Societal & Organizational Performance

That question led me on a little (but long) quest ...

2010-10-28T18:15:15.864-07:00

That question led me on a little (but long) quest Mr. Kauffman and I apologize for the delay. I also apologize because I don't feel very comfortable giving a comprehensive answer without a pseudonym as I have an uncanny knack for misspeaking, but in my humble and not completely informed opinion there is a clear vision and wonderful plans, but sometimes some confusion when the rubber hits the pavement, so to speak.

I misspoke. What I meant to say was usually, when there are Mega-related shortcomings, these are usually attributable to so many factors it is not easy for the people on the field who are perhaps not as involved in the planning process to pinpoint them and unfortunately there might be a... thick degree of separation between top level decision makers and the persons who are directly responsible for implementing change.

Successful companies create value; they commit to ...

2010-08-13T12:12:57.575-07:00

Successful companies create value; they commit to fill the need. They discovered how to innovate in ways that really benefit people, and make money in the process. But it´s all in the people. The mindset of the west coast entrepreneurship is inventing new things and disrupting the market. Create products and or services that transform the market, that transform people´s lives.
In those high performance environments, no one cares about credentials, nationality and/or beliefs. All they care about is if people can do the job, if they are passionate, if they have values, if they can commit to doing a great job. And those are the real values that matter in this world.
People that has worked for HP has learnt great values on how to work, how to lead, how to manage. They have developed new technologies through research developed internally and in conjunction with universities. Now, it is a company of annual revenue of 100 billion US dollars
Silicon Valley´s success has been possible because of Stanford University convergences entrepreneurial policies, the examples of great entrepreneurs like Hewllet, Packard and the Schockley brothers, and the beautiful climate.
The spirit of SV is to learn from failures and not be stopped by them. If we want to play safe and be conservative, we will never break new ground. The best education we can give our people is that they should not be afraid to make mistakes. They are inevitable, mostly if you are trying to create something inexistent.
We should “vigorously engage” in every activity related to developing, producing, retailing and end consuming food products (and services).

Take aways to our project:
- GP should clarify, share and communicate and promote/ motivate and be passionate at our vision (dream), our values, our concerns.
- GP has to be a magnet to great talent, be the best at selecting, developing, and supporting them and their families along their careers.
- GP should develop the leadership in the middle to upper management levels: their capacity to turn-on others and motivate them to do a great job and deliver on expected results for the common benefit.
- Promote habits that will lead us to a strong culture, high performance and quality of life organization
- Search for venture capital that will share and complement our organizations culture and requirements
- Make a solemn oath among all the stakeholders to be faithful to our vision, values and goals, no matter the circumstances.

Beyond Universities, companies and other organisms...

2010-08-13T12:12:08.591-07:00

Beyond Universities, companies and other organisms, we should seriously consider the great power released by a strong culture of same dreams, same visions, same concerns.
Almost every single person has the needed IQ, energy and initiative to do well in business and in life. Even though most of the people get to perform near to his “expectations”, the real key to succeed in life, is to develop the capacity to do things through others by turning them on!!!. These are the leaders, those who make things happen motivating other to perform well, those who are kind to others and give credit to their initiatives and performance. It’s the people that turns on others that people want to be led by. This thoughts relate to the required leadership and culture in our pii projects in order to have a motivated organization, performing as the best.
Talking about people´s performance we now that left hand characteristics (behavior, temperament, character) are not forbidden to anyone. They are all achievable. We can have any pattern of behaviors that we wish. We just have to develop the habits, and the sooner they are developed in life, the better. These habits can be promoted in our new culture, both individually and collectively.
For the last 110 years, Silicon Valley has been a magnet for talent, entrepreneurship and venture capital. Silicon Valley has created an infrastructure for entrepreneurship. It permeates not just the mindsets, but also the business practices and infrastructure. This is the way we, as a company (GP), should define our vision. And in some way we have that clearly identified in our own vision:
GP develops and promotes the sustainability of “ecosystems” that develop and utilize knowledge, technology and alliances to create higher level, and better quality of life. We now need to create the culture that motivates working and highly performing towards those objectives.

