People's Resilience > Live Vocal Street Music in Chilli Cold NY and SAP Project Management - a Resilience Effort

Dear Readers,

I was visiting old posts and personal recordings and found this one, which my wife Paula and I have been present at back in December 2008, right in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (I am the left leather brown jacket guy talking to one of the singers).

It was a bloody cold and chili afternoon, and despite of that these gentlemen were there offering their art and hitting high notes and groovy rhythms, never loosing the "mojo" and never loosing the feeling.

Now, two years later, I recall the felling I've had there and reflect about similar situations in different environments.

I can compare this experience as a resiliency effort, singing along together and IN TUNE at a minus zero degree and very windy temperature (or a harsh environment) with some similar situations we can find managing projects and teams in global, regional or local efforts, to implement Infrastructure upgrades or even to implement ERP such as SAP.

In order to manage an SAP Implementation from the Industry perspective, or from the business perspective, we really have to be prepared to connect all the different business scenarios, from people to stakeholders, from resistant key users to resistant executives and day to day business managers, from HR to production people.

During almost one hundred percent of the projects, we will really find different levels of conflicts, key users frustrated, hard work everywhere you look, project people very tired and stakeholders asking for the every breath "faster>better>cheaper" request, as a monolith invisible phase in every project like this.

What have been called to my attention as a strong and recurring motto in Global Projects is the Resilience that heal up from some professionals and even some people inside groups.

Harsh situations and challenging environments puts people under stress, under high pressure for results and deliverables, for project timing and all sort of emotional and professional risks.

These stand point is the "most adequate weather" condition for blowing up the Resilience among the professionals assigned to an specific situation under the path and the whole critical mission of an organizational Maturation.

From the Wikipedia:

"Resilience" in psychology is the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a “steeling effect” and function better than expected (much like an inoculation gives one the capacity to cope well with future exposure to disease).^[1] Resilience is most commonly understood as a process, and not a trait of an individual."

All in all, all these years of Global Projects and efforts made me observe some brilliant people standing up in the crowd, showing Resilience, earning respect from the comrades, outgoing on the maturity path to career growth, emotional and personal development.

Have a Happy New Year's Eve !!

Sincerely Yours,

Rodrigo Montagner

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_resilience

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resilience

CIO Gestão - Interessante Artigo - Empresas desconhecem benefícios do uso de redes sociais

Prezados Leitores,

Segue interessante matério publicada no site nacional CIO.

Vale aqui a citação.

Empresas desconhecem benefícios do uso de redes sociais

Das 2,1 mil empresas ouvidas em estudo do SAS Institute e da Harvard Business Review, 41% ainda lidam com o desafio de descobrir como tirar proveito da social media.

Pedro Fonseca - Computerworld PT

Publicada em 28 de dezembro de 2010 às 09h00

Obter um diferencial para o negócio ainda é um desafio importante para 41% das organizações pesquisadas em estudo recente do SAS Institute, em parceria com a Harvard Business Review com 2,1 mil executivos de empresas com atuação global. Muito embora, mais da metade já utilizem as redes sociais

Denominado “The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action”, o estudo evidencia que 40% dos responsáveis ainda enfrentam o desafio de medir a eficácia das atividades da organização nas redes sociais. Na mesma linha, quase um terço ainda aponta como importante desafio ligar essas iniciativas a retorno financeiro ou a retorno de investimentos.

Para muitas empresas, as operações nas redes sociais ainda são apenas uma experiência. Só 7% das empresas afirmam já estarem integrando as redes sociais nas suas estratégias globais de marketing, e apenas 23% utilizam ferramentas analíticas para as redes sociais.

Ainda de acordo com o mesmo estudo, 75% das empresas não sabem em que redes sociais seus clientes mais rentáveis andam comentando sobre produtos e serviços próprios ou da concorrência.

“As redes sociais apresentam um grande potencial para as empresas ouvirem os seus clientes, mas ainda são utilizadas quase exclusivamente como um canal unilateral para divulgação das mensagens empresariais”, afirma Luís Moniz, Diretor de Marketing do SAS Portugal. “Esta forma de ver as redes sociais vai mudar à medida que as empresas vão adotando soluções de Business Analytics que permitam medir e avaliar o impacto das suas mensagens através da análise das conversas dos seus clientes atuais e potenciais”, prevê.

