Be Different or be dead

January 22, 2018

Why successful leaders change their minds on decisions they make

Source: Pexels

Why successful leaders change their minds on decisions they make.

Some leaders show two faces (and some show many more) when it comes to dealing with a challenging and contentious issue.

They strongly declare and advocate their position to various audiences, but after “selling time” takes its toll with a barrage of dissenting views, they change their mind.

They decide that expending the emotional energy to convince others of their position isn’t worth the effort.

Politicians do it all the time; they switch positions on the run when they learn that their original stance is either unpopular or was ill thought through in the first place.

The many faces of leadership displays acquiescence in its finest form; the end game is not necessarily based on principles the leader is passionately and emotionally invested in, rather the objective is to try and appease as many people possible with the hope that dissent among the masses is minimized and a short term advantage for the leader is gained.

It may be the case that few feathers are ruffled, but the leader achieves little progress as they spend all their time selling, defending and switching their position.

The fallout is that the leader is branded indecisive, weak and one who flits about without landing on anything.

They live in the moment; they have no tomorrow in sight.

Leaders need to be able to flex given the varying circumstances they face during the process of trying to gain support for their idea.

New information that affects the decision taken comes to light

Facts that were unknown when the position was formulated present themselves and cannot be ignored. This could be characterized as insufficient analysis or incomplete study of all the relevant information that should be considered in taking a position.
That said, the intent should not be to lay blame but rather take the new information and integrate it into the decision making process and not dismiss it because “it is too late to incorporate it into the mix”.

Employee feedback is loud and compelling

In terms of implementation challenges as well as uncontemplated impacts on individuals and their lives.
If, for example, frontline employees give the decision a thumbs down in terms of their ability to implement it, pay attention and take a second look. A bold decision which may be theoretically sound but which cannot be executed in the real world must be reconsidered. Always listen to the “warriors” who are in the field who know what is possible and what is not.

‘The unexpected’ rears its ugly head

A random and unpredictable event suddenly occurs, forcing a reconsideration of the direction on the table.  In the uncertain and unpredictable markets organizations face today, there will always be unanticipated factors that make themselves visible and which challenge the wisdom of the original decision. These forces need to be taken seriously and should always create a pause to reassess any declared position.

A decision to tweak the leader’s original position is always the better path to take as opposed to steadfastly sticking to a decision which is at risk given new events that have emerged.

Under circumstances like these, a switch in position may be required.

Strategically schizophrenic leaders change their minds with purpose.

They ‘flex with purpose’ and weave their morphed proposal through the organization with the singular purpose of achieving their intended outcome as best they can given the changes they made to it.

There are many potential routes to a destination despite the forces that prevent it from being achieved the original way it was intended; the standout leader is willing to strategically change HOW they arrive at the prescribed destination.

Mindlessly adhering to a position even though in light of feedback it’s success is highly in doubt, is irresponsible.

On the other hand, progress is not served by a constant stream of reactive tweaks or adjustments that shatter the picture of the journey’s end.

As a leader, pick a destination you believe in and be strategically schizophrenic in seeking the outcome that best suits the conditions of the time.

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

• Posted 1.22.18 at 05:41 am by Roy Osing
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January 8, 2018

The best competitive advantage is being ‘the only one’

Source: Pexels

Never has it been more important to carve out a distinctive and unique place for your organization in the market than it is today.

▪️The economy is unpredictable;

▪️Insane forces like COVID descend upon us;

▪️Competition is intense as new competitors are entering the market at a blistering rate;

▪️New technology ‘rains down’ on organizations relentlessly;

▪️Markets are cluttered with sameness; products and services are undifferentiated, relying on price to be the difference. And competitive claims are lost in the crowd;

▪️Customers are more empowered than ever before, establishing relationships with suppliers that deliver distinctive solutions and ignoring those that don’t.

Which organizations are successful and survive this challenging business environment, and what separates them from the others that struggle, hang on and eventually fail?

Those that are able to win this battle are different from their competitors.

They survive the scrutiny of the discriminating customer by providing relevant, compelling and unmatched value.

They die.

Survival

How do you create a competitive advantage that will survive the dynamics of a chaotic world?

Let’s face it, organizations have difficulty explaining to a prospective customer why they should do business with their organization and not the many others in the market that basically look the same.

If you can’t give specific reasons why your company should be chosen over every other, then you won’t be chosen. The choice will be owned by the organization that is able to cut through the clutter and provide the reason with clarity and simplicity.

“You don’t want merely to be the best of the best. You want to be the ONLY ones that you do.” — Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead

An effective competitive claim isn’t about being “the best”, #1, “the top”, “the leader” or using any other qualitative descriptor that ranks your team against your competitors.

Any descriptor such as these is argumentative and unclear.

Claims like “We offer the best customer service” or “We are #1 in the market” don’t provide the clarity required to be convincing to anyone who is considering a purchase decision.

It’s like throwing your claim out there and hoping it will resonate with someone and that they will believe it.

