6 Business Lessons from the German Soccer Team

This article was first published on LinkedIn.

Like many people I have a great love for watching sport. Unlike many people, however, the aspect that fascinates me most is to observe teams as complete systems designed to achieve a goal, to find behavioural analogies with how businesses are run and to then extract valuable lessons I can apply and share.

With Soccer World Cup fever doing the rounds over the last few months I again had ample opportunity to follow, Germany, my favourite team through the group matches and all knockout matches with now only the World Cup Final remaining. Although the 7-1 destruction of Brazil was certainly a spectacle to behold on a day where just everything seemed to go the way of the Germans, it is my firm belief that there is more to the emphatic German victory than meets the eye. After some quiet processing (in the corner of a coffee shop) I have identified 6 essential ingredients to Germany's success that in my opinion are equally valid for successfully running a business.

1. Invest and believe in your people. Although this has become something of a cliché thing to say in the business world there are few companies that actually practice what they preach. Compare this to Germany who is not only able to field players that have played in the previous World Cup but also can call on the services of one player, Miroslav Klose, who at age 35 has played in 3 previous World Cups! On the coaching side Joachim Löw has now been Head Coach for an incredible 8 years after being Assistant Coach for 2 years prior to that. 10 years working in such a high-pressure environment! Incredible! This feat is even more remarkable when considering that Germany has up to now not won any major league title since Joachim took the top job. Retaining your key staff in a sport as in business is a key ingredient for capitalising on the next 5 ingredients.
2. An effective team of good players usually trumps a team that relies heavily on a few stars. When talking about the really good soccer players, names such as Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar invariably come up. Watching games where these virtuoso's are playing are usually entertaining and result in soccer that is beautiful in the truest sense of the word. Although Germany has no such stars, watching the team play, however, quickly makes one forget the individual players in favour of observing the "beauty of a well-oiled machine" which arguable is better suited to deliver on the ultimate objective of winning a game. Businesses can learn from this example and adjust their performance and incentive system to reward team performance instead of individual brilliance.
3. The performance of a system can only be as good as its weakest link. This is one aspect that Germany really understands well and although they are known to consistently improve all aspects of their game they most importantly are obsessed with increasing the overall tempo of their game (by distributing the ball faster) . And this, they believe, is their key leverage point. Although their strategy is well known it is incredibly difficult to counter and often has their opponents reeling from the sheer pace (as was evidenced in the recent semi-final with Brazil) and allows them to perform consistently well (they have been number 2 in word-rankings for the last 2 years). A business that understands this simple truth learns where to spend its scarce resources to achieve maximum (financial) throughput.
4. Build a sustainable advantage. In the quarter finals the Dutch stunned the world by exchanging their number one goal keeper with a penalty specialist close to the end of extra time. Their opponents Costa Rica seemed ill-prepared for this audacious move and subsequently lost the penalty shootout allowing the Netherlands to progress to the last 4. Here, however, they met their match when they lost against Argentina in another penalty shootout after extra time. It was thus quite ironic when Van Gaal, the Dutch Coach remarked after the game: "It's disappointing. Losing on penalties is the most difficult scenario. We were equal to them, if not better, so it is a big disappointment." As already alluded to in point 4 Germany instead focuses on building a decisive competitive edge and have absolutely no inclination to rely on penalties to win. Most businesses these days use the "turbulent times" as an excuse for not being able to build a long-term decisive competitive advantage and rather rely on short-term tactical approaches to outsmart the competition. The problem with this is, as we have seen, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose...
5. Be ruthless in execution. The objective of soccer is to score goals while denying the opposition to do the same. In the semi-final with Brazil Germany did just that, even after all but winning in the first third of the game. During the second half they scored two further goals and when they did finally concede one goal in the 90th minute, Manual Neuer (the German goal keeper) was furious with himself. How often have we not seen teams (in all sports) change their approach to a more defensive posture after securing an early lead only to lose the game in the end. Businesses often find themselves in similar positions when scoring an early lead and, instead of building on their lead by ruthlessly focusing on extending it they allow the competition to catch up and in the end often lose the war after having won an initial battle.
6. Embrace the lucky breaks, but don't take them for granted. The previous 5 points all support the claim that Germany has a solid soccer foundation and the ability to beat any team on any day. What happened at the semi-final, however, no-body, least of which Germany, could have predicted. A sober Löw remarks: "We were lucky that the hosts were shell-shocked. Now we must prepare well for the final". While it is true that being at the right place, at the right time could lead the astute leader to a huge business break, it is also true that the fall from grace is usually hard and humility is definitely recommended.

