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10 random decisions that led to nonrandom wins
1. "Solving a complex problem, imagine you're a Martian"
From the book "Break the system", Robert Townsend former CEO of Avis Rent-a-Car
Robert Townsend told his staff: "Solving a complex problem, imagine you're a Martian. Assume that you have a complete idea of the man and the society in which he lives, except for what has been done in the past other companies in your industry to solve this very problem.
When the authorities of the Massachusetts toll road is going to demolish the building of the head office of Avis in Boston, Robert Townsend asked yourself and your employees the question: "Where would the Martian placed the headquarters of the international company for leasing and rental of vehicles without drivers?"
The main criterion was obvious: next to the lively domestic and international airports, so that the company could not lose sight of their managers, and where you can find good servants and accountants. So the company moved to long island, between the international airports Kennedy and LaGuardia, while its largest competitor was isolated on a small cramped island of Manhattan.
2. "Don't rely on a lucky break. Make geniuses out of ordinary people."
From the book "Talented employees. Educating and training people in the spirit of Dao Toyota", Jeffry Liker, Professor, University of Michigan, and David Mayer, Director of the Toyota plant
Toyota leaders decided not to rely on a lucky break, which will allow them to find an inborn talent – such finds are rare. They figured out how to make geniuses out of ordinary people. TWI technology, based on well-designed standardized process of training, allows you to achieve unrivalled results with ordinary people. It's faster and cheaper than all known methods. Toyota proves it in practice.
3. "Ideal structure of the text should be in the shape of a pyramid"
From the book "the pyramid Principle Minto. The Golden rules of thinking, business writing and oral presentations", Barbara Minto, a partner at McKinsey & Company
Barbara Minto came up with a method that allows everyone to learn, it is logical to Express their thoughts. For this you need to follow one main rule: position text in the form of a pyramid, on top of which generalizes the idea, and then go to the argument or detail. This idea grew from a very simple observation: the reader perceives the information from the top down. Barbara Minto is teaching his methods in the business schools of Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, and the largest companies in the U.S. and Europe.
4. "To satisfy customers, use the "bar stool"
From the book "Sincere service", Klaus Kobell, the owner of the hotel Schindlerhof
Klaus Kobell says that since beginning his career as a hotelier, he sought to clearly define how to meet and anticipate the needs of clients so that the clients wanted to talk about it.
In the opinion of Cabella is the expert status of the hotel — what the hotel will differ from other such and as you can tell. Once Cobell heard about one practical technique for determining expert status was invented by the Americans. This technique is called test "bar stool".
"Imagine," says Cobell that you come on Saturday to the bar and sit on your favorite stool at the bar. Around other visitors of the bar, your good friends, and you want to tell them about some of your experience about what happened in the restaurant, a pharmacy, car dealership, doctor or Wellness hotel — no matter where. What you want to tell with regard to us, is our genuine expert status, very important business terms of the supply of services".
Cobell once introduced this principle into practice. So, the renovation of older rooms, it was decided to completely refurbish the bathrooms. Actually, the bathrooms was very decent, but the test "bar stool" they did not pass. By order of Cabella after repair there set wooden bathrooms to anyone who visits the hotel, sitting Saturday in a bar, telling friends that, well, he had to stay in a country hotel, but the bathrooms were heavenly bliss...
And it worked. For the reconstruction of the bathrooms was spent 150 thousand euros, but after that every other guest was talking about how they were "cool". And something like that Cobell strongly advised to come up with constantly.
5. "Don't get it. Don't do it. Don't send it." So says the basic rule of conduct in the field of quality.
From the book "Lean office" by don Tapping, MCS Media President
We are talking about that don't need to take the marriage from a previous process, to create a marriage in its own process, to guide the marriage to the next process. The implementation of this simple rule can significantly improve the quality of the products and does not require any cost.
An example from the book. "When the consultant on Kaizen, Toshio Hasegawa visited the company MK Electronics Co., he saw that the level of production waste is equal to 3%. At the first workshop on quality he came with a suitcase filled marriage. The staff were amazed. To solve the problems, Hasegawa asked the operators to inspect every detail immediately after the completion of its processing.
This enables you to discover a marriage to work immediately and not pass it on to the next production cycle. This very simple improvement, based solely on common sense, do not cost the company absolutely no cost. But the effect was amazing: in six months, the company has set 80000 PCB for consumers, and it has not been a single case of marriage."
6. "Universal soldiers" is a real disaster for medium business
From the book "Recipes reliable business," Konstantin Baksht, the owner and the General Director of holding "Capital-Consulting"
"Universal soldiers" are employees who combine many different functions and have many different jobs depending on the circumstances. For small business staff are"generalists" — a necessary condition for survival. However, when the business of small or medium becomes small, such employees (especially in key positions) — a real disaster.
