viernes, 17 de abril de 2009
jueves, 16 de abril de 2009
Mockler vs. Colins
Liderazgo nivel 5
Es un poco difícil encontrar acerca de Coleman Mockler. Es un reflejo de su liderazgo de tipo Nivel 5. Puedes encontrar información respecto al “Mockler Center” fundado por su esposa después de su fallecimiento en el Seminario Gordon- Conwell (http://www.gcts.edu/ockenga/mockler/about.php). Puedes encontrar su obituario, referencias a donaciones y cátedras que dejó establecidas en Universidades como la vicentina St. John´s o la protestante Harvard, noticias y opiniones sobre él en el Harvard Crimson.Pero no hay una fundación dedicada a difundir su persona, legado o a contener su biografía. Menos una autobiografía publicada.
Me hace pensar en una persona que no está gastando el tiempo en auto-promocionarse, o auto-complacerse. Puedo verlo, igual que a sus colaboradores “Working in a tiny office in Gillette's Boston headquarters”.
Primero quién, luego qué.
Hablar de sus colaboradores me lleva a pensar en el artículo del Gordon Group sobre decisiones apresuradas.“In the early 1980’s Gillette was losing market share to Bic’s plastic throwaway razors and the company needed to decide how to compete.Many in the organization believed that Gillette should compete head-to-head with their own lines of disposable razors. Others felt the company should invest millions of dollars to develop superior metal razors.For nearly two years CEO Colman Mockler let his people argue their positions. They debated the facts, the trends and other information. Mockler refused to take sides.Finally, he decided: Gillette would invest in the development of sophisticated metal razors. Taking all the time available helped him deeply understand the dynamics. Mockler’s decision led directly to the development and legendary success of Gillette’s œshaving systems like the spring-mounted sensor and the Mach 3.” (http://www.gordongroupec.com/CEOTP/1-Quick-Decisions-A-Sign-of-Good-Leadership.html)
Para llegar al punto en que le permites a la gente, no solo hacer propuestas, sino discutirlas para poder decidir el destino de la compañía debes estar seguro de que tienes a personas que en la posición de CEO podrían tomar esa decisión por si solas. Y Mockler las tenía, después de haberlas escuchado lo suficiente, tomó una decisión.Les tenía la suficiente confianza para no dudar de los resultados de su trabajo aun cuando hablaran de cosas negativas:“That year Sharon Keith, now Gillette's head of market research, studied the damage to the company's image. Older men still thought well of Gillette, remembering the company's sports sponsorships and its "look sharp, feel sharp, be sharp" ads from the 1950s. But among younger men Gillette's name was meaningless, or worse. Said one young stockbroker: "When I think `Gillette,' I think `hollow, plastic and blue'."Podía confiarles el diseño completo de estrategias frente a un desacuerdo con los otros y permitirles trabajar: “John Symons, the boss of Gillette's European business, disagreed. For Gillette to keep its competitive advantage, he said, it had to "change the playing field." In the mid-1980s he started spending money on pan-European advertising that emphasised Gillette's name and its most expensive razor, Contour Plus”
Y sabía hasta donde permitir la discrepancia: “By 1987 Mockler was convinced he had to choose between the European and the American approaches. That year razor and blade sales accounted for $1 billion of the company's $3.2 billion in revenues, and fully $334m of its $523m in operating profits - still a rich 33% profit margin, but one which had slipped by about one percentage point a year for several years. Mockler feared that, with the market share of disposables growing and price-cutting getting ever more severe, the decline would soon accelerate.”
Darles esa libertad le permitió evaluar una estrategia y tomar una decision: “In Europe, Mr Symons's experiment had been a success: Contour Plus gained market share and boosted margins in the shaving business there by five percentage points. In America, Atra Plus (as Contour Plus was called there) had been a disappointment, largely because of the lack of promotion. Mr Symons's strategy also seemed to have slowed the growth of disposables in Europe. In addition, Mockler knew he had a product-in-waiting that was ideally suited to Mr Symons's quality-over-price positioning: Sensor.”Con toda esta experiencia no dudó en poner a la persona adecuada en el asiento adecuado: “In 1988 Mockler announced the first big reorganisation at Gillette in decades, merging the European and American marketing divisions into a "North Atlantic group." Mr Symons, along with three of his top lieutenants from Europe - Mr Cleverly, Mrs Keith and another marketeer, Peter Hoffman - were chosen to run it. Working in a tiny office in Gillette's Boston headquarters, they would have the final say over all aspects of Sensor's strategy, from advertising and design to pricing.”
