September 10, 2010

BE DiFFERENT YOU! Change Leaders Needed

BE DiFFERENT people are proactively adaptive who thirst for change. They drive change as opposed to letting change drive them. They enthusiastically embrace the change process and treat it as an opportunity for the organization and themselves as opposed to treating change as a threat and something that can be avoided. They are good at anticipating how things will unfold but are brilliant reaction agents, reacting to an unforeseen event when it occurs. When Plan A is in jeopardy they move to Plan B in a heartbeat.

They are Change Leaders, as opposed to their more traditional organizational cousin, the Change Manager.

Change Managers want to perpetuate the momentum of the business, and reluctantly move into the change mode when the forces on them leave no other option. The Change Manager isn’t GREAT at reacting; they are limp reaction agents, reluctant to change and get dragged into it kicking and screaming with the real motive to keep the status quo for as long as possible. They act from the belief that change can be affected in a controlled and organized fashion and tend to look to incremental improvements to address the challenges of the day. Change Managers are students of the softer more evolutionary methods of organizational change. Incremental thinkers drive incremental change which often falls short of what is required.

Don’t look to Change Managers to be proactive and initiate required changes in your organization. Don’t look to a Change Manager for adrenalin-rushed reaction to move in a different direction as a result of unanticipated events. They simply will not do it. And don’t look for an out of the box alternative to the current way of operating your business; they will always be governed at best by modest incremental changes to the current operating model.

Change Leaders, on the other hand, understand that real change with breakthrough benefits for the organization is the result of introducing discontinuities to the current business model. They are proactive and are constantly on the lookout for operating models for running the business so that revolutionary break-through changes can be achieved. And in the face of unexpected events challenging the performance of their organization, expect Change Leaders to enthusiastically react with a sense of urgency to determine the appropriate life-saving course of action to take. Change Leaders will present your organization with tough decisions because their proposals will require taking higher risks to yield greater rewards. Expect them to make your organization uncomfortable with the inherent risks associated with the order of magnitude changes they bring forward.

To BE DiFFERENT, YOU must develop a plan to be a Change Leader; it won’t happen by serendipity. You will discover that most of your colleagues will fall into the change manager category and that differentiating yourself is very achievable and will get you the kind of currency in your organization that will highlight you for future opportunities.

Here are some things YOU need to consider to build a change leadership persona:
> Use your personal network to discover the most critical issues the organization is facing. You can’t lead change unless you have an intimate understanding of the threats and opportunities likely to impact your business future.
> Roy’s Rule of 3: focus on the critical few things that will deliver the maximum number of benefits to the organization. Beware of the long action plan list; you have neither the time nor the energy to do ten or twelve things really well nor will they be equally important in terms of the positive impact they produce. Look for 20% of the actions - your critical few list - that will deliver 80% of the needed results and get going. The long action plan list - pursuing numerous tactics - is a symptom of sloppy strategic thinking: a lack of appreciating the few actions required to produce the greatest impact. Chasing numerous tactics may make you feel good about how busy you are, but it can be deadly in terms of achieving real progress. 
> Be anal about executing your top priorities. Don’t get mesmerized by the brilliance of your idea; it’s worthless until you do something about it and achieve positive results.
> Take on a let’s do it differently attitude and way of working. Avoid linear thinking. Be a lateral thinker and look for out-of-the-box solutions to problems in the organization.
> Purge your vocabulary of words like evolutionary change and incremental change in favor of breakthrough and revolutionary change.
> Get on the internal speaking circuit. Talk up the importance of creating discontinuity for your organization as the way to meet the challenges your organization is facing and generate economic opportunity.
> Increase your scope of experience and expertise and be available to take on challenges in a variety of roles in your organization.
> Read insatiably, and develop a portfolio of new concepts and ideas that could be applied to solve your pressing business problems or lead your organization in new directions.
> Learn what others are doing to achieve extraordinary gains. Take what might work for your organization. Modify it and adapt it FAST. Be a Constructive Emulator. Find an exciting idea, adapt it to work for your own organization with a BE DiFFERENT flair and implement it with fire-in-the-belly. A word of caution. In Chapter Six of BE DiFFERENT or be dead I talk about the potential pitfalls of benchmarking your organization to another. Copying a Best in Class company may improve your performance relative to where you are now, but it won’t necessarily create uniqueness for you in the market and make you DiFFERENT. As a Change Leader YOU need to think beyond Best in Class .
> Seek out others in the organization others who aspire to be Change Leaders. Encourage them. Mentor them. Support them in their day to day activities. And be seen to be doing it.

