Be Different or be dead

April 19, 2021

Why a sensational mentor doesn’t have to be really smart

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Why a sensational mentor doesn’t have to be really smart.

As a young professional, one of your main challenges is to find a mentor who can guide you in your career.

It’s virtually impossible to launch and navigate your career in this complicated world and make the right decisions without insights from someone with experience who can help you maximize your potential.
It’s a tough challenge; the right choice can accelerate your success and the wrong choice can hold you back. What’s the best way forward?

The ‘mentor market’ is burgeoning with many people promulgating a variety of ideas on what it takes to have a successful career; the airwaves are cluttered with opinions and advice. Subject-matter experts abound on every topic. Given this message barrage, to whom do you listen? Who do you believe? Who do you trust? Who do you follow? In whom do you invest your time?
And how do you recognize when someone is blowing smoke at you and feeding their own ego rather than providing you with quality advice?

The reality that young people face is that those with impressive academic pedigrees seem to get the attention and respect that appeals to those seeking career guidance.
Professionals who publish papers, give expert seminars and write books get tagged as good mentor material, so naturally you look to them for help.

I urge young professionals to be wary of these common types of mentors.

Amazing mentors are not found in the halls of academia and publishing but in the trenches of organizations where the work actually gets done and results get delivered.

Find a mentor who has done stuff

My counsel is to find and listen to people who have had a rich and long career of actually doing stuff – lots of stuff – and who have demonstrated achievements in the areas that intrigue you.

If your ambition, for example, is marketing, find a marketing practitioner who has a strong track record of achievement in implementing new products, launching successful advertising programs and managing pricing in a highly competitive marketplace.

And shy away from marketing pundits that may be knowledgeable in marketing theory but lack the credentials in applying what they know.
Theory and academic principles are not trustworthy beacons for what works and what doesn’t work in the real world, which is replete with bias, uncertainty and unpredictability. Just because theory says it is the right thing to do doesn’t mean it will work – there are simply too many variables in play.

Find a person who has a doctorate in messiness

Find people who have implemented successful strategies in an environment of organizational politics, cultural impediments and the wars of competition — where achieving anything worthwhile is messy, inelegant and often painful.

It’s not always easy to find these individuals to recruit as mentors because they are always heads-down in the swamp getting things done and not always receiving public acknowledgment and recognition.

Look for the people who have learned that a minor portion of theory with a major dose of practicality is the formula for success.

Discover operators not thinkers

Find your way into groups of operations leaders in your organization and get insights on individuals they admire and respect because of what they’ve achieved; find people with a different type of MBA experience — ‘masters in business achievement’.

Let frontline people guide you

Talk to frontline people about who they think are effective at getting stuff done. People engaged in execution are in a great position to identify supervisors and managers who excelled at supporting the execution process.

Look to small business leaders

These people have to achieve things everyday to stay alive, so they are excellent mentor candidates. Find a successful small business and you will have, in its leader, a prime prospect.

Develop relationships with associations such as boards of trade whose members are typically small-business leaders and whose daily bread is produced by what they do, not by what they plan. Focus on members who get media recognition because of their consistent, sterling results.

Find a failure

Rarely does a plan turn out the way it was originally conceived. Unpredictable events come into play which renders your original intent unachievable, so it’s mandatory to take an alternative course and salvage what you can to still describe your plan as a success. So what you need in a mentor is someone who has experience in failing and recovering from the ‘body blow’ they took.

The guidance you will receive from individuals who have failed a few times will be invaluable. The media is a good source to discover business failures and the people who were involved. Failures rarely happen because the idea was completely worthless; they happen because a brave idea could not be implemented for reasons beyond their control.

Study execution cultures

Research other organizations and find those that have a culture of execution rather than one that tends to a lot of discussion and thinks that knowledge alone will produce brilliant results. Probe for leaders who have achieved noteworthy results and who may not be spectacular on the ‘know’ factor but are accomplished on the ‘do’ scale.

Doing it is 10 times better than talking about it, and I suggest you find a mentor that walks that talk.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 4.19.21 at 06:33 am by Roy Osing
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April 17, 2021

12 signs of digital hoarding + tips to quit

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In today’s hyper-competitive business landscape having an online presence and — breakthrough technologies to maintain that presence — isn’t an option. Oftentimes, it’s mandatory to keep up.

Still, getting ahead of technologies meant to improve our decision-making and streamline our businesses can feel like an entirely new job. (Hence why many businesses have IT departments.)

After all, as this blog has written before, “In business, digital technology is the heart of products and services, internal control processes and customer contact systems.”

But how often do we really take a step back and evaluate all the technologies and data we’re buying into? How often do we consider the digital clutter we keep?

Crazy as it may sound, there’s a term for holding onto too much digital data, old programs, and even unused devices— digital hoarding.

