Merging buildings? Re-assign offices from scratch

When Lockheed and Martin Marietta merged their headquarters into a building previously occupied by Martin Marietta, they moved everyone out and reassigned offices from scratch. This avoided the impression that anyone had been bumped or that some people were more important than others. That action was critical from a social standpoint. "The attitude 'we bought you' is a corporate cancer." (Source: HBR article, 1997)

Same thing with P&G:
Following the P&G acquisition of Gillette the day came for Gillette staff's site merger into P&G's offices.Tarek Farahat, P&G's country general manager, arranged that when people arrived at the facility on Monday morning nearly everyone from both companies were in new offices on new floors.

Biggest Mistakes in Business

Apple co-founded Steve Wozniak was an engineer at HP, and he gave it the first shot at his microcomputer idea. They said no. Source: Dan & Chip Heath in Fast Company

Dyson approached all the major vacuum cleaner manufacturers to license his technology, but they turned him down. Hoover were later found guilty of patent infringement. Source: Wikipedia entry

(add: 3M turning down WL Gore products)

Brand extensions across categories - good and bad

DISNEY
Good: Disney 'Fairy Tale Weddings' bridal wear. Disney branding kept subtle and tasteful.
Bad: Walt Disney Signatures $1,295 executive fountain pen.

HARLEY DAVIDSON
Good: footwear
Bad: Xtreme cake decoration kit

IAMS
Good: pet insurance

Prototyping at Harrah's

Harrah's offered 2 groups of customer either:
- a $125 package, including a free room, 2 steak dinners, and $30 in chips
- $60 in chips

The $60 offer generated more gambling revenue than the $125 offer.

Including unavailable metrics

At DaVita, if a metric is considered important, but the data isn't currently available, the metric is included on reports anyway with the notation 'not available'. The persistent mention of important measures that are missing helps motivate the company to figure out ways to gather that information.

DaVita is $2bn Californian manufacturer of kidney dialysis machines.

Source: Evidence-Based Management, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, HBR

Types of Change Management Strategy

Types of change management:
- Evolutionary: gradually evolve values, structure and performance measures
- Jolt and refocus: risky but quick change
- Follow the leader
- Multifront small changes: many small operational changes at once, designed top down
- Systematic redesign: much more root and branch, again top down
- Bottom up: practical changes, starting bottom up from customer-focussed probs

Source: Adapted from a 1995 McKinsey Quarterly article here.

BP's Aloe Vera Plants - Iconic Action

BP has placed potted Aloe Vera plants in the lobby of its headquarters. Of all the green plants, Aloe Vera converts the most carbon dioxide to oxygen. As such, it embodies a core value of the BP brand: to be "green." Every day as employees walk into the office, the plants remind them of their shared corporate vision - to go beyond petroleum - and the imperative to develop renewable energy.

http://www.landor.com/index.cfm?do=thinking.article&storyid=465

Time Inc and Lexus customised 'Mine' magazine

Sign up and get 5 free issues of a 36-page magazine, tailored to your preferences.

All will have Lexus ads, also with tailored messages.

https://www.timecmg.com/mine/

Home Visits - Iconic Action

I've heard this told by an ex-P&G employee about AG Lafley, and by a Unilever person of one of their CEOs. Either way, the CEO was said to get off a plane on a business trip to a country and insist on doing 2 customer home visits before they'd go to the office or look at the P&L.

IKEA's Ingvar Kamprad Statue - Iconic Action

When they erected a statue of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad in his hometown they invited him to perform the unveiling. Instead of cutting the ribbon, he untied it, folded it up neatly and handed it to the mayor. "Now you can use this again," he said.