Genius of the Genius Bar

A good paragraph to ponder - link.

"When talking bricks and mortar in the electronics space, it’s impossible to overlook Apple stores. Now, the magic isn’t in the stores' simplicity. Or necessarily in the newest devices. The genius is, of course, in the Genius Bar. Apple stores are constantly overflowing because consumers don’t fully know what they are doing with the expensive, high-tech items they're gripping. They need advice, guidance, and education to further their experiences. Apple’s ability to upsell consumers through the Genius Bar is remarkable largely because it isn't technically on display."

Are Engineers Just Bad Political Managers?

From Vox:

“Tillerson would be at or near the bottom of the list of secretaries of state, not just in the post-Second World War world but in the record of US secretaries of state,” says Paul Musgrave, a scholar of US foreign policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The former Exxon Mobil CEO — whose nomination was initially greeted warmly by prominent foreign policy hands — has failed to wield any significant influence in internal administration debates over issues like Syria, North Korea, or Russia.

His push to slash “inefficiencies” in the State Department and seeming disinterest in working closely with longtime staff were even more damaging. By failing to get people into vital high-level posts and actively pushing out talented personnel, he ended up making America’s response to major crises incoherent and weakening the State Department for a “generation,” according to George Washington University’s Elizabeth Saunders.

Redefining Work

How Automation is Going to Redefine What it Means to Work https://t.co/n6XqztbYo3 via @Futurism

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) August 3, 2017

No Longer Accustomed to Manufacturing

From The Atlantic - article on Chinese investment and management of manufacturing operations in the U.S. - -

"It’s possible that the U.S. workforce is not as skilled at manufacturing as it used to be. Many of the people who worked in manufacturing in the 1980s, before the wave of offshoring, have since retired, and younger people don’t have as much experience in factories. The economist Tyler Cowen has argued that Americans are more averse to adjusting to change than they were in the past, which potentially makes them less likely to take jobs in new fields. “You could say we got a little spoiled” as America created better and better jobs, Cowen told me. While Cowen sees this as a negative, it’s the result of a positive development: American workers are no longer interested in low-paying, backbreaking jobs like picking crops, for example. “People are not willing to become a wreck by age 60 or 65 anymore,” he said. But it makes life more difficult for employers who don’t want to (or can’t) pay workers more or improve the jobs that are available.

Cowen also pointed me to a study published last year in the Journal of Hand Therapy that indicates that today’s workers might be physically weaker than American workers of the past, which would explain some of why it’s harder to find good factory workers. Men younger than 30 have weaker hand grips than their counterparts in 1985 did, the study found. Grips might have gotten weaker because men are no longer accustomed to working in manufacturing or farming, but are instead prepared to sit at desks and work on computers."

Fight of the Century

Amazon vs. Walmart: Which One Will Prevail? https://t.co/I6bgRCPXk5

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) June 28, 2017

Should Engineers Study Seussism?

The Bank of England studied Dr. Seuss books to make its writing clearer and more accessible https://t.co/etEQCsZwCP via @clusterstock

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) June 7, 2017

Leaders Make the Future

The Future of Work

GE has no idea what the future of work will look like, and it appointed a finance executive to figure it out https://t.co/mVvgKHaKBr via @qz

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) June 7, 2017

Embrace the Right Kind of Failure

“Elon Musk: The Secret Behind His Insane Drive” by @ZatmerRana https://t.co/qNIocHNvpQ

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) May 29, 2017

Yard Club

Caterpillar acquired Yard Club, a marketplace for construction equipment https://t.co/ZeUp0cKDSe via @techcrunch

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) May 20, 2017

Does Your Boss Get Machine Learning?

An executive’s guide to machine learning https://t.co/H0ayncXlLp via @McKQuarterly

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) May 16, 2017

Zen and the Art of Being a Landlord

I Was a Landlord. This Is What it Taught me About People. https://t.co/8AZWFNuY50 via @PopMech

— Dr.Steven D.Sanders (@DocEngineering) May 13, 2017

Communicate on Their Level

From KelloggInsight on the challenges of managing and retaining US Army millennials - -

"“Leaders tend to get frustrated when millennials challenge them,” Carr says. “And it’s true that some millennials can be very outspoken. But usually what they’re doing is stretching, which isn’t always a bad thing. As a senior leader, you have to have the discernment to say: ‘This millennial isn’t challenging authority; they’re challenging the way things have been done,’ which forces you to be more agile, flexible, and innovative.”"

Black & Veatch 2017 Strategic Directions Report

Report from B&V with a focus on smart city strategic directions.

Churchill

How Managers Become Leaders

Characteristics of Hierarchical versus Networked Organizations

From Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Chessboard & The Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World.

Hierarchies	Networks
Centralized	Distributed
Fordism: workers perform specialized tasks over and over as part of defined sequence	Flexible specialization: small-scale production teams simultaneously work on complementary projects
Employee traits: deference to authority, obedience, conformity	Employee traits: autonomy, adaptability, problem solving, collaboration
Ties are strong but few	Ties are loose but many
Tasks, managers, and departments are organized by function	Tasks, managers, and departments are organized by project
Communication is vertical command through defined channels	Communication is lateral as well as vertical consultation
Management derives authority from title, rank, and seniority	Management derives authority from expertise and contribution
Job description and areas of control are narrowly defined	Job descriptions are broad and boundaries are permeable
Transaction and payment are the glue of relationships	Trust and reputation sustain relationships
Slow to adapt, difficult to change	Quick to adapt, easier to change
Key decisions are centralized so coordination costs are low	Decentralized decision making so higher employee satisfaction and loyalty
Performs well in stable, predictable environment	Performs well in ambiguous environment that require efficiency and flexibility

The Inability to Get Things Done

From the Marginal Revolution:

"Recall the development of the Polaris nuclear-missile system in the late 1950s. The whole package—a nuclear submarine, a solid-fuel missile, an underwater launch system, a nuclear warhead and a guidance system—went from the drawing board to deployment in four years (and using slide rules).

Today, according to the Defense Business Board, the average development timeline for much less complex weapons is 22.5 years. A case in point is the Ford-class aircraft carrier. The program is two years delayed and $2.4 billion over budget."

Engineers Need to Be More Afraid

From the current issue of Bloomberg Business - BMW to Staff: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid:

"Since January, the carmaker has cycled 14,000 engineers, marketers, and factory managers - through daylong events to prepare them for a time when customers may order a robo-taxi by app instead of buying a car.  In a temporary building at a BMW test track, they participate in workshops and discussions of car-sharing apps, laser sensors, and batteries. In the corners, BMW shows off the vehicles it sees as key to its future:  a self-driving iNext with a retractable steering wheel; a Rolls-Royce whose roof and sides swing open to allow a comfortable exit; a Mini designed for sharing that changes color to suit the driver's mood. "It's easy to fall into a closed way of thinking," says Jutta Schwerdtle who works in market research.  "This helps push people our of that."

Bain on the Future of the Firm

Link to the report by Bain & Company.