While researching and writing about these 6 lessons I had some glimpses here and there of other business lessons that may still be hidden in the spectacle we call the Fifa World Cup. If you can fill in the gaps it would help all of us to become better at leading our businesses.

Back to sport: May the best team win at the Final! Vive la "Die Mannschaft".

The challenges of long-term employment vs.personal and business growth

Since starting Space Age 20 years ago we have always fervently believed in the value of building long-term relationships with all business stakeholders, but most importantly with employees.  This belief is by now firmly embedded in the core DNA of the organisation and we pride ourselves for having one of the highest, if not the highest, staff retention rates in the SME IT industry of South Africa.  Considering that our success as a business depends on having highly skilled staff delivering valuable services to our customers, being able to have continuity in who delivers what services is a huge contributor to service quality and future business success.  The logic seems sound, but there are at least two very important caveats that one needs to consider before embarking on such a strategy.

One such challenge that we have been aware of for quite some time concerns an employee's growth path or, more specifically, the speed at which an employee grows.  It is no secret that most people apply for the next step up when they are looking for a new job.  Since this usually goes together with an salary increase, a new environment with no history as well as a new set of challenges, people usually are highly motivated to succeed ... and mostly do.  Achieving the same step-change in your current organisation not only requires an environment conducive to generating similar conditions, but also places a huge (and I cannot emphasise this enough) responsibility on the shoulders of each and every employee to adopt an attitude of life-long learning and continuously challenging the personal status quo to not fall into a comfort zone.

At Space Age I believe we have created just such a learning environment and we have many success stories to date.  I am sad to admit, however, that we also have situations where generally productive individuals have been at Space Age for a long time (sometimes for more than 10 years) without taking control of their own career and occasionally pushing themselves to get to the next stage.  Imagine the disappointment when one finally realises that one should have reached the next level 5 years ago...

It is only recently that I really became aware of the second challenge and that is the difficulty to truly transform a business model without having "new blood" from the outside that can bring fresh perspective, passion and momentum.  We are in the lucky position as an organisation where we have a viable and extremely exciting long-term vision and strategy to leverage our unique intellectual property in the IT industry to reach a much wider customer-base than currently.  New employees joining an organisation during such times of upheaval quite readily understand and accept what needs to be done differently (since everything is in any case different) whereas existing employees often bring so much history to the table that it is hard work to convince them of the merit of some new business direction, especially when realising they probably know of many previous initiatives that did not produce results...

Similar to the previous challenge we have found that establishing a mindset that firmly embraces life-long learning and continuous challenges to the personal status quo goes a long way towards mitigating the highlighted risks.  Another lesson we have learned is that the stability of the long-term vision, mission and strategy is absolutely essential to allow employees to continuously reposition and challenge themselves without being thrown from one "quick fix" to another (which is definitely not good for career-building).

In recent months, however, I have realised that there is another solution that at first glance appears to be in direct conflict with the original premise of building long-term relationships with employees: and this is to accept that not all employees are ready to accompany us on the planned transformation (however exciting this may be) and that some will look for more stability somewhere else.   And this is OK!  Instead of seeing this as a major problem I am now realising that, however hard it may be to lose a long-term SATler, each person leaving also presents a unique opportunity to accelerate the implementation of our strategy as we can immediately appoint a person at the required level of expertise without having to go through the tedious, and time-consuming process of developing skills internally.

At the moment I really cannot say which situation would be most beneficial for realising our strategic goals: To rely on individuals that know our company well, but need to learn many new skills or new individuals from the outside that may have the appropriate skills but need to learn a lot about our unique way of doing business.  I suspect that the best answer will consist of some sort of combination of both scenarios. What I do know, however, is that transforming an industry in the way we plan to do is going to be hard work and requires commitment, a sense of urgency and, most importantly, to leave behind any comfort zones that may exist.

