Are we really that gullible that we just believe what people tell us when it comes to products and services, things we part with our hard earned for?

In the biggest twist of fate I have seen for ages Coca-Cola say NO WE ARE NOT!

WHY, would the one of the worlds biggest consumer brands say that when it spends more than the GDP of a small country on marketing?

Check out this article being circulated on Twitter today – The Dark side of Vitamin Water

In a staggering feat of twisted logic, lawyers for Coca-Cola are defending the lawsuit by asserting that “no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

I completely agree with John Robbins who says I still can’t get over the bizarre audacity of Coke’s legal case. Forced to defend themselves in court, they are acknowledging that vitaminwater isn’t a healthy product. But they are arguing that advertising it as such isn’t false advertising, because no could possibly believe such a ridiculous claim.

My mind (that likes to process map everything) will not let go of this thought. Coke spend money convincing us their product is healthy, when all the time they know it’s not and believe we know it’s not. Is this the next raft of marketing innovation? Or is it that Coke believe that they just could not say “hands up your right and we are guilty as charged”

” Noting that the soft drink giant wasn’t claiming the lawsuit was wrong on factual grounds, the judge wrote that, “Accordingly, I must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true.”

It will be interesting to see if this kills the brand or Coke are right, the one thing that has not changed is that through whatever channel, we will decide.

Are you having an affair?…
…dabbling with a little social media, playing marketing consultant or technical reviewer in your spare time?

Seriously, the social networks are creating opportunities for us to get involved in things that once were the domain of professionals that were out of reach. Now we can all have a go and the consensus is this making a difference to how we view the world and choose our products and services but is it changing the way we work?

Some questions…
1. Has the way you engage with people over the social networks e.g. chat with strangers, engage on topics of interest, etc. changed the way you engage with people at work?
2. Have you uncovered new skill sets via the social networks that you have used in your actual workplace?
3. Has the use of social networks made you feel more satisfied or less satisfied with your day job?

If you are an employer or manage people do you know what turns them on? Do you know what they are doing in the virtual world? A lot of companies knee jerked a reaction to the use of social networks in the workplace and banned them and now slowly they are creeping back in through another knee jerk reaction – now to use them from a business perspective.
As always our advice start with the end in mind…find out what turns you and your workforce on, if it’s something they are getting from their “affair” there is an opportunity on your doorstep.

The conference aims to provide an understanding of why outcome measures are an essential part of Neuro Rehabilitation Services.

For details of the event or to register visit Huntercombe

Lean thinking is not new. Lean manufacturing principles are the foundation of most production facilities around the world but this thinking is effective in any function and any industry.

Lean production methods were pioneered by Toyota in Japan and include the use of tools such as; the seven wastes, 5S, Kanban, TPM, Rapid Changeovers and 6 Sigma.

The key tool though is the value mapping process and the ability to identify waste and attack that waste systematically. It is this element of Lean thinking that is being applied in service organisations both in the public and private sector and is extending to functions outside of manufacturing.

Why?

Understanding consumer values, their decision making process and how they spend their disposable income is going to become the foundation for business strategy and management policy in 2010.

Add to that the fact that in a standardised world where things are increasingly similar the world over, people are the difference and employee engagement is going to make the difference.

Lean working is about understanding and meeting the needs of the consumers more effectively. For most organisations it will be about meeting those needs in a better, faster and right first time way – eliminating waste, reducing costs, enhancing value.

The theory is simple:

• Define value from the perspective of the consumer
• Map the flow of activities that create that value
• Design the most efficient way of achieving it

In the next 6 stages the framework for delivering a Lean Programme are identified and the implication on people exposed.

Stage 1 – Vision

The starting point is to be able to visualise and identify value from the perspective of the consumer.

Do you really understand what activities really add value for your customers?

Will Lean help to deliver the organisations strategic business objectives?

Do the Leaders and Managers understand the cultural and organisational change gap?

Adoption of Lean thinking is a cultural and organisational change project and as such requires top level buy in, and understanding of how much commitment you are willing to make and the benefits that you want to see delivered.

