Be Different or be dead

September 5, 2016

9 subjects that will make you a better business student

9 subjects that will make you a better business student when you venture out into the brave new world of business.

The gap between school teachings and what is really needed for organizations to thrive and survive in the new markets that are unfolding is wide and is getting wider.

As an executive leader, I made it a priority to engage with business students and graduates on a regular basis. I needed to know where the talent was; who I should keep my eyes on for employment.

Based on my experience, my conclusion is that students coming out of business school are not ready.

Straight out of school they are ill-prepared to add the value required to enable our organizations to be remarkable, compelling, indispensable and unforgettable.

They are not being taught the right stuff.

They are getting traditional pedagogy jammed down their throats by professors who often have a minimal amount of experience running businesses in the real world of aggressive competition, unpredictability and biased employees.

These principles should be espoused by business schools if graduates are to be relevant to business in today’s markets.

1. Execution is the key to winning - a business plan without flawless execution is worthless. It’s one thing to define what has to be done, but without a detailed implementation plan and accountability, nothing happens and strategic intent remains a dream.

2. Customer learning is a competitive advantage - we need more than periodic market research to keep pace with how customers are changing; we require a continuous process of learning to monitor minute by minute what people desire.

Organization’s today succeed by providing what makes people happy; what they want, covet and “lust for” in their lives. Satisfying what they “need” is no longer a recipe for sustainable competitive advantage.

3. Serve people don’t service them - you service computers; you serve people. Amazing and remarkable organizations put the customer ahead of themselves; they exist to serve others.
They build operations system to make engagement easy; they create policies and procedures that enable transactions not control customer behaviour.

4. Perfect solutions don’t exist - the business world is too complex to be formularized. Flawed solutions that excite people beat those that may be theoretically pristine but don’t meet the practical realities of the specific organization and the market it serves. Imperfection rules and be imperfect fast is the guiding mantra.

The more failures with a heathy dose of learning from them = more successes. Punish failure only if you want compliance, policy-pushers and order takers.

5. The frontline is the boss - people who control the customer experience are the really important people, not the executives. Build your hierarchy to serve them.

6. Screw-ups create customer loyalty - a successful WOW! service recovery from an OOPS! results in a more loyal customer than if the screw-up never happened.
And when someone is screwed over, “I’m sorry” is the most strategic phrase ever and is the heart of a mind-blowing service recovery.

7. Erect barriers to customer exit - Ignore the competition and creating barriers to competitive entry. You can’t control the competition; if they want to attack you they will.
The right strategy is to prevent customers from leaving and you won’t have to worry about the hordes entering.

8. Lose a sale (but keep the customer) - the immediate transaction should not be the number one priority; building a long term relationship with a client should be the ultimate mission and focus of all sales activity.

So if you find yourself unable to satisfy a short term need your client has, suck it up and help them find a solution elsewhere. Be the problem solver, preserve the relationship and earn the right to sell another day.

9. Storytelling ignites the passion - every organization needs a cadre of amazing storytellers who are able to make a vision or strategy come alive for people. It makes the organization’s purpose real to employees in a way that excites them to play an active role in the chosen future.

Build a business curricula around these subjects; old school teaching gets a failing grade.

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

• Posted 9.5.16 at 05:26 am by Roy Osing
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August 22, 2016

Simple reasons why a great speech happens when people screw it up

Source: Unsplash

Simple reasons why a great speech happens when people screw it up

It’s counterintuitive, but your best speech can be given when you screw up.

I’ve had all the nightmares happen to me. Slides come up out of order, I suddenly forget the point I’m trying to make in the middle of a sentence, power is interrupted and slides disappear and the room goes dark, my iPhone goes off while I am speaking and a heckler chooses to be a co-speaker and tries to dominate the airspace.

These unpredictable events are opportunities; time to pump it up not shut down.

The psychology is quite simple.

People like the unpolished, un-slick and informal.

They like real.

And real is having the unexpected happen in a presentation. 

The key is what you do when it happens.

And if you recover well that’s what the audience will remember and talk about; the screwup contributes to the experience they had with you.

They forget that the microphone went out and remember what you said and did when you were silenced by technology.

Don’t deny the event.

It happened and everyone knows it.

Use it as a catalyst to send you in an unplanned direction.

Use it as a force to do something different.

Use it as an opportunity which may not otherwise have presented itself to surprise people and blow them away with your ability to go with the flow.

Acknowledge the heckler, thank them for the interruption (yes thank them!) and use their point to strengthen your own. Never put them down; honour their right to disagree with you.

When you forget your point, make a joke about yourself - “An unexpected senior moment highly unusual at the age of 30”. People love it when you make yourself the butt of a joke.