Stay tuned for more YOU Articles.

Cheers, Roy

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Other YOU Articles
The Context for BE DiFFERENT YOU
Covet the Fox
Change Leaders Needed

Posted 9.10.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 21, 2010

(Still Another) Six Competencies to Covet

This is the final Six until I learn more personal traits that lead organizations to BE DiFFERENT...

> REACTION MANIAC —a HUGE aspect of surviving a major (or minor for that matter) screw-up is responding to what has occurred in the right (read as “Loyalty Building”) way. The truth is, a successful Recovery actually builds Customer Loyalty MORE than if the mistake never happened. Counter-intuitive I know, but true. Remember the BE DiFFERENT formula: Service Recovery = FIX it + Do the UNEXPECTED (the Dazzle Factor).

> MELLOW YELLOW —you really do need folks that react well under extreme pressure. See Competency above. STOP—PAUSE—THINK—RESPOND THOUGHTFULLY. This is tough to train people in (sometimes I think it is impossible). Covet the Competency.

> “I’LL REMEMBER YOU”—Memories….. the fact is a good memory will go a long way to dazzling a customer. It shows you paid attention the last time you connected with the person. It shows you care enough to remember. True story: this year’s vacation at the Maui Ocean Club in Kaanapali Maui. Mellisa greets us as we check in. First thing she says “Welcome home Mr. and Mrs. Osing. How are the book sales going? Have you written your second book yet?”. Impressive. Dazzling. A Memorable Moment for me. A story to tell.

> CONSTRUCTIVE EMULATOR—tough to come up with an original idea these days. Go find someone else’s idea that excites you. Morph it to work in your organization. Execute it with passion. Infect others with the Desire. A BE DiFFERENT copying skill is worth its weight in gold…. and survivability.

> NANO-INCH SEEKER—there’s no such thing as a Silver Bullet. Progress is made by having a distinguishing Strategic Game Plan and executing it flawlessly…. inch-by-inch-by-inch. Get an inch of progress FAST. Look for people who have demonstrated this capability.

> CUSTOMER EMPATHY—can you look at yourself through the customer’s eyes? No, I mean REALLY look. Objectively. Compassionately. Solution-mindedly. It’s not about your organization; it’s about the Customer Moment and you need Practising Empathizers if you want raving lunatic fans as customers (which we all do).

How are you doing? Out of the eighteen Competencies I have discussed so far, what percentage does your organization Covet? 100%—you’re dreaming! Over 50%—you’re on the right track and have the RIGHT momentum going. Less than 50%—you need a Competencies to Covet Plan (probably a renewed Strategic Game Plan to provide a new context for your organization should precede this).

As usual you comments would be appreciated. Your stories as well.

Cheers, Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter

Other Competencies to Covet Blog Articles
Six Competencies to Covet
Another Six to Covet
Still Another Six to Covet

Posted 7.21.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 18, 2010

BE DiFFERENT YOU! Covet the Fox

The Fox in any organization is the key manager or executive that has the greatest amount of influence on a particular decision to be made. In the Sales application, it would be the key individual in the customer’s organization that will make the buy decision on the solution they are seeking; if your solution is to be successful, you need to figure out a way to make it stand out above your competitor’s in the eyes of the Fox.
Your Be Different YOU challenge is exactly the same as in the sales example. You represent a solution to a hiring manager’s problem and you must clearly differentiate YOU from your competition so that he or she concludes that YOU are the only person who should be afforded the opportunity. Here are some Practices to consider:

> Identify the leaders in the organization who are making the key business and people decisions today and are likely to be doing so over the next year or so. In Chapter Ten of BE DiFFERENT or be dead, I suggested that a critical component of building a strategic game plan for an organization is to answer the ‘WHO do you want to SERVE?’ question. This is the customer group - the worthy - that represents the best economic opportunity for the organization and as a result is given the highest priority in resources allocated to it. Treat Foxes in the same way. The Foxes in an organization need to be carefully identified and targeted just as you would any other customer group that held the potential for your success. You will be allocating a significant amount of your time and energy on them and you need to be sure that they have the potential to deliver significant benefits to you. If you choose incorrectly you will not receive the expected return on your personal investment.

