
One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf. He was enjoying the warmth of the afternoon sun and the prospect of catching a fish.
About that time, a businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. He noticed the fisherman sitting on the beach and decided to find out why this fisherman was fishing instead of working harder to make a living for himself and his family.
“You aren’t going to catch many fish that way,” said the businessman to the fisherman, “you should be working rather than lying on the beach!”
The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled and replied, “And what will my reward be?”
“Well, you can get bigger nets and catch more fish!” was the businessman’s answer.
“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman, still smiling.
The businessman replied, “You will make money and you’ll be able to buy a boat, which will then result in larger catches of fish!”
“And then what will my reward be?” asked the fisherman again.
The businessman was beginning to get a little irritated with the fisherman’s questions. “You can buy a bigger boat, and hire some people to work for you!” he said.
“And then what will my reward be?” repeated the fisherman.
The businessman was getting angry. “Don’t you understand? You can build up a fleet of fishing boats, sail all over the world, and let all your employees catch fish for you!”
Once again the fisherman asked, “And then what will my reward be?”
The businessman was red with rage and shouted at the fisherman, “Don’t you understand that you can become so rich that you will never have to work for your living again! You can spend all the rest of your days sitting on this beach, looking at the sunset. You won’t have a care in the world!”
The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”
It sure is busy here at BPM Towers. In the last month we qualified two new BPGroup Licensed Coaches, Mark Johnston (UK based) and Alexandre Nevski (Swiss based). Another, Ian Singleton (UK Public sector), is close to completing the requirements and will no doubt jump in the deep end, just as Alex is doing this week.
In a true baptism of fire Alex starts his Coaching assignments in Helsinki and then Moscow where he will lead more than 50 wannabe Certified Process Professionals through CPP Levels 1&2.
Latest CPP program http://www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html
Meanwhile yours truly isn’t sitting on the beach 😉 I am here in Delhi flying the flag with our Indian partners iCMG in delivering training to the worlds leading BPO companies. Next week sees me in Bangalore (the garden city) while Jason Edlin, our Lead Coach with Frame Group, tackles, sorry works with, a challenging bunch in Melbourne and Canberra.
And then I will be joining with Jennifer van Wyk (South Africa BP Group Lead Coach) in Southern Africa and Tanzania for more Outside-In explorations and deployments.
April 2012 was indeed our busiest month ever as we move to celebrate our 20th anniversary with more than 300 people gaining at least Certified Process Professional ® (CPP®) status, and of those 18 became BPGroup Certified Process Professional Masters ® (CPP-Master®).
We will have an update for all later this week which will include new videos, new case studies, new downloads, the new CEMMethod™ news (with a supporting webinar) and always the latest CPP program http://www.bpgroup.org/certification-by-city.html
Have a truly great week and I will see you in the action later….
Cheers
Steve
Industrial/Information Age | Customer Age | ||
People | Silo’s | Multi functional | |
Specialist | Multi skilled | ||
Isolated | Relationships | ||
Awards – Time served | Awards – Value Created | ||
Autocratic | Dynamic (to suit the needs) | ||
Processes | Doing things right | Doing the right things and doing things right | |
Manufacturing mindset | Customer Experience | ||
Tasks/Activities and Outputs | Outcomes and SCO’s | ||
Stocks | Flows | ||
Products | Services | ||
Left to Right, Top to Bottom | Customer Centric | ||
IT | Algorithmic | Heuristic | |
Hierarchical | Hyperlinked | ||
Analytical | Understanding | ||
Ownership | Access | ||
Strategy | Top Down | Inclusive | |
Structured and Rigid eg 5 yr plans | Agile and Adaptive | ||
Tablets of stone | Continual Alignment to SCO’s | ||
Market/product focus | Customer/expectation focus | ||
Customers | Uninformed | Prosumer | |
Loyal | Promiscuous | ||
Forgiving | Rebellious | ||
Locked-In | Demand Flexibility | ||
Compliant and managed | High Expectations and fickle | ||
Single channel | Multi channel | ||
We can probably reasonably observe, without fear of understatement, that the customer has changed forever. The reason our organisations exist, the people who pay our wages, the cause of all the work we do has evolved beyond recongnition.
In the BP Groups research and experience with the leading companies of the 21st century the answer is … YES, some in fact do understand and act on this new imperative. However the majority, including some previously prestigious names are not getting it. Look at the troubles of Nokia, Kodak, Sony, British Airways, Air India, United… the list is extensive and disturbing.
For our examples of successful transformation and realignment we can include Emirates, Zappos, Zara, Apple, Indigo, Hallmark and BMW. A wide selection from different industries, cultures and operating models. We will get to sepcifics later, for now let’s review the reason for their successful adoption of Advanced BPM, otherwise known as Outside-In. The customer!
The acccepted business wisdom until the end of the last century was the adoption and exploration of ideas originally described by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. This seminal work introduced the world to the concept of the sub division of labour.
Written during the advent of the industrial revolution the ‘Wealth of Nations’ created a framework for organising manufactories and people into similar skills and disciplines. In fact the original work in a Scottish pin factory demonstrated 20 fold improvements to productivity and as such became a template for achieving industrial and commercial success. Two and a half centuries later the model is still taught in business schools and academia as the way to structure and organise work. After all it worked for 200+ years?
And there is the rub. The challenges we face in the 21st century are very different to those being addressed by Adam Smith and the industrialists of the Napoleonic era. Let’s get to grips with some of the shifts…
to be continued……
Image courtesy of:
Steve says that these experiences have caused him to look at BPM in a remarkable way. As the catalyst for global transformation BPM and process excellence is the means to realign our organisations on behalf of its employees and customers to achieve spectacular results.
If you’d enjoy sharing some of the insights and the secrets of 21st century organisation success you will enjoy his columns.
Successful Customer Outcomes:
http://www.successfulcustomeroutcomes.net/
BPGroup:
http://www.bpgroup.org
2) Teams must communicate with each other through these interfaces.
3) There will be no other form of
interprocess communication allowed: no direct linking, no direct reads of another team’s data store, no shared-memory model, no back-doors whatsoever6) Anyone who doesn’t do this will be fired.