If it ain't broke, can we improve it?

Industrial manufacturing leaders know how to innovate, industrial manufacturing managers know how to maintain it. This is because leaders move through life with their heads up eyeing the horizon. Managers move through the day with their heads down, focused on near-term tactics and getting things done.

Industrial manufacturing organizations that are governed by a managerial mindset may be well-oiled machines, but they may also not evolve well. This is because would-be leaders do not fit a maintenance culture. Even in private, mid-sized companies, second-generation owners who are challenged to lead, are facing a "this is how we do things here" mindset. They are being asked: If it ain't broke, why are we trying to fix it?

Here is why we all should fix it.

Few of our industrial manufacturing companies have reached their full potential in the marketplace. We can be much better. The marketplace has changed and so must we. The reason our numbers are down is not just because of this recession. The question is, for lack of vision, are we going to come out of this downturn as operationally pared down to survive but substantially impaired to grow?

Here is how we should fix it.

Our well-oiled, operationally pared-down, but underachieving industrial manufacturing companies can be improved. We simply need to expect more of ourselves, to become greater where it matters: greater at understanding the business we are in, so we can see our greater market potential: greater at understanding our customer segments, so we can solve their business problems; greater at understanding these segments' buying cycles, so we know how to cultivate long-term relationships based on the way they make decisions; greater at understanding how our marketing dollars should be spent, so we can at last evolve our sales effort beyond simply pushing a product line card; and greater at changing our business culture from one that is satisfied with going through the motions, to one that is measurably moving forward.

The nuclear power plants in Japan and in this country have been well managed and well oiled for decades. Strange, that in most every other kaizen-driven Japanese manufacturing company in the world, management defers to leadership and leadership insists on innovation by way of making improvements to products and processes.

If it ain't broke, whether in the nuclear industry or industrial manufacturing, there are clear reasons why leadership is needed to bring improvement.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com

Industrial marketing leaders are literally changing minds...

Neuroscience is contributing real breakthroughs that help explain human behavior and organizational change. In the private industrial manufacturing mid-market, where many second-generation owners are now taking the reigns of leadership, one of their foremost challenges is bringing about behavioral change. This change is inherent in the marketing and branding process, which is all about internal value definition and external (customer) value recognition. Fortunately, as today's younger business leaders are discovering, changing a person's mind is no longer a figurative expression.

Changing minds nowadays means just that.

Internal value definition often starts with the question: "What business are we in?" But before a leader can ask this question of his or her core coalition, that leader should expect it will be neurologically painful for some people to contemplate, as the answers will threaten current beliefs that are entrenched in the basal ganglias of many. The basal ganglia is that portion of the brain that makes us feel good when we behave in keeping with certain rituals. Such a seemingly innocent question will also trigger the amygdala, that part of the brain that acts on our instincts, which drives our habits and fears of change, and is known as the "fight or flight" function of our brains.

In other words, ask people to seriously contemplate any action that implies change, and fight or flight are the very reactions a leader should expect. Is there a better way to bring change, to really put marketing and branding to work for a company? Here again, neuroscience provides the answer, with ample research showing how one's use of the prefrontal cortex can not only help a business leader change his or her own thinking, but the thinking of the core coalition and the entire organization.

The prefrontal cortex is that area or the brain that is used (or not) to observe and evaluate our own behaviors. It is that part of the brain that actually thinks, that brings into assessment the facts of a situation, including such B2B leadership initiatives as whether to invest in a new production line or a new marketing opportunity.

For example, when the prefrontal cortex is put to work on the mission-critical question of internal value definition versus external (market segment) value recognition, it will very soon seek to establish two reference points essential to decision making: 1) an objective understanding of the company's full sources of value as articulated to the marketplace (brand identity), and 2) an objective understanding of a customer segment's perceptions of this value (brand image) in regard to unmet and often undiscovered needs, i.e. voice of customer.

If Company X fails to reach its greater potential in the coming years, neuroscience is telling us why. It will be because the leaders at Company X failed to use their prefrontal cortexes, giving in to the more primitive regions of their brains.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com

Let's not SPECulate on American industrial innovation...

A recent Frost and Sullivan study unabashedly promotes Global Spec, having concluded that industrial "end users" nowadays no longer prefer to use keyword searches or visit industrial manufacturing websites. That behavior is so 2005.

According to F&S, if you are an industrial engineer looking for the right component for your next machine design, all you need to do now is visit Global Spec. There, you will find all kinds of online information to study, making your specification of the right component, from the right manufacturer, a piece of cake.

Is this the state of design engineering in America? Do we no longer have the time to truly collaborate, to establish trust-driven, up-close-and-personal what-if discussions between manufacturers and their technology suppliers? Maybe we don't need to, if all we are searching for is a commodity component to fit our commodity specification. But what if you need a new idea from a true technology partner, someone who can help you innovate and grow?

America's industrial leaders know that the innovation process cannot be abdicated to virtual conversations, held within virtual chat rooms, held within virtual trade show booths, held within an online industrial directory.

At some point, the buying-selling relationship becomes personal to become real. Until this happens, the online buying and selling process is a quest for line card "product solutions" based on SPECulation.

jb
www.centrifuge-now.com