenging as a leader, because I invariably had strong opinions about the best way to do almost anything.

Over time, I discovered that the more autonomy I gave people, the more confident and expert they became in their domains, the more ownership they took of their results and the happier they were at work. I do weigh in today, and I try to be the voice of the big picture, but I almost never insist on my point of view.

If you define clear deliverables, and give people full responsibility for achieving them, my experience is they’ll over deliver far more often than they fall short. They’ll also feel more comfortable seeking help when they need it. As Hew Evans, a Sony HR director in Asia, puts it: “If your manager knows what you’re doing all the time, you’re not doing your job, and he’s not doing his.”

In our work with organizations, we do an exercise in which we ask employees to define their workdays in a way that would allow them to feel most productive and satisfied. Then we ask managers to meet with each of their employees and talk about how to best meet each team member’s unique preferences, while also taking account of the team’s overall needs.

The job of a leader or a manager, I’ve concluded, isn’t to tell people how to get their jobs done, or when and where they do their best work. Rather, it’s to free, fuel and inspire them to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

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Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/mWWn5jW5tVk/my-manager-expects-me-to.html

What the Experts Say
Productivity experts counsel against such extreme measures. Email is certainly a threat to efficiency, says David Allen, a consultant and the author of Getting Things Done and Making It All Work, but he maintains that it’s also an essential work tool. “I’ve had email since 1983. I couldn’t live the life I live without it,” he says. Bob Pozen, a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of “Extreme Productivity” agrees. Even if you wanted to use it less, he says, it’s nearly impossible to get people by phone or in person these days. Both Pozen and Allen believe that sweeping rules like the ones Atos and VW are trying are not necessary. You can regain control over your email, and reduce its insidious effects on your productivity, by looking at the root causes of the problem and then following a few straightforward rules.

Recognize it’s not really about email
According to Allen, email overload is only a symptom of a larger issue: a lack of clear and effective protocols. If your organization has ambiguous decision-making processes and people don’t get what they need from their colleagues, they’ll flood the system with email and meeting requests. People then get mired down in their backlog, which leads to even more email and meeting requests from frustrated co-workers trying to follow up.

Allen had one client who had an average backlog of 3,000 – 4,000 emails. When he finally cleared and stayed on top of his inbox, both his email traffic and his meeting load went down. His colleagues got the direction and input they needed so they didn’t need to hound him. “Email handled well reduces meetings. And meetings handled well reduces emails,” Allen says. Taking the time to reply now can save you twice the time in the future.

Control your flow
Another way to reduce the time you spend on email is to turn off the spigot of incoming messages. There are obvious practices that help, such as unsubscribing to e-newsletters or turning off notifications from Facebook or Twitter. But you may also want to reconsider whether your colleagues or direct reports are copying you on too many “for your information” emails. If so, simply explain that you only need to be updated at certain times or when a final decision is made.

Pozen says you can also reduce how many you receive by sending fewer and limiting whom you send to. Resist the temptation to send one-word messages such as “Thanks!” Don’t hit “Reply All” unless everyone needs to hear what you have to say. Don’t rely on email to make big decisions or to sort through complex issues, such as policy changes, that will warrant tons of back and forth. Know what is better handled face to face or by phone. By modeling good email practice, you can encourage those around you to only send messages when it’s necessary and appropriate.

Clear out your inbox and keep it clean
No matter how much you do the above, it’s still possible you’ll have a clogged inbox. You’ve probably read much of the advice about managing email, but some of it bears repeating. Start by emptying out your inbox. If you have thousands of messages in your main folder, create a new folder called “Old Inbox” and put the messages in there. You still have access to them if need be but you will be able to handle incoming messages more easily without the clutter staring back at you.

Once you’ve gotten to zero messages (or at least close to it), commit to sorting through new email right away. Use the following three steps:

1. Delete. Glance over your inbox and delete any messages you don’t need to read or keep: calendar invites, advertisements, etc. “You ought to be able to discard 80% of them just by looking at the title,” says Pozen.
2. Respond. If you can reply to a message in a few minutes or less, go ahead and do that. “If you put it off, you lose time by trying to find it, or remembering what you wanted to say,” says Pozen.
3. File. For the rest of your messages, decide where they should go. Put them into folders or use flags or labels to indicate how high priority they are and when you need to respond by.

Choose a handful of times during the day when you will review your inbox. If you do it every five minutes, you’ll end up spending your whole day on email. But don’t try to go cold turkey either. Checking your email only once or twice a day is impractical. “Most people who send an email are looking for a response quickly,” says Pozen.