Segundo o estudo, muitas organizações parecem estar mais focadas em “fazer barulho” do que em compreender e participar das conversas sobre sua marca, produtos ou serviços. Para metade das empresas pesquisadas que usam as redes sociais o principal benefício é o aumento da notoriedade das organizações e dos seus produtos e serviços. Já 30% veem o aumento do tráfego para os seus sites como um dos principais benefícios, mas apenas 29% reúnem e seguem as opiniões dos clientes online. Enquanto 23% concordam que as redes sociais os ajudam a monitorizar o burburinho favorável, apenas 18% afirmam poder identificar os comentários positivos e negativos.

Investimentos vão aumentar

Em um cenário de dois a três anos, 36% das empresas pesquisadas prevêem investimentos em ferramentas que as possibilitem analisar melhor os “sentimentos” dos clientes e 33% esperam implementar soluções de monitoramento das redes sociais. Ainda neste contexto, 27% das empresas querem fazer análises preditivas e 26% dizem que irão medir o impacto das conversas online. Muitas esperam igualmente integrar o monitoramento das redes sociais com outras ferramentas de marketing para compreender não só o que está sendo dito, como também o perfil de quem fala e qual o seu impacto.

O estudo foi realizado pelo Harvard Business Review Analytic Services através de um questionário online com 2100 assinantes da revista e da e-newsletter Harvard Business Review durante o mês de Julho de 2010. Adicionalmente foram realizadas 12 entrevistas qualitativas por telefone.

Fonte: http://cio.uol.com.br/gestao/2010/12/28/empresas-desconhecem-beneficios-do-uso-de-redes-sociais/

Um abraço

Rodrigo

Merry Christmas/ Feliz Natal / Feliz Navidad

Caros leitores e amigos,






Mais um ano se passou, muitos projetos, viagens, trabalhos, desafios, filha nascendo, novos desafios e um novo, talentoso e motivado time para gerenciar, com novos projetos, uma nova posição, novas projeções.


Desejo  a todos vocês a mesma felicidade, presença de Deus e realizações que Ele proporcionou a mim e a minha família durante este ano.


Um Feliz Natal a todos, lembrando que nossa FAMÍLIA é SEMPRE o mais importante !


                            *******



Another year has passed, many projects, travel, jobs, projects, challenges, daughter born, new challenges and a new, talented and motivated team to manage, with new projects, a new position, new projections.


I wish you all the same happiness, God's presence and accomplishments that he gave me and my family this year.


Merry Christmas to all, remembering that our FAMILY IS ALWAYS the most important!







                                                         *********************





Otro año ha pasado, muchos proyectos, viajes, trabajos, retos, hija nació, nuevos retos y un nuevo, talentoso y motivado equipo de gestionar, con nuevos proyectos, una nueva posición, las nuevas previsiones.


Le deseo toda la felicidad misma, la presencia de Dios y los logros que ha dado a mí ya mi familia este año.


Feliz Navidad a todos, recordando que nuestra FAMILIA es siempre lo más importante!

Miles Davis’ Music Lesson for Performance Management

This is a great article written by Gary Cokins in his blog "Closing the Intelligence Gap".
His Blog is listed in my favorite's list.


A very smart approach using Jazz Music as a bridge.

Miles Davis’ Music Lesson for Performance Management

Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington were jazz greats. And then came MilesDavis. What can we learn from the jazz legend musician, Miles Davis, about enterprise performance management?

Let’s start with Davis’ second quintet from 1964-1968 which consisted of Davis on trumpet, Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on double bass, Tony Williams on drums, and Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone. Each of these talented musicians continued on with notable individual music careers. But what was exceptional when they played together was an observation Davis made when he said, “We weren’t playing chords anymore.” Initially the quintet played structured music following the notes. But then they evolved and connected as a team and played improvised music spontaneously. They could think like one without being inhibited. They knew they were free to go anywhere with their sound, and the others would follow.

