Be Different or be dead

April 9, 2018

11 common reasons ‘dumb rules’ could get you in trouble

11 common reasons ‘dumb rules’ could get you in trouble

‘Dumb Rules’ describes the rules, policies and procedures an organization has that make no sense to customers.

Dumb Rules make it difficult for people to do business with an organization; customers are forced to engage with the organization in a way that royally pisses them off.

The culprits of this phenomenon are the internal rule mongers who essentially are in the game of controlling customer engagement and subordinate making it easy for customers to applying tight control over how they engage.

Internal auditors, systems analysts, cost control folks, work study specialists and risk managers are among the group whose sole purpose it seems is to overwhelm the customer with constraints they don’t understand.

I am sure my reader has had an experience where they have been on the receiving end of — and perhaps been beaten up by — a Dumb Rule.

In fact it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are many Dumb Rule casualties out there who are constantly victims — it’s almost like Dumb Rules find them just to make their day suck.

I am one of those consumers who is a magnet for a Dumb Rule. I have been told in a restaurant that my wife and I couldn’t have a booth because they were reserved for parties of 4 or more (when the place was virtually empty).

I have been refused a sweater that was on a mannequin (the only one left in my size) because it was for “display purposes only” and could not be sold.
And I have been asked to put my credit card on deposit in an outside lounge before I could be served a drink because I might “drink and run”.

And the litany of horror stories goes on and on.

It’s like road rage

My experience has been that a Dumb Rule has an incredible impact on a person similar to road rage. It’s like this intense anger over the incredulity of the situation swells up inside you and must be released in some way. I personally have shot back at an innocent frontline person in these circumstances and I have seen others do so as well.
Sucking it up and turning the other cheek just doesn’t seem to be an option.

Because of the powerful emotions lying dormant in every individual that are waiting to be unleashed with the right motivation, the consequences from Dumb Rule Rage could be catastrophic.

Need a lawyer?

In fact just knowing about Dumb Rules could leave you needing a lawyer in these ways.

— if you’re face to face with a frontline person who is doing their best to enforce a rule that you know is stupid, your intense response could be construed as a personal assault.

— when a Dumb Rule plummets you and you want to tell 10 friends, referring to the guilty organization as “a bunch of assholes” could attract slander claims that you are harming their reputation.

— bemoaning the Dumb Rule organization to others could attract claims that you’re turning customers away and as a result hurting their business.

Bloggers beware

— blogging about your experience and mentioning the organization by name could not only invite a response from them, it would also leave a paper trail to prove their allegations that their business has been damaged.

— plotting with your friends and family to report the organization to the consumer advocate groups will probably require you to seek legal advice and prove your case.

— asking to discuss a Dumb Rule with a supervisor has the potential of escalating your anger in two ways, first, there will be a reluctance to allow you to talk to someone higher up (the frontline person loses face if this were to happen); second, if you do get to speak to the supreme being, they will probably look at you in a condescending way and tell you that “you don’t understand” that their rules are there to protect the interests of the company.

— questioning management at an annual shareholders meeting about their Dumb Rules will put you in the spotlight and on the record for challenging their methods and intentions and would add more evidence of your dissatisfaction should there ever be a confrontation.

Stay off social media

— berating the company on social media will do a great job of spreading your discontent far and wide and creating awareness of their customer service motives. But it will also magnify your intentions to “punish” them for their sins and provide more food for lawyer fodder.

— plotting about how you will “make them pay” for a Dumb Rule event establishes motive. Be careful what you are thinking; there may be a telekinetic lawyer listening.

#MeToo list could be waiting

— accusing an organization of an alleged Dumb Rule offence without proof could get you on the #MeToo list so be careful.

— turning your Dumb Rules knowledge into a cause, mission or vendetta could create marriage problems and require counselling assistance or legal representation if your partner wants to terminate your relationship .

An intimate understanding of the unfair things organizations to customers can be harmful to your health and well being.

Be careful how you use your Dumb Rule expertise, as misusing it could land you in the lap of a lawyer.

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

• Posted 4.9.18 at 03:09 am by Roy Osing
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April 2, 2018

How to grow outstanding leaders to replace the old school ones

Certainly not in the short term and maybe never.

We have taught people to follow the leader their whole life, be it a school teacher in our childhood years or a professor in our university years.

We have forced our students to follow text book rules and doctrine and taught them that compliance and conformity were the only way to succeed. Learn the material, score well on the exam and you win at least in the school.

In addition, there are too many experts and text book addicts in the mix who teach the art of leadership on the basis of how it was practiced in the past. What worked in previous environments is certainly instructive but it is no prescription for success in today’s world of uncertainty, unpredictability and chaos.

Little wonder then that we have created a cadre of leaders who all follow the same leadership doctrine and practice the same leadership methods.
They don’t standout in terms of bringing a relevant and unique perspective to the role; they all fit in to the crowd of unimaginative copycats.

Changing this culture in the short term is practically impossible. Huge momentum has been built up around the traditional leadership model and resistance to change it is high — people are too comfortable with it and have much invested in it.