> Discover their expectations and secrets. In Chapter Twenty-Five of BE DiFFERENT or be dead I discussed the need for organizations to discover customer secrets as a critical component of customerizing their marketing function through customer learning. If you have a deep intimate understanding of your customer, you are in a position to delight them in a way none other can hope to do. The same goes for marketing YOU to a Fox. The value proposition you present for yourself is much more powerful if it is based on what you understand to be the intimate profile of the person you are targeting. Google them and get as much information as you can on them. Also leverage your social media networks to get the information you are looking for.

Here are a few secret gathering questions to answer on the Fox:
— What history do they have in hiring people? What do they typically look for?
— What do they typically look for in a candidate to fill a particular position?
— What questions do they ask? What has their career path been? What positions have they held?
— What are they famous for? What strengths do they possess that have made them successful?
— What do they do outside of their job?
— Are they married? Do they have a family? Do you know their names?

> Don’t flog YOU as a product with a narrow set of competencies. Success comes by marketing yourself with as broad a range of skills and expertise that the organization values in progressing to its desired future. This is a key point. In Section Three of BE DiFFERENT or be dead, I discussed the practice of creating value-based Holistic Offers for the customers you choose to serve rather than flogging products with a narrow range of benefits to mass markets. This discipline works for YOU just as well as it does for an organization looking to take its marketing efforts to a new level. Think about yourself as a Holistic Offer with a broad range of value attributes. The challenge is to select and focus on the value elements - or develop them if you don’t have them - that address the key issues facing the organization. Value elements could include: MBA in Marketing and Finance, demonstrated achievement in building business strategy, changing a marketing culture from a product focus to be more customer focussed, building market share in competitive markets, improving customer service 25% over a 12 month period, external speaking engagements on competitive strategy and marketing, building strong teams and consultative selling skills.

> Be proactive in discovering the opportunities that will be coming up in the organization. If you have a good relationship with the foxes this will aid the process. In addition, stay tuned into the informal communications network in your organization as it is often very effective in knowing when change is in the wind. With an informed outlook of the possibilities, you can take whatever action you feel appropriate to take advantage of them should they arise.

Stay tuned for more YOU Articles…

Cheers, Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter

Other YOU Articles
The Context for BE DiFFERENT YOU
Covet the Fox

Posted 7.18.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 14, 2010

(Another) Six Competencies to Covet

Hope the first six-pack was useful. Here are six more traits to acquire in your Competency Coveting journey:

> LIFELONG LEARNER—If you’re not learning you’re dead (or soon will be). Look for evidence that prospects have been active learners. What areas are they interested in? Who have they learned from? How can their learnings be put to use in your organization?

> INFECTION AGENT—the ability to “infect others” with the virus of your Strategic Game Plan is critical in terms of executing it. Some people have the interest, passion and tenacity to get others excited about advancing the cause. Find them!

> FRIEND-MAKING—deep customer relationships result in a revenue stream that goes on forever. Such connections depend on trust… and friendship.

> STORYTELLING—stories “breathe life” into a strategy. They paint pictures of what it looks like when a Strategic Game Plan is being successfully executed in the field. You need people who can “light their eyes up” with a story about some aspect of your strategy. Talk the event. Talk the person. Talk…..

> SIMPLE THINKER—BE DiFFERENT is simplicity. Execution is simplicity. Elegance that can’t be implemented is worthless. Think Simple. Find Simple. Dumb EVERYTHING down.

> @CONNECT—think about this one from an internal perspective. Results (i.e. delivering what the customer wants) are produced through processes working ACROSS the organization and vertically. A customer Order is created in Sales; fulfilled in Operations and billed in Accounting. A team of people engage together to get the job done. This requires the ability to CONNECT with others and build effective relationships with them. Service breakdowns often occur when a link in the teamwork chain breaks. Constant CONNECTIONS go a long way to avoiding such problems.

Hope you are enjoying my Ride to Covet. Let me know your views and any comments you may have.

More comin’ at ya….

Cheers, Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter

Other Competencies to Covet Blog Articles
First Six to Covet

Posted 7.14.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)