Marketing, marketing, marketing
So many organisations are having to respond to the demands of the global knowledge economy, be they in the public, the private or the ‘not for profit’ sectors.
Today:
• customers often want and expect more value for less cost• competitors can emerge from anywhere on the globe• market places are evolving as we speak• technology can revolutionise business models at 186k miles per second
Many people are now using the unique bull’s eye technique to clarify the direction and velocity of their organisation. They then use the SWOT analysis to establish their Key Change Project. All organisations have a Key Change Project (KCP), whether the directors realise it or not.
The KCP could be about the structure of the organisation, it could be about the culture, it could be about finance or it could be about Information Technology.
Eight times out of ten it is about marketing.
All tanked up
We have a fish tank at home comprising a variety of freshwater species from our very own River Wye that flows down from the mountains of Wales.
Some of the fish are extroverts because they are always on show, ducking and darting around the tank, feeding at any level and generally being highly visible at any time. These fish include chub, dace and bleak.
Other inhabitants are introverts because they prefer to keep a low profile. They feed mainly on the bottom and prefer to live life under the weed or away from any light or movement on our part. The fish include roach, loach and gudgeon.
The interesting thing about a mixed tank is that there are occasions when the extroverts will be behave like introverts and the entire population are to be seen skulking together on the bottom. On other occasions roles are reversed and the roach and gudgeon can be seen cavorting around the tank.
Now some weeks ago we had a fault on our pumping system and half the population died overnight. All the extroverts perished died because these are the species that are most susceptible to oxygen deficiency.
Now we have a tank that is so dull and so unimaginative. There is hardly any movement or activity from fish that all behave in a similar way. You could say that the mix of extroverts and introverts, the sheer diversity, produced relationships where one and one makes three or four.
It is exactly the same in a Board Room.
Double Standards
Sometimes organisations go public with all the things they are going to do for customers, stakeholders, the community, the environment and employees. But the words don't always match the deeds.I'm not sure why this is, especially when the intentions are sound and most people believe that they really do want to do these things. But then something unexpected happens like an employee who, although they are doing a good job, you would rather replace with somebody else. It's easy to dress up the justification for this behaviour, but I guess it's just expedient at the end of the day.Whatever this behaviour is, it certainly isn't congruent - one of the qualities of great leadership.
Self esteem rules
Proper self esteem is in short supply for some people in Board Rooms. It can be a problem to start with or other people can undermine it, be they colleagues or customers, suppliers or stakeholders.
Proper self esteem does not derive from crazy affirmations like walking barefoot on broken glass, abseiling down high buildings or white water rafting.
You can do all these things if you want, but genuine self esteem develops and grows stronger by using pragmatic, practical models of behaving and thinking that work for you and others on a regular basis.
As time passes circumstances in the organisation are never the same, but proper self esteem can be a constant whatever happens.
Bully for you
It is surprising how often I encounter bullying at director level. It’s not always director down to manager, but just as often it is between directors themselves. Some people try to dismiss the issue as a ‘personality clash’ or a ‘difference of opinion’ but the truth is invariably more profound.
The bully is usually suffering from low esteem or a lack of personal confidence, for one or several of a hundred reasons. The victim is frequently performing perfectly well but they have been chosen as an object of irrational criticism, derision and sometimes abuse.
So what do we do about it? Well we tackle it of course, at the earliest possible opportunity.
In this knowledge economy there is so much competition in the market place the very last thing we need is destructive competition in our organisation.
Girl Power
Sometimes a Bull’s Eye away day with a ‘same sex’ Board of Directors can be hard work. It’s as if there is something missing in the chemistry, and worst of all from my perspective as a male, can be an all male Board.
I recently had the pleasure to facilitate a Bull’s Eye day with a group of six, four male and two female. The two females are a relatively recent addition to the top team. Some years ago in the same organisation it was just the guys and some meetings could be dour, humourless affairs: as facilitator I was always aware of the need to somehow pump up the adrenalin.
Not so now. We had a great meeting with lots of energy, lots of ideas and plenty of laughter too. The females were robust, outspoken and challenging their male colleagues every step of the way on a packed agenda. At the end of the day we had twenty SMART action points linked to the Bull’s Eye.
Old and young, black and white, male and female, diversity always delivers.
