A Word on Words; 2408; Larry Womack

a word on where the program building into the world of books and there others this week larry wall matt talks about the management your hosts rural oregon where does mr john sigg and the chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university ellen johnson and thought once again welcome to word on words our guest larry one will be talking to larry womble about his new book out on management welcome larry <unk> anti earmark pleasure you wrote this book was so then after this democrats her palm was so for a number of years a national director consultant for couples librarians and a mutual friend introduced me to them and being another business comes as consultant buffalo that dallas texas and i had been working on a project where they said we needed to know we're not sure we got to know on other hand that got a joke about a band was a part of his career where he was really interested in winding down so i jokingly say the band was looking for a tombstone now looking for stepping stone so we

got together and management redesign your businesses to move to achieve your vision and you say in the book that in all begins with fish get permission and get their achievement and value and to the average rock but they aren't as a concept that girl sorbet ball been in my own consultants leone and then it hit a chord with than other thing that's the somewhat esoteric in his presentation but were practical ios applications and i this train before you think think were forty plan plan before you act and then matt and that's that's the process that most people use intuitively to be successful but they reached the point of our being successful and i often for some of their stubborn next thing that they were stopped i can unless the plan in the stop start reacting and then it winds up the picture but similar answer and they realize that they need to get

back to drinking now why does that why does it no one knows the future of bike them on the rear into law will the future called the future come so fast now we we used to live and more can operate in and were called a buyer's market or van and we moved to a seller's market for lots reasons technology to go on all the reason we're operating right now and seller's market value could be successful by saving yourself rich all you could manage the company business sort of came to back years ago and helping business plans for people we go back in the backwoods the idea that someone like light bulbs or salami like wolves can you like and it so we can like a thousand what's going to cost to the mike and fifty cents will huevos on for dollar what sounds great which of money you know the back today if the bible a chant and i say oh how do i bolt can you sail because you can make an infinite amount of like wolves in all sorts of configurations with the question now is how many can excel in and in a seller's market it was

assumed that that there was going to be a market there for year and the cost of production a products and services or solo that he didn't sell mall you could still be successful or even if you went out of business you can be successful because of tax law so when all the chinese and the focus came on to the buyer then had to change the way you do business people who could drain the most boys could float once i got to get back to you on the seller's market the sellers could control the future we all know people could decide we want a fugitive a three years now so john was a car so macarthur years with similar car with a time when they could determine what the future is you know we have bars a future without the real thrust of the book it targets the future yes they all of this preliminary

everything that ranges from your need as a business manager to know about the consumer wants that's what and then you take this through which local ecosystem and that's i take it so the shifting understanding the shifting patterns of commercial and political and an economic reality and then i guess a and their estimate you have to understand the structure of your own business but beyond that to have a strategy but but you could you could begin with a strategy and structure and another aspect and sort of move forward in the old items ok but malcolm the successful leaders one who can predict the future the future needs of the customer and the future of the man's own economies in politics so before a bad president might say bald last year we did x percent

let's do seventy percent next year and it was driven the financials the day that that president needs to know where the customers one of a workout products are not be out there but customers will be needing a demanding what the business or eco system or the economy isn't politics in all the factors external factors are and van the time and what your strategies and structures in the attitude your voice was based on your ability to predict well let's talk about the about the first all predicting the future because he often the team and the pins the final analysis and i suppose vast majority of cases on your ability at the outset to project the future right now it's not a simple matter army requires assumption that a substantial understanding

resources that are available to me if you know if you gonna be able to get that local bank president first were brought but give it requires a different kind of thanking fall again and we go to the difference between practical and strategic thinking all story one off a rich stories such as wade bowen young boy on the hill i'm anne the young else's what we rundown than the locals girls and noble says one woman a middle of all of them less the difference between tactics and strategy will tackle a po boy is that a north florida so it's it's the strategic being able to sit back think strategically called not only about you you can reflect in fact of the original title of a book called was there is no future in fact not out of management that there is no future without comment but there is no future in the past and i've been rather more technical publisher of a good morning as the