How often have you enjoyed a shared experience like that? What the five of them were able to do is to play solo but complement each other to create the sound of a quintet. My vision is that is how an integrated enterprise performance management team of project leaders should play together. Imagine each project leader taking charge of these foundational methodologies:

Strategy mapping, performance measures (with a balanced scorecard and cascaded dashboards), and the resulting projects and initiatives portfolio. These link operations to the executive team’s strategy and align employee behavior and priorities with the strategy.

Demand Forecasting. Forecasting is arguably the independent variable from which all other plans and actions are dependent variables. The purpose is to reduce uncertainty. And as a side bonus, the outcome facilitates shifting to performance-based budgeting and driver-based rolling financial forecasts.

Customer intelligence, economic value, and profitability analysis. These answer the questions of which type of customer is attractive to retain, to grow, to win back, and to acquire? And which types are not? And, one step further, how much should be spent on each customer micro-segment to gain optimal profit lift? Activity based costing is an important element.

Risk management. To properly balance the organization’s risk appetite with its risk exposure and to optimally fund risk mitigation projects.

Business analytics. To ask questions and solve problems that lead to better decisions with exploratory and confirmatory analysis.


Each of these pursuits can stand on their own as a component to manage and improve an organization’s performance. But as with Miles Davis’ “Second Great Quintet,” the integration of them, with business anaytics embedded, produces a sound that is much larger than the sum of the parts. When they are synchronized, you “aren’t playing chords anymore.” Volatility is the new normal, so the ability to continuously improvise and synchronize in an agile way can fulfill the complete vision for enterprise performance management. 

Source: http://blogs.sas.com/cokins/index.php?/archives/168-Miles-Davis-Music-Lesson-for-Performance-Management.html

E.E Cummings

Here is one of my favorite poems of all times, written by a great spirit and a great voice of the century.

Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and

my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands 

Edward Estlin Cummings 

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a2755

I  dedicate this post to my beloved wife Paula, I Love You !!!

Paul Éluard

Liberté



Nos meus cadernos da escola
Na minha carteira nas árvores
Sobre a areia e sobre a neve
Escrevo o teu nome

Em todas as páginas lidas
Em todas as páginas em branco
Pedra sangue papel ou cinza
Escrevo o teu nome

Na selva e no deserto
Nos ninhos e nas giestas
Na memória da minha infância
Escrevo o teu nome


Em cada raio da aurora
Sobre o mar e sobre os barcos
Na montanha enlouquecida
Escrevo o teu nome
Na saúde recuperada
No perigo desaparecido
Na esperança sem lembranças
Escrevo o teu nome

E pelo poder de uma palavra
a minha vida recomeça
Eu renasci para conhecer-te
Para dizer o teu nome


Liberdade.


Paul Éluard 1895-1952

Memorial para uma Westie

Queridos Amigos e Amantes de Cachorros,

Lamentamos informar que nesta madrugada de Quarta-Feira, dia 24 de Novembro, nossa amada cadela Jolie,uma West Highland White Terrier com pouco mais de cinco anos de idade, não resistiu ao veneno da cobra cascavel que a picou ontem em nosso quintal, e veio a falecer cerca de 1:30 da manhã, sob os cuidados de nosso veterinário, sedada e sem sofrimento.

Ela lutou bravamente por quase 24 horas seguidas contra a ação de uma carga de veneno suficiente para matar um cavalo em seu pequeno corpo de cerca de 5 Kilos, e mesmo tendo milagrosamente voltado do choque em que estava, teve uma parada cardio-respiratória, vindo a falecer durante esta madrugada.

Jolie foi um presente de Deus em nossas vidas, e emocionou a todos com quem conviveu, e nos deu inúmeras lições de lealdade, liderança, doação e dedicação.

Como Alfa de nossa pequena matilha, ela enfrentou o perigo e salvou nossos outros animais inúmeras vezes durante estes anos, e desta vez ainda evitou a possibilidade de uma tragédia maior, pois mesmo que não estando em nossa casa poderíamos sofrer uma invasão por parte da cobra.

Segue anexa uma de nossas últimas fotos com nossa Jolie, pouco antes de Theodora nascer e um link com uma foto de algum tempo atrás.

Aproveitamos todos os momentos e felicidades que um cachorro pode dar a uma família, e estamos muito tristes com a perda de nossa "Médica e Guardinha", como gostávamos de chamá-la.

