10 steps to world class excellence

10 steps to world class excellence

Aug 25, 2016 | Change, Leadership, Strategy

Watching Michael Phelps  weave his magic in the pool at Rio has been more than a sporting feast, it was a lesson in superior performance that has required solid foundations and enormous hard work over a very long period.

Where does that drive, determination, and ability to maintain a focus for so long come from?

Clearly Phelps is a hugely talented individual, but we all know those people who do not make the best of what they have naturally by doing the work. A colleague directed me to a recently published book, ‘Golden rules: Steps to world class excellence‘ by Phelps’s coach, Bob Bowman.

The ‘Golden rules set out apply to virtually everything we do, certainly everything I set out to do as someone who helps business owners get the most out of their emotional and financial investment in their businesses.

Following are Bowmans rules, with a few anecdotes from the businesses  I have been involved with, and life.

A champion sets a ‘Dream Big’ vision.

About 16 years ago I worked with David and Dooley Bellamy to map out a plan for their organic produce business,  that envisioned the launch of organic baby foods. At that time Bellamy’s was a modest organic farm at Longford, just outside Launceston in Tasmania. David & Dooley had a dream to produce organic babyfood they would be happy to feed their kids, that would sit on supermarket shelves, opening up what was then a non existent new category in the market. While there has been many changes since that time, and I can claim little credit for the success that has been realised, Bellamy’s is now a public company that has become a significant exporter of organic baby food, after being the first on shelf in Australian supermarkets.

Adopt an ‘All in’ attitude, not a ‘Get out’  one.

Several of my kids achieved great athletic success, while falling just short of the Olympics, to continue the sporting theme. My now 30 year old daughter was one of the top 4 or 5 gymnasts in the country as a girl, lined up by the AIS as a ‘likely’ for the Sydney games. At the ‘nationals’ in Sydney she missed her footing on the beam, falling and badly damaging her breastbone, making it excruciatingly painful to do anything that stretched her chest, difficult to avoid in gymnastics. She did not pull out of the competition, but climbed back up on the beam, finished her routine, then completed the remainder of  the disciplines despite the excruciating pain and knowing she could not do some of  the skills she had trained so hard to perfect, and as a result could not score well. Today she practises Physiotherapy, and makes me proud every day.

Take risks then enjoy the rewards

An acquaintance of mine is a professional in nuclear medicine, a really smart guy who is also a serial entrepreneur. Over 20 years or so, he and his wife have ‘bet the farm’ on several occasions and are now in a position to enjoy the rewards, while still scratching their entrepreneurial itch on a wider scale. The rewards for them are not counted in the bank, but in the freedom and lifestyle delivered by their successes.

Short term goals lead to long term success.

Long term success is made up of many small steps, and the cliché that every journey starts with the first step is a cliché because it is  correct. Way back in march 2009, I wrote my first blog post, and had no idea where the second one was coming from, or what it would be about. However, I had come to the conclusion that committing to a post every couple of days was a good way to both articulate and record my thoughts, and be a marketing tool for my consulting practice.  My goal at first was just to impose on myself the discipline to write a couple of posts a week, and lo and behold, close to 1500 posts later, it is way more than a marketing tool, it is a repository of ideas, processes and a few rants about the things I care deeply  about, that together have great value, at least to me. It does also seem that some of those in those market segments where I choose to concentrate my efforts, weather they become clients or not, also see the value

Live the vision every day

As an Aussie, I love the success story of Atalssian, the local tech startup that has become a world standard in technical project management.  One of the founding visions was and remains, “Don’t f*** the customer”. A bit brash, perhaps not the usual polished wording of a corporate value statement, but nevertheless absolutely clear, memorable, and I bet nobody in the business has any doubt about the focus of their activity. That is what a vision, or purpose, or Mission, whichever of the management clichés you choose to apply, are all about: giving a clear objective to everyone. Any journey over a long period has its ups and downs, stuff that does not work. Having a guiding principal that dictates behaviour on a day to day basis, even one as unconventional as Atlassians, enables the short term reverses to be turned into improvement opportunities, rather than being destructive.