Why any SME should take notice when Facebook buys Occulus VR

For a sci-fi fan like myself the last few years have been absolutely amazing as more and more companies with deep pockets such as Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have started to tackle the really big technology challenges of our time: artificial intelligence, augmented reality, aging, space exploration and self-driving cars to name just a few.  When Mark Zuckerberg announced the acquisition of virtual reality (VR) upstart Occulus VR for a staggering sum of 2 Billion US Dollars on March 25, another important milestone was reached with a heavy-weight company such as Facebook embracing yet another technology with immense potential and countless real-world applications but still a lot of engineering challenges before it can reach the mainstream masses (and produce profits for its owners).

If you have not yet heard about Oculus VR and their implementation of Virtual Reality for gaming you may perhaps want to have a look at this article detailing their history.  For most people it is quite easy to see how a VR platform could enhance gaming in the future, but the big question on everybody's mind now is why Facebook describes VR as the next big platform after mobile and your guess is as good as mine.  What is insightful, however, is to understand that Facebook has the resources, the imagination and the resolve to heavily invest in a future that was previously considered to only exist in the realm of science fiction.  To fuel our imagination, however, here is a first concept video published by a third party who tries to demonstrate one way of how Facebook could use the Rift in the near future to change the way we do shopping.

Pretty exciting stuff, you may say, but aren't all these advances driven by the big organisations with little room for small organisations (such as us and our clients) to truly contribute?  Part of the answer is "yes", they mostly are, and you truly need deep pockets to contribute towards building future platforms.  The other part of the answer is a resounding "no" as a plethora of new opportunities will open up for smaller organisations that will lead to massive innovation the world has not yet seen!

If this answer is a bit cryptic, allow me to explain by means of a more tangible example using a platform technology that most of us have intimate knowledge about: mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android and Windows Mobile. Specifically, each of these ecosystems makes use of an app store to allow relatively easy access to amazingly sophisticated hardware, software and Internet services.  The vast selection of applications currently installed on your smartphone, mostly developed by either individuals or small organisations, is testament to the immense opportunity these platforms offer to virtually anyone with an imagination. Without all these applications our sophisticated phones would not be quite as smart as they currently are....

Similar to how app stores have been leveraged, the opportunity for smaller organisations to harness present and future platform innovations and imagine different and new offerings for their clients are growing literally every day. Imagine this, all these big organisations are building out these amazing new platforms (at big cost to them) that just wait for people (like you and me) that creatively combine them in new and exciting ways (and at very lost cost to them).  Wow, now this makes me really, really excited and I cannot help to think how wrong Nicolas Carr was when he published his influential work on "IT Doesn't Matter" more than 10 years ago.

With all of this excitement, however, there is one major (really major) problem that will prevent many smaller organisations from ever leveraging these game-changing new platforms for competitive advantage.  At Space Age Technologies we call this problem the business IT divide and its effects are observable in almost all the companies we deal with on a regular basis (including, to an extent, ourselves at Space Age).  Business and IT people really do not see eye to eye and for many companies where this remains the status quo it will mean the difference between having a competitive advantage (and earning lots of money) versus offering services that are a commodity and offered by many (thereby making the company an "also-ran" and potentially leading to its demise).

How far can you go?

Most people have big dreams of changing the world by the time they leave school.  But then something we call "life" happens and virtually all get stuck in our daily routines and we adjust our aspirations to be about making our lives as easy and predictable as possible.  We have come to terms with our boundaries and accept that we, after all, will not make a dent in the universe.  Like everybody else I often also fall prey to this line of thinking and have to regularly force myself to do something "different" and challenge the status quo.  The following story is about one of my recent attempts at "pushing my boundaries" and in the end it reminded me of a very important lesson I learned in grade 9.

