The ad has over 4 million hits on youtube.com and counting.

Key lessons from the DSC (Dollar Shave Club).

1. New channel to consumer. It is able to break in to a market long dominated by the big boys, e.g Gillette and Schick. It achieves this via distribution online – direct to the consumer.

2. Innovative marketing. The use of a youtube video and social media has increased awareness of the DSC very rapidly at a relatively low cost. The advantage of social media sharing is that it normally comes from a trusted source which we are likelier to listen to.

3. Understand the consumer. The DSC ad shows that it really understands the consumer. Shaving is a daily affair. It is also something that people rarely see – as such a expensive or designer razor is unlikely to excite the consumer. It has shaped its business model on the average lazy guy by offering convenience and a decent product.

4. Segment your customer. While it’s called the Dollar Shave Club, the price goes up to USD9/month. With 3 types of razors, it is able to hit the various types of consumer and hopefully retain them.

These lessons are applicable for any new business trying to enter a business dominated by a monopoly.

Key takeaways include :-
1. 10,000 hours of practice. He applies the Gladwell formula of 10,000 hours of practice to achieve a world class standard. He cites the example of 90% of Kenyan runners coming from a village where they had to run 21km to school and back every day from the age of 4. By the time the Kenyan hit 21, he/she would have achieved 10,000 hours of practice. In applying this to the business world, people can be successful after their 10,000 hours of practice. Examples cited include table tennis champions with “slow” natural reflexes. Their skills come from being able to read the other player to know where the ball will be. In applying this to a business setting, an accountant after 10,000 hours of practice may be able to take a quick look at the books and “know” where the issues lie. Even Anthony Robbins talks about the importance of gaining as much experience as you can to be good at something.

2. The practice must be purposeful. There must be feedback – the person has to learn from his/her mistakes and ensure that they don’t repeat them. The practice is repetitive and it is mentally taxing.

3. Skills for success include passion and motivation for the chosen field. Without this, one cannot succeed.

Overall, it’s a well written insightful read. Syed’s book is applicable to new parents as well as leaders who want to improve the competency of their organization.

Stage 1 – Gather all the things and stuff that you have and organize them according to a system. Put them all in a physical place. When you process them, finish what can be done in a few minutes or less. Other matters are then:-

1. Filed/archived for reference.

2. Delegated, or

3. Scheduled into your calendar for an appropriate time.

Repeat the above process weekly at a scheduled time. Here you will be able to catch up and be organized. Some executives schedule every Friday afternoon to clean up all the tasks in the calendar and new tasks that have arisen. By capturing the tasks we no longer “keep” the task in our memory and can relax better.

As with most management theories, it’s easier to understand than to implement – hence the wide array of GTD software and coaching available as a follow up. It does make a simple, easy to understand read.  As always though, implementing it is another matter.

Understanding cultures is always a challenge. In today’s global economy, we have to work across different departmental, regional, national and corporate cultures.

Here’s a tool that should make it easier to meet this challenge.

Simplified cultural framework.

1. Communication styles – Direct or indirect? (adapted from Hofstede)

2. Personal drivers – emotional/functional?

3. Bureaucracy/Hierarchy check – the pencil test.

1. Communication styles.

1.1 Direct communication styles are favored by Western cultures. Direct communication gets to the point very quickly, sharing approval or disapproval very clearly.

E.g. One employee to his manager “It is now 1030 – time for tea break. The meeting will end now.”

For those from an indirect culture, they may view this method of communication as rude or confrontational. It is important to remember that this is not meant to be rude or confrontational but a method of expressing oneself. The benefits are that this method of communication make it easy for feedback and flow of information in a corporate setting.

1.2 Indirect communication styles are favored by Asian cultures. This style gives more subtle cues and hints at the desired outcome. This is in line with “saving face” of the recipient. When dealing with this style, one must be more alert to the subtle nuances and clues of the language. In a corporate setting, you will need to spend more time in meetings/negotiations. It would be better to have another person with you studying the tone and body language of the parties concerned while you listen to the words. Getting feedback would require extensive questioning. Some indirect cultures prefer one to one communication as a face saving method.

E.g. An employee mentions to his manager that the team hasn’t eaten breakfast and that is very hungry.

Another example is where the team member are silent when the manager implements a new directive. To elicit opinions, the manager should have one on one sessions with the team members. Here the questions need to be focused – allowing the other person to give suggestions to meet the end result.

2. Personal drivers.

2.1 Functional driven cultures tend to look at issues rationally in black and white. This is often common within the manufacturing industry (probably due to the heavy influence of by six sigma and kaizen).

2.2 Emotional driven cultures tend to look at  experiential and emotive things.

E.g. Purchase decision making – Shower gel. A functionally driven culture will look at price and whether the product cleans. A functionally driven culture will also tend to take shorter time in the shower.

An emotionally driven culture will look at smell and sensory perceptions in deciding to purchase the shower gel.

Within the culture, there may be items which are emotional and some which are functional. In some cultures, religion can inflame passions, while discussions on the work week and working hours are merely functional.

Questions to ask:-

a.Is the issue emotional or functional?

b. If emotional then is there an alternative around it? If functional, how can we address this?

E.g. A Muslim manager on an oil rig in Myanmar issued a directive that no pork would be served. That same afternoon, a call came from the minister’s department telling him that pork will be served on the oil rig. The manager had touched on an emotional issue. Pork was tied in with national dishes and national pride. His reports had not voiced their concerns directly (indirect culture) but as it was an emotional issue, they channeled their frustrations to the ministry. A better way to handle this would’ve been to have a short chat with the reports on a one on one basis, explaining why he wasn’t comfortable with pork in the galley. He should have sought their advice on the best solution. A compromise could have been a separate area designated as pork free.