The fact that the "expert" can carry the day in several times more work than "universal". When you constantly have to switch between completely different tasks, the efficiency inevitably decreases significantly. If you take the efficiency of a "specialist" 100% "universal" will do for the same time, a third of this amount — 33%. Because it constantly switches between several different directions, it actually makes the day three times for 11% of the daily value to three different "experts".
7. "People love clever ideas, but the trigger idea is obvious"
From the book "In search of the obvious. How to get rid of the chaos in marketing and business strategy, Jack trout, President of Trout & Partners, a marketing consulting firm with offices in 23 countries
According to Jack trout, search of any marketing strategy is the search for the obvious. In every business there are literally deposits of obvious ideas, which does not bother anyone else. Usually they are so commonplace that no one notices. Almost everything we use in our daily life, is an opportunity for improvement — sometimes so obvious that we should be ashamed that we didn't see her.
For example, Benjamin Franklin, tired of what he needed was to have two pairs of glasses — one for reading and writing the other in order to see something in the distance, invented bifocals. Nothing could be more obvious.
The obvious is nearly always simple — so much so that sometimes a whole generation of people look at him and not see. But if some idea is clever, original or complex, it should be treated with suspicion. Most likely, it is not obvious.
If in response to his idea you heard: "Why didn't we think of this before?" — you can congratulate yourself. Obvious ideas are very often "blow up" the mind. If the idea or proposal is not lit, if they require detailed explanations and cause a long discussion, so either they're not obvious, either you are going to be thought out and reduced to the apparent simplicity artificially.
8. "Create something of a stir around what you want to sell"
From the book "Negotiation style trump, George Ross, counselor and solicitor Donald trump
Donald trump told me that do not regret bright colors to to the heavens to extol all the virtues of the "trump tower". He sold it not just as a beautiful building in a great location and the building, which was an event in the life of the city. With such a high demand, which was for apartments, trump's company has positioned them as difficult. It was technology sales.
If you sit in your office and will gladly offer to anyone who came to you to sign a contract to buy an apartment, people it becomes clear that they do not use special demand. Trump also was in no hurry to sign a contract. When his employees were treated, they were shown a model plan of the apartment, slowly spoke and explained that we have because of the increased influx of willing have a waiting list.
And less than seemed available apartments, the more people wanted to buy them. The growth of demand trump has raised rates a total of 12 times. They were much higher than in the prestigious "Olympic tower", who was considered the most expensive housing in new York city. People readily bought the apartment for $ 1.5 million, and before the building was completed, most of the apartments were sold.
9. "Don't sell customers goods that attract them, sell them goods that will bring them benefits"
From the book "the mission of the business," Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Matsushita Electric
Matsushita realized that foods are only slightly superior in quality available on the market or slightly cheaper, is unlikely to attract the serious attention of the consumer. Through trial and error, Matsushita found that perfect offer must be 30% better and 30% cheaper than standard.
This product had a chance to gain a significant market share and receive all the associated benefits of economies of scale. MEI never acted as producer of a radically new type of product, but the fact that she offered to the market is almost always better and or cheaper than standard products of the industry.
The creation of new, better or cheaper types of products required a creative approach, above all in its design. First, Matsushita himself performed the main part of this work in the shortest possible time. He tried to do without big States constructors, long cycles of product development and fundamental research, since they had limited resources, but mainly because he thought that the speed can become a terrible weapon of competition, especially against more bureaucratic rivals. By 1922 his firm almost every month was represented by one or two new products.
10. "The secret of the winner is simple: he knows the right time and relax"
From the book "the power of full engagement", Jim Loher, Tony Schwartz of Human Performance Institute
Why two athletes have the same skills, but one defeats the other? It turned out that the winner is able to instantly relax between innings. And his opponent is in tension all the time of the game and in the end loses. The alternation of "maximum concentration – the maximum relaxation" — a basic rule of the training methods of elite athletes worldwide. Too much energy expenditure without sufficient replenishment lead to exhaustion.
The excess energy without sufficient use leads to atrophy and weakness. The same applies to life organizations. If the leaders implement the culture of continuous operation – whether it's long meetings or long work shifts, or the expectations that employees will "voluntarily" to work in the evenings or at the weekend — the performance of their subordinates is reduced.
Multitasking is a very big misconception
How to make the mind sharper and flexible: exercises for the brain
The authors of the book, loer and Schwartz draws our attention to what is harmful, not stress itself, and the inability to control it. Exposing yourself to the strong, but short-term stress by doing something that goes beyond our capability, we train our "light energy". Better to concentrate on a particular case, to quickly to cope with it, than to delay the process. And then, after the maximum concentration, give yourself the opportunity to be relax and be distracted.