subtitle at all but ill but the whole idea is that that the things that happened to you in the past historical activities when your organization are usually no longer a potable to what you need to do to be successful here paula i can speak a bit about modern life and what happened there was a thought i had had many of them he's been less successful in your career as an advertising person a marketing consultant and a management consultant and that i made a business move that was a misstep and i joined an organization an ending the person who joined here now warm water and it didn't work out and all the sudden here i am fifty one fifty two years old fifty three or so i was down and out here in the marketplace and look and that what i'm a gonna do in the future and i look back and i say war for one fan i've spent seventy five percent of my career selling what i do and twenty five percent on an acid are

like that the other things that i want to do i'll like to work with people so why was then have to spend much time going around selling one of the again in a seller's market in around knock on the doors and say don't add this today that it and you can find the essence what it's there lots of people out there are lots more people out there who do what i do do it as well as i do and better than one and so the marketplace is getting much more complex much more difficult for me to move forward and i began to look and i say there is no future in the press sausser pierced ears pierced <unk> spend fifty percent of my time doing what i believe i was then twenty five percent and marketing strategic and still practical and will spend the other twenty five percent and continuing education that my job was to help other people all that their abilities to do what they do i have to continually actually segment your professional life along those lines once you had that

strategy this what would happen and i'm not pure but what happened was the bank had only insignia don't fret not observe the day as they were going to this twenty five percent going into that twenty five percent of putting i read tom peters latest book that's work their education is a part of my work out i can say what i have can read this book about what to do so i think that any body opposition leadership and cotton faster like education hard work that's the way you begin to predict what the future as i'm still you have to explore that yet you can operate out of your aid groups that operate out of your your wisdom her knowledge so therefore you have to seek wisdom knowledge and many people who are leaders of business don't do that anymore now how helpful is analysis how helpful is the new technology as a resource in helping project that

that wasn't that was the answer for me because i'm a packet filled this whole studio with yellow paint and now i realized one day that and the swamps and so on a caller for him and said i need to know how awkward a computer and he said okay when you were about one awesome right now make me a computer shop sort of laid down the computer shop and pablo computer on one home acid if i'm going to educate myself it can it's not just on words it's not just on the information knowledge i've got to be able to manipulate that information and knowledge of again to tap into databases a subscriber caucus serve and all that i could never have written this book on an lp i suspect that's right now if you look at a vehicle mean if you just look at the empty and that's all the graphics i mean alan i'm sure you know some graphic artist i'm sure i didn't get you on the mall every

time a book did you have brought one that is continuing they all came out a lot of the coins than our involvement two major consulting engaged or work and book one was black so pharmaceutical glaxo welcome any other was boise cascade so the idea was it that the one thing that bothers me about most business books and bothers me about this book is that most publishers are looking for books that are written out of the author's elegance and ego with the big clients but that works here because they can sell if it's black so has fifty thousand employees around the world and you've consulted with glaxo and you're talking about how that work right it has excess crops at of that when we say black so fifty four million dollars on a project redesign its debts talk about macbook but those are not the projects were the most happy with this event that i worked with leaders to help them understand the saudi about educating

such and began to they begin to fire knowledge of what the publishers war stories like that because the black cells that fifty thousand in a lot of this fiber foam came to me one time and in its internal financial problems on write a column what is the backdrop and how you find your way out frank wanted it so they're also a people out there who got this because of it i don't really think that i need to write a story a failure he said it's helping people get through friday and that's what to me if you got really good at it was pretty good you know a phenomenal response he ultimately movie electronic me and then moved away while he was here with a novel response to that come out i thought about him in the in the lightest footprint it did seem to me one you didn't have a vision and he did clearly understand though some consumer needs out there

