Should Women Emailing Like Guys?

The title sounds weird? Isn’t it? You probably asking you : what does it mean emailing like guys? Maria Bartiromo_ a television journalist at CNBC for the Closing Bell program_ thinks having the answer. Indeed, she said that one of her New Year's resolutions was to "start emailing like a guy”.

She explained herself, saying that women tend to write emails with phrases such as “how are you” and “hope all is well, blah, blah, blah before they make their point”. In contrary, men will just give one-word response as “yup”. Emailing like a guy means going straight to the point.

Here is the video. The conversation starts at 6.30.

        But she is not the only one to think this. Deborah Tannen _ American linguist and professor at the Georgetown University_ wrote a book which has been a bestseller in the early 90’s You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.

In this book, she says for example that “In general, women tend to write longer emails and are more likely to use expression or I am inclined to say emotion” or “Women tend to mix personal talk with work talk”. She says that the hierarchy can be interpreted this as a frivolous behavior. That means she also says that the hierarchy is hold by men. Concerning men, she says that they tend to use sarcasm more frequently than women to make jokes or teasing colleagues. On the other hand, women use it in a negative way.

Her explanation is quite simple and according to me, a little bit naive. If men and women have different communication, it’s because they don’t have the same sociological background. It’s true that most of the kids are raised according to their gender. It’s not a big discovery!

        The problem is that we often do a parallelism between “feminine and woman” and “masculine and men”. These two figures _ “feminine” and “masculine” _ always existed in our culture. The feminine one is taking care of the home and  kids while the masculine one goes hunting and protects the family. And it’s true that during the Neanderthals’ era, it was the case. But nowadays, we should be able to disconnect these conceptual figures with gender! Both men and women are able to take of their kids and earn money.

Otherwise, we will still hear comments such as these in the video below. It’s apparently a class project on the book of Deborah Tannen and they clearly make no differences between these concepts. Results: men have no emotion and women are stupid.

        These kinds of stereotypes are not progress. When Maria Bartiromo says she will write emails like a guy, it’s not the good attitude but it means that there is a real issue that everyone should take in account and not only women. Answering just by some word such as “yup” is not better that asking how the holidays of your colleagues were before asking a professional related question! I do believe that we need both but more importantly, we need to stop judging. I know it sounds very naïve but hearing “Whoa, she is a woman but she talks like a guy” sounds much more stupid to me. Don't you think?

After the « Start-Ups », the « Start-up Cities ».

If you think “Silicon Valley” when you read Star-up Cities”, I’m afraid to say that you should look forward. The journalist who named it in 1971 is now probably retiring! However the first thing I thought when I’ve read “Start-up Cities” was “yes of course Silicon Valley! This is not new!” Of course I was wrong! We still think about our innovative centers such as the Silicon Valley or Sophia-Antipolis in France. But you don't check the new ones.We could find some very good ideas in these new projects. 

Let’s have a look at 4 new huge projects for research and innovation. These are locales that specifically promote and foster entrepreneurial ideas and networking and they look quite impressive!

          1)      The National University of Singapore (NUS)

Singapore _ with its 5.2 millions of inhabitants_ has spent more than $7.5 billion in research and development in 2011. This corresponds to a 2.5% of its GDP. The goal is to reach the 3% to reach the best countries in this field: Japan, Finland, Sweden, Taiwan, and South Korea. The Island grew its software industry to $28 billion last year, according to Bloomberg, and its accolades are stacking up: it came in No.2 in the Forum’s 2012-2013 Global Competitiveness Index, behind Switzerland.

The University now has more than 34,000 students. They just build a hotel on the campus which looks quite good.

The Hotel on the Campus

The General Electric Innovation Center

Inside the University

Outside of the University

With these results, Singapore’s government has a five-year plan to support technological growth and give to Singapore a statue of entrepreneurial hub.

           2)      Startup Canada

Startup Canada is different because it’s not a huge building plan but an non-profit organization. The idea is to create start-up communities dispersed across the North American country. They try to convince people to become entrepreneurs and help them to do so with for example some training events where all the future entrepreneurs can network. According to what we can see on the picture below, there were 25,000 entrepreneurs involved on the project.