A team approach can bring individual success

Some time in the nineties I read Ricardo Semmlers book “Maverick“. At the time I thought it was the exception that made the rule, the business that became more successful with less, and bottom up management. However, as time passes, the importance of teams, not just to commercial management success, but to success in every arena is becoming more and more obvious, and libraries have now been written that recognise the role of teams in individual success. It is no coincidence that the emergence of digital tools that enable the co-ordination and collaboration of teams has led to an explosion of success in every facet of life, and the inverse also applies. The Australian swimming team was very successful in Beijing, failed comprehensively in London, and from the Rio results, is on the way back, while still experiencing growing pains.

Stay motivated over the long haul

One of my school mates is a musician, at least on the side, as he had to make a living being more conventional. However, over the 40 years I have watched him practise, play and perform, he stuck  to the dream of making a living albeit modest, out of music. He never gave up, and over the last few years has suddenly become successful, making a very good living after a long apprenticeship. Not quite an overnight sensation after 20 years of obscurity, more like a moderate financial but hugely rewarding personally success after 35 years of sticking to the job.

Adversity will make you stronger.

I have told the story of the early days of the General Products division of Dairy Farmers as I found it when I joined as it was spun out of the then regulated milk business to compete unfettered by the past. It was nothing short of a financial and operational disaster, which if not difficult enough was beset with industrial turmoil inherited from  the decades of operating in a regulated and highly unionised  ‘cost-plus’ environment.  During a strike, a deliberately lit fire destroyed much of the warehouse capacity, which could have led to the gates just being closed for good.  Instead, the fire was a catalyst for change, the final straw after which everyone recognised that we had hit rock bottom, and the choice was stark; change attitudes, work hard and together, or go home for good. Within a relatively short space of time, after some herculean effort, you would not have recognised the place.

When the time comes perform with confidence.

Most people feel some level of apprehension at the prospect of speaking in front of a crowd, for some it is  overwhelming. Jerry Seinfeld’s observation that many would rather be in the box than delivering the eulogy resonates deeply with many. Around 1985 I was asked to present at the ‘Foodweek’ conference, a then annual food industry gabfest that was the ‘must-attend’ event of the year for everyone in the industry.  To prepare I spent a lot of time writing and perfecting the presentation, hired some  professional AV assistance, and had some presentation coaching, but to call what I felt nervous would be like calling Everest a ‘hill’. On the day, I figured I could  have done no more, so went out there in front of still the biggest crowd I have ever presented to, relaxed and did a pretty good job, I am told.

Celebrate your achievements, then decide what is next

Success, no matter what it is in should be celebrated as an acknowledgement of the effort, as well as the achievement. The celebration when managed well becomes hugely motivating to everyone concerned. A client of mine has in their main office an old ships bell, been there for as long as anyone can remember. At any time, any person who believes something of value has been achieved that everyone should know about has the right to ring the bell, at which time everything stops, and the ringer is able to tell the story. It started, I am told in the 50’s as a device to let everyone know when a big order was secured, but has since evolved to enable achievements of any kind to be celebrated, and a part of  the celebration is that the ringer has to commit to the next objective, what ever that may be. It sometimes still records a big order, but these days more often records the success of a factory  improvement team, or  the successful trialling of a new piece of equipment, and occasionally a personal achievement like the passing of an exam. The bell has become a symbol of the culture of celebration and commitment that drives the performance of the whole business.

A great framework for us all.

 

 

Census night melt-down was expected

Census night melt-down was expected

Aug 11, 2016 | Governance, Leadership

Human beings are pre-disposed to trust, is it a part of our evolutionary DNA, we need each other to survive. We all know we are stronger in a group, relate to those similar to us, who share similar histories and beliefs, and who are held to us by shared relationships.

We need to feel that someone we know and trust ‘has our back’

British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed in the 1990’s that there was a cognitive limit to the number of relationships an individual could hold at any one time,  of 150, now known as Dunbar’s number.

