Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

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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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.

As noted a while ago, I picked up this book and  found it a very engaging read.

The Book	What we thought
“Who says elephants can’t dance?” by Louis V Gerstner Jr	An enjoyable read - some great lessons too

I’ve posted separately about why we read, and review, so many books (and about the links above)…

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What struck me, time and again in reading this, was how the IBM situation Lou describes shows so many similarities to the situation we found ourselves in a couple years ago, when we started our own turnaround project (albeit on a much smaller scale).

I’ve titled this post in a similar way to the one I made 2 years ago following a Google talk as a similar challenge to us to ensure that we learn the lessons from IBM that Lou outlines in his book.

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Busy day today as we powered down all non-essential items in the office again for the second time this year.

The first time was a much more rushed affair back in January, in preparation for the floods – this time it was a more planned approach, necessitated as the building manager is implementing preventative measures to protect the building, should it ever flood the same way again.

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Let’s get one thing out-of-the-way straight away, for those who are easily distracted – yes, it is an unfortunate choice of acronym.  Back in 1988, when the book was written, political debate was not as lightweight and sound-bite-sized as at present.

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I can’t recall who it was who first suggested I read the book, but it was some time ago and (since that time) I have read the book several times.

The Book	What we thought
“Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham	It’s certainly worth it, for us, given the nature of our business

I’ve posted separately about why we read, and review, so many books (and about the links above)… .

With this book in particular, I’d strongly recommend you pick up a copy in order to gain the value – what follows is my attempt to just hit the highlights.

The book describes the SPIN technique, which evolved based on some fairly extensive studies of sales effectiveness completed by the author during the time he was founding the Huthwaite business.

Here’s a brief 5-minute video in which Neil outlines what SPIN selling is all about.

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Started reading “Who says elephants can’t dance?” this weekend [later reviewed here] – Louis Gerstner’s account of the turnaround he helped create at IBM from 1993 to 2002.

Though we’re a massively different size of business, I am intrigued by his recount of the position the company was in at the time, and the steps taken to rectify.

I’m particularly intrigued to read on, to find out more about what he did to ensure that the company focus returned to the customer – as this has been one of our central challenges in the changes we’ve been making in the past year or two.

We’ve certainly made some good progress, though I know that there is much more we can do.  The week before last was not one of our better ones – but it won’t be wasted, if we can learn from it.