Destiny is not a matter of
chance; it is a matter of
choice.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

ARE YOU DRIVEN
TO CONSTANTLY IMPROVE?

You’ve come to the right place.

Here you’ll find models, methods, practices, and processes
to help you develop the right focus, create the right environment,
build the right team, and embody the right commitment.
To get the right results.

Two Sides of Implementation

Your organizational change effort has failed. Why? Did it have more to do with the technical side or the people side of the implementation? The people side, right? Yet, what did you spend most of your time planning for? Of course, the technical side. I’ve heard the same from hundreds of executives. We plan for the technical side but fail on the people side.

So what’s the solution? Total Project Management. Plan for the people side as rigorously as you do the technical side. That means making sure your people understand and buy into the what, why and how of change. Ensuring they are equipped, coached and supported to make the change happen. And that they feel valued – respected and understood.

Technical and people. Both are necessary. Neither is sufficient. Total Project Management. 

Your thoughts?

Michael

Complacency Kills

I find it amazing how many businesses use their past successes as justification to not change. As if past success reliably predicts future success.  As if competitive landscapes are static. As if the economic environment is stable.

Everyone repeat after me: “What made us successful in the past could kill us in the future.” Complacency kills. There is no guarantee of success, no entitlement. How many examples do we need? Aloha Airlines. Bombay Company. Borders. Crabtree & Evelyn. Mervyns. Nortel. Ritz Cameras. Sharper Image. Ultimate Electronics. Wachovia. And that’s just the past few years.

(See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_business_failures for a historical listing.)

Organizations that continually thrive maintain a healthy dissatisfaction with the status quo. A healthy paranoia about their prospects. They ask, “what if”, trying to anticipate the worst. They question their assumptions about themselves, their customers and their competitors.

Sure, it’s great to recognize and celebrate your successes. Just don’t stay too late at the party.

Your thoughts?

Michael 

Competitive Intel

It doesn’t matter how good your products and services are.

It doesn’t matter how good your customers think your products and services are.

What ultimately matters is how good your customers think your products and services are versus how good they think your competitors’ products and services are. It’s all about competition.

Yet I find that many mid-sized companies know next to nothing about their competitors. How can you continually compete and win if you don’t know who you’re competing with, their relative advantages and disadvantages, and how those are perceived in the marketplace?

You can’t.

Solution: Competitive intelligence. Identify, investigate and track your competitors. Do the searches. Ask your vendors. Ask your customers, former customers, and future customers. Ask your sales reps. Ask your employees who have come from the competition. Keep a database and assign responsibilities for updating and monitoring it. And, as an executive team, insist on a summarized review each quarter. 

You might have a customer who is reasonably happy with your products and services today …  and who might fire you tomorrow. Compete.

Your thoughts?

Michael

 

Stop Strategic Planning

Stop strategic planning.  Strategic planning is an event and events don’t produce results. Processes do.  Think of strategy as a process to be managed – a Strategic Management Process.

A robust Strategic Management Process should be linked to your organization’s fiscal year and cycle through four phases:

  1. Assessment – determining the forces and trends impacting your organization and what is driving you to change
  2. Positioning – establishing a clear and concise identity and ambition
  3. Planning – outlining how success will be achieved
  4. Implementation – instituting the mechanisms to build commitment, align the organization and manage execution

When strategic planning ends, people go back to work and the plan collects dust. With Strategic Management there is no end.  Strategic execution is emphasized just as much as day-to-day operational execution.

Put an end to the strategic planning charade.  If you’re serious about establishing and sustaining the right focus, then commit to an annual process of strategy development and execution. Commit to Strategic Management.

Your thoughts?

Michael

Ruthless Consistency: A Philosophy for Winning

Inconsistency kills.  When you as a leader act inconsistently you kill your credibility. You demotivate your people. And you undermine your ability to win.

What does inconsistency look like?  When you say one thing but do another. When your work environment sets up your people to fail.  When you put the wrong people in the wrong positions.  When your strategy is out of touch with market realities.  Every example of organizational failure I have come across is a result of inconsistency.

What’s the solution?  Ruthless Consistency.  If you are truly committed to winning – however you define it – then that commitment must be consistently reflected in what you say and what you do.  In what you don’t say and don’t do. The decisions you make, the actions you take.  All the time.  Every time.  Ruthless Consistency.

It means developing and sustaining the right focus for your organization.  It means getting the right people in the right positions.  And it means creating the right environment so your people can and will do what it takes to win.

Do you have the right commitment to make this happen?

Michael