Strategies for the Workplace

Reports

Think first about what decisions will need to be made, then about what information would support those decisions, then about what kinds of reports would provide that information.

Opportunity and Risk in Partnering

Partnership offers opportunities, to reach new markets, add new skills, enhance your brand through association, manage surges in demand, test-drive a deeper relationship, and so on.  Partnerships also have risks, such as mixed messages to the market, damaging your brand through association, additional complexity for your customers, intellectual property problems, employee retention challenges, revenue impacts, etc.  The point is to think carefully about all the potential upsides and downsides.  There can be a tendency to see most of the benefits and gloss over the risks.  This is not to say that partnership can’t offer great leverage; just look carefully and mitigate potential negatives.

Frog in the Boiling Water

The expression, ‘a frog in boiling water’ is related to two scenarios.  In one case, you place a frog in a pot of cool water.  The frog remains since it perceives no danger.  You slowly raise the temperature of the water and because the change is gradual, the frog never quite appreciates its peril.  Eventually, the frog is boiled to death.  In the other case, you place a frog in boiling water.  The frog instantly perceives the danger and leaps out, saving itself.  The point is that things have gotten out of hand.  If you had been faced with the current situation you would have taken immediate action, but troubles crept up slowly and you didn’t appreciate it.

Structured Thinking Two-by-Two

Organizing your thinking and expressing it in an easy-to-digest form can help you or a team turn something muddled into something clear.  Don’t be afraid to use a very simple format and the humble two-by-two diagram can help.

Necessary and Sufficient

The words necessary and sufficient may be used in business to draw a distinction between something that is required (the necessary part) and yet, alone, is not enough to achieve some goal (thus insufficient).  The point is to recognize that folks may confuse some basic requirements with doing enough to meet some objective; that is, they are focusing only on what is necessary, without appreciating that this alone will not be sufficient.

Inflection Point

An inflection point is an event, activity, or condition that marks a significant transition from the circumstances before and what comes after.  For example, an inflection point may mark when the fortunes of a business, product, or service changes from modest growth to rapid growth or slows from rapid growth to modest growth or even decline. 

Getting What You Need From Someone Else

There are things you need to do in order to get other people to do work you need.  Investing in the process and the quality of the up-front work will pay dividends; short-changing the process can result in no useful deliverable, wasted time and money, or worse.
 

The Checklist Process

The point is that if you have a multi-step process and consistency is important, develop and adhere to a check list or have a great reason why you don’t.

'Audibles' and 'Game-Time Decisions'

The point is to decide when you need to decide something before you decide it.  It may be useful to make some decisions later than you initially think, although don’t assume this is costless.  Should changes be possible near execution time, be certain everyone knows that this can happen and that you have effective communication channels to ensure all participants get the update.

Puzzles and Mysteries

When trying to figure something out, it can be useful to distinguish a puzzle from a mystery.  Puzzles have well defined pieces and the solution may come from time spent organizing, rearranging, and so on.  A mystery is not the same thing, and it may have no simple answer.  Mysteries require a different kind of analysis and may not be solvable.  The reason that it is important to distinguish between a puzzle and a mystery is that how you approach the search for a solution involves a different process and skills.