They’re not suddenly about to adopt a new culture of leadership.

But even though we can’t immediately replace the old with the new, we can slowly begin the change process, because if we don’t, a new more relevant model of leadership will never see the light of day.

There are some meaningful actions we can take in schools and organizations NOW to begin to ‘grow’ standout leaders; to take a member of the common leader herd and transform them into someone who will change the trend in leadership.

Reduce the amount of text book bullshit that is taught

Start teaching breakaway practices that will dispel the notion that compliance to accepted norms is necessary to be a great leader.
Current leadership curricula is way out of balance, with too much of the old practices being taught and not enough of the new principles being discussed.

My guidance to young professionals who I mentor is to focus on proven different new school leader practices such as:
▪️be contrarian.
▪️serve don’t tell.
▪️cut the crap.
▪️make outrageous demands.
▪️preach imperfection.
▪️use ‘let’s head west’ as the anchor for your business plan.is a valid strategy”.
▪️be broken.
▪️benchmark delirious people.
▪️hire for goosebumps.
▪️learn to be the consummate storyteller.
▪️hold regular bear pit sessions.
▪️do-it-yourself.
▪️be nosy.

These concepts are not found in current leadership dogma.

1. Start changing the criteria for appointing new leaders

Start selecting members from herd who provide a glimpse of being different than the commoners. As long as prospective leaders see that the rules of engagement require consistently demonstrating traditional practises, there will be little motivation to step away and try to be unique.

And talk about why they were selected; the attributes they possess that are unique and different from what were valued in the past. It’s important to make a big deal of the new people who are appointed to leadership positions. Others will see it and hopefully decide to adopt some of the behaviours of the new appointees.

2. Create a contrarian leadership development program

An intervention intended to shake people out of the norm; get them thinking about a different way of leading.

This program would rewrite the text books on the conventional art:
— serve from the bottom; don’t lead from the top;
— execute first; plan second;
— kill dumb rules;
— forget about what customers need; discover their secrets;
— take your product on a dinner date;

And celebrate the graduates; make a big deal of what they’ve achieved and the importance to the future of the organization.

3. Fire the bottom 10% of the herd every year

It’s critically important to send the message that the ‘old leadership stuff’ is no longer acceptable — and at the same time cull the herd of unwanted members.
It’s one thing to preach about the leadership values you want and hire new people in that image; it’s quite another to let your actions speak.

The message is stronger when you see colleagues exit the organization.
In addition, you have to force churn in the leadership ranks in order to make room for the new generation; natural attrition rarely is sufficient to make the changes needed in the timeframe required.

4. Create a buddy program

Connect a high potential ‘convert’ with someone who is still practicing old methods. Use your success stories to fuel more conversions from old to new. One-on-ones are a great way to use the natural imprinting process to change the fabric of the leadership team.
Get each person who successfully moved to “the bright side” to select and work with another leader to teach and transform them.

Any cultural change takes time and baby steps to achieve, but it needs to begin now.

Perhaps one day organizations will possess creative and serving leaders who inspire imagination. And maybe — just maybe — the educational system will do their part in helping to prepare individuals to assume these critical roles.

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

• Posted 4.2.18 at 04:58 am by Roy Osing
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March 26, 2018

6 easy ways to improve marketing and sales working together

In every organization there is a degree of conflict between marketing and sales

Marketing complains that sales don’t move products or services effectively; sales claims they don’t get the support from marketing they need to do the job.

Marketing says that certain sales activity is off strategy; sales responds by criticizing that marketing doesn’t provide clear enough direction.

Around and around it goes.

A certain amount of this dance is healthy; too much, however, and it’s dysfunctional and can adversely impact organizational performance.

These 6 actions will help link marketing and sales in harmony.

Clarify the roles of each party

Marketing sets strategy; sales executes it. Sales is a channel to market; setting the channel strategy — i.e. what channel sells what product — is the responsibility of marketing.

Sales has no formal role in setting overall market direction other than providing input as the frontline customer facing team.
It’s critical that all align with these roles otherwise dysfunction occurs as groups trip over each other and little constructive gets done.
If there are issues about who does what, escalate to the highest level in the organization to get resolution.

Develop a detailed marketing plan

The marketing plan must have sufficient granularity for sales to create their sales plan incorporating the strategy focus and priorities they must carry out.
This is often a major issue where the marketing plan lacks the clarity required to define the specific actions sales must take to execute successfully.

Without absolute clear translation for sales they will be forced to make their own interpretation of what marketing expects. This puts sales in a quasi-planning role for which they are not responsible nor ill equipped to play.

Engage sales in setting the overall revenue target

This does not mean sales has a decision making role in setting the target; this is the responsibility of marketing.
Sales, however, should be looked to provide critical input on the available revenue potential and decide how it should be allocated at the customer level.

In addition, should there be any shortfall between the tops down marketing driven revenue target and bottoms up sales driven quota — and there always is — sales should decide how the difference will be allocated among customer groups and specific customers.

Implement an internal report card

The report card is a vehicle that allows marketing and sales to review and rate one another in terms of how well each function supports and meets the needs of the other.

