Not your father’s statistics

John Markoff of The New York Times reports on new software which finds relevant documents and social interconnections inside big volumes of legal data.  E-discovery is only one area where the accelerating torrent of information will be interpreted by new algorithms to generate knowledge and to change the jobs of professionals and managers. How will it change your business and your job?

Leadership checklist

I ran across this quote on Tom Ricks’ blog from Lt. General Walter Ulmer, who helped the U.S. Army recover from My Lai back in the ’70s and ’80s.

What is the essence of a ‘good climate’ that promotes esprit and gives birth to ‘high performing units’? It is probably easier to feel or sense than to describe. It doesn’t take long for most experienced people to take its measure.

• There is a pervasive sense of mission.
• There is a common agreement on what are the top priorities.
• There are clear standards.
• Competence is prized and appreciated.
• There is a willingness to share information.
• There is a sense of fair play.
• There is joy in teamwork.
• There are quick and convenient ways to attack nonsense and fix aberrations in the system.
• There is a sure sense of rationality and trust.

The key to the climate is leadership in general, and senior leadership in particular.

Looks to me like a good checklist for anyone planning a fearless reexamination of the role they play in their organization.

Is Strategic Account Management for you?

Over on one of the LinkedIn discussion groups, a question came up about the steps of strategic account management. One approach I’ve been using this year with clients has a 5 step, project-driven cycle that can be done again and again:
1. Increase account knowledge and connections by calling more widely.
2. Do account planning with the customer from a collaborative vision.
3. Discover, diagnose and design projects that advance the vision; pre-establish the project’s value to the customer before starting.
4. Coordinate customer and internal teams to deliver project and achieve goals.
5. Present and validate project’s value to customer through executive level.

There’s a lot more to be said, but if you practice these five steps, you’ll be listening more to find out what the customer’s business problems are. Your solutions will include more than just product. As you deliver, you’ll build trust and credibility that will encourage the customer to tell you more, because they’ll know you care about them and their business goals.

This is not a short-term fix, and it won’t work with every customer. Some companies with really strong purchasing organizations won’t accept the value of projects when negotiating the terms of the next deal. Qualify the customer (and your own management!) before initiating this approach:

• Are other vendors treated as strategic partners, even if your company is not yet?
• Are the people you deal with capable of influencing purchasing to make this type of selling worthwhile? Do they give you signals before you start that project that it’s worth doing vs. other places you could put resources?
• Does your organization have expertise beyond product that will help you deliver value, and will it be made available to you?
• Are you calling high enough in the account that you’ve reached people who care about strategic business results, as opposed to product attributes?
• Will you be in the account long enough that this approach bears fruit vs. traditional selling?
• Is your account large enough that it will yield a return from the amount of time that this selling approach takes?

Check the Wiring

The landing of Flight 1549 in the Hudson River was a stirring tale of heroism, but it was also a test.  Communications and coordination in aviation events has been beefed up dramatically since 9/11.  “An episode like this is a chance to check the wiring and see how things are working,” said Philip Zelikow in an insightful New York Times article on how everything worked during the Flight 1549 incident.  The article describes the operation centers, open telephone networks, coordination committees and perhaps most importantly, the feeds from airborne cameras and telephone reports that helped managers get a grip on what was happening.

Do you have seldom-used emergency operations systems?  How are they activated?  How do you gather information to make good decisions?  Most of us don’t have life-and-death responsibilities, but a test of the wiring would still be a worthwhile simulation of how well your organization collaborates when something out of the ordinary occurs.