JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

You - and your company - get to choose.

• You can be good at operations.
• You can be good at the products you produce.
• You can get to know your customer. 

How do you do it (Treacy, page 20)?

1. Provide the best offering in the marketplace by excelling in a specific dimension of value.
2. Maintain threshold standards on other dimensions of value.
3. Dominate your market by improving value year after year.
4. Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to delivering unmatched value.

When I decided to read through Treacy's book, I first realized that it was 90s information. One of the examples he was using, Home Depot, was held out as one of the best performers in the marketplace because of their level of customer service. Times have changed. Lowe's has overtaken Home Depot in most of their common markets. Management has changed. Home Depot has more a feeling of a big-box retailer that a value conscious leader.

I'm not sure that changes the message. The four key points still apply. Pick a place to excel. Keep on the path. Watch for competitors, gauge what they are up to. Maintain your threshold standards in all the dimensions of value. It never lets up.

Reference

Treacy, Michael and Fred Wiersema. The Discipline of Market Leaders. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. 1995.

Posted by jackmixner at 04:00 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

There is talk of the creation of a new incubator in Orange County focusing on medical device start-ups. 

Before the tech bust, there were multiple proposals for tech incubators in Orange County. A couple of years ago, the Digital Media Center in Santa Ana opened with federal and community college support. Now, a new incubator with University and business ties is on the drawing boards.

Our information says the location has been selected and interested parties are meeting about next steps.

Sounds interesting. Let's hope the next Allergan or AMO gets its start with the incubator's help. 

Reference

Stewart, Colin. Boosting medical device enterprises. Orange County Register. 10 May 2007. http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/irvine/businessnews/article_1690192.php

Posted by jackmixner at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

New CEOs face the decision of whether to create a traditional strategic plan or a scenario plan. Speed (or actually, slowness)  sometimes makes both processes ineffective. Unless the facilitator is careful, everyone isn't involved, or doesn't learn enough about the dynamics of the current situation. War-gaming can fill the void. It helps to (Kurtz, 13):

• Identify stronger and weaker players in the firm's markets
• Experiment with tactics that could improve market share.

Key lessons in a war-game (Kurtz, 20):

• Include a broad range of participants in the process
• Role playing is part of the process. All the different sides have to truly take on their roles
• The war-game is maybe 20 percent of the work load. Extensive research is involved beforehand.
• Follow-up the war-game with feedback to the participants about what actions were taken as a result of the activity.

Reference

Kurtz, Jay. "Business wargaming: simulations guide crucial strategy decisions. Strategy & Leadership. Vol. 31. No. 6. 2003. 12-21.

Posted by jackmixner at 10:47 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstratgy.com

What with Al Gore's now thirty year old slide show, his book and his movie, everybody knows about his plans for the environment.

The good thing for all of us is that some businesses are starting to do something about it:

• Wal-Mart is making changes in its product and marketing plans to support green
• GE, DuPont and a series of utilities have come together to reduce greenhouse emmissions by 30 percent over the next 15 years.
• Republicans are starting to support tough new legislation
• The Chinese government is starting to change direction of its green policy, including a carbon tax.

It seems Gore has changed. He has found a message. His attitude is new, a pugnacity not really there before, at least in public.

Looks to me like someone had better become pugnacious on the environment.

Reference

Traub, James. Enounters Al Gore Has Big Plans. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/magazine/20wwln-gore-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

Posted by jackmixner at 10:01 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Reagan's diaries are out. What makes them special (Rutten)?

• No self-rightousness.
• No self-pity.
• No self-justification.
• He didn't take attacks in the press personally.
• He had firm conviction, without any inclination to rancor.
• Made a friend when he told Thurgood Marshall about his childhood to support his belief that he wasn't a racist.
• Still a gee-whiz kind of guy about what he was involved in balanced with his clear love of Nancy Reagan.

Everybody has an opinion about Reagan. His diaries support only some of those opinions - the better ones.

References

Rutten, Tim. The pure Reagan emerges from diaries. Los Angeles Times. 21 May 2007. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-rutten22may22,1,7979494.story

Posted by jackmixner at 09:51 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Apple made a series of decisions that helped the iPod succeed (Hindo, 107):

• It acquired, rather than wrote, the software that becaome iTunes
• Jobs required a nine month time frame for the iPod's development, forcing strict alignmet to a time schedule.
• Apple focused internal attention on the iPod.

The sum of all these steps? Apple reduced its risks. It "shaped" its risks to craft a winning strategy. Basic questions need answers (Hindo, 107):

• What if the big project fails?
• What if customers preferences change unpredictably?
• What happens if you have decide to go one way - or another?
• What happens if you perceive an unbeatable competitor?
• How do you avoid overconfidence?
• How do you avoid competition?
• What about stagnation?

Reducing risk is nice. Avoiding it is better.

Reference

Hindo, Brian. Don't Worry, Be Ready. BusinessWeek. 28 May 2007. 107. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_22/b4036099.htm?chan=search

Posted by jackmixner at 09:39 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.      www.mixnerstrategy.com

Toll Brothers announced reduced profits driven by charges to write down protperty valus. It expects to deliver between 6,100 and 6,900 homes this year. The firm is carrying65,800 lots, down from 91,200, down 28 percent from the high.

Reference

Toll Brothers' Earnings Tumble. 24 May 2007. New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Earns-Toll-Brothers.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

Posted by jackmixner at 09:25 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

By now, I imagine everyone has moved on from the Avalon wild fire story. For me, I will never forget the image in my mind of the US Navy delivering firetrucks to fight the fire - by hovercraft. This time, they got it right.

Photos:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-catalinafire-pg,0,1155669.photogallery?coll=la-home-center&index=7 

Posted by jackmixner at 10:01 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

I have come to admire some of the sales methodologies, especially the ones that help me listen better to a client early on in a dialog about what the client needs. Given the chance, I'd rather have listened too much than talked too much. Which brings me to a dialog, perhaps with you.

You can help me do a better job helping you. I'll lay out a simple program I am using to ascertain your needs. We can use it, if it makes sense, for us to reach agreement on your needs. If we can understand what you need, we're more likely to fulfill those needs and, hopefully, make you happy and your company more profitable (or whatever measure you use to measure success).

Early in our discussions, we need to understand the answers to two questions:

1. What is your current situation?
2. What is your desired situation?

The difference is how we might be able to work together.

Your homework for our first meeting is "simple".

Try to lay out for me your current situation. Then try to tell me your desired situation. I'm not worried at all about how long it takes us to figure out the answers. It could take several meetings. However, if you give it some thought in advance, we'll be farther down the road toward helping you.

Only after we have a pretty good answer to the questions will we start to figure out possible solutions. Then we'll have a pretty good idea how we might work together.

So, what is your current situation? And, what is your desired situation?

Key word: Discovery Agreement

Reference

Johnson, Spencer and Larry Wilson. The One Minute Sales Person. Avon. 1984.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:53 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Strategic leaders in Southern California regional economic development:

AeA. http://www.aeanet.org/ 

BIOCOM. http://www.biocom.org/ 

California State University Fullerton. http://business.fullerton.edu/Centers/iees/ResearchAsso/PuriAnil.htm

Chapman University. http://www.chapman.edu/argyros/asbecenters/acer/forecasting.asp

Life Science Industry Council.  http://www.elinc.org/

Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. http://www.laedc.org/

Milken Institute. http://www.milkeninstitute.org/

OCTANe. http://www.octaneoc.org/

Orange County Business Council. www.ocbc.org 

Orange County Workforce Investment Board Economic and Workforce Intelligence Committee. http://www.ocwib.org/lmi/index.asp

Southern California Association of Governments.   http://www.scag.ca.gov/

Posted by jackmixner at 09:57 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

OCBC hosted Henry Samueli, CTO for Broadcom, for an interview by Larry Buster of First American Title.