As lições de vida, dedicação, fidelidade e amor familiar são inumeráveis, e ficarão gravadas para sempre em nossos corações.

Jolie foi sepultada no Cemitério dos Cachorros, localizado próximo à antiga Pachá e à Rod. D. Pedro, onde agora temos um pequeno jazigo para nossa eterna guardiã.

Agradecemos profundamente aos nossos queridos amigos Bob, Flávia, Pate e demais membros da "galera" que nos presentearam com a Jolie em 2005, Deus os abençoe por ter-nos proporcionado alguns dos melhores momentos de nossas vidas.

Agradecemos carinhosamente o acompanhamento, cuidados e amor dispendidos pela Cinthia Samira, a querida Tia que a Jolie teve e dona de um de seus filhos, o Isaque.

Agradecemos ainda o carinho, o profissionalismo e a dedicação da equipe do Dr. Orlando de Burgos Neto, que não mediu esforços para salvá-la e depois, diminuir seu sofrimento.

Em cinco anos de vida, Jolie necessitou de cuidados médicos apenas duas vezes (a primeira quando comeu tomates e teve azia, e a segunda quando comeu o seu ossinho e os dos outros seis cachorros, tendo assim uma indigestão. Já comeu metade de um sapo, ratos e outros animais, sempre defendendo a casa).

Jolie nos deixa um legado de paz, amor e doação ao próximo, de dedicação, maternidade e amor incondicionais, tendo sido realmente uma criatura de Deus em nossas vidas.

Um grande abraço fraterno a todos vocês.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8022961@N03/2533746006/

 

 

 

Rodrigo Montagner

Villages Around the World - from Global Culture

Dear Readers,

I take here the opportunity to comment and show partially a page from one of the greatest websites ever versing about Global Culture, and also already marked as one of my favorite blogs in my own blog that you read now.

This is one recent article versing about villages in some places of the world, and I loved it so much that I share here with you, and enforce that the site http://global-culture.org/ is one of the most briliant initiatives I've seen throughout cultural , travelling and inspiring ideas about.

Enjoy, and I strongly advise you to stay connected to this global site.

"Villages"

Punta carretas, uruguay

                                               Courtesy Vince Alongi @ Flickr

You just arrived to your destination. First walk out of your quarters to explore the neighbourhood and this traditional fruit shop is the first thing to get your attention. More than a convenient shop for your immediate cravings it is an icon of the type of neighbourhood to which you’ve arrived. Things are going to be interesting. Now, how do you say ‘apple’ in Spanish? ‘Manzana’.

Bernal, México

                                                       Courtesy Altamar @ Flickr

The peak in the background is known as “Peña de Bernal” and is the second-largest monolith in the world. However, the pace of life in the town of San Sebastian Bernal is indifferent to such landmark except for the celebration of Spring equinox, when people converge around the peak, dressed in white to receive the new season.

Coyoacan, Mexico

                                                          Courtesy of Hector Garcia @ Flickr

To support my last post about reinventing tourism in Mexico here is a shot of a small church in the south of the city. La Conchita is located in the Coyoacan area, but it is a few blocks away from the popular square, but it is a most sought-after location for weddings. This has me thinking about micro-tourism. More on that later.

Andorra la vella

                                              Courtesy of Uriarte de Izpikua @ Flickr

At least a two hour drive away from the nearest city, Andorra la Vella may be able to teach us something about “disconnecting” from a world that is otherwise increasingly stressful. And that may be the reason why the average Andorran can expect to live to 85.

Tai-o, Hong Kong

                                                       Courtesy Jaako @ Flickr

You don’t have to travel far to slow-down. Not even an hour away from Hong Kong, Tai-O is a little fishing village.



Greenwich Village

                                          Courtesy New York Public Library @ Flickr Commons



Yes. Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Circa 1936.

Pick any little town or village you’ve visited in the past and try to imagine what it will be in 50 years. What are the right attributes that would make it burst with a live of its own and start playing a role in the global landscape?

Sveti Stefan

                                               Courtesy milachich @ Flickr

Montenegro continues to experience important growth in its tourism industry.

