I love listening to NPR in the morning.  Without fail, there's an MBM connection that screams out at me.  Last weekend, it was customer focus.

An NPR reporter stumbled upon "a special suit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab…. meant to help 20-something engineers feel the aches and limitations of an average 75-year-old so they can design better products for them."  [Read or listen to the story here.]

Talk about putting yourself in another's shoes.  I thought it was fascinating to what extent this group was willing to go to find out what their customers experienced and valued. 

Here's how it worked:

"I pull a harness around my waist and Puleo starts attaching things to it. First, stretchy rubber bands connect from my waist to the bottom of my feet.

"'It will limit your hip flexion,' Puleo explains.

"Finally, Puleo fits me into a hard hat and attaches yet more things to that. And that's when this all starts to feel like a bad idea. It has become work simply to stand up straight….  More stretchy bands restrict my arm movements. There are knee pads and Velcro wrist braces; rubber gloves to lessen sensation in my fingers; yellow goggles to limit my depth perception. Everything on the suit is carefully calibrated to mimic the loss of function that happens as we age."

The group has fitted a handful of grad students with these comical-looking suits and sent them out grocery shopping for what a typical senior might buy.

"'What we found,' she says, 'was a lot of the low-sugar, low-sodium items were either at the top of the shelf or the bottom of the shelf — not in a place where an older adult would have the easiest time locating.'"

This got me thinking about what I haven't been doing with my projects and customers lately.  Have I asked my internal customers what I could be doing better?  Have I spent time just hanging around and observing to get a better sense of their day and needs?  Have I made an effort to walk a mile in their shoes?

More often than not, the answer is 'no.'  Or, at least, 'not enough.'

Here's my challenge to you: do one thing this week–take 2 minutes to write it down right now–to better understand your customer.  Give them a call, hang out around their coffee machine, check out their FaceBook pages, etc.  I think we'll be surprised at what a few minutes of customer focus–one of the Guiding Principles–can yield.  

Let us know how it goes!

[p.s. This restrictive suit reminds me of the new short film coming out that Ann posted about recently.  The movie 2081, based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, explores a society where total equality has been reached by placing weights on the strongest and masks on the most beautiful.  With the suit described above, of course, the intentions are much more pleasant.]

2081, Customer Focus, old-age suit, Vonnegut

Lately, I've been reflecting on what MBM directs individuals to do. Reading (and re-reading) the Guiding Principles as well as studying the bottom layer of the Science of Human Action chart (see pages 48-49 of The Science of Success if you'd like to study it along with me) have been my main strategies for trying to understand how individuals can practice MBM. However, reading all of those things right in a row left me feeling a bit overwhelmed and reminded me of when I first started working at the Foundation.

Those feelings led me back to another topic I've been thinking a lot about lately: courage. Recently, I've come to believe that courage has an important role in the workplace, especially in an MBM organization. New employees, often overwhelmed with new mental models, especially need courage. I started bouncing this idea off of my husband and he asked, "what do you mean by courage in the workplace?"

Peter Senge says in The Fifth Discipline, "Courage is simply doing whatever is needed in pursuit of the vision" (page 208). This article (which is fascinating) says, "the ability to act on a perceived good for the organization, even in the face of fear or reprisal." I must admit that I don't have a good personal definition of courage, but I am starting to think about it more and more.

After all this churning on courage, I've started to organize my thoughts around two things:

1. An MBM culture calls on us to embrace the challenge process. The challenge process takes courage: the courage to question a supervisor, the courage to admit that something might be failing and sometimes the courage to just speak up as a single voice in a crowd.
2. Once we've worked someplace for awhile, we can forget how scary some of these things might seem to new people. Moreover, individuals may find different situations require more or less courage.

So, after all this thinking about courage, I've concluded that part of my job as a supervisor and contributor to culture means finding ways to help people be more courageous. What do you think about courage in the workplace? Have you found ways to help people around you be courageous? Am I on the right track here?

The Morality of Profitessay contest winners have been announced. (HT: Congratulations to Brad Hobbs! He won 2nd in the essay contest!)

Here'sa neat infographic of the sugar and water companies. I found it to be a neat way to visualize an industry.

