Welcome to the pressure-packed nearly no-win world of 103 PMCI Commercial Innovators. What’s more important — driving revenue or scheduling yet another series of non-productive meetings?
“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “When you say what you need to say but no one seems to be listening, take it as a signal to repeat. Many people will not even begin to understand until you’ve said it seven times.” Scorpio
Hi and welcome to Sunday’s Episode 78 in Season 2 of “My Pandemic Year Natural Experiment” on this 12th day of July in the summer of 2020.
“The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”
Season One and Two are a two-year examination of how bits of wisdom changed during the “normal” pre-pandemic and then in this unfolding pandemic year.
Previously in Season Two, the Pandemic Year
S2 E77 — 10 Years of Field Research for Better or Worse: S2 E76 — Do You Have What It Takes to Become a Paradoxy-Moron?; S2 E75 — Guinea Pig Projections
Related from Season One, the Normal Year
S1 E78 — Drag Me to Obsolescence, Clear the Way to the Future: S1 E77 — Why This Caper Is Breaking My Mind; S1 E76 — “The Tau of Steves: What You Don’t Know Could Fill a Book”; S1 E75 — Dreams and Schemes and Workarounds
Context
This is a continuation of “Volume Two Manuscript — WorkFit” a work-in-progress.
In our last episode we began breaking out talent profiles for each of the 4 Organization Types starting with Paradoxy-Morons.
At first I couldn’t figure out how I could contribute most to each Paradoxy-Moron-like company for which I worked or later advised.
But, of course over time patterns emerged.
Take for instance …
23. Organizational Development – Technology —
Working for a 101 PMBI Breakpoint Inventor was right up my alley. Ed, the General Manager of a technology division in Southern California had a vision for advanced manufacturing in the future. He subscribed to the “lets-use-our-own-technology” to see what it makes us become.
He wanted to chunk out unneeded steps in the process, break down manufacturing lines into small groups and cross train everyone. And he wanted to “pull expertise” from engineers who supported the operations to “upskill” the teams.
This wasn’t a startup. It wasn’t met with open arms by the engineers or the factory supervisors or even the manufacturing teams.
Really at the core the biggest obstacle was how the “rank and file” used to being told what, when, and how to “do it” couldn’t grasp his unproven vision of doing things in a new way. So our role was to help Ed communicate in more tangible ways what his vision was so people could begin to participate.
We set up Minimum Viable Product demonstrations on the factory floor and challenged the old timers to compete. When they couldn’t they knew it was time to trust where he wanted to take us to the future.
Climate for Innovation — that’s the theme my team got three local leaders of manufacturing, software engineering and firmware engineering to sponsor in the California division of an east-coast headquartered company.
They were on the hook to finish products on their roadmaps, but to figure out ways to shrink development time before their competitors did.
We scheduled a communications program that interviewed each leader and gave them an opportunity to describe what was important to their group and how each of the other groups fit together.
It wasn’t technology or talent as much as it was product team formation, storming, norming and performing that sped progress on the relentless time to market.
By sailing to Catalina, holing up in a local hotel and hashing product roadmaps teams were literally able to think out of the box away from the mainland and return to their work with a fresh perspective.
If anyone is going to render our technology obsolete, so Paradoxy-Morons believe it better be us. It’s only a matter of time — faster than they or you may think — before someone else develops the next generation
Easier said than done, but how do you stay one or two steps ahead of the technology and competition?
You enlist an intrepreneurial network of 104 PMRDE R&D Experimenters (people closest to the products) for matching ideas and developing new concepts, for finding like-minded co-conspirators and influencing decision-makers with budget to invest.
It’s not always about exploring what’s “out there” as it relentlessly pursuing was to re-engineer and leapfrog their own products. If anyone is going to render our technology obsolete, it better be us.
It’s only a matter of time — faster than they or you may think — before someone else develops the next generation.
Sometimes you literally need to remove yourselves from the internal politics and status quo, like across the street with fewer resources as in a startup to meet your goal of bringing in a much smaller footprint to huge computer, that was faster and easier to program
What makes Paradoxy-Morons tick? Faster, better, brighter, smaller, cheaper.
What are their unique challenges? Willingly and frequently jumping out your habitual ways, accelerating teams to keep pace with the time-to-market demands, and then soaking up “proprietary” processes converting them into best practices and circulating them to whomever needs them as they need them.
25 — Director Continuous Improvement —
When engineering companies place a premium on time-to-market for handing out bonuses to their product managers, those manager want to pick their own exceptional players they can trust, and shield them from unnecessary activities like attending an endless seeming stream of meeting.
Welcome to the pressure-packed nearly no-win world of 103 PMCI Commercial Innovators. What’s more important — driving revenue or scheduling yet another series of non-productive meetings? And what’s wrong with flying by the seat of our pants and doing whatever it took to meet new time-to-market product introductions?
26 — Emerging Desktop Projector Company —
With 200 roughly employees generating revenues of roughly 200 million dollars. Not enough time. Spread too thin. Unforeseen obstacles.
Not only isn’t there enough time, but as a 103 PMCI Commercial Innovator when you begin your new product, you only have a smaller set of engineering and technical people at your disposal, No-one remains idle. The “good ones” aren’t available until they complete their current assignments. If something delays their product launch, your own kickoff with a full team is in jeopardy.
