Be Different or be dead

January 6, 2020

6 proven ways to make a unique successful culture

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6 proven ways to make a unique successful culture.

Successful and sustaining organizations invest heavily in creating a culture that constantly renews itself in the face of unpredictability and chaotic change.

This adaptive organization is built to not only succeed in the short term by absorbing and successfully responding to unexpected market forces, it relies on being different to survive in the long run.

It’s one thing to have a product or service that is unmatched by the competition, or provide customer service that is a level above others, but it’s quite another to have an entire organizational culture that is build on being different than everyone else.

An organization that strives to achieve a be different culture, and use it as their strategic advantage, is known for their competencies and capabilities in these key areas.

1. Execution outranks planning

The strategic game plan of the different organization places greater emphasis on execution rather than the perfection of the plan itself.

This leadership team understands that it’s not the business plan developed in the image of the academics and planning experts that produces wins in the marketplace; rather it’s how well business planning initiatives are implemented that determines success.

Planning sessions here apply 20% of the time available to developing a strategy that best meets the challenges foreseen over a 36-month planning horizon; 80% of the attention goes to creating the implementation plan to bring the plan to life.

The intent is to get the plan just about right; detailed attention is applied to execution — who does what by when to make it happen.
Get it done and change it on the run describes the priority of this organization.

2. Every employee knows their role

Standout organizations invest heavily in ensuring that every employee has a direct line of sight in executing the organization’s game plan.

If, for example, you’re in customer service, leadership conducts workshops to define precisely what new priorities you need to adopt in the way you serve customers. And what specific behaviours you must display during every customer interaction. In the call centre environment, is the emphasis to be on processing as many calls as you can, or dazzling the customer once they have reached you?

This is different than the way other organizations deal with the implementation of their business plan.

Most leaders declare the intent of their game plan to employees and expect them somehow to know what actions they need to take to successfully execute it — never works; results in dysfunction and inconsistency.

3. Their leaders serve

Different cultures are led by individuals who ask “How can I help?” constantly. They see their role to make it easy for people to do their job.

They bash barriers and eliminate the rules, policies and procedures that get in the way of effective performance.

These leaders serve rather than command; they understand that high performance is a function of how well people behave and what they produce day in and day out.

Taking care of people is the key to capturing their hearts and minds and this can only be achieved through servant leadership.

4. They are unique

Most organizations’ describe their competitive advantage by using words like “best”, “number 1” and “market leader” — “We are the number 1 provider of quality internet service in Canada” is an example of the type of declaration that is often used.

These types of claims are aspirational at best; they are difficult to easily prove and therefore lack the credibility to be effective. People generally don’t believe these types of statements; they are viewed as hollow and are mostly ignored.

Unique cultures search for how they can be the ONLY ones that do what they do.

They strive to claim a position in their market that is unmatched by others. The ONLY Statement — “We are the ONLY ones that…” — is the expression they use, backed up by evidence to prove their point.

5. Their sales people don’t sell

In fact they don’t push their products and services at people; flogging is what other organizations do.

The special organizations spend 99% of their time with a customer determining the problem they need solving and the remaining 1% actually offering a solution. 

Incomparable sales organizations are all about building deep relationships with their customers realizing that sales and revenue come from intimacy without having to overtly sell anything.

6. They live in the be different moment

They treat every moment as an opportunity to be different; it’s the lens through which they that govern what they do and how they do it.
In these organizations, being different is more than a mantra, it’s an operational and planning trigger for every employee.

And people are measured on how they apply the concept; it’s integral to the performance planning process. Individuals must display the desire to be different; the more they achieve from this directive the more successful they are.

What about benchmarking and adopting best practices? These concepts are persona non grata in be different organizations. They may be employed to make operational improvements but are never used to achieve strategic advantage.

By being different, amazing teams strive to BE best in class.

Cultures built to be different don’t do normal things; they practice what they preach.

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

• Posted 1.6.20 at 04:03 am by Roy Osing
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December 30, 2019

Simple ways to make sales a strong strategic force

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Simple ways to make sales a strong strategic force.

How do you get sales viewed more as a strategic asset than a flogger of wares?

My experience is that most organizations underutilize sales because they treat it as a traditional tactical tool rather than as a strategic asset.

Today the focus tends to be on how traditional sales can be more efficient — providing the appropriate sales tools for enabling the sales process to work more in accordance with accepted (best) sales practices.

Tools to make sales more efficient

— tactics to push products
— a sales process everyone must follow
— a bonus plan based on the number of units sold
— a sales plan that takes guidance from the marketing plan
— a focus on the short term — achieve quota fast
— a micro training emphasizing how to be more efficient at the discipline of selling

There is a HUGE opportunity cost to the organization by treating sales as a tactic where efficiency is the prime concern.