           3)      Skolkovo in Russia

Also called the “New Silicon Valley”, this small town has been chosen to become the technological and innovation center of Russia. It will include a research university, a “technopark” to accommodate 1,000 start-ups and 40 research and development centers for corporations. The total planned investment is closed to $1000 million!

Here is one picture showing the future Business School and another one showing some facts and numbers about this impressive project.

The future Business School at Skolkovo

           4)      Aalto University in Helsinki

The last project is maybe more classic but also quite impressive. It’s the fusion of three major schools in Finland: Helsinki School of Economics (Business School), The University School of Science and Technology and the University of Design and Architecture.

In an old warehouse next to the school, students created the Start-Up Sauna, a business accelerator with partial funding from the government where students can network, receive coaching, and plan field trips to Silicon Valley.

This project already gave birth to some very successful company such as Skype and Rovio Entertainment, the company that created Angry Birds!

All these projects are different. We have investment projects with the Singapore University and the Skolkovo technological center, association project to support and help entrepreneurs in Canada and merging project with the University of Aalto. However, it’s absolutely not sure that all these projects will be successful. But still, there are some good ideas that South Europe and the US should think about. Better : thinking about new ideas!

Why doing Good-Better-Best Prices Instead of Finding the Perfect Price?

SeaWorld Orlando Dine with Shamu

I have just learned that what is considered as the best restaurant in the world _el Bulli_ was actually unprofitable. Why? Because the restaurant was only open from June to December for a total of 8000 clients a year. Each client used to pay the same price -$250- for a 25 dishes meal. It means that one dish cost approximately 10 euros! It’s less than a pizza in Madrid! But the restaurant was booked one year in advance (in fact it was booked the before its closure period).

Technically, it means that they didn’t find the equilibrium price. The demand was much more superior that the supply for this price. But the question is : Is finding this price the better solution for a company?

I do believe that Rafi Mohammed is right when he says that “even if you can determine your product's perfect price, you end up in what I call a "Pricing Catch-22": no matter what price you set, you'll inevitably create missed profit opportunities. Some people would have paid more, while others would have purchased if only the price had been lower”.

 

On a graph, it means that you try not to find the perfect price, but you try to do the integral of the demand curve. In that way, you can fix all the demand of your customers.

 

But what does that mean? We can take two examples to illustrate that. Usually, it works quite well for entertaining companies. We can take theme parks such as Sea World Orlando or Disneyland Paris in France. Both of them have an equilibrium price which is about $60 a day and per person. The idea is to find a new offer without changing the product. For Sea World for example, you can choose amongst an array of extra options (more than 17!) such as “animal interactions”, “exclusive tours”, “exclusive dining” and ”quick queue”. The normal admission is $80. With these options you can pay more than $500, just for one ticket!

 

Here is a graph I made showing what is happening. You target all your customers with different offers and different price. Ideally, the park can propose an offer per customer_ which is of course now impossible.

 

Another example is Disneyland Paris. The normal admission is 74 euros. At this price, you have people who buy them without problem (usually foreigners). But you also have the “francilien ticket” at 30 euros. At this price, you have to say which day you are coming at the park. You cannot change the date or the name on it. Doing this, both parks don’t really change their original offer _ they are still theme parks with attractions_ but they find a price for everyone interested by spending a day in the park.

 

With a good-better-best price strategy, you reach some people would have paid more that your original price, while others would have purchased if only the price had been lower. Moreover, customers are more comfortable with this pricing strategy. There is no more this kind of ultimatum: “you take it or you leave”. 

 

With a perfect price strategy, companies are missing significant profit opportunities. Customers are better served and profits are enhanced by serving new customers as well as reaping higher margins with a good-better-best price strategy.

You can read all the theory of Rafi Mohammed, pricing strategy consultant in his bookThe 1% Windfall : How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow256 pagesHarperBusiness; 1 edition (March 16, 2010)

Ignoring Emotions at Work is not Human

Because we are all humans, we have emotions. And making us working doesn’t change the fact that we have feelings. These feelings concern both our personal life and work life. The issue is that when you look on the internet some researches about feelings at work, you only find articles about how to manage your feelings at work. They explain you that you should go for a walk if you are stressed or try to find something positive about a situation if you are frustrated. Thanks for the advice!

