Be Different or be dead

August 29, 2022

How an employee can easily break loose when they are forced to conform

How an employee can easily break loose when they are forced to conform.

The reality is that sometimes an employee is confronted with a culture that encourages sameness: copying best in class organizations, following academic pedagogy, complying with non-practical consultant advice and conforming to many internal company practices.

Some organizations want you to comply, but there are ways of breaking out.

They feel stifled; stepping out from accepted norms in terms of how their job is performed is simply not an option if one is to avoid being labeled as a loner—not a team player—and if they want to keep their job.

So what options does someone have if they want to be creative and be different but the culture says conform to the traditional established scripture?

First, recognize that the world is not black or white; either fit in or step out are not the only considerations when faced with this dilemma.

This is the approach that I used in an organization that reeked of adhering to strict standards.

#1. Define the areas of the job where conformance is expected and no deviation is tolerated.

If, for example, copying best practices is mandated for a specific function in sales like sales funnel management in order to have everyone doing it consistently then accept it and perform the function in amazing fashion.

#2. Define other aspects of your current role where compliance rules haven’t been defined and step out in these areas.

To illustrate how you might go about stepping out of the conformance challenge, here are some simple actions that worked for me to perform my roles differently than others and shed the shackles of compliance.

#1. Personal brand — Build your personal brand strategy on the principle of standing out from the crowd. You need a strategy to guide your actions outside of the conformity zone. Look for opportunities to breakaway in areas that add value to the organization.

#2. Teamwork — Lead the teamwork process with other functions in the organization to get more support for your own team. A simple act that will benefit the entire organization; get known as the person who championed the cause.
It’s unlikely that others will be willing to go the extra mile in this area; you’ll be recognized as someone who is breaking away and adding significant value to the organization.

#3. Relationships — Try to find a way to be the champion for relationship building both inside and outside the organization. Look specifically for how to engage with customers and bond them to your company.
Long term success requires intimate customer relationships and loyalty; create your own rules for doing this and teach your colleagues.
You will be substantially rewarded for this stepping-out act.

#4. Contrarian — Outside of the compliance zone defined by the organization, be audacious in doing the opposite of what you observe others doing.
Take leadership to eliminate boilerplate and copycat thinking and focus on innovating and creating new approaches to how the organization conducts business.

#5. Cravings — Gather people ‘cravings’: those deep innermost wants and desires people have but will tell only their most trusted partner. This can be practised with colleagues and ultimately with customers and partners.
This is an area you can easily breakaway from the traditional ‘needs based’ way most organizations do marketing.
Cravings not only pave the way to building loyalty, they also enable you to step away from the common ways others perform their roles.

#6. Report card — Introduce an internal report card; rate others on how well they support your organization.
This is an excellent way to enhance the support received from other functions in the organization and be innovative in improving the performance of the organization without being spotted as a non-conformer.

#7. Customer champion — Look for opportunities to step up to be the customer’s champion inside your organization. Be that person who does whatever it takes to get an issue resolved if it comes your way; shield the customer from the pain of having to deal with your bureaucracy, rules and policies.
Talk up and behave live THE customer advocate among the others in the herd around you.

You can be different in an environment that mandates compliance and sameness.

And you can be an effective agent in changing the culture of your organization from a copycat to a vibrant, innovative and creative one.

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

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 8.29.22 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing
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August 22, 2022

Why a startup must stand apart from others to be successful

Source: Pexels

So, you have created a great idea that you believe will capture the hearts and minds and, hopefully the pocket books of people.

You have laboured for months and maybe years making sure your product or service concept works; the technology is sound and consistently stable.

You have now arrived at the point where you need to morph your idea into a business. More specifically your challenge is to turn your innovative idea into a thriving economic engine. So how do you do it?

My mantra: If you’re not different you’re dead (or soon will be); if you can’t provide unique reasons to attract business then your startup idea will never get off the ground.

The number one consideration for anyone looking to start a business is that your idea has to be unique in some way or it can be morphed into a unique state. As I said above, you can have a great technology idea, but unless a BE DiFFERENT mindset is applied, you may never have a great business.

The starting point: develop business plan —my strategic game plan—based on answering three questions:
- HOW BIG do you want to be?
- WHO do you want to SERVE?
- HOW will you compete and WIN?

Declare your financial or market goals first. Second, select target customers that have the potential to deliver to your financial expectations. Third, create a differentiated market approach that will beat your competitors. Your game plan can be created in 3 days; you can start executing it on the fourth!

The essential component of the HOW to WIN part of the strategy is the need to create the ONLY statement for your business; this is the essence of your strategy to beat your competitors in the trenches. The challenge is simple to explain but challenging to complete:

‘We are the only ones that…..’

This is the ultimate manifestation of a real differentiation strategy and you should look in every nook and cranny in your business for this edge.

Figure it out with your team and then test it with prospective customers. Make sure it is real, compelling and believable and that you are not mesmerized by your own thoughts of grandeur.

Your strategic game plan must be set in place first; all action plans, tactics and activities are driven from it.

