The hare & the tortoise

We were all told Aesop's fable of the hare and the tortoise as children. The moral being slow and steady wins the race. Terry is the tortoise and his competitors are hares.

In the past where networks were built using equipment that was expected to remain deployed for years, if not decades, slow and steady was a good approach as you had time on your side and any mistakes could lead to additional cost for years to come.

In today's world time is not on your side - time to market is critical and equipment may only stay in the network for 24-36 months. This means that if it takes longer than 6-12 months to deploy then either the equipment will not manage to pay for itself or you run the risk of it being superceded by new, cheaper equipment and/or technology which makes you uncompetitive in the market or worse the equipment is end of life before it is even deployed!

Terry needs to change from being a tortoise to being a hare as slow and steady no longer wins the race.

Dilbert & Terry

I know how Asok feels...

Corporate Epidemics

My musing on Corporate Immune systems prompted me to finally read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. The book is all about epidemics, specifically what causes social epidemics like fashion trends or crime sprees/declines etc.

I started wondering whether the same principles can be used to create a corporate epidemic - specifically one targetted at Terry's immune system.

The things that causes an event to "tip" and become an epidemic are often small and seemingly inconsequential. Rarely is an epidemic caused by a single big event although that is often what is concluded as a result of superficial analysis. This got me thinking that the way to combat Terry is not with big events but with many small, grass roots level changes.

Gladwell concludes that the cause of social epidemics is a combination of:

1. A small group of extraordinary people who produce the original idea/strategy/marketing/etc.
2. A group of "connectors" who have the contacts and personal relationships required to spread the idea.
3. The "stickiness" of the idea - i.e. how memorable it is so that it sparks people into action.
4. The ability for the idea to move from popularity amongst Early Adopters and be picked up by the Mainstream.
   

The first three are relatively easy to achieve provided you have the right people and even if you don't you can hire them. Number four is IMO the hardest part of all and why so many good ideas either fail or are defeated by the corporate immune system.

To achieve number four requires that the original idea is translated into a form that is understandable by and palatable to Terry. This doesn't require that the idea is dramatically changed from its original form, just that it is presented to Terry in a manner that he can comprehend and consequently it pushes the right buttons to spur him into action. Once a few Terries have picked up the idea, it will likely cascade and and become an epidemic infecting Terries at every level within the organisation. The best bit of all is that once infected Terry won't even realise what has happened.

Therefore, good ideas & good people aren't enough unless you also have the "translators" that can infect Terry with those ideas and cause Terry to create his own corporate epidemics that are ultimately his downfall and conversion from Terry to Non-Terry.

A week without Terry

I have had a number of complaints about the blog not being updated recently. My apologies I have been on holiday spending time blissfully not thinking about Terry.