a us judge it might've been a tactical strategy i'm not sure attitudes i think they were they were right there with someone person structure in her acting with an organization nunez pariah about you know he did buy the seat of his pants he looked into it and i'm a war problem because without knowing it he was falling something close to the outline they do and then have flaws there would tell you which is which is almost a textbook for success where you know all of the wild things i used to tell people right mission statement and vision statement and what a crock i'm embarrassed and then the life of working with a third woman permission right away from fruition what they've been in the vision thing and i kind of afraid so my colleague two weeks is a lot of rock

videos is it the big yeah that was some esoteric paragraph that nobody understands that the two are not marching orders it's it's so you know you do create a flavor or maybe an attitude that that this is only one communique but what we found and work and get to work with this road like solar collectors can get if you will be at the golf course when you have of green pants and a structure going this way in a showroom on this white smoke a mixer and this is not some r cody ish you know esoteric than a leader in all charismatic he's a hard nosed runs the tech operations of black self well cliff gets up in front of his twenty five member house senior staff average age thirty five years old multiple degree and he's got a great collaboration our judge all these people or their own career paths mountain this gets up and says what you people to know that i'm changing the day up until my auto to where i wanted you to do

so janet do it and got mad as hell didn't do it now way some tangent but i still got a lot more to do than our bonded your wait and you wait and work along it matters and that was the great departure foreign leaders need to doing steroids this detail the people that work with work for them what they walked in very clear terms the ama on here because they knew that that's what i asked the less interested though all the underdog upset about this although we don't basically i believe and this is so pretty simple that they're what most people call objectives really all be the bishops that's it's the sidelines surgery then i walked to the cliff's said i want us to reward collaboration our message he said i was too i watched their sister my assignment or over the next five years and he sent out about eight or ten hours and call the

center staff to go was among the swallow so now we're going to do is we're going to go on missions each one of the things about war and my vision which is no longer a paragraph it's a list of a laundry list of what the leader walks it's a bit more to go on missions now on collaboration what he's saying is we won't change the reward system an organization that's going to contain a group of people plan to gather looking at that over a period of time and you know so we got rid of on a project or mission and mission than the federation's what was an eclectic piece and acted upon plan or on a nicole captain kirk and say want to go on a mission so later said this is an insane someone on a mission that's where your income but that has to be part of work i was involved in the poem age of movement up study with dr damon and were problems with what the whole quality movement of people try to apply to an organization is they never made that stuff apart work as an extra layer of activity that we were doing

besides the work so if you don't like education for work if you don't like planning apart a work if you don't honor means is a part of work and everything else is art in the organization the leader gets the care about haider you should take it back to technology of a mona goes into it seems to me that the people in the business world almost everybody in the academic community is has a quick fix on technology and it seems to me that what you just said takes it to another dimension maybe takes a back to another dimension what i heard you just say is this is important is the technology was you know writing this book and as reporter that is a success and projecting the future of achieving there is a human equation involved here hugh equation really is concerned those who go on the mission goes to

dissipate in the meetings and that it is the vital ingredient the ability and the talent of of creative and dedicated the epa did you first have to predict that won't something was gonna happen or one someday uber close to what's going to happen going forward and having this is not where he predicted something happen that way really strong path toward them once you predict that you have to tell people what you want to be able to achieve that follow us all a strategic planning out on a nationally known paul accounting firm that the strategic plan for its clients and had a path of love that you can follow and i would help you with your strategic plan and they said this is important and this is where we'll help you and had different things are optional and in their plan the first time they had was optional was information gatherer

start here without any information on our planet they kept on to ferguson on continuing education right because nobody can they save the information's not important what does due process that's because they're afraid the leader but not with the leader wants answered and in the one the lead or when the people in the organization don't know what the leader walks where he wants them to point the arrows which is minutes to cut back their initiative is now a big part of what this book or this program is about is it's a double play land how to do end of sand and then work together then and i guess that goes in some ways this is this this is like two books you it's an allegory is a part of the story than runs a rose says jesse and john norcross that at the french politics is it is it was the

