Issue 22, Sunday 26th June, 2000
Made in New Zealand - twice winners of the America's Cup
Subscribe/unsubscribe - bottom of the page


Award is a free, fortnightly email magazine with the tools, techniques and best-practice models that deliver high performance in the new economy
In this issue
Human resources, email, trust - how networks are destroying the org chart
Customers and markets - email II
Competitive intelligence - a primer
Competitive Intelligence 101 - a toolbox to keep you ahead of the pack
HR from the e-stream, and The latest from APQC

New member? Here are all the back issues - and here are our web resources - one of the world's best completely free Baldrige Award and organisational excellence web sites. AOL customers (and others who can't access web-page emails) here's the web version - Click here to send us an email.
Human resources, email, trust
Work in a large organisation? Does everyone have email? Has it made a difference to your workplace culture? If your answer is yes to 1 and 2 and no to 3, are you really sure you know what's happening around you?

Plain old vanilla-flavoured email is turning out to be the sleeper of the digital revolution. It's a potent marketing tool (see loyalty and email, below), a rich-media publishing platform, and a work and product distribution channel for the growing cadre of home and away workers. But most important, it's transforming how people communicate and relate in their day to day work.

Put the snap crackle and pop to one side and think about what happens when the formal channels engraved in hierarchical org charts no longer control how information is distributed – when anyone with access to the network can talk to anyone else with access. And does. Often.

It's subversive. It's democratising. And it's having a big influence on one of the key elements of new-economy human resource management - Trust.

How, exactly? Let's start with why trust is an issue.

It's a new-economy cliché. Managing knowledge workers (every day, that's what more of us are) is harder than herding cats. Take a careful look. Often, these days, functional specialists, the production workers of many workplaces, are better-informed and more skilled than their leaders.

Collaboration and team work are the dominant paradigms. Mission-critical intellectual capital walks out the door every night. Talent-hunters are everywhere, luring away your best people with the siren call of options and entrepreneurship and signing-on bonuses. Maybe not yet in Europe or Australia and New Zealand, but soon enough, even there.

In that environment, with the org chart - Warren Bennis' prosthesis for trust - no longer effective, the trust that's essential to get things done is a different animal. Bennis' argument (reported by Thomas A Stewart in Fortune, June 12, p 137) is that when the hierarchy, the “armature that reinforces ... trust,' is replaced by the network, organisations should explicitly seek a replacement prosthesis – other, better 'helpers and stand-ins.' And why? Just to emphasise - because “developing trust [has] become the key source of sustainable competitive advantage.”

You're writing a 'Baldrige' application, or involved in any sort of analysis or improvement activity. Human resources is part of your mandate. If you miss the significance of the network, then it's highly likely you're missing a large part of what really matters.

So what does reporter Stewart offer as a 'new prosthesis'? What should you be testing for and describing as you go about your organisation analysis?

There are five elements to 'trust' in a post-hierarchical organisation:
1 Competence. I can trust you if I know you're good. How to judge competence? Try a structured, Baldrige-like approach. Build interpersonal trust on measurable and agreed competencies, set and achieve ambitious goals.
2 Community. Networks spawn informal groups of like-minded souls. When they coalesce around common work-related disciplines or problems you've got a 'community of practice' – people who recognise and can validate competence. You might not know who's any good, but his or her peers will. Recognise, formalise, and write new-community values into your HR analysis?
3 Commitment. Does everyone have the same mission? Does the mission make sense. Is it unique to the organisation and a common call to action? No more hiding the business model behind high-sounding nonsense. As Stewart says, the company that asks for innovation and rewards obedience shouldn't be surprised if its creatives abandon ship. Apply some scepticism to what's postered on the cafeteria wall, and be prepared to test it in the workplace (and in the executive suite).
4 Communication. At work, as in life, trust needs communication. Here's a revolutionary thought – tell the truth. As Bennis says, communication will take a lot more time than it used to, and as the rabble-rousing authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto say, “There are no secrets …. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.” Hierarchies may lie and get away with it. Naked emperors may go unchallenged. But not on the network! Is continually improving communication a key competency? How do you know?
5 Cupidity. If trust is a source of competitive advantage, it should pay, Stewart says. Trust should be seen to be good business, and it should apply just as much in the bad times and when things go wrong as it does in the good. As the org charts go out the window, leaders need to understand that trust is as important to management as it is to customers. How's it manifest? How will you assess it?

Advertisement
Well. Sort of. We'd like to remind you about EDGE FIRST, our companion e-zine dedicated to leaders and leadership - a fortnightly serving of provocative thinking about what it means to be a leader, and the tools, techniques and best-practices that drive leadership improvement. If you haven't seen them, click here for the first two FREE issues and the two FREE leadership assessment tools. We're having host 'difficulties.' If this page fails to load, email us and we'll deliver it manually.
Customers and markets - email II
While we're on the subject ... Internet number-cruncher The Daily eStat reports that in a survey of 1,000 users, 86% thought that email is a good way to get information about products, and of those with existing relationships with merchants, 81% thought that email was a good way to communicate. And, given a clear privacy policy, 54% said they would part with information in exchange for personalized service. The survey also found that email plays a significant role in how consumers found products on the web.

The importance of good communicatrion to customer relationship management and customer loyalty was also supported by the survey data, which showed just how popular email is -- 95% of consumers like to communicate by email. Another 69% believe it is the internet's most powerful tool, and 71% of permission-based email recipients click through to a company's website

Customers and markets – competitive intelligence
Baldrige's category 3.1 – Customer and Market Knowledge – asks a lot of questions about things like 'target customers, customer groups and/or market segments … customers of competitors … key requirements or drivers of purchase decisions … current, former or potential customers …' And in typical Baldrige-speak, 'how do you keep your listening and learning methods current with business needs and directions?'

