Be Different or be dead

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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November 16, 2019

3 simple ways to make a strong work ethic for small businesses

3 simple ways to make a strong work ethic for small businesses.

There are two types of work ethics: good and bad.

Someone with a bad work ethic rushes through projects, is often absent from work, or misses deadlines — in other words, an unproductive employee with a tendency to slack off.

On the other hand, an employee with a good work ethic possesses the willingness to work hard, has great time management skills, and is adaptable and flexible to different tasks. Business World’s Rajguru Tandon explains that having a strong work ethic is directly correlated to productivity and a good work culture, and it’s not hard to see why management must value and work towards it.

But how does one encourage good work ethic? Out of all the soft skills employees can have, it is the most challenging to cultivate. This is because it consists of multiple secondary skills, such as time management, responsibility, and adaptability, all of which have to be finely tuned over time.

Fortunately, organizations can develop this skill by showing one key value: integrity. Management must walk the talk by creating an environment that supports good work ethic and responds well to improper behavior.

But if you’re a little lost on how to start, here are a few ways you can begin promoting good work ethic in your workplace.

1. Help them prioritize

Learning how to prioritize tasks promotes productivity and cultivates an employee’s time management skills. Thus, encourage your employees to get into the habit of planning and prioritizing, which involves looking at everything they need to do for a day or week, and then figuring out which ones are most critical.

In this way, Verizon Connect’s Taylor Fasulas notes that they will be able to set clear goals for their day and avoid wasting lots of time feeling overwhelmed. Start by setting clear expectations and timelines, and throw the idea of multitasking out the window.

Encourage your team to create centralized to-do lists, so everyone can see what each one is working on for the day and can avoid adding to it unless really necessary.

2. Provide praise and feedback where necessary

Employees want to do better — but they also want to know what they’ve been doing right. Guest writer Smith Willas explains that employees begin to lose their confidence when their accomplishments aren’t appreciated, and will eventually think of themselves as just another number in the company.

Show public recognition of achievements, small or large, and prioritize face-to-face compliments over virtual ones where possible. Rewarding people will motivate them to work hard, and inspire others to do the same.

Of course, it’s still important to give feedback where necessary, but make sure it’s in a manner that’s constructive in order to improve performance. After all, no one wants to hear all the negatives without hearing about how they can do better.

3. Be flexible and adaptable yourself

With 77% of Canadians believing that flexible work is the new normal, encouraging flexibility and adaptability has to work both ways.

Today’s working generation seeks a healthy work-life balance, and why shouldn’t they? Reduce occupational stress of commuting and traffic jams by allowing your employees to have flexible work schedules, and adapt to your employees’ needs where necessary.

For instance, consider allowing them to have a more flexible work schedule if they’re going through a hard time with their personal life. But also, be flexible and adaptable to what works for your employees — not all their work routines are the same. Give them space to do their tasks, and step in with guidance whenever required. In turn, they will make an effort to meet your expectations and be flexible when needed.

In short

Encouraging a strong work ethic is a two-way street — both employees and employers have to work on it. Practicing simple solutions such as offering praise and feedback, remaining flexible, and encouraging prioritization can help significantly encourage a strong work ethic in your workplace.

— TheLeadingJ is a passionate poet, a long-time HR manager, and a questionable singer. After travelling the world for two years, she’s finally decided to settle down in the bustling city of Toronto, Canada. When she isn’t working, she loves to bake and try out new recipes from all over the world.

• Posted 11.16.19 at 06:32 am by Roy Osing
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November 11, 2019

5 of the most miserable things that suck in business

Source: Unsplash

5 of the most miserable things that suck in business.

The fundamentals of running a business haven’t changed all that much over time. Sure, business tools — the micro technologies applied to specific functions in a business — have been revolutionized by the Internet and the new capabilities it has spawned.

The ability to personalize offers and advertising messages, for example, has introduced an entire new dimension in marketing and sales that wasn’t possible a decade ago.

But the basic business principles espoused by some of the more noteworthy thought leaders of the past are still held to have just as much relevance today as they were then.
For example, Peter F. Drucker had simple yet compelling views of how businesses should be led and his guidance remains as vital signposts for business leaders to follow.

▪️ “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.”
▪️ “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the
product or service fits him and sells itself.”
▪️ “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”

But there are some things that are practised in business today that need to stop; these remnants from the past — and many of them remain as examples of what leaders ignored from icons like Drucker — continue to find their way into business plans and marketing strategies and are a drag on business performance.

These are the five worse things that suck in business and they need to be expunged from how organizations are run.

1. Scale thinking sucks

Most business leaders ask the question “How can it be scaled?” when presented with a new business opportunity for a product or service. What they want to know is how the new product can be economically supplied to as many people as possible.

How the supply chain can be ramped up to produce the maximum number of units within an acceptable cost envelope.

The problem with scaling is that it takes an idea that was likely hatched from an analysis of a single customer or small customer group with narrowly defined needs and wants and is transformed into one which will be force fed to the largest population possible.

The demand-centric idea is subsumed by supply and cost considerations; the customer is lost in the process.

The reason scale thinking sucks is that supply should never rule the roost; demand should. And the real question that should be asked by leaders is “How can we efficiently provide this new product to its intended audience at a price that reflects its intrinsic value?”

2. Copying ideas sucks

Truly unique ideas in business are few and far between, notwithstanding the emphasis given to organizational programs around how to generate new ideas and how to be more creative.

The fact is that a new idea being adopted in one organization is most likely an old idea in another. Many businesses pride themselves in being competent in spotting best practices and adopting them; in fact the process of benchmarking best in class and robbing their ideas is often expressed as a core competency of a firm.

Innovation and creativity can’t be achieved by stealing an idea belonging to someone else; all that you really achieve is you increase the herd of copycats by one.

The reason copying sucks is that the process works against the natural process of discovering new ideas that might improve performance. As long as employees are on the hunt for an idea they can copy (under the guise of innovation) they will NEVER apply themselves to finding something revolutionarily new for their customers and their business.

3. Planning sucks

There is a misguided notion in business that if you have a great business plan, success is a stone’s throw away.

As a result, strategic planning, marketing planning, sales planning and ‘everything planning’ is given a high priority and employee education is littered with planning techniques and boilerplates to ensure the process is as sophisticated as possible and that it employs all the tools espoused by the planning experts.

My observation over my career is that the lions share of leadership time is spent charting the right course for an organization with little time left to ask the question “How can we execute the plan?”

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work — Drucker

The reason planning sucks is that it trumps execution in most organizations; it assumes implementation will happen by serendipity. The reality is, however, it almost never happens because it requires people to do it with their vagaries of individuality and diversity.

If individuals don’t believe the plan will satisfy their own unique wants and desires — if they can’t buy in — they won’t be advocates to the change and the plan will die.

Success doesn’t come from throwing the plan over the wall and expecting employees to dutifully and effectively execute it. It comes from leadership spending 80% of their time on figuring out how to execute an imperfect plan and to find a way to engage the hearts and minds of every employee to make it their own.

4. Crowds suck

Businesses love crowds; the attraction that a large population or mass market brings to profitability potential if it can be converted to a large volume of product and service sales.

Whereas scale addresses how supply can be economically increased to provide large volumes, crowd or mass market thinking addresses how a product or service can be designed to appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers.

This infatuation with the masses tries to find the lowest common denominator solutions that appeal to everyone — to the average individual.

The market reality is, however, is that watering down the features and benefits of a product to try and meet the needs of the many, makes it appeal to no one. It’s bland and insipid. It’s value proposition is vague and unclear.

The reason mass marketing sucks is that it forces the business away from individuals who each have special wants and desires to the herd and numbers that define a potential opportunity. A people-focus is replaced by a superficial numbers one. Furthermore it results in a culture of pushers rather than creators of special value based on what individuals desire not on what you suspect the herd wants.

5. Precision sucks

In business, there is a thirst for precision; to be as accurate as it can be in the solutions it creates to meet the challenges it faces. It’s a fallback to the scientific method which postulates that a finite number of independent variables can be combined in a unique way to produce a predictable outcome.

The d = s x t thinking in business produces, for example, forecasting models that predict consumer demand and market share in a world of chaos and randomness.

The truth is, markets can’t be formularized; outcomes can’t be represented by the results of combining inputs in any particular way. At best, outcomes can be extrapolated or approximated but must always be taken with a grain of salt because before you know it, something unexpected happens that rocks your world and renders your good intentions invalid.

The reason precision sucks is that it sets up unrealistic expectations that things will work out the way they were intended. And it furthermore reduces the capacity of the business to respond and adapt when they don’t (and they never do).

Successful businesses definitely have a “Plan A” that is constructed with the best analytical tools at leadership’s disposal, but they also have contingencies in the wings to draw on when things start to go awry.
And they invest heavily in tracking and monitoring to know when Plan A is at risk; they never let their defences down.