Be careful with rules
According to both Allen and Pozen, sweeping policies that effect a broad population of workers and dictate how and when they check email are not realistic, nor likely to be effective. “Why hamstring your employees with silly rules?,” says Allen. Plus policies like these don’t always stick. “It’s hard to come up with mechanical rules that work for everyone,” says Pozen.

That doesn’t mean all rules are bad however. You can develop guidelines for yourself and those you interact with. Encourage others to limit emails to only those who have an action item. Have open discussions about how you will communicate about specific topics. “Try to reach agreement with the group on what’s reasonable to send and receive,” says Pozen.

Take an occasional break
Since email is such a constant presence in our lives, it can be rejuvenating to disconnect from all things digital once in a while. Some do this whenever they go on vacation. Others take a deliberate “email sabbatical.” “It’s always a good idea to untangle yourself from intense interactive engagements every once in a while just to prove you’re not hopelessly addicted and get some fresh air,” says Allen. Of course, this strategy isn’t for everyone: “If you’re constantly distracted by what you might be missing, you’re way better off spending as much time as you need to handle it,” says Allen.

Principles to Remember:

Do:

• Respond quickly and clearly to those who need your attention or input — this will reduce the amount of email you receive
• When you can’t reply immediately, file the emails for action later
• Take an email sabbatical on occasion to give yourself a break

Don’t:

• Assume that email is the real problem — a clogged inbox might mean you haven’t established clear priorities
• Send one-word emails and reply to everyone on a thread — the more email you send the more you will receive
• Think a company-wide policy will solve your email problems — focus on what you can control: your own behavior

Case Study #1: Develop a system and stick to it
Ana Dutra, the CEO of Korn/Ferry International, is known for responding to every email she receives within 24 hours, regardless of who it comes from. But she doesn’t feel like she spends too much time on email. “I have a system that works for me,” she says. It is a process she felt forced to develop when she led the global organization strategy practice at Accenture and received 250 to 300 emails per day. While that number is lower now that she’s at Korn/Ferry (around 120 emails a day, she says), she is still committed to staying on top of her email and keeping her inbox clean. “The more it accumulates, the harder it is to catch up and determine what’s important and what’s not,” she says.

Ana uses a four-step process each time she opens her Blackberry or Outlook inbox. She starts by deleting anything she can: invites, spam, etc. She then sorts by subject so she is only looking at the last message in a conversation. She doesn’t look at the previous trail of email unless she needs to. “The problem may have already been solved,” she points out. She then looks at the messages she was copied on to see if there is something urgent or whether she is just being kept in the loop. The last thing she does is reply to messages that can be handled immediately and files the rest into folders.

For her it’s a matter of respect to reply promptly. “It takes 20-30 seconds to write a quick email explaining when you will get to something,” she says. “So much is resolved and so many decisions are made by email, it is irresponsible not to respond.” She also trains those she works with. “If you want me to read what you write to me, make it short,” she says. She encourages people to label things “Action required” or “No action — FYI only.”

Every time she has down time — in a car, waiting for an appointment — she cleans out her inbox. She doesn’t think of the time she spends managing her email as an encumbrance. In fact it’s the opposite. “It doesn’t feel like a burden at all. It feels great,” she says.

Case Study #2: Stop the source
Frank Sopper, the President of OpenBook Learning, a company that provides educational software to U.S. public schools and advises executives on cognitive effectiveness, does not want to be copied on any emails. “I don’t slap anyone’s hand if they do,” he says, “but I may ask, ‘Why are you sending this to me?’” Sopper started to look closely as the emails he was receiving several years back in a previous role. He asked himself: Is there an action item here for me? If not, why am I receiving these?

At OpenBook, he has pushed the people he works with to think carefully about why they are sending an email and who needs to receive it. “We’ve really worked hard in our organization not to copy anyone on an email unless there’s an action item for them,” he says. The goal is not to stifle conversation but to make sure it’s relevant. “Anyone can communicate with me. They send me an email with me in the ‘To’ line.”

Managers at OpenBook don’t feel constrained by the rule. In fact, Sopper says that people seem relieved because they feel trusted to do their job. And he relies on other tools to monitor performance. “I have to trust that we have metrics that measure people’s work without watching their conversations,” he says.

Has the no CC approach significantly reduced his email load? “I don’t know how many emails I receive,” he acknowledges. “I get rid of them, move them into folders. They don’t stack up in my inbox. But I know it’s sharply less than my peers who are running similar sized organizations.”

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Article source: http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/~r/harvardbusiness/~3/6Bn3mlHMG8o/stop-email-overload-1.html