It all started with my wife explaining to me that hiking in the mountains is just as important to her well-being as diving is for me.  Since this argument made perfect sense to me (as I cannot imagine to not put my head occasionally under water for a dive), we started talking about getting back into the mountains for a proper, multi-day wilderness hike.  There was, however, a "tiny" problem standing between us and the realisation of this goal: our one year old daughter Gabriele who would not only add about 20kg of weight to our backpacks but also would quite significantly increase the risks we would constantly have to be aware of. Since we had already purchased a heavy-duty child carrier a while ago, we decided that the best way forward would be to not procrastinate but rather chose a date (a long weekend in March), a duration (three nights), a destination (Krakadouw peak in the Cederberg mountains) and lastly to invite some good friends to share in the fun.  To our surprise it was very easy to find willing participants .... Anette, one of the fellow hikers later wrote on Facebook:

When Riana invited us along on this hike, I mistakenly thought it would be a breeze. After all, they were taking their one-year-old baby along. In the end, it was quite a slog, but so very, very rewarding! :)

Now that we were committed, our first priority was to look for creative solutions to backpack weight-management. Fortunately we could rely on our food dehydrator to extract all water from some fully prepared (and very tasty) evening meals and also found some creative packaging solutions to reduce the total weight of our regular hiking utensils to the bare minimum.  What we could do nothing about were the three hiking matrices, a hiking tent, two sleeping bags, nappies for three days, lots of clothes for the little one to be prepared for all eventualities and the odds and ends one has to take along to just survive.  It was decided that Riana would carry Gabriele and some extras (totalling about 20kg), with me carrying the rest (amounting to close to 34kg). For both of us this was more than we ever carried, but we were hopeful that we would manage.

Photo credit: Liesbet Malan

On Thursday, 20 March, we finally had everything organised and started our 4h drive to Heuningvlei in the North Cederberg.  We only arrived after dark and thus had to walk the few kilometers to our first overnight camp using headlamps.  This hike went surprisingly well and we were all in good spirits after we had setup camp and were finally ready for the night.  Gabriele so far was taking everything in stride and only had a crying fit when she realised she would have to sleep in a tent and not have her customary "lion" and "Annabell" (her ragdoll) to sleep with.  The rest of the night was uneventful and 09h00 the next morning we were all packed and ready to start our hike to the top of the mountain (at about 1700m above sea level).

Shortly thereafter we realised for the first time what effect the extra weight would have on us.  We were by far the slowest in the group and the rough terrain quickly started to take its toll on our legs. To our great relief Gabriele thoroughly enjoyed the hike in her backpack and was only to eager to climb in again after every stop.  Towards the end of the day we finally neared the top of the mountain and standing between us and a well-deserved rest were 10 climbing obstacles that made Riana uncomfortable (due to the potential of having a serious fall), causing me to make two trips and carry both our backpacks.  Exhausted, but in good spirits, we finally reached the granite slabs where we would spend the next two nights... only to discover that there was no water!

Finding water at this time of the year in the Cederberg mountains is by no means assured and quite a few trips by avid hikers over the years had ended prematurely as a result.  Knowing the danger (especially with a baby), Riana had been watching weather predictions for Krakadouw peak for many weeks prior and for most of the time time it seemed certain that we could count on at least some rain before and during our trip.  In the end this rain never materialised and we were in the unfortunate position that we had only 1 L of water left between the tree of us after having already been very careful with our water consumption during this very hot day.  Since we did not relish the thought of spending the night without water I quickly pitched our tent and then got ready to join Liesbet and Johan who were already looking for water.

Johan and Liesbet return after a successful water search

Knowing that I might return after dark I packed my down-jacket and a head lamp and shortly before dusk I finally set out, on my own, to search for water in the direction of "Langstraat" (which is a deep, narrow and long gorge in the mountain), the only place we know of that might have water all year around. Only problem was that I had not previously been able to find the entrance to this gorge from the particular angle of approach and when darkness finally came I was quite far away from our camp (literally on the other side of the mountain), having found lots over interesting scenery, but still not the entrance to "Langstraat". Fortunately I did manage to find an alternative source of water (essentially 5 L of rain water that had collected in a granite indentation) and at least I could return home with something to show for my efforts.