Stage 2 – Communication, communication and communication.

Lean affects the organisational structure in very different ways.

In stage 1 we have taken the visionary leaders of the organisation and clarified the reason for delivering Lean. Once this is done and communicated the process switches to being a bottom up driven approach.

Why?

The best way to eliminate waste is to be close to where it is created. Of course this raises a number of issues:

• Are the doers in the organisation capable of working in process teams rather than functional teams?
• Are the Managers able to facilitate and support the process without influencing?
• Are you putting employees in a position where they may “eliminate” their own role and reason for being?

The impact on the people in the organisation is significant and the message communicated at this stage is critical.

A big question at this point is; does your organisation know more about its customers than its employees?

Are you able to have an adult two way relationship between leaders and managers and managers and workers?

Engagement and involvement are critical in managing change in the work environment. Many of the barriers to the success of change projects are people related. This is compounded when implementing Lean, where the involvement and engagement of the workforce is essential.

Aligning the adoption of Lean with an Employee Engagement programme can be a winning combination. Communicating both together allows for positive reflection on a change that is not being done to the workforce but is being delivered by the workforce.

There is increasing evidence that individual’s skills are being under utilised at work, which is a significant source of disengagement for the individual concerned and it also signifies significant waste.

Carrying out a people and talent audit will provide a foundation stone for Lean and ensure that the cultural and organisational change is clearly understood, helping the journey to be sustainable.

Stage 3 – Deliver a current state value map

To move forward you must know where you are coming from.

Can you define your end to end value chain?

As previously mentioned this needs to be done by creating process teams. In some organisations these will be cross functional and in others cross functional and inter-company.

Many organisations will have gone through years of Value Adding, so it is natural at this point for there to be a level of cynicism about a new focus on the elimination of waste.

It can be helpful at this point to bring in some external co-ordination to limit the potential for smoothing of the existing process born by a fear of becoming victims of the process.

Stage 4 – Disruption!

The fun bit! An unreasonable challenge on what is done and why. The dependency is being far enough down the Employee Engagement Process that there is a real desire and passion to find the better, faster, right first time route to what the consumer wants.

How?

Follow the Google theory; “give the proper tools to a group of people who want to make a difference and they will”.

The purpose here is to invoke positive emotions from people taking personal responsibility, giving them freedom to make decisions and organise their work.

The changes in the social structure and impact of the economic downturn have left many people wanting more than a pay packet. More people are taking personal responsibility for themselves and others in their everyday lives and are less willing to abandon their desire for self determination when they enter work – engaging this side of the workforce is key to successful Lean implementation. There are consequences though…

Managers used to having responsibility and control over a clear function may struggle with the behavioural change associated with this type of transformation. Supporting them with coaching and mentoring will ensure that conflict is managed positively and will ultimately deliver a management group who can facilitate change and eliminate waste effectively.

Stage 5 – The Transformation Programme

The results of the disruption process will require packaging into manageable projects that will link together as part of the Lean Programme. The ideal situation is to have the Lean Programme sponsored at Board level, with the Board becoming a Steering Group for the overall timeline and delivery of benefits.

Each project will then have a Manager level sponsor and a Project Manager responsible for delivery of the Lean initiative through the process team.

It is very likely that as a result of disruption the value chain identified will cut across the traditional functional structure. This will result in the need for restructuring of functional responsibility focusing on major business process activity.

Stage 6 – Sustainability

It seems sometimes that the desire, excitement and commitment to business transformation only exists when the programme is in full flight. It is common now in many organisations for new transformation programmes to start up as one is finishing off and that energy is some how transferred to the new initiative with the belief that this programme has delivered…

BIG MISTAKE!

Creating sustainable change takes continued effort and improvement. Organisations who feel the job is done at the end of the programme have usually not aligned goals and strategic benefits correctly and more importantly are not measuring success.

Performance monitoring at several levels; results based, process based, team and individual is critical in not only quantifying the benefits of Lean working but ensuring that hot spots are identified and the philosophy of continuous improvement is maintained.

Lean is not a one hit wonder. It is a business process change that if done correctly will change the organisational design, focus, culture, behaviour and way of working for the organisation.

