Apr 13, 2021 | Change, Governance, Strategy
When should you let go of the sunk cost that is not performing?
How do you decide when to quit, walk away from an investment? It is as important a decision as the one you made when planning where to allocate your resources in the first place.
Strategic quitting is the flip side of strategic planning.
Realistically, you have only a limited amount of resource to be allocated. Determining the priority for those allocations includes being able to stop proceeding with some, and redirect. This acknowledges the opportunity costs often swept under the corporate carpet.
It is not being a quitter, it is sensible strategic leadership
The good thing about being at the point of strategic quitting is that you have actually done things, and hopefully learned from them. Therefore the next action you take should be better informed.
I am sick and tired of the fluff around strategic planning, what we need is less of it, and more strategic doing!!
Strategic quitting is a fundamental part of strategic success, embrace it.
Apr 10, 2021 | Governance, rant
Dismay is the only (polite) word to describe the feeling as I watch the machinations and manipulation of current politics that passes for representative government.
Where is the humility, empathy, dignity, and recognition that they are there to serve, which is a specific choice encapsulated in the role?
Instead, we are confronted by ego, hubris, pride, and arrogance, manifested by the all-pervading sense of entitlement.
Where is the vision, and the expertise to deliver on that vision?
Nowhere to be seen.
Where are the facts?
Nowhere to be seen.
I am sure there are good people languishing on the back bench, and in the ranks of the political organisations as disgusted as most of us seem to be, at least in my wide networks, but their voices are not heard. There are many other great people in the community, with the drive, vision, and expertise to deliver positive outcomes for their communities, made up of their children, grandchildren, and thousands of those of others, who would not go anywhere near a public role.
The reason: They have no wish to be associated with the body politic and the toxic culture that surrounds it.
That leaves us with a huge problem: how do we change it?
The key to success is working together. Always has been, always will be. That is the nature that human evolution has bestowed on us, as it has proven to be the only way to survive and prosper.
Somebody should tell those in the Canberra Clown Factory. Both sides of the factory, and both floors.
A few months ago, I read, again, the narrative of Alan Mullaly delivering Ford from the executioners door, building the foundations that have resulted in its current prosperity.
The overriding impression from that narrative is that besides being the smartest and most driven bloke (or gal) in the room, he was also the most humble. It was by that humility that he created a culture of visionary co-operation and accountability for outcomes.
Compare that to the products on show in the Clown Factory showroom.
The header for this rant is a reproduction of the little card Mullaly handed out at every opportunity. By way of example, he ensured he and those for whom he was responsible worked for the common good. The card originated when he saved Boeing from visiting the receiver in the nineties and lived on through his tenure at Ford.
Perhaps I should send one to the clowns?
Apr 8, 2021 | Leadership, Management, Operations
Have you ever started to read a book, and decided to miss chapter 1?
I guess few ever have.
Miss chapter one, and you miss the foundation of what is to come. It is the first impression, creates the context in which the book is set, irrespective of it being fiction or non-fiction.
Why then do most businesses and their advisors not read chapter 1 of the business improvement handbook?
I know they do not, simply because Cash is such a low priority in these conversations. It is left behind by management clichés and fluffy words about visions and missions.
These things are all important, but in the absence of cash, beyond reach.
How much cash does it take to run your business?
How long is your cash conversion cycle?
What are the sources of the cash you are using?
What are the trends in your free cash flow?
These should be chapter 1 of the business improvement handbook.
When you know the answers, you can move on to the things you can do better to free up more cash, then to the operational, customer and strategic challenges being faced, knowing how much cash you have at your disposal to address these challenges.
Let me know when you need some experienced assistance sorting all this out.
Apr 6, 2021 | Change, Strategy
If a problem can be solved with money, then arguably, it is not really a problem!!
Most companies, especially big ones try money before they try creativity and thinking from first principals.
To my mind, this is one of the reasons that smaller companies are inherently more creative, they must be. They simply do not have the money to throw at a problem. They have to be scrappy, to hustle, experiment, and invent a way to address the problem without a pile of money.
One of the several strategies big companies deploy to manage their Innovation programs, is to be very sensitive to the activities of start-ups, even invest in a few. When one of the small bets looks like a winner, buy them out.
Solves the innovation problem for them, short term. It offers a big payday for founders, so may be good for them as well. Problem is that many such innovative start-ups that have been purchased are suffocated by the culture that prevented the big acquiring company innovate out of its own optimised way of thinking.
Being innovative requires being sub optimal, scrappy, unsure, and often wrong. Which executive in a big company is going to go to their boss and ask to be put in charge of something that might not work, will disrupt the existing status quo, require investment and time, and probably fail? On top of that, these volunteer intrapreneurs in large companies want to be paid as they would be on the optimised and secure world of the corporate behemoth.
Counter intuitively, it turns out that the lack of money can be a competitive advantage small companies have over big ones. The challenge is to keep the effort going in the face of the never-ending bills that arrive to be paid immediately.
Header cartoon credit: Scott Adams and Dilbert on Innovation. Right again!
Apr 1, 2021 | Analytics, Marketing
So called ‘Digital Marketing’ has become an end in itself. Instead, it should be a potentially potent tool in the marketer’s toolbox when used well in the process of delivering value. I see it often spoken of and treated as if it were a separate functional discipline, then it fails. All sorts of rubbish is then wheeled out to explain the failure and move responsibility elsewhere.
It seems to me that the failure of understanding the real nature of digital marketing falls into 7 distinct buckets.
- ‘Digital marketing’ is seen as an event, a set piece, and not part of an ongoing commitment to delivering information and value to customers and potential customers.
- There is no sense of the end point, a vision, the picture on the jigsaw cover. The absence of a clear objective makes consistent production of compelling communication virtually impossible.
- There is a lack of commitment from the top. Many inhabitants of the corner office are older guys trained in accounting, engineering, and the law. Many still consider marketing to be a cost, to be managed short term, rather than an investment in the long term. Often so-called marketers do too little to address this misunderstanding. Instead, they continue to sketch out a few bits of ‘content’ to throw against the digital wall, hoping something works.
- No-one holds accountability for the work, and its results. Digital marketing tends to be a subsection of the overall marketing and sales programs, and it tends to be the least understood. As a result, it is pushed off to the juniors, after all, they know all about this technology stuff.
- All things to all people rather than highly relevant to a few. Digital is mixed up with a mistaken understanding of genuine inbound marketing activity. Inbound sounds nice, but how are we going to set ourselves up as an expert in the face of the competition. Nobody can be all things to all people. If you are a small business, be the expert in your specific niche, your geography, with those on your list of current and lapsed customers. You do not have to be the biggest in the world, just the best to a select few.
- Results are not measured properly, vanity measures are all that are collected, and they tell you nothing about cause and effect.
- The work is done quickly, without thought, passion, creativity, so does not grab a potential customer by the purse. It is just another deadline hit, then move onto the next one, tomorrow. The search for the ‘big idea’ that resonates and differentiates seems to have been replaced by many mediocre bland and ‘safe’ ideas. The big idea remains elusive, and of great value, but we seem to be no longer looking for it as we are distracted by the acceptance of the many mediocre ideas. Not a great exchange. Occasionally you find the big idea, hiding in plain sight, which is where it usually hides, but is so hard to identify.
- A final one. There is no permission, as in Seth Godin’s definition of permission marketing, as requoted in Tom Fishburnes cartoon narrative, with which I absolutely agree. This is all about the consumer, and treating them with respect, something that increasingly many so-called marketers do not do.
Header cartoon credit: Tom Fishburne at www.Marketoonist.com
