My November round-up covering articles I’ve enjoyed this month. This month is focused on Risk Consulting, 8 “Trillion Dollar Trends”, and how preparing for your next career move ahead of time can improve your results. I’ve summarized the articles for all the other busy HR professionals out there. This month’s articles are:
- Freakonomics: Risk = Hazard + Outrage: A Conversation with Risk Consultant Peter Sandman
- Harvard Business Review: Get Ready for Your Next Assignment
- Bain & Co: Everything the Same But Nicer
Freakonomics: Risk = Hazard + Outrage: A Conversation with Risk Consultant Peter Sandman
Intro: Sandman breaks his work into three areas: scaring people who are ignoring something that is legitimately dangerous and risky; calming down people who are freaking out over something that’s not risky; and guiding people who are freaking out over something that is legitimately risky.
Summary:
- Sandman uses the equation: Risk = Hazard + Outrage
- The technical component is the hazard. The social component is the outrage.
- Risks that scare people, and risks that kill people are nearly completely unrelated (0.2 correlation with 4% variance)
- You have a legal and moral requirement to manage the hazard, but from a communication standpoint you really need to focus on managing the outrage.
- Even when you address the actual hazard, the outrage can (and usually) still remains.
- To address the outrage use seven steps: express regret, show uncertainty, offer absolution, consider other solutions, express optimism, consider adaptation, and don’t trash the enemy
Full Article: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/29/risk-hazard-outrage-a-conversation-with-risk-consultant-peter-sandman/
Harvard Business Review: Get Ready for Your Next Assignment
Intro: Most executives know what their next project or promotion will be well before the day it starts, but too few take advantage of their insider status and the time beforehand to prepare well. That is an opportunity lost.
Summary:
- Investing time and effort up front makes the difference between getting by and truly excelling
- Three practical steps for building your knowledge capital to excel in new roles throughout your career:phase zero, learning tour, and affinity groups.
- Phase Zero: Become familiar with the people, performance, and to discern the opportunities and challenges of your assignment before it begins
- Learning Tour: Systematic dialogue with stakeholders, (direct reports, suppliers, and customers). Test your definitions of problems and hypotheses for solving them, identify leverage points, build relationships, and get diverse perspectives to motivate supporters and overcome challenges.
Full Article: http://hbr.org/2011/12/get-ready-for-your-next-assignment/ar/1
Bain & Co: Everything the Same But Nicer
Intro: Innovation will come from businesses who invest in “soft innovations,” which will offer affluent customers premium products and services as substitutes for common consumer purchases.
Summary:
- In advanced economies a significant proportion of GDP growth will come from a broad range of incremental improvements to existing offerings
- Three archetypes that push GDP upwards: substitution upwards, higher quality higher price, growing niche choices
- Substituting upwards: Creating better “premium” options as substitutes for existing products and services—businesses attempt to “trade up” consumers
- Increasing quality to increase price: Bundling rising quality with
rising prices implicitly forces consumption of quality (present in autos
and healthcare - Growing choices for the niches: Expanding SKU options to meet increasingly underserved niche needs; high potential, particularly
among services - Example: Coffee
- Premium Coffee: $2-$4 (experience innovation – Starbucks)
- Instant single serve: $0.20-$1 (form factor innovation)
- K-Cup: $0.30-$0.50
- Drip brew: $0.05-$0.10
Full Article (report): http://www.bain.com/Images/BAIN_BRIEF_8MacroTrends.pdf
Hope you’ve found this as interesting as I have, and as always feel free to contact me on LinkedIN if there is anything you want to share (or want posted),
“The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent PwC’s positions, strategies or opinions.”