Drill or hole?

Harvard professor Ted Levitt famously pointed out “People don’t buy a quarter-inch drill bit, they buy a quarter-inch hole.”

We often focus on the product or process – or what I will call things. But we must always remember that what things produces is a solution to a need. And we must remember that these “things” are vital, not necessarily because they exist, but because of the job they do for the customer or user.

The process or product is the drill – the need is the hole. Two key points to think about

1. There is no need for the drill without the hole. We come up with an approach or product to suit the needs of a job – the thing does not exist without the need
2. Without the drill, the hole would be must harder to create – and almost impossible to insure the right quality or create improvements

Each is extremely important to the other. But the process and solution are distinct entities.

We can focus on the solution and need, while also focusing on better process, or product – because while the needs that we have to achieve are pretty consistent, the tools we can employ can, should and must always change and improve. We can shape and craft the tools and approaches we use so we constantly get better at getting the job done.

Look around your world today and ask… what jobs are these people looking to get filled? How would a customer answer? How about an employee? How about your supervisor? A vendor? How about each of us? How about yourself?

So let’s make sure that while we are using the best drills, we remember that our focus, and purpose, is the hole we are trying to make.

It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that swing….

I wanted to review two key tenets that we have discussed before

1. Discipline is the basis of morale
2. Standards are the basis of improvement

Wanted to add a third rule to this… structure and schedule are the basis of flexibility and improvisation. We need to create a rhythm to our work world. If we have a rhythm, we can make changes as needed during the day. If we have no established structure and schedules (or rhythm for short) than we have made it hard to a) adapt to new situations and b) to get things back on track after something new has come up.

Whether it is a music band, a sports team or a work team – you have to develop a rhythm of how you work. This allows everything to flow together. You cannot wake up one day and expect it to be there. Any more than a band that gets together for its first practice would expect everything to be in the same time the first go round, or a sports team to anticipate each other’s moves in a first practice. This rhythm is essential to achieving excellence – and is something that must be deliberately worked on.

The key point to remember here is this: You have to work to create a structure, schedule and rhythm. And the good news/bad news is – we can never stop working on it. if we are doing great, we need to keep it up, if we are having some challenges – well we have to keep it up.

Checklists, calendars and regular meetings/updates are all part of how we establish rhythm.

Standards, expectations and schedules help us make rhythm habitual.

Debriefing and reviewing lessons learned are also a part of establishing and improving rhythm.

And this type of structure than gives us the power to:

1. To adapt to anything that comes up in a positive way
2. Frees us to focus on how we can be better; as opposed to simply how we keep going.

The more structure and systems we can put in our day, the more freely we can address the challenges in front of us and the opportunity ahead of us.

Discipline, standards, structure and schedules = Morale, improvement and rhythm.

That is our winning formula.

What's for Breakfast?

We often think of goals and objectives as key. And of course they are vital. As the cliché goes (roughly) “if you do not know where you are going, any road will take you there.” So over the next few weeks we will be talking about objectives and direction a good bit.

But there is an important internal check we must think about, and honestly assess before we begin the crucial, direction setting work that is goals and objectives. And that is about getting our words and actions in line with one another. When our words and actions are reflections of one another, we are in alignment. If they do not match up, we are out of alignment.

A company’s whose culture is in alignment is a powerful thing. And conversely if we are out of alignment, it is very difficult to move forward positively. There is another remark that is almost a cliché that is normally attributed to management guru Peter Drucker:

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

So before we worry about the direction we head, if we do not want to get eaten for breakfast (and who does?) we should take a moment and think the words and actions of our culture.

What areas if we were out of alignment would be the most damaging? What areas do we have the best alignment? Our ability to think about these questions, and then address them together is a crucial job for all of us.

So take a moment, and let’s think about our foundation, which is our culture. What values to we say we have? What values do we act out every day? Where we are out of alignment we are weak and it makes it hard to build. If you ever see any of us acting out of alignment, it is vital – and required – to let us know. We must be each other’s check and balance for keeping our actions and words in line.

But where and when our alignment strong, watch out world, because from there we can build something powerful and strong together. We must also point out to each other when we are getting it right so we can aggressively build on success.

So we, as managers and leaders, must spend a lot of time talking about where we are heading – which is to say our objective. But to make sure that we are not “eaten for breakfast” we should take a moment, and make sure that the foundation we are building from is strong and built from both our actions and words.

Actions and words, in line and in harmony with each other – this will be our breakfast of champions.