Mar 28, 2010 | Management, Sales
The only way to win is to attack, you can prevent being beaten by defense, but as any football coach knows, defense will not win.
Same in business, you need to understand your strengths and weaknesses compared to the opposition, and exploit the strengths, whilst covering for the weaknesses.
Having an intimate understanding of the key customers, those who will spread the word of your product or service is as good as having the opposition playbook
The only way to get a crystal clear picture of the oppositions position is to experiment, continually ask the questions of them by experimenting, testing, & understanding their response, be restless, and inquisitive, probe, analyse, question, form and test hypothesis. Sounds a bit like the scientific method, and continuous improvement.
Mar 23, 2010 | Branding, Management, Social Media
The phenomena of social media is one that businesses need to understand, and be ready to respond when, rather than if, it gets difficult.
The Nestle Facebook page has been overrun by new “fans” after the publicity surrounding their practices of using palm oil sourced from Indonesia from areas with questionable sustainability practices. On Twitter when I checked a short time ago there were many entries, most about the palm oil, and all of them unhappy.
Justified or otherwise, businesses need to be on the front foot to be able to respond positively, and proactively to the potential of social media to undo brand integrity overnight.
The destruction of a brand, or in Nestles case, many brands is much easier than their construction,
At some point, all organizations will come under the scrutiny of groups utilizing the tools of the social media if they leave any openings at all, and these groups are currently better organised, better focused, and better able to mobilise support. Being proactive is no longer the task that should be given to the graduate trainee, but should be a board issue, as it is a major risk to the Intellectual capital and therefore value of a business.
Mar 11, 2010 | Leadership, Management
I often see businesses rewarding one behavior, whilst seeking an entirely different one. A Managing Director I worked for many years ago used to bang on about the long term the strategy, and values of the organisation, whilst beating (metaphorically) the daylights out of anyone who missed the monthly budget. Guess what people focused on.
When you align the rewards, and we are not just talking about money here, other things are usually more important, particularly recognition, with the desired outcomes, it is very powerful, but a misalignment is usually destructive.
When I trained my dog, I pushed on his bum and said “sit” when I wanted him to sit, and gave him a doggy biscuit when he sat. The desired outcome and the reward were aligned. Had I said sit, and given him a biscuit when he barked, the behavior outcome would have been different.
People are a bit more complicated that dogs, but you get the message.
The link will take you to a classic article from 1975, that relates stories of situations where one outcome is required, but the reward is for a different outcome. It is as valid today as it was in 1975, and I like the stories.
Mar 3, 2010 | Innovation, Management, Strategy
The great pressure for “innovation” comes at least partly from the buy in of senior executives in the notion promulgated by numerous thinkers that the only really sustainable competitive advantage is the capability to out innovate the competition.
However, in the rush for new products and processes, some have forgotten the real outcome of successful innovation is cash, and common sense, discipline, and experience get thrown away in the rush for the newest thing, that more often than not adds little value to the customer experience.
Mar 2, 2010 | Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
“Training” has become the default position in many circumstances where employees are required to learn a new skill, revise an existing one, or become familiar with a new product or process. At the end of the process, most will retain little of the training.
By contrast, education is a process of developing the ability to think, ask questions, be critical without being personal, reflect on outcomes and find flaws in the hypothesis, or just join the dots differently.
It follows that education takes longer, is more challenging to the educator, is far more engaging for the “educatee”, and will pay greater dividends in the long run.
As Confucious is reported to have said;
“Tell me and I will forget,
Show me and I may remember,
Involve me and I will understand”
After all, you train dogs, you educate people.
Feb 28, 2010 | Change, Management, Sales, Strategy
How many times have we heard this as a smart front line operator expresses frustration with the attitudes of the executive suite, the redundancy of the business model, or the strategy being pursued, as again, the “bosses” appear to fail to understand the coal face drivers of success.
The most common cause of this cry is becoming the rapid commoditisation of many markets, and those that see it first are usually on the front lines. Suddenly, long term customers are turning away, a new competitor emerges, and the only tool the troops have left is price, and they are pushed to do more with less.
Short term responses to a fundamental change in the business model necessary to be commercially sustainable won’t get you far, at best it will put off the inevitable. You need to ask yourself a couple of key questions:
- How can I differentiate my commodity product to a smaller market, instead of being all things to all people?
- How can I solve a problem someone has with the existing commodity product and service?
- How do I deploy my resources to make it happen, recognising , often this will mean adding a different type of resource.
