The Little Big Things

by Thomas J Peters

  Bread Loaf folks must not be as smart as I think; that is, they apparently didn’t know it was mud season. Every contractor’s truck in the parking lot—and the FedEx and UPS trucks, too—confirmed the “mud ball” image I just suggested. Except for Bread Loaf’s. There were two BL trucks in the lot, both sizable pickups. Both, in BL tradition, were painted fire-engine red.

  And neither—and here I do not exaggerate—had the tiniest apparent trace of dirt or mud or even dust.

  Later in the afternoon, I was having a long interview with a top dog at the ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day, and, not surprisingly, the topic turned to branding. Out of my mouth, startling me, popped, “Branding is a squeaky-sparkly clean bright red contractor’s truck in mud Season in Vermont.” We nattered on about the fact that branding is, well, about … Everything. On the one hand, that’s not very helpful or operational. On the other hand, it reminds us that nothing, absolutely nothing, is irrelevant to individual branding—or the branding of a construction company in Vermont or Susan Axelrod Accountants, or Megacorp Inc.

  Quintessential definition of an “everything”: Carl Sewell, based in Dallas, owns a string of car dealerships, including a Cadillac “store” in Dallas.

  Carl bought a … streetsweeper.

  The first thing a prospective customer sees of Sewell Village Cadillac is the road in front of the facility. Hence, Carl decided to take what his customer would see upon arrival—the street!—out of the city’s hands and into his own hands; it’s fair to say that “Project Clean Street” is a nontrivial element of his brand. That would also explain the fantastic arrays of flowers inside—worthy of the All-time Flower Champions, Issy Sharp’s Four Seasons Hotels. (I’d love to see Issy’s flower bill—it’d make me, but not Issy, blanch.)

  So (and I command):

  Stop.

  Right now.

  Check the reception desk.

  Check the reception area.

  (Check the street—even in Manhattan.)

  Check the bathroom.

  Check your last Client email.

  Check etc.

  Check etc.

  Check 10 “little things.”

  Right now.

  Is each one stunningly, amazingly Excellent?

  Does each one confirm & extend & broadcast your “brand promise”?

  You, personally?

  Your training department?

  Your six-person insurance company on Main Street?

  Your BigCo division?

  (Remember, a very BIG thing: You are in absolute control here!!!!!!!! There are things you cannot make happen, to be sure; but you, no matter how “junior,” or no matter what the state of the economy, can project Brand Excellence via a thousand “atmospherics” that in the end overwhelmingly determine Client-Employee perception.)

  (I judge that there’s a little bit of duplication in this point. I say: Hooray!)

  134. Think Billboard Sign. “We Care.” “We Don’t Care.”

  I was walking through a giant mall—visiting a renowned retailer’s space. Usually, they’re one of the best, poster practitioners of “experience” design & marketing.

  But … the place was a mess.

  Got me thinking. I’m not a “neat freak.” To the contrary, I’m a slob. But that’s home. Not my profession. I select hotels in large measure based on whether or not they have 1-hour, 24-hours-a-day pressing services. (It’s a fact.) I get paid (very) well for what I do. I don’t get paid to show up for a speech looking like I slept in my clothes!

  The retail space in question was crowded with customers and visitors. (Good for them.) But it’d gotten very messy in the course of the (busy) day. Stacked goods scattered about. Trash on the floor. Boxes half-opened near the checkout desk.

  Etc.

  (Etc.)

  To me the space … SCREAMED … “We Don’t Care.”

  There’s a lot to Great Retailing, or great whatever. But very near or at the head of the line is: “WE CARE!” And it starts with “look and feel.”

  I’m not pushing passionless ultra-tidiness. That can readily be a turnoff, too. I am suggesting that you (boss) formally ask everyone to take full responsibility for keeping things “professional” 100 percent of the time … to put their “We care” glasses on and eyeball the place. There’s but one question to ask: If I were walking in here as a customer or prospect or new hire, what would I take in—in the first 0.4 seconds? Where would it score on the 1 to 10 “We Care Scale”?