Once a small fishing village on a ridge by the sea shore which experienced an unbelievable transformation, it became during the seventies and eighties one of the Montenegro’s most famous tourist centers for the high paying clientèle’s.Sophia Loren, one of the most frequent visitors, bewitched by its beauty like everyone else, had once wanted to build a villa on a nearby deserted cliff. Then Sylvester Stallone and numerous other famous actors, artists, kings and princes from all over the world used to visit this magic place. Sveti Stefan is the place with the best pedigree in Montenegro, and fortunately is still well-preserved and one of the most attractive Montenegrin tourist destinations.

Published at: http://global-culture.org/topics/village/

Global Culture Blog by Juan Gonzalez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.


Copyright © 2010 Global Culture - All Rights Reserved


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Vacation at Goiania City - Brazilian Midwest

Hello my friends,


I had entered today into a 20 days vacation period, almost entirelly to be spent at the lovely Goiania City, in the heart of the Midwest region of Brazil.

It is 950 km far from where I live, the city of Campinas, located in the southeast of Brazil, and it has some of the richest Nature sources in the country, famous for its rivers natural thermal water sources and pure vegetation.

Goiania is also very famous for its cultural inheritance through the country, it has been called once the "brazilian Nashville", due to its numerous famouns brazilian country singers, and also for the lovely Gourmet Regional food, like Pequi, Pamonha à moda and other delightfull dishes.

Home of the brave ancient discoverers and brazilian golden age producers, it is a true beauty in the heart of Brazil, with great people, great food and great peace!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia

Enjoy some of the pictures through its sites.


Rodrigo

Lean Manufacturing

Excelent Source of Information for Lean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

There's No Such Thing Better as Fatherhood

Rodrigo and Theodora

Friends,

After all these years of projects, trips, challenges and life achievements, I categorically can say that there is no such thing as fatherhood.

Peppers and Rogers and Customer Relationship Management

Customer Management ONE to ONE

Dear readers,

Since some years ago I've had contact with material and ideas of a great company called Peppers and Rogers (http://www.peppersandrogersgroup.com/), that had brought me (somewhere around three years ago) great and powerfull ideas about how to treat and interact with our customers.

If you are an IT Manager, most likely you have a great chance of being located inside an Industry, and therefore almost all the Departments are your customers when it comes to Infrastructure and Systems.

From the Account Department to the Board of Management rooms, everyone is really important, and it is not just a matter of segregate for delivery. Sometimes, the Accountant/ Invoice Manager situation is much more important than the CFO's laptop, because the first can really block the business if you don't act quick.

The important step to be taken is really make the customer undestand that YOU are IN CHARGE.

Check also the site: http://www.1to1media.com/, for more information.

Also following the principles of Dale Carnegie, the real experiences is to make every customer feels unique and that you really care and worry about his/her problems and will to solve it in an expeditious manner.

Throughout the years I"ve had many experiences of these powerful concepts, and I am pretty sure you , me and everyone can really be a great Delivery Manager using basic principles of listening to the customer, caring about his opinion and striving for success all the time.

Have a nice and peaceful week !

Minha Filha

Theodora nasceu com perfeita saúde ás 23 horas do dia 15 de Agosto, após muitas horas de trabalho de parto de sua mamãe.

Olhar para o rostinho dela ao nascer foi, sem sombra de dúvida, a maior emoção que pude experimentar em minha vida toda.

Olhar para este rostinho, sentir seu cheiro, ouvir seus barulhinhos de adaptação a este mundo, pôs toda minha vida em perspectiva, fazendo com que uma natural análise de tudo fosse feita novamente, após 37 anos de vida.

Nós que achávamos já ser muito felizes, nos surpreendemos com a intensidade do sentimento de FAMÍLIA que experimentamos agora, com nossa cria crescendo devagarinho embaixo de nossas asas.

Acredito sim, no equilíbrio entre nossa vida profissional e nossa vida pessoal, para que possamos ter sempre como prioridade nossa FAMÍLIA, e creio especialmente que se isso for feito adequadamente, tudo o mais nos será acrescentado de sucesso e felicidades.

Adapto as palavras imortais de Manuel Bandeira à placidez do rosto de nossa amada filha:



Beijo pouco, falo menos ainda.
Mas invento palavras
Que traduzem a ternura mais funda
E mais cotidiana.
Inventei, por exemplo, o verbo teadorar.
Intransitivo:
Teadoro, Theodora.

