Posted in 04 - Sales & Marketing, Role of GM M&S on January 22nd, 2012 by Paul McArdle – Be the first to comment
We have no department for Sales and Marketing.
Though 2 very busy years has elapsed, not much has changed (in that respect) from when I drew this diagram back in early 2010:
It was obvious to us, then, that we first needed to overhaul our department for “Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the customer wants”.
This took some time, but we have done so (as such, that side of the organogram looks very different now). As alluded to here, we’re starting to see early signs that clients are being delighted with product upgrades again.
Given that we’re now gearing up to make our first hire at the top of our department for Sales & Marketing, it was a good coincidence that I happened upon the article “Ending the war between Sales and Marketing” published in HBR back in 2006.
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Posted in 02 - People & Culture, Mission on January 19th, 2012 by Paul McArdle – 1 Comment
At the same time as we reflect on some gains made, and wins achieved, through the 2011 year, we must also remain constructively conscious of the ongoing threats that confront our growing business, moving forwards.
This recent article from the Economist about the contrast between Kodak and Fuji presents some thoughts worth pondering about.
Brings to mind both:
(a) the Andy Grove message that “only the paranoid survive”.
(b) the Jim Collins statement about “confronting the brutal facts but never giving up”
I’m not familiar enough with either company (or the industry) to really know about the truth of some of the conclusions drawn in the article. Leaving that to one side, for the moment, there are a number of thoughts that occurred to me that are relevant to us.
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Posted in Company Results on January 11th, 2012 by Paul McArdle – 1 Comment
A few weeks off over the Christmas and New Year break has given me some time to reflect on the year that was, in 2011.
We started that year very wet, and with a few jitters as well (with floodwaters from the Brisbane river threatening our offices).
At the end of the day, our office escaped any inundation (whew!), though we lost quite a bit of productive time waiting for power to be reconnected, and sorting through everything that had been hurriedly packed for the evacuation (still not finished unpacking, to tell the truth).
The important point to note here, however, is that through it all we continued to (seamlessly) supply data feed to hundreds of people around Australia, and across a number of continents – testament to the numerous layers of redundancy built into our processes, and the resilience of our people.
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Posted in CEO's Philosophy, Personal Development, Recruitment on November 25th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – Be the first to comment
My twelve year journey with this company – seeing it grow its customer base, and product range, from nothing to be quite substantial – has been one of great learning for me.
Of my greatest areas of learning has been with respect to others within in the company. I have struggled, at times, due to my lack of prior experience and preparation.
For some time I’ve been pondering the apparent paradoxes across a variety of books and other materials I’ve read – with respect to the concept of Strengths and Weaknesses.
Where I have read this, it has been with respect to an individual’s own strengths and weaknesses – however I believe that the pointers that I’ve learnt are also applicable at an organisational level (where a strength is more commonly termed “competitive advantage”).
After quite a bit of reflection, it currently* seems that to be truly strong, an individual (or a company) needs to have the right combination of all three of the following factors:
* I say “currently”, as it seems that the learning journey I am on almost guarantees that my view will become even more nuanced in future.
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Posted in Book Review, Motivation on November 17th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – 2 Comments
Picked this book up some time ago, perhaps after seeing Daniel Pink give this presentation of the importance of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.
Read it back then, and have re-read recently as I’ve been casting my mind forward to the next recruitment initiatives.
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The content of this book is very much along the lines of the talk at TED – which means that, if you are not aligned with the belief that Intrinsic Motivation is more important than Extrinsic Motivation (after watching the lecture), then the book will probably do nothing further for you.
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Posted in 03 - Product Development, Book Review, Innovation on November 10th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – 2 Comments
In more recent months, I’ve read a number of books on the topic (seems to be gaining prevalence, at least in terms of people willing to write – and buy – books).
Not that I mind, because it’s an approach that’s close to our heart.
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Posted in Book Review, Personal Development, Recruitment on November 5th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – 2 Comments
Early in reading “Self-Theories” by Carol Dweck, I came across the following passage (p37-38) which explains the dichotomy of views that influences what each person achieves in life:
“Once students adopt a theory of intelligence, it affects what they value, how they approach intellectual tasks, and how they interpret and respond to what happens to them.
A belief in Fixed Intelligence raises student’s concerns about how smart they are, it creates anxiety about challenges, and it makes failures into a measure of their fixed intelligence. It can therefore create disorganised, defensive and helpless behaviour.
A belief in Malleable Intelligence creates a desire for challenge and learning. In fact, some incremental theorists tell us that they worry a task will be too easy for them and, essentially, not worth their while. Setbacks in this framework become an expected part of long-term learning and mastery and are therefore not really failures. Instead they are cues for renewed effort and new strategies.”
For anyone who’s been following our company as we grow and mature, you’ll appreciate that I’ve been grappling with really understanding both: read more »
Posted in Personal Development, Recruitment on November 4th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – 1 Comment
As a brief PS to this recent post about people who are right for our bus, I saw this HBR interview with Heidi Grant Halvorson pop up on my iGoogle page.
Heidi references this earlier post about “Nine things successful people do differently” and promotes her new ebook of the same title.
These nine behaviours/beliefs are food for thought – both for us, as possible selection criteria for new recruits, and also as focal points for anyone interested in achieving better performance, over time.
As a further note to Heidi’s point #5, have started reading
Carol Dweck’s “Self Theories”, which expands on this concept.
Posted in Hellos and Goodbyes, Performance Reviews, Personal Development, Recruitment on October 30th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – 2 Comments
Another pause for thought last week with respect to Jim Collin’s classic statement.
For those who have known us for a number of years, you might recognise that we’ve come a long way from our “wilderness years” – we’ve taken some big steps in getting the right people on the bus, and (just as importantly) in the right seats.
However this year we’ve still made a couple mistakes – which has been costly and painful for all involved – and has not helped us in our goal of putting customers first:
In meeting these challenges, I found Jim’s “five things to consider” useful – along with the other materials on the site.
In more general terms, I have also found that there are sections in “Execution – the discipline of getting things done” (part-way through reading) that have been useful.
Looking forward, there are a number of things that we will be looking to do over the coming 12 months or so:
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Posted in Value3 - Openness on October 20th, 2011 by Paul McArdle – Be the first to comment
Five hours on a plane to and from Melbourne this week for the EUAA’s Annual Conference was a great opportunity to get most of the way through Roger Martin’s earlier book “The Opposable Mind”.
More about the book at some later stage – but just want to highlight a few quotes from the book that help to clearly explain what I mean when I say that “Openness” needs to be one of our core company values.
If there’s one overriding lesson to take away … it’s that:
(1) anything we think is real is actually (JUST) a model of reality; and
(2) that model is probably imperfect in some important respects (from p123)
If anything but your model is wrong, every other model is a problem to be eliminated or ignored. If instead your model is one of many, all of them imperfect, then the existence of a clashing version is to be expected, not feared (from p124)
My perspective is that these clashing models are to be welcomed, and even to be actively sought out, pragmatically.
‘Contented Model Defence’ is by far the most prevalent (mode of behaviour) – it is the factory setting for most people, who are generally unconscious of its operation (from p125)
In past years, I have invested considerable hours in trying to shift some employees paradigms from this ‘Contented Model Defence’ to what Roger calls a ‘Optimistic Model Seeking’ paradigm (this has been akin to seeking to facilitate the “warm–to–cold–to–hot” transition).
However our success rate has been low. I’ve recognised it far more important to ensure that anyone new on the bus shares this ‘Optimistic Model Seeking’ paradigm as a pre-requisite to coming onboard.