  (NB: This is exactly as true for a two-person walk-up law firm as for a national retail chain.)

  We care.

  We don’t care.

  (Take your pick.)

  (No in-between.)

  (Really … no in-between. Think about it.)

  Grunge

  135. The Enemy Within—Or: There Is No Cost Higher Than the Cost of Rigidity.

  In his June 2, 2009, New York Times column, “The Quagmire Ahead,” David Brooks begins his assessment of the GM fiasco by citing an internal memo written in … 1988 … by EVP Elmer Johnson:

  “We have vastly underestimated how deeply ingrained are the organizational and cultural rigidities that hamper our ability to execute.”

  That quote reminds me of another, this one by Norberto Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian-based heavy-industrial conglomerate, Odebrecht:

  “Data drawn from the real world attest to a fact that is beyond our control: Everything in existence tends to deteriorate.”

  “Simple” fact: Accompanying GM’s longtime designation of “biggest” came Olympian accompanying “rigidities.” One is reminded of yet another quote, this from Walt Kelly’s Pogo:

  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

  Business schools, the always helpful whipping boys in my rants, focus on the “cool” FMS troika. (Finance-Marketing-Strategy.) And yet it is the internal organizational “stuff,” mostly MIA or very secondary in B-schools (not sexy enough), that trip companies up. Not “bad strategy,” but … “rigidities” … that impede the ability to … “execute” … are the culprits behind shoddy performance in 9 out of 9.01 cases.

  Toyota didn’t do in GM.

  Honda didn’t do in GM.

  Nissan didn’t do in GM.

  GM did in GM.

  This is not news.

  It is, however, worth restating.

  And I shall do so.

  Again.

  And again.

  And then again.

  We have met the enemy.

  He is us.

  LOOK INSIDE—AND LOOSEN UP

  “Rigidities” is not just the problem of Giants.

  Rigidity is a disease in three-person accountancies and 11-table restaurants only one year old.

  Stop what you are doing.

  Right now.

  Call your best customer. Ask: “How are we doing … compared to a year ago? Six months ago? Are we making your life more complicated? Are we more bureaucratic in any way, shape, or even tiny (especially tiny—slow accretion of sluggishness, like arterial plaque, is the issue) form? Are we slowing down? Do we ever say, ‘I’d like to do that for you, but …’?”

  Call your best vendor.

  Repeat the above.

  Word for word.

  Visit your newest employee. Ask: “Have you run across procedures since you got here that you think are silly or overcomplicated? If so, have you passed your concerns along? If you haven’t, why not—do we make it intimidating for a ‘newcomer’ to surface such concerns? If you have passed such concerns along, have you been praised for doing so? (Or, God help us, looked at askance?) Has more or less immediate follow-up occurred?”

  At every Exec Group meeting, set aside a 15-minute block of time to discuss a “dumbest thing we’ve done lately” item—insist that members bring very recent cases along for discussion. Achieve some specific resolution on the spot—and don’t adjourn until you’ve got 7-, 14-, and 21-day Action Items with responsibility assigned.

  GM grew rigid on
e-second-at-a-time.

  You do, too.

  (Your unit has become more rigid in the time it took to read this little item.)

  (Believe it.)

  136. Become a Decentralization Dervish!

  Situation: A Sunday. Lufthansa check-in area. Logan Airport, Boston. Airport peaceful. The parent ahead of me has his young boy on a leash. The kid is energetic (i.e., boringly normal), and straining against the leash in the style of Lulu, my hypermanic Australian Shepherd.

  I’m not keen on losing kids in airports.

  (Yes, it’s happened—and it’s horrible.)

  I am unalterably opposed to “kid leashes.”

  Frankly, it made me slightly ill, though I demurred from saying anything.

  Child rearing.

  Delegating.

  Organization structure.

  Governance in general.