WalMart had to look initially to sustainability fr...

2010-08-13T12:07:44.402-07:00

WalMart had to look initially to sustainability from a defensive perspective. But people expects more.
If we think of the food, water and waste that we will need/create in the future (with more population), we will run out of resources soon. We will also have to look at the amount and type of energy we are consuming in the process. And the mindset that WM has adopted is that one single light bulb matters. WalMart has 34 million customers every single week. If they can make people change their habits towards a sustainable world, they will be contributing a lot. Besides the sustainability, there is the economy side of it all. One energy efficient bulb will save 3 billion dollars to the US economy alone.
WalMart is looking for a 25% savings in energy consumption s for the next 5 years. In fuels consumption for logistics alone, they plan to save $300 million a year, which will be passed to the customer thru better prices.
WalMart is also looking for a zero waste operation. All waste, besides polluting, costs to be produced at first, costs to package it, transport it and get rid of it. In this respect, I recall the way to formulate goals according to Kaufman: it is not to reduce waste, but not to produce any at all.
In some WalMart´s, they are already producing energy for their stores with solar panels and wind turbines. We are now analyzing the possibility to buy solar cells to cover our ceilings and produce some of our energy needs. We think is a matter of years that the technology will be available at reasonable prices. But it is not only by producing our own energy that we will contribute for a sustainable world, but overall, reducing our energy consumption with more efficient and simple processes, infrastructure and technology.
WM is now claiming to be offering high quality products like whole foods, but at very affordable prices. Though, they say they will not talk about working conditions… this makes me think that “for the moment” (while is convenient for them) the means justify the ends???
What we can get from ideas to our pii project is as follows:
1) Find ways to reduce waste from our suppliers operations, up to our customer´s consuming behaviors. In fact, obesity is wastage because it produces not only more waste, but requires more renewable and non renewable resources to be produced, processed, packaged, transported
2) Educate our customers on how to be more efficient and sustainability oriented
3) Be efficient in our operations and use or produce as much green energy as possible
4) Promote the production and processing of local products in order to promote sustainability not only of our environment, but of our community
5) Sell products that take all of the former ideas into consideration to be produced, and sell them to WalMart

Yes, It Does... DICONSA Goverment Programa How...

2010-06-23T19:07:37.435-07:00

Yes, It Does...

DICONSA Goverment Programa

How federal goverment teach to the poor families the real save income??

Thanks to an effort to "bank" the beneficiaries of social programs supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together with regulatory changes to create correspondent banks, the chain of rural supply stores as an alternative financial position in a niche untapped in Mexico: the poorest.

According to the NBSC, to add these contact points, the percentage of municipalities with no bank branch would decrease from 67 to only 25%. However, if one considers the total Diconsa, it could cover 90% of towns in the country. The main limitation is that only a third of the stores have enough connectivity, but the network works in partnership with Telmex to expand coverage.

The transformation of rural bank branches, grocery stores came after a restructuring of Diconsa. In 2006, the company dragged liabilities was financed millionaires and suppliers who paid 125 days late. A major injection of resources allowed to renew their storage infrastructure and vehicle fleet. In two years doubled sales, to reach 9.670 billion pesos (MDP) and reduced by half the budget it receives, from 3.000 to 1.500 MDP, which goes to subsidizing the corn flour and grains.
The advantage that has Diconsa, compared to other banks reach rural areas, it's already earned the trust of its customers. The store managers are important figures within their communities and informal financial mechanisms operate and sell on credit to

I don't agree. Mega impacts are very tangible....

2010-05-22T06:41:28.592-07:00

I don't agree. Mega impacts are very tangible.... the world is full of Mega criteria and results, including deaths, permenant disabilities, etc. Please let's review the Ideal Vision and see the areas of Mega-related criteria.

