In my last post, i had spoken about the first tell tale signs of organization decay - The Grapevine going sour. The second in the series is as given
2.Organizational Paralysis
Great Organizations have great amounts of data. Great amounts to data is subjected to even greater amounts of Analysis. All this leads to nothing actually, a state of Paralysis. Thats only one part called data paralysis.
The second part is that a Great organization has a great ego. It believes in the profundity of it knowledge and data. They are very objective of the snapshot of the market which made them great. They forget the human elements in the picture, the subjective side of the consumer. That is where they make more mistakes. This part is called: I dont learn.
That folks, is game, set and Match for another competitor, another technology, another man.
Two examples to illustrate this:
I Dont Learn (alternatively listen,speak, do...)
Some time back, a friend of mine, a product manager, happened to show me a yet-unreleased product. He kept ranting about the product and the technology, the consumer offering, the greatness of the product. I saw the product (from a consumer lens) and it did not get me excited because it was very plain Jane in its looks (that is an understatement). I pointed it to the Product Manager. He did everything to refute me, convince me, confuse me and ultimately took umbrage to the fact that i had given a negative feedback. I did not wish to create angst and hence said nothing more. The product failed miserably after launch. While they spoke so much about the rational benefits (feature richness), they hadnot spoken anything about the emotional connect with the consumer. So a well researched, well meaning, everything-of-all-things product lost! Our invincible-nothing-wrong-with-my-product' product manager took a transfer to another role!!
Nothing-wrong-with-my-product was a philosophy deeply ingrained in the Organizational DNA. This organizational had won pitched battles in the market placed for years basis that philosophy/approach. But that was yesterday! Today the same features come dime a dozen and bundling features together does not make a new story. An emotional connect with the consumer does. The same rules that won the battle yesterday donot win it for them today. They had forgotten the consumer thru and thru today. If technology is good, then, intelligence is god.
Another day, another example, this product manager who really was the god-of-product-management was trumpeting his yet to be released product. I was one of the last and the least people who he would take time to sell his product to. Voluntarily i checked the product on his table and remarked how it looked very similar to a very not-so-well-done product that was launched an year back and was presently exactly half priced compared to the new product. The "God of Product Management" registered the point and gave a well rehearsed output and spoke about "comparatively" and "individually" and "features and the whole wide world". TtCH! How was i to disbelief the "god"? The fact was that at his elevated level, he was still missing the point. Incidentally, the same product was pitched against another competitive offering which though technically inferior had all the hooks that consumers wanted. I am awaiting the result of this bloodied battle, but the fact remains... They dont learn.
Data Paralysis
You can pretty much trash all the historical data sheets you got. Numbers in history teaches us nothing new about a market in present. A senior analyst once told us about a survey in the company, saying that there were 2.4 billion data points and yet, not enough learning, insights, understanding and action on them. All the more hilarious was another suggestion from one of the top bosses one the need for more analysis.
Simple reasons: With 2.4 billion data points, and the learned sages (The top management), everytime they had to take a decision, they stepped back into the past for decision making. It perhaps provides solace, where in something that worked in the past should also work in the future. Wish it did! Fact: It doesnot. And they are still NOT LEARNING.
Where does this learning happen?
Most of the learning is supposed to happen at market place and then actioned at the boardrooms and the corner rooms. Reality: The market doesnot teach you any new stuff, nor does the intellectualizing help. This is because of two things... Latent needs cannot be obvious. So a consumer may have a latent need which he cannot articulate. You would have to have different and perhaps extreme levels of engagement to understand those latent needs. You cant make a tour map to Ladakh by simply looking at the roadmaps of India. You have to drive through the entire lenght of 1800 kms to make your travellogue and hence the tour map.
Bottomline: A decaying organization looses touch with its raison' d etre, its consumer. While its ranks, are full of people, who will say, "well, we know that", you can be doubly sure that, it is anything but "knowing that". The other symptom of decay are the number of meetings and coffee cups that happen around data and action points. For every such meeting, action points and decisions, you can assign a grave to the whole of them...
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