Petrópolis 25/2/1947

Manuel Bandeira"

Desejo a todos os pais e profissionais que, como eu, buscam a excelência e são apaixonados pelo que fazem, que saibam priorizar a FAMÍLIA e filhos e filhas que nos olham com estes rostinhos como o de minha filha, que desmontam todas as nossas crenças e padrões.
Grande abraço

Rodrigo Montagner

Global Service Desk : Collocation x In House

I have been working on the deployment of a Global Service Desk Project with a major Global Provider during the past few months for several Latin American countries. And I take the opportunity to share with the colleagues and readers in general my thoughts reflecting this and also past global projects experiences.


Despite all the business needs and specificities, I have notest that sometimes we more loose than gain in terms of service quality and, in the long run, the acceptance of the services by end users and business managers in general tends to decrease if we don't take appropriate reconnection actions.


If some global projects could take into consideration work under the concept of "Collocation", meaning with that having specialists professionals directly allocated inside the key areas of the business (example: Industrial IT, Sales, Finance, Lab), we could have more value added into each business area, by allowing the assigned professionals to have direct, day by day and really a "breathing inside" experience along with the business, watching and developing opportunities of quality and business processes improvements.


When we have projects with a global standard and just small chances of flexibility and regional adjustments, just outsourcing services already done regionally, mainly in Latin America, we can have a huge amount of issues in the beggining, that can be corrected in a medium to long term relationship improvement, but the cost for it would be much more than dollars, pesos or reais. 


It would be the patience, acceptance and the overall image of the IT and IS Departments throughout the businesses in all the countries.


And this is really key to have a smooth management of services and change management processes, including communication and acceptance, hence sometimes cultural barriers and costumes are very hard to undertake upon a single and unified process, without any changes.


I believe that an unified exercise of finding what is best for the local or regional businesses, plus a calibration between in house and collocation resources, could be very benefitial and crutial to the quality, acceptance and comprehenssion of what is to manage IT and IS ares these days on the Industry. 


And that could refine and really sponsor the image and sinchronicity of IT Departments throughout the businesses.


Have a Nice Week!!!




Rodrigo Montagner

Sam Walton's 10 Rules

Sam Walton's 10 Rules

Excerpts from Running a Successful Company: Ten Rules that Worked for Me
Sam Walton, in Made in America

I didn't expect to find "get taxpayers to pay for your health insurance" on this list, and I didn't. Still, it's a pretty good list.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve been asked to to come up with a list of rules for success, but it is the first I’ve sat down and done it. I’m glad I did, because it’s been a revealing exercise for me.

I do seem to have a couple of dozen things that I’ve singled out at one time or another as the “key” to the whole thing. One thing I don’t even have on my list is “work hard”. If you don’t know that already, you probably won’t be going far enough to need my list anyway. Another thing I didn’t include on my list is the idea of building a team. It almost goes without saying that you absolutely must create a team of people who work together and give real meaning to the overused word “teamwork”. To me, that’s more the goal of the whole thing, rather than some way to get there. 

1. COMMIT to your business. Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do it the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody will catch the passion from you – like a fever.
2. SHARE your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will perform beyond your wildest expectations. Encourage your associates to hold a stake in the company. Behave as a servant leader in a partnership.
3. MOTIVATE your partners. Money and ownership alone are not enough. Constantly think of new and more interesting ways to motivate and challenge your partners. Set high goals, encourage competition, and then keep score. If things get stale, cross-pollinate – have managers switch jobs with one another to stay challenged.
4. COMMUNICATE everything you can with your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.
5. APPRECIATE everything your associates do for the business. All of us like to be told how much somebody appreciates what we do for them. We like to hear it often, especially when we have done something we’re really proud of. Nothing can substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free – and worth a fortune.
6. CELEBRATE your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Show enthusiasm – always.
7. LISTEN to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front lines – the ones who actually talk to the customer – are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know. To push responsibility down in your organization, and to force good ideas to bubble up, you must listen to what your associates are trying to tell you.
8. EXCEED your customers’ expectations. If you do, they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses – apologize. Stand behind everything you do. The two most important words I ever wrote were on that first Wal-Mart sign: “Satisfaction Guaranteed”.
9. CONTROL your expenses better than your competition. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.
10. SWIM upstream. Go the other way. Ignore conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find a niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.