The bottom line for you entrepreneurs out there is that if you cannot define your business in relevant terms to your target customers (i.e. you will deliver something that is a high priority to them) and if you cannot explain in clear concise terms how your offering is DiFFERENT from the other alternatives available then STOP.

Continue to work on your idea until you meet the ONLY criteria. You will reap the rewards later.

If you want a guide to your efforts, work with my BE DiFFERENT quiz.

Use the practises in the quiz to build your business in a different way.

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

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 8.22.22 at 06:56 am by Roy Osing
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August 1, 2022

7 proven ways to easily achieve operational excellence

Source: Unsplash

7 proven ways to easily achieve operational excellence.

What is operational excellence?

It’s usually defined by many such things as:
▪️Increased training and number of employees with key skills.
▪️Greater employee engagement.
▪️Reduced employee turnover.
▪️Enhanced accountability by individual team members.
▪️Improvement in cross-department cooperation.
▪️Higher employee satisfaction scores.
▪️Improved productivity.

And the list goes on to literally cover every operational tactic that organizations grapple with improving without providing a context and framework for deciding on the KEY tactics that, if successfully employed, will really drive operational EXCELLENCE rather than average operations.

It’s not that other operational tactics aren’t important, it’s that not all are of the SAME importance.

And for me, those that were critical to successfully implementing the strategic game plan of the organization ranked at the top of the tactical list.

My experience in leading businesses to achieve remarkable levels of performance has taught me that operational excellence is defined by how effectively the strategy of the organization is executed.

The organization’s operating model must be strategically relevant with operational efficiency running second.

It must drive strategic gains BEFORE efficiency improvements. It must seek efficiency only after it achieves strategic relevance.

These are 7 operational tactics I focused on to take a startup TO A BILLION IN SALES.

#1. The Strategic Game Plan (SGP) — The anchor for an operational plan is the strategy for the organization. It provides the overall context that drives the focus of every operational element.

Operations priorities must be led by the SGP otherwise dysfunction sets in.

If you can’t relate an operational activity to the SGP, question why you’re doing it.

#2. Line of sight — ‘Line of sight’ translation of the SGP is the tool I used to ensure that every operational function was directly in sync with the strategy of the organization.

The question is “What does the SGP specifically mean to (customer contact, recruitment, billing…)?

What activities, processes and systems for example need to be added in order to execute the SGP and what needs to be dropped because they are no longer related to the strategy?

Direct line of sight for every person in the organization translates into pristine strategy execution; unclear foggy notions of what the strategy means, on the other hand, results in dysfunction and little progress.

#3. A clean inside — Removing obstacles—Cutting the CRAP—that gets in the way of people doing their jobs is fundamental to a smooth and effective operations environment.

Administrative grunge must be eliminated and the policies and rules—dumb rules—that make no sense to cusomers must follow suit, or at least be changed to be as acceptable as they can.

As long as ‘the inside’ is needlessly complicated and messy, people get frustrated, they can’t do their job well and execution suffers with them.

#4. Serving leaders — Effective operations requires a leadership culture that has leaders in the workplace constantly asking people “How can I help?”.

This Leadership by Serving Around approach is critical to understanding what needs to change—point #3 above—to enhance how well the strategy of the organization is being executed.

#5. Strategy Hawk — Every strategy needs an owner—the Strategy Hawk—responsible to see that the strategy gets implemented in the way it is intended.

The Strategy Hawk is the ONE person who lives and dies by the success of the strategy which usually depends on a strong operational plan.

The Hawk’s role:
▪️constantly is ‘in the face’ of people in the organization keeping strategy execution alive.
▪️questions everything being done for strategic relevance.
▪️advises the CEO on what’s working and what’s not.
▪️hold regular operational review meetings to track progress on strategy execution.

#6. Goosebump recruits — Operational excellence requires the right people in the right positions as determined by the strategy.

And given that every strategy must include an element dealing with building customer loyalty, this means that people with a natural inclination to serve and care for other people must be the target of the recruitment process.

You can’t train people to like people.

You need to find them and hire them, and the process I use is simple: you ask the potential recruit to ‘tell you a story’ that would prove they ‘loved people’ and if their answer was rich and passionate enough to give you goosebumps you hire them straight away and teach them the other parts of the role they are aspiring to fulfil.

#7. A frontline culture — Cultural values that focus on supporting the frontline are a requisite to having an operational plan that is awesome at strategy execution.

Rather than thinking of them as low ranking, low skilled people ‘at the bottom’ of the organization chart, a frontline culture organization views them as the ‘objects of affection’, holding everyone accountable to discover how to make their jobs easier and to enable their effectiveness.

Any claim of operational brilliance without a ’living for the frontline’ organizational attitude is hollow and disingenuous at the very least.

Operational excellence isn’t an aspiration.

It’s the result of doing the hard operations work required to advance the organization’s strategy.

It’s a strategic concept not one that merely bundles together the populist notions of the day on operational effectiveness.

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

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 8.1.22 at 05:44 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink