Just Do It!

"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing." - Theodore Roosevelt

"You can't fix a problem by learning more about it" - Wayne Dyer

Many of us lack the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual strength to take action. Many of us also believe that "motion" is "action" so we end up engaged in lots of superficial "doing" that never leads to change...sort of "going through the motions".

As Indians, is our concept of time (Indian Stretchable Time!) and our philosophy of non-action (carried to an illogical extreme) to blame, in some ways, for our lackadaisical attitude to work execution?

The WIIFM Factor

Priti Mohile, a reader, responded to my article Metrics and Matrices in the February issue of Biz Mantras by wondering "how do we change the mindset of sales personnel to fill them (reporting formats) completely and the first line managers to analyse them?"

Sales personnel think of report writing as a chore and offer the excuse that time spent 'working' in the market as a more productive activity. If as managers, we have to make our reportees do what we want them to do, we must first tackle the WIIFM's (what's in it for me) factors. For sustainable results, managers need to make their reportees experience the benefits of filling the forms accurately and to post them on time.

This can be done in various ways, but here is how I did it; I called for a sales review meeting where the managers had to make their sales presentations in 9 formats. The formats were designed in a way that they helped them ( and the reviwers) trace the history of their achievements in a structured manner. The presentations required the managers to discuss important performance indicators such as Target to Sales achievement along with Inventory and Receivables, as also critical success factors such as the sales force attrition rate and delays in recruitment, among others.

At the end of the meeting, one manager remarked, "We were unguided missiles until now. Now we are guided missiles" - a powerful affirmation of the useful learning from the presentations.

Now that they have bought into the idea of the importance of generating (and acting on) certain critical data, I have designed the managers' reporting forms to include all the performance indicators which the managers had found useful in undertanding their markets.

The WIIFM issue of the managers has been successfully tackled. Now to move on to enforcing their compliance of collecting and filling up the information accurately, and sending in the reports on time.

And in that will lie the success of the initiative.

Creative Problem Solving

Just discoverd a great web-based brainstorming tool to help develop new ideas which, though meant for advertising creatives can be used by just about anyone! Whimsically called MouseBrains, it takes random word and associative word brainstorming techniques a little further by using predefined sentence structures (each one specifically designed to channel thinking in a particular direction) and also by incorporating details of the user's problem into the stimuli.

You simply need to provide MouseBrains with four pieces of input:

1. The product or service you're trying to sell
2. What your product or service can help people to do or be
3. The likes and interests of your target audience
4. Reasons why some people might not buy your product or service
   

Then click the "get brainstorming" button, and this e-tool displays a set of creative thinking exercises that incorporate your input. You can easily copy and past a question or scenario into a word processing document, where you can record your ideas and inspirations. If you need more stimuli, you can click a "refresh" button to display a new list of thought-provoking, often wacky stimuli.

Rajan, my friend from the ad world tells me you can do this with a Thesaurus or a dictionary too. Just open pages at random, pick out a word. Do itagain for another word. Then try to connect the two words...

Options for Pharma companies in India

Here is something I read today. I think it applies perfectly to the pharma industry situation in India which is in a state of flux after the onset of the new patent regime in 2005.

A firm has three options to survive.

First, become the low price leader and remain the low price leader. Drive all costs out of the product or process. (FDC Pharma?)

Second, become the customer intimacy leader. Know the customer and fill his or her every need. (Mankind Pharma?)

Finally, become a firm that creates new things, new ideas, new products and services people just have to have. (Innovators like Dr Reddy's and Ranbaxy)

My new blog

I started my management newsletter Biz Mantras a year ago to clarify and capture some of my experiences and reflections as a business coach to business owners.

Though the monthly newsletter helped conquer some of the 'demons' in my mind, I still had a problem - what do I do with stuff I read/hear/experience everyday, and which I feel should be the topic for the next Biz Mantras?

Ergo the blog Management Notes!