February 21, 2011

Five Steps to Create your ONLY Statement

SHOUTS for the ONE and ONLY 
What’s Your Remarkable Point of View? 
Absolutes of the ONLY 
The ONLY Statement: The Birth of Differentiation

If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re dead. If you’re not ReMARKABLE, you’re invisible. If you’re an indistinguishable member of the competitive herd you go unnoticed. And the end is near.

The ONLY Statement is your way out.

Here are the critical five steps to achieve the ONLY position:

1. The WHO - Figure out the Fans you are going to serve. You can’t be all things to all people. You don’t have unlimited resources. You need to focus your efforts on those customers who love what you do and who have te potential to satisfy your financial growth goals.

2. The WHAT - What will you deliver to the WHO? You must deliver VALUE (it’s about what your customers receive, not what you produce), BE Relevant (you had better address the top wants and desires of the customers you are going after). and BE Unique (you must be the ONLY ones who do what you do).

3. The ONLY - Craft your ONLY Statement. “We are the only ones that….”. Deliver Relevant Unique VALUE to the WHO. Claim the ONLY position.

4. The TEST - Check with your frontline people and the WHO. Is your ONLY Statement Relevant (does it address the top wants of your target customers?) AND is it True (do you really deliver what you say you do?). Don’t get carried away with your own thinking. Do a reality check before pronouncing your ONLY to the world.

5. The ACTION - Develop an action plan to implement your ONLY. Test it for relevance and believability. Communicate it internally. Translate it into behaviors you expect people to exhibit every day. Include these behaviors into your Performance Management System to make it matter. Compensate folks on the ONLY behaviors. Decide on the critical few things you need to do in order to breathe life into your ONLY.

There you have it. The lens through which you can grow your organization on the back of Delivering Happiness (thanks Tony H.) to your Fans.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 2.21.11 at 05:59 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 17, 2011

BE DiFFERENT on the Threes - Strategic Planning

THREES - Strategic Planning
BE DiFFERENT on the Threes
Dumb Rules: Barriers to Distinction
Fit in or Stand Out; You Choose

Your planning process must fit the realities organizations are confronted with these days. Volatility. Randomness. Chaos. Unpredictability. Relentless Change. Yet in spite of these dynamics, the traditional “Strategic Planning 101” model is still advocated by Educators and is used by most organizations. SWOTS, in-depth Issues Analysis, Predictability Modelling and Mathematical Assessment of Alternatives pervade the planning process. The objective seems to be to seek the last bit of perfection in the plan and then assume that it will be effectively executed as written.

BIG mistake. Nothing EVER turns out the way you planned. NOTHING. Nothing is EVER perfect (coveting the 100% solution is unproductive in any case).

The new planning model must BE FLEXIBLE. Must accommodate unexpected CHANGE. Must achieve RESULTS. Must generate ENTHUSIASM. Must scare the pants off the HERD.

Here are Three things you can do to to make your planning process more relevant:
1. Get your plan “just about right”. It will never be perfect so why bother? Get it directionally right. Don’t tie yourself down to an outcome based on “all things remaining equal” because they’re not.
2. EXECUTE flawlessly. Take your imperfect plan and BE Brilliant at executing it. Spend 80% of your time figuring out how to implement it and 20% determining it’s essence. It is a failure of leadership that plans fall short on execution.
3. LEARN and adjust on the run. Learn what’s working and not working through execution. And adjust your plan based on this learning. Build in a feedback lop so you get real time information on how well plan expectations are being achieved.

Get comfortable with the fact that your future is uncertain. Get comfortable with imprecision. With a bit of vagueness. With the fact that you CAN iterate yourself to success if you pay attention to your results and learn from them.

EXECUTION-DRIVEN Planning is what is needed to distinguish yourself from the competitive Herd. Take the step.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 2.17.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2011

Remember, Forecasting is ONLY a Tool.

BE DiFFERENT on the Threes
Dumb Rules: Barriers to Distinction
Go Small or Go Home
Back to School for Sales 

In today’s volatile environment, random external events challenge the traditional techniques used to manage them. Many businesses, however, still rely almost exclusively on traditional forecasting tools
and models to predict where they will be in the future, leaving little room for these unexpected events. Exclusive use of these tools to predict business outcomes could be a recipe for disaster.

You simply cannot assume that the future will be an extension of the past. To do so would suggest that past successes will determine future wins. In an all-things-remaining-equal environment you might
be able to get away with this. But the fact is that as a business looks forward in time, all things are not equal. The only thing we can count on is facing uncertainty at an accelerating pace with significant impact on our organizations.

I am not suggesting that predictive tools and methodologies do not play a valuable role in business. They do. They offer one version of an outcome. But that outcome may likely be wrong. We have all seen how unexpected forces in the market cause a predicted outcome to fall short of expectations.

Think of the trend line version of your future as a baseline view from which you need to be prepared to move when things start to go haywire. I admit that in the rarest of circumstances a random event may create a windfall for a company; when it does, rejoice. And then prepare yourself for a shock that will take you in the opposite direction.
Successful organizations understand the need to learn from the past and apply that learning to future scenarios. They also know that we can count on facing predictable uncertainty at an accelerating pace, causing organizational discontinuity. They must lead into an uncertain future by introducing new ideas, concepts and tools to prevent organizational mortality. Those that don’t, continue to toil on in the mistaken belief that the actions behind past successes will continue to work in the future.

This momentum management results in the demise of organizations. The issue is not whether it will happen, but when.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 2.14.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 10, 2011

BE DiFFERENT on the Threes

Based on feedback from my readers and Seminar attendees, I have decided to write a series of “Three” Articles summarizing the key Practices in my work. These sound-bites will be based not only on my Book but also on my Blog Articles .

Again, my BE DiFFERENT Practices are not merely theoretical constructs. These are things I have successfully executed in my 30+ year career as a leader in a variety of businesses. The Practices I talk about are both Practical and Proven. They are challenging to execute, but they work.

And they work regardless the type of business you have and the size of your business. And they apply to not-for-profits as well. ALL organizations are coveting the solution to be recognized as ReMARKABLE and truly different in the market.

Why “Three” Articles? Well, if you have been following me for awhile you know that I believe in Roy’s Rule of Three; that in order to get things done and achieve real progress, we need to focus on the critical few things that really matter as opposed to the many things there are potentially to do. Getting caught up in The Activity Trap is not where you want to be. It leads to organizational dysfunction (people doing too many things which are often in conflict) and productivity drain (diffused activity causes little progress towards strategic goals is made).

Plus I also believe that the learning process is enhanced when people are exposed to information in bite-sized chunks. Too much information being bombarded at a person at one time is like drinking through a fire-hose and really doesn’t achieve the optimum amount of learning.

I hope you enjoy this distillation of BE DiFFERENT. Maybe it will result in a new book….. hmmmm….

As always I am interested in your comments and views. Please send them along.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 2.10.11 at 05:59 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)