This language is Brian's customization from great authors like Tom Peters and Bob Waterman. These principles in languaging business operations fit into the Babcock Business Strategies' model. It's designed to have four to seven critical elements that are easily remembered. These can be used daily by managers.

The Lexicon

Customer Focus


Customers make markets and
markets make businesses.

If we have what the client wants, we create value. Value is not price! It is important to note that "sales" is convincing customers to want what we have. Sales requires a lot of energy and a lot of people, but "marketing", having what the customer wants, is relatively effortless. The paradox is that operations must be unbelievably focussed in a marketing model, and managers must learn to stay in touch with customers.

Action Bias
This is the "do-it, try-it, fix-it" bias as opposed to the "complicate-it, debate-it, and beat-it-to-death" syndrome. Learning to get the trial communications program or the trial "anything" program done for $10,000 instead of perpetuating $100,000 mistakes is what this bias is about. Simply avoiding paralysis by analysis.

Productivity Through People
Every corporation in North America espouses the idea they are a "people" company. To do anything else is to deny "motherhood and apple pie". Very few organizations treat people with dignity and respect. Fewer demand new ideas or real intrapreneurship, and even fewer do the most amazing of all management feats . . . listen! Really listen!

Most employees are beaten down in spirit with unreasonable budgets, paralyzing job descriptions, formal processes of reprimand and many employees create a counter-culture of goal destruction. With simple dignity, respect, expectations of job enhancement and goal achievement, we create the beginnings of a climate that will foster a realignment in people's personal lives to corporate goals. A climate that will breed a culture of win-win. Climate is what management controls; culture is a derivative. We do not motivate anyone - we create the climate!

Intrapreneurship
Encourages people to own their job, indeed even to own their projects. This presumes that failure is another way to learn and to understand that if failure is not based on a lack of morality, then failure is not a bad thing. This encourages people to be responsible, accountable and willing to take risks.

Management takes risks with intrapreneurship but principally, management takes risks with people. We must, at the very least, begin with a sound team of individual contributors who truly "own" their job.

Hands-On - Value Driven
This is simply "management by wandering around" (MBWA). Each manager should be out of his/her office 70% of the time. They should be in "real" touch with customers and service delivery people. Their approach should be that of questioning and learning, then more questioning and learning and when this is done, even further questioning and learning. We, as leaders, can set an example for our leaders, by questioning and learning.

Loose-Tight Controls
This paradox is simple. Some corporate policy must have unbelievable rigidity e.g. "if you deceive you will receive" consequences. But beyond some value driven "tight" controls, unbelievable looseness should be allowed for innovative ideas and propositions that can fail. Our action orientation - "do-it, try-it, fix-it", means that these ideas are not expensive to develop.


Strategically
(Outside of the daily routine)

Stick to What You Know
This does not preclude new ventures, but does preclude "head long" plunges into businesses we know nothing about. We should develop the business we know and expand our horizons in related businesses.

Simple Form - Lean Management
This precludes matrix management or any form of management where people report to several bosses and are 1/10th responsible for a project. There is no accountability or likelihood of success where people are 1/10th responsible for what they do. There is a great chance of success when people are 100% responsible for what they do.

Staff must be accountable to line managers and they must link to customers and service people. If they do not, they become a force of their own, obfuscating the work of those responsible for quality assurances. Staff can move us very far from "lean form" with just one person too many creating a "bureaucracy".