Modeled Behavior asks "Did Cash for Clunkers Hurt the Poor?" I like when economists look at secondary and unintended consequences.

Here's a little article about how Wendy is doing some testing of new french fries. I used to live in Columbus, OH and Wendy's did a lot of testing there. Sometimes it meant a tasty preview… other times it meant that you'd find something that tastes great, but failed the market test never to be seen again.

Seth Goldin has a short post called "Little Lies and Small Promises." I hope he expands on this in the future. I think it's the beginning of an interesting conversation.

And because I cannot have a Friday Links post without something from the entertaining Bob Sutton, here's a post called "How to Tell When Your Boss is Lying." I hope none of you have cause to use the findings of the study.

I hope you have a great weekend. If you have any links you'd like to share, please email them to me at ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org or leave them in the comments.

Many of the folks we work with get excited about learning Market-Based Management, but are often frustrated since they work in organizations that "don't apply MBM."  I assume what this really means is "my supervisor doesn't apply MBM."

Two things come to mind when I hear this.  

First, MBM isn't a panacea or the only way to get results.  It's just what we are familiar with and what's worked for us.  So, it's great that others are experimenting with different ways to create value that work with their style.  There's a lot to learn from non-MBM management systems.

Second, however, as a student of MBM it's definitely nice when the person you spend the majority of your time with (your manager, often) is also trying to apply it.  Unfortunately, that's not always the case.  

I'd like to hear stories you may have gathered from co-workers or people at other orgs who have faced this challenge and come up with ways to overcome it.

Good strategies I've heard of include:

• avoid buzzwords–they'll just confuse others; as a bonus, being able to 'translate' the MBM jargon into 'normal speak' is a great learning exercise, so it'll help you!
• if you disagree, ask questions (instead of quoting MBM at them)–odds are, they have great insights and can help you better understand their intentions; or, it'll softly point out areas where they need to rethink things.
• sphere of influence–sometimes you're just in a bad organization or with an unproductive supervisor.  If that happens, focus on what you can control, and use that space as your own MBM laboratory while getting good results and building a positive reputation.

This is a guest post by an alumni. This alumni continues to be amazed at how much he has to learn about applying MBM through his role on the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation MBM Team.  Prior to joining the MBM Team three years ago, he was moonlighting in the commercial Property/Casualty insurance industry.

For those who have had the pleasure to see Sylvester Stallone’s latest work, The Expendables, a film that solely exists to unite 80s and 90s action heroes, you may have noticed one bygone hero missing: the great Jean-Claude Van Damme.  According to this story, Jean-Claude was approached by Stallone to join the cinematic Dream Team but was less than impressed when Stallone’s pitch consisted of ‘You’re gonna make lots of money.’  Rather, Van Damme was more interested in who his character was and what would motivate him.  Lacking any clear answers from Stallone, Van Damme passed on the film, leaving all of us who love old school action films poorer for it.

 Without commenting on whether Van Damme was trying to honor his craft or not, his experience is not uncommon in many organizations.  How often do managers resort to only flashing dollar signs in the eyes of would be talent or current employees?  There is a mistaken notion that money alone is sufficient to incentivize an employee to right action.  Would it be more effective to discuss with the employee “what character they are to play” in the organization?  How can we better articulate the opportunity and understand the motivations of employees? What are other ways we might be more likely to have the action oriented team we desire and our customers deserve? 

You don’t have to be the “Muscles from Brussels” to get incentives right, but you may if you want to land a roundhouse at the same time.

Thanks to our alumni for his contribution. If you’d like to submit a guest post for potential publication on this blog, please email drafts to Ann at ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org.

Like Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions?  If you haven’t seen this set of videos, check them out–Peter Robinson of “Uncommon Knowledge” at Stanford’s Hoover Institute interviews this great economist about this work.

What are the two visions?  How do they impact the real world?  In a pre-2008-election world, how do the major political candidates form to these visions?  

This is a guest post by Chris Cardiff. In Chris's words he, "struggles to teach and apply MBM as a member of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation MBM team."

