Harrah's Entertainment leverages BI

Harrah’s Entertainment was founded by Bill Harrah in October of 1937 and has always focused on developing deep customer relationships.  As it entered the new millennium, Harrah’s had 21 casinos, over 40,000 employees and more than 19 million customers.  Historically, each casino was an “independent fiefdoms” and little information was shared around customers and their preferences.

 In 1994, things at Harrah’s began to change with the introduction of WINet, Harrah’s Winners Information Network, which included both a patron database (PDB) and a marketing workbench (MWB).  By 2000, Harrah’s had over 300GB of data for the PDB and 360GB in the MWB.  Data was captured from a variety of sources including their hotel systems, tournaments and special events, slot machines and table games, and from feedback from their loyalty program.  “With WINet, the foundation was in place for a new, more scientific approach” (Watson & Volonino, page 9), closed loop marketing.

Closed loop marketing requires that you define marketing objectives, test procedures, and expected values for the selected customers.  Based on data already contained within the WINet system, the test is “…designed to provide the right offer and message at the right time” (Watson & Volonino, page 9). Incentives are customized to specific segments to establish, strengthen, or invigorate the customer relationship.  Responses are tracked and analyzed to determine not just the response rate, but metrics such as revenue generated, increased frequency of visits, per visit profitability or cross-play.  Harrah’s uses these values to determine the net value of the campaign which is used for continuous improvement to each marketing approach.  “Literally thousands of experiments of this kind have been conducted” (Watson & Volonino, page 11).

  Through the leverage of their WINet system which utilizes a Unix Gateway to gather information from AS400 systems (capturing slot data, hotel guest information, etc.) for use in their PDB and finally the MWB (data warehouse), Harrah’s has been able to implement closed loop BI. 

References

Watson, H., Volonino, L. (n.d.). Harrah’s High Payoff from Customer Information

Investigating Business Intelligence at Guthy-Renker

In the case study, Business Intelligence at Guthy-Renker, development of business intelligence both from a technology and process/human perspective is explored.  The IT group at Guthy-Renker tended to be more task and less strategically oriented prior to the development of the BI initiative which now focuses on three pillars: technology, business process and organizational readiness.

There are many strengths to their new approach, including the selection of proven project managers for BI team leadership along with a consultancy with over 15 years of history.  Additionally, they have established governance via a PMO with top management for their steering committee, insuring appropriate attention and collaboration.  Finally, they have selected an open architecture which allows them to integrate data from multiple sources and scale up quickly. 

However, there are a few weaknesses that make Guthy-Renker’s BI initiative challenging which include their structure as a value chain versus a supply chain.  This limits their ability to standardize both IT systems and metrics.  They have also chosen to “cherry pick” open minded individuals for inclusion in their BI discussions and roll-outs, potentially limiting their ROI.   Another area for improvement is making sure that IT professionals understand that bug-free reports are not required and that quick turnaround with good enough reports is more desirable.   

Because the business is starved for information, there is a danger of the new BI data becoming distracting.  It is important the management tempers its expectations.  The BI team must teach users to utilize and interpret the available data in order to avoid over reaction and unrealistic expectations.  . 

References

Clark, Joseph. (2010). Business Intelligence at Guthy-Renker: The Promise and Challenges of Sensing the Pulse. (1.2 version). California: USC Marshall School of Business

Can a leader be without strategy?

Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. ~ Norman Schwarzkopf

Norman Schwarzkopf’s quote above exemplifies the heart of a servant leader. Servant leaders “…build strong relationships with others, are empathetic, ethical, and lead in ways that serve the greater good of followers, the organization, the community, and society at large “(Northouse, 2013, 248). It is through their astringent value system and beliefs that they demonstrate their character. Deep and supporting relationships with their subordinates, allow them to achieve superior results. 

While I agree with Schwarzkopf’s premise that character is the more important factor for a leader, I do not believe that sustainable leadership can be accomplished without some measure of technical or strategic skill.  The skills approach to leadership from Katz supports that while human and conceptual skills are of greater importance for top management, there is still a minimal level of technical skill which is required (Northouse, 2013).  When looking at the three components of the skills model, strategy would appear to be synonymous with competency.  Specifically, this skill encompasses problem solving, social judgment, and knowledge.  “When leaders move into middle management, it becomes important that they have all three skills: technical, human, and conceptual” (Northouse, 2013, 57). 

