This is the second part of the main leadership learning I had in the past two months. Missed the first part? See here
Clarity of purpose
in a sub- or specific product
What is it?
This is very connected to the above mentioned point. It
simply means that every single product that is rolled out in the market, has to
have its own “why” that is connected to and derived from the overall
organizational why. An obvious way for this to happen is if there is an
embedded why in the product development and if it is a clear requirement that
this has to be formulated clearly and convincingly, internally and externally,
before any product is launched or run. A simple example is to have a product
description that includes the Why of the product itself.
Example from my life
(just skip if you don’t care)
I will go back to the same company as above. There would be
new versions launched all the time, obviously. But often, it was not so clear
to explain the independent why to the customer externally of the product.
Internally, sometimes, the customer value was more strongly on other products
than the newly launched ones, and the organizational value was unclear on both.
It might be clear that alarms in general brought a feeling of safety. But why
would this specific alarm have a specific type of safety? An example could be
an alarm that worked even if electricity or the phone system was down. A point
would be how that alarm ensured the why to a higher extent. But instead it was
often marketed internally and externally in terms of costs/campaigns etc. If
you were a product expert and long in the company you might know the specific
why of the sub product, but if you were new or not a technical expert, you would
usually just assume. And as it was an assumption, after a while it became
bland, uninspiring and mundane.
Why it matters?
As it is actually a part of the embedding, many of the
reasons are the same as above – keeping the organization true to itself,
reinforcing itself and keeping everyone happy. In addition it is crucial for
product understanding. Because in the end, all sub and specific products are
the ones actually competing in the market – very rarely a general product. You
don’t look to buy “a car”, normally, but you look between two different Sedans
– f. ex. So if you don’t understand the specific why of the Sedan (in addition
to the customer value), then you cannot distinguish yourself organizationally
from the other Sedan – only on customer value perhaps (ie. price etc.)
AIESEC context (skip
this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):
It is easy to say that “By going on exchange you challenge
your world view, learn about other cultures, develop self-awareness and learn
about the world. It is less easy to explain and understand exactly what a
Turkish IT Engineering graduate would learn by going on a internship in an IT
startup company in Hungary, as opposed to what a Swiss student of Marketing
would learn by going on an internship in an NGO in Ghana working on Child
rights. Why, in terms of leadership development, are we trying to offer one
experience or the other? Is it to impact the IT industry in Turkey? Or in
Hungary? To create more entrepreneurs? To expose Ghanian NGOs with perspectives
of Swiss marketing? Or to impact the way Swiss young people think of human
rights? The first step is to ask these questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment