Making it Work the John Bernard Way

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By  Mavian Arocha  on   Nov, 13 2011

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John Bernard, founder and chairman of Mass Ingenuity will soon have his first book published this December: “Business At The Speed Of Now: Fire Up Your People, Thrill Your Customers, and Crush Your Competitors.”
Management expert Bernard shows business leaders how to be responsive to customers’ queries, problems, and demands almost immediately.
He presents his ground-breaking NOW Management System and discusses how to leverage three game changing forces: social media, cloud computing, and the millennial mindset. Bernard has been inspiring leaders to rethink how they run their organizations for thirty years.
Having sat in nearly every seat around the leadership table, from founder/CEO of a start-up firm to senior vice president of a multi-billion-dollar financial services company with responsibilities for a workforce of 1000, Bernard’s consulting work has spanned the globe in high-tech, service, distribution, utilities, banking, insurance, manufacturing, health care, education, and government.
John BernardSTRATEGY: Businesses everywhere are struggling for a variety of reasons.  You say that one key issue all companies need to deal with is the fact that the economy has shifted from “mass production” to “mass customization.”  What’s the difference?  Why is this so significant?
John Bernard: Competing in the 20th century demanded mass production thinking to achieve the price and quality customers wanted.
Today with the Internet, social media and mobile access our customers have unlimited choice, and so to be competitive companies must be able to customize solutions to meet the needs of every buyer, while still delivering high quality at a low price.
The implications to how we run our businesses are profound because it moves decision making from management to the front line of customer interaction. This completely changes the purpose and role of management.
Management’s job for a long time has been to make decisions, now instead it must enable employees to make decisions. That’s a far more complex change than it may seem on the surface.  
STRATEGY: In “Business At The Speed Of Now” you write about “YESability.”  What is YESability?  Why is it more important than ever for companies to be able to say “yes” to their customers—and to their employees —and to be able to say it right away?
John Bernard: In today’s real-time economy the only viable value proposition is “yes” and the only acceptable timeframe is now. Management must recognize this is the key to growing revenue, improving customer experience, and reducing costs.
When your employees have the skills, knowledge, and authority to say yes to opportunities they encounter in their daily work, the business wins.
The ultimate state of YESability is when every opportunity encountered by every employee gets acted on every time. Zappos is a good example of a company that does this well. 
STRATEGY: You developed the NOW Management System to respond to the specific conditions of today’s economy.  How does NOW differ from traditional management methods?  Why do traditional methods no longer work in today’s environment?
 
John Bernard: Traditionally management’s job has been to make essentially all decisions. In a mass-customization economy decisions must be made by the employees who encounter the opportunities.
The NOW Management system eliminates the gap between what leaders envision and employees deliver by putting in place everything tools and methods employees need to make the right decision. Underlying the system is a philosophy that eliminates fear, focuses resources on constraints, and uses facts to drive decisions.  
STRATEGY: In “Business At The Speed Of Now” you say that companies must harness three game-changing forces if they wish to compete successfully.  The first of these is social media.  
How should businesses be using social media?  Why do you warn that organizations must eliminate policies that prohibit their employees from using social media in the workplace? 
John Bernard: Social media is simply conversations enabled by technology. These conversations have been going on behind our backs for years, and now we have the choice whether or not we listen to them.
Ignoring the voice of your customers and your employees is dangerous. Employees access Facebook from their smart phones at will—you cannot prevent them from socializing.
It is simply a matter of time before social media used inside the organization to facilitate “now” decisions will be commonplace, because it is a powerful means of listening to the voices of customers and employees. If you intend to stay competitive you will need to develop both external and internal social media strategies.
 
STRATEGY: Cloud computing is another key force that you emphasize.  What is cloud computing?  Are their dangers to storing company data and software on the web?  What are the advantages to doing so? 
John Bernard: Cloud computing is simply the delivery of computing services via the Internet rather than on a local computer and proprietary network.
With Web 2.0 technology it’s now routine to assemble whatever tools your organization needs from various sources into a comprehensive solution (aka: technology stack) rather than building your own custom application.
The reality is custom applications are horrendously costly and risky to build and expensive to maintain. To compete in real time we we need more and better access to our data to drive real-time decisions, and the cloud makes that easier to do.
While many fear data vulnerability in the cloud, the reality is cloud data is less vulnerable than local data because cloud vendors can afford more comprehensive security tools and expertise. The cloud is not without challenges, but it represents a compelling new direction for technology.
STRATEGY: The millennial generation presents a puzzle to many companies.  Many simply can’t understand a group of young people that resists the notion of paying-their-dues and bristles at any negative feedback.
But you say that there are significant positives to the millennial mindset that businesses can harness. What are they?  How can they give companies a competitive advantage?
John Bernard: The millennial generation thrives in real time having grown up with constant access to technology. They have little fear of change and no regard for the status quo—a valuable asset in a time of great change.
This generation takes social responsibility seriously, a healthy dynamic to cause businesses to pay full attention to the implications of their actions.
And while their parents struggled with the need to better balance work and life, this generation insists on balance. Millennials are both employees and customers, so their voice needs to be heard and their perspective respected and integrated into the fabric of the organization.

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