Tag Archives: Culture

Root Causes of Executive Failure

Smart leaders make dumb decisions. This statement should come as no surprise. The questions we should ask, though, are why? when? and how? By attacking the root causes and attempting to understand the character issues, we can “peel the onion” and see what is so potently wrong when poor decisions are made and executives fail.

Do you know a leader who sees himself and the company dominating its environment? If so, they collectively are set up for a fall. The basic fallacious assumption is that success in one domain can be infinitely translated into every other domain.

Similarly, the executive who treats the business as a private empire blurs the necessary distinctions between the personality and the entity. Beware the (wo)man who uses position to attempt to carry our personal ambitions. Those who see themselves as stewards of a resource as opposed to royalty seem to avoid this trap.

Know-it-alls are another type of failure waiting to happen. Those who feel they must look polished and do not invite the input of others suffer from hubris that is unhealthy. Being decisive without considering alternative views and related outcomes is not a sign of executive skillfulness.

Slash & burn is not just a rain forest dangerous practice–it is also bad for a talent management policy. We’ve all seen mobster movies where opposing viewpoints are literally snuffed out. When an executive does this inside a business, it shows a lack of appreciation for objectivity. More than likely, decisions will be weaker and mid-course corrections will be missed.

Is the top executive an attention hog? Choosing appearance over substantive management can be a fatal character flaw. Hyper-focus with image can also mean that underlying, important issues like financial performance are not getting the attention they should.

Trying to vision-cast one’s way around a hurdle instead of approaching it head-on is almost always a huge mistake. Shrugging off a problem or pretending it is inconsequential shows immaturity and a lack of executive responsibility. It’s more than okay to admit a problem exists–in doing so, we invite others to help us resolve it and the organization benefits.

Fascination with the past as opposed to staying in the moment is a final way executives doom their organizations to failure. As we’ve heard it said, “what got you here won’t get you there!” Embracing innovation is a good habit of top leaders.

Sydney Finkelstein addresses many of these issues in greater depth in Why Executives Fail, a book published a few years ago that examines case studies of companies that once thrived and then took a nose dive. Similar to Good to Great in its treatment of lessons learned, the book highlights problems with mindsets, information management, and habits.

 

Pick 7 Marketing Trends for 2012

Lists can be so helpful for us to get our minds around the critical messages for a given subject. In a deliberate play on words, I wanted to juxtapose a “Pick 7” lottery concept with a “7 Marketing Trends” informational piece. Collectively, we can agree that any “list” is one person’s opinion and that it really is a “luck of the draw” as to whether applying someone else’s  recommended best practices will make a difference in your given market. Yet…simply attacking the subject matter sharpens our minds, encourages us to support our strategies with sound arguments, and generally makes for better decision-making! So…the list:

  • Location, Location, Location: Check-ins match message with timing
  • People are People: Listen, observe & match individualized message to feedback
  • Not One Size Fits All: Designing for multiple devices
  • Customers for Life: Customer retention through engaging multiple times
  • Behavior Speaks: Connect individuals based on how they interact with you
  • “Mocial”: Email, mobile, local & social
  • Dynamic Email: Static content is passe’; modernize!

With help from the folks at Silverpop, we hope to help you understand what’s at stake in each of these trends so that you may consider the impact to your marketing strategy and implementation. Location: think Facebook, Twitter & Foursquare–it’s important to help your customers share your brand with their friends. By combining incentives for people to let others know they frequent your business with intention in making it easy for your story to be told via email or social networks, you are able to create a user experience that keeps them coming back.

People: King Arthur Flour found that, by simply including quotes from customers in its emails, it was able to increase open rates, orders, and sales by 30%. What are you doing to move away from a generic message to a highly tailored one with a human element that is more engaging?

Device-specific: Smartphones and tablets are overtaking the computer world. Design with this in mind. If someone’s finger has to do the “clicking,” then spread clickable items out from one another and create “buttons” that are easy to use. Think about what you do/don’t like about viewing a website on a smaller device; make changes accordingly.