How is Mega being used at ITSON these days?

Well, to be fair mega impacts tend to be less tang...

2010-05-21T20:36:24.816-07:00

Well, to be fair mega impacts tend to be less tangible than impacts on performance within a certain organization.

They have been moving toward Mega.. I would like t...

2010-05-21T10:45:32.995-07:00

They have been moving toward Mega.. I would like to see the impact data.

Most countroes have the same pandering/patronage p...

2010-05-21T06:35:03.338-07:00

Most countroes have the same pandering/patronage problem. Look at the riots in Greece because workers don't want their retirement age to go from 52 to 55 and their wages frozen for three years to get over a desperate financial crisis. Selfish, and they usually cloak their greed in high-sounding ("fake Mega") rhetoric.

This also happens at universities.

I thought "micro-macro-mega" was just a ...

2010-05-21T02:38:24.880-07:00

I thought "micro-macro-mega" was just a way to describe reality. In that sense Walmart has been "in" mega for a very long time, it is just now that they're becoming aware of the implications.

2010-05-21T02:17:00.173-07:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

"Development aid" in Mexico has historic...

2010-05-21T02:16:10.756-07:00

"Development aid" in Mexico has historically been more focused on obtaining political support for the ruling party than in creating actual, sustainable development, I believe that much is clear. Lets not confuse "development aid" with "handouts" and "pork barrel spending".

A significant proportion of people in Mexico are either self employed, sub-employed or work in micro, small and medium businesses. We do not have the resources to be everywhere we need to be in strength. We have to consolidate our efforts on those projects that promise the greatest aggregate effect.

Perhaps I simply do not understand the model well, but it seems to me that it would be harder to apply "mega-macro-micro" to the kind of enterprises that are common in underdeveloped communities in Mexico individually, and that we might as well take a page from communitary psychology and treat these businesses within the community in an organic fashion.

For example, if we were to attempt to promote development in the smal community of Los Hornos in Sonora through assistance to the turism-related businesses in the area, it would be more efficient to treat each business as a department within the same organization instead of an organization by itself. This offers the opportunity to create synergy instead of competition and eliminate redundancy.

I believe that when we analyze the example of Deng...

2010-05-21T01:16:12.544-07:00

I believe that when we analyze the example of Deng Xiaoping and the evolution of China's economy from a completely centralized communist economy to a modern mixed economy, there are 3 important lessons to be learned:

1.- Politics cannot be ignored. We tend to think of "politics" in terms of governments, but I think the term applies to the process through which a group arrives at a collective decision. The "Great leap forward" was largely the result of political doctrine and Mao's idiosyncracies overriding scientific knowledge, and of established dogma crushing dissent through severe punishment. This can happen in any group and is not just limited to communist governments.

2.- Decentralization of power is essential to form an organizational structure that is capable of reacting adequately to change.

3.- Unity for the sake of unity is not a virtue. I remember one of my O.B. teachers used to say that when it comes to organizational change the most important step was to get the leadership on board, that change cannot come from within, it must be generated by elements external to the organization, and that elements of the organization that resist change must be removed.

I respectfully disagree, I believe enduring and effective cultural change cannot be imposed, it must be desired and sought after by a majority of the stakeholders in a project, and that includes both the base and the pinnacle of the organizational pyramid. Dissenters can be merely obstructionists, but they may also have valid concerns which must be examined and adressed, they may very well force us to go back to the drawing board for the right reasons.

Only then can the external consultant or O.B. expert have the chance to develop a project that has a reasonable chance of success, by working with, instead of against, the body of the organization that is the target of development.

Trompenaars “defines that the culture is one it fo...