Those are some pretty ordinary rules, some would say even simplistic. The hard part, the real challenge, is to constantly figure out ways to execute them. You can’t just keep doing what works one time, because everything around you is always changing. To succeed, you have to stay out in front of that change.

from: http://customerservicereader.typepad.com/customer_service_reader/2006/01/sam_waltons_10_.html

www.blueskyentrepeneurship.blogspot.com

Projetos Globais e Organizações Locais - Gerenciamento de Mudanças

Prezados Leitores,

Tenho passado por vários projetos globais de integração entre sistemas, entre organizações, entre pessoas e entre culturas, durante os últimos dez anos de minha carreira, dez anos estes passados em Tecnologia da Informação.

E estas "horas de vôo" geraram em mim um olhar ao mesmo tempo contemplativo e de certa forma sereno de como as pessoas e organizações adaptam-se (ou não) às novas realidades de sistemas, de processos, maneiras de trabalhar e amplitude de paisagem de atuação, saindo de gerenciamentos e aplicações locais para compartilhamento global de serviços e de infraestrutura geral.

Uma outra e importante observação pessoal sobre o tema é que, não importa o tamanho ou o direcionamento gerencial de cada organização, mudanças são inevitáveis, mudanças estas pelas quais o mundo dos negócios obriga as empresas a passarem, não obstante por processos dolorosos ou traumáticos de mudança cultural, processual, comportamental e mental, e que muitas vezes ocasionam até mudanças até em seu corpo gerencial.

A natureza de cada negócio é que vai muitas vezes determinar o impacto de cada mudança, ou quão diferente ou específico é cada cliente, ou cada processo de negócio seja adaptado e personalizado por cliente, que deve ser adequado a uma esfera mais global, porém sem perder as características de exclusividade que muitos clientes, para não dizer todos, preferem e valoram como essencial à manutenção das boas relações comerciais.

A Comunicação e seus desdobramentos dentro do Gerenciamento de Mudanças é o um dos principais canais através do qual as mudanças tornam-se menos traumáticas, e o entendimento, aceitação e adaptação a cada novidade podem ser melhor aceitos, desde o presidente da empresa até o usuário de chão de fábrica.

Muitas vezes medidas como uma simples visita aos departamentos, acrescida de comunicados escritos e impressos, provaram ser muito eficazes a curto e médio prazos, e os demais meios de comunicação e interação, tais como banners, e-mails (teasers, electronic banners, Comunicados, etc.), assim como reuniões presenciais para informação e sessões de perguntas e respostas, provaram também sua efetividade no aumento da aceitação por parte dos usuários finais e corpo gerencial das empresas.

Porém, mais importante do que qualquer preparação de "ambiência" local, faz-se extremamente necessário que a alta hierarquia local da empresa tenha um bom gerenciamento de comunicação e afinamento de expectativas junto à Matriz (muitas vezes internacional e externa), deixando todos no mesmo nível de informações, possibilidades e diretivas estratégicas da corporação, tornando os "headquarters" e os "regionais" afinados e bem entrosados quanto ao patrocínio dos projetos globais junto ao corpo de operações e gerenciamento local, evitando assim inúmeros conflitos e "barulhos" de projeto que podem simplesmente ruir com toda a estratégia central da empresa para implementações ou rollouts, e fazer de um projeto específico uma imensa fonte de frustrações para os ambos os lados (equipe global e equipe regional), e criar já de início uma atmosfera não favorável a uma nova plataforma global, a um novo Service Desk Global ou mesmo até a um novo ERP Global.

Acredito que a Comunicação e o alinhamento Estratégico sejam duas das mais importantes chaves para o bom desempenho e a boa implementação ou transição internacional de sistemas ou de serviços de Tecnologia da Informação.

Obrigado e uma boa semana a todos !!!

Rodrigo Montagner

DESIDERATA - Have a great Week !!

