December 20, 2022

4 simple ways to impress ‘the fox’ and have an amazing career

4 simple ways to impress ‘the fox’ and have an amazing career.

The fox in any organization is the key manager or executive that has the greatest amount of influence on a particular career or business decision to be made.

In sales it could be the key individual in the customer’s organization that would make the buying decision. If you are to win the sale, you need to figure out a way to make it stand out above your competitor’s in the eyes of the fox.

Your career challenge is no different. You represent a solution to a hiring manager’s problem and you must clearly differentiate yourself from your competition so that they conclude that you are the ONLY one who should be afforded the opportunity.

Here are 4 practices to covet the fox and win the competition for a job and push your career forward to succeed:

1. Identify the right leaders who represent a fox.

Identify the leaders in the organization who are making the key business and people decisions. Think about the individuals who are always consulted on matters affecting the strategy of the organization and the people who shoukd be considered for leadership positions.

Think about the fox as a target market—WHO to SERVE—just as you would if you were deciding on who to target in a new marketing program.

You will be allocating a significant amount of your time and energy on them and you need to be sure that they have the potential to deliver significant career benefits to you.

2. Discover their ‘secrets’.

Discover the expectations and ’secrets’ of the foxes you’ve identified. If you have a deep intimate understanding of the fox, you are in a position to impress them in a way none other can hope to do, and be successful in moving forward.

Here are a few secret gathering questions to answer on each fox.

— What history do they have in hiring people? What do they typically look for?

— What do they typically look for in a candidate to fill a particular position?

— What questions do they ask? What has their career path been? What positions have they held?

— What are they famous for? What strengths do they possess that have made them successful?

— What do they do outside of their job?

— Do they have any outside interests they spend their time on?

3. Market yourself as a package.

Don’t project yourself as a person having a narrow set of competencies.

Market yourself as someone who has a broad a range of skills and expertise that the organization values.

Think about yourself as a package of value that the organization needs to be successful and talk about how your package is more compelling than those who are competing with you.

Select the competencies you have that address the key issues and challenges facing the organization, which could include:

✔️ audacious leadership.
✔️ marketing expertise.
✔️ demonstrated achievement in developing winning business strategies.
✔️ cultural change.
✔️ increasing market share in competitive markets.
✔️ improving customer service results dramatically.
✔️ public speaking.
✔️ building strong teams and consultative selling skills.

4. Be proactive.

Be proactive in discovering the opportunities that will be coming up in the organization. Be intimately familiar with the business plan that is guiding critical activities.

If you have a good relationship with the foxes this will aid the process. In addition, stay tuned into the informal communications network in your organization as it is often very effective in knowing when change is in the wind.

With an informed outlook of the possibilities, you can take whatever action you feel appropriate to take advantage of them should they arise.

Follow these 4 simple ways to take advantage of the foxes that are in your organization and build a winning career.

Cheers,
Roy
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‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 12.20.22 at 12:00 am by Roy Osing
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November 14, 2022

11 easy ways to be different in ways people care about

11 easy ways to be different in ways people care about.

Being different is NOT about being different for the sake of being different.

Before talking about what being different IS, I need to clarify what being different is NOT, because there are misconceptions that must be dealt with.

▪️Being different is NOT about self expression—‘Who you are’—rather it’s about CHOOSING to express yourself in a unique and different way in order to accomplish a task or meet a challenge.

▪️Being different is NOT about your DNA—what you were born with—rather it’s about what you choose to do with the gifts given to you.

▪️️Being different is NOT about ‘doing your own thing’; rather doing what’s required in a unique way, in a one-of-a-kind way, in a way that ONLY you do.

▪️And, being different is NOT about ‘following your own direction’; rather choosing a direction that creates value for people in a way no one else does.

What is being different?

Being different is being truly unique in the way you improve the performance of your organization, advance your career and enhance your life.

Being different IS about standing out in a compelling and relevant way that people CARE about.
Applying your skills and competencies in a way that is relevant within a context—frame of reference—given to you. You’re given a problem to solve, and you look for a different way to solve the problem.

There is no formula for being different in a way that matters to people; every person must find their own way.

But the one prerequisite is that you have to WANT to take a different journey. You have to WANT to make a difference in a one-of-a-kind way. And you have to be prepared to absorb the pain—and push forward—you’ll feel along the way as you struggle to step away from the crowd and repel the forces and people that want you to conform with the common herd.

Tools I used to BE DiFFERENT

#1. Remind yourself. — Look at every challenge you’re facing through a ‘BE DiFFERENT Lens’. Ask yourself “How can I do this differently?”.
You will be amazed at how this simple tactic opens up your mind to atypical ways of doing things; after a while, stepping out becomes second nature.

#2. Create, don’t copy — Purge benchmarking from your tool kit.
Being different is about creating something unique (new), and you can’t do that when you’re in the copying mode.

Here’s a secret on how you CAN use copying to be different…

Copy them and morph, change, revise a ‘best in class’ idea into a breakaway idea that is something truly unique that people CARE about.

#3. Ditch the Manual. — Throw the manual away on the traditional ‘normal’—theoretically based—ways of addressing specific types of challenges.

If you use a textbook approach to solving a problem, you’re simply increasing the ‘sameness herd’ by one person.
And you’re perpetuating the inherent problems with the prescribed methods (academics don’t always get it right because they’ve rarely built a competitive business TO A $BILLION in annual sales.)

How I threw away the book on defining competitive advantage

Literally every organization uses traditional methods to define their competitive advantage and produce such CLAPTRAP competitive advantage statements as
“We are better…”; “We are the best…”; “We are the market leader…”; “We are number one…”; “We are the most…”
Examples:
“Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network”

“We work hard every day to make XXX the world’s most respected service brand.”

These statements deal more with what the organizations produce, rather than declare their uniqueness, and they are at best aspirational.
They can’t be proven and don’t answer the question “Why should I do business with you and not your competitors?”

To address the deficiencies in this rote approach, I created The ONLY Statement to address the issue.

“We are the ONLY ones who…”

“Roy Osing is the ONLY author, entrepreneur and executive leader who delivers practical and proven ‘Audacious Unheard-of Ways’ (no one else talks about ‘Audacious Unheard-of Ways’) to build high performing businesses and successful careers.” Proof point: I took a startup to A BILLION IN SALES.

So, consider standard methods as a base for your work, but always be looking for ways to BREAKAWAY from them and create a unique more meaningful solution.

#4. SURPRISE ‘em. — Ask yourself “What would surprise people in the way I solved a problem or delivered what was expected of me?”
Sure, be guided by standards to produce a standard solution but take the extra step to look for the SURPRISE Factor. Do simple things; it doesn’t have to be complicated.

I created a ‘Cleanse the Inside’ program to reduce internal bureaucracy and delete the policies that customers hated. The two specific projects that surprised and captured the imagination and curiosity of people who had fun with them were:
Kill Dumb Rules and Cut the CRAP.

#5. Have a theme. — I was obsessed with finding new ways to enhance the performance of my organization, and I used EXECUTION as my guide to BE DiFFERENT.
I was constantly looking for different ways to improve the execution of our strategic game plan… to Take a Startup TO A BILLION IN SALES.
Elements of my different approach included:
— ‘Head West’ Plan. Abbreviating the front end planning process and enhancing back end execution.
— Line of Sight Leadership.
— Established the Strategy Hawk role to oversee and own the execution of our strategy.

I stayed clear of looking for different ways of THINKING, and looked for different ways of DOING.

#6. Try. Try. Try. — Be a ‘trier’. Try—and fail—more than the next person. You need a ‘tries funnel’, loaded with opportunities to be different.

#7. Be imperfect fast. — Don’t look for perfection. IF you are obsessed with finding the perfect solution (which doesn’t exist anyway) you don’t DO anything.

The desire to be perfect keeps people from getting stuff done. And it’s doing stuff that earns you the reward for being different.

#8. Look at your toes. — Take a short term view to be different. “How can I solve this problem differently NOW so improved results will be realized NOW?”
Being different in the moment has power for you and those around you. You will realize very few benefits of being different if your energy is spent on looking for uniqueness 5 years from now.

For example, my Strategic Game Plan process has a 24-month planning horizon as opposed to the traditional 5-year planning period.

What can I do differently TODAY to improve outcomes is always my drive to kick performance to another level.

#9. Oppose the flow. — Be contrarian minded. Observe where the herd’s going—based on conventional thinking—and take the opposite approach. Do a 180 to the way everyone else is doing it.

These are a couple of examples of my ‘go against the flow’ tactics:
— Do-it-yourself strategic micromanagement. Putting the leader’s—my—‘fingerprints’ on key strategic activities that have a critical impact on the performance of the organization. I got personally involved with architecting the customer engagement process to ensure there was no ambiguity in what was required to create memorable customer experiences.
— Hiring for Goosebumps as the way to recruit people who ‘liked humans’.

#10. Inject practical juices. — Redefine a commonly accepted approach with ‘a practical eye’. Looking at principles and common beliefs and practices through a practical lens. What outcomes do the standard methods expect will result? Do they produce expected outcomes?

“My objective is to inject some ‘practical juice’ into the standard way of thinking to actually deliver better performance and outcomes.”

One example of how I put my practical twist on a common practice is leadership, and in particular, servant leadership which has this common definition:
“Servant leadership is a leadership style and philosophy whereby an individual interacts with others—either in a management or fellow employee capacity—to achieve authority rather than power.”

I chose to look at how this common view of servant leadership could be morphed into something that had more of a direct impact on the results of my organization which was related to how effectively our strategy was being EXECUTED.

I created a new leadership concept, Leadership by Serving Around—LBSA—designed to help people do their jobs more effectively, thereby enhancing the execution of our strategy.

My key practical elements of LBSA are:
— Wandering around asking people “How can I help?”
— It’s a personal question, not an organizational one.
— LBSA is NOT a style of leadership, it’s a strategic move targeted at determining what’s preventing people from executing the game plan of the organization — it’s a means to THAT end.
— It’s a ‘Cleanse-the-Inside’ of the organization process to enable people to do their jobs easier and more effectively and to eliminate barriers—‘Dumb Rules—to customer satisfaction.

A key LBSA question I ask is “What’s preventing you from saying ‘Yes’ to customers?

#11. Find a do-it mentor. — Cast aside the traditional mentor with a string of 9 letters behind their name recognizing their academic achievement, and find a stable of MBA’s—Masters in Business Achievement, people who have a distinguished track record of leading teams to unheard of levels of performance.

As I’ve said before, the context for being different is adding value and performing at breathtaking levels of performance. Mentors who have consistently done this are your target.

Some of my favorite examples of being different:
▪️The Grateful Dead
▪️Lady Gaga
▪️The Heart Attack Grill

Remember, being different isn’t about what you were born with; it’s about using the gifts you’ve been given to achieve remarkable things that benefit others.

Cheers,
Roy
40+ Podcast Shows I’ve done that unpack my work.

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‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 11.14.22 at 05:09 am by Roy Osing
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September 19, 2022

3 magic and proven moves you can make to have an audacious career

Source: Unsplash

3 magic and proven moves you can take to have an audacious career.

For those of you looking for the ‘Magic Formula’ to succeed, these are the 3 Audacious Career Moves that worked for me in leading an organization to A BILLION IN SALES.

#1. Have a Career Game Plan.

Success requires a plan to define what you covet, and what you need to do to achieve your end goal. And it should be a 24-month not 5-year view to require you to take action NOW, rather than procrastinating with the belief you will get things done 4years from now (which rarely happens).

The career business is highly competitive with most job applicants highly educated.
Your challenge is to break through the clutter of success seekers and win.

If you don’t have a specific plan, you’ll wander aimlessly looking for opportunities and hoping you’ll win a few.
You might, but then again you likely won’t.

#2. Create your Personal ONLY Statement.

Success demands uniqueness. Special people rise to the top in whatever they do, crowd ‘indistinguishables’ don’t. If you don’t stand out in some compelling, relevant way, you will forever struggle to be the chosen one for roles you seek.

Craft your ONLY Statement to declare what YOU do that no one else does.

“I am the ONLY one who…” is the leverage you need to stay out of the herd, be noticed, get chosen and win!

#3. Gather Mentors who have an MBA—Master in Business Achievement.

The ONLY mentors you need are those who are master rafters at DOING STUFF! Getting things done.

These incredible humans are the antithesis of intellectual procrastinators.

Find them. Befriend them. Listen to them. Follow them.

And you will outlast the crowd seeking to win.

The crowd won’t win.

You will.

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

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 9.19.22 at 04:00 am by Roy Osing
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April 11, 2022

Why your past success doesn’t mean a bright and remarkable future

Source: Pexels

Why your past success doesn’t mean a bright and remarkable future.

It’s an interesting challenge: you’ve invested your time and energy into achieving your goal and now you must continue to reap the benefits of your journey.

Resting on your laurels isn’t an option because there are so many people who would love to assume the position you’re in; who would like nothing more than to replace you.

To keep what you’ve achieved, you must keep your feet moving.

These 6 actions were very helpful to me in my career as I navigated my way through the hierarchy to eventually reach the executive suite of a major corporation.

Change it up

Never assume what got you here will keep you here or will get you where you want to go next. If you continue with the play that rewarded you yesterday, be prepared for disappointment in your current position.
This is a tough one for most people who have a difficult time morphing themselves from their past successful job approach to something new and different; they assume that if they continue to follow the vector they are on, life will be good.

I created an approach that worked well for me. I tagged it “The Magic Question” — “what do I have to do differently?”. It is a disciplined method of assessing what changes someone must make when they find themselves in a new role — a self intervention.

Continued success must be earned every day; constantly reinventing yourself is essential.

Work harder

It’s easy to drift when you have achieved the goal you have worked so hard to achieve. You sit back in your new chair, put your hands behind your head, take a deep breath and say to yourself “I’ve made it”.

The issue is, however, your current resting place is temporary; it lasts only as long as you continue to add value to the organization. Falter for a moment and there are many others who are waiting to step in.

Once you’ve got it, keep your head down, sweat more and and deliver more.

Keep your friends

Continue to nurture “the family” that has supported you up to now; you will no doubt need their support as you go forward.

There is a tendency for some people to lose contact with their friends and colleagues once they have arrived at their career destination; this is a mistake.
The more challenging the role you achieve, the more you need support around you to advise you and to simply be there for you when you have emotional let downs.

Make a point of thanking each one of your support team personally for their faith in you and what you stand for, and ask for their continues allegiance.

Learn something new

You have been rewarded for what you have learned in the past, but don’t rest on your laurels too long.

New challenges require new thinking, and anyone who believes that yesterday’s knowledge can be successfully applied to consistently solve tomorrow’s problems is in for a major shock.
Continuing to relying on the expertise you’ve gained up to now will make you stale, and eventually will lead to ineffectiveness in fulfilling your responsibilities.

Keep learning new stuff. Not only will it keep you relevant in terms of your ability to take the issues of the day head on, being ahead of the knowledge curve will provide you with the energy needed to maintain the pace and momentum you require for continued success.

Look beyond the horizon

Take the initiative to play a personal role in your organization’s future.

Get out of the confines of your new job description and develop your own perspective on where the organization needs to go to build value for ownership.
Study how customer demand is changing and the likely impact it will have on your competitive position. Develop a profile of new competitors being licensed by disruptive technologies. And build your own view of the strategic game plan that should be followed to meet these new challenges.

If you provide strategic value to the organization beyond what is expected of your current responsibilities, you will establish yourself as an asset with long life to your bosses.

Draft your next chapter

You may be tempted to take a time out, rest, and enjoy the spoils of your efforts once you’ve achieved your goal, but don’t get sucked in to playing the game this way.

Take a deep breath perhaps, but then look for a new prize to focus on — lean into the wind and keep your journey alive.

Successful careers are built on a number of successive achievements; rarely does the “one hit wonder” happen. It’s a serial process of achieve your goal — learn and deliver success in it — look for other opportunities where you can add value for the organization — move on.

Finally…

Many people fall victims to losing it once they’ve got it. This is not only a travesty in terms of not achieving their ultimate potential, it represents an opportunity cost to an organization.

The victims essentially rob their organization of the future value they could have provided had they been able to leverage their achievement into added career success.

These six actions will at least give you a fighting chance to hold and build, not hold and lose.

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

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 4.11.22 at 06:23 am by Roy Osing
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