Be Different or be dead

December 26, 2022

What are the dangers of working on tactics without a clear strategy?

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What are the dangers of working on tactics without a clear strategy?

You don’t have unlimited time or resources to do a hundred things. If your organization is ‘raining down’ with tactics you could be chasing stuff as opposed to being guided by the strategic direction you have set.

Here are characteristics of both types of organizations.

If the ‘tactics drive’ scenario sounds familiar, take a step back, get your strategy defined and then decide on the critical few projects necessary to achieve it.

When tactics drive activity…

- numerous projects are going on; people complain that there is too much to do.
- aspirations drive the activity, like ‘we intend to be best in customer service’ which are meaningless to most customers.
- many project teams are struck throughout the organization. Almost everyone is on one.
- projects are measured individually in terms of deliverables.
- activities lack a strong common thread among them.
- divergent actions persist. Projects are in conflict and are often heading in opposite directions.
- projects are often lead by individual Departments and carry with them intrinsic bias as a result.
- people are frustrated with too much activity and lack of synergy.
- people complain that there is no approved course that all of the activities follow.
- leadership is criticized for not providing the overall direction to justify all of the projects going on.
- consultants are brought in to assist and they are forced to subordinate organizational issues to those of the individual projects.

When the strategy drives activity…

- a handful of projects key to influencing 80% of the results are active.
- the business plan drives all the activity. Everyone has direct line of sight to it for guidance.
- a few focused project teams exist.
- projects are measures in terms of business plan expectations.
- the common thread among all activities is contribution to the business plan.
- synergy acts among all activities; they are monitored to ensure they are acting in unison.
- projects are primed at the organization level. Project leaders are appointed corporately based on skills and competencies to deliver expected results.
- people are energized as efforts are focused and are balanced to achieve the most meaningful results.
- people recognize that the business plan is the driving force behind all that goes on.
- leaders are acknowledged as effectively moving the organization forward.
- consultant activity is limited to areas where new expertise is required. They are all managed relative to business plan results.

Avoid the tactics until you are satisfied you have a clear enough business plan to be a beacon of all activity in your organization.

Cheers,
Roy
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• Posted 12.26.22 at 01:00 am by Roy Osing
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December 20, 2022

4 simple ways to impress ‘the fox’ and have an amazing career

4 simple ways to impress ‘the fox’ and have an amazing career.

The fox in any organization is the key manager or executive that has the greatest amount of influence on a particular career or business decision to be made.

In sales it could be the key individual in the customer’s organization that would make the buying decision. If you are to win the sale, you need to figure out a way to make it stand out above your competitor’s in the eyes of the fox.

Your career challenge is no different. You represent a solution to a hiring manager’s problem and you must clearly differentiate yourself from your competition so that they conclude that you are the ONLY one who should be afforded the opportunity.

Here are 4 practices to covet the fox and win the competition for a job and push your career forward to succeed:

1. Identify the right leaders who represent a fox.

Identify the leaders in the organization who are making the key business and people decisions. Think about the individuals who are always consulted on matters affecting the strategy of the organization and the people who shoukd be considered for leadership positions.

Think about the fox as a target market—WHO to SERVE—just as you would if you were deciding on who to target in a new marketing program.

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 career benefits to you.

2. Discover their ‘secrets’.

Discover the expectations and ’secrets’ of the foxes you’ve identified. If you have a deep intimate understanding of the fox, you are in a position to impress them in a way none other can hope to do, and be successful in moving forward.

Here are a few secret gathering questions to answer on each 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?

— Do they have any outside interests they spend their time on?

3. Market yourself as a package.

Don’t project yourself as a person having a narrow set of competencies.

Market yourself as someone who has a broad a range of skills and expertise that the organization values.

Think about yourself as a package of value that the organization needs to be successful and talk about how your package is more compelling than those who are competing with you.

Select the competencies you have that address the key issues and challenges facing the organization, which could include:

✔️ audacious leadership.
✔️ marketing expertise.
✔️ demonstrated achievement in developing winning business strategies.
✔️ cultural change.
✔️ increasing market share in competitive markets.
✔️ improving customer service results dramatically.
✔️ public speaking.
✔️ building strong teams and consultative selling skills.

4. Be proactive.

Be proactive in discovering the opportunities that will be coming up in the organization. Be intimately familiar with the business plan that is guiding critical activities.

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.

Follow these 4 simple ways to take advantage of the foxes that are in your organization and build a winning career.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 12.20.22 at 12:00 am by Roy Osing
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December 12, 2022

How managers who love holding on to the past can be eliminated

Beware of managers who are stuck in the past and refuse to move ahead.

Creating strategy is just as much about letting go of the past as it is about taking on new things.

Eliminating non-strategic activities, projects and programs in fact is critical to creating the bandwidth to take on the new things required.

You simply don’t have sufficient time, energy and resources to take on new stuff while continuing to carry on with past activities.