Instead of helping you, they basically tell you that you need to do something about your emotions because it’s not normal and not appropriate at work! The article of one website titles “ controlling your feelings…before they control you” and the first sentence of the article is a quote from Viktor Frankl : “ Everything can be taken from a man but the last of human freedoms _ the ability to choose one’s attitude is a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way”. Basically, you are responsible of your emotions and handling with it is also your responsibility.

The main reason is that in a company, we ask employees to be productive and effective and we don’t need a master degree in psychology to guess that when someone is frustrated at work his productivity and efficiency is decreasing. That’s why some researches point out the necessity to handle with these emotions. I liked the vision of John Sporleder about handling with employees’ emotions that says:

“Compassion and motivation are not at opposite ends of the same spectrum. One does not need to be sacrified for the sake of the other (…) It is better to think of performance and employee emotions as complimentary to one another”.

The only problem with this way of thinking is that emotions are immediately related to business and performance. From my personal point of view, I much more prefer how Anne Kreamer tackles the question. First, she wanted to understand what an emotion was, physically speaking: an hardwired biological regulatory function. It’s a natural hormonal reaction to stress or danger like muscles.

Here is a video of Anne Kreamer who explain us how to handle with someone who start crying in front of you in the office. She says that tears are natural and always mean something. It can be basic tears (for dry eyes), reflect tears (something in your eyes) or emotional tears like joy, frustration and anger. Most important, crying doesn’t mean you are weak or inferior, especially for women who cry more because the amount of hormones is different. Judging tears leads nowhere.

If you haven’t seen the video, here are the 4 main suggestions to handle with tears at the office:

1)      Remember tears are a biological reaction

2)      Acknowledge the tears and don’t just ignore them

3)      Offer a tissue to introduce a discussion

4)      Recognize tears communicate a problem

Emotions should not be always treated as an issue for performance and productivity but definitely as a way to understand what is going wrong in the organization or at a job position. Take time to understand what is happening will bring you much more on the long term.

Are companies doing strategy or planning?

In his recent book, Roger Martin explains to us that if most of companies want to do or to get a strategic plan, they actually do a planning for the future. They do so because they establish a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources attributed.

Actually, it’s not so easy to see a real difference between a budget and a strategy. According to Roger Martin, there are two main reasons. The first one is that nowadays, the finance is deeply involved in a strategic plan. So much, that it’s becoming difficult to see a real difference. The second one is because people don’t like some much changing. It’s not easy to re-think its position on a market, its business model and all its organization.

Strategy is not planning. I found his definition of strategy quite accurate: “it is the making of an integrated set of choices that collectively position the firm in its industry so as to create sustainable advantage relative to competition and deliver superior financial returns”. Strategy has to be at the origin of the initiatives and absolutely not the initiatives themselves.

To know if you are doing a strategy or a planning, you need to ask you some questions about your winning aspiration, the place you want to play, how you will win and also about your management system.

Check out this interview of Roger Martin he gave to the Harvard Business Review. In less than three minutes, you have an amazing definition of strategy:

You can also clik here to see all the interview.

In his book, Roger Martin gives us another advice. Your strategic plan should not be longer than 5 pages. He tells us an interesting anecdote. He was working for a huge $10 billion successful company and his CEO. They worked all day long together and at the end of the day_ thanks to a good amount of pre-work_ you set up a strategic plan. The CEO was troubled and asked “Is it all we have to do?. Roger Martin had to explain him his thought about strategy and at this end it worked. Moral of this story: quantity doesn’t mean quality.

Article from the new book of Roger Martin and A.G Lafley:
Playing to win: How Strategy Really Works?
Harvard Business Books
272 pages.

When sould we make decisions ?

Director of the strategic marketing management executive program at the Standford University, Baba Shiv's research expertise is in the area of neuroeconomics. He worked on the role of neural structures related to emotion and motivation in shaping decisions and experiences.

