Wim GE De Vos

Author: Wim GE De Vos

  • Golden rules for business

    Golden rules for business

    It is so much more valuable to know how to think instead of what to think. That is why we need theories. Golden rules.

    A good theory is like a power tool ⚙️.

    Caution🔌: Todays management and strategy literature is often more popular because it is marketed like Coca-Cola instead of being truly useful or effective. (“hire A-players; have a good strategy;…🤷🏽‍♂️)
    note: Yes this is a clear reference to Jim Collins & company who seem to write the theories first to only afterwards pick the subjects for their “research”… causality is all backwards.

    A good theory does not change its mind.

    It doesn´t apply only to some companies or people and not to others. It is a general statement of what causes what, and why.**

    So here is such a theory or 3 golden rules from Harvard Business Review* on how to build a great business. It is based on statistical solid research and we have applied it rigorously since with success.

    3 golden rules to build a great business

    1. Better before cheaper: don´t compete on price, compete on value.
    2. Revenue before cost: don´t drive profitability by cutting costs, instead find ways to earn higher prices or higher volume.
    3. there are no other rules: view all other choices through the lens of the first 2 rules.

    So now you can go back to your pending strategic business decisions and apply the 3 golden rules…

    • figure out your product mix, growth, solutions strategy, pricing
    • decide which markets to enter or not, and how and when
    • make recruitment decisions, hire, develop, fire
    • marketing strategy, sales plan, service levels, customer satisfaction initiatives,…

    The simplicity of these rules does not mean they are easy to follow through.

    These rules simply drastically increase your probability of success…

    *HBR “Three Rules for making a Company Truly Great”

    ** Clayton M Christensen

  • 🏔 OKRs & success in life and business 🏔

    “The secret to success is setting the right goals.”

    Andy Grove, a hungarian refugee, became the greatest manager of his time. And most likely of all time. According to Andy the role of a manager is to either be teaching or coaching. He deeply believed in uncapping the potential of people and ambition.

    Andy developed a simple and flexible system to reach ambitious goals. (At Google these are called 10X Goals). The system or tool is called OKR. I call it the powertool ⚙️ or cybersword ⚔️ you pack to climb the highest mountain tops in life 🏔 🏔.

    OKR´s stand for Objectives & Key Results. It is a system that has driven many highly successful organisations and people since. From Google, to Bono´s ONE foundation, to many individuals like you and me aiming te reach ambitious goals.

    It is important to see that OKRs are not the same as your Purpose, Values, Vision or Mission which are about why and the future we want to create. OKRs are about what you need to achieve to get there and how you are going to do it.

    Objectives = What you need to get done.
    Key Results = How will you get it done?

    The problem is that if we do not use a system to reach our goals (and there are many goal setting systems of course) we end up working very hard but with little progress and lots of frustration. Initiatives, efforts, individual progress leads to chaos. And great ideas stay just that…great ideas. The mountaintop remains in sight but we are not able to get closer.

    As Steve Jobs once said “Great artists ship”.

    This is the reason why to use OKR´s.

    Execution. To achieve your ambitious goals. Because making dreams come true is not luck. It is hard work within a systematic approach.

    The pay-offs of using OKR-system can by summarised in 5 points:

    1. FOCUS (for the individual, the team, the company but also the world around).
    2. ALIGNMENT (by being fully transparent everyone is aiming for the same North Star(S))
    3. COMMITMENT (a type of social contract comes to life to say what you will do and do what you have said)
    4. TRACKING (know where you are but even more importantly know how much progress you have made – OKRs can be part of Kaizen )
    5. STRETCHING (building a risk-taking culture)

    So how do you get started?

    Study:
    – Andy Grove in 📗 High Output Management
    – (30 minute intro) John Doerr on the power of OKRs. 🎬 OKRs explained.
    – (15 minute practical) OKR´s applied in Asana. ⚙️ Asana on OKRs

    Now to get started:

    Create a Trello Board (contact me for a sample we use internally and personally) and get started to slay your goals.

    ⚡️ Important note ⚡️: choose your Objectives carefully and wisely. You may end up spending most of your energy and time trying to get there…and when you do it better be worth it.

  • person first

    One night a father was relaxing with his newspaper after a long day at the office. His son, who wanted to play, kept on pestering him.

    Finally, fed up, the father ripped out a picture of the globe that was in the newspaper and tore it into a hundred tiny pieces. “Here son, go ahead and try to put this back together,” he said, hoping that this would keep his little boy busy long enough for him to finish his newspaper.

    To his amazement, his son returned after only one minute with the globe perfectly back together.

    When the startled father asked how he achieved this feat, the son smiled gently and replied

    “Dad, on the other side of the globe there was a picture of a person, and once I got the person together, the world was okay.”*

    Next time we are faced with a challenge or opportunity. Let´s think about this. Focus on putting the person together first. Because once we do – the rest will be OK.

    Personal Kaizen works wonders.

    *From “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”.

  • Tissue can do things that cells can´t…*

    There are things that are impossible in theory but possible in reality.

    We know the stories “of the impossible happening” from the field of medicine and healing. And now this is also happening with increased frequency and impact in our society.

    Just look at Wikipedia; people working for free; opens source being superior to proprietary software; students teaching students;…

    Social power is a magical thing. So is the hive mind and its possibilities🐝.

    “These impossibilities become possible as the result of large-scale collaboration and massive real-time social interaction, which in turn enabled by omnipresent instant connection between billions of people at planetary scale“*

    The connected collective is more powerful than the specialised individual.

    Tissue can do things that cells can not.

    “The power of a shared human connectivity: If we connect everyone to everyone else – and to everything else – all the time and create new things together a 100 miracles that seem impossible today, will be possible tomorrow“.

    Tissue can do things that cells can not.

    *main idea from “The inevitable: understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future”.

  • Rethinking SaaS …to SatS.

    Rethinking SaaS …to SatS.

    Imagine rethinking software around the user and not the money.

    Imagine Software at the Service (SatS).

    Looking back we see that the transition from Software as a Product (SaaP) to Software as a Service (SaaS) was primarily about the business model. As a result it became all about the money. This new model to monetise then drove product design. Sometimes drove it off a cliff…

    The result of this software optimised for a business model resulted in:

    • super aggressive sales practices (ever had someone from Salesforce on the phone?)
    • “Salesforce Fridays” (your best sales talent actually hating every single Friday afternoon after a super successful week because they have to “populate the system”)
    • hidden lock-in strategies of all sorts making you doubt deeply before adopting any product

    But the times they are a-changin´… (and pretty fast recently)

    The future transformation of software is all about the User.
    This will re-focus software product design fundamentally.

    Think Software at the Service (SatS).

    Imagine software optimised for:

    • Autonomy of every user in your company
    • Employee engagement by allowing for a high degree of personalisation
    • full transparency and pay-as-you-use

    Imagine software you trust deeply. Software you can mold and shape to be what you want it to be. Personalised for you.

    Imagine taking deep dives into user types and habits instead of optimising for the high-touch or low-touch sales strategies. We will come to appreciate the power of personalisation by users instead.

    Imagine software that is built to create value for the user not just the investor. Software designed with a focus on how it will serve the user best.

    Imagine…and now build it. Your focus determines where you end up.

    Small decisions that make a BIG impact 💥.