2010-05-20T22:11:37.478-07:00

Trompenaars “defines that the culture is one it forms to solve human problems” In ours to act, that if that we eat, as we dressed, as we spoke or we are expressing our culture, defines the same society to us our behaviors seen like norms and principles or values, nevertheless by different cultural formation some people act outside the rules, we applied our individualism in the organization, the familiar life nevertheless of a consensado group also, the emotions , we expose as them there are differences, we made individual decisions, sometimes the people pretend we were member be difficult, but it is our appreciation by stereotypes that we were created, like when the status of the people by his profits, his goals short and long term his commitments before the environment in that they develop, some times participate in, but the majority of the times is imprisoned of him, the point will be like participating, being part, the idea is to think that things affect others and thus to handle them,

CULTURE CONCEPTS In the organizations a problem to...

2010-05-20T21:38:41.097-07:00

CULTURE CONCEPTS
In the organizations a problem to solve is the human relations by the diversity of cultures from which they come each individual that the Integra that makes different in thinking, to act as much in individual as in the group, the proposal of Gert Hofstede is to look for the similarities which they will do possible to diminish and to make the treatment between all more equitable, the group power is in the end the one that prevails in the organization, but are convinced that nobody loses its form to be but a group force is generated.

CULTUREL CHANGE In Mexico as in some other countri...

2010-05-20T21:29:42.596-07:00

CULTUREL CHANGE
In Mexico as in some other countries the governments make decisions without considering the consequences of them, the 19 of November of 1976 to expropriate earth clearing to the agriculturists the opportunity to continue generating economic development its organizations, to occur them to the ejidal sector was a political decision, without a culturización plan in which the ejidatario assumed little by little its new function within economic cycles of agriculture, were no a strategy neither in thought, nor action, very either could here be applied the ideal vision of the Dr. Kaufman in which there was results mega, micro macro and, has been a total defeat, the ejidatarios sold the earth in their majority to the old producers and the minority them rent. success that to date one has had in agriculture in the valley of yaqui subsequent to those decisions has been because during many years it is generated in the organizations and their individual plans of development in which all participate government, private initiative and agriculturists

CULTURE CONCEPTS In the organizations a problem to...

2010-05-20T21:13:20.880-07:00

Culture Change In Mexico as in some other countr...

2010-05-20T21:06:31.008-07:00

Culture Change

In Mexico as in some other countries the governments make decisions without considering the consequences of them, the 19 of November of 1976 to expropriate earth clearing to the agriculturists the opportunity to continue generating economic development its organizations, to occur them to the ejidal sector was a political decision, without a culturización plan in which the ejidatario assumed little by little its new function within economic cycles of agriculture, were no a strategy neither in thought, nor action, very either could here be applied the ideal vision of the Dr. Kaufman in which there was results mega, micro macro and, has been a total defeat, the ejidatarios sold the earth in their majority to the old producers and the minority them rent. success that to date one has had in agriculture in the valley of yaqui subsequent to those decisions has been because during many years it is generated in the organizations and their individual plans of development in which all participate government, private initiative and agriculturists.

VALUES AND PHILOSOPHY The cultural direction is t...

2010-05-19T13:22:38.124-07:00

VALUES AND PHILOSOPHY
The cultural direction is the most important that we must detect, speech of values and philosophy, is evident that an organization must know clearly what is most important that their employees must practice; honesty, discipline, commitment, responsibility, work in equipment, collaboration etc., if this is what all wish to make I must improve then it continuously, with this supported by practices and defined behaviors we can be successful. The success organizations have considered excellent to contract and to retain to the best ones, the value of humility in recognizing that we must take care of our men and key women in the organization is fundamental, sometimes we have seen that the organizations consider” nobody is indispensable” as a form to excuse its little attention to the human resource, we must work with and for the development of the people to make feel them that they are it jeopardize with your results.

In countries like Mexico, we spoiled people becaus...