There are a number of HR specific considerations to ensure sustainability of Lean:

• Performance related appraisal scheme
• Commitment to challenging poor behaviour
• Designing rewards that encourage the type of behaviour and action required to meet business aims

Values driven engagement:

• Improved team working
• Mutual support
• Greater personal responsibility
• Autonomy
• More focus on collaboration and influencing

The 21st Century Workplace is going to need to focus on; flexibility, change and continuous improvement. There will be more emphasis on attitudes, behaviours and outcomes. This will be measurable and correlated with performance. Lean provides an umbrella to do all of that and generate some tangible financial benefits by focusing on what your consumer wants to see and finding the simplest way of delivering it.

Lean, just for manufacturing? Not in our experience.

WHY? When they know it will make a difference?

As I read the Times, one after the other these stories added to the argument well underway in my head.

First the crimes of neglect. The parents of two brothers whose toxic upbringing, led to them torturing two innocent children. “31 missed opportunities to take action that would have prevented the crime”.

We live in an imperfect society where we know that people can ignore their responsibility and are not always accountable for their actions. To protect the innocent people who get caught in that imperfection there is a process and rules, a safety net.

How could this safety net have missed so many opportunities to make a difference?

Part of the training we deliver is “don’t be sheep”. If after following the process and rules you can see that something is wrong take accountability for ensuring that the right decision is made, don’t just tick boxes and then sit back and ignore responsibility by thinking your job is done.

Courageous Frances Inglis, jailed for 9 years for the mercy killing of her son. The process and rules allow for the starvation of her son, “If a vet let a dog die like this, he would be reported to the RSPCA”, but not by lethal injection which is of course what we do to put an animal out of its misery.

The process and rules followed but to what end? I have no doubt the Frances was willing to end her own life to stop the suffering of her son, being imprisoned does nothing to protect anyone, not her or society. So by following the rules and process here what difference have we made?

The mother of “Britain’s sickest child” jailed for 3 years after faking his illness. This boy had been seen by doctors more than 325 times and had undergone 9 operations. She managed to do this by bullying hospital staff and playing them off against each other.

The story focuses on the cruelty of the mother and I am not for one minute disputing that but come on, 325 times in front of a doctor and 9 actual operations, she is not the only person under the microscope here surely?

Don’t be sheep

My final story “courage and comradeship keys to survival in an inhospitable land” working in Sangin, Helmand. The armed forces the pinnacle of a world that relies on people following process and rules, taking responsibility and being accountable. People who understand the value of these things and the difference they make but who have the intelligence and courage to do what is necessary when it is necessary.

These are people who make a difference everyday

So as I close the paper and look at my parachute I thank my luck stars that a life will not depend on me finding out why this team are not following the PLM process and rules and are shirking both responsibility and accountability, but I will act like it does because I know it will make a difference.

• Snowday.co.uk (all about school closures)
• Snowday.com (coming soon? going to miss the boat there guys)
• A Times article from 3rd Feb 2009 when the industry valued last year’s snow disruption at £3bn
• Snow day live blog from the Guardian
• Some interesting news from Twitter, with a great screen shot from Trendsmap which sadly only shows the popular terms used in the south but the article confirms that in the north we featured more terms like “sledging” and “snowman”!

Today The Business Desk reported that business across the NW could have lost as much as £50m as a result of absenteeism yesterday!!

Cheeky Monkey HQ is in Lymm. We are well and truly snowed in but did this raise panic through our ranks and stop our world, no.

Why?

We are set up to work remotely, like I thought so many other businesses are? Are the stories of more flexible working and the increasing use of technology really what they seem?
We have swapped the motorways for conference calls. Sharing data files via our cloud. The snow is not stopping emails, SMS messages or Messenger.

What’s all the Fuss About?

We have sent our snowy pictures to our colleagues in Nigeria, those in Toronto cannot believe what a fuss we are making about this and our friendly Swede Patrik quite rightly said if anyone wants to attack the UK they just have to wait for a bit of snow.