lowest moment of talk first about how it out how you blend those two concerts in the book you know again let's talk about or beyond all the book ascent was published the prom or technical publisher i was very lucky that tony glamorous the editor at the ama along came from major book publisher and i actually chose the area my job for himself because that's where you want to be some place you could make a difference so i had his ear and when we submitted the allegories love there were very questionable as to what would belong on a book of this kind and it will threaten no love band was more the technical person in the book and had them the more experience are all kinds of things in the consultant in fact i'll go back a little bit into the writing of the book back then trolled the pants then i have always sing one another seven times he lives in houston texas olive here in nashville and soul than a nap talked every day we shared

information back and forth and but once we got there once with our mission and what we began to move forward alone i began to get more comfortable with with controlling the output which my damn very gifted very uncomfortable cause he like he was a he's a controlled by person and so i when i began to write the allegories then began to get more comfortable with my control of the output and so he really enjoyed those and so they became a stimulus for us to come back and bill some of the technical things are in the book the outdoors the cottonwood jesse story is a very important story to me because it speaks to me and speaks to you of our times all old cowboy folk cowboy depression depression era he's driving a truck you know like drugs like forces with cowboy and he's become a truck and this is another horse besides solar

technologies change in our athlete in gas and stun i right here like this he likes his horse but he knows that if he's going to survive he's going to have to adapt to new technology and he goes to a great struggles with it than the allegorical deepens and that a cottonwood tree soderstrom and sucks up all our water and farmers and ranchers and an ecologist know that often more to get the stream the flow you have to cut down the cottonwood tree and so in a lot of businesses the answer to being successful is cut down some little cottonwood trees workers who have been willing to learn that way what's our favorite statements and lee iacocca gets credit for an attack they hadn't been said many many times what it is so profound today although set to begin with was lee followed your love away and so many companies to buy their cotton were troops who need to be out of the way then you take jesse and an encounter with a young jon is nothing wrong

the annual events and an hour with jaunty young man as a visionary right jessi looking back and worry and his fall in the price of that that's exactly right right that's exactly when you know that story out another and it did and i got to that point i said that sea of pollster that's the store while we didn't get a couple minutes left what about the women's overall the story i was on all involve a consultant is to work with a friend there in mississippi and he you know he said well so what we're going to do we've got go show mr dennen i'm either we go to circus need popcorn he was a member of the lions club down as a slow us a moscow circus and a gun slung circus and it's a family sides and we go in and the area saw this lady and she's taken up tickets and she's dressed very elegantly employment and stalking your ticket takers don't like this one will pop core mission and this guy's got should cope with apple what's odd minutes he's looking very you know that her and also the music

starts and and the same people who were down on popcorn they become the high wire walker and also an awful lot that is collaboration it is the us capability and there was a guy had a big pooper scooper and he swept up after the elephant and so we got to talking about that concept and facts not my daughter was working for a company and they love the the story about lawrence wright brothers circus and that's all plastered around our campaign he said now everybody cleans up after me and nobody's job maybe fifty of unexplained up after the atlantic and so my daughter one day called me up and she said the soap opera boston or poland planet they are available for my god ha ha that's right and mount but you talk about writing the book are very interesting process of writing was someone at that distance and the tension that was back and forth where

those were the stories that were trying to do and what we developed and all and i think that that really called really created the opportunity the tension between us would new moral low a lot of esoteric sort of approaching a much more hard edged approach that we cannot was something that they are regulated or when you die once again and again here i am i have two books right now will go on an agent that there were working right now one of them is as his bible teaching the pig's scent at the end of that has to do with my years and consultant we're not writing together now he's going as and i believe as a lawyer tina dam is resistance but though ol cajun the biggest saying is that i was found is that though there are people that i work with and that have you know the trial on his new worries larry womack author of

outcome management has been our guest on a word on where your hostess ben johnson chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville on them