2010-05-05T22:05:02.667-07:00

In countries like Mexico, we spoiled people because for a long time, the government with political purposes has given the money to the people, through different social programs such as support to farmers, fishermen, artisans and even small to large companies. Perhaps many of the programs of the government were not designed specifically to offer the money as a gift but it become a custom for not paying and in a lot of cases not receiving any consequences for not paying.

This has resulted that now people no longer want to work and has created a system where they expect government support to survive it. Today there are rural communities where it has even failed to do the traditional tortilla and has been replaced by the bread made in factories. Therefore have generated some major problems: People who will not want to work, people who do not want to pay their credits and the worst is people who hope will be the government who is responsible for its debts.

Micro-loans are a great idea to give an opportunity for disadvantaged people, however, in countries like Mexico cultural barriers in some areas and social sectors, in addition to the problem of its capacity for doing business with money given to them in addition The cultural problem is also people who want to live at government expense.

I believe that both India and Bangledesh have high...

2010-05-05T12:31:48.809-07:00

I believe that both India and Bangledesh have high rates of illeteracy and education...except for the middle class.

Because of this lack, we can help residents make better decisions,,,after all, we are in the education business.

MICROCREDIT: The main issue regarding the subject ...

2010-05-05T10:59:02.526-07:00

MICROCREDIT:
The main issue regarding the subject of Microcredit, is that it is all a cultural matter, in the case of India, or Bangladesh, Microcredit’s are a very good business, and also a great way to help the poor obtain a better way of life, the main reason of it being that both countries, although very poor, both have very high levels
of education, therefore they have the skills and knowledge to make the money grow knowing how to administer it correctly, despite the high interest rates.
The same can’t be said for other countries, including the majority of Latin America, in which because of the lack of education, it impacts skill to make it grow, invest, and administrative knowledge.
Which makes it very hard to keep up with the payments, making it a hard business for the loaners, therefore the extremely high interest rates of up to 75%?

Antonio and Carlos comments highlight the crucial ...

2010-04-02T16:41:18.705-07:00

Antonio and Carlos comments highlight the crucial role of the cultural factor. Running business without understanding local history is as smart as running businesses without balance sheets or controlling cash flow.
Paradoxically, ignoring cultural factors is how international businesses are usually ran.
Mexico's unique (and troubling) history and culture should be "front and center" in developing alternatives.
If we cannot change the country, well, let's at least try to create ecosystems where rule of law and performance criteria are the norm and not the exception.
That is what China did with its Special Economic Zones, and what helped Palermo['s neighborhood prosper amidsta Argentina's economic meltdown in 2001.

Marial Dolores' comments are important. In add...

2010-03-25T12:31:38.293-07:00

Marial Dolores' comments are important. In addition, I suggest that the reward scheme is pegged directly to measurable performance and not just generic "feel good" statements.

How to transform a ‘bad’ into culture into an inno...

2010-03-24T11:40:16.149-07:00

How to transform a ‘bad’ into culture into an innovative,
optimistic and entrepreneurial one

1) Make people feel valued, that their contributions are appreciated
In a bad situation, you have people who will do the minimum work and actively
trying to find work somewhere else, because the constant messaging is that
things are bad, and each individual’s effort won’t make any difference. What you
say and do in the ‘big’ and ‘little’ moments are the ones that are remembered,
and looking a beleaguered employee in the eye and tell him/her that you
appreciate their effort and results, is a small but easy way to turn things around.
2) Reward new ideas
Set up a system where employees are rewarded for bringing ideas to the
executive team, even if it’s ‘only’ public recognition. Better yet, encourage them
to actively seek new ideas that they implement on their own.
3) Pick good people to work with-pick those with vision for the future.
This is obvious, I think. Recognize the strength of the staff you have, encourage
the stragglers to get on board, and allow the ones who don’t like the new
direction to move on. Many will self-select themselves out, the others will have to
be made to move on.
4) Imagine new ideas
Try new things out, hopefully your staff will be bringing new ideas to your
attention, and implementing new things for everyone’s benefit.