Finally, even the servant leadership model seems to conflict Schwarzkopf’s bold assertion that leaders can be without strategy if they have sufficient character.  Conceptualizing is listed as required behavior for servant leaders.  A leader’s ability to conceptualize allows them “…to think through multifaceted problems, to know if something is going wrong, and to address problems creatively…” (Northouse, 2013, 227).  While his statements are well intentioned, I believe it is clear that leaders cannot be effective without both strategy and character.  Perhaps, his intention was to highlight that strategy without character can have grossly negative impacts on individuals, corporations, and society. It is thus critical to have leaders with impeccable character and perhaps only average strategic skill. 

Leadership Theories Examined

In John Godfrey Saxe’s 1872 poem, “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” he whimsically describes six blind men encountering an elephant and their feeble attempts to describe the beast in totality when they have each only touched a single part.  The parable highlights that one’s personal or subjective experience can be true, but still not accurately account for the real truth or other influences beyond their own limited view. Beyond this, Saxe end’s his poem by highlighting that the men “rail on in utter ignorance of what each other mean, and prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!” (1872).   Not only does each men believe that what he experienced in touching the elephant is absolutely true but he is so adamant about his truth that he argues loudly with his peers.  All the men were touching the elephant at the same moment in time but each of them experienced it differently and thus interpreted the animal as being something that it wasn’t, i.e. fan, rope, wall, spear, tree, or snake.

Saxe’s poem is very applicable to the study of leadership as many scholars and business executives have differing views on what is required to be an effective leader. Peter Northouse provides a summary of the major theories in his book, Leadership: Theory and Practice (2013.)  The trait theory presumes that leaders are born with certain traits that make them effective and powerful leaders.  Unfortunately, supporters of this theory have failed to provide a definitive list of the exact combination required for exemplary leaders.

The skills approach focuses on the leader and their technical, human relations, and conceptual acumen. Advantages of this approach are that it focuses on the leader and “places learned skills at the center of effective leadership performance” (Northouse, 71).  Regrettably, the skills theory is weak in its ability to be used predictively. 

Style theorists believe that it is not who leaders are but what they do that makes them effective.  “It suggests that leaders [engage] in two primary types of behaviors: task and relationship” (Northouse, 95).  Similar to the previous theories, there are weaknesses with the style approach.  Researchers have been unable to identify a universal set of behaviors that consistently predict leadership results.

Finally, Northouse describes situational leadership as a “model that suggests to leaders how they should behave based on the demands of a particular situation” (119). There are many positives to this approach as it is practical and easy to apply.  However, there is not a strong body of empirical evidence to support situational leadership theory resulting in ambiguity about its applicability.

When looked at independently, the leadership theories described above all make credible and accurate points. However, they often contradict one another and do not account for the unique influences and dynamic circumstances that leaders encounter daily.  From this, I believe it is easy to see the parallels in modern leadership theory and Saxe’s poem, “The Blind Men and the Elephant.”

           In order to truly understand the elephant, you must combine each man’s individual experience and knowledge in order to form a concept of the whole.  It is only through looking at the leadership theories collectively that we can start to gain a clear understanding that unique combinations of certain traits and skills utilized in specific circumstances with a given type of employee in a given situation will yield effective leadership. A single theory will never be an accurate predictive indicator of a candidate or employee’s ability to lead just as one blind man cannot accurately identify that he is encountering an elephant and not a wall or snake.  We must utilize the theories collaboratively as helpful predictors and not waste time arguing as to which is “right” as all are indubitably wrong when examined independently.

You don't need to be a genius to be an effective leader.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings. ~ Peter Drucker

In examining the various leadership models and approaches reviewed in Peter Northouse’s text, Leadership: The Theory and Practice, there is a reoccurring theme, leaders are people with various traits, skills, characteristics, and behaviors.  They are not magical beings who possess some other worldly charms but normal, everyday, average people.  Through their perseverance, attitude, aptitude, relationship management, and in some cases luck, they are able to achieve great things.  I believe that this is what Peter Drucker’s quote shown above is communicating.  It is, generally, not through the genius of a single leader that an organization moves forward but through the collective efforts of leaders throughout all levels. 

