Ok, I’ve been attempt to reintegrate my life at AECI for a week now, so where am I going? What are my current priorities?
Emphasis on our core mission – maintenance and reliability of our power plants, especially our coal-based units.
Emphasis on cost consciousness – this is a key part of our mission and vision. I want to make sure we are all living it. One objective of my training was to gain a broader industry perspective. After all the case studies and exposure to classmates from 160 businesses in 44 countries I have developed an increased appreciation for the importance of continued vigilance on costs.
Exploring the application of Social Networks – I had the opportunity to experiment with social networking tools such as Facebook, Linkedin, and blogs during my training, and I have seen how these tools work to improve communication and “flatten” the organization. I see a high potential for using these and similar methods for online collaboration across multiple locations. I am very excited about some new Sharepoint tools that will soon be available on our office intranet. They will provide us with in-house capabilities similar to those available today on the unsecure commercial sites.
Continually explore alternate and divergent ideas –it is easy for a business to fall prey to groupthink and complacency and miss significant opportunities and threats. We studied a number of examples of human-system failures, from Everest mountain climbers to NASA engineers to managers of financial services companies. In every example, humans are humans, and we share some common biases that often prevent us from seeing events outside our expectations. I will be using some new techniques to lessen the likelihood of becoming the next Harvard failure case study.
I am eager to hear from each of you on these ideas. Please feel free to share your comments online or by email. Think of it this way: if you hesitate to share an idea that you think could help us improve, you may be delaying our progress!
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I found this formula while doing some research on Proctor & Gamble’s Bob McDonald (seed stock from the “HighleyUnlikely” blog).
ReplyDeleteBob Larkin, an affiliate with the Leader Ship Academy (P&G 29 years) provides the follow mathematic equation for “change”.
C=ABD>X, where
C= Change will occur, when the combination of
A= Level with dissatisfaction with the present state
B= Level of clarity of the future state
D= Clarity of the first step
All exceed
X= Perceived cost of the change.
He goes on to state: “The value to a leader in thinking this way is to evaluate each part of the equation and determine where the leverage is. For example, if the dissatisfaction with the present state is high, then emphasize it while keeping the other items non-issues. If there is minimal dissatisfaction with the present state, then the leader either has to make the present status more clear and/or focus on where to move (future) and how to get there (first step).”
Based on feed back during our KPI presentations, it is obvious that our “present state”, in regards to AECI’s vision statement, is inacceptable. So I’m good to go on part “A” of the equation and will emphasize that to our Combustion Turbine team. As for “clarity” on the first step, I think we’ve already taken it.
After 20 years with AECI I look forward to reinventing myself, once again
PAZ