Be Different or be dead

July 10, 2017

8 practical ways great leaders get ideas from people

8 practical ways great leaders get ideas from people.

What exactly is a “great idea”?

How would you know one if it stared you in the face?

The fact is, an idea is judged to be great only when it is viewed in retrospect in terms of whether or not it led to success. Most new products like iPhone, for example, weren’t deemed to be amazing ideas until they were a hit with consumers.

The challenge is how leaders can generate so many new ideas in their organization, that the chance of hitting the mother load is maximized

Leaders should consider these tactics to build momentum for new idea creation in their organizations.

Core values

1. Begin by declaring that new idea creation is an essential ingredient of the organization’s DNA; new ideas are necessary to sustain the organization over the long term.
Ensure employees understand that this is not another ‘program of the month’ initiative that can be taken lightly.

2. Implement an idea collection portal for individuals to submit new ideas. Make it simple and easy to use. Invest in resources to quickly evaluate whether submissions have value to warrant further investigation.
Keep the idea originator in the loop with the status of their idea.

3. Ensure the core values of the organization includes creating new ideas. A core value is an activity or behaviour that is vital to the organization achieving its strategic game plan.
New idea generation must be included if any traction is to be made. If you are silent on the subject it won’t happen.

Job descriptions

4. Change every manager’s position description to include extracting new ideas from their team members. Every team leader must be held accountable for encouraging the innovation process.
Make tries an essential element of every team member’s daily routine.

5. Include new idea generation in the performance plan of every team member. Be specific to encourage the right behaviour - come up with 10 new ideas on how to improve the performance of product “A” by year end.
Review progress every 90 days with each individual.

6. Organize new idea conferences and invite all employees. Bring in outside business leaders who have a track record of monetizing new ideas.
Learn how they practically transformed an idea into reality; an idea with no execution is worthless.

Customer engagement

7. Ask customers for new ideas affecting your business. These people use your products and services, so what better source of new applications, new features and competitive drawbacks could there possibly be?
I realize that market research is the most commonly used tool to determine what customers are thinking, but it doesn’t go far enough. I’m talking about one-on-one conversations with your users as the best way to trigger new ideas.

8. Focus new idea efforts on the priorities of the organization. If finding and trying new ideas isn’t one of the top 3 priorities of the organization, don’t expect a flow of innovation. Leaders must declare the importance of building new boxes and dedicate resources to supporting the effort.

A great new idea may just happen by chance, but the probabilities are slim

Innovation cultures are created when leaders implement simple tactical steps that, operating synergistically, increase the likelihood that they will happen.

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

• Posted 7.10.17 at 04:17 am by Roy Osing
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June 26, 2017

Why do great leaders always measure how people feel?

Source: Unsplash

Most leaders rely on financial metrics to determine if the organization is performing as planned.

Their balanced scorecard may include other targets in marketing (market share, product sales), customer service (overall satisfaction) and HR (employee engagement) but the overwhelming weight goes to the financial quadrant.

Looking at organizational performance through largely a financial lens leads to matters such as cost reduction and control, process efficiency, inventory management, collections performance, functional outsourcing and productivity improvement dominating the strategic and tactical agenda.

This is an “inside” view of performance management; it is a unidimensional approach to determining the activities necessary to enhance the long term health of the organization - and even adding an employee component continues the myopic inward gaze.

A sustained inward focus is unhealthy for an organization.

The customer metric must find its place in the hierarchy of priorities; it must be given equal status with its financial mate and preferred status to other internal measures.

Internal efficiency with customer dysfunction is a recipe for disaster; measuring customer perception is an absolute must for any organization wanting to achieve long term remarkable performance.

Customer perception is all about feelings so the great ones measure feelings.

What does the customer feeling metric look like?

Ask them…

▪️How they feel about the service you provide; don’t rely on internal statistics on service performance.
Internal metrics reflect what you think are the appropriate measures of service delivery; SURPRISE! they sometimes bear no resemblance to what the customer thinks is important. Do they feel ecstatic or do they feel you suck?

