Tag Archives: business thinking

December 19, 2014 · 11:11 am

Learning From Portmanteaus

Foodie Friday, and today we’ll start with a word that may be new to some of you: portmanteau. A portmanteau is a combination of the most recognizable parts of two words. We have many of them in the food world and use them to label a host of new things – utensils, dishes, even fruits. You probably use them all the time without knowing what they’re called.

Ever ordered a cheeseburger? Portmanteau – cheese and hamburger. Ever used a spork? A spoon and a fork. Cronuts, frappuccinos, Clamato, even Tex-Mex all qualify, as do pluots, tangelos, and turduckens. So stop petting your labradoodle (see what I did there?) and think about what those food creations can show us in the broader business sense.

Many of these things were evolutionary.  Adding cheese to a hamburger or putting some tines on a spoon (or was it enlarging and rounding the center of a fork?) was something I’d call part of a gradual change and more of an adaptation than an invention.  We do that a lot in business and it’s a smart way to address the ongoing needs of your current customer base.  The flip side of that is revolutionary change, something that’s entirely new and probably unexpected – the cronut falls into that category.  When we create revolutionary change we run the risk of alienating all of those who love what we’re doing but it’s probably the best way to attract a customer base that has ignored us thus far.  In my mind, great businesses do both types of change – evolutionary and revolutionary – because stasis isn’t an option and consumers are always looking for new and better.

Some food portmanteaus are just bad marketing.  The P’zone – a pizza calzone – is a freaking calzone and neither revolutionary nor evolutionary.  Tofurky (tofu and turkey)?  Really?  If you’re foregoing meat, why label a product as if it is the very thing the customer is avoiding?  That said, those things represent the notion that we constantly need to innovate.  The most successful companies often do nothing more than execute a new twist on an existing product or service better than their competitors.  It might be revolutionary, it might be evolutionary and it might be called a portmanteau.  I call it good business.  You?

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December 16, 2014 · 12:34 pm

Traditions

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. For you gentiles in the audience, this holiday follows the pattern of many Jewish celebrations – someone tried to kill us; divine intervention saved us; let’s eat. In this case, that intervention took the form of making a single day’s supply of oil last eight days following a battle, and the food eaten this holiday is traditionally fried food in honor of the oil. It’s the last part on which I want to focus today’s screed.

No, this isn’t a rant on latkes (fried cakes of potatoes and onions) and besides, it isn’t Foodie Friday. It’s the tradition part and how the customs of the holiday got me thinking about business.  As with any holiday, whether a religious holiday or not, there are customs.  Foods we make, maybe clothes we wear, etc.  Even within your family it may be one family member’s house for a particular celebration that never changes from year to year (think Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, etc.).  These are traditions and they give a sense of comfort and continuity.  They’re great things but not, in my opinion, in a business setting.

How we get into trouble is by honoring most business traditions. Some of them are fine, but not many.  Most of the contexts which prompted the creation of a legacy business process (which is, after all what traditions are) have changed.  Those changes have been dramatic, and thinking “that’s how we’ve always done it” can be a death knell.  What we need to do is to look back on the tradition and ask “why.”  Why was this, at some point, the right answer to a business problem and what can we learn from it to adapt it to current conditions?

I’ll make latkes and light candles and honor the traditions of the holiday this evening.  When I go back to work tomorrow, it’s with an open mind and a mental library of traditional business answers from which to build new traditions that suit today’s challenges.  You?

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December 12, 2014 · 11:13 am

Finely Chopped Onions And Business

Foodie Friday, and this week it’s about chopping onions.  No, it’s not a screed on how cutting up onions relates to being in business without crying although that’s not a bad idea for some Friday down the road.  This week, it’s about a legendary chef – Marco Pierre White – and his technique for chopping onions more finely than you’ve ever chopped them before.  There are practical reasons for doing so as he explains. The video I’ve embedded demonstrates his technique, but it’s actually something he says in the video that’s our subject today.

First, the chopping lesson:

Did you hear what Chef White had to say as part of his demonstration?

‘Perfection is lots of little things done well.’

He picked that up from Ma Gastronomie by Fernand Point. He is the father of modern French cuisine. It’s a great business reminder too.  We talk a lot in this space about many “big” things but the reality is that we can’t ignore the most basic skills if we’re to continue to improve as businesspeople.  We might be focused on the big idea, but if our basic writing skills are inferior, the brilliance of our idea won’t be expressed.

Chopping onions is probably the most basic of cooking skills.  I’ve seen friends spend a full two minutes chopping an onion when had they learned the proper technique and practiced they would be able to do so in under 30 seconds.  It’s a little thing, but improving all of the little things is sometimes the only way to improve the whole.  As an aside, it’s a heck of a lot more fun when the tedious things go quickly and efficiently both in the kitchen and in the office.

Striving for continuous improvement is a noble goal.  Our focus should be on big steps forward.  The way to get our businesses to take those steps just might be through improving all the little things, especially when we’ve done a good job on the big ones already.  After all, a team that keeps hitting singles and not making many outs eventually scores a lot of ones, even without any home runs.

You agree?

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