When a project has to be shut down, we're left feeling bruised, struggling with having to sever our emotional commitment to the effort and perhaps ashamed. But in Strategy + Business, Columbia University business professor Rita Gunther McGrath urges the venture team, in collaboration with senior management, to prepare a short disengagement plan of no more than five pages when it must scrap a project:
Identify stakeholders
List all the stakeholders who will be disappointed with the disengagement, from investors to suppliers to prospective customers who have indicated interest in the product or service.
Describe harm
Specify what each disappointed party had been hoping for but will not receive.
Stem the disappointment
List steps that can be taken to mitigate the disappointment. Check with the individuals, to be sure you accurately understand what's behind their disappointment. Mitigation can range from simply apologizing for failing to meet their expectations to restitution if they are suffering a dramatic loss.
Assign responsibility
Specify who is responsible for dealing with each stakeholder.
Close the loop
Make sure every stakeholder has been contacted and is satisfied. "This is important because people tend to avoid or postpone the unpleasant task of damage control." Diligent monitoring is necessary, Prof. McGrath writes, to make sure you close the loop.
Exploit positives
Hold an after-action review in which your team catalogues lessons learned from the failed project experience. Take each major aspect of the project, such as customers, technology, and processes, and document your original assumptions, the information on which they were based, and what has been learned about why they went wrong.
learn for the future
With that analysis completed, brainstorm possible applications for what has been learned. It might simply be that the lessons can be applied to other projects or divisions. But there might also be commercial possibilities, such as spinoffs, licensing programs, or joint ventures. Prof. McGrath notes that Ford Motor Co.'s Thunderbird and Mustang can be traced back to insights gained from the Edsel fiasco.
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POWER POINTS
How can I be more helpful?
Make a list of your 20 most important customers, and call to ask how you can be more helpful.
Donald Cooper Corp. newsletter
Diversity breeds creativity
Multiculturalism can increase creativity, a series of studies by academics Angela Leung and Chi-yue Chiu found. "If workplace diversity programs can effectively help employees learn about multiple cultures and appreciate the different perspective presented by their ethnically diverse co-workers, it is probable that these programs can facilitate individual creativity and organizational innovation," Prof. Leung says.
Knowledge@SMU (Singapore Management University)
Which way is up?
You know all those frustrating combinations of curvy letters and numbers that you're sometimes ordered to retype online to confirm that you're a human and not a computer? Google may have found a quicker and easier way. It has just released research suggesting that those combos could be effectively replaced with photos put right side up and right side down - something humans can easily distinguish, but computers can't.
Stephen Shankland, CNET.com
You have 30 seconds
Most decision-makers delete voice-mail messages after 30 seconds, so if you are leaving a message with a sales prospect, get your call to action in the first 30 seconds, and don't run on much longer than that with your statement.
EngageSelling.com
Interview your predecessor
When taking over a new responsibility, don't just talk to your predecessor but instead assiduously interview him or her, advises adult educator Steven DeMaio. Spend an hour in substantial conversation, probably with some follow-ups, in which you probe for the essence of the responsibility you are inheriting.
Harvard Business School blogs
Know your function keys
Microsoft Word has an onscreen toolbar that shows how to use all the "F" (function) keys. To turn it on, select Customize from the Tools menu; click on the Toolbars tab and check the box beside Function key display; then click OK or Close. Later, when you hit the shift, ctrl, or alt key, the toolbar changes to show the command associated with the keystroke.
Neat Net Tricks Premium Edition
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LEADERSHIP
TURN WEAKNESSES INTO STRENGTHS
In recent years, we have been urged to focus more on building upon our strengths, and less on improving weaknesses. But in Executive Excellence magazine, consultant Randall P. White disagrees.
He contends that proponents of the so-called "strengths movement" seem to be passing out permission slips to stop stretching yourself in different directions. But relying on your strengths is a surefire path to executive derailment because it promotes stagnation while inhibiting growth and development.
"When expressed with single-minded focus, the strengths-based movement is an exercise in self-indulgence. It focuses on what comes easy, what leaders enjoy doing, and what fulfills the individual. What is ignored is what the organization needs from the position that the leader's job is designed to provide," he notes.
Effective leaders are continuously learning. Long-term success requires a well-rounded portfolio of skills and a lack of glaring weaknesses. For proof, he points to Marcus Buckingham, a leading advocate of the strengths movement, who stuttered as a child. Today, that weakness has been turned into a strength, helping him captivate audiences with his speeches.
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MARKETING
WHEN BUDGET CUTS REALLY HURT
It is often claimed that companies that decrease their marketing budgets during a recession automatically suffer. But consultant Christian Shea went back to the studies - some were almost 30 years old - and found that's not always the case.
For massive, consumer-based brands, such as BMW and Wal-Mart, marketing is such a key component of business strategies that drastic cuts would cause suffering, recession or not, he notes on MarketingProfs.com.
On the other hand, business-to-business organizations with active sales and business-development teams may not feel the same pinch from a budget cut because marketing is just a supporting component of the sales pipeline.
