The Three Most Deadly Decision Making Mistakes

October 25, 2011 By 1 Comment

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So how good is your decision making?

Stephen Elop

Stephen Elop

Making decisions is a constant challenge whether at home or at work. Whether you are Steve Elop as the incoming CEO of Nokia choosing which operating system to bet your business on, or choosing the perfect present for someone you love, when the stakes are high making the right decision is never easy.

In fact the more important the decision is the harder it is, then the greater the danger that you might fall into one of the three most deadly decision making traps.  So here’s the top 3 deadly mistakes and some advice to help you make great decisions no matter how high the stakes.

  • Confirming Evidence – While it is natural to gather evidence that supports your point of view, it can also cause problems in the decision making process. Talk to a friend or colleague to find out what their perspective is, hopefully it will shed more light onto the subject. You also want to avoid just seeking advice from working with people who always agree with you, if they always agree with you who is going to play devil’s advocate?
  • Status Quo – Nobody likes dealing with change, but change is often necessary in order to grow. It is always easier to make decisions that allow things to remain the same, but those are not always the right decisions. Avoiding this mistake is as simple as asking yourself if the old way is best for your goals, you must downplay your desire to keep things the same though. Get out of that comfort zone!
  • Anchoring – Accepting the first information you find is normal, but can leads to some dreadful decisions. While it is OK to be incorporate this information, you must also remain open minded for additional perspectives. Even if the information is screaming at you that it is right, never settle on that information without first checking other sources. Gather as much information as needed and you can rest assured that you will always make the right decision!

Some books that you might find helpful

Decision making

Decision making can be tough

If you want to improve your decision making skills you might want to get yourself a copy of some of the following classic texts on decision making:

So will things work out for Stephen Elsop and Nokia?

Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia announced their new range of Windows powered smartphones today. So we’ll find out soon if Stephen Elop (ex-Microsoft senior insider) was guilty of the ‘Confirming evidence’ trap when choosing to bet the farm at Nokia on going with Microsoft, rather than the Android, smartphone operating system. Take a look at the first reviews of their new Lumia 800 and Lumia 700 phones at Engadget and see what you think?

Filed Under: CEO Agenda, Management Effectiveness, Productivity, Strategy Tagged With:

Will the ewallet transform financial services?

October 17, 2011 By 3 Comments

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eWallet: an African story

The ewallet is banking through a phone. So who would have thought that the Kenya Posts and Telecommunications Corporation would be at the cutting edge of such technology.

In its incarnation as Safari.com (a Vodafone affiliate) the company serves millions of customers. They use a pin and password to access their banking, which lets them receive money, make transfers and get physical cash from agent outlets and ATMs within the network.

eWallet

eWallet

Transactions are all passed through the phone (not a cash card). The ewallet can make money transfers with a few text messages. To withdraw cash from an agent (usually a shop) the customer inputs an agent number, amount to withdraw, and PIN. A screen confirms the transaction then both the customer and the agent get an SMS recording it. The agent hands over the cash.

No plastic, no ATM

WIll the ewallet spell more trendy wine bars?

Essentially the phone is a cash card and cash machine in one. Banking this way grew up in Kenya because there was no money (and a high risk factor) for banks to set up branches.

Now the service in this third world country is cutting edge and has been expanded to Tanzinia, Afghanistan and South Africa.

Which begs the question of what a reasonable ewallet system would do to the developed world’s banks. As we know, half of them are already trendy wine bars.

A wave and you’re away

Western banks have good internet and telephone banking for customers to manage their existing bank accounts, but the e wallet isn’t yet prevalent. What people are getting excited about is Near Field Communication (NFC) through mobile phones, which will let us simply wave our wallet in a shop to pay for goods.

ewallet phone

Apple will introduce ewallet soon

NFC payments are linked to credit cards. Google Wallet, for example, is working with Visa, American Express, Mastercard and Discover.

Will the big banks will keep up with the technology and ally themselves with the next wave of payment systems? Possibly. Media and retail businesses dismissed the game-changing potential of eCommerce ten years ago and have now gone bust or are on their last legs (for example Circuit City in retail, or newspapers and magazines around the world): the same could happen to banks in the next ten years.

Still, it’s all good news for potential wine bar owners.

 

Filed Under: CEO Agenda, CIO, IT, Operations, Value Proposition Tagged With: ,

Gnip – listening to the world’s conversation

October 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

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Will Gnip make you go mad?

The scream

The scream

Imagine being able to hear everyone’s conversation, all the time. The voices in your head would drive you insane.

However there is now a constant stream of chatter available through the web. Using an interesting new technology service, Gnip, it’s possible at low-cost for you to monitor the explosion of social media usage of hundreds of thousands of peoples’ conversations in real time.

What would you listen to, given the choice?

The explosive growth of Twitter

Twitter

Twitter

The  ‘mini blogging’ social media site Twitter now has over 200 million users with 200 million ‘tweets’ per day and over 1.6 billion searches per day (see Twitter blog for more facts on usage). Users post 140-character updates (‘tweets’) of what they are doing, reading, watching etc. It is much like status updating on Facebook. Think: ‘Eating toast, doesn’t Eammon Holmes’ hair look funny today’.