As a customer-facing function, sales has the power to make or break the client loyalty relationship and materially affect the financials of the organization.

The focus needs to change to focus on how sales can be more effective — redefine sales as a strategic asset where their role is to create long term value for the organization.

Sales strategic tools

— develop relationships
— a bonus plan based on measures of strategic value creation set by executive leadership — share of wallet, life of sale, customer perception of relationship building — shared objectives with senior team
— sales planning takes direction from the business plan of the organization as opposed to marketing
— a planning horizon that is long term — a focus on building long term value for the organization through deep sales relationships
— achieve master relationship builder status fast
— dig for client “secrets” without the constraint of their products; examine the client holistically for what they want, desire and “lust for” as a person (eg. red wine) or organization (eg. better asset management capability)

What specific actions should be taken to make sales the ultimate strategic force?

Sales leaders

— first sales leaders must redefine the sales role to add the strategic function to its role; communicate the change to the organization
— begin with introducing the strategic value element to the annual bonus plan and increase its weight over time; THEN look for ways to make the sales team more efficient in playing the new strategic role; address effectiveness before efficiency
— revise the value statement of the sales organization to include adding strategic value
— shift the recruitment strategy to acquire individuals who have the competencies required to add strategic value
— develop an internal training program to teach the new skills required to the existing sales force
— exit those sales people who either don’t have the required strategic competencies needed, or refuse to shift from the selling products regime

Individual salespeople

— personally take action to begin the shift from tactician to strategist. Take personal ownership of the need to add more of the strategic emphasis to your role
— go to ‘boot camp’ with the strategic game plan of your organization. Get to know it at a VERY detailed level. You can’t translate it to what it specifically means for sales if your knowledge of the plan is skin deep
— go “under the covers” with clients to learn what they want and desire —  the source of delivering strategic value
Knowledge represents strategic power; sales is in the best position to secure it; competitive advantage follows
— build a draft sales plan that translates the business plan of the organization into what it means specifically for you as a salesperson
Your draft should be what you think would be a perfect expression of corporate goals
And do it in sufficient granularity — avoid being general with aspirational words — so as to define what specific new behaviours and actions are required and which current ones need to be stopped
— share your draft plan with others to show them how to shift sales from tactics to strategy. Start building interest and excitement around the idea; be an agent of change

Biggest challenges

What are the biggest challenges salespeople face when trying to put their sales game to a higher strategic level?
— personally being willing to accept the role change and to commit to lead in implementing it among peers and colleagues
— ‘getting permission’ to make the shift away from tactical sales
— putting their quota at risk
— attracting leadership attention by your actions — and being shut down
— demanding and pushing for a more strategic role in the organization when efficiency product pushing forces are at play and deeply engrained in the organization — fighting an uphill battle — maintaining your eyes on the prize in the face of pushback
— developing new skill sets associated with creating strategic value through building relationships — human psychology, business acumen, financial analysis, conflict resolution, problem solving and team building

Effective sales isn’t about how many products or services you sell; it’s about how effectively you advance the long term strategy of the organization.

Some will say that unit selling IS consistent with executing strategy, but that’s just a convenient excuse for sales to not change in any meaningful way.

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

• Posted 12.30.19 at 04:51 am by Roy Osing
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December 16, 2019

Why executing your business plan is more important than the plan

Why executing your business plan is more important than the plan.

Too much planning

We spend far too much time planning what we intend to do as an organization and not enough time figuring out how we will get there.

The challenge is expressed a number of ways but Peter Drucker nailed it when he said “The biggest challenge for most businesses is executing well - not devising helium-filled plans for reaching the next level.”

How true. But this has been said over and over forever it seems yet organizations toil on believing the essence of their strategy will ‘deliver them from evil’; the pursuit of the perfect plan leaves little or no room to toil at implementation.

Not enough execution

The fact is, the perfect plan is worthless unless execution gets recognition as the true driver of success. And as long as the plan is given the priority we will continue to witness the underperformance businesses.

Results are a function of execution and that requires a disproportionate amount of time be spent on this element of the business planning process.

Spend 20% of your time to determining the essence of your plan and 80% of your time on the detailed implementation plan — who needs to do what by when to breathe life into what you want to achieve.

Sooner or later your brave idea must degenerate into a number of crude deeds. Make it a cultural change objective.

Execution hero

Assign a strategy hawk to lead the execution process. Select the most senior person with the most tenacity and currency in your organization to do the job.
And make sure the person you select has a high tolerance for pain because they’re going to need it!