An hour after darkness I finally arrived back in camp, only to find that the other party had also been successful in their search for water and that all were anxiously awaiting my return (and starting to fear the worst). Most affected was my little daughter that had somehow picked up on the general anxiety and started to cry bitterly.  After drinking copious amounts of water we put Gabriele to bed, prepared a hearty meal and then soon thereafter retired ourselves, completely knackered but happy in the knowledge that we had gotten this far.

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful sunrise, some cappuccino sticks and a hikers breakfast consisting of "Oat's so Easy".  The different parties then went their separate ways and after a short search Liesbet and I found more water in "Langstraat".  With our immediate needs now taken care of we could really relax and revel in how a small child experiences such radically different surroundings.  What a pleasure to just observe (and occasionally intervene to prevent an accident)!  We even found time for an extended afternoon nap, followed by a most enjoyable trip exploring the top of the mountain.  The second evening was uneventful with some good camp socialising and an early night to be ready for the long trip down the next day.

On the last day we got off to a relatively early start and shortly after nine all our belongings (including the 12 or so "full" nappies) were back in their packs.  Initial progress was good and, after the same 10 obstacles were behind us using a similar technique as before, the plains at the foot of the mountain seemed to quickly get closer.  Upbeat about this rapid progress we enjoyed an early and extended lunch break, only to discover that we had underestimated the amount of "work" we still had ahead of us.  Even though getting down from a mountain is supposed to consume less energy than its ascension, we found that descending was a lot more challenging and the going with heavy backpacks was surprisingly slow.  We finally arrived at our cars close to 18h00 after yet another very long and exhausting day.  Again Gabriele was mostly in an exceptionally happy mood and if she was not enjoying the scenery, she was taking a nap while her parents were doing all the work.

I cannot really describe in words how happy and accomplished we felt when we finally laid eyes on the cars. We had done it and (apart from aching muscles almost a week later) managed to do so without any serious incidents.  Liesbet then said something to the effect of her being particularly impressed with my strength to carry such a heavy backpack. Apart from the fact that her admiration should have rather gone to Riana who carried a proportionally much heavier backpack than I, I was of course flattered, but also felt a little bit baffled since I really do not consider myself to be physically strong.  Average perhaps, but nothing more than that.

The comment about strength, however, triggered a memory of a very powerful lesson I learned in Grade 9 when I and all Grade 9's went for a week-long team-building exercise in Swakopmund, the largest Namibian coastal town.  On one of the mornings our various teams were dropped off at specific points along the shore.  Our goal was to survive the day, traverse the dune-belt and navigating by compass to a specific rendezvous point. The trek across the dunes with heavy backpacks and in full sun was arduous and took the whole day. After a pretty confusing evening (consisting of supporting a boy suffering from dehydration and frantically searching for the official rallying point) we finally managed to reunite with the organisers.  We all had something to eat and then it was already time for the dreaded "night-march".

In single-file and only with some scant light from a few torches we stumbled through the thick dune sand, convinced that they wanted us to climb over every dune there was. We soon were utterly exhausted ... and that is when we came to the foot of the highest dune in the area, a dune they called "Majuba".  Of course our instructors wanted us to get up and down as quick as possible so that we can continue our march.  Not having much choice in the matter I proceeded as instructed and, somehow, don't ask me how, I managed to drag myself first up and then down again.  By now my leg muscles were aching severely and I was so weak that I was seriously doubting my ability to continue on the march.  And then our instructors issued a challenge that had a profound effect on my life.  They explained: Even when we think we cannot go on (for whatever reason), we still have lots of reserve energy that we can call on. And to demonstrate this they challenged everyone to scale Majuba yet again!  Not surprisingly there were not many people that accepted the challenge, but, somehow, I was one of the crazy ones and, quite to my surprise, I did manage to do it again ... and complete the march ... and survive the night!!

Wow, what a powerful way these instructors found to demonstrate the value of "pushing your boundaries" to a 15 year old! My experiences on Kradakouw mountain do not even come close to the exhaustion I felt on that day.  By comparison, looking at the happy faces of my wife and daughter I know that it was all worth it and, more importantly, that I would be prepared to go even further to achieve a similar outcome in the future.

