and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to
articles about IT and healthcare, too much data, See's Candies, Martha Stewart,
and the impact of the boss.
From Strategy + Business: IT and Healthcare: Evolving Together at the
Cleveland Clinic"Martin Harris, MD, chief information officer of one of the
world’s most innovative hospital systems, describes how medical IT helps
providers engage consumers and cut costs."
Wally's Comment: The
combination of healthcare and IT is a hot topic these days. But don't miss the
story of the co-evolution
of IT and healthcare at the
Cleveland Clinic. Think about how you might see something similar in your
organization with IT or another functional specialty such as HR.
From Fast Company: Why Too Much Data Disables Your Decision
Making
"We
like to think that more information drives smarter decisions; that the more
details we absorb, the better off we'll be. It's why we subscribe to Google
Alerts, cling to our iPhone, and fire up our TweetDeck. Knowledge, we're told,
is power. But what if our thirst for data is actually holding us back? What if
obsessing over information actually reduces the quality of our decisions? "
Wally's Comment: The great
decision makers and problem solvers are the people who can quickly strip away
the non-essentials and define the core question. That will remain true in the
era of big data. But it's still worth asking: "Will Access to Big Data
Further Enable Fact-Based Decision Making or … Analysis Paralysis?" And check out Dan Rockwell's interview with Mike Howard, Chief Security Officer
at Microsoft
, on information and decision making.
From Fortune: The secrets of See's Candies"Warren Buffett calls it a
"dream business." Cher, Bill Gates, and millions of Californians love it. Now
CEO Brad Kinstler is ready to take the quaint candy maker east. Will it
work?"
Wally's Comment: When I was
based in Oakland, I used to carry See's Candies as gifts for the office staff
when I visited clients in the East. They're great candies, and the mystique of
scarcity seems to make them taste better. It reminds me of when Coors beer was
only sold west of the Mississippi. (Hmmm … I think it's time to view Smokey
and the Bandit
again.) Coors made the move from
regional legend to national brand, but can you think of another business that
did it?
From the Wall Street Journal: Martha Stewart Seeks Perfect Touch for Her
Empire"The company—and the phenomenon—that is Martha Stewart is at a
crossroads. After long dominating the lifestyle category in media and consumer
products with her brand of aesthetic perfection, Ms. Stewart, who turned 71 this
month, has struggled to keep up with the evolution of the business she
pioneered. Like Ms. Stewart's TV show, her Martha Stewart Living magazine faces
newer rivals that present a less opulent homemaking vision in contrast to her
own, appealing to an audience with more down-to-earth tastes in the sluggish
economy. The how-to format she embodies is, meanwhile, transitioning to the
Web."
Wally's Comment: For as long as I can remember, it seems that people have
been counting Martha Stewart out. As I read this article I thought, "Nothing
lasts forever and things change in the business environment constantly." Martha
Stewart is as much a concept, dream, and aspiration as a person. She's
also one of the most resilient and tenacious characters to appear on the
business scene in my lifetime. Any individual thing she tries might go down in
flames, but I wouldn't bet against her in the long run.
From Jena McGregor at the Washington Post: What’s a great boss worth?"A
new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research attempts to
quantify just that. The paper, written by Edward Lazear, Kathryn Shaw and
Christopher Stanton, found that removing a poorly performing boss and replacing
him or her with a top performing manager is roughly equal, in terms of
productivity, to adding an extra person to the team. This implies, the
researchers say, that the average boss is about 1.75 times as productive as the
average worker."
Wally's Comment: It's not news that a boss has the major impact on the
productivity of his or her team and the engagement of individual team members.
Decades of research tell us that. The study reported on here tries to quantify
the impact. In my view some of their assumptions are questionable and I think
the value here is not the actual study findings, but Jena McGregor's analysis.
TED Talk: Hannah Fry: Is life really that complex?
Studying individual leaders is a great way to learn about
leadership. That's why my weekly post points you to posts by or about individual
leaders. Last week I pointed you to posts by and about James P. Hackett,
Leila McKinney, Paul Godfrey, David Strickland, Peter Wilderotter, Shazi Visram,
Daniel Akerson and Alan Mulally.
If you enjoyed this post, you may want to check back on
Wednesday when I select five excellent posts from the week's independent
business blogs. Last week I highlighted posts on civility, inspiring cultures,
leading in a crappy culture, humility, and transitions.
"Five Books You'll Dip into Frequently" and "The Lubrication of Little Words "
were popular posts on my blog last week.
If you want to get a book done, improve your blog posts,
or make your web copy more productive, please check out
my blog about business writing. My coaching calendar for authors and
blog writers currently has time open. Please
contact me if you're interested.
If you're a boss, you should check out my Working Supervisor's Support Kit.
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