Make it the most important item in their performance plan and hold them accountable to deliver the results expected of the strategic plan.

And communicate openly and regularly on progress made. Recognize execution heroes — find the people in the organization who are truly committed to execution; lavish praise on them. Hold them up to the rest of the organization as examples to be aspired to.

‘Head west’

Get your plan just about right and execute it with tenacity and perseverance through the hearts and souls of turned-on people.

Perfection is an illusion and heading west is a valid direction to take.

Winning is more than the brilliant idea, it’s about doing stuff and keeping your feet moving in the face of unrelenting change.

That’s change leadership.

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

• Posted 12.16.19 at 06:49 am by Roy Osing
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December 9, 2019

5 urgent things you need to do for career success

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5 urgent things you need to do for career success.

Over my long career, I have seen so many really talented people fall short of their goal.
Engineers who graduated top of their class; MBA’s knowledgeable on more business theory than is needed and business grads who possess a more than good understanding of how organizations function.

The problem with many of these people is that they are too controlled by the left hemisphere of their brain — logic and reasoning dominates their decision making — which generally means they take too much time making a decision and their career languishes.

Sometimes you have to act with your gut quickly and be willing to take a risk; let uncertainty guide you as opposed to relying on the time consuming illusive precision that a traditional planed approach suggests.

These 5 NOW! actions will help you shed the inertia holding you back from glorious success.

1. Declare an outrageous goal

Declare your goal out loud without knowing how you will achieve it; the more outrageous it is the better.
I’m a firm believer that if you know how to achieve something there’s not much room for innovation; creative juices start to flow when you have to struggle and figure it out.

“I intend to be VP of marketing before I am 40 years old.” was the goal I declared at age 25 in a telecommunications monopoly organization dominated by engineers.

I didn’t have a clue how I was going to achieve it but I’m convinced that it guided me over the years in terms of the career decisions I made. At age 39 I was appointed as the youngest VP marketing the company ever had.

2. Take the job

Take a job rather than evaluate every opportunity in terms of the fit it has with your long term goal.

I have known many people who would not make a decision on a particular position that presented itself because they agonized over whether it was consistent with where they wanted to end up.

They pondered and they analyzed — and did nothing.

Every job has something you can benefit from regardless of your long term goal. Although my targeted destination was a marketing executive role, I took operations jobs to help create an execution context for my marketing ambitions.

After all, marketing exists to create value for the frontline of an organization and having rich experience in the daily operations of a business makes marketing efforts more relevant and effective.

3. Figure out what makes you special

Work on your personal ONLY statement, defining how you are different from your colleagues and others who may be the competition you will face in your career journey.

People who blend in with the crowd don’t make it because they don’t get noticed; they are part of the lowest common denominator seen to be the same as every other fish in the sea.

A unique personal brand helps cut through the clutter of a noisy and complicated environment.
It gets you noticed and it presents YOU with opportunities before others.

You get the first chances and will jettison you ahead of the pack.
”I’m am the ONLY one that…” will clearly distinguish you from the hordes of other people vying for limited opportunities.

Get rid of the copying mentality. Best practises and a boilerplate résumé will only solidify your position in the common herd.

4. Find your person

Someone you trust, have confidence in and will provide the kind of advice you believe in.

This is more than a traditional mentor who you might find at work in a position related to your audacious goal or someone in the business community who many people covet for advice because of their currency and experience.

You need more than a traditional mentor. You need someone who you have known for some time; someone who really knows you, how you think and knows what motivates you.

And someone who has a history of achieving results in a complicated and uncertain environment. They don’t have to be a superstar in a high position; they just need to have been in the trenches with an up close understanding of how to get things done in the real world.

My person was my Dad who had no formal graduate degree but had years of experience as an engineering supervisor in the mining business. He worked underground with miners in wet dingy environments laying track and drilling ore drifts where the unexpected was business as usual.

He knew how to get things done and provided a perspective to me I couldn’t get elsewhere.

5. Train to fail

Get your head around failure NOW. At the start of your journey you need to think about the possibility because it will definitely happen along the way. The chances of you succeeding without setbacks is ZERO.

What separates the successful ones from everyone else is the ability to come back from a body blow and make another move.

The corollary to this is that making mistakes FAST is an essential ingredient to the success formula.

At the end of the day, it’s the number of tries you make that determine your ultimate destiny.

”I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.” — Michael Jordan on Success Through Failure

Immediacy is a critical factor for success.

Increasing your odds of success requires that you take action on day one of your journey; waiting is simply not an option.

Serendipity and luck may help you, but don’t count on it.

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

• Posted 12.9.19 at 04:50 am by Roy Osing
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