My formula…

Screwup success = stay on form (keep your momentum going) + surprise ‘em with something they don’t expect.

Think about what you will do before it happens.

Be prepared for “Murphy”.

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

• Posted 8.22.16 at 06:06 am by Roy Osing
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August 1, 2016

Why weird people are desperately needed to keep our businesses alive

Source: Unsplash

Why weird people are desperately needed to keep our businesses alive.

“The best” describes someone who conforms to rules and expectations more closely than others.

They spell more accurately; answer history questions more correctly and score the highest mark on linear algebra exams.

“The best” does a masterful job of performing their task according to the rules of the day. They colour inside the lines perfectly.

There are certain professions where we want the highest mark. It would not be comforting, for example, knowing the pilot scored a blistering 25% on his aircraft landing test. Nor would we trust our life to a heart surgeon who had a bypass surgery success rate of 4 out of 10.
These types of professions we want the best and need in-the-box thinking and performance.

In business, however, conformance to a set of rules or a set of standard operating rules does not guarantee success. When organizations conform, they all look alike; they are all the same.

They all are members of the herd who are indistinguishable from one another and struggle to gain competitive advantage.

Conformance to a best practice might improve operating performance but it will never create strategic success.

Organizations who consistently succeed are brilliant at not merely thinking outside the box, but creating a new box to play in.

They create a new form with a different set of lines to draw in.

They are masters of contrarianism and going the opposite direction to the momentum of the crowd.

They focus on separating themselves from the herd.

Don’t press yourself or others to be “the best”.

Honour the weird, odd, crazy, quirky, strange, out there, ridiculous and unusual.

Signs of weirdness.

Weird people:

- Find the notion of doing it like everyone else repugnant;
- Hang out with other weirdos;
- Aren’t taken seriously by the crowd;
- Are quite often the target of bullies;
- Are infatuated with technology and the cool things it can do;
- As young students were often In the Principle’s office;
- Hate following the rules;
- Turn out to be leaders of retro fashion;
- Invent their own language to describe the latest trends;

                          ◾️◾️◾️◾️

- Eat way too much pizza;
- Tend to enjoy their own company; they don’t have time for faceless crowds;
- Are fuelled by the art of the possible;
- Chase stuff;
- Aren’t afraid to fail; they do it all the time;
- Ask “Why?” in every conversation they have;
- Don’t use labels to define people. Weird is normal; it’s all they know;

The weird shall - no they must - inherit the earth.

Our future depends on it.

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

• Posted 8.1.16 at 05:08 am by Roy Osing
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July 25, 2016

Why your competitive advantage must be more than just hot air

Source: Pexels

Why your competitive advantage must be more than just hot air.

Most companies struggle with defining their competitive advantage claim. What makes them unique; different from their competitors.

They can’t answer the question “Why should I do business with you and NOT your competition?” in a succinct meaningful way.

There are two traps they fall into.

First, they generally speak to the internal capabilities an organization has (what leadership believes are the differentiators) rather than being explicit about how they compare to others in the market. “We provide the highest quality products.”; “Our people are our greatest asset.” They stress technology.

They talk about their size and claim market leadership.

Second, most competitive advantage statements are high level and aspirational in nature. They are not precise and specific enough to communicate how an organization is special among the choices available.

“We provide the best value.” “We have been in business for 100 years.” “We offer the lowest prices out there.”

The use of helium filled adjectives often abound. Overused and eye-glazing descriptors like: better, best, top, #1, excellent, great, greatest, lowest, most and so on pervade the advertising airwaves.

A competitive claim must declare the difference between your organization and your competitors AND it must be precise enough so that people can “see” the difference.

You can’t see “greatest” for example and you can’t see “most”. They mean different things to different people.

As the solution, create The ONLY Statement as an element of the Strategic Game Plan: “We are the ONLY ones that…” is its form.

ONLY must be brief. If it takes you a page of narrative to define your competitive advantage, you don’t have one.

ONLY never includes the “P” word. Claiming a price advantage is a slippery slope as price can be easily copied and it says nothing about value provided.

“The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about. “ – Seth Godin

A couple of ONLY examples.

“We provide the ONLY solution that permanently stops people from depositing biohazard contaminants through manhole covers”— MUG Solutions, Vancouver

“St John Ambulance is the ONLY provider of First Aid, Health & Safety Solutions Anytime, Anywhere”— St John Ambulance, Vancouver

Test ONLY with your customers to ensure it addresses something they care about, and you consistently demonstrate 24/7. The ONLY Statement works. It can be observed. It can be measured. People get it.

Start your ONLY journey today.

It’s the source of your competitive advantage claim.

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

• Posted 7.25.16 at 04:34 am by Roy Osing
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