Be Different or be dead

February 13, 2023

What is ‘fingerprint’ leadership and why is it so incredibly important?

How many articles, books have you read on the leadership topic?
OMG! There are so many leadership pundits out there, it’s tough to decide who’s philosophy and advice to follow.

I’ve always recommended that you follow someone with proven achievements in the real world as opposed to theoretical academics who have never felt the heat of running a major league business.

Unabashedly I am one of those people you should listen to because I took an early stage internet company to A BILLION dollars in annual sales using breakaway moves I created ‘on the run’.

This is one breakaway leadership move—Fingerprint Leadership—I made which had a HUGE impact on accelerating the performance of my business.

’Fingerprint’ leadership is my simple proven way to execute better and take business performance to astronomical heights.

Fingerprint leadership, in a nutshell, has a leader strategically micromanaging in their organization.

Yes, micromanaging! The act that most advisors say a leader should NEVER do.

It’s targeted micromanaging.

It’s focussed on the key elements required to hit on all cylinders if their strategic imperatives are to be achieved.

It’s architecting operational elements to ensure execution has a direct line of sight to the strategic game plan of the organization.

It’s serving in disguise. Pressing fingerprints has more than a subtle “How can I help?” component.
In the process of teaching, the leader listens and crafts their approach based on the things employees need to make their jobs easier.

It’s coaching for employees and managers. Leadership fingerprint moments need strong coaching in order to ensure the instructions are sustainable and don’t get sucked into the momentum of yesterday.

What sort of things need the fingerprints of the leader?

These were some of my micromanaging tasks:

#1. The customer moment — Defining what ‘the customer moment’ had to look like.
Since creating mind blowing customer experiences  was an essential strategic move, I was embedded in the frontline to architect what the customer interaction looked like.

#2. Selling the plan — Selling the business plan to employees.
The leader must sell the strategy to the organization. Present, answer questions and convince people that the direction we were going was something they could support. This is something that can’t be delegated to anyone else yet many leaders do. Shameful.

#3. Frontline manager interviews — Leading the interview process for frontline management positions.
Execution of the strategic plan requires the dedication, support and flawless execution of the frontline, which, in turn, depends on the right frontline management team.

To ensure we recruited correctly, I sat in on interview panels to test potential candidates.
✔️ Did they understand our customer experience strategy?
✔️ Could they define the key elements of the customer engagement process?
✔️ Did they ‘love’ humans?

#4. New Moves — Introducing new programs to employees.
It is critical that employees understand the strategic fit between individual programs that are introduced, and the strategy of the organization.
Who else should be on the front end of an employee session introducing a new program?
The nuts and bolts can be explained by someone else, but the positioning of the new program must have the leader’s fingerprints.

#5. Execution roadblocks — Determining roadblocks to executing the strategy.

If you’re in for a nickel, you’re in for a dollar.

How can the leader be the Strategy Hawk of strategy execution if they’re unaware of the things preventing a clean implementation process.

Fingerprint leaders bravely enter The Bear Pit to understand what’s not working so they can fix it.

Fingerprint leaders are a breed unto themselves.

They are different from other leaders who follow the pedantically common leadership traditions.

You can tell who the fingerprint leaders are.

Look for the organizations that consistently perform at breathtaking heights.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

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• Posted 2.13.23 at 05:45 am by Roy Osing
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February 6, 2023

Why amazing leaders spend their Wednesday as the Strategy Hawk

My book, BE DiFFERENT or be dead, A Weekly Calendar for Leaders highlights Wednesday as the day the audacious leader embeds themselves in the workplace looking for strategic clues.

As the leader, today is your opportunity to walk about the organization and audit how well the strategy of the organization is being executed. It is the chance to discover for yourself how the strategy is being implemented in every nook and cranny of the organization.

The success of the strategy doesn’t happen on paper or in the bowels of the planning department.

It succeeds in the trenches where people deal with the “unreasonable” demands made by customers, the pressure inflicted by competitors and the rules, policies & procedures mandated by your organization that sometimes impede progress.

On this day, you are looking for things that work in favour of effective strategy EXECUTION  and barriers and roadblocks that work against it.

You are also a teacher on this day.

When you spot an issue or behavior in the workplace that impedes progress toward your strategic goals, stop and take the time to paint a picture of what actions are required to brilliantly execute.

You are not criticizing or chastising anyone; you are showing them the way as a coach and mentor.

This day requires you to be intimately knowledgeable about how every function in your organization must act to deliver your strategy.
What new actions do people have to take in marketing, sales, customer service, internal audit, human resources and engineering?

I’ve frequently discussed my concept of Line of Sight , which describes defining the specific critical actions that must be taken and behaviours that must be exhibited by the various functions and departments in an organization in order to effectively execute its strategy.

Line of sight means behaving in such a way that the employee is able to “see” the strategy and deliver outcomes (revenue from specific customer segments, premium prices, customer experiences and products for example) that the strategy demands.

Direct line of sight is the ability to describe in absolute clarity the specific actions and behaviors people need to exhibit to precisely execute the chosen direction.

Indirect line of sight, on the other hand, clouds the path between strategy and action.
The relationship between what the strategy demands and what the employee does is vague and imprecise.
There is limited ability to see the direct relationship required between employee action and strategic outcome.
It is not clear which actions and behavior are necessary to brilliantly execute the plan.

As a result of indirect line of sight, energy is wasted, inconsistency reigns and the strategy is compromised.