The successful businesses I know:
▪️ are good at anticipating but GREAT at responding to unforeseen events;
▪️are comfortable with an imperfect let’s head west strategy;
▪️view the ability to execute as a competitive advantage;
▪️focus on the individual and creating value that satisfies their special needs;
▪️build a culture to create original and different ideas; they see themselves as best in class.

They’ve found a way to get rid of what sucks.

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

• Posted 11.11.19 at 04:55 am by Roy Osing
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October 21, 2019

Why a boilerplate is absolutely the worst thing ever

Source: Unsplash

Why a boilerplate is absolutely the worst thing ever.

How many people go to Google to find a template to follow for something? It could be for a résumé, a business plan, a job application or a flowchart for anything.

Any common requirement that can be programmed and replicated ends up in some sort of template format and made available for everyone to use.

Boilerplates make it easy for the person using it — follow the format; don’t think; stay within the lines — and for the person receiving it (content is presented in one way; common elements are covered).

Boilerplates have a dark side; they are obscene when you consider 5 serious problems they cause:

1. They rob creativity

Boilerplates rob the creativity in people — no creativity is needed to complete a template on any topic (other than selecting the template appropriate to the application you have in mind).
You don’t have to think through your own approach to any challenge you are facing, in fact most people choose the the template that is easiest to complete.

Want to create a résumé? Download one of the many templates from the internet and have a go; it’s that easy.
The problem is that for the sake of easiness, you sacrifice the opportunity to express your individuality; to do something that is uniquely you.

Successful people are remarkable because they create their own personal art, something that is special to them and that conveys their uniqueness.
Template thinking is clearly counter to that and in fact represents a force that stultifies personal art forms.

2. They force compliance

Boilerplates encourage a “fill in the blanks” mentality — rather than considering why the blanks are there and filling them in with a plan or strategy in mind, you just mindlessly fill them in.

You are willing to accept an approach that someone else has conceived and trust that it will work for you.
This unfortunately leads to just doing what your told without thinking for yourself; complying with the rules set by others rather than questioning what you’re being asked to do and doing it your own way.

The ultimate consequence of this behaviour is a population that simply follows the intellectual perspective of other pundits or experts and is therefore unable to adapt to changes required to survive and thrive in a changing world.

3. They spawn copycats

Boilerplates reinforce and perpetuate the copying phenomenon — if one thousand people use the same résumé template, for example, a crowd of 1000 look-alike candidates for any job opportunity is created.

I’ve sat across the table interviewing candidates for a VP Marketing leadership position and have almost been ‘put to sleep’ because the value propositions offered by virtually everyone of them were the same and were the product of a template they all used. Originality was missing in action; individuality was masked by crowd mentality.

As a writer and practitioner of being different, I find the best practices and benchmarking completely of touch with what it takes to achieve personal and organizational growth and success.

Copying anything simply increases the common herd by one; no additional value is created; no actual progress is achieved.

4. They cause laziness

Boilerplates make people lazy — it takes zero energy (other than finding a template you need) to exist in the world of boilerplates.
The process of completing a template is well defined and predictable, so with a minimum amount of effort you can produce the expected result.

Many would argue that this is a good thing, that achieving something with minimal effort is a sign of being highly productive.
And, in certain instances, I would agree. But in this case the zero effort experience raises the expectations that all challenges will be successfully met with little effort — I call it the boilerplate syndrome.

What ever happened to the premise that anything worth doing is worth working hard for? My grandkids’ schooling makes extensive use of templates and they actually think they will achieve greatness by using them. Nope.

The boilerplate syndrome enables the inertia of taking what is perceived as the easy way.

5. They make things boring

Boilerplates are boring — they all produce the same information in the same form; they are totally predictable. Any time a predictable result is consistently produced by anything, it’s boring.

They say variety is the spice of life, and it’s particularly true when it comes to the applications of templates. Where are the spicy résumés, the spicy marketing plans and the spicy flowcharts?

It’s time to mix things up if you want to get noticed. Sure, use a résumé boilerplate as a guide, but apply your own personal twist to introduce variety and attract the attention of your intended audience.

The suppliers of boilerplates market their similar solutions to people who aren’t creative, who love to comply with the views of others, who are comfortable with being a copycat, and who are ok with producing something that is boring.

And unfortunately there are too many people out there to buy what they offer.

Let’s change that.

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

• Posted 10.21.19 at 04:31 am by Roy Osing
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