His recent work examines the interplay of the brain's "liking" and "wanting" systems and its implications for marketing, innovation, leadership and decision making. He tries to give answers to questions like : Does a wine's price tag price affect the pleasure one experiences? or Are we more able to make decisions in the morning or in the afternoon?

In this interview, he gives us his point of view about decision making :

The Art of Subtraction for the best Innovations

According to Matthew E May in his book “The laws of Subtraction “: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, decision makers have to answer three questions:

          - What to follow versus what to ignore

     - What to leave in versus what to leave out

     - What to do versus what not to do

Usually, they try to answer the second part of each question. This is what calls May the principle of “subtraction”. It’s a simplification process, a “less is best” approach to innovation. To illustrate his theory, he gives us “6 secrets” which should help the decision makers to do less and better.

     1.     What isn’t there can often trump what is.

The idea is to take off everything that makes a product superficial to obtain its very essence. It’s what the youth car brand Scion (producted by Toyota for the north American market) did when they presented a very simple and cheap car. Then the buyers can personalize it. More that the price, what isn’t there becomes a marketing plan, especially for gen Y buyers who want unique and affordable product.

2. The simplest rules create the most effective experience

The rules of the road is technically an amount of obligations and prohibitions that restraint the action of the drivers and pedestrians. Why not simplify it to a very only one rule? That is the project Exhibition road in London for the 2012 Olympics Game. Cross lights, pathways, road and traffic signs have been removed to build a unique and simple road with only one rule: “all due respect to the most vulnerable”. Result? Twice the fun and a steady flow _ with half the normal number of accidents.

         3. Limiting information engages the imagination.

When you need to deal with a lot of information, your mind is not really inclined to be imaginative. The former group Carbury Scwheppes (now have been bought by Kraft Food) aired a 90-seconds television commercial for its chocolate bars a few years ago that featured a gorilla (rather a man in a gorilla suit). The brand appears in the TV spot only during the last 4 seconds. During the entire first minute, you only see the face of the gorilla who looks to be contemplating the music and preparing for the performance of a lifetime on a famous song of Phil Collins. Then you have a 26 seconds drum session on the music. Sales rose 10% in the two months following the ad and the video have been viewed more than 6 million times on youtube.

     4.  Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints.

How is it possible to do a “faster, better, cheaper” space exploration to collect data on mars that cost 10% less than a classic mission? That was the NASA’s challenge in the mid of the 90,s. An engeenering company tries to do it. Result: the project have been achieved in less than 44 months _ less than half of the precedent mission and with more restraint teams. This “impossible” task required a “change everything” approach. For example, they had the idea to install a huge airbag as the landing method. Effectively, it simplifies a lot of things!

5.  Break is the important part of breakthrough.

According to the American doctor Richard McCauley, healthcare is not only a question that concerns sick people but also for healthy people. They need to go to the doctor for simple things such as vaccination or just for a checkup. So, he had the idea to open a health center just for healthy people because these persons don’t want to go in a place with sick and coughing people. And at the opposite, sick people don’t really want to be in a room with healthy people when they have a serious cancer. In his center, he just gives low prices fees that don’t need insurance.  Innovation often demands a break with convention.

      6. Doing something isn’t always better than doing nothing. 

It doesn’t mean that it is better to always do nothing but sometimes, take a break and not working or just not thinking about your job is more efficient that just doing something to show that you do something. Meditation _ a practice that eliminates distraction and clears the mind _ is an effective way to enhance self-awareness, focus, and attention, and to prime your brain for achieving creative insights. If Google is well-known all around the world for that, others companies such as Oracle, Bloomberg or Ford have CEOs that encourage meditation.

Better than hiring some “specialized in meditation consultants” who are going to be very expensive, maybe be it will be a good idea to create a space inside the company’s buildings where employees could go for meditation or just for thinking about something else for few minutes when they really need it.

 According to Matthew May, these six rules point to a single, powerful idea for achieving simplicity in any innovation effort: “When you remove just the right things in the right way, good things happen”.

Article adapted from Matthew May’s book, The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything (McGraw-Hill, 2013).