▪️What aspect of your service they hate and how do they think you can improve. It’s a visceral polarized thing. You want to know at the extreme negative end of the satisfaction scale that pisses them off the most.

▪️What the dumbest rules and policies you have and why are they so outrageous. What really drives them insane about how you treat them?
Internal rules and policies are the biggest triggers that force customers to go elsewhere; discover them and fix them.

▪️If you have a heart. This gets at whether you are viewed as an unfeeling artificial organization concerned only about shareholders and profits or a caring team whose primary objective is to add value to society.

▪️How they view the leadership of the organization. It’s one thing to get an opinion from employees, and quite another to get this external perspective. Extend the 360 feedback process to include the owners of loyalty.

These are questions intended to release an emotion response from the customer as opposed to merely looking at ‘the numbers’. They tell a different story than analyzing statistics, and paint a unique picture of how the organization is performing on the service front.

Numbers have no ‘tone’; words and emotion convey the severity of issues and as such provide leaders insight into the priorities necessary to improve service performance.

It takes guts for leadership to expose themselves to this type of conversation.

But if they do (and listen and act on what is learned) they will be miles ahead of any other organization that is content with an inside view of what is needed to improve results.

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

• Posted 6.26.17 at 05:46 am by Roy Osing
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June 19, 2017

6 sure fire ways to build an exciting ‘do-it’ brand

Source: Pexels

6 sure fire ways to build an exciting ‘do-it’ brand.

Building a personal brand is more than seizing some words that you think tell the story of who you are and what you stand for. Rather, it’s a process of defining and then doing many ‘small things’ that collectively define you.

Personal brand building is a strategic process that asks more than ‘Who am I?’, it also then asks ‘Who do I need to be?’. The latter question is the strategic piece; ‘How do I need to be perceived?’ is answered as if you were creating a business plan with a competitive advantage claim.

Your brand needs to be forever relevant, for if it fades from resonating with the people around you, it’s useless.
To be effective, a brand must continue to resonate with those that experience it; they must see it as a ‘forever’ solution to problems they continue to have or challenges they continue to face.

A brand that doesn’t relate to the issues people care about in the moment is irrelevant and the person propagating the brand goes unnoticed.

Furthermore, a compelling brand is amoebic. It adapts to and changes with the circumstances surrounding the person owning it. It’s like a coronavirus variant that is searching for new ways to stay alive.
A meaningful brand position is forever in a state of flux, anxious to morph itself to survive in a new environment.

So, in no particular order, these are the actions I took to adapt and evolve my brand during my career, starting from an entry level systems analyst position to president and CMO three decades later.

Each action helped me stay relevant during highly changing and turbulent times, but no single one was a ‘silver bullet’ for success.

‘Stay relevant’ brand actions

▪️ Identify the people who you want to ‘talk to’ about who you are and what you do These are the foxes in any organization who tend to make career decisions in your space. It’s important that these people get exposed to the values you represent.

▪️ Have a good understanding of the other players the other players competing for the same brand attributes to understand the brand field you are competing with and their brand claims.

▪️ When presented with a task, ask yourself the question “How can I do this differently?” than others. This is a critical question to get you noticed (if you answer it right). Just having the subject top of mind will lead you in the right direction; use it as the lens to determine what to do and how to do it. Ask yourself this question everyday.

▪️ Purge every aspect of copying from your being.
This is tough because it’s almost second nature for people to ask ‘How did someone else do it?’; to benchmark best in class and apply best practices.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that we are better off when we follow the best in the herd, which is nonsense. All we have done is temporarily change our position in it.

Using a boilerplate that someone else developed robs you of the originality needed to stand out and be remarkable.
Copying what others do keeps you in ‘the common herd’ and prevents you from being noticed. Do whatever it takes to act with attitude and in a way that separates you from the crowd.

▪️ Look at what everyone else is doing then do the opposite. Amazing results are achieved by contrarian acts.

▪️ Learn to focus on the critical few things you need to be successful. It’s so tempting to chase the possibilities that are out there but the problem is that you are busy but ineffective in delivering quality results. Different people are “mindlessly” focused on a few critical things that are not on anyone else’s radar.

▪️ Shed the CRAP that gets in the way of your ability to focus on your key priorities. Holding on to comfy food may satisfy your appetite temporarily, but it won’t enable your quest to stand-out from the herd in the long run.

▪️ Connect with weird and different people. If you’re going to seek stimulation from others, lean in to people who don’t follow the rules and have off-the-wall views.

▪️ Be the first to take on new projects. Covet opportunities to offer standard solutions to radical problems that have not been addressed before. Your solution to a new problem will carry the ‘different’ tag.

▪️ Loosen up on planning; tighten up on execution. Most people think the value is in the cleverness of a plan; of course they’re wrong.
Jump into the messy inelegant world of implementation where results get delivered. Different people get stuff done; they don’t sit around pondering theoretical possibilities.

The do-it brand

▪️ In my experience a winning brand position is to adopt a ‘do-it’ persona. However, never act without a framework that will create a better than average probability of success. Unharnessed action may feel good at the time, but it will likely not produce the outcome you desire.

Build context for action. Action with no context is at best uncontrolled behaviour with no predictable outcome. Context could be your career goals, your personal set of values or the organization’s strategic game plan. Context sets the boundaries inside which acceptable action is defined and outside which inappropriate action resides.

Look for an opportunity to add value to the actions you take. Go beyond what might be expected; surprise the judges observing you by adding extras rather than simply meeting expectations. ‘Action - Plus’ is a way to think about it: act and do more.

Achieve with a twist; leave your fingerprints and personal mark on what you do. Doing something without leaving a trace of YOU is a missed opportunity to leave a lasting impression. If your action blends in with what everyone else does, no one notices and your brand pays the price.

Pause, then act. Be disciplined about taking action. Before moving, take a deep breath to ensure your action is grounded and will have the highest probability of making a positive impact.
Use ‘the pause’ as a necessary element of the acting process. Once you commit to act it’s a chore to shift direction so use the pause wisely.

Prepare for follow up.. The results of your action must be determined in order to learn from them. Think through exactly how you intend to track the outcome and the impact it had on people. Develop an improvement plan for any action that didn’t work out the way you had intended.

Memorable action isn’t a knee jerk response; it’s taken with a sense of purpose.

Finally, Try, try and try. While others are seeking the impossible dream of perfection the do-it brand people are achieving results inch-by-inch.

▪️ Ensure that your brand addresses the critical issue of the day for your organization by continually measuring and refreshing your only claim.

And, again, remember that if your brand doesn’t respond to a compelling and relevant need that your business has, it will simply fall on deaf ears and be perceived as merely self serving.
If your brand, however, resonates with people and is consistent with the strategic imperatives of the business, it makes you the currency leader among your peers with the job satisfaction and career growth that goes along with that leadership position.

▪️ Develop the competency to recover brilliantly when you make a mistake (and you will, that’s what do-it professionals do). Fix your mistake (because that’s what people expect) fast, and then add something to the mix that surprises them. You will be remembered for your risk taking and brilliance of recovery; your mistake will quickly be forgotten.

▪️ Develop a communication plan to expose your brand both within your organization and to external audiences.
- Offer to do presentations on your chosen brand topic;
- Get quoted as a subject matter expert in any internal communications media your organization uses;
- Write articles for your organization and for external publications on your brand content; be the thought leader;
- Offer to talk to customers on your brand topic. Help them in any issues they have, and get known on the outside. In my case many of our customers were interested in what we were doing in the area of customer service as well as a ME marketing. I had many speaking engagements to air my brand;
- Talk to the media on your topic. Make it interesting for them. Get them calling you. Your organization’s reputation will overtime be influenced by you.

▪️ Listen to the conversation about you and use your social media presence as the ‘listening post’.
Dedicate time to monitor social media feeds to get real time hands-on feedback from various audiences on your brand.

And engage in any conversation to show that you’re interested in the commentary and to further reinforce your personal tag.

