Structure Deconstructed

At Kelly Box and Packaging we think about growth. Specifically we think about how to build the proper structure for growth. Corporate structure matters. It's the tool we use to capture and develop organizational knowledge and capacity, but it can also be the impediment to growth and flexibility.

Fundamentally, corporations are people (yes, it's true) organized to achieve a specific mission. The structure is about how those people can work together to grapple with the complex and changing environment of the marketplace. It's a critical undertaking and this article about GitHub's approach is worth looking at.

Would it work for boxes?

Habits Change Into Character - Ovid

We all know we must commit to continuous improvement to succeed in the marketplace. The root of this effort is constant change. Change is difficult. We are the habits we have created and many of us are wedded to habits that have helped us achieve some success or we would not be where we are today.

As high achievers we often shoot for the moon, but when it comes to changing behavior these efforts often fall dismally short. I have found that my most successful transformations occur incrementally, with simple, easy steps. This article is a great synopsis of my experience.

Keep is so simple it's stupid.

Writing

I am a famously verbose writer and always benefit from a firm editing hand. I came across a pretty interesting little post about the power of sentences: This sentence has five words.

Negotiations and Love Songs

We all have to negotiate at various points in our day-to-day business lives.Some people view negotiation as a war, others as a collaboration. At KBPC we fall into the collaboration camp.

We sell packaging, a low margin business that requires a long term relationship to be successful. We also ship our products to our customers everyday so any deal that does not work for everyone gets exposed pretty quickly and dies.

We cannot survive without good win-win negotiations.

I recently came across an interesting article: Steve Jobs Negotiates for e-Books.  It describes how Steve Jobs negotiated the e-Book deal for the iPad (now the subject of federal lawsuit).

It's worth looking at how a strong negotiator who believes in his deal works to find a way to bring the other guy over. He sets it up as a take it or leave it proposition, but then he was Steve Jobs and compromise was never his strong suit. (I stuck with Amazon- BTW - and read Kindle on my iPad)

Time is the Soul of this World - Pythagoras

Attention is the new currency.Work, Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Wife/Husband, Kids, School, Homework, Kids Sports and Activities, Golf Game, Gym, Dinner, Sleep, Reading, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, the NFL, and these days the NCAA tournament are constantly competing for our attention.

And the battleground is Time.

Came across this pretty good post from Kevin Kruse on that topic - worth sharing...

kevinkruse.com/14-secrets-to-expanding-time

Most of us love what we do for a living (or should) and spend a lot of time at work, but Kevin makes a great point:  What we DON'T do matters as much as what we do...

Paper, Paper Everywhere...

"US containerboard inventories jumped to their highest level in five years at the end of February, as snow put a chill on box shipments, while containerboard mills ramped up production in anticipation of spring mill maintenance outages, latest industry statistics indicate."

But will we see an announced price decrease? 

"Will inventories melt away? Current high inventories should melt away this spring with the seasonal pickup in box demand plus heavy maintenance and project downtime, according to analysts."

"Over the last 10 years, inventories throughout the system have dropped on average 202,000 tons between March and May as producers take spring maintenance downtime,"