X-generation... forgotten generation?

I attended this week very interesting event. It was about the future of management. One company had done an interesting research in Finland how we manage & lead companies today and what is the future of management & leadership as defined by managers who responded.

Rather quickly discussion led to age of people - How Y-generation is so different than we are and we cannot continue manage as we do today. Then I tried to ask: Who are in this case "we"? Majority of the audience were round 50+ and "we" was defined accordingly. I tried to highlight that I am not "we" when I am not 50+ but born in -71 so I am not either "those young ones". Majority of audience paid no interest. I didn't belong to the game of "we" against "them". We X-generation are forgotten generation... or are we?

Majority of the insights from the research I agree but not as the future but as is and how it should be. Things like "people need to have personal meaning to their work" and "they need to share company's vision and values also and especially on personal level" - Of course it should be so and it is and have been for years at least how I have managed and led my people. How about "people should not be managed from the distance but work with them as one of them" or "a manager should energize people around you". Of course you work and lead that way (...not necessarily in countries with very hierarchical cultures and structures) if you are from X-generation.

I started my career life in mid 90's and therefore have learnt the values and practices of industrial generations. Factories and all the tangible assets were the most important thing company had and as a last sentence "last but not least important" was written in the slide "people are our most important asset". No one really paid attention to this because factories or power plants are the key to success - so we were told. Actually in the same company during those days (the sales and marketing side) we created a vision leadership model and even wrote an internally published book about it. Naturally majority in the company thought that as nonsense and years later I have heard comments that "you haven't done those things because too early and in a wrong company, don't just buy it". Anyway that was in 1998 and I took advise back then and added vision leadership etc. to my own mgmt. style.

I will not talk anything about Y-generation - there is already too much stuff out there. My point is that we from X-generation know and understand "older generations" but we also know and understand Y-generation without the "we" against "them" setting. This future of management is already here and  natural part of our styles of management... maybe excluding the guys from pulp & paper and other heavy assets industries, sorry guys.

I know this all does not apply in some or even many regions in larger scale (lived in Asia for years) but I noticed as well that these "future of management" ideas worked very well in sub-cultures in those particular countries.

So please do not forget us. If you do... anyway we will have the power (= majority of senior roles) after a few years. Time is working for future of management.

Marketing - Marketing communications = Commercial management

My blog has marketing in its name but I haven't wrote anything about marketing - or have I?

Actually I have because I have for example written about international expansion, business models and solutions business... and those texts are full of thoughts around marketing. But for many so called marketing experts they are not because marketing is "hidden" and the focus of the texts are in creating new business, growing business, expanding business, offering development - not in communicational aspects of marketing. 90 % of marketing professionals I have met and will meet are communications experts not marketing experts.

How do you identify when someone is a marketing vs. marketing communications expert? Marketing communication specialist's focus is in communications and she/he is not in her/his comfort zone when you start discuss about business models, sales, pricing models or customer value (yes even that one). Now many will raise a red flag that this is not true. But it is - they are not comfortable discussing about actual subject and content but start to be inspired when discussion moves to "how do we communicate about this". Marketing expert is focused and knowledgeable about these topics in subject expertise level.

I am so tired of the whole concept of marketing. Changing word does not lead anywhere but deciding that there is no general concept of marketing does. Pricing, customer segmentation, product development, international expansion, social media, innovation development, brand management, communications, etc. just cannot be put under one umbrella. What if concept of marketing included only marketing communications (as it does in so many companies already) and everything else was under commercial management - tools, ideas, thoughts, processes, methods and theories how company faces and interacts with the market... and creates revenue.

Ad agencies would not like this because they have tried for ages to own the marketing concept despite they focus only to marketing communications. Yes I know they want to be strategic partners with companies with wider focus but in the end they make their money from producing ads and campaigns - no social media or other internet trend has not changed this.

Marketing functions at companies would not either like this because they have an endless fight to gain more strategic relevance - we are a marketing function not communications function. But hey just assess the outputs of marketing functions - mostly communications related stuff.

If marketing was divided into two, marketing communications and commercial management then latter would be naturally "owned by" business line management - as it should because then marketing (=commercial management) would be an integral part of business management.

With this approach we also have a problem. Many companies have identities (souls of the companies) which are not commercially or customer centric. Manufacturing oriented companies have manufacturing oriented managers as line managers who have their focus in manufacturing assets and utilization rates not in customers. R&D oriented companies have R&D oriented managers as line managers. On the other hand why to even care about these companies when defining marketing. These companies do not see commercial management as their critical success maker so they can think, name and organize marketing how they will. They can be successful with their approaches as can a company which is genuinely market and customer focused - there is no one singular formula on how to be successful.

From a general point of view and from a small growth company point of view I would anyway place my bets on commercial oriented business approaches = having a management which has commercial management (marketing - marketing communications = commercial mgmt.) in their genes.

Few additional thoughts on international expansion

Writing a blog has proven to be time consuming but first of all interesting - already readers from 22 different countries Finland naturally leading the pack and US coming second. International expansion seems to be the most interesting topic when over 30% of readers have chosen that text from all others. Actually I think my experiences and ideas related to business models have more insights (for example how energy industry and tech. industries have similarities) ... but it is better blog on something which resonates with the audience... so I continue my thoughts around international expansion.