And for businesses, digital hoarding can have many repercussions, including:

▪️Slower devices
▪️Increased employee stress
▪️Lowered productivity
▪️Heightened cybersecurity risks
▪️Negative impacts on the environment

All this to say, the time is now to take inventory of what technology and data your business can toss and keep. You may even want to make this a part of a business-wide spring cleaning routine.

To put your company on the right track, consider more ways in which we amass digital clutter, how to identify digital hoarding habits, and also how to break them in the infographic below, courtesy of Norton.

— Sarah Pfledderer has over a decade of writing and editing experience in magazine journalism and blogging. She specializes in lifestyle topics and occasionally dabbles in tech. By day, she is a content marketing specialist at Siege Media.

• Posted 4.17.21 at 04:35 am by Roy Osing
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April 12, 2021

5 easy ways to adapt to and survive cataclysmic events

Source: Pexels

We’re not talking about a ‘minor inconvenience’ to an organization such as having a bad month when costs outrun your plan or when you lose a significant client.
No, we’re referring to a major event that can and will kill your business unless you do something about it NOW.

COVID-19 is a good example where public health restrictions had a devastating impact on, among others, the hospitality and travel sectors of the economy. Restaurants shut down and planes stopped flying. Existing business models were destroyed in an instant.

What is the appropriate response when a business is hit by a catastrophic event? It’s one thing to say they need to adapt, but the decoration is hollow unless it is followed up with how to do it.

Intent, without action to transform it into results, is not helpful at all.

But let’s recognize that there’s no prescription that will fit every type of business exactly; each one is unique in its own way, be it in the type of leader they have or in its risk profile. So a universal solution is not just impractical, it’s downright dangerous to suggest.

That said, however, there are a number of ‘possibilities’ that should be considered by leadership because there’s no such thing as a bad idea, it’s just that some are better than others.

So in no particular order, here is a list of possibilities that you may wish to consider if your world gets rocked.

1. Define your special sauce

Everyone’s an entrepreneur, you just need to find the spirit in you and unleash it. Your success up to this point hasn’t been serendipitous; it’s resulted because you have something special going on.

It’s possible that you’ve never thought about it up to now because your business has been doing ok and you’ve never met surprises of the cataclysmic variety.
Well, now the time to really think about what’s worked for you in the past and what your ‘special sauce’ is that customers love about you and that your competitors don’t have.

It’s critical that your special sauce forms the platform of how you adapt to the body blow you’re absorbing. Without understanding it, you don’t have any context to determine the possible entrepreneurial actions you can take.

2. Chunk your business

Rather than look at your business holistically, break it down into its component parts and explore each piece for nuggets that can be exploited in these devastating times.

A helpful method to do this might be to construct a process flow chart that isolates in detail how you deliver your product or service to a customer. This simple process defines everything from what the customer engagement moment(s) look like to how their request is satisfied.

Look for ‘chunks’ that you believe contain your special sauce and that could be leveraged as new sources of income. You may discover, for example, that how you fulfill customer orders is effective because of the unique way you do it, and that other businesses might be interested in it as a solution.

You might decide that your marketing or manufacturing capabilities are special and can be deployed into new markets. Or, you might decide to go into the order delivery business until the storm passes.

The point is to look at every element of your business as a stand alone opportunity to generate sales.

3. Make the call

Now is the time to ‘rub shoulders’ with the people who have shown you loyalty and have contributed to your success (I trust you know who they are and that you have been connecting with them regularly).

It could be a ‘digital Zoom rub’ required in a pandemic or a physical face-to-face rub in normal times, it really doesn’t matter the method used.
The important thing is that you reach out and ask your loyalists how you can help them and whether they have any suggestions for you to improve your business, and use the input you receive as fodder for your response.

Adaptation in a crisis needs a healthy dose of reality which customers can candidly provide.

Also involve your current suppliers or other business partners in your ‘rub’ deliberations. Ideas for your possibilities funnel lie everywhere so spread your web and spread it fast.

4. Put everyone on the frontline

When you think about your new business form, think about it as a frontline organization where the role of every employee is to deliver services to customers.

You don’t have the luxury of support or supervisory staff; you need everyone, everyday out taking care of customers and earning new sales.
As the leader, you need to assume the entire back end of your organization; a one-person show who does nothing but keep the lights on and support your customer facing team.

Source: Pexels

5. Think @home

The good news (always look for the pony that created the CRAP) is that there is much that can be done with technology to enable organizations to function in different ways.

We’ve witnessed ‘virtual everything’ during the pandemic and it foreshadows well the type of pivots that will work going forward.
In fact the predominant view seems to be that we will never return to the pre-pandemic office model; working from home will be the new normal.

And the @home model will extend more deeply in other life activities such as entertainment, shopping and where necessary family engagement.

To the budding entrepreneur this is extremely promising: changing customer behaviour around @home enabled by technology that will only get better.