Source: Pexels

Online dating

▪️ Look to online dating for help. I’m not suggesting that you necessarily get involved in online dating, but I do believe the process can provide valuable insights on how to effectively position one’s brand in a highly contested world.

The crucial element in online dating is the personal profile where the challenge is to describe and ‘paint a picture’ of yourself that leaves no doubt as to who you are and what your specific interests are with the objective of attracting interest from people who are aligned with you — a daunting task given the size of the internet universe.

Bland, general and vague profiles attract few worthwhile hits whereas clear, expressive, and detailed profiles, on the other hand, stand-out to people who are looking for specific characteristics — specifics in the profile do a better job of explaining a brand and hence attract people who are interested in it.

Think of an online personal profile as a granular version of your brand and use it to express what makes you special. Over emphasize your attributes and specifically those that you think make you distinct from everyone else.

And also apply the ‘so what and who cares?’ test intended to catch the vague generalities and a helium-filled claims used by the crowd. If it’s a statement that everyone else uses, delete it and focus on what makes you special.

And don’t expect miracles overnight. You most likely will not come up with a profile that is sufficiently detailed to get the response you want, nor will it likely be crystal clear on how you are different than everyone else.
Doesn’t matter. It’s a start. Work with it and revise it as you experience its impact on your intended audience.

Wrap up

Building an effective personal brand is a journey; it’s not a one-shot exercise. And it’s not built by seizing on a single attribute or trait, but rather by consistently expressing a collection of ‘little things’ that people care about.

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

• Posted 6.19.17 at 06:11 am by Roy Osing
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June 12, 2017

Why progress is made by being effective first and efficient second

Source: Pexels

Why progress is made by being effective first and efficient second.

Progress in any organization can be achieved in two ways: being more efficient and being more strategic.

In the former instance, progress is achieved by reducing the rate of product or service breakdown, eliminating software bugs, reducing outstanding collectibles, reducing cost to increase operating margins, reducing inventory turns, reducing the rate of customer attrition and reducing employee turnover.

These efficiency gains are targeted to improve operations by a process or procedural change that simplifies the way things are done, reduces cost and improves productivity.

The most common method employed to be more efficient is to benchmark a best in class organization and copy their methods.
Followed to its ultimate conclusion, the copycat method results in all participating organizations gravitating to the same internal operational methods and approaches; they don’t bestow any uniqueness whatsoever.

Efficiency driven programs are tactical; they seek to make the organization ‘machine’ work better; progress is measured by assessing the output of a process both in terms of time and quality - delivering the intended outcome right the first time.

Efficiency gains will not move the organization to higher levels of performance in the long run. They may boost operating results in the short term through a period of continuity, but they cannot be relied on to deliver long term success over multiple cycles of economic and competitive change.

Sustainable progress can only come from being strategically efficient; achieving strategic breakthroughs as opposed to applying the efficiency formula to the way business is currently conducted

Efficiency gains should only be considered after strategic objectives based on taking the organization to a knew place’ have been set. Determine the strategic progress needed first and then look for the efficiency gains necessary to make the journey as productive as possible.

There should be a single focus of strategic progress - inching ever closer to being the ONLY organization that does what it does.

Specifically, creating a customer value proposition that answers the question “Why should I do business with you and no one else?”

This is the real measure of whether or not an organization is making progress strategically; the ability to craft and fine tune over time their ONLY Statement that declares what they uniquely do to serve their customers.

More resource time is spent in organizations pursuing efficiency gains rather than starting down the path of uniqueness.

Why?

Because it’s much easier to copy best practices and achieve incremental progress than it is to seek a special place in the market that you and only you own.

The thing is, if there is no pain, there’s likely to be no gain.

Focus your efforts on being unique in a compelling and relevant way and being efficient in that world.

If you’re successful your progress will be measured by product and service innovation, disruptive technology introduced, revenue growth and market dominance, not systems throughput.

Leave blind efficiency to the herd.

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

• Posted 6.12.17 at 02:51 am by Roy Osing
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