Furthermore, many of the leadership theories explored indicate that geniuses are generally not effective leaders. The trait approach to leadership shows that higher intelligence is required of leaders versus non leaders.  However, extremely high IQ in relation to subordinates can have a counterproductive impact.  “Leaders with higher abilities may have difficulty communicating with followers because they are preoccupied or because their ideas are too advanced for their followers to accept “(Northouse, 2013, 24).  Often, leaders with high IQ are lacking in EQ, emotional intelligence, and thus fail to connect with their employees in a meaningful way.

It is only through leveraging both assigned, leadership based on role in organization, and emergent, leadership demonstrated over time by the employee’s interactions and communications, that organizations can improve their efficiency and productivity.   To do this, companies must look at a broad application of leadership theories to insure they are selecting the appropriate candidates for their unique culture and requirements.  Selecting the most intelligent candidate, a genius, without respect to their management or leadership style would likely have debilitating consequences and failures. 

Embracing introverts.

Susan Cain’s Ted Talk, The Power of Introverts, highlights the importance of embracing and promoting introversion.  Our culture is designed to celebrate extraverts, who crave stimulation and social interaction.  Both schools and businesses are setup to support the extravert in both physical structure with open, pod like work environments, and with group projects and problem solving.  However, Susan indicates that great ideas come from deep thought and thus we are missing opportunities for productivity within our society.  Our society continually provides the message that introversion is wrong and pushes people to behave counter to their natural tendencies.  As such, many natural introverts are not spending their time in quiet solitude; problems are not being solved and ideas are not be generated as a result.

 For leadership, the major implications are that we may be overlooking employees with the best ideas because they are more reserved and quiet.  Additionally, if we are an extravert, we may be overpowering our introverted employees and not letting the best ideas bubble to the surface.  Finally, because our structure and environment is setup to support extroverts at the cost of introverts, we are not allowing them to leverage their strengths.  I believe this ties in very nicely with Peter Drucker’s premise that you can only perform from the position of your strengths.  Introverts must be empowered to look in their suitcase on a periodic basis; they must be allowed to play to their strengths.  As leaders, it our responsibility to understand that our employees are diverse and that some may prefer lively, constant interaction while others prefer solitude or intimate talks. 

 Christine (Reed) Barnhart

References

Cain, S. (2012). The Power of Introverts [Web]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQH2U-kmBdY

We can only achieve superior results from a position of strength.

Recently, I read two interesting articles which I believe are of considerable value. The first article, Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker, focuses on the premise that to do things well, you must “cultivate a deep understanding of yourself” (2005).  You can only perform well from the position of your strengths.  In the second article, Discovering Your Authentic Leadership, the authors presume that “superior results over a sustained period of time are the ultimate mark of an authentic leader” (George, et all, 2007). Authentic leaders are marked by a deep understand of themselves which echoes the Drucker article.  Additionally, both articles stress the importance of developing yourself, not waiting for the company to take action for you.

I believe leaders can leverage these articles to improve both individual and team performance. improving moral, and increasing motivation. By engaging and empowering employees and pushing ourselves to grow, we can provide an example for other teams within our organizations. 

First, I think leaders must complete a voyage of self-exploration.  As an example, I learn through reading, thus I always want peers to send me an email in advance of our discussions.   Solidifying your needs in a brief summary should help in understanding your  our own personal drivers (strengths, weaknesses, learning styles, relationship needs and values) and thus you can insure you are working in areas where you contribute  the greatest, baring in mind that we can only achieve superior results from a position of strength.

Christine (Reed) Barnhart

References

Drucker, P. F. (January 01, 2005). Managing Oneself. Harvard Business Review, 83, 1.

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., & Mayer, D. (January 01, 2007). Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard Business Review, 85, 2, 129-30.

Thoughts on leveraging Peter Drucker's "Managing Oneself"

The premise of Peter Drucker's article, "Managing Oneself," is that you must understand yourself in order to maximize your contributions to the organizations in which you are involved.  I believe the article does a good job of outlining a means of determining your strengths, how you perform, how you work best with others, and where you can make the greatest contributions.  I believe that organizations can utilize the outline provided by Drucker to insure that they create a cooperative, highly effective, and productive organization.  It is “only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence” (Drucker, 2005).