Samueli's key points about starting Broadcom:

• Timing was perfect. Samueli had finished his PhD. at UCLA, gone to work for TRW for five years, and returned to UCLA as a professor. He loved teaching and published like mad. The papers he was writing attracted local companies who told him they wanted to invest in his research.
• With one of his grad students, Samueli started Broadcom in 1991 to take advantage of a rapidly growing market. Early chip set products were for TV set top boxes for cable.
• He was naive about business. Never had a business course. Tried to just "do the right thing". Never took VC investment. Was able to grow at his own pace because there were no outside investors.
• At Broadcom,  because no VC investment to push them along, they never over-hired. They broke even every year, at least. They were able to hire the best and the brightest. The UC system was crucial to their success.
• In 1998, went public. Today, they continually need fresh blood of newly minted engineers with current technology experience.
• No fab production is done state-side. All off-shore because of the expense of a fab factory ($3 billion and rising). Even TI is outsourcing because of the expenses.
• Not having a fab allowed them to spend 70% of R&D budget on design engineers, not production engineers.

About the Ducks:

• Wasn't an avid fan, but now is.
• Hockey has become his favorite sport.
• Bought the arena from the bankrupt Ogden as a "service to the community".
• Lose money every year on the Ducks. The play is for long term equity growth.
• Bought the Ducks after long dialog. Disney was negotiating with outside entities who would likely have moved the Ducks from Anaheim, losing the arena its biggest tenant.
• Ultimate goal: annual breakeven.

Personal:

•  Met his wife at a synagogue dance - she invited him to dance.

Links

Orange County Business Council. www.ocbc.org

Broadcom Corporation. http://www.broadcom.com/

Posted by jackmixner at 04:01 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

You bought that new division to maximize the value of your firm.  Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, these things:

• The new acquisition is in the same industry as your existing businesses
• You're not a holding company
• You don't have a lot of time - and neither does the new division
• You want to maximize the value of the new division while
• Increasing the return on your invested capital.

Let's start the discussion with two words, finance and behavior.

Finance includes the quantifiables like income, return on investment, gross profit, net profit and other financial measures your might find important at your firm - and in the new division. Finance has a human face in the way interactions occur in the finance departments of the newly merged entities.

Behavior is the way the organization acts when dealing with folks. Obviously, behavior has a human face as well. Since this is a new acquisition, there are five steps that probably describe the scale of interactions between the management and functional teams in both the acquirerer and the acquired.

The five steps in an acuirerer/acquired continuum (Jackson, 96):

1. Ignorance - My way is the only way.
2. Arrogance - My way is the best way.
3. Respect - You have a good way too.
4. Inquiry - Let me learn your way.
5. Building - Let's define what we want and create our way together.

Let's assume you've invested a lot of capital in the new entity and you want to maximize your investment. Maximizing your investment is a level 5 topic. You've defined what you want, at least. You're still unsure how to create a way together.

My advice?

Skip levels one and two. Don't ever assume your way is the only way - or even the best way - to go. Build respect in and with your new division. Listen first. Listen a lot. Learn how they do things. Finally discover a way to work together.

One company recently described to me a bit of its history in building value.

• About five years ago, they scored one of their divisions using the Baldrige Award methodology.
• They found they had deficiencies, including some in strategy.
• To overcome them, they installed a Balanced Scorecard approach to create strategic objectives to measure current progress against.
• Now they want to roll the process into another region and then, ultimately, across the country.

How will they probably begin?

• I'll bet they decide to go back through the whole process, region by region. Doing so will take some time. Time helps address the problems in the Ignorance/Building continuum.
• Training for the team is part of the process.
• So is a open dialog between the main company and each division.
• The focus of the entire process ultimately is on (Jackson, 96):
• Articulation of strategic imperatives,
• Integration of the cultures, and
• Building bridges to the divisions to achieve results.

Some of the folks who are "stuck in the past" will leave. Those who remain will build new divisions that address the past - and the future.

Reference

Jackson, Tim and Liza Spence. Hearts and Minds: The Key to Successful Mergers. Sisk, Michael and Andrew Sambrook, editors. Pages 90 - 100. The Whole Deal Fulfilling the Promise of Acquisitions and Mergers. Booz Allen Hamilton. 2006.

Posted by jackmixner at 08:38 AM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.    714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

I've been involved in the creation of numerous conferences. They take time. They take money. How about if you could hold a conference with limited investment of time and money?

How about an unconference?

• No formalities. Everyone participates (find a session boring, leave and find one that is interesting).
• No pitching (no selling from the podium).
• Ask questions, anytime (don't make people wait til the PowerPoints are done - in fact, ban PowerPoints - or post them on a blog in advance and update them during the meeting).  
• Post a board out front, on the day of the conference. Let speakers fill in their speech title under a given time on the way in the door. Folks vote with their feet on what they want to see.