  In many ways, the primary issue in all the arenas just listed boils down to the classic Jeffersonian-Hamiltonian debate on centralization vs. decentralization. (I call the centralization-decentralization debate … “the all-important first 100 percent.” That is, it’s pretty much the whole ball game!)

  Jefferson believed in “We the people”—and, in fact, perpetual revolution. Hamilton said: Centralize, enhance order, and establish a strong executive to lead the way. (We’re fighting about “it,” every day, 220 years or so later—as we should be; it is not resolvable by definition.)

  How tight the reins?

  (Order, efficiency.)

  How much slack?

  (Initiative, innovation.)

  The child will never learn until she’s on her own and has been through a full set of disasters. But you don’t want any ill to come her way—so you keep the reins tight!

  Stop!

  Drop the “rational analysis.”

  Skip the “balance” argument!

  Cut to the chase!

  Every person who makes it into the history books is by definition … insanely disobedient. He or she doesn’t “buy the act.” He or she has contempt for his-her “betters.” And yet we tell our kids in school to “sit still, follow the rules, and behave.” (And if they don’t, we put them on a polyester or chemical/Ritalin or metaphorical leash.)

  These thoughts are the product not only of my Logan-Lufthansa tongue-biter, but also of a recent public row with a client over the imposition (right word, per me) of “best practice” standards in a big company.

  I love “best practices.”

  I hate “best practices.”

  I … love … best practices … if … they are “cool stuff” from a jillion disparate sources inside and outside the company and industry, available for each of us to learn from.

  I … hate … best practices when mimicry is demanded—“Do it the Memphis way or else!”

  (NB: Rigidly Applied “Best Practice” = ZERO Standard Deviation = Regression Rather Than Progress.)

  True, very true, you will never get “it”/the centralization-decentralization balance right (nation, child rearing, your 27-person unit).

  But … I bet you (I guarantee!) that … you Will s-l-o-w-l-y get it wrong.

  That is, unless … fanatically (again, right word) … managed, there is an inexorable movement toward centralization. I call it … ICD/Inherent Centralist Drift. As an ordained Bishop in the High Church of Decentralization, I humbly suggest that creeping centralization, or ICD, is the cause of the lion’s share of corporate collapses!

  Mostly it goes like this: An extant decentralized structure is in place. A problem hits us between the eyes, a pretty big one. The solution is … always (again, guarantee) … the same. A few, or more, rules and regulations to lower the odds of a repeat. Time passes. A new problem lands. And, again, we sensibly put some more regs in place. Over time, these 100 percent … individually reasonable … responses, and their expansive interpretation by several generations of managers flexing their “authority muscles” (call it what it is, justifying their professional existence!), lead to less and less initiative and innovation—and eventually paralysis, GM flavor. Trust me, this is the story.

  Screw up!

  Tighten up!

  Avoid screw-ups!

  Stagnate! Die!

  So: What are the precise procedures for maintaining constant vigilance so as to limit and in fact reverse the proliferation of originally sound-procedures-collectively-become-bureaucratic-cancer?

  For starters … Anti-ICD Police (please use the term) …

  Armed …

  and Dangerous …

  and Authorized/Encouraged to Act.

  (I further suggest, in addition to the Anti-ICD cops, a formal system of … BDs, or Bullshit Detectors. Think of it as your network of NSA satellites. And a … CGRO, or Chief Grunge Removal Officer, with an office next to the CIO and CFO and COO.)

  Have you explicitly exercised any formal Anti-ICD Procedures:

  This week?

  Today?

  (Prove it!)

  (I repeat: The “action idea” is very formal procedures and specifically designated individuals responsible for blocking “ICD” as it happens. And a commitment by leadership at all levels to proactively measure and manage anti-ICD activities.)

  ALL HANDS ON DRECK

  “Decentralization” is not a “CEO Thing.”

  It’s an … “everybody thing.”