The business IT gap is alive at Space Age

By now most business leaders either know or strongly suspect that they are not even coming close to tapping IT for the awesome potential it holds to provide true competitive advantage.  Space Age and other leading IT organisations have been researching the problem (see our own Relevant IT approach) and proposing possible solutions for years ... but it does really hit home when the nasty effects of this divide rear their head in our own organisation.

To fill you in on the context I have to take us back to May 2012 when I first interacted with HR (thanks HR for being such a good source for blog ideas) on their need to have an all-encompassing candidate tracking system to help manage company-wide recruiting efforts.  I remember that I had some specific ideas on how such a system should look (in particular why the LinkedIn solution should be seriously considered) and I got really excited when I did some more reading on what was on offer.  Unfortunately HR did not agree with my ideas and perspectives and since I have only cursory knowledge of HR processes I decided to let the "experts" make the decision.

Long story short, the actual choice HR made turned out to be less than optimal as we are currently still not using the "shiny new system" and, given recent developments, may never do so due to a whole host of complications.  Although the direct financial implication seems negligible, the amount of effort and time spent as well as the opportunity cost of not having a more agile system is significant.  And this doesn't even consider the frustrations experienced by HR to try and get the new system to work....

Before continuing I first need to make something clear: At Space Age we are not in the "blame business" and we all agree that we have to continually make decisions ... and with hindsight some will have turned out good and some will have turned out bad.  Like every other organisation, however, we would love to see many more good decisions than bad decisions and one way of achieving this is by understanding what went wrong and why.

What makes this particular situation tricky is that I am convinced that my continued input could have significantly lessened the risk of a bad decision.  But since I am also adamant that decisions have to be made by whoever is responsible for achieving the outcomes, knowing this puts me, as a person that has the authority to override decisions, in a clear conflict situation.  What now?

And this is when it struck me!  We already know that "making bad IT decisions" has been identified as one of the major negative consequences of the all-prevalent business IT gap that effects virtually all SME organisations.  A light-bulb went on when interpreting our specific scenario in the context of the much, much broader problem of the gap and realising that I (or somebody else) should have worn the hat of the "Business Technology Architect" instead of the MD hat I thought I had on when I chatted to HR.

It is quite ironic to consider that we initially struggled to properly motivate the "Business Technology Architect" role in our new Relevant IT Management Model.  It is examples such as this observed countless times across our diverse SME client base that has helped us to understand the true significance of this often overlooked role.  We now believe that every SME needs to involve a person that not only has deep insight into the technology options available but also has as thorough understanding of the current technology platform, business processes and strategic imperatives of the organisation ... and this has to happen for every major IT decision that is made in the business.

Knowing all of this is part of the solution... now we just have to figure out how to overcome the "cobbler's children have no shoes" syndrome in connection with our own IT needs!

Afraid of challenging questions?

The ever-inventive HR team at Space Age Technologies recently came up with a novel idea to improve the flow of information in the organisation.  The idea was to have a different Director available for one hour on successive Fridays to answer any relevant question, posed by anybody under the guise of "where dodging the ball is not an option".  The sessions were appropriately named "Dodgeball Fridays" and I was to be the first "volunteer"...

A day before the inaugural event I was asked by an HR representative whether I was already feeling afraid ... my immediate counter-question was "no, should I?"  The question just seemed utterly strange to me.  Why on earth would I feel afraid to answer (potentially difficult) questions from our staff?

The question would not leave me and after some reflection I found 3 possible scenarios as to why a leader might feel afraid when placed in such a situation:

1. You have something to hide 

This is probably by far the biggest reason why business leaders would feel trepidation when placed in a potentially compromising position such as this.  In so many modern organisations, information has become a source of power and who may know something is often thoroughly compartementalised based on seniority, function, elite group membership or some other mechanism to break the organisation into smaller and supposedly more manageable parts.  When employees have questions, they are "unfortunately" not aware of all of this and instinctively (and correctly) realise that an organisation is a system that should primarily be managed as a whole.  This leads them to ask questions for which they are not "supposed" to know the answers, causing leaders to sound like some politicians: vague, elusive or sometimes just plain dishonest.

2. You are not certain about the direction you are taking

Leaders are supposed to lead.  This means they need to have plausible solutions to the particular problems in their domain.  Opening your ideas and solutions up to unfettered scrutiny could very well lead to a scenario where serious short-comings in the thinking are exposed.  Even though leaders are aware of their own fallibility (and often welcome feedback), many are extremely sensitive to admitting mistakes and rather like to do this in a private and safe place.  A public forum such as the "Dodgeball Fridays" would thus be considered a very "unsafe" and even hostile environment.

3. You doubt yourself

In this scenario you are convinced that your answers will not satisfy anybody and you are generally fearful of being exposed as "incompetent".  In all to many leadership cases, becoming a leader (or manager) is synonymous with a new belief of having to have all the answers, all the time.  And this means we have to put up a convincing facade of "knowing it all".  A "Dodgeball Fridays" initiative in such a case can thus be deeply frightening as it will become obvious to all that this was indeed just a facade.

As you can deduce from my original response to the question, none of these scenarios resonate with me.  To start with, I feel very strongly about striving for optimum information transparency in our organisations.  At Space Age, for example, we aim to make most information (with some limitations such as salaries and personally sensitive info) available to all in the business.  Even though we still have some ways to go, there is virtually nothing in the business I would not love to talk about (in fact, I am just waiting for people to ask me). 

Although I am extremely confident in the direction we are taking as a company, I am also very cognisant of the potential of missing something obvious and critical to the future of the company.  Since I do not believe that any person has to have all the answers (me included), opening my ideas and thinking to public scrutiny will ultimately only improve what we are doing.... with no risk to my "ego" or "public standing" (at least this is what I believe).

So, when the "Dodgeball Fridays" session eventually started, I was looking forward to an awesome opportunity to share and ugprade some of my thinking, clarify some misconceptions and generally just have a good time connecting with my fellow SATlers.  

I was not disappointed one bit!

Effectively communicating our Company Vision

As Managing Director of Space Age it is my responsibility to ensure our company vision and strategic direction is effectively communicated through all reaches of the organisation.  With close to 20 years of practice (yes, Space Age is turning 20 this year!), one could make the reasonable assumption that I would have this down to a "t" by now... the reality, however, is much more sobering and up to 6 months ago I regularly heard from peers and subordinates alike that I need to communicate better, be more precise with my choice of words and speak to many more people (as if I had no other work).

And believe me, I tried to do just that, approaching the problem from so many different angles that I long ago stopped counting the number of attempts.  Nothing seemed to achieve the goal of effectively communicating and engaging SATlers (people that share our values and work or have worked for Space Age) in our vision.

When we realised 6 months ago that our company management model needed a complete overhaul, we started off by developing a stable, long-term strategic plan that allows us to effectively operate in our rapidly changing external environment.  Yes, I know, putting these two statements in one sentence is a contradiction in terms, but we have managed to achieve just that (I will write more about this in future blog posts).  Long story short, having such a long-term strategic plan allowed me to much more effectively communicate our vision, obtain real engagement and positive momentum and, as a by-product, discover the three essential building blocks for effectively communicating our company vision.

1. Consistency in the message

There is absolutely no point in trying to communicate a vision that changes frequently.  True, people want to "buy in" to a higher purpose, but they will only do so if they believe that the direction will be stable enough for them to align with.  If not, they will only do what is absolutely necessary to satisfy corporate performance requirements and emotional engagement is a distant dream.

2. Frequency of hearing the message

You may have heard Marketing and Sales departments talk about the number of times (usually between 7 and 15) a prospective buyer has to make contact with a brand/product before committing to a purchase.  I now believe that communicating a company vision relies on the same fundamental dynamic.  Too often we think that it is ok to communicate our message once and everybody will just remember. Unfortunately that belief is just not based on reality and there are very high chances that one forgets virtually everything one has heard during that painstakingly prepared and delivered Power Point presentation.