Twitter has its uses when other communication mechanisms fail

Social Media sites

Social Media sites

But not all uses have been so trivial. During the Japanese earthquake earlier this year people on the island communicated via Twitter as mobile networks went down. And elsewhere worried relatives used social media to get in touch and emergency help was set up. The same thing happened during the more recent US earthquake. And in the case of the Arab Spring, Twitter was a powerful communications channel for the masses even in the most repressive of regimes.

Gnip – tapping into the world’s conversations

Gnip

Gnip

Enter Gnip, a Boulder, Colorado-based company that has bought the rights to sell data from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and many other social media sites.

Gnip deals in the very serious business of helping companies see what people are saying about them.

Airline JetBlue has taken Twitter seriously for years, using it for such diverse activities as ticket giveaways to seat planning help and it now uses Gnip through its customer experience management partner Attensity.

They can hear you

They can hear you

Can Gnip help you see into the future?

The obvious, direct uses of social media to see what people are saying about you now seem old hat. What is trending can almost be used to forecast the future: to see how people react to news, product launches, sporting and stock market events. You could imagine tracking Twitter comments as a mean of potentially forward predicting movements of betting odds on Betfair or prices on financial markets.

The world may now be having conversations online. But if it’s you Tweeting or posting on Facebook, just be aware that more people than you might think are listening to you.

Filed Under: B2B, Cost Reduction, Customer Service, Marketing, Miscellaneous, New Media, Productivity, Revenue generation, Strategy Tagged With:

Hello Kindle Fire, bye bye Waterstone’s?

October 3, 2011 By 8 Comments

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Amazon launched Kindle Fire last week, a tablet competitor to the iPad. Poor old Waterstone’s: is this the last nail in its coffin?

Kindle Fire

Kindle Fire

Kindle’s technology means that books can be bought instantly, many of them for 99p and £1.99 instead of the £20 you might pay for a hardback in Waterstone’s. And the fact that the new $199 Kindle is in colour means that users can browse magazines and picture books, giving booksellers yet another reason to worry.

Waterstone’s, the UK’s largest chain of book shops, has experienced similar woes to the US’ Barnes and Noble, losing out to online sellers and supermarkets. New Waterstone’s boss James Daunt acknowledges that Amazon is tough competition but asks: “Why wouldn’t you want to spend half an hour in a really nice bookshop?” His plan is to turn the 300-strong fleet of stores into a collection of friendly, local venues in which readers can comfortably browse and buy.

Waterstone's

Waterstone's

The idea has merit. Of course people don’t want to go to another identikit Waterstone’s in Leeds or Birmingham or Manchester. Foyles had the idea of the ‘destination event’ bookshop long ago and its overhaul saw it win bookseller of the year for 2010, among other gongs.

But can chummy staff and a frapuccino work for such a large chain? The job to pull Waterstones’ stores up to standard is a big one in itself, but to do it in so many locations with such tough competition is mammoth. And even those who love browsing through bookshops have to admit that it is much simpler to ping a request through cyberspace to get the latest read sent to them for a fraction of the cost.

Recent reports from UK publishers suggest digital book sales now account for around 9-10% of their overall book sales compared to 4-5% last year. That still leaves 90% of the book market sold as actual books.

There are takers out there for the ‘book buying’ experience. Daunt has to find a way of get them through his doors, and fast.

Filed Under: Marketing, Productivity, Revenue generation, Strategy

Entrepreneur – What does it take to start up and run a great business?

August 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

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This expert interview is designed for you if you want to be a successful entrepreneur who wants to create a great and valuable business.

Luke Johnson

Luke Johnson

John Corr interviews Luke Johnson,  a leading UK entrepreneur, and author of the book ‘Start it Up. Why Running Your Own Business is Easier Than You Think.’
Luke’s background includes:
- Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts and former Chairman of Channel 4
- Weekly column in the Financial Times
- One of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs having grown famous businesses such as Pizza Express
- Chairman of Risk Capital Partners with investments in some great businesses such as Giraffe Restaurants, Patisserie Valerie and Gails Artisan Bakery

Why this interview will be invaluable to you

In this interview  you’ll learn:

- What’s the biggest mistake a hopeful entrepreneur can make and how can you avoid it?
- What’s the one thing you should do first when it comes to evaluating a business idea?
- What you should do differently from other investors that can result in tremendous success?
- 5 quick tips for an entrepreneur on growing their business
- What’s the easiest thing you can do right now to see results to build profitable growth?

To download the interview (in MP3 format) CLICK HERE. I can guarantee that your investment of 25 minutes of your time will enable you to lean and apply invaluable lessons to starting up and growing a great business.

You can also download a transcript (in PDF format) by CLICKING HERE for report format download.

John Corr

John Corr

John Corr is the Managing Director of Close Quarter, a firm specialising in helping ambitious leaders transform the value of their businesses by helping them accelerate delivery of what matters most to their customers, profits and growth.

John is the current global President of BPGroup.org, a leading global community of professionals interested in sharing best practice in performance improvement, turnarounds and process management.

You can listen to the interview podcast now by clicking on the link below

Podcast: Play in new window
| Download

Filed Under: CEO Agenda, CFO, Customer Service, Marketing, Operations, Revenue generation, Strategy, Value Proposition Tagged With:
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