A lot has been written about the “job swap” program taking place between consumer packaged goods leader Procter & Gamble and technology leader Google where “about two dozen staffers from the two companies have spent weeks dipping into each other's staff training programs and sitting in on meetings where business plans get hammered out.” The key benefit that has been highlighted is how it is helping the two companies develop innovative ways of working together, as P&G learns about consumer habits online and Google works to attract a higher share of the world’s largest advertiser.
If we ladder up we can see that this employee exchange program is also helping these two companies “look at the world in a very different way and do things differently”. If we frame the problem, or job-to-be-done this way, competing solutions would be sending senior executives to cross-industry conferences, reading business books and case studies of other companies, networking with business partners and friends, hiring employees away from firms you’d like to learn from, or working with consultants who have an extensive knowledge base from working with clients in a range of industries. Each of these solutions has merits, but also has disadvantages, namely:
- Conferences give executives an opportunity to hear what’s top-of-mind to their peers, but are typically only attended by senior executives. Also, the conversations may lack authenticity and the messages may be watered down to a point that it would not be useful to the person executing the work.
- Business books and case studies offer insightful perspectives from outsiders, but the stories are interpretations that may be distorted or summarized to the point of being useless and may not answer your specific question
- Networking with old business partners, colleagues and friends is a great resource but it is limited to the people in your network
This “job swap” program appears to do a better job of really shifting mind-sets and inspiring people at the team level, who are really executing the work, to do things differently. At the team level, you wonder what does it mean to systemize the process? Think outside of the box? Look beyond the obvious? This program gives the employees an opportunity to really experience what it is like to work in another company. The program certainly has limitations; for example, companies in competing industries wouldn’t be motivated to do this, it’s unclear how you decide who gets to participate, and it requires some clear objectives so valuable work time is not wasted.
Obviously, there will always be a place for business books, conferences, networking, and consultants, but this job-swapping is a new solution that helps company solve an important problem. Following disruptive patterns, we bet traditional conference managers, consultants, and business publishers probably aren’t too worried right now but companies like business social networking site LinkedIn, which are still looking for a business model, are best positioned disrupt this market and develop a simple, convenient, accessible and affordable “job swap” program. We wonder how many other companies will team up to do this and if a more formal network and a business model will emerge to facilitate it.