As the Strategy Hawk , you must know your strategy on such an intimate level that you can define in specific terms what people need to do to deliver the strategy pristinely all day, every day.

The Hawk is a translator in this sense with the rare ability to make the strategy real for every one in every department in the organization.

Plan your days. List the departments you intend to visit over the coming weeks.
Prioritize them according to the influence they have over delivering your strategy’s results. If marketing’s role is the most critical, spend more time with them.

Observe, ask questions, take notes and teach. And be prepared to delve into the details.

If people don’t know what specifically they need to do to deliver the strategy, they will invent their own actions and behaviors resulting in a strategy that is delivered inconsistently and ineffectively.

Organizational “chaos” is the result of people creating their own meaning of the plan and doing what they think is right.
You don’t want everyone doing their own thing when it comes to strategy execution.

Audacious leaders reinforce the behaviors that don’t need to change; emphasize and demonstrate those that are DiFFERENT and need to be adopted.

Cheers,
Roy
50+ of my helpful podcasts that will make your business soar.

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• Posted 2.6.23 at 04:40 am by Roy Osing
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January 16, 2023

Why a competitive edge is not good enough to beat your competitors

Why a competitive edge is not good enough to beat your competitors.

If your business plan talks about achieving an edge over your competitors, it’s falling short.

Words like ‘edge’ and ‘advantage’ to describe your competitive intent lack the visceral dimension to create lasting success.

Let’s talk about crippling the efforts of your competitors and prevailing over them.

Being better isn’t good enough.

Sustained success comes from assaulting the competition with the sole purpose of dominating them.

Here’s why:

1. Incremental thinking gets incremental results. An edge to me connotes being slightly better; it is simply not good enough. It implies that you are inches ahead when you really need to be miles ahead to assure longer term success.

2. Bold outcomes need to be achieved to survive. Set a bold goal and you have a better chance of achieving significant progress. Set a weak goal and unfortunately you may achieve it.

3. ‘Dominate’ and ‘assault’ represent a state of strategic mind. A way of thinking. They challenge us to gain quantum leaps. Our customers, employees and owners have a right to expect such outcomes.

4. A domination outcome requires customer value creation of a different scale than a competitive edge strategy. To dominate, HUGE value must be created for customers constantly in unrelenting fashion. A casual approach will not work.

5. The ‘word’ drives organizational energy. How much juice is created with mild milk-toast intent? An adrenalin rush inside your warriors is needed to execute your strategy. ‘Lets go get an edge!’ is not likely to arouse the passion as much as ‘Lets go dominate and cripple them!’ No energy = No execution.

6. True competitive spirit comes through emotion not the intellect. You can’t intellectualize yourself to beat your competitors. You need people who will go to war to create customer loyalty and prevent the hordes from entering your turf. Language IS strategic. Words that appeal to the right brain will help drive the behavior needed.

7. Sustainable differences are needed. Long term success comes from a relentless, constant strategic push. Domination implies a long time horizon. Edge doesn’t even come close.

My reader might say that such strong words are inappropriate; they’re ‘not dignified; they’re ‘unbecoming’ and ‘unprincipled’.

To this I say we, as leaders are charged with the responsibility of creating customer VALUE in the market to ensure people have meaningful and fulfilling work and to ensure that owners get paid.

Tough task. Horrendous roadblocks.

It requires toughness, a high pain tolerance and a strategy that WINS over the long term. If the language that goes along with achieving this purpose offends some, so be it.

Cheers,
Roy
My 50+ Podcast Shows that will change your life.

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 1.16.23 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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January 2, 2023

3 bold ways to turn your resolution into unexpected results

Source: Unsplash

3 simple ways to turn your resolution into amazing results.

Resolutions rarely are achieved because they are aspirations at best.

Think about your challenge as creating a game plan NOT declaring a resolution.

A game plan to achieve your goal by the end of the year. A declaration with sufficient granularity to define specifically WHAT needs to be done to get to where you want to get to.

I am not a fan of resolutions.

“I resolve to…” is merely an aspiration; a dream that more often than not lacks the precision to achieve it

You may have the will; but unless you define the steps to achieve it, it is unlikely to happen.

My resolution is to get physically fit this year fit isn’t particularly helpful in terms of actually doing it; “I intend to join a gym by Feb 1st and workout at least twice a week.” Is much better because it’s operational.

Here are 3 suggestions that might help move you forward in terms of having a Resolution that actually yield results:

1. Keep it simple — What’s complicated doesn’t get done. Try for the binary thing: on or off; do it or not. Easy to measure.

You either want to get a new job or not. “Doing better” is a non-objective. Clap trap goals are meaningless. Too wishy-washy. Too vague.
“I intend to go on a vacation to Tahiti by September”. Nice. Simple.

2. Keep it focused — on your most pressing priorities. Just because the herd wants to go gluten-free you don’t have to.

And only include something if you are serious about doing it. What do you “itch for”? What do you crave? Ignore the rest of the universe. What do YOU want?

3. Keep it to three —Many scattered complicated declarations don’t work. Few promises get kept. Frustration creeps in. Your personal plan isn’t a To Do List. It’s not a list of possibilities.

What 3 things would make your life so much better? Travel? Education? Health? Career? Family?

Pick your top 3 and get on with it.

Good luck…

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

Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

‘Audacious’ is my latest…

• Posted 1.2.23 at 05:43 am by Roy Osing
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