However, and it is a huge ‘however’, trust has to be earned over time, it is never just given without thought and an emotional commitment. It is this emotional component of trust that leads to the  depth of emotion when we are let down by someone we trusted, because it is not just a let down, it is a betrayal.

Tuesday’s census was a debacle. It makes absolute sense (no pun intended) to collect the data electronically, unless of course the arrangements made to receive the information are inadequate. Predictably as soon as the servers crashed, the inevitability of which was widely assumed outside the cocoon of Canberra, nobody was prepared to recognise the stuff-up for what it was. The Canberra two-step blame game was in immediate view.

‘Of course it was  not a stuff up, it was the hackers’ is not a defence that allays any of the cynicism of the population, sick to death of the self serving bullshit fed to us in the expectation that we will just keep on believing.

Our so called leaders wonder aloud at the drastic decline of public trust in our institutions over the last 25 years, and I wonder why they are so publicly naive, as few of them are completely stupid.

Trust comes with consistent over-delivery on undertakings. We listen to the words, but it is the actions that really count. It is no different in small groups to the whole community, business and elsewhere, we trust those who do as they say, and say as they do.

Our political institutions in all their manifestations have consistently and significantly over-promised and under-delivered over the last 25 years, and that is the sole reason we do  not trust them, and the census night debacle has been met with a collective sigh of resignation to the inevitable.

Credit to Larry Pickering for  the header cartoon

PS. Two further thoughts that occurred during the day.

  1. How reliable will the data really be? I can hear the blathering now, assuring us that all is well, but where have we heard similar assurances before?
  2. Will those who failed to fill in the forms on Tuesday be fined, or perhaps they will the sue the Bureau of Stats for making false promises? Make false promises in advertisements and public utterings in the private sector and you have the the consumer protection grizzley’s after you.

 

 

Has Woolworths done enough?

Has Woolworths done enough?

Jul 29, 2016 | Governance, Leadership, Management

I have been around long enough to see Coles and Woolworths swap places a couple of times. It seems that just like most blood sports, there is room only for one at a time at the top. This is understandable given that between them they have 70% plus of grocery sales, depending on whose numbers you use.

While Woolworths are still on top by most measures, Coles are rising like a phoenix from the ashes, and Woolies are desperately trying to halt the slide they embarked on several years ago.

Mondays announcement of job cuts, store closures, and a $967 million write-down has been a while coming, and must be a bitter pill following on the heels of the decision to exit the Masters hardware business after  incurring significant losses.

They have been progressively winding down the Thomas Dux, business, which in my view will prove to be a short sighted decision, symptomatic of the strategic malaise that has haunted Woolies after a decade of stellar performance.

The announcement also indicated 4 of the ‘Metro’ branded stores will close, presumably because they do not deliver the required return. While those stores, like Thomas Dux, might not be performing to expectations, they should both be seen as experiments at the edge, in anticipation of the acknowledged trends slowly transforming our lifestyle. In the case of Dux, a desire by a small but growing number of consumers for the unusual, products of superior quality, with clear provenance, and for Metro, the convenience for commuters, and CBD dwellers.   The potential strategic research value of both, assuming they were well managed (which Dux was not towards the end) would be well worth the slightly less than benchmark returns, as in reality the absolute numbers would be tiny.

Nipping on everyone’s heels is Aldi, whose success over the last 15 years or so has been substantial. There are now 423 stores, and Aldi is currently opening 4 or 5 new ones a month. The Aldi business model is hard for Woolies and Coles to beat with their current set-up, so they probably should stop trying, and find another way. 1000 Aldi Sku’s vs 12-20,000 in Woolies and Coles keeps Aldi  transaction costs low, as does the uncomplicated trading terms with suppliers. In store, Aldi pay far fewer staff very well by comparison, and by observation lead and motivate them very well, benefiting from the resultant productivity. Meanwhile they generate store traffic with the low prices, and quirky weekly specials that promise to be sold out quickly, creating a sense of shopper urgency. In addition, their fixed overheads on stores would be much lower than the two gorillas due to the smaller floor space, and less expensive locations.