P. S. And remember, only by changing their consumption — together we change the world! ©
Source: vk.com/blacklionmag?w=wall-95325074_18689
From the book "Break the system", Robert Townsend former CEO of Avis Rent-a-Car
Robert Townsend told his staff: "Solving a complex problem, imagine you're a Martian. Assume that you have a complete idea of the man and the society in which he lives, except for what has been done in the past other companies in your industry to solve this very problem.
When the authorities of the Massachusetts toll road is going to demolish the building of the head office of Avis in Boston, Robert Townsend asked yourself and your employees the question: "Where would the Martian placed the headquarters of the international company for leasing and rental of vehicles without drivers?"
The main criterion was obvious: next to the lively domestic and international airports, so that the company could not lose sight of their managers, and where you can find good servants and accountants. So the company moved to long island, between the international airports Kennedy and LaGuardia, while its largest competitor was isolated on a small cramped island of Manhattan.
2. "Don't rely on a lucky break. Make geniuses out of ordinary people."
From the book "Talented employees. Educating and training people in the spirit of Dao Toyota", Jeffry Liker, Professor, University of Michigan, and David Mayer, Director of the Toyota plant
Toyota leaders decided not to rely on a lucky break, which will allow them to find an inborn talent – such finds are rare. They figured out how to make geniuses out of ordinary people. TWI technology, based on well-designed standardized process of training, allows you to achieve unrivalled results with ordinary people. It's faster and cheaper than all known methods. Toyota proves it in practice.
3. "Ideal structure of the text should be in the shape of a pyramid"
From the book "the pyramid Principle Minto. The Golden rules of thinking, business writing and oral presentations", Barbara Minto, a partner at McKinsey & Company
Barbara Minto came up with a method that allows everyone to learn, it is logical to Express their thoughts. For this you need to follow one main rule: position text in the form of a pyramid, on top of which generalizes the idea, and then go to the argument or detail. This idea grew from a very simple observation: the reader perceives the information from the top down. Barbara Minto is teaching his methods in the business schools of Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, and the largest companies in the U.S. and Europe.
4. "To satisfy customers, use the "bar stool"
From the book "Sincere service", Klaus Kobell, the owner of the hotel Schindlerhof
Klaus Kobell says that since beginning his career as a hotelier, he sought to clearly define how to meet and anticipate the needs of clients so that the clients wanted to talk about it.
In the opinion of Cabella is the expert status of the hotel — what the hotel will differ from other such and as you can tell. Once Cobell heard about one practical technique for determining expert status was invented by the Americans. This technique is called test "bar stool".
"Imagine," says Cobell that you come on Saturday to the bar and sit on your favorite stool at the bar. Around other visitors of the bar, your good friends, and you want to tell them about some of your experience about what happened in the restaurant, a pharmacy, car dealership, doctor or Wellness hotel — no matter where. What you want to tell with regard to us, is our genuine expert status, very important business terms of the supply of services".
Cobell once introduced this principle into practice. So, the renovation of older rooms, it was decided to completely refurbish the bathrooms. Actually, the bathrooms was very decent, but the test "bar stool" they did not pass. By order of Cabella after repair there set wooden bathrooms to anyone who visits the hotel, sitting Saturday in a bar, telling friends that, well, he had to stay in a country hotel, but the bathrooms were heavenly bliss...
And it worked. For the reconstruction of the bathrooms was spent 150 thousand euros, but after that every other guest was talking about how they were "cool". And something like that Cobell strongly advised to come up with constantly.
5. "Don't get it. Don't do it. Don't send it." So says the basic rule of conduct in the field of quality.
From the book "Lean office" by don Tapping, MCS Media President
We are talking about that don't need to take the marriage from a previous process, to create a marriage in its own process, to guide the marriage to the next process. The implementation of this simple rule can significantly improve the quality of the products and does not require any cost.
An example from the book. "When the consultant on Kaizen, Toshio Hasegawa visited the company MK Electronics Co., he saw that the level of production waste is equal to 3%. At the first workshop on quality he came with a suitcase filled marriage. The staff were amazed. To solve the problems, Hasegawa asked the operators to inspect every detail immediately after the completion of its processing.
This enables you to discover a marriage to work immediately and not pass it on to the next production cycle. This very simple improvement, based solely on common sense, do not cost the company absolutely no cost. But the effect was amazing: in six months, the company has set 80000 PCB for consumers, and it has not been a single case of marriage."
6. "Universal soldiers" is a real disaster for medium business
From the book "Recipes reliable business," Konstantin Baksht, the owner and the General Director of holding "Capital-Consulting"
"Universal soldiers" are employees who combine many different functions and have many different jobs depending on the circumstances. For small business staff are"generalists" — a necessary condition for survival. However, when the business of small or medium becomes small, such employees (especially in key positions) — a real disaster.