3. Hearing a message from different angles

Please don't get me wrong: Chosing the right words is very important to getting a message across.  Good communicators certainly have an edge.  The problem I see, however, is that even the most perfectly worded message may not have the intended effect on the recipient due to a variety of reasons.  In such a scenario, just hearing the message from somebody else, perhaps motivated from a slightly different angle, in many instances will unlock new insights and establish a true connection. Similarly, communicating a company vision becomes much more powerful when other people start talking about the vision, using their own words and putting their own spin on the message. This is when a vision starts living.

After the AGM last week I asked a number of people about their impression of what was said and where we are going. The most frequent response was: "No real surprises, I have known about most of the topics discussed, but gained some new understanding on <this and that topic>".  Just a short year ago I would have interpreted such responses as very negative (as I like to try and constantly impress with new ideas/insights). This time, however, I feel content that we are on the right path.

Not for the faint of heart - challenge yourself to learn something new

Yesterday evening shortly past 6 I realised I had probably done something stupid ... I was just a few hours away from delivering a speech at our annual general meeting and I did not really have anything to show for a full day of work.  My decision a day earlier to use the online presentation tool Prezi instead of the regular Power Point was about to back-fire on me and I was starting to panic.

Fortunately for me, my wife was willing to handle our 1 year old daughter and all other evening chores.  I managed to collect myself and continued learning the tool in a bid to produce a compelling "vision" for our staff.  When finally going to bed at 04h00 this morning I only slept fitfully with all the horror scenarios of things that could go wrong popping up in my dreams...

Long story short: My presentation at half past eight this morning went well; people seemed engaged and I was told afterwards that it had a much greater impact than on previous occasions.

Lucky me! Lesson learned! Or not?

And this is when I realised the immense value (for myself) of what I had just done.  We are so busy doing the things that we know how to do that we only rarely open ourselves up for new learning (case in point, almost all business people use plain old boring Power Point by default whereas most younger people, like for example university students, use Prezi to communicate engagingly).  By committing to learn a new skill and then putting myself in a pressure scenario (where the consequences of not succeeding were severe), I managed to learn something new in a very short time and delivered results that made people notice.  And the best thing of all is that I have not only forgotten that my night had only two hours of sleep, but that I now walk around with a spring in my step as I have pushed myself, and succeeded!

And that is an absolutely great feeling!

(Note: When you do follow such a course of action, beware of the real risk of it back-firing!  I like to always have some time-buffer, such as my regular sleeping time, to help me recover from the many setbacks of learning something new)

We all have something to share

8 years after first thinking about starting a blog I finally managed to write my first post.  What has changed, you may ask? And more importantly (at least for me), will this only be a passing fad that manages to keep me committed for a few short weeks/months?

The answer to the first question is quite straight-forward. See, until recently I was still waiting for the right timing and earth-shattering insight that would really make a difference to somebody reading my thoughts.  Somehow, however, the perfect moment never presented itself and if it wasn't for a blog I read recently about the enormous knowledge we all have to contribute and the importance of just getting started practicing the discipline of blogging, I might still be waiting.

Once I really started thinking about the concept that all of us have a lot to share, it dawned on me that there must be like-minded business people, entrepreneurs and innovators out there that might find value from my exploits (even if it is just for entertainment purposes or lessons learned on what not to do).  And this "sudden" insight could not have come at a better time as the company I am privileged to lead (Space Age Technologies) has embarked on an ambitious quest not only to defy conventional logic when it comes to managing itself, but also set itself the goal of playing a significant role in closing the massive gap between business and IT in SMEs through global thought leadership, free products as well as an array of consulting and delivery services.  We call this exciting new approach Relevant IT.

Finding an answer to the second question posed, however, is a lot more complicated, especially when taking into consideration that I only ever try to do what I truly believe in.  For me to still see value in sharing my thoughts in a few months time will thus depend on whether I find a sufficiently large number of individuals that not only read what I write but also share their own insights and, more importantly, challenge and upgrade my thinking.  This, I believe, will constitute real value and ensure that the discipline of blogging (which will initially involve real effort), will become an important tool for me to share and learn at the same time.