After all the financial engineering is done, I trust that Woolworths management and more importantly the front line staff will remember that it is the little things in the stores  that really counts to their customers as they spend their money. They could  not care less about the head office  shenanigans, they can always go down the road when they see better value for their ‘hard-earned’.

 

 

 

How desperately does politics need a strategic makeover?

How desperately does politics need a strategic makeover?

Jul 27, 2016 | Change, Leadership

The train smash that doubled as the recent Australian  federal election, and more tellingly, the ‘cluster-intercourse’ (politeness overcame me) that is the US presidential race have something in common.

They both lack any sort of the foundations for prosperity that we demand, indeed, regulate for, in our corporations.

In a corporation, when you do  not deliver the results, shareholders move their money elsewhere. Not so in Government.

In a corporation, when the leadership fails to deliver promised results they  get fired. Not so in Government, although some do carry the can for the rest, usually on a Last In First Out basis.

In a  corporation, if you tell a lie to shareholders, you can go to gaol. Not so in government.

In a corporation, when you do  not adequately articulate a realistic and achievable financial plan, bankers will not lend you money. Not so in Government.

In a corporation, when there is a noisy minority mouthing nonsense, you ignore them, or make polite fun of  them. Not so in Government, indeed, it seems that the noisy minority often successfully drives the agenda.

How have we allowed this to happen, after all it is supposed to be a democracy, although sometimes I wonder, as who in their right mind would vote for any of the above.

A year ago, the notion that an ego driven billionaire with no experience in government, little affinity to anything beyond his own interests, and little apparent relationship with the truth would be the US President was a laughable prospect. Now he is one of two in a race to the finish.

No laughing matter anymore is it?

How has this happened?

It seems to me that Trump has succeeded wildly where the Liberal party in Australia failed.

He has mastered the tools of immediacy marketing, social media platforms, particularly Twitter, and leveraged the fact that our journalistic capacity has been so  gutted, along with the attention span of the electorate, that the capacity for sensible and measured comment and debate has been removed. Have you noticed that everything anyone on the Democratic party side says gets a Trump response, often an outrageous one, on twitter within 5 minutes. The media picks it up, and in the absence of anyone on the newsrooms not playing Pokemon Go, reprints it in entirety as news. Then a few huff and puff for 24 hours and it is  forgotten or replaced by the next piece of shambolic inconsistent nonsense. By contrast, the Democrats take a day or so when they are awake to comment on the next of Mr Trumps blatherings, and are not nearly as colourful and entertaining when they do so.

And I have not even mentioned Britain’s new Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, whose mastery of the entertaining absurd rivals that of Mr Trump.

The simple fact is that you do not get headlines with measured, thoughtful analysis of the facts, together with projections that are never favourable to everyone, but you do get headlines with sensational brain-farts that disappear almost as fast as they are produced.

Headlines are now news, there seems to be no demand for substance in excess of 140 characters.

However, that current state is no excuse for not trying. Without the effort to reform from the grass roots the way we select our leaders, and demand from them some level of quality in the political and economic debate, on top of a reasonable degree of integrity and transparency, we are all in deep doo-doo, and it is getting progressively deeper the longer we allow this to keep happening.

4 questions every business owner should ask themselves. Now.

4 questions every business owner should ask themselves. Now.

Jul 25, 2016 | Change, Governance, Leadership, Strategy

In principal, business is simple, sell something for more than it costs you too produce it. After that it gets more complicated, but is always tangled up with the word “Value”

It is a word with many meanings to different people in different contexts.

How do we create value?

Value, like beauty in the eye of the beholder, is in the eye of the user. Value means different things to different people in different circumstances, and figuring out how to add value to that customer under those circumstances is the secret sauce of success. The key to value identification is always to be able to see the offer you are making through the eyes of the customer.

How do we deliver value?

‘Value’ is only valuable when it delivers a benefit. If you have the only part in town that will fix a problem, that part only has value installed, it is no good in your toolbox.