First, we must determine our own personal drivers.   By utilizing Feedback Analysis, we can start to get a clear picture of our own unique strengths and can develop action plans for improvements.   Additionally, we can determine how we perform.  Specifically, are you a listener or reader?  As an example, I am a reader.  I prefer to see things in writing before discussing them.  Beyond this, how do you learn?  In order to be a truly effective management team, we must each understand how we learn.  Do you learn best through reading, listening, talking or perhaps writing?

 Once we understand how we perform, we can look to the other drivers which Drucker addresses including working with others.  Do you work best with other team members or alone?  Are you a good mentor? By understanding this distinction, we can assure that team members who work best in groups are assigned to large, multi-discipline, projects and highly complex, independent tasks are assigned to those who work better alone.   As part of working with others, we must understand who are the decision makers and who are the advisors, as this will help us to propel the organization forward. 

After we have determined our strengths, performance drivers, and values, we can start to develop personal development plans and assign projects which stretch each of us, are meaningful, make a difference, and are visible to the organization and our peers. 

Upon complete of our self-exploration, we can then work to communicate our own personal drivers to other members of the management team.  By understanding how each of us works, our strengths, performance and values, we can start to customize our interactions and communications and thus improve our productivity and efficiency.  We can utilize our new learnings to target our communications as appropriate for each team member be they listener, reader, talker or writer, driving incredibly positive performance.

Christine (Reed) Barnhart

References

Drucker, P. F. (January 01, 2005). Managing Oneself. Harvard Business Review, 83, 1.

Great leaders inspire action.

A key criterion for leadership is self-awareness. In Daniel Goleman’s “The Focused Leader” he asserts that “leaders who heed their inner voices can draw on more resources to make better decisions and connect with their authentic selves” (2013,4).  This is echoed in Bill George’s book “Authentic Leadership” where he states that “authentic leaders have passion for their purpose, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads” (Sims, McLean and Mayer, 2007). I believe this is what Simon Sinek is discussing in his video “How great leaders inspire action”   (2009).  Time and again Simon stresses that “People don’t buy what you do.  They buy why you do it.”  Those who lead inspire us to follow, not because they have authority or power, but because we identify with their purpose, values or beliefs.   We follow for ourselves because we buy who they are or what motivates them.

Sinek provides some powerful evidence to support his theory, citing Apple’s iconic success over other able bodied computer companies, the Wright Brothers over a financially supported, highly educated, government insider, and Martin Luther King above all other civil rights leaders (2009).  All demonstrate Sinek’s Golden Circle which shows that leaders inspire because they understand why they do what they do, not because of what they do or how they do it (2009). 

I joined Mead Johnson Nutrition (MJN) in 2008, just a few months before they were spun off by Bristol Myers Squibb.  The president at the time was Steve Golsby and he successfully maneuvered the IPO and helped establish the foundations for Mead Johnson as a singularly focused nutritional provider for infants and children.   Looking back, everyone in the company was working countless hours, foregoing time with family and friends, and under a tremendous amount of stress but they did so willingly and with little complaint.  I believe that Steve demonstrates Sinek’s premise that great leaders inspire action. 

Steve absolutely exhibited the traits of an authentic leader.    He demonstrated his passion for MJN’s mission to provide the best start in life for infants and children in every decision, speech, and communication.  Additionally, he possessed high emotional intelligence, as he not only motivated us, but showed tremendous empathy and good social skills.  After only a single introduction, I was very surprised when he later greeted me by name in a chance meeting. 

Steve understood the “why” for himself and Mead Johnson. Our mission was to give children the best start in life, not efficiently produce highly technical liquid and powder formulations at the highest possible margins to provide shareholders with maximum value.  Employee loyalty and commitment during this period was not a function of our pay scale as that quickly wanes after several months of 80+ hour weeks. We were inspired by the man who led us; the man who was authentic with high EQ, earned credibility, demonstrated commitment, and a clear vision for the future. 

My personal experience with Mead Johnson and our senior leadership clearly supports Sinek’s mantra, “People don’t buy what you do.  They buy why you do it.”  Steve did not focus on what we did, producing highly advanced, clinically supported infant formula. He did not focus on how we did it with highly efficient, large scale, global operations.  He, instead, provided a clear and consistent message that we were the sole source of nutrition for at risk babies throughout the world and that we needed to continue to succeed beyond our current 100 year history.