Uniqueness

The ONLY Statement is the way to express your uniqueness - “We are the ONLY ones that…”
It’s binary; it claims that your organization does something (that people desire and care about) that no one else does. It’s simple and clear without the need for lofty language that lacks substance.

Building the ONLY statement is a disciplined process. It requires that you have a strategic game plan with an intimate understanding of what your target customers ‘crave and lust for’.

And it will separate your organization from the crowd.

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

• Posted 1.8.18 at 04:58 am by Roy Osing
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January 1, 2018

Why amazing marketing involves the special person not the boring masses

Source: Pexels

Why amazing marketing involves the special person not the boring masses.

Organizations produce or distribute products and services; marketers are given the challenge of creating demand for what is pumped out of the manufacturing process or handed to them from suppliers.

How do they do it?

They are victims to the method most people follow; they look for the easy way.

A way to perform their responsibilities by deploying a minimum amount of effort and hoping to achieve maximum payback.

Most marketers (my observation over 30 years) resort to applying the “one size fits all” principle; that any product can satisfy the needs of the mass market.

It’s a simple process.

Flog the product to as many potential customers as you can stressing the features and benefits believed to satisfy the “average” consumer.

And hope for a high hit rate.

This approach is a waste of time and effort.

Why?

Because there is no such thing as an average customer or a mass market! No two customers are alike in terms of their needs, wants and desires, thus this “lowest common denominator” strategy of marketing to a diluted level of demand is flawed from the outset.

Yes, it will result in some sales (where a person exhibits the demand characteristics of the masses targeted), but this hit-and-miss approach will fall short of achieving a healthy return on investment because of the many targeted individuals who don’t “look like” the mass persona and don’t respond to the offer.

It’s time for organizations to shift from the supply world to the demand world.

Where the wants of specific consumers are given precedence over what the organization produces; what the customer “covets” trumps what the product or service does.

One-size-fits-one

This requires re-vectoring the focus for marketing from a one size fits all to a one-size-fits-one philosophy where:

— products and services are targeted to a small number of potential customers whose requirements are special and unique to THEM;

— products are integrated to produce solutions having greater value than the sum of its product elements;

— “common” or “average” is purged from the marketing lexicon;

— success is measured by the number of personalized solutions created;

— the ultimate goal of segmentation is to discover as many segments of ONE as possible to understand demand at the micro personal level;

— the role of “Customer Manager” is introduced in the marketing organization to create personalized offers for discrete groups of customers; the emphasis on traditional product management is reduced;

— marketing’s primary performance metric changes from product market share to share of customer - the percentage of a customer’s total spend an organization holds.

Lazy marketing persists with one size fits all; relevant marketing in today’s world has moved to one size fits ONE.

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

• Posted 1.1.18 at 04:13 am by Roy Osing
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December 25, 2017

How does a leader become insanely effective at executing?

Source: Pexels

How does a leader become insanely effective at executing?

If the leader of an organization can’t successfully execute, it will languish and eventually die.

It really doesn’t matter how intellectually brilliant their strategy is, or how cleverly the composed plan integrates the toolset advocated by the pundits,  if it can’t be implemented it’s worth nothing.

Leaders can’t assume that execution will happen by declaring the new direction to the organization and expecting that people will know what to do, they they will want to do it and that they will do it.

WHAT TO DO - the strategy needs to be translated right down to the individual who requires an intimate understanding of what actions they need to take to execute on the organization’s chosen path.

It’s one thing to shout out the intent to “unleash the power of the internet” to marketing, for example, but without providing the product, customer segment and application focus, marketers won’t know what specific programs to develop to make it happen.

And furthermore, if clarity around what marketing should stop doing is not provided, the move forward will be dysfunctional, inefficient and unproductive. Hanging on to the past while at the same time trying to take on a new future is an impossible role for anyone to assume.

WANT TO DO - the leader must provide the motivation for employees to want to adopt the new course. Rather than tell everyone “this is where we’re going”, the leader must sell their decision if they want people to be personally invested in supporting it. Employees must see the new future as exciting and cool in a way that gets them emotionally hooked on the idea.

They need to be more than intellectually convinced; they need to be emotionally “all in” because that is where they raw energy comes from to willingly take the action needed to move forward.

WILL TO DO - the leader must be the strategy hawk that takes personal responsibility to see that results are delivered through their teams in the organization. This is all about monthly measuring key performance indicators, taking immediate action to close any gaps and celebrating any successes where target have been exceeded.

This is the time to recognize the achievements of the heroes who have gone above and beyond expectations to deliver results.

It is Interesting that a leader is expected to have an academic pedigree that can be paraded around to shareholders and public with the implied message that these credentials will take the organization to lofty heights. That “knowing stuff” will drive superlative performance.

This is not the case.

Organizations perform well when they execute well in an environment where randomness, unpredictability and chaos govern the agenda and where nothing turns out according to plan.

It’s about time we started describing the brilliant leaders of the day in terms of their execution credentials and the power they have demonstrated to harness the hearts and souls of individuals to drive forward in uncharted waters.

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

• Posted 12.25.17 at 04:49 am by Roy Osing
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