DESIDERATA


-- written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s 

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. 
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. 
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. 
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. 
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. 
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. 
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. 
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. 
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.  With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
 Be cheerful. Strive to be happy

The job you have into the job you want

Very Nice Article and worth to a reading
http://hbr.org/2010/06/managing-yourself-turn-the-job-you-have-into-the-job-you-want/ar/1

NY Memory in a cold afternoon

Dear Friends and readers,

About 15 months ago me and my wife made a trip to the USA with the purpose of attending a very dear friend's weeding, and we took some days more to spend them in New York City. We rented a nice room nearby Riverside Drive, up in the Upper East Manhattan, and took a couple of days to walk by, know the surroundings and really feel the ambiance.

We had a very beautifull moment after crossing the Central Park and entering into the 5th Avenue. Right in front of the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art Staircases, we have testimonied a great male black vocal group playing live on the sidewalk, just scored by an acoustic bass without any amps.

The chilling wind was harsh and temperatures were something aroung -5º Celsius, with the chill of -15º.

The powerfull vocals, the beautifull architecture, the so american sounds from these singers and the great piece of art that is the 5th Avenue and surroundings made feel very nice and really part of the world.

I felt in that moment as if I was part of something, that life was passing by and it seemed that I have found another side of myself in New York City.

I have bought a copy of the cd (I am the brown jacket guy on the left talking to one of the singers), and whenever I hear it at home on weekends I remember being part of the great world and feel gratefull for this great and live experience that I now share with you.

Hope you like it!!

Cheers

Rodrigo

Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen! (Original + English Subtitles)

This is one of the most beutifull videos I've seen that shows and gives us a glance about a sincere and very clear opinion about things that really matter in life.
And that somehow leads us to reflexive moments and experiences I've had travelling abroad, knowing people and feeling the cultural differences, like been in New York and Southern California, or like being in Northeast and South of Brazil, be in Argentina and Brazil, you name it...
This video makes me feel reflexive and good very often.
Hope you like it.

Business Trips Worldwide - Tricks to Swing Time and really Know Places

Washington Avenue, Minneapolis - MI - USA

Lack of Time to know the Surroundings During Business Trips on Global Projects

Have you notest how often do you have time to leave the hotel room after a very busy day of training, workshopping on managing activities on a global project, travelling abroad...

Sometimes it can really be painfull, to not say sad, being around such beautifull places without getting even a good time to sleep, rest and recover for the next day of work.

I do have some tips for the travelers, based on my experience: please do not try to see as much as possible from the country you are visiting, do not loose sleep hours just by visiting touristic places, locations where everybody goes , etc.

My first tip is to advise you to try to find some neighbor or street view that you like, stop by, have a coffee or a drink on the local cafetteria, try to talk to locals, real "feel" the ambiance of the place.

    Amsterdam nearby some Caffes Downtown  

You'll probably notest that sometimes great and unike things happens just out of the blue, like you hearing a great song played by some street musicians at NY Metropolitan Museum sidewalk on a freezing tuesday afternoon (as I have testimonied months ago), or even watch the sun goes down in an Amsterdam Caffé, listening to the tonging sounds of the beautifull Dutch language all around you...

     North Sea watched from my hotel room window on a kickoff of a global project in Sweden (no time to sail at all.....)

During also some kind of business trips, you can get really very tired, mostly if you are travelling for a way different time zone. My advise in those cases is to try to really enter into the local timezone, and do not go to bed as soon as you hit the hotel room. Get out, go walking, try to take pictures, but do not sleep until it is the right time on the local time zone to do so.

Open your mind and heart to the amazing experience of being surrounded by another culture, language, mindness, air....try to "breathe" the local way to see and feel things, try to understand how it is up (or down) there. Imagine all the history and past behind every street. Try not to judge people based on your standards...remember..."everyone is perfect...God makes no mistakes"

Of couse, if you can and your agenda allows you, schedule a free day or free weekend on the city downtown, go to the popular market at the center of the city (pretty much every city has it, with small variations)...order an expresso, sit and watch people....read the local news, etc....

Ouro Preto City - Minas Gerais State - Brazil

These are some of the tips and moments I share with you my friends. I hope you can have some of these experiences I simply love to have from time to time.

Cheers,


Rodrigo Montagner