3. Bureaucracy/Hierarchy check – the pencil test.High or low?

This looks at organizations and the levels of bureaucracy.

3.1 High level e.g. In one organization, we needed the signatures of 4 people to obtain office stationary. This organization had a lot of controls on its people. Common features include slow decision making as well as possible disconnect between the levels of management. When dealing with this culture, we need to accept the slower pace of decision making.

3.2 Low level e.g. In another company, not only did we have free access to the office stationary, we also had access to the very expensive corporate gifts for the CEO, which included Mont Blanc pens. Common features include an empowered workforce as well as faster decision making. When working with this culture, be prepared for swift decisions from lower levels of the organization.

I hope this framework proves useful to dealing with different cultures. Feel free to share your own experiences in the comment box.

Booq customer service (Pre-sale)
When I wrote into Booq bags to find a retailer, they responded within 24 hours via email. This is really important. You need to make sure that you capture your customer at the point of interest. Delay can result in lost business.

The product experience

Within a couple of months. the strap of my bag started to fray and it looked like this.

Damaged strap

Booq customer service (Post sale – aka return process)
I emailed the pictures of the frayed bag strap to the customer service email. The reply came within 24 hours. They requested 3 pictures and my mailing address.

Traditionally, companies requested you to :-
1. Send back the damaged product (pay international postage)
2. Which they would then examine and then decide if it was a product fault or if it was out of warranty or if they should replace it.
3. And communicate accordingly to the customer.

I was pleasantly surprised when Booq informed me the replacement strap would be sent to me at their expense.

By doing the right thing and cutting down on their processes, they have saved their staff time as well as retained a customer who will then tell others about their service.

Key takeaway.
Making the return process simpler and less expensive created customer satisfaction and loyalty. It has also impressed me so I will probably by my next bag from Booq.

Companies should regularly examine their processes and see how to simplify them. The increase in productivity and customer satisfaction will generate substantial returns.

Mr Yam is an example of a person who learned how to deal with adversity. This is a short video of how he overcame blindness in 2008. He now not only leads a full life but has also returned to the golf course.

I love how he makes complex concepts simple! Great use of data to put forth his points.

Great talk questioning our current education system.

The cooking lesson highlighted the importance of many fundamental business principles.

Both duck confit and green tea tiramisu requite a lot of planning and preparation.

1. Spend where it counts.

The duck for the duck confit is reared on an organic farm. Nathalie uses President butter imported from France (trust me – it tastes really good). When you are cooking, you need to get good ingredients where it counts. For a business, make sure you spend money where it counts. We spent money on a really powerful projector at the office so that participants won’t have a problem viewing the slides even in daylight. We also spent on a warranty which makes sure that we have a same day replacement in case anything goes wrong.

Duck and friends

2. Cut costs provided it won’t affect the end product.

Nathalie uses sea salt but she doesn’t need designer sea salt (which can cost 10-20 times as much) as local sea salt will taste the same.Cut costs provided it won’t affect the end product. We use a basic speaker system at the office in the training room instead of a thousand dollar designer system as we don’t need hi-fidelity sound in a meeting/training room.

Local Sea Salt

3. Prepare, prepare, prepare. The preparation process is really painstaking for duck confit. First the duck is marinated in sea salt for at least 24 hours. Then the duck is rinsed and slow cooked in a tub of duck fat for a couple of hours. Then the duck sits in your fridge for at least a week. Before serving the duck is then put in a preheated oven for 20 mins.

Duck confit

Without proper planning or preparation, there is no way that I will be served my duck confit over my 1 hour lunch break. When I was at the cooking lesson it looked really easy as all the ingredients were already prepped beforehand. Takeaway -when you have a large task looming, prepare all that you can do in advance. When we have training sessions, we have a standard practice for preparation of manual and slides and if we host the training, we ensure that restaurants are booked, tea breaks and other supplies are prepared. This frees us up on the day of the event.

The finished product - duck confit on a bed of orange salad

4. Processes. The entire operation of Nathalie’s Gourmet Kitchen has to work seamlessly. The wait staff have to make sure that they know the stock levels of the food so they can recommend what’s in stock to the customers. There’s nothing worse than listening to a great description of a dish only to find that it’s unavailable. They also have to work with the kitchen to make sure the order is processed. As frontliners, they have to give feedback to the kitchen on the food from the customer. They are also used to upsell other products such as desserts or drinks. The kitchen team need to make sure that they don’t miss an order. They also don’t waste time. While we were waiting for food to cook, we continued to cook and prepare dessert which was a lovely green tea tiramisu.

Green tea tiramisu

I noticed that the ultimate quality control is Nathalie herself who checks every dish before it leaves the kitchen. The results of their stringent processes are below.

Takeaways – Ensure that your processes support your work and aid not hinder efficiency. Also, use processes to improve efficiency. I have a meeting at least once a week with my team to let them know what’s going on and what they have to do to plan for it so they know when is a good time to take leave and when they will be bogged down. Our constant improvement process means that we don’t shout at people for mistakes but we look to learn from them and implement processes to ensure that they don’t happen again.

Pop down to Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio to have a look at these lessons being practiced – FYI the food is great too. Stay tuned for directors training in conjunction with Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio!