Be Different or be dead

November 9, 2016

15 subjects that will make you successful after business school

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15 subjects that will make you successful after business school.

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

For the most part academics in business are following the same-old, same-old approach and falling short of creating ‘people products’ who will lead our organizations to be remarkable, compelling, indispensable and unforgettable.

They don’t teach that:

1. A business plan without flawless execution is worthless. Execution skills outrank planning in the real world;

2. Learning everything you can about customers on the run is more effective than periodic research;

3. It’s critical to understand customer secrets; their innermost wants and desires. What they ‘need’ is no longer helpful to standout in the competitive crowd;

4. Value packages that address the holistic requirements of a customer (lifestyle or business) should be the focus of marketing. Individual products and services should play a lesser role as their contribution to competitive advantage is limited;

5. Customers should be served not ‘serviced’. Computers are serviced, not people. Put your organization in their control;

6.  Individual customers need to be treated differently. The same treatment for all doesn’t work. One-size-fits-one is the new marketing;

7. The perfect solution to anything doesn’t exist - the business world is too complex to be formularized. Flawed solutions that excite people beats the theoretically pristine;

8. Imperfection rules - be imperfect fast. 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;

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

10. Screw-ups create loyalty - a successful service recovery from an OOPS! results in a more loyal customer than if the screw-up never happened;

11. The competition should receive less attention. Barriers to customer exit - preventing customers from leaving should be the focus. If you create loyal fans, you won’t have to worry about the hordes entering;

12. The most strategic phrase ever is ’I’m sorry’. The apology is at the heart of any mind-blowing service recovery and as a result loyalty building;

13. Internal service measurement is just as important as measuring customer perception. If you can’t dazzle your colleagues, chances are that you won’t be able to dazzle your customers;

14. Losing the sale is sometimes required to keep the customer relationship. Its not about the transaction, its about the long term relationship. If you can’t deal with a short term need your client has, suck it up. You need to find the solution elsewhere;

15. Storytelling breathes life into a vision or strategy. It fuels execution and should be considered an essential requisite of leadership.

Success for business school graduates depends on their ability to learn these vital principles as fast as they can.

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

• Posted 11.9.16 at 11:19 am by Roy Osing
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October 24, 2016

5 important things to remember when you’ve been screwed over

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5 important things to remember when you’ve been screwed over.

It’s happened to all of us at one time or another in organizational life; we’ve been dealt a bad hand and have had to suffer the negative consequences of a decision that someone else has made.

A decision we had no input in; one that was not in our best interest. One that set us back and removed privileges we worked hard and long to earn.

You’re not about to change the decision; you either have to live with it or leave and find opportunities elsewhere.

Here’s how you might be able to stay and live with it.

1. Do your research on why the decision was taken — What elements of the organization’s business plan drove the decision? What does the overall good look like? Is the intent to increase market share? Improve profitability? Refine business processes to streamline customer service?

The strategic objective is the context to evaluate your particular concerns. It provides a higher level explanation of why you are being screwed over. It won’t necessarily make you agree with the decision taken, but at least it will enable you to understand why it was reached.

2. Always keep the long term first and foremost in mind — Short term set backs are a way of life for individuals who choose organizational life. Your immediate misfortune does not represent the end of your career.

The good news is that you will have more chances.

3. Show your resiliency — Be that person who can take the punch, move on and continue to make a valuable contribution to the goals of the organization. Stand apart from others who choose to stay in defensive retreat and be a victim.

Your immediate misfortune my be an opportunity in disguise.

4. Seek guidance — From a mentor who has, no doubt, experienced similar issues in their time. Express your feelings, ask for advice and listen.

5. Keep your mouth shut! — Go to your ‘cave’ and think before you go public with your opinion of the decision. It’s always tempting and hard to resist, but avoid the bitching and lamenting conversations with colleagues about how badly you’ve been treated.

Uncontrolled reaction generally results in saying things you will regret. You don’t want your personal brand to be tainted with winer and sniveler; it will hold you back once the ‘crisis’ has past (and it will pass).

Accept the fact that ‘they’ will do you an injustice sooner or later and if you treat the event as a learning opportunity it will serve you well in your career.

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

• Posted 10.24.16 at 04:23 am by Roy Osing
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September 12, 2016

Why online dating is a great way to create your personal brand

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Why online dating is a great way to create your personal 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.

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 9.12.16 at 05:11 am by Roy Osing
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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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