En medio del éxito, los miembros de cada equipo tomaban decisions: “In April 1990 Gillette's Bruce Cleverly made one of the hardest decisions a marketing boss can ever face: to pull an expensive television-advertising campaign off the air. Hard, but in this case, enviable. The advertisements in question had not been attacked as misleading; they had caused no offence; they had not failed to stir consumers.”
Confronta la cruel realidad
Al principio de su gestión, la realidad de una marca devaluada, un énfasis en productos de poco márgen y de selección dictada por el precio, y una participación de mercado decreciente eran patentes. Trabajó sobre ellas. “Gillette had gone along with this, paring its advertising budget and depending on price cuts to maintain its commanding 65% share of the shaving market by making its own disposable razor the market leader. But most consumers could not tell one disposable razor from another and simply bought the cheapest available. By the mid-1980s Gillette realised that the dramatic growth of lower-margin disposables (which, by then, accounted for about half the market, only a decade after being introduced) was eating into its profits and dimming the lustre of its once-valuable brand name.Gillette had gone along with this, paring its advertising budget and depending on price cuts to maintain its commanding 65% share of the shaving market by making its own disposable razor the market leader. But most consumers could not tell one disposable razor from another and simply bought the cheapest available. By the mid-1980s Gillette realized that the dramatic growth of lower-margin disposables (which, by then, accounted for about half the market, only a decade after being introduced) was eating into its profits and dimming the lustre of its once-valuable brand name.”
Las citas están tomadas de un caso utilizado por el Dr. Knowles de la Universidad de Wisconsin-La Cross (http://www.uwlax.edu/faculty/knowles/eco310/Gillette92.doc) excepto dónde se indica.
Es un poco difícil encontrar acerca de Coleman Mockler. Es un reflejo de su liderazgo de tipo Nivel 5. Puedes encontrar información respecto al “Mockler Center” fundado por su esposa después de su fallecimiento en el Seminario Gordon- Conwell (http://www.gcts.edu/ockenga/mockler/about.php). Puedes encontrar su obituario, referencias a donaciones y cátedras que dejó establecidas en Universidades como la vicentina St. John´s o la protestante Harvard, noticias y opiniones sobre él en el Harvard Crimson.Pero no hay una fundación dedicada a difundir su persona, legado o a contener su biografía. Menos una autobiografía publicada.
Me hace pensar en una persona que no está gastando el tiempo en auto-promocionarse, o auto-complacerse. Puedo verlo, igual que a sus colaboradores “Working in a tiny office in Gillette's Boston headquarters”.
Primero quién, luego qué.
