The management capacity or corporate capabilities matrix - CCM - of a company, has a necessary one-to-one correspondence with the quality of the Management, and this in turn depends not only on the know-how and competence it possesses, but mainly on its Key Human Values. This is the fundamental variable, the one that makes the difference.
The VHC of the Directorate
Every company is a living entity that is deliberately born to grow, develop and fulfill the purposes for which it was created. Growth is therefore normal in any healthy organization, as a result of the interaction of the components of its value chain.
However, being successful is not a matter of every day, we live in an environment where in the absence of a culture in this sense, we almost always learn more from our failures than from our own successes. It is not necessary to investigate because we appreciate it every day in the press, radio, television, etc., where more cm / col, or more time on the air are dedicated to this type of event. Failure messages come to us in the form of featured news. The first thing we have to regulate then is the influence of our own environment.
But what is it that makes people successful?
The first point is to consider that this condition does not come by chance, nor does it occur by spontaneous generation; on the contrary, it is almost always the result of deliberate acts, of a coherent set of activities that we must carry out voluntarily. We can have all the possibilities, but we must accompany them with the right attitude. The second point is to take into account the transformations in the way of operating and doing business that globalization has brought with it as well as the advancement of information technologies and computer science, which has made it possible to reduce the complexity of organizations, making them more manageable; and that therefore they constitute tools with which we must have yes or yes because in the new business scenarios, it is no longer enough to just work together under a shared vision,be clear about the mission and additionally the necessary capital.
Today, appropriate technological solutions are required, as well as a basic information infrastructure with reliable data and adequately defined variable relationships that support business processes and strategies. The third point is that we must not delay change in our organizations, on the contrary we must lead it. Do not forget that the attitude and emotional intelligence that we put into practice in the face of the problems and challenges that come our way will greatly depend on the desired future.
Our responsibility as an organization is to be prepared to respond effectively to technological events in the markets; but always bearing in mind that man continues to be the most important factor, the "agent of change" without whose assistance "nothing is possible". The main idea of this first article is precisely to postulate the Key Human Values of Management as the fundamental variable, which allows shaping the type of organization that is wanted and the main lines of the organization's culture, beyond the technologies that we choose as support. It is she who creates the basic conditions for the development of the people who work in an organization, as well as the key business processes.
We have all known of the resounding successes of brilliant people and organizations that after a few years stopped being so. We are all witnesses to cases of other companies, and so is the professional career, which in its beginnings had less brilliance but over time they have become more solid and have grown corporately, becoming the right partners and taking advantage of the opportunities of the globalization. So creativity, genius and figure, competence and strategies are not enough to reach and maintain a position of success; Nor is it enough to find the right partner that we call upon our organizations, such as the couple that we choose to share our home; but we need in addition to what in my concept constitutes sustainable competitive advantage: Key Human Values.
What are these values? What do they consist of? This is what we will develop in our next installments. Meanwhile, kind readers, I leave you a small case so that together we can analyze and share reflections, this is the following: What is the message, for example, that we would give to an employee whom we order to answer, before a phone call, that we have left or we are in a meeting and also ask the interlocutor to leave his phone that "we will return your call"; precisely when we have determined that we are not going to do them. Worse still, we imagine what the employee is going to read this experience. Is it so difficult to accept that the transparency of administrative acts and the development of good communications are the starting point of competent management and not the cause of it?
What would happen if we repeat this experience at home, with our children?
Humility is the class mark of every successful organization; pride, on the other hand, darkens the soul and does not let us see our mistakes. VALENCIAN.
Management's HCV: Humility
Many times we reach a position based on a lot of work, effort and creativity; But it happens in many organizations that, once we have reached the first rung of the ladder of achievement, we let ourselves be won over by pride, we stop listening and therefore we lose the ability to learn.
Humility is the virtue that leads us to recognize our mistakes, which is the first requirement for the beginning of all change; avoiding falling into complacency and pride that distances us from God; thus helping us to improve as people and as a company.
We all do an act of contrition at the start of any business. The Father of the Parish that we choose comes and blesses material things, entrusts all the saints to us, blesses us all; fills us with good wishes, tells us about the great future that awaits us if we fulfill our mission. But is our soul prepared to face the challenges and temptations that the very easy one offers us, the short-term myopia that wants everything quickly and now? Is our organizational structure prepared to receive with humility the first successes of our management and therefore it is ready to postpone the temptation of immediate gratifications? Our mental structure is equally prepared not to relax and stay at the bottom of the canyon;creating the necessary contingency funds and research budgets for the first cash flow successes to obtain reliable information that allows us to grow as well as continue to compete.? Are you prepared to face failure as well?
Remember the 98 Motor Show and Motor Place, no? Better this way; because they were the two most glaring failures of commercial events developed in this sector in the past decade. Making figures would be idle. But who can think of developing a fantastic Automotive project in a year where most of the macroeconomic variables were turning? Who would develop a car dealer mega-business in that year with the force of an overwhelming and complete publicity display where nothing was missing: publicity on the public highway, bus stops, unipolar panels; radio; TV; newspapers and magazines; merchandizing, outdoor, etc. To which should be added the credit sale policy with 0% interest.
Everything on paper was perfect, demand had to be stimulated; But since when is it known that we will not be successful if we dedicate ourselves to distributing ice cream in Alaska? The management forgot the ABC of marketing or believed in the figures of a market that their trusted advisers invented for their analysis. They are historical errors and it must be said in large letters even though behind it has been one of the most powerful business groups in the country. A market can be created where there are unsatisfied wants or hidden needs; But a market is such yes and only yes, when there are fundamentally people with needs and with money to satisfy them.
We must all remember the Camino Real Shopping Center, right? It would be necessary to ask the creators of such a project under what bases and criteria of location they erected this mass of cement in the place that it is, when the slightest criterion of location for a commercial project of such dimension indicates not only adapting it to the segmentation variables known but to locate it optimally at the intersection of two trunks. A light analysis will show us that the CCCR has nothing of the latest. We are talking about an open competitive market, not political markets like the "people's" ones that once existed.
Trunks are large avenues with double circulation, round trip and better still with several traffic lanes, which ensure easy access and movement. The successes of some currently resoundingly successful retail chains, as well as the hallmark of their corporate culture and marketing strategies; they are also due to the location of their premises.
More than a decade ago I worked in the marketing area of a very successful company in the food category, finding myself with a special project already carried out for a restaurant for upper middle class in the middle of Av. Colonial. Although I was not in charge of the business itself, because I was responsible for other lines; This was part of the company's product portfolio and therefore my opinion was required in some board meetings. Obviously it was something destined to fail because it was intended to bring together the executives of the industrial zone for their business meetings, when a study revealed that such meetings were the opportunity that these executives waited to go out to eat elsewhere; the market was also reduced because at night the area was recognized as unsafe, etc.It is not about finding explanations to justify mistakes; But at some point the owners of the company agreed that they had made a luxurious restaurant for extra-home consumption "family".
Innumerable explanations can be tried for these business cases but the central point is that such projects, we could list others, have been developed on the basis of “the pride of the one who can do everything”; forgetting that nature is the explanation of all things and we should adapt to its laws. Pride, without a doubt, not only prevents proper communication with our environment, with the consequent loss of opportunities to exchange information and business; rather, it is not the best partner when making the right decisions.
Humility is one of the fundamental VHC of companies, those that shape the structure and the way it responds to the problems, opportunities and challenges that its very existence represents; That is why the importance of cultivating it in our organizations and in personal life itself. If we are humble to recognize our mission and fulfill it faithfully, then there will be those who know how to have been chosen by the Gods, to be successful here on earth.
