Motivators and Hygiene Factors

You might be familiar with Two Factor Theory (also known as Herzberg's Boby Motivation-Hygiene Theory). The theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction.
In other words, the hygiene factors are those that prevent people from leaving your company, while the motivating factors are those that will keep people in your company.

For example, keeping the pantry well stocked with fancy F&B is a hygiene factor, while efforts in personal and professional development are motivating factors.
Both needs to be done, but many would agree that an organization needs to pay significantly more attention to the motivators, towards 80/20. Meeting all the hygiene factors does not mean people will stay in the organization at all.

The same theory can be applied to products. Many times we spend too much time and attention on the hygiene factors, working hard to keep customers "happy". The real question we need to ask when a product function is being developed, is "Is this going to help me sell more products to more customers?"

If the answer is no - then most likely you are only working on the hygiene factors.

Innovation and Risk Taking

I have attended a few symposium on entrepreneurship, when the topic of entrepreneur character or personality is discussed - there are lots of different opinion but one of the popular and common one is the "propensity for risk taking".

Here's what Peter Drucker says:
"I know a good many successful entrepreneurs. Not one of them has a propensity for risk taking. Most successful innovators in real life are colorless figures, and much more likely to spend hours on cash-flow projections than to dash off looking for risks. They are not risk-focused, they are opportunity-focused."

Phil McKinney's Podcast on Killer Innovations

If you are into product management and innovation you will want to check out Phil McKinney's podcasts (you can also subscribe from iTunes). Phil is the VP/CTO for Personal Systems Group in HP and well known speaker in the field of innovation and creativity.

SCAMMPER technique

Used for idea generation, take any words, attributes, features, problems or ideas and:
S - substitute, simplify
C - change, combine
A - adapt, adopt
M - magnify, minify
M - modify, multiply
P - package, purloin
E - elevate, eliminate
R - reverse, rearrange

The 16 Hot Buttons of Marketing and Sales

Today I learned about the 16 hot buttons that drive all purchase behavior from Mr. Barry Feig.
Here's the list

1. The desire to control - over one's destiny, finances, health, relationship and even food and shelter.
2. I'm better than you - the need to have status and feel significant.
3. Joy of discovery - joy of discovering is uncovering the unexpected joy.
4. Revaluing - as baby boomers enjoy a new phase in life, they are going back to the things they loved as kids.. but with a new twist.
5. Family values - quality time with families are still of utmost importance to many societies.
6. The desire to belong - people want to be associated with people like themselves, they show products like badges.
7. Fun is its own rewards - people want to have fun.
8. Poverty of time - nobody has enough time (but you can't substitute convenience for quality).
9. The desire to get the best that can be got - assert your product leadership position.
10. Self achievement - "be the best that you can be" is a strong motivating factor; intrinsic rewards are as important as extrinsic rewards.
11. Love of cosmo - sex sells, so does love and romance.
12. The Nurturing response - people like to nurture even more than being nurtured, make your customers the hero with your product.
13. Reinventing oneself - give them a chance to start over.
14. Make me smarter - people want to FEEL that they are smart for buying your product.
15. Power and dominance - aspiration to be more than in control of your environment.
16. Wish fulfillment - give the consumer to power to fly, market to aspirations.

Isolate and combine them, Push them!
You can read Barry's own description here.

Other wisdoms I've learned today:
"Perception is reality."
"There are no features - there are only benefits. Customer buy benefits, not features."
"Focus on delivering outcomes, not products."

And a note on measuring success (and all the talk about KPIs):
"Simplicity applies to measurement also. Too often we measure everything and understand nothing." ~ Jack Welch.

Valuable day indeed.

Crossing the Chasm

I was hoping to get my hands on the book Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A Moore. Then I saw this piece of review in Amazon:
Here is Moore's important insight in one sentence: "Don't celebrate your victory in a market after becoming the market leader with pioneer consumers; as the mass market develops and all the competitive offerings have adequate performance, the new consumers won't care about the advanced features that your organization is exquisitely tuned to produce but rather ease of setup, ease of use, and low cost."

Should I still read the book? What do you think?

Creative Leadership

Just finished listening to the podcast from Accidental Creative on Creative Leadership - an apisode about product and process. It served me as a great reminder.

Responsibilities of creative leaders

1. Bust the black boxes, build trust.
Do you call out to your people on what the organization is about and what the product is about? Do they have absolute CLARITY on what it takes to succeed and what is considered a failure? How transparent is your leadership?
Do your people know their role in the bigger picture?

2. Beware of derivation creep.
Take a look at the work that your people are doing - how much of their work is actually aligned to the organization vision and goals? Even if they are off the course by 1 degree - which does not seems to matter at first - over a long period of time the distance from the goal will become significant.

3. Be the first to take the fall.
No.1 in the leader's oath - be accountable for all failures, no excuses.

4. Give credits when it's due.
Celebrate success - tell people when things are done right, tell people even when their thoughts are aligned with your goals or the organization's vision.