The means by which you deliver value varies, and the business models available have exploded. Supermarkets have an entirely different model to a grocery home delivery service. While the products may be the same, and from time to time the customers the same, the circumstances under which they are used will never be he same.  AirbnB would not have been possible 10 years ago, two sided markets were simply too cumbersome except in capital intensive applications like a stock exchange. Similarly, the availability of digital versions of books, along with the spoken and traditional print versions deliver the value of a book in different ways.

How do we capture value?

Business is about getting paid for  the value delivery more than it cost you to provide it. Again, digital changed the game, just ask anyone in the newspaper business. Deep consideration of the most appropriate business model is required if you are to capture all the available value, and leave your customers happy enough  to go again.

Will it be the same tomorrow?

Almost certainly not.

And the day after tomorrow, there will have been substantial change. How you react to or better, anticipate the change will be the measure of how commercially sustainable your business really is.

One more really important thing to remember.

Businesses are inanimate collections of assets and processes that can do nothing by themselves. They need people to make them work, to create the environment that accommodates the four factors above. The old cliche of people being our most important asset has never been truer than in this current environment of accelerating change.

Is technology killing advertising, and ruining our lives?

Is technology killing advertising, and ruining our lives?

Jul 20, 2016 | Governance, Leadership, Marketing

A while ago I asked the question ‘Is the net killing marketing creativity‘ and came to the conclusion that the instant gratification now apparently demanded in all phases of our lives has indeed killed creativity.

Perhaps tritely I put it down to the not so bright amongst the marketing fraternity taking the easy way out, because it was the only one they could see.

However, the question does require some greater consideration.

That technology has overtaken us is indisputable, giving us the potential for focus and reach in addition to great  performance metrics, but creativity requires more than just speed. It requires subtlety, deep understanding of those with whom you are communicating, a capacity to see yourself through the eyes of others, and a willingness to be different and take risks.

It is in these latter areas that advertising is failing, badly.

For the uninitiated, ‘Martech’ seems to have caught on as the phrase of the moment, very intelligently pushed by my colleague Scott Brinker on the Chief Martech blog.

A subset of the Martech environment is the ‘Adtech’ tools, which have automated advertising, the most obvious but far from the only manifestation of creativity. Whether it  be on line or in an analogue environment, only the means of delivery has changed, not the need to engage, entice, intrigue and advise readers.

The ad industry has certainly been damaged, although great swathes of it have just got what they deserved, being mediocre purveyors of wasted investment, and unwilling to see the writing on the wall, although it was their wall.

The technology has been abused, and consumers have turned off it all, and the evidence for  that is everywhere.

Over 400 million people, 22% of smart phone owners use ad blockers to insulate themselves from advertising, and the number is currently higher on desk-top devices.

Web advertising has evolved quickly into the digital version of the crap that fills your letterbox, direct response, discount coupons, price promos, untargeted rubbish. Where is the recognition that advertising has a higher purpose, it is an investment in the long term, things called ‘brands’.

Remember them?

And as for advertisers, they are slowly waking up to the fact that up to 40% of their ads are being seen only by robots, and last I looked they do not buy much. In addition, the media placement is now often done by so called ‘programmatic buying’ which is a way of removing the insight and intuition of people from the process, saving money and pocketing the difference. While sellers tout the value of programmatic buying, and in some circumstances it does have merit, the major benefit is their pockets, not the advertisers marketing outcomes.

More fool the marketers I guess, they are getting what they deserve.

I will show my colors here, as little investigative reporting as we have come to know it being done in the digital space. Where would Australians be without people like Kate McClymont of Sydney’s SMH who almost single handedly, and against great odds provided the impetus that led to the conviction of Eddie Obeid for fraud, and exposed the predation of members of the Catholic church clergy in Newcastle that led to the current Royal Commission. Google and Facebook have no interest in this sort of journalism, paid for by advertising, and benefiting the society we live in.

As for consumers, we have had our privacy thrown against the digital wall. My kids seem less concerned than me, but nevertheless, I am bothered by the implications, as well as those bloody ads for stuff I do not want that follow me wherever I digitally go.

And as for the digital security of us all, when hackers find 138 holes in the pentagon web sites, good luck with the security of your google account.