Of course there will be managers in your organization that really like the past direction and don’t want to be part of executing on a new course.

For many, the past is familiar and comfortable and relatively stress free. Why would they want to give it up for the anxiety, risk and uncertainty of going a new direction?

Their preference is to continue to manage the irrelevance that gives them satisfaction and security.

It is essential to identify these custodians of the past and to act on them.

If not, they will infect others in the organization by attempting to convince them not to embrace the new strategic direction.

Here’s a process to follow.

▪️determine the CRAP, or non-strategic activities and projects that are no longer appropriate given your new strategy. Make the list long. Avoid being persuaded that everything associated with your old plan is relevant to the new.

▪️identify the people associated with the CRAP.

▪️develop an action plan for each person who is engaged in irrelevant activities. Don’t assume a single solution will work for everyone. Each person will be different and will require a personalized solution.

▪️reassign those who want to go to your brave new world and give them all the training and development support they need to succeed.

▪️exit those who are either not qualified to take on the new challenge or who refuse it.

Either way, they need to go to prevent the inertia virus from spreading!

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 12.12.22 at 01:00 am by Roy Osing
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December 5, 2022

Why great leaders scream about being different on Friday

Why great leaders scream about being different on Friday.

Friday – The Day for Leaders to Change the Conversation.

In 2015 I wrote an ebook titled A Weekly Calendar for Leaders. The idea was to highlight the things an audacious leader must do every day of the week if they are to build an organization that consistently delivers superlative performance.

This post talks about what the great leaders should do on Friday.

This day is all about language.

What is said; talked about in the organization. When people discuss issues, what do they say?
What words come out of their mouths?
Language expresses what people view as ‘what’s important around here.’
Vocabulary paints the picture of the journey that employees see the organization taking.

This day is focused on changing the conversation in the organization.

Moving away from discussing what needs to be done to improve; to incrementally change the organization.

And muting the conversation about the practices of best in class organizations and what is required to copy them.

Rather, introducing the conversation around how to BE DiFFERENT; how to stand-out from others in the market.
▪️“What do we have to do to leave the herd; to distance ourselves from the common crowd?”
▪️“How can we stand-out not blend in; breakaway from the common direction that everyone else is taking?”

This day involves meeting with team leaders throughout the organization; across all responsibility areas.
BIG NOTE: this applies if you have 1,000 employees, 10 or 3. The point is to engage with people who represent the various functions you have defined for your organization.

This day the leader declares that the BE DiFFERENT conversation will define the new culture of the organization.
And it will drive the new mindset that should pervade every nook and cranny of it.
What ‘the spoken word’ needs to be to drive success.

This day the leader has a simple agenda when meeting with team leaders.
Look introspectively. Dissect the conversations that are common. What topics do they most engage in? What words are used? What questions are asked?
Then disrupt the conversation with questions around divergence not compliance.
▪️“What are we doing to create space between our organization and others?”
▪️“What breakaway projects with new innovative thinking are we pursuing?”
▪️“What NEW boxes are we building to play in?”
▪️“What breakaway opportunities have we identified that will take us in a different and new direction than the rest of the market?”

Far too many organizations and people think success is fitting in; conforming; being the same as everyone else; going in the direction of the industry.

This is lazy and deadly thinking.

A recent LinkedIn post captured—under the concept of Strategic Convergence—the downside of doing what every other organization is doing. I liked it!

“Strategic Convergence means that over time most firms end up in the same place. 
This is what happens if you all read the same books, watch the same Ted talks, hire the same consultants and use the same case studies.  This is accelerated if you use benchmarking which involves watching what your competitors are doing and copying them.
Emulation gets you to parity. But when everyone does it it gets you to strategic hell.”— Herman Singh, CEO

Success has been and always will be a function of being different in some way.

”You don’t become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to be indispensable is to be different.” — Seth Godin, Linchpin

The next time a proposal is brought to you, ask “How does this make us DiFFERENT?”
Avoid asking what others are doing and how the proposal conforms.

Call your head of marketing and ask what they are doing to move away from flogging products and services to offering packages of value to market segments of one? What are they doing to meet the needs of ’ME’ markets?

Sales: what are you doing to build a unique brand in the market based on building deep and intimate relationships with your clients?

Collections: how do you intend to distance yourself from virtually all other organizations that impose unfriendly and ‘dumb’ credit and collections rules and policies on their customers? The collections experience in most organizations is generally one level above pain and suffering.

Human Resources: How are you trying to attract the skills and competencies needed to drive amazing performance in a way that others don’t? Are new courageous practices that no one else is using being put into place to position your organization as the ONLY place to work?

Internal Audit: What is being done to simplify processes that touch the customer? Yes, control is important but it must be balanced with serving the customer in a hassle-free caring way.

And follow through to ensure that the BE DiFFERENT theme gets driven into the strategic game plan process and becomes a critical beacon to follow.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 12.5.22 at 05:54 am by Roy Osing
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