The View from Harvard Business

Look, metrics aren’t sexy. But we all know they’re important. Especially so for entrepreneurs, as they look to guide their (hopefully) growing businesses along the most profitable track.

To make sure your metrics are doing what they are supposed to, writes Eric Ries, a consultant to start-ups, follows the Three A’s.

1. Actionable. Report users must be able to run their own experiments on the data to verify results and make changes.
2. Accessible. Everyone in the company must know how to read the numbers, and have quick access to them.
3. Auditable. Managers and execs higher up in the organization need to be able to confirm what the numbers are saying.

Ries recommends that Three A analytics be used to gauge the effectiveness of a “minimum viable product” used by early adopters, then employing those insights to improve the product in each development cycle. Read his post on HBR.org., Entrepreneurs: Beware of Vanity Metrics for more details.

There are pockets of progress. But if truth be told, women are still in The Man’s pocket when it comes to gender-parity in the workplace.

The stark results are reported in a recent  Bain & Co. survey of 1,800 businesspeople worldwide. Although 80 percent of women and men say they are convinced of the benefits of gender parity, only 20 percent believe their companies put meaningful resources behind it.

Career women get derailed when they leave work to start raising a family, Bain reports. They never fully recover what they left behind.

It’s not that companies don’t put forth any effort. Nearly 75 percent of respondents said their employers launched initiatives like flex work programs and mentorships. But less than a quarter felt the programs were effective. Here is how Bain’s Chairman Orit Gadiesh,  and Julie Coffman, chair of the company’s Global Women’s Leadership Council, summarize the findings.

“Employees just don’t see enough women in leadership positions at their company. Fully 60 percent of survey respondents say they are not solicited for their opinions on gender parity by their companies. The dismal metrics get worse: Less than 20 percent report that their companies effectively utilize gender parity metrics to track progress. Only 14 percent say they had effective gender parity training or workshops. Just 8 percent believe their firms effectively tied incentives and compensation to gender parity.”

Implementing these seemingly great programs to help women without putting in the proper organizational incentives, metrics, and support from the top means these companies are just paying lip service to the idea of gender parity. Want proof? A number of surveys agree that only about 2 percent of the top jobs in the U.S. (5 percent in the UK) are filled by women.

Bain recommends that companies develop less rigid promotion processes and career paths, including a “de-stigmatization” of flexible career paths within the organization. Read about the report in this blog post, Why Workplace Equality Initiatives Aren’t Helping Women.

“For companies, the pay-off can be huge,” the Bain execs write. “Not only will they double their talent pool of leaders as more women return to the workforce in senior positions; they will also retain more male and female employees in the long-run and slash retraining costs. That will require bringing down barriers — and breaking through the glass ceiling.”

How effective is your company at keeping women on the fast track?

Leadership coach Peter Bregman tells the story of an employee, “Larry”, who left a company after receiving a bonus check. In fact, because of the bonus check. Seems the check was left on Larry’s chair by his manager, without further personal connection.

Writing his HBR.org post, 20 seconds to a Better Bonus, Bregman observes:

“Larry hadn’t received any meaningful feedback, praise, or supportive communication during the course of the year. He had very little relationship with his manager and only a vague sense of how he was viewed in the organization. When he found the check sitting on his chair, with not as much as a note of thanks for his hard work and dedication, the absence was louder than the presence. His financial needs were met, but his psychological needs were neglected.”

Bregman uses this story to underscore a very important point about feedback. It’s not enough to ensure the employee understands that you value her work, but why.

He encourages managers to spend 20 seconds a week, or 20 minutes a year, praising staffers who deserve it. “To work it needs to be personal, specific, clear, and heartfelt,” Bregman writes.

“You are a valued employee because you…” took initiative on the Johnson account; followed through with customers after we dropped the ball; delivered a creative solution for a thorny problem; boosted team morale when we missed the deadline; questioned my conventional wisdom (and weak) approach. You get the idea. Everyone brings unique strengths to the job. It’s your job as manager to make sure those positives are highlighted for the real value they bring.

Don’t get caught thinking that nothing says love like a fat bonus check. Money helps, but your sincere and regular feedback is more important for the long term happiness of your team.

What kind of feedback from your manager do you most crave?

(Hug image by Dyanna, CC 2.0)

Here is good news for folks who sometimes stumble over the title of that movie we saw last week or the name of the new market analyst down the hall.

In your role as mature leader, problem solver and innovator, your brain is evolving in ways that help rather than hinder your performance.

That’s cheery news for all of us 50-plus managers who worry that we’ve lost a little bit off the old fastball. And maybe we have, acknowledges Barbara Strauch, a medical and science editor at the New York Times. But we know lots of other pitches that those young bucks can’t match.

“By midlife our brains have developed a whole host of talents that are, in the end, just as well suited to navigating the modern, complex workplace. As we age, we get better at seeing the possible. Younger brains, predictably, are set up to focus on the negative and potential trouble. Older brains, studies show, often reach solutions faster, in part, because they focus on what can be done.”

As our experiences grow, so does our ability to recognize patterns. And it’s when those patterns suddenly snap into place that we enjoy the “ah-ha!” moment emerging out of the subconscious.

Read Barbara’s blog post on HBR.org, Brain Functions That Improve With Age. Then return here (if you can remember where ‘here’ is) and tell us how you are managing as you age.

(Brain cell image by jepoirrier, CC 2.0)

I’ll be honest. I have no idea what makes a successful business tweet. I do have a clue about how Facebook can be a useful biz tool, but Tweeter? — I’m not there yet.

I’m convinced BNET readers can answer this question quite well. So enlighten me. I want to know what competitive advantage Tweeter brings to your arsenal of business tools.

Here is one way to approach this assignment. Over on HBR.org, Tammy Erickson has just blogged on the topic, Are You Fun to Follow on Twitter? She lists four ingredients that make for an engaging tweet:

1. Don’t repeat banal details.
2. Interpret your experiences.
3. Share oddities you observe.
4. Share things you love.

So what makes a successful business tweet to engage and expand your list of followers/customers/contacts/partners?  I can think of one: “50% off for the next 10 customers to mention this tweet.” But that sounds like a gimmick rather than a strategic advantage.  Let’s hear your thoughts.

Do they have no shame? No social conscience? No moral compass?

Why do Wall Street big shots continue to pocket huge bonuses in the face of intense criticism from the public and politicians?

The answer might be this: The devil wears Prada.

New research by Harvard Business School professor Roy Y.J. Chua and London Business School’s Xi Zou demonstrates a link between nearness to luxury goods and acting in self-interest. The authors call it the “luxury prime.”

The research, says Chua in an interview with HBS Working Knowledge, shows that “people who were made to think about luxury prior to a decision-making task have a higher tendency to endorse self-interested decisions that might potentially harm others.” (More on the working paper.)

Under this theory, bankers don’t further line their already fat pockets because of a busted moral compass or desire to harm society. It’s because they are primed by their own luxury to overact in self-indulgence, and also to be less concerned about others.

The cure? Limit corporate excesses and luxuries in the first place. Hold that executive retreat at the local Marriott instead of in the Bahamas. Ground the private jets, garage the limos, gut the bonuses.

Problem is, who makes those decisions?

(Alarm image by takomabibelot, CC 2.0)

Former Google CIO Douglas Merrill, author of ”Getting Organized in the Google Era”, suggests in the New York Times that we multitask more effectively by working on different tasks every 15 minutes, rather than two simultaneously.

That’s great advice — if you want to completely blow away your productivity, be less creative and more frustrated. And, no, I don’t mean we should all start working on two, three, four tasks at once.

The research I’ve read clearly demonstrates we are penalized every time we are interrupted or switch tasks. Listen to Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, an expert on multitasking.

“To hop from one task to another, we have to pull away cognitively from one activity, then fire up the new rules and skills needed for the new task,” Mark says in an interview with Fast Company. “Rapid-fire switching is inefficient and prone to error.”

The dangers of the 15-minute work flow:

• More Stress. Mark says that when people focus on one task they work more slowly. A self-imposed, 15-minute deadline is going to make you work faster, I believe. You may or may not make more mistakes, but you will feel more stress.
• Less Creativity. Creativity expert Teresa Amabile, of Harvard Business School, says tight deadlines are an anathema for creativity. Switching tasks every 15 minutes doesn’t allow for deep thinking.
• Increased Frustration. Repeatedly working on a series of short tasks essentially means you are drawing out the time it takes to complete them. Unfinished tasks nag the mind — they are difficult to stop thinking about until you have finished the job, argues Getting Things Done author David Allen. Frustration takes root. (Allen suggests we start our day by knocking off chores that take 2 minutes or less to complete, so we can concentrate on the heavy stuff.)

The fifteen-minute routine may work well at an Attention Deficit Syndrome organization such as Google, but I suggest you allot yourself distraction-free time to take care of the work at the top of your priority list.

How do you work best? Do you need short deadlines, or is time what you crave most?

Multitasking image by Mike Licht, CC 2.0)

Whoa, that was fast.

Toyota has gone from model 21st century company (not to mention model 20th century) in a fast fall broken only by GM’s soft presence at the bottom of the heap. Amazing the amount of brand damage a few stuck accelerators and a 9 million car recall can do.

