JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

714 449 1040     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Toyota is adding joystick controls to their forklifts in order to entice young gamers to apply for jobs as material handlers (Wood).

Now Caterpillar is getting into the act, apparently for a different reason.

It so happens that the operators for road graders are retiring in record numbers (Brat). In order to keep them around, Caterpillar had to figure out a way make their job easier, without alienating them by creating something new - and unknown.

The best solution was joysticks, again. Operators go home more relaxed and less fatigued than before because joysticks are easier to use. Reducing the number of levers from fifteen to zero and eliminating the steering wheel, the new road graders are easier to use and give older workers a reason to stay around.

Toyota used joysticks to attract younger workers. Caterpillar used them to retain older workers. Two strategies end up having the same tactics.

Everybody wins, including Caterpillar. It ends up that the drive-by-wire road grader costs seven percent more. 

References

Brat, Ilan. A Joy(stick) to Behold. The Wall Street Journal. 23 June 2008. R5.

Wood, Brett. Grand Strategy - Product Development: Toyota Fork-Lifts - A Case Study. Presentation to the Orange County Chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning. 22 January 2008. http://mixnerstrategy.com/blog/2008/02/joysticks_arent_just_for_video.html

Posted by jackmixner at 10:11 AM | Permalink

714 449 1040     www.mixnerstrategy.com

It was pitch black. I awoke from a sound sleep, right next to a dead tree by a lake. I was in my sleeping bag, inside my one-man tent, camped next to the lake, eleven miles from my car. All alone.

I couldn’t hear anything.

Then I heard it, again. One breath from something big, about a foot from my face, just outside my tent.

In that situation you have a choice. Do nothing. Or do something. Now, that breath was enough. Adrenaline was pumping – big time – so I really didn’t really even have a choice. I was out of my sleeping bag, indeed, out of my tent, in seconds.

Then, I realized what was happening. A bear was stealing my food, every bit of it. Now I had another choice. Same choice as before, really. Do nothing. Or do something. Maybe even run. I didn’t do that. That bear had my food, after all, and I wasn’t turning back from my trip. So, what to do?

Attack the bear, of course. They used to say, make a lot of noise. Yell a lot. Pound on pots and pans. I didn’t do any of that.

I attacked the bear. With rocks. In the dark. I was camped by an old fire ring with lots of nice-sized rocks, perfect for throwing at a bear you can’t see, in the dark. So that’s what I did. Throw rocks in the dark.

And it worked. The bear only ate half my food. The rest was scattered over about a hundred yards of forest where I was able to pick up in the early morning gloom.

It was still dark, remember, so I didn’t know I’d saved my food until later, at about the same time I saw the bear amble by with a smug look on its face. It was staying just out of rock-throwing range, as it didn’t want to get hit by those perfect sized rocks, again.

How do I know I connected with the bear? When you throw a rock, a pretty big one, even in the dark, it makes a nice thud sound when it hits the ground. Most of the rocks I threw were noisy. Some were silent. Those were the ones I am assuming connected with bear, and saved my bacon, so to speak.

So I learned some lessons. Since this was twenty-five years ago, those lessons have taken some time to sink in. I tried everything to protect my food. Some of the ideas were pretty silly, I’ll tell you.

The simplest solution was invented about five years ago, and it is the solution I recommend. Carry a bear canister, an impenetrable can that bears can’t break into.

Put your food in the canister. No more bears in the dark.

Simple strategies work best, even if they take some time to figure out.

I know from experience.

Posted by jackmixner at 09:43 AM | Permalink

714 449 1040     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Developing world countries are at risk from diseases that are unprofitable for first world companies to address. Northwestern University is doing something about it. 

Faculty from three schools at Northwestern are collaborating with industry and non-profits to identify, develop new drugs or adapt existing drugs to markets that generally wouldn't be addressed (Gentile, 10). They're looking a intellectual property problems, market dynamics, governmental requirements, and distribution problems in new ways, all with the intent of actually distributing products big pharmaceutical companies may look askance at (Gentile, 11).

Sustainable companies theoretically have considered their effect on the environment and are mitigating those effects whenever possible.

Northwestern's program is taking it a step farther. Students learn that, yes, companies must be profitable, and, additionally, there are ways to be profitable that address the normal short term results oriented culture while at the same time remembering that there are long term consequences of their action.

Fuel prices and the carbon footprint problems we are all becoming aware of cause us to look for business solutions to the longer term problems of carbon management for reducing green-house gasses, for instance, or the problems of orphan drugs in third world countries with great needs and little to offer in the way of profits for pharmaceutical companies.

Northwestern it taking a swing at a solution, something we all might consider in the various classes we teach and R&D efforts we lead.

Reference

Gentile, Mary. C. The 21st-Century MBA. strategy+business. http://www.strategy-business.com/media/file/sb51_08209.pdf

Posted by jackmixner at 12:22 PM | Permalink

714 449 1040.      www.mixnerstrategy.com

Before 1800, the human population relied the "contemporaneous energy of the sun, mainly in the forms of food, fuel wood, fibers, and a modest capture of wind and water power (Sachs, 64). The energy sources were limiting on population growth.

After 1800, the limits were "surmounted by coal, oil, and natural gas (Sachs, 64)." Population began to explode.

Since I like to watch technology companies grow, I was heartened to realize, thanks to Sachs, that one invention, particularly, allowed the human population to soar. In fact, it wasn't just any old invention.

The Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing nitrogen-based chemical fertilizers allowed for 80 percent of the growth of cereal production in the twentieth century (Sachs, 65-66). That one chemical reaction was basically responsible for much of the green revolution, or certainly the "food" revolution, across the world.

One invention. Huge growth.

Of course, there is another story that goes along with this wonderful one, that of the growth of global warming from the burning of fossil fuels and the expansion of arable land by burning existing forests and grasslands. Sachs summarizes the effects of the global warming that has paralleled the growth in technology based agriculture and manufacturing. The expected results are just a scary as we have been led to believe by the media, perhaps worse.

Since about 1800 or so technology has allowed the expansion of the global economy and population. The results of that expansion will "come home to roost" over the next century. My optimistic nature believes that there will be technological mitigations for the forecasted problems, but they remain to be seen. Sachs says mitigating these areas may be enough (Sachs, 97):

• deforestation,
• emissions from electricity production and automobiles,
• clean up steel, cement, refineries and petrochemical production,
• economize electricity and
• replace furnaces with grid power.

That list looks more doable that the hand-wringing we are seeing in the press.

Reference

Sachs, Jeffrey D. Common Wealth. Economics for a Crowded Planet. The Penguin Press. New York. 2008.

Posted by jackmixner at 04:24 PM | Permalink

714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

I held off reading the Heath's book for some time, I guess because it was a best seller (no, I don't understand that logic either). Once you start, the book is one of those you can not put down.

Key points: learn how to spot stories about your key message. Then, and this is probably harder than it seems, write them down and tell them to others.

Stories win hand down in the fight for retelling over and over. Don't recite all the facts about your product or service. Tell a story about someone using it.

Subway marketers turned downe the story about the Subway afeciando who lost a lot of weight by dining exclusively at Subway repeatedly because they didn't think the story would work. It took a franchisee to recognize it's utility and to pay for the first television spots about Jared (Heath, 219). Only then - and it took some time - did Subway national take notice and begin to use the story.

Stories work better than facts, especially in the battle for space in people's minds. And, to make things easier, sometimes it is just as easy to spot stories as it is to create them (Heath, 240). Making up stories, it seems, is just as hard (or easy, according to your viewpoint) as finding stories in your day to day experience.

Me, I prefer finding them to making them up.

Reference

Heath, Chip and Dan Heath. Made to Stick. Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Random House. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 01:02 PM | Permalink

714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.

Herbie happened to be the slowest Boy Scout on a crucial hike. He also carried too much. The point of the hike - and Goldratt's book - is how to speed things up and still make money (the goal).

I noticed that Goldratts's book was still on the best-sellers list years after publication and decided to re-read it to understand why. Business novels don't normally make much sense.

Using analogies, Goldratt's characters figure out their own problems and solutions for each of them. There's even a love interest under-current.

Two key questions for your operation: what is the goal of any manufacturing operation? What effect do bottle-necks have on a manufacturing operation?

I mentioned that I had read this book to a strategist for a bank. She had never heard of it. Let's just say that service operations have bottlenecks, and that sometimes they, too, forget why they are in business. 

Reference

Goldratt, Eliyahu M. and Jeff Cox. The Goal. A Process of On-going Improvement. North River Press, Inc. 1984.

Posted by jackmixner at 12:41 PM | Permalink

714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Great Britain, France, Russia and the United States had decided far in advance that Berlin would be divided into four sectors after the end of World War II. The Russians were advancing toward Berlin more quickly that the western allies, so, from Eisenhower's point of view, it made sense for the Russians to go ahead and occupy Berlin first. But Eisenhower had an alternative, Lübeck, located at the base of the Danish peninsula. His goal was to prevent the Germans from fleeing up Denmark to Norway and, thus, to prevent the establishment of a German redoubt - or new front, basically - outside of Germany (Stafford, 131-132). The strategy also prevented the Russians from occupying Denmark and Norway.

Why tell the story? The best part is the sales process Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe at the time, had to go through in order to slow progress toward Berlin in order to address Lubeck. He flew first to Great Britain to meet with Churchill to ensure that he had backing for his strategy. Only then did he direct the British forces in Europe to attack Berlin at the same time attacks on Lübeck began One last parel of information. In his meeting with Churchill, Eisenhower got support to occupy the German atomic research facilities near Stuttgart, far to the southwest (Stafford, 131-132). 

Eisenhower had to play politics in order to make sure his campaign in Germany was successful. He worked in advance to verify support before he spent time with local commanders.

No question, politics slowed things down, much as they do with business functions. But, in this case, at least, playing politics was the most logical thing for Eisenhower to do. 

Reference

Stafford, David. Endgame, 1945. The Missing Final Chapter of World War II. Little, Brown and Company. 2007.

Posted by jackmixner at 12:12 PM | Permalink

714 449 1040.     www.mixnerstrategy.com

Emerson Electric had a choice: go after ground-breaking "new-to-the-world" products, or, nominally, "make a third of sales from products released in the past five years (Hindo, 46)." Their decision? Focus in large measure on new-to-the-world (Hindo, 46).

Today, we're waiting feverously to see what Steven Jobs announces for new innovations for the iPhone. Apple has made billions on i-Pods. Neither is a particularly new innovation, although the Apple design process certainly produces enticing products everyone wants.

Who has it right, Apple or Emerson?

By applying design to an older product, Apple resurrected (or should I say, invigorated) the MP3 market. Emerson sees lots of wasted time on incremental change when they are missing the bigger picture.

Gold-plating the product you've had for years doesn't make sense. However, an incremental change in a new market certainly has helped Apple.

Emerson is taking a risk, suspecting that they've been wasting money in incrementalism (Hindo, 46). We'll have to wait a bit to see how their strategy plays out.

Reference

Hindo, Brian. Insight. Far-flung Emerson Electric generates loads of ideas. Now it has a way to sort out the really novel ones. BusinessWeek. 16 June 2008. 46. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_24/b4088046119515.htm?chan=search

Posted by jackmixner at 10:54 AM | Permalink