The fact that the "expert" can carry the day in several times more work than "universal". When you constantly have to switch between completely different tasks, the efficiency inevitably decreases significantly. If you take the efficiency of a "specialist" 100% "universal" will do for the same time, a third of this amount — 33%. Because it constantly switches between several different directions, it actually makes the day three times for 11% of the daily value to three different "experts".
7. "People love clever ideas, but the trigger idea is obvious"
From the book "In search of the obvious. How to get rid of the chaos in marketing and business strategy, Jack trout, President of Trout & Partners, a marketing consulting firm with offices in 23 countries
According to Jack trout, search of any marketing strategy is the search for the obvious. In every business there are literally deposits of obvious ideas, which does not bother anyone else. Usually they are so commonplace that no one notices. Almost everything we use in our daily life, is an opportunity for improvement — sometimes so obvious that we should be ashamed that we didn't see her.
For example, Benjamin Franklin, tired of what he needed was to have two pairs of glasses — one for reading and writing the other in order to see something in the distance, invented bifocals. Nothing could be more obvious.
The obvious is nearly always simple — so much so that sometimes a whole generation of people look at him and not see. But if some idea is clever, original or complex, it should be treated with suspicion. Most likely, it is not obvious.
If in response to his idea you heard: "Why didn't we think of this before?" — you can congratulate yourself. Obvious ideas are very often "blow up" the mind. If the idea or proposal is not lit, if they require detailed explanations and cause a long discussion, so either they're not obvious, either you are going to be thought out and reduced to the apparent simplicity artificially.
8. "Create something of a stir around what you want to sell"
From the book "Negotiation style trump, George Ross, counselor and solicitor Donald trump
Donald trump told me that do not regret bright colors to to the heavens to extol all the virtues of the "trump tower". He sold it not just as a beautiful building in a great location and the building, which was an event in the life of the city. With such a high demand, which was for apartments, trump's company has positioned them as difficult. It was technology sales.
If you sit in your office and will gladly offer to anyone who came to you to sign a contract to buy an apartment, people it becomes clear that they do not use special demand. Trump also was in no hurry to sign a contract. When his employees were treated, they were shown a model plan of the apartment, slowly spoke and explained that we have because of the increased influx of willing have a waiting list.
And less than seemed available apartments, the more people wanted to buy them. The growth of demand trump has raised rates a total of 12 times. They were much higher than in the prestigious "Olympic tower", who was considered the most expensive housing in new York city. People readily bought the apartment for $ 1.5 million, and before the building was completed, most of the apartments were sold.
9. "Don't sell customers goods that attract them, sell them goods that will bring them benefits"
From the book "the mission of the business," Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Matsushita Electric
Matsushita realized that foods are only slightly superior in quality available on the market or slightly cheaper, is unlikely to attract the serious attention of the consumer. Through trial and error, Matsushita found that perfect offer must be 30% better and 30% cheaper than standard.
This product had a chance to gain a significant market share and receive all the associated benefits of economies of scale. MEI never acted as producer of a radically new type of product, but the fact that she offered to the market is almost always better and or cheaper than standard products of the industry.
The creation of new, better or cheaper types of products required a creative approach, above all in its design. First, Matsushita himself performed the main part of this work in the shortest possible time. He tried to do without big States constructors, long cycles of product development and fundamental research, since they had limited resources, but mainly because he thought that the speed can become a terrible weapon of competition, especially against more bureaucratic rivals. By 1922 his firm almost every month was represented by one or two new products.
10. "The secret of the winner is simple: he knows the right time and relax"
From the book "the power of full engagement", Jim Loher, Tony Schwartz of Human Performance Institute
Why two athletes have the same skills, but one defeats the other? It turned out that the winner is able to instantly relax between innings. And his opponent is in tension all the time of the game and in the end loses. The alternation of "maximum concentration – the maximum relaxation" — a basic rule of the training methods of elite athletes worldwide. Too much energy expenditure without sufficient replenishment lead to exhaustion.
The excess energy without sufficient use leads to atrophy and weakness. The same applies to life organizations. If the leaders implement the culture of continuous operation – whether it's long meetings or long work shifts, or the expectations that employees will "voluntarily" to work in the evenings or at the weekend — the performance of their subordinates is reduced.
Multitasking is a very big misconception
How to make the mind sharper and flexible: exercises for the brain
The authors of the book, loer and Schwartz draws our attention to what is harmful, not stress itself, and the inability to control it. Exposing yourself to the strong, but short-term stress by doing something that goes beyond our capability, we train our "light energy". Better to concentrate on a particular case, to quickly to cope with it, than to delay the process. And then, after the maximum concentration, give yourself the opportunity to be relax and be distracted.
P. S. And remember, only by changing their consumption — together we change the world! ©
Source: vk.com/blacklionmag?w=wall-95325074_18689