Requesting a Couple of Improvements from Microsoft on Outlook

After Microsoft complied with my request of pre-scheduled e-mails, I have a couple more. I am also letting Microsoft wake up to the idea of crowdsourcing.

• I want to have the ability to attach a note to an e-mail or a meeting invite. This is following the paper concept of scratching in a couple of lines as notes on printed documents to either direct your attention to something or serve as a memory refresher. If we could just drag these electronic versions of ‘Post-It’ Notes onto the Outlook items. I want the ability of these notes to be for my personal viewing instead of getting transmitted with any Meeting updates or outgoing mail to which these might be attached.

• My other request constitutes the ability to designate certain invitees as key stakeholders for meetings and for the calendar to show their unavailability separately from all the other users. For example, Outlook now shows me how many people are available at a certain time slot. Let’s say it’s 6 out of 12. If those 6 participants are not key stakeholders, I would be better off rescheduling.

Odds of Success

I read a recent comment by the former President Bill Clinton today, wherein he said that there is a fifty-fifty chance that the current peace talks would result in peace between Israel and the Palestinians. I am both amused and appalled at the statement. All the money, influence and good will in the world that we have thrown at the Middle-east conflict issue and all we get is a fifty-fifty chance at peace.

If this was a consulting company and they offered a fifty-fifty chance at success to their client, how far do you think they would go? I doubt very much they would get past the front door, forget the Board Room.

And, this brings me to the point of risk. If someone predicted a fifty-fifty chance of rain, would you carry an umbrella? If someone offered you a fifty-fifty chance of winning the lottery, would you bet your life savings? Getting caught in a downpour is not a life threatening condition for most people so the risk acceptance is much higher. Losing your life savings on the other hand can be very uncomfortable so the risk acceptance might be lower for most rational people.

So, why is it that when the odds of a peace deal are fifty-fifty, do we accept the risk? Because as human beings we are inherently hopeful. Having accepted that the human spirit drives us to hope when no reason can be found, fight even when the odds of victory are slim, we still deserve leaders who will work tirelessly to increase the odds of success in our favor rather than it being just a toss up in the air.

Performance Metrics and their Incomplete Story

This post is going to focus on performance metrics and why they never tell the complete story.

Recently, I was talking to a friend about the awesomeness of the ubiquitous ‘Coke’ brand in light of his visit to the Coke factory in Atlanta, GA. He mentioned that the CEO of Coke was at one point in time reconsidering growth targets for his team. He was dissatisfied with the customary 2-3% YoY growth and wanted to serve up stretch goals for his team.

He ended up changing the denominator from it being the market cap of all aerated drinks to all liquids that go down a human throat. That opened up the playing field and fueled much envied growth at Coke and changed the performance metrics.

Contrast this with a recent performance metric that we have all been reading about in the news – the ratings issued by the three rating agencies, Moody’s Investor Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. The rules require ratings, which according to Warren Buffet eliminate any negotiating power on the part of the ones seeking the ratings. This in itself would not be so bad were this not a part of other externalities, which are in the form of an issuer-pay model and an obvious lack of competition. The performance metrics of the rating agencies should be concerned with the returns, risk, ability to meet contractual obligations, impact of adverse changes in economic conditions, etc. of the financial product/company being rated.

However, the reality is that the rating agencies focused on the profit and the volume metric. Once they rate a product (fairly or dubiously) there are no penalties for a lack of performance or a higher degree of risk being realized, than which is expected of a particular rating association. There are obvious conflicts of interest, which have been raised in the past.

The point of the matter is that we should never have a performance metric that tells only half the story. More so, if people are going to rely on that metric to make important decisions. All of the world’s Service Level Agreements, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and other measures, which profess to track productivity or quality or some version of it will not save an organization from mediocrity if they are not focused on the right metric.