Hablar de sus colaboradores me lleva a pensar en el artículo del Gordon Group sobre decisiones apresuradas.“In the early 1980’s Gillette was losing market share to Bic’s plastic throwaway razors and the company needed to decide how to compete.Many in the organization believed that Gillette should compete head-to-head with their own lines of disposable razors. Others felt the company should invest millions of dollars to develop superior metal razors.For nearly two years CEO Colman Mockler let his people argue their positions. They debated the facts, the trends and other information. Mockler refused to take sides.Finally, he decided: Gillette would invest in the development of sophisticated metal razors. Taking all the time available helped him deeply understand the dynamics. Mockler’s decision led directly to the development and legendary success of Gillette’s œshaving systems like the spring-mounted sensor and the Mach 3.” (http://www.gordongroupec.com/CEOTP/1-Quick-Decisions-A-Sign-of-Good-Leadership.html)
Para llegar al punto en que le permites a la gente, no solo hacer propuestas, sino discutirlas para poder decidir el destino de la compañía debes estar seguro de que tienes a personas que en la posición de CEO podrían tomar esa decisión por si solas. Y Mockler las tenía, después de haberlas escuchado lo suficiente, tomó una decisión.Les tenía la suficiente confianza para no dudar de los resultados de su trabajo aun cuando hablaran de cosas negativas:“That year Sharon Keith, now Gillette's head of market research, studied the damage to the company's image. Older men still thought well of Gillette, remembering the company's sports sponsorships and its "look sharp, feel sharp, be sharp" ads from the 1950s. But among younger men Gillette's name was meaningless, or worse. Said one young stockbroker: "When I think `Gillette,' I think `hollow, plastic and blue'."Podía confiarles el diseño completo de estrategias frente a un desacuerdo con los otros y permitirles trabajar: “John Symons, the boss of Gillette's European business, disagreed. For Gillette to keep its competitive advantage, he said, it had to "change the playing field." In the mid-1980s he started spending money on pan-European advertising that emphasised Gillette's name and its most expensive razor, Contour Plus”
Y sabía hasta donde permitir la discrepancia: “By 1987 Mockler was convinced he had to choose between the European and the American approaches. That year razor and blade sales accounted for $1 billion of the company's $3.2 billion in revenues, and fully $334m of its $523m in operating profits - still a rich 33% profit margin, but one which had slipped by about one percentage point a year for several years. Mockler feared that, with the market share of disposables growing and price-cutting getting ever more severe, the decline would soon accelerate.”
Darles esa libertad le permitió evaluar una estrategia y tomar una decision: “In Europe, Mr Symons's experiment had been a success: Contour Plus gained market share and boosted margins in the shaving business there by five percentage points. In America, Atra Plus (as Contour Plus was called there) had been a disappointment, largely because of the lack of promotion. Mr Symons's strategy also seemed to have slowed the growth of disposables in Europe. In addition, Mockler knew he had a product-in-waiting that was ideally suited to Mr Symons's quality-over-price positioning: Sensor.”Con toda esta experiencia no dudó en poner a la persona adecuada en el asiento adecuado: “In 1988 Mockler announced the first big reorganisation at Gillette in decades, merging the European and American marketing divisions into a "North Atlantic group." Mr Symons, along with three of his top lieutenants from Europe - Mr Cleverly, Mrs Keith and another marketeer, Peter Hoffman - were chosen to run it. Working in a tiny office in Gillette's Boston headquarters, they would have the final say over all aspects of Sensor's strategy, from advertising and design to pricing.”
En medio del éxito, los miembros de cada equipo tomaban decisions: “In April 1990 Gillette's Bruce Cleverly made one of the hardest decisions a marketing boss can ever face: to pull an expensive television-advertising campaign off the air. Hard, but in this case, enviable. The advertisements in question had not been attacked as misleading; they had caused no offence; they had not failed to stir consumers.”
Confronta la cruel realidad
Al principio de su gestión, la realidad de una marca devaluada, un énfasis en productos de poco márgen y de selección dictada por el precio, y una participación de mercado decreciente eran patentes. Trabajó sobre ellas. “Gillette had gone along with this, paring its advertising budget and depending on price cuts to maintain its commanding 65% share of the shaving market by making its own disposable razor the market leader. But most consumers could not tell one disposable razor from another and simply bought the cheapest available. By the mid-1980s Gillette realised that the dramatic growth of lower-margin disposables (which, by then, accounted for about half the market, only a decade after being introduced) was eating into its profits and dimming the lustre of its once-valuable brand name.Gillette had gone along with this, paring its advertising budget and depending on price cuts to maintain its commanding 65% share of the shaving market by making its own disposable razor the market leader. But most consumers could not tell one disposable razor from another and simply bought the cheapest available. By the mid-1980s Gillette realized that the dramatic growth of lower-margin disposables (which, by then, accounted for about half the market, only a decade after being introduced) was eating into its profits and dimming the lustre of its once-valuable brand name.”
Las citas están tomadas de un caso utilizado por el Dr. Knowles de la Universidad de Wisconsin-La Cross (http://www.uwlax.edu/faculty/knowles/eco310/Gillette92.doc) excepto dónde se indica.
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