Strip away the jargon and what we're talking about is market intelligence, a subject Business Week's online publication of June 21st devoted considerable space to. Here's the essential elements:

The big guys have been doing it for years. Gathering information, analysing it quickly, and then taking action can speed a company's reaction time to changes in the marketplace, help pre-empt and outmanoeuvre competitors and protect a business' own secrets.

It's a billion dollar growth industry of seminars, books, and high-priced consultants. But small companies are learning that CI can help them.

"CI enters the small-business person's world first as a mental model, as a way of thinking about who you are in the world," says CIA officer Pamela Noe, who teaches competitive intelligence at George Washington University. "You may start playing around on the Internet, and discover not only that you have competitors all over the world - 'My God, I'm not the only one who does this!' - but that your customers can do the same."

“Don a trench coat if you must,” Frontier's writer says, “but CI isn't spying. Unless you're willing to serve a prison term for violating the federal Economic Espionage Act, don't plan on bugging your competitors, stealing files to get trade secrets, or assuming a false identity to gain access.”

In any case you won't need high-tech listening devices or any of the other spy paraphernalia. There's a lot already in the public domain. Information can be gleaned by surfing your competitor's Web site, reading the local paper, or hanging out at the bar where your rival's staff congregates. Also useful: trade shows and publications, your local library, and your own employees.

Here's Frontier's selection of resources, many of which are free (not based in the US? Your country will have at least some comparable data sources).

FREE DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION - The US Census Bureau, Annual Demographic Survey, and Population Index. FREE BUSINESS DATA Thomas Register : free online version of the $150 sourcebook on US and Canadian companies. USEFUL CI LINKS Fuld's Internet Index . An impressive list of links of both free and fee-based resources. WEB MONITORING SERVICES - KnowX.com Searches public records for bankruptcies, liens, and judgments against individuals and businesses for $15 or less. TRACERLOCK - A free service that notifies you by e-mail of any new Web site that contains a name or keyword you've entered. GAME - CI Intelligence Organizer. A free game board that helps you focus on different business situations, such as a rumored product introduction by a rival, and the type of intelligence you'll need to respond. PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY - Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals . For timely news about conferences, seminars, resources, CI ethics, and Web links. BOOK - Millennium Intelligence: Understanding and Conducting Competitive Intelligence in the Digital Age, Editor, Jerry Miller, Information Today, 2000. Includes a chapter on small-business applications.

Getting Started: Competitive Intelligence 101
To begin your own competitive-intelligence program, set up a system for gathering, analyzing, and acting on information:
- What kind of information do you need? Analyze the factors that have won or cost you business
- Tell people what to look for ... like subtle shifts in the marketplace, such as changes in a competitor's pricing patterns
- Share information ... maybe through an "idea box" or groupware such as Lotus Notes
- Make it everyone's responsibility, but just one person's job to catalog the collected information and keep it up to date
- Provide feedback. Use a newsletter or email to let people know how the information was used
- Seek multiple sources. Cross-validate. Don't base key decisions on a single source of information
- Be aware of your blind spots. It's the things you "always" or "never" do that might keep you from acting upon information and seizing a new opportunity.
- What if? Use the information you gather to imagine possible scenarios, such as how your competitor would react if you rolled out a product or what you would do if the market shifted.

Human resource focus – the e-stream
John Audette, publisher of moderated discussion lists, has found a new niche: “Dealing with employees: hiring, firing, motivating, retention, benefits programs, insurance, setting work hours, management issues, stock options ... The technology revolution, coupled with a booming economy, has driven the unemployment rate in the US to an all time low,” he says.

“Human Resource Management has become one of the most important and strategic corporate functions. We looked and we couldn't find a discussion list devoted to HR – so we're launching one.”

I-HR is moderated by Amy Moore, who has handled all of the HR functions for a $200 million company with over 235 service locations, 3 distribution centers, 2 call centers, one national operations office and one national sales office.

“I-HR is good for you,” she says, “managing business functions is set to be the next big wave on-line. E-commerce hype has run its course, and businesses need to get back to the business of being in business. To do that, HR is one of the most critical functions any business owner encounters".

Go here to subscribe, and here for more information or to subscribe via John's internet site.

Knowledge management (and more) at APQC
”Since 1995, the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) has been a major catalyst for the practical application of knowledge management.” They say. Here's some of what's currently available at their site:

- Successfully Implementing Knowledge Management, a recent benchmarking exercise. Read the executive summary or order the report online.

- Presentations from APQC's 4th KM conference, Showcasing Successful Knowledge Management Implementation. And more on the same subject.

- Customer relationship management links to articles, publications, and Web sites; a list of best-practice institutions; and additional resources on CRM.

- Corporate citizenship Half of the people surveyed in this year's worldwide Millennium Poll are "paying attention to the social behavior of companies," APQC says. “Predictions are that pressure to perform broader roles in society will increase significantly. Companies are realizing that being a good corporate citizen can benefit the bottom line by:
- reducing project risks and preserving their freedom to operate
- enhancing recruitment, retention, workforce development, and productivity
- building corporate reputation
- supporting customer acquisition and retention
- spurring new market and product development.

APQC and the Boston College Center for Corporate Community Relations have teamed up to examine best practices in measuring the return on good citizenship. To find out more, visit here, and for information about APQC's first community relations study go here.

- Balanced scorecards is a benchmarking project on balanced scorecards and innovative measurement practices, Measure What Matters: Aligning Performance Measures with Business Strategy, focuses on designing a performance measurement system, implementing and operating a performance measurement system, and communicating and driving behaviors. Here's the executive summary. And here's more APQC stuff on measurement.
Subscribe Unsubscribe