What happened? Call it the Icarus factor. Emboldened by the imploding American car industry, Toyota punched pedal to the metal in a rush to overtake GM as the largest carmaker in the world, which it accomplished in 2008. But Toyota’s wax wings soon melted as its ambitions took it too close to the sun, the victim of pursuing quantity over quality.

That’s the lesson Steven J. Spear, senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, takes away from Toyota’s fall. Spear, one of the company’s most insightful chroniclers, says the carmaker tragically abandoned its continuous improvement and innovation process, which relies on an empowered and educated workforce.

“While studying Toyota, I met with front-line teams charged with solving problems related to quality, productivity, and safety. They were often given many months to find solutions, and, in a few cases, their work was extended beyond a year so they could master the skills of problem-identification and resolution.”

But in recent years Toyota forgot its slow but steady approach, driving instead on developing new products more quickly, building new plants and expanding supply networks. Worker training did not keep up. “We’re now seeing the consequences of those decisions,” Spear writes on HBR.org, Learning From Toyota’s Stumble.

Harvard Business School’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls this “the 15 minute competitive advantage.”

“As many technology companies have seen to their peril, you can leap much too far into the future by seeking revolution, not evolution, leaving potential users in the dust. But steady progress — step by single step — can win internal support and the external race for share of market or share of mind. Especially if you take each step quickly.”

Let this be a lesson to companies who would pounce on weakened prey. In a rush to capture market share, don’t forget what brought you success in the first place.

What should Toyota’s next steps be?

(Toyota image by m_luff@xtra.co.nz, CC 2.0)

If you sell product, you are likely focused on how the customer uses it. As you should be.

But now start thinking about what venture capitalist Anthony Tjan calls the “three minute rule.” Study the customer three minutes before he starts using it, and three minutes after. What is the broader context in which your product is used?

Supermarkets might learn that they should put shopping baskets in the middle of the store, not just at the entrance, Tjan says in his HBR.org blog post, The Three-Minute Rule.

Here is what you might reap from applying the three-minute rule to your own products:

• Ideas for the next iteration. Financial data provider Thompson learned that soon after client-analysts received financial earnings data from the company, they would quickly reformat it for export to an Excel spreadsheet. Voila, Thompson prioritized development of an Excel plug-in, and sales increased, Tjan reports.
• More cross-selling opportunities. Follow your product on a store shelf as it is picked up for purchase by a shopper, and see what else this customer buys. It might be valuable to learn, Tjan says, that new mothers buying your disposable diapers also buy disposable cameras.
• Changed consumer behavior. Tjan cites Paco Underhill’s research at shopping markets. People who went to the store with the intention of buying one or two necessities — and so did not pick up a shopping cart — would have purchased more if they had run across a cart in the middle of the store. They weren’t about to walk all the way back to the entrance to procure one. Questioning people in line about what they were thinking three minutes before would have unearthed this opportunity.

What Tjan is point out is that we as product or service providers can easily come to see the world through narrow blinders. Asking customers about how they spend six minutes might help us see the bigger picture and where nearby opportunities hide.

(Stopwatch image by wwarby, CC 2.0)

Our favorite writer on generational divides in the workplace, Tammy Erickson, sees President Obama as an example of the leadership style of the coming vanguard of Gen X leaders. Someone who thinks and manages like Obama could be your next boss.

So what traits makes the president a Gen X leader? In her blog post Our Generation X President’s First Year, she includes these characteristics:

• Options thinker. Like many in his generation, Obama grew up with strong survival skills and always has multiple options open to him for consideration.
• Multicultural and diverse. X’ers have a strong unconscious acceptance of diversity, Erickson says, “welcoming the contributions of multiple individuals, seemingly comfortable in a world in which there is no dominant voice.”
• Highly pragmatic. Obama, like his peers, carry practical sensibilities and are committed to serving as effective stewards of both organizations and the world.

But these traits, as worthy as they may be, may not make for the most effective political leader.

“Perhaps the biggest difference between Boomers and X’ers, from my research, is the diminished emphasis X’ers place on winning for winning’s sake, on being right,” Erickson continues. “Boomers, reared in a zero sum world of overpopulated classrooms and too-few jobs, have by necessity often taken a highly polarized line. Obama, in contrast, appears to shape his communications to eliminate the language of combat. He often reminds us that he has no personal pride of authorship.”

And that’s a problem in a political context, Erickson says. “I … admire those who, after considering multiple options, present a persuasive and engaging case for the course they’ve chosen.”

Interestingly, the president in his State of the Union address Wednesday evening began to shape his language more around doing “what is right” for the American people, rather than just simply accomplishing an agenda. In a jab at Republicans, Obama said: “Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.”

Let’s assume for a moment that the president is a proxy for Gen X leaders about to take command. Would you like to work for him? Can he get results? What will the world look like under Generation X’s stewardship?