The expertise imperative
So many people and organisations are out there floundering about in the market place. In personal service alone this could include accountants, solicitors, business advisers, consultants, mentors and coaches and many other denominations.
The problem is that customers want more for less in real terms and competitors can emerge from anywhere on the globe. And this information flow can happen at 186k miles per second. This week the directors of a recruitment agency asked me about one of their marketing initiatives.
I advised that there were too many words; the messages were mixed; there was no indication of expertise; the directors were entirely absent from the copy.
It’s all an accepted part of best practice, but today, you have to be an expert. I call it the ‘expertise imperative’. You have to focus on what makes you really special and then that’s what you take to market. For an organisaton it is the same. The clearer you are about what your expertise consists of, the more likely you will achieve business success, as represented by the bull’s eye that the directors sign off.
Too many people are offering too many competences and that’s what makes them average. And average isn’t good enough. It’s genuine, validated expertise that counts.
Sitting on the fence
I’m working with a CEO who is trying to decide on an investment of several million pounds that will effectively double the size of his business. On the one hand the decision to go ahead would be part of the bull’s eye for the organisation although there are considerable borrowing and interest repayments to consider. On the other hand there are personal considerations such imminent moving house, a young family and another baby on the way. The decision to invest would mean much more time spent away from home than is currently the case.
Now during the last two months my client has taken advice on the decision from just about every business contact he has. On several occasions he has been within a whisker of signing on the dotted line and on several other occasions he has been within a whisker of abandoning the project and concentrating on ‘business as usual’. But on the each occasion he has managed to climb back up and sit resolutely on the fence.
This trait can be a personality preference because some of us like to be planned, scheduled and sequential with closure being a priority. Others prefer to be flexible, spontaneous and responsive with gathering more information being a priority. So regular readers may be wondering, since I know so much about the particular circumstances, what sort of incisive, decisive advice I would give him.
Do you know, I’m really not sure.
Deluded
I spoke to a group of CEO’s recently about the potentially life changing concept of aligning their personal commitment to excellence to their organisational statement of excellence.
I was surprised to discover that the majority of those present did not in fact have any meaningful form of appraisal and therefore they didn’t actually have any personal development points.
Any leader that thinks they can have a bull’s eye statement of excellence for their organisation without a transparent commitment to their own personal excellence……………..is deluded.
Complexity
The knowledge economy is requiring faster and better responses to the external demands on the organisation. I was working with some people in business recently when it became clear that two executives thought that they were individually responsible for the same task and for the same outcomes.
This situation is not as uncommon as it sounds because things at the top of organisations are often changing so fast. Nonetheless when this does occur it wastes, time, energy and money.
These three things: time, energy and money are all the resources that we have to develop and sustain competitive advantage. So the quicker we move from complexity to simplicity the better we will perfom.
Getting lucky
I wonder how much it is that luck plays in successful leadership at the top of organisations.
I was walking along the banks of the beautiful River Wye near my home in Herefordshire a couple of days ago. There were strong gusts of wind whipping the rising river into foam on the surface but that‘s how the weather has been recently.
A little while later I returned along the same bank side route only to find a one hundred foot poplar tree fallen across my path. Inspection revealed that the entire central root system was rotten and that the only thing that had been holding it up was a few peripheral shoots.
I’m glad I missed the fall. Some people get lucky in a gale others are not so lucky. I wonder if the winds of change affect organisations in a similar way?
New Year’s Revolution
So many leaders are recognising the enormous value of genuine trust between people at the top of organisations. It is partly the speed of change of the product and service life cycle that is making trust a more and more valuable commodity.
Successful directors increasingly need to change what they do, how they think and how they behave; many of us have to do this faster and faster and faster. The most powerful way to develop high levels of trust in organisations works as follows:
* Get an external facilitator that is firstly trustworthy, and secondly totally unafraid to ask any question of anyone whatsoever.
* Take the Board of Directors of say, four people, and advise that they are going to appraise one another with the facilitator, starting with the CEO.
* Each appraisal will normally last between two and three hours, at the end of which each director will have two or three development points that link directly to the bull’s eye for the organisation.
* All directors are privy to each other’s personal development points. It is the sharing of this information that is the catalyst for great relationships where one and one really can make three or four.
Great relationships at the top are required in order to develop and sustain competitive advantage in the knowledge economy.