103 PMCI Commercial Innovators worked with me to facilitate their teams using their product (multimedia projectors) but in a reverse engineered way. Instead of lecturing or teaching from a laptop, we connected one to Tegritys’ whiteboard system on the company’s intranet. Instead of projecting we were co-creating PowerPoint-like output. We were able to share drawings, schematics, intentions and changes in near realtime and as a “place” for each person who missed a key part — traveling, still on a product-delayed team — and catch up quickly.
104 PMRDE R&D Experimenter and 102 PMTL Thought Leaders collaborated with a small group researching how lasers could project images over great distances hoping for a breakthrough. A San Diego University’s foundational research partner shared the cost and provided needed resources to launch a minimum viable product as a proof of concept for commercialization.
Summary
What makes Paradoxy-Morons tick?
They notice how limited the traditional, status quo solves the really complex problems and challenges
Disrupting.
A fast-paced, innovative culture that attracts and retains the best of the best.
Motto?
“It’s better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission.”
What are their unique challenges?
-
-
- They champion paradigms based on new science discoveries.
- Once is not enough. From one world beater to several again an again
- Finding commercial applications of disruptive innovation in the form of new product categories — which haven’t been proven until flawed prototypes and buggy technology work themselves out
-
What are the takeaways?
Innovations have to come faster. Concurrent overlapping talent demands.
In the start up stage they are capable of anticipating something new and act decisively to establish a new market, industry, technology or a new scientific discipline.
Next up Emerging-Entrepreneurs.
Evidence
“5” Steve Zahn, 51: “When you say what you need to say but no one seems to be listening, take it as a signal to repeat. Many people will not even begin to understand until you’ve said it seven times.” Scorpio
If you find yourself attracted to 105 EEMA Marketing Athletes, you’ll already know about how nothing happens in a marketing and sales effort until roughly the 7th contact.
Random ones that make me want change my sign.
“3” Steve McQueen (1930 – 1980): “You know who you are and you tell the world today, mostly by how you move around in it, what you say and the feeling you bring to interactions.” Aries
OK, so I do know who I am, but in today’s world I gotta tell you there isn’t a whole lot of maskless interactions going on in my daily life. My message? Wear your mask or get out of my space. Haha
“4” Steve Carrell, 57; Steve Martin, 74; Steve Wozniak, 69: “You’re not trying to do a job. You’re trying to turn a job into art. This is why you’ll put more thought into your task than the others do, and this is why you’ll get better results.” Leo
Well, let me stipulate I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I don’t need a job, but I do have a lot of left over “art” from earlier careers to keep me busy.
“3” Steve Greene, 34; Steve Guttenberg, 61; Stephen King, 72: “You root for the underdog before you even realize how the odds are stacked. It’s because you see merit where others do not, and you’ll be correct in this too. Your cheerleading will make a difference.” Virgo
While this is true, I’m always amazed that my team can measure up to that team which seems to be flawless compared to mine. And, at work during my careers, I did side with the underdog, the employees called associates, when it came to maneuvering through their organizations.
“4” Steve Aoki, 41: “The effort you make doesn’t always directly correlate with the results you get, which is what makes today mighty fine. You’ll be able to see how you’re making a difference in real-time.” Sagittarius
So either I’m lazy or I’m barking up the wrong tree. Squirrel, woof, woof …
“4” Steve Jobs, (1955 – 2011): “You’ll engage your life honestly, at least in your head. This is the start of all clarity. The day will bring you many gifts as you move toward your own excuses and faults with love.” Pisces
Wow. The first two sentences made me grab this TauBit early in the day. It promised so much, until it lost me in the last two words.
Holiday Forecast for the Week Ahead:
The battle to change is challenging enough when it’s you you’re trying change, but when it’s someone else, it’s not only hard, it’s also probably futile, possibly selfish and likely impossible.
Of course, all around us transformations are occurring without mental effort, intention or any willpower at all.
Tides go out and in and out again. Planets travel; naiads become dragonflies; babies learn to stand and sing and leap.
When you quiet your mind, breathe easy and do very little of anything at all, you align yourself with the ever-changing nature of nature.
What’s Going On …
Literally Bottled and Set Adrift from KnowWhere Atoll
-
- @knowlabs followers of one or more of my 35 digital magazines organically grew from 4341 to 4397.
Foresight
Quality-of-Life
-
- Despite jobs rebound, Fed officials see long road to recovery from pandemic recession – Los Angeles Times
- Op-Ed: Is the California dream finished? – Los Angeles Times
- Ben Ehrenreich’s ‘Desert Notebooks’ explores time with COVID – Los Angeles Times
- Lynn Steger’s Strong’s ‘Want,’ the bankrupt American Dream – Los Angeles Times
Long-Form
-
- Saw the movie, didn’t realize that one of my favorite authors, Michael Connelly — his detective Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch book series and Amazon Prime series — also wrote, “The Lincoln Lawyer” which I just finished. Gotta tell you I can’t not see his lead character (Mickey Haller, Bosch’s half brother) as anyone else but Matthew McConaughey.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Inspired by: Holiday Mathis – Creators Syndicate
CENTER FOR KNOWLEDGE CREATION AND INNOVATION
The Knowledge Path | Know Laboratories | Knowledge Banking | Knowledge ATMs | Western Skies and Island Currents | Best West Road Trip