What's required?

• High speed WiFi in the conference rooms for publishing notes and material.
• Make the conference website a wiki.
• Encourage networking during the sessions.

Who's doing it?

• Web 2.0 is holding their conferences using instant conferences
• In Paris, they held three conferences on banking and finance.
• Toronto held a one day event focusing on transportation in their city.
• More in the article, below (Kirsner, 73) ...

Reference

Kirsner, Scott. Take Your PowerPoint and... Cheap, audience-driven "unconferences" are shaking up the convention biz. BusinessWeek. 14 May 2007. 74. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_20/b4034080.htm

Posted by jackmixner at 02:31 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Management development at GE needed an up-grade, a $75 million up-grade, and the troops weren't buying it. Why should they? They were enduring lay-offs and reorganizations while Jack Welch remade the company. So Welch had some selling to do. And some building. GE's headquarters is sixty miles north of New York just off the Merritt Parkway. There weren't enough good hotel rooms nearby to house managers from all over the world who GE needed to engage in growing the new GE. So they built new buildings and accommodations. Bricks and mortar were only part of the story. The real goal was an informal, family atmosphere - an excellent atmosphere to match the excellent GE Welch wanted to grow (Welch, 121- 125).

Why have a Crotonville at GE? On the way in, Welch realized he needed to communicate the changes necessary to re-invigorate GE. Training on basic management skills in the 60s had given way to discussions on how to react to the outside environment with its oil crisis and rampant inflation. Things needed to swing back the other way. Welch wanted to focus things back on leadership development, not functional training (Welch, 171). Early topics in 1981 were focusing on being No. 1 or No. 2 in an industry and changing the "feel" of the company. By 1984, the mood shifted to an action learning method using real business issues for managers and executives.

GE used the classes as in-house consultants to management. They focused on current problems management wanted solved like looking for opportunities for growth and how other companies were growing. They strategized on the 4 E's of GE management: amount of personal energy and how to increase it, the ability to energize others, the edge to make yes-no decisions and, finally, the ability to execute on them (Welch, 158). One "ticket to entry" to Crotonville was added later - no one got in unless they had been granted stock options(Welch, 176).

How long did it take to Crotonville really work? Ten years or so. Welch was able to spend lots of time with managers and future managers face-to-face. They ended up talking about evaluating team members, leadership dilemmas each attendee had faced over the last year, the shift to off-shore production, clarifying misunderstandings about current initiatives and, late in Welch's career, the move to the Internet (Welch, 181).

Reference

Welch, Jack with John A. Byrne. Jack Straight From the Gut. Warner Business Books. 2001.

Posted by jackmixner at 02:34 PM | Permalink

Copyright Jack Mixner.     714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Rudy Giuliani lost the NY mayoral election in 1989 by 40,000 votes of almost two million cast. When he decided to run again in 1993, he realized that he'd better prepare far in advance, to "be ready for anything (Giuliani, 55)."

The first step? He learned everything about the workings of NYC government. Reading came first, then meetings with authors, professors and elected officials.

The campaign hired Richard Schwartz to put together a formal process based upon a series of seminars. Starting with the concept of a dozen or so lectures, the process extended out to fifty lectures over a year and a half.

A bunch of things came from the process (Giuliani, 56, 57):

• The lecturers got to know Giuliani and his camp better, obviously.
• People pitched in, realizing that even though the pay-off was uncertain, everyone would probably gain.
• Housing. Taxation. Welfare. Homelessness. They talked about everything. Many of the topics became programs in the eventual administration.

The final pay-off? NY has a seemingly ridiculously short transition period between administrations. All the pre-work stoked the hand-off and resulted in faster results.

One other key point: during the process Giuliani secretly nominated a transition advisor to lay out a new government, including who to nominate for which positions. That helped Giuliani hit the ground running after his long and tiring campaign. Transition was seamless. Preparation was the key (Giuliani, 59).

Reference

Giuliani, Rudolph W. Leadership. Miramax Books Hyperion. 2002.

Posted by jackmixner at 11:32 AM | Permalink