MJN started trading on the NYSE on 11-February-2009 at $24/share.  As of today (29-January-2015), they are trading at over $101/share with over $20B in market capitalization.  They launched as an independent company during one of the worst financial climates since the Great Depression and have thrived in large part due to the energy, commitment and inspiring leadership of a single man. My experience confirms that great leaders really do inspire.

Christine (Reed) Barnhart

REFERENCES

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A., & Mayer, D. (2007). Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard Business Review.

Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2000). Why should anyone be led by you? Harvard Business Review.

Goleman, D. (2004) What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review

Sinek, S. (2009). How great leaders inspire action [Web]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI0cJdOzUcQ&noredirect=1

Leadership - Transformational versus Charismatic Style Exploration

Below is from a paper that I wrote for my UofL Executive Speaker Class last year.  I thought it was worth publishing as reminder that charisma isn't everything.  Enjoy!

Reflection –  Rick Pitino and Bill Lamb

Lively, personable, and charismatic are the phrases that come to mind when I consider Bill Lamb’s executive leadership presentation to the University of Louisville MBA students.  Obviously, Bill is a very passionate and energetic leader. He exhibits many of the leadership traits described in various scholarly texts, including credibility, focus on the future, and emotional intelligence.  But, it is difficult for me to put him into the same category as a transformational leader such as Rick Pitino. Coach Pitino, clearly, demonstrates his authenticity not just in his book, “The One Day Contract”, but in the overtones from his talk, where he spent considerable energy discussing humility and self-awareness. 

As such, I would have to quantify Mr. Lamb as a charismatic leader instead.  Charismatic leaders share many of the traits of transformational leaders but are often motivated more from extrinsic rewards, money, fame or power, versus intrinsic rewards, such as, simple enjoyment in the task itself.  Simply reviewing the title of Bill’s book, “Money Follows Excellence”, seems to further substantiate his external motivations.

The case study, “Discovering Your Authentic Leadership,” alludes to the shift in many mangers to more intrinsic motivations as they mature (George, Sims, McLean & Mayer, 2007).  I willing admit that Bill’s book and leadership style would have been much more attractive to me at the beginning of my career. In contrast, Coach Pitino is considerably more pragmatic and outlines a practical approach to every day improvement in his 2013 book, “The One Day Contract.”  Everything in his book is simply about being a better you through humility, focus, improved fitness, appropriate use of technology, and having a good mental attitude (Pitino, 2013).  I found his book applicable to not just my work life but my home as well. 

While I believe that Bill says all the right things, giving a surface appearance of being a transformation leader, he lacks a level of humility, making him less authentic.  Several times throughout our discussion, he expressly stated that his goal was to make WDRB the best and often alluded to the ratings, an external motivation.  Additionally, as the President and General Manager of WDRB and WMYO and the VP of Broadcast Operations for Block Communications, it struck me as telling that he spent so much time in front of the camera via Point of View, his daily podcast.  In contrast, Pitino does not allow his players to utilize social media during the basketball season and chooses not to participate in electronic media in any capacity himself. This is a sharp contrast to many of his peers in collegiate and professional athletics. He makes several valid arguments as to the dangers of prolonged use of social media, the internet, and online gaming.  My children will probably not appreciate the new rules which will be initiated very soon in my home as a result of reading Pitino’s book.

Both Lamb and Pitino clearly demonstrate the characteristics of leaders outlined in “The Truth About Leadership” by Kouzes and Posner (2010).  But, I found Pitino to be more credible, authentic and humble.  Because he focuses on self-development and learning, I believe he is the more qualified to lead an organization outside of his current expertise. In fact, given his strong moral conviction, simple and articulate presentation style, and humble confidence, I am hopeful that he will turn his leadership to the civic arena once he retires from basketball.  I believe our country could very much benefit from such a strong, practical, and approachable leader.  Coach Pitino readily admits his mistakes, laying open his weaknesses in an honest effort to allow readers to learn from him. I find this very endearing and heartfelt.  He is absolutely a leader that I would willingly and passionately follow.

 Christine (Reed) Barnhart

REFERENCES

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A., & Mayer, D. (2007). Discovering your authentic leadership". Harvard Business Review.

Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2000). Why should anyone be led by you? Harvard Business Review.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2010). The truth about leadership. San Franciscom CA: Jossey-Bass.

Lamb, B. (2012). Money follows excellence. Louisville, KY: Butler Books.

Pitino, R. (2013). The one day contract. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.