The process is simple: marketing defines their 6 critical needs of sales who, in turn, outline what they expect of marketing. Every 6 months report cards are exchanged and each side rates the other — ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘F’ rating — on each support item. Results are analyzed and actions taken by both sides to address where performance has fallen short of expectations.

Jointly review revenue results monthly

Joint action planning based on results against monthly revenue objectives will solidify and direct the relationship to enhance performance.
Name calling is reduced and energy directed to resolving issues rather than blaming the other side for any performance glitch.

I mandated that these sessions be formally planned and would drop in unannounced to witness the proceedings and ask questions that challenged how well the team was working together. It became an integral part of “how things were done around here”.

Celebrate achievements together — good or bad

You either make it together or you fail together. There is no finger pointing, only sharing. Remarkable teams are created by jointly owning performance results.

As president of the organization I hosted quarterly performance celebrations between the two groups. We reviewed the successes — and recognized the heroes — and shortcomings — and what was learned through the process.
We tried to recognize groups of individuals with a mix of marketing and sales to further the notion of teamwork.

Aligning marketing and sales is not good enough. They need to be joined at the hip in order to deliver the high level of performance every organization expects.

Leadership needs to be engaged to make it happen otherwise nothing will change and mutual distrust will continue.

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

• Posted 3.26.18 at 03:55 am by Roy Osing
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March 19, 2018

7 proven ways a leader can pick the right person

Pexels

7 proven ways a leader can pick the right person.

How does a leader pick the right person when all candidates appear to be equally qualified?

This is a common question posed to leaders; but it’s one that has no answer.

The question is flawed; it’s based on an incorrect assumption.

It assumes that two candidates can be equally qualified.

No two individuals are “equally qualified”; no two people possess identical capabilities in terms of creating value for the organization.
The question assumes identical academic achievements in the same discipline (never happens); equal experience (never happens), equal skills (never happens) and equal potential (never happens).

If a leader can’t choose because they are unable to see the differences in individuals, they’re failing in their role.

If they do not have the insight necessary to break down common stereotypes in people, they are unlikely to be able to develop amazingly successful teams.

For those leaders who have difficulty seeing the differences in people these are the necessary actions to take.

Usher yourself out

Leave and seek another opportunity if you can’t see the difference in people. Because if you stay, you are likely to make bad people decisions and rob your organization.
The right thing to do is own up to your leadership deficiency and leave.

Ask more detailed questions of the candidates

Ask questions that probe their DNA. I was hiring a VP Marketing and the candidate had a history of Greek dancing. I asked why it mattered to the marketing leadership position and how they would apply the dancing skill to the position he was applying for.

His answer was threaded with skills like creativity, spontaneity and risk taking which were helpful in painting a picture of what he was all about.
You can’t discover differences in people if you don’t probe in detail how their skills and experience could be applied specifically to the job in question.

Insist that they ask you the top 3 questions on their mind as a candidate

This will tell you what they think is important (and how well they prepared for the interview) and how well they can focus on the few things that are truly important.

I would frame the question this way: “If I make my decision to hire you based on 3 questions you feel are vital to ask me, what would they be?”
This question separates the ramblers from those that can pinpoint their interests in a few words — good to know; the crowd has difficulty doing this.

Test their understanding of your company

Ask tough questions on your products and services, main competitors, strategic partnerships and financial performance to see if they have done their homework.

I would ask each person to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 10 on how well they think they understood our organization and the priorities it had — amazing how you can spot the bullshit.
Truly committed candidates will have thoroughly researched your organization and will standout from others you are interviewing.

Ask them “If you were to be hit by a bus and killed what would you be remembered for?”

And ask for a one word answer. What they define as their special redeeming value is critical information to test whether their is a fit between the candidate and the values of the organization.

Ask “What do you mean?” questions based on their one word reply to bring out what they specifically mean answer. Most replies tend to be high level and vague — “I think I will be remembered for my generosity” which tells you little about the actions they would take (and the values they live) to be generous.

Have more than one person engaged in the interview

It could be a peer but it could also be a high potential junior level manager who would gain from the experience of sitting in.

I used to invite who I considered high potential employees to sit in on candidate interview for positions more senior than theirs.
They were blown away by the trust I gave them; they returned my trust with creative questions that reflected a more inclusive view of what the organization deemed important.

Ask them what they learned from their grandmother

Grandmothers have amazing life smarts that are unmatched by most others and represent an amazing source of mentorship.

Discover what your candidates have learned about life that can be traced back to an old soul who has forgotten more life lessons than most of us will ever learn.
Individuals who can see the wisdom in experience have much to offer, and will show themselves as different from other candidates.

Recruiting top talent is an incredibly tough job. Don’t make it even more difficult by assuming any two candidates are equally qualified.

Your job as leader is to discover their differences and select the one whose unique attributes exactly match the needs of the organization.

If you don’t see the inequality between candidates, look closer; dig deeper.

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

• Posted 3.19.18 at 04:38 am by Roy Osing
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