Last week I spent three days vacationing at Virginia Beach, stretched out under a sun umbrella, accompanied by my wife and John Stuart Mill. Okay, Mill wasn’t there in person but his ideas On Liberty were. I was particularly interested in exploring the second chapter, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion,” because  my team recommended it as a good reading regarding the value of free speech for society.

My recollection of Mill from past readings was that he would make a strong case for an aspect of liberty but then follow up with caveats that provided lots of room for undermining that principle. This chapter does not follow that pattern; it is a full-throated advocacy for freedom of speech.

As Ann noted earlier, Mill argues compellingly for what we call the challenge process: “But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race…if the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging truth for error: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” Does anyone else hear a hint of Polanyi’s “Republic of Science” in those words?   

I also loved the way Mill connects freedom of speech with  the Guiding Principle of Humility: “All silencing of dissent is an assumption of infallibility.”  What do you think of Mill's work on Freedom of Speech? Have you read anything else that has made you think of the challenge process?  

Thanks to Chris for his contribution. If you'd like to submit a guest post for potential publication on this blog, please email drafts to Ann at ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org.

The Consumerist brings us “10 Companies that Were Excellent, but Now Kind of Suck.” It reminded me of the business cycle exercise that we do in MBM Academy to illustrate that we need to stay ahead of creative destruction in the marketplace by driving creative destruction ourselves.

Thanks to an alumni for submitting this article about “How Starbucks Plans to Capitalize on Free Wifi.” It seems like a good example of customer focus.

I guess I always have to link over to Bob Sutton’s blog. This post is called “Management, Leadership, and Mark Hurd: Why top Management Teams are More Important than Individual CEOs.”

I’ve been thinking about how failure and how people react failure is an important aspect of organizational culture to understand. I was bopping around Stanford’s eCorner and found a great clip about “The Biggest Success Are Often Bred from Failure.”

And finally, because I cannot leave infographics alone, here’s one on “The History of Social Security.”

If you have a link you’d like to share, leave it in the comments or send it to me at ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org. Have a great weekend!

We are putting this blog through a face lift in the near future. The designer has included a few places for quotes. Instead of brainstorming alone, I'd like your input. These can be quotes about MBM or liberty or really anything you think is relevant. Please leave them in the comments or shoot me an email at ann.zerkle (at) cgkfoundation.org.

If you have any other ideas about functions or elements you would like to see, feel free to contribute those as well.

Thanks for your contributions!

My colleague, Mallon, heard me talking about various things, including my desire to become a better manager. She graciously let me borrow her book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni. I must admit that I was a little skeptical. The book starts with the story of Brian. Brain believes his calling is management. The fable (as it is called in the book) follows Brian through various management experiments, which develops the theory.

I liked the fable style. I could not believe how the simple story of Brian trying to make employees less miserable entertained, informed and engaged me with the material. I'll get to the theory of the book in a second, but the form of the book was engaging. I'm looking forward to reading another of his books, Death by Meeting soon.

First and foremost, this is a book about people managing direct reports, not strategy. The theory rests on the assumption that regardless of the type of job, there are three things that cause employees to be miserable: lack of measurement (the author calls this immeasurement), anonymity and irrelevance.

To be clear about the opposite of immeasurement, Lencioni means that every employee should have measures that lets her leave everyday knowing if she had a good day or not. It could be as simple as how many customers smiled at her, but it is clear at the end of the day.

The part that made me sit up and read harder was the portion on irrelevance. Each employee needs to understand how he is making someone's life better. Managers need to be able to express to their employees precisely how the employees make their lives better. And managers need to drop the assumption that smart people will "just know" how they are making other people's lives better. I think everyone has experienced days where they have left work thinking, "Why am I doing this project?" or "Why am I on this team?" I heard someone say that RR&Es should answer the "whys," so that is one tool managers can use to address this.

Anonymity is the feeling that you are a cog, and if you were replaced tomorrow by someone equally able, no one would notice. The author puts it like this, "It's one thing to know that an employee's daughter likes dancing. It's quite another to ask how Friday's dance recital went" (230).

The author goes on to give many examples and practical steps to change. For someone new to management, I recommend giving this a read through. Have any of you read this before? What did you think of it? What books would you recommend to inexperienced/new managers that can help with some of the basics?