So think about what you can do in the @home environment in cataclysmic times. Explore how you can exploit one of your ‘chunk’ opportunities by assuming your customer will want to do it from their home. “How can I deliver my service flawlessly if my customer wants to get from @home?” should be the relevant question you pose yourself.
And brush up on your technology expertise because you are going to need it.

Final word

As leaders, I believe we need to be vigilant in the face of random events that impose their will upon us.
We need to take the position that the unexpected force will be catastrophic and take the desired response rather than assume the unwanted intruder will inflict only minor pain on us and react therefore incrementally.

You’re much better off to plan for the worst and have a more modest plan as your backup if the assumed disaster doesn’t occur. Assuming the best is a risky and deadly position to take.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 4.12.21 at 05:02 am by Roy Osing
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April 5, 2021

Why ‘planning on the run’ is important for business survival

Source: Pexels

Why ‘planning on the run’ is important for business survival.

‘Planning on the run’ describes the process of creating a business plan for your organization in the moment you experience and react to unexpected forces bombarding it and forcing it from its intended course.

Your business plan was finalized in January and here it is April, and you find yourself in a pandemic with restrictions imposed on you that render your current plan obsolete.

You absorb the body blow and then it’s time to create a new future given the new times you find yourself in.

COVID-19, unfortunately, is just one example - albeit an enormously serious one - of the continuum of random events that have impacted organizations for the past several years and will likely to continue in the future.

There are other examples ‘acts of randomness’ that have had serious impacts on businesses:

— a surge of online shopping.
— the growth of digital media.
— the rise in popularity of streaming video services.
— overnight job losses due to COVID-19.
— competitor consolidations increasing business vulnerability.
— changes in regulations that put business models at risk.

Random, unforeseen change is the new normal for businesses, and planning on the run is the only way they can adapt and survive.

In our new world everything is temporary:

▪️ Opportunities are here today and gone tomorrow.
▪️ Business continuity is gone; it’s a thing of the past.
▪️ Trend lines are meaningless.
▪️ Extrapolation is a waste of time.
▪️ History is not a teacher of what will likely work tomorrow.

Organizations that do not learn how to plan on the run are destined to be victims of stochasticism; they will die at the hand of discontinuity.

Planning on the run is an art form, it is not a science based on algorithms that try to connect independent variables to predict an outcome. It relies on leadership who understand that a number of human factors determine how well an organization responds to the unforeseen.

Source: Pexels

These 5 actions will launch you to plan on the run.

1. Business plan — when you construct your business plan, establish a short term planning horizon. The days of 5-year plans are over.
The 5-year plan worked when relative continuity of those factors that influenced organizational performance prevailed.

Your business plan should reflect discontinuity, which argues that brief truncated planning periods be used.

My suggestion is to think about your plan as having 24 X 30-day plans. The emphasis on days as opposed to years will force you to closely monitor the execution of your plan and to be able to pivot when things aren’t working out the way you planned.

2. Precision — Get your plan ‘just about right’. There is no such thing as a high degree of precision when you’re in the middle of a storm, so why try to get your plan ’perfect’?
In times of crazy change, any plan is out of date soon after it’s published in any event.

Let’s ’head west’ should be the principle that guides your strategy development when you’re up to your waist in alligators.
Your plan should be notional in terms of strategic intent; define a vague idea about where you want to go and refine it as you discover whether or not it’s working in the chaos that surrounds it.

3. Results — monitor and measure the key results of each 30-day plan period as soon as the month is over.

It is essential when organizations are squeezed by overwhelming pressure that success or failure be tracked in real time; in this world you can’t afford to wait another 30 days to have results reported — your reaction time to any pressure is compressed and you may be dead by then.

4. Values — Look at your organization’s values. If they don’t cover the critical importance of reaction  to unforeseen events, they’re incomplete.

About the only thing that can be accurately predicted by organizations looking decades forward is disruptive change, so if nimbleness and reaction competencies aren’t an integral element in the culture of the organization it is not likely to survive.

This requires that all people-functions be recreated in the image of reaction: the people recruited and trained for every function in the organization must have the inclination and ability to react to the unexpected in a way that leans forward into the opposing force to produce a positive outcome.

In the new normal, individuals who are reticent to reacting to ‘body blows’ pose a risk to organizations; they cannot be tolerated.

5. Customers — Invest any resources you may have available in activities that impact the customer.

Maintaining loyal customers in the face of chaos is critical. Make sure you are paying enough attention to the elements that are critical to providing great customer service — good service is not good enough when customers are experiencing the pain of change just like your business is.

And redefine sales to be service with the emphasis of ‘taking care’ of people rather than pushing your products at them. Being sensitive to their pain will earn you the right to have their business which they will give you unabashedly.

Planning on the run is the new business planning process. It’s the only model that will work in the kind of world we’re now in.
‘Planning in motion’ is replacing traditional approaches buried deep in business management pedagogy.

Those organizations who take leadership of this new mode of orchestrating their business will succeed; those that do not will fail and likely die.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 4.5.21 at 06:24 am by Roy Osing
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