Those who read the first text can easily identify that international expansion is more art of its own than industry specific competence. To me the most valuable insight in the last text was lego brick structure - How you understand your business and operating model as lego bricks. Everyone knows lego bricks how you can build, rebuild or modify the model again and again. In the last text it was just one topic but actually it is something much larger. There has even been academic research and HBR articles on modular business structure and how different companies have gained business benefits from it. Personally I have simplified it as lego bricks model what I was developing when one business I was involved did its international expansion in Northern Europe in the late 90's.

So what is this approach in a nutshell? You just simply break down your go-to-market model and offering delivery assets into pieces which can be built and transferred one by one (as lego bricks) until you have the required total shape and form in place. Precondition is that you have defined what is executed and managed in global vs. local level, identified these pieces (some would call them assets), documented required shape and form for each piece and for the end state model and have the belief structure in place that you need to avoid too large dependency on certain individuals and their skill sets.

Few examples of these potential pieces: product delivery, call center operations, customer care, customer acquisition model, key account annual care taking model, partnership management model, sales agent model, PR process, legal support model, marcom model, etc. You get the point - all of these can be built individually and at the same time they have certain role in end state country operating model which was to be established... when some one had designed the end state model with required pieces which need to function together.

Benefits: All countries talk the same business language, faster international expansion to multiple countries, less dependent on individuals, it enables best/good practice sharing, clear global vs. local responsibilities, more efficient country business reviews, more efficient and value adding global meetings or teleconferences, less required human resources in expansion phase, etc. All these benefits highlight that model is not only for newcomers of international business but also for established businesses to improve their global/international business management.

Downsides: Time required to define and document your lego bricks structure (for many idea of documentation is misleading due to all administrative quality and process development initiatives which in many cases provide no real benefit for business, at least according to my own experiences). Actually there are no other downsides and approach fits both large and small companies biggest gainer being small ones because large ones can afford more resources.

What about traditional model that you send the best man or woman to do the work and this person uses his personal skills to build the business in new territories. Problem with this model is that it is highly depending on individual skill sets, international expansion is much more slower (and time is money), people start to build their own kingdoms, no common business language between countries or regions - to me it is just old-dated model despite being the dominating one. Of course you still need these skilled people but how you use them just changes.

Another traditional approach in pure sales related international expansion is that you hire one local manager from target country, agree sales targets and hope for the best. Sometimes they deliver but how they deliver and behave you have no clear visibility. Sooner or later if the person is successful in selling there is a threat that the country or region starts to live its own kingdom life and you wish to have tools to better manage this "rebel" yet successful manager. Then it is another time to consider lego bricks approach.

Few thoughts about growth

While working for companies I have been involved in many growth initiatives - either in leadership role or actively participating... and watched from sideline multiple other growth initiatives. So few thoughts about growth more as a flow not as a complete story.

I've been in fortunate position that in most of the cases initiatives I have been involved have been successful but more interesting situation (for this text) is an occasion when growth initiative fails. Not for business itself but more as a managerial and leadership learning point - how the organization will handle failure. For small business it is a true business crisis where even the whole company is at stake but for a large company it is something to just painfully swallow to minimize damage. So it is more about people than business.

Organization is a blend of different individuals with varying career motivations and aspirations. In the case of failure many people show their other side because career is at stake. There are managers with sand bagging mind set who will dig all the proof points they can find how they through the process warned and highlighted possibilities of failure. (In the case of success they would have naturally highlighted their personal contribution) Then we have managers who put the blame only to external factors: market timing was not optimal, customers behaved in unexpected manner, channel didn't buy the idea, etc. But internally everything was done according to plan. Then we have managers who will blame their own people or even want to name some one or a group of people to take ownership of the failure. Of course then we have many humble and analytical managers who will analyze the failure and take it as a learning point - what went wrong both from internal and external point of views. You can pick your own trait how you behave when things go wrong.

One interesting aspect of growth is the growth itself. When one initiative can be named as a growth initiative? Many companies grow while the market itself grows but real growth is on top of market growth. Growth what is on par with market growth is just good basic management but the managers cannot take credit of being leaders with growth experience. Of course the situation is tempting...

For "real" growth managers last year was tough. If you worked in a small company growth opportunities nearly vanished because the whole business market shared the negative attitude towards "nearly everything" especially investing money into something new or for the future. If you worked in a larger company managing a growth unit you were under pressure to cut costs even if your own business was growing "everyone needs to feel the misery equally". In general growth was a bad word to discuss no matter where you worked.

Maybe 2010 is better but the concept of growth is still difficult to many. What is the year or financial climate does not change that growth requires risk taking, thinking and acting differently, stepping out from your comfort zones, identifying people to your team who have growth genes and lot of hard consistent work. Most of us are more comfortable just managing operational business - to keep the engine running, managing main street business, main stream business, large revenue streams - it has many names. It is not only more comfortable for many but also wiser decision because in many cases heroes are named from that side.

Growth is anyway my cup of tea with all the down sides it has. Especially it is so much more fun.