Retention: We’ve always heard that the customers we already have are the best ones and that soliciting a new one takes a ton of effort. Whether you are emailing those who have abandoned their online shopping carts, or reaching out with special campaigns to those who don’t usually open your emails, it’s important to think about getting as high a return as possible on the relationships we already have.

Behavior: Create a marketing database to track who visits your website, blog, online store, etc, what they do while there, whether they share your brand, and so on. Use tools like CRM to help track and segment your targets into smaller groups to whom you can send very tailored messages. Observe the response to the custom communications and refine what you send out.

“Mocial”: is a phrase used at Silverpop to explain the inter-connectedness of media and communications. What the connectivity means for you as a marketer is that thought must be given to how messages flow across platforms, how brand leadership can be stimulated and captured, and how to get users to check you out in as many formats as you are active.

Dynamic email: That should be enough to say on this subject, but some of us are thick-skinned (and -headed!) Consider: Air New Zealand sends customized pre-flight emails to passengers with information about booked destinations, crew members who will be serving on the flight, and social media buttons to share cultural articles, photos, videos etc about the local weather, itinerary or other matters of interest.

Challenging to think about? You bet! Determine to become a stronger marketer in 2012.

JTECH Your Way to a True Competitive Advantage

First things first: what/who is JTECH? It’s the former name of a restaurant paging company that eventually became a subsidiary of MICROS Systems. It was founded by a couple of guys from Florida who owned a great restaurant that had too many “walkaways”–people who were not willing to endure the wait for a table seating. In the old days (19990s, mind you!), patrons of their restaurant (like diners in most other establishments) used to have to wait by the hostess stand for an indeterminate amount of time until a table became available. By providing the electronic pager, these guys gave their patrons the freedom–and most importantly, peace of mind–to leave the front door area, relax, and look forward to a sumptuous meal.

But, what of the “true competitive advantage?” To even throw the phrase out suggests that false competitive advantages exist! Don’t they? You be the judge. How many businesses do you know of where price is the main negotiating point in the sales cycle? Unfortunately, way too many. You see, when price becomes the only distinction between a business and its competition, then it is not long before that business enters into a death spiral of decline. At the point that price is all that separates one business offering from another, the battle for customers is lost.

What, then, is a legitimate means of creating a distinctive in the marketplace? Many will argue that Service separates them from others. Alternately, Quality (products) or Experience (Services) are touted as key concepts that persuade one to buy from us versus them. Yet, I have seen over and over (and over !) where these are just words in many situations, without anything to back up the claim–OR anything that is being said that the competition cannot also say!

The original owners of JTECH ended up leasing their restaurant to others because they had found a much better opportunity. It was a great opportunity because and only because they had found a way to monetize the value they had created for restaurants and their customers. True competitive advantage is objective, quantifiable, uniquely claimed, and not a cliche’. (With due thanks to Jaynie L. Smith.)

What was the statement that JTECH developed to carve out such a market -leading position? Of the 50 largest chains who use paging, 100 percent use JTECH! Obviously, they were not able to make this claim Day One. It was something that was earned, one customer at a time.  What absolutely amazes is the recurring bad habit in many companies (and agencies) of developing marketing messages without customer input. Existing customers will tell you why they selected you, what you do better than the competition, and what it would take for someone else to snatch the business away. If you don’t know what your customers would say for each of these categories, you are tuned out. If tuned out, you have no strong competitive advantage positioning!

 

Management Inbreeding Retards Prosperity

If an organization’s people structure becomes too predictable and inflexible, it can enter into a season of decline. Regardless the legacy of success prior to the institutionalization of processes and preferences, its people can become inoculated to competitive shifts and a corporate “senility” may become omnipresent. Woe be the organization that thinks it can continue to enjoy today’s results tomorrow by only replicating what currently works!

  John W. Gardner, former chairman of Common Cause, likens the aging of a business model to the decline of the Westward frontier expansion. Vitality and enthusiasm give way to tradition and the dream dies with it. Once a management approach becomes entrenched, then, it is susceptible to challenges from every direction. If adjustments are not made, the “weak” are conquered