  Decentralization is an … attitude! “Decentralization is not a piece of paper. It’s not me. It’s either in your heart, or not.”

  —Brian Joffe, CEO, BIDVest

  It’s a Willingness (desire!!) to “delegate,” to give others their head, to send them on Adventure Tours—every day.

  “If it [feels] painful and scary—then you are really delegating.”

  —Caspian Woods, small biz owner

  137. Play the … Great Grunge Removal Game!

  Commerce Bank (now owned by Toronto-Dominion) more or less revolutionized retail banking on the East Coast of the United States. For one thing, among ever so many, Commerce computer terminals in the branches had a … red button … on the keyboard. When you (teller) ran into any self-(bank)-created roadblock to serving the customer … you’d push the red button. The impediment you discovered would be noted and formally addressed—and if action were taken, and it often was, you’d get a financial reward for having unearthed Grunge of any sort that got between the customer and an excellent service experience.

  (Commerce also sported the “Two ‘No’” rule. If a customer asked for the combination to the Bank Vault … the teller was not permitted to say, “No”! First, the teller had to go to his supervisor—if she said “No,” then and only then could the teller reject the customer’s request. The idea is that the bank moved heaven and earth—referring even the most outrageous request up the line—to try to say “Yes” to any-damn-thing the customer wanted. Commerce in fact called itself … “Yes bank” … precisely because it went to great lengths to respond affirmatively to almost any customer desire.)

  My point-suggestion here is that you invent your flavor of Red Buttons (or “Two ‘No’” rule) for your 3-person department, your 9-person temporary project team, your 17-table restaurant, or your 235-person division. That is, mimic Commerce Bank by creating formal processes for Identifying Grunge and Removing Grunge and getting everyone in on the … Great Grunge Removal Game. Think of it at an even higher level of abstraction as a “Strategic” “Grunge Removal Culture”—a full-blown philosophy supported by a formal infrastructure to try to keep the “inevitable grunge growth” in check or even to reverse it. A host of possibilities are there for the taking:

  An Anti-Grunge Pledge of Allegiance every morning. (Is this “going too far”? No! Grunge is the #1 Organization Effectiveness Killer—period.) (Remember … GM wrecked GM!)

  An anti-grunge item on every meeting agenda.

  A “C-level” anti-grunge exec: CGRO, Chief Grunge Removal Officer.

  Rewards for Grunge Identifiers and Grunge Removers at all levels.<
br />
  Punishments for Grunge Growers at all levels. (This, too, could be made into a game. Rather than a formal “letter to the file,” giving each other a hard time for making life more difficult for internal and external others could be treated as sport—to great positive effect.)

  Devices to continually and automatically measure grunge growth and purge systems and procedures and processes of Complexity Creep/Grunge Accretion.

  Your version of visible Red Buttons for one and all and the “Two ‘No’ Process.”

  Etc.

  Get on with this … today!

  (It’s a must.)

  Grunge Grows … 60/60/24/7/365.

  138. The 1 Percent Drill: Clearing Away a World of “Slop” in Just 45 Minutes.

  I did an in-company seminar in the United Kingdom several years ago, for a midsized firm. ($50 million?) A generalist consultant was my copresenter; to be more accurate, he handled the first two-thirds of the day, and I provided the (I hope) grand finale.

  At about 2:00 P.M. he called an abrupt halt to proceedings, and said, “I want to make sure I earn out my full fee today, and then some. We’re going to stop and do a 45-minute exercise.”

  He explained that any operation can at any time cut 1 percent of its budget. (We all have flab, regardless of circumstances—not many with single-digit BMIs.) Though I in general (vehemently) oppose across-the-board cuts, I have absolutely no problem with the 1 percent idea—slop happens! The leader then broke the group up by function; about five functions were represented, as I recall. He gave the subgroups 30 minutes on the dot to identify their team’s 1 percent. Then he had each group report in public for two or three minutes—this public recitation, he told me, raised the odds of execution; it also provided others with ideas.