Someone who looks like they get it!

I recently went to the annual Software Information Industry Association (SIIA) conference for their Content Division. There were several interesting speakers, but a few of them really stood out. Dick Harrington (CEO, The Thomson Corporation) was one of those speakers. In keeping with my theme, I thought I’d share some of what he had to say about effectively changing the strategy and direction of a large established company. I have notes on his full session so please email me if you’d like them. What follows deals only with the direct actions he took to manage to change!

When Mr. Harrington took over as CEO in 1997, his focus was on getting Thomson ready for the future. He sold off the travel and newspaper businesses for $2.7B and $3.5B, respectively (thereby cutting his company in half). He didn’t see these business models as sustainable. He then began to rebuild Thomson with a series of acquisitions. His goal was that the acquired companies would work together with some interoperability. He was aiming for size and scale in markets where he felt large investments would be needed to grow the business. In many cases, he was focused on knowledge workers and the integration of Thomson information into his customer’s workflow.

One of his biggest challenges in becoming customer focused was Thomson’s culture. In his view Thomson was not creating long term value. He immediately started confronting the people issues and communicating a strategy to get the company focused on the customer.

He followed his strategy definition with action. In order to prove his commitment to the customer, he instituted the front-end customer strategy review as a way to align the organization. He had every business review their market, challenges, and priorities (he still does this annually). Each business needed to articulate how the organizational structure and resource assignments would need to change for them to achieve their goals. He also continues to spend 20 days a year personally reviewing the top 700 people in Thomson.

According to Thomson, decision support and high-end analytics are the value-added part of the information market. Mr. Harrington said that Thomson needs to worry about competitors that can “pick off” that high-end value, or even worse, change the game and reframe the market. He had some great insights in this area as well. He said that in order to reframe the market you must consider where the discontinuities are and how you can eliminate them. You must learn from your customer and understand how they work.

In building Thomson solutions, he and his team approached their customers and said “when do you use our content?” and “what are you doing 3 minutes before and 3 minutes after you use our products?”. Thomson kept building out their solution 6 minutes at a time! They hired the expertise to teach them how to consult with their clients and map their workflows. Then they transferred that knowledge to internal people.

It cost $200M to get Thomson focused on the customer and their workflow. Harrington shifted that money to the front-end (understanding the customer and their needs) from the back-end (where it had been used to incrementally improve existing products - adding bells and whistles that the market had never asked for!) in an effort to make Thomson more relevant to their customers.

A few of his underlying, and in my opinion, healthy philosophies:

1. No company can take their market and their standing within it for granted.
2. Thomson is positioned for the future but they’re certainly not done yet.
3. “We can’t own everything”. He was referring to some of Thomson’s content partnerships and one product they’re currently developing that’s 51% owned by Thomson and 49% owned by their customer(s). Wow – what a concept!

Manage to Change

What’s the point?

When people hear the phrase “Manage to Change” they often think of something they begrudgingly do because they have to! It’s reactive. It’s often delayed. There isn’t anything fun about it.

Me? I think of it more like surfing. Grab your board (no, I am not a surfer) and catch a wave!

Manage to Change is a positive imperative. On this page it means that we must continually adjust our strategy and objectives to the changing world around us (or we may very well wipe out!). It’s exciting. It’s full of possibilities. It’s something that we do proactively. We try to anticipate change. Maybe we can even create it ourselves!

In order to “Manage to Change” we need to:

• Be open-minded and inquisitive
• Look beyond the confines of our daily grind and our professional industry! What’s going on out there? What’s new and exciting? What could we use?
• Build in time to think, everyday – to consider the possibilities – to come up with off-the-wall ideas and see where they might take us! Do mental jumping jacks!
• Understand our strengths and weaknesses. Where do we need help?
• Only AFTER we consider the ludicrous is it time to filter our ideas. Which ones might delight our customers, make us more efficient, or create a new market?

I’m certainly not advocating frivolity (although there’s nothing wrong with that!). I simply believe that it’s too easy to box yourself in to what’s known or what’s comfortable and in doing so you miss out on a lot. Anticipate and capitalize on change.

Experiment (you can still be fiscally responsible!).

What good is it to define a strategy if you can’t manage to change?

An Introduction!

Why am I starting a blog? Well ......

Over the past 20+ years I’ve worked in eight different industries and watched several companies struggle through change. I was with AT&T right after it divested the baby bells. I was with Prodigy (anyone remember that?) when it was trying to create a commercially viable mechanism for delivering a consumer oriented online news and shopping experience (before AOL even existed). Then, about 6 years ago, I landed in a medical publishing company.

If there has ever been an industry smack in the middle of radical change (change over which they have little or no control) - it's publishing. If you're in the information business the world is a scary place right now.

Or is it? Is it scary or is it exciting? I suppose that depends on your perspective. To me - there isn't a more exciting industry on the face of the earth (OK – I’m a strategy geek – I admit it!).

If you're tightly connected to the way things have been done for decades (or as is the case in many print publishers - centuries) it's hard to come to terms with how the world of information creation and distribution is being continually turned on its head by technologies that empower the consumer.

Companies have sprung up that don’t have your heritage and commitment to quality and they’re providing consumers with content. Private individuals are providing consumers with content! You worry that the content isn’t good enough (especially in the medical information or legal arenas) – but the consumers are voting for that content with their attention (and sometimes even their dollars).

There’s something that isn’t quite right here. Who are you? What business are you in? What are your assets? How can you provide them to the consumer in a way that allows you to stay in business? Are you obsolete? What can you do?

You can close your eyes and hope it all goes away or you can figure out how to participate – and maintain a thriving business. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I’d like to find out what others think, what they’re doing, and how it’s working for them.

I believe in collaboration.
I believe that when we work together we increase the opportunities for everyone.

OK – so maybe I’m an idealist. I can live with that.

The reality is that people need information. They need sources they can trust, and they need to interact with information in a way that answers their questions when they arise. Quality is no longer in the eyes of the editor or the information provider – it’s in the eyes of the consumer. How do you take control? There’s the rub - you can’t! That’s what changed. You’re no longer in charge, but you can participate.

If you want to make it – you’re going to have to adapt.