White is the New Black

Enjoy the snow! As far as we are concerned the snow has bought a bit of calm to our lives. We have to walk instead of drive. People are acting like a community again, swapping tales, helping each other and more than anything just talking (and having snowball fights, building snowmen and sledging!).

Find a Different Way

If your business is suffering the snow may be your wake up call to look at different ways of working. It is going to be a beautiful day perhaps more of us need to see this as a sign to move into the new decade a different way.
And before anyone starts I know we can’t do everything in the virtual world, I am desperate to get my hair cut and so far that cannot be done online…

On this occasion Richard is quite literally ‘reaching for the stars’, but it is fair to say that this has always been his business and life philosophy. So what makes him so different?

It’s Not Rocket Science

The difference between Richard and most other people is that he reaches beyond the stars. If pushing the boundaries leads to success or failure, he takes a ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ approach.

I know we don’t all have the resources and freedom to aspire to the extreme projects of the Virgin empire, but it is important to remember that all of us have the power to challenge ourselves to achieve higher and higher levels of success.

Set Some Goals

Setting goals is important! We all need goals in life, both business and personal, they help us to focus on what we want to achieve and motivate us to do what it takes to succeed. It sounds simple but it is surprising how many of us are drifting.

It’s a great feeling to reach a goal and it is truly something to be celebrated, once you have felt that feeling of elation it’s addictive. what’s left to do? Make new goals!

Don’t Get Stuck in Your Comfort Zone

Nobody wants to fail but setting goals that you know you can consistently achieve will not buy you a ride on ‘WhiteKnightTwo’ get out of your comfort zone and lead the way to something new.

Projects were (and in my book still are) a vehicle for change. An opportunity to step outside of business as usual, break down barriers and find the fastest most effective way of delivering the desired change. Then carefully, integrate that back into the business as a new way of working, nurturing it like a sapling that needs to take root.

The philosophy was a real hit. Now most companies have some kind of Project Management function and there are so many Project Managers.

BUT HAVEN’T WE MISSED THE POINT HERE?

They have become part of the establishment, surely the antidote to what they are there to do?

Truly successful projects are still in the minority and change on the whole is still managed badly.

WHY DO COMPANIES WANT (OR PUT UP WITH) THIS DILUTION?

Have we got so used to projects not quite making the deadline or failing to keep to budget that we have lowered our expectations?

OR ARE LEADERS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT THEY ARE COMFORTABLE WITH?

When I was an employed Project Manager I was a total pain in the arse for all my bosses because I challenged everything. Not to be obstructive but because I always believed there was a better way, I believed it was my job to lead change. This did not always sit well with my bosses who, some saw the benefit and promoted the success, others distanced themselves waiting for me to hang myself.

CHANGE CREATES HEAT AND LIGHT

If you have an internal change team then the management team need to be enlightened, the mavericks, the ones who don’t care who is going to be upset, they see a vision and know they can get there.

The best creations, most innovative ideas, advances in ways of working and process need heat and light. Make a difference, create a lightening bolt today!

This rule is aimed at encouraging clubs to nurture raw talent and give young players a greater opportunity to shine through a squad of bought in experienced professionals.

The truth is buying talent is an attractive option

It is also true that we don’t all have the resources of Manchester City and most of us are looking for ways to stretch the pound without compromising on quality, whether this is on food, clothing, travel or talent.

In all of these areas, grow your own is back in vogue.

There are of course pro’s and cons…

Buy It

Grow It

Ideally, most companies will need to strike a balance between buying and growing their talent. There is no right or wrong way of recruiting, you have to go with what is right for your business. For a modern business like Cheeky Monkey it is difficult to put down on paper the qualifications that we require because so much of the value we bring comes from a softer set of skills and attitude.

Is grow your own an opportunity to be bespoke?

Our recent twitter survey ‘what motivates us to work’ showed that people’s key motivator for working is not money.

We believe that employees want to feel happy in their jobs by doing work that adds value, that challenges them and makes them feel like they are being developed by their employer.

We can offer all of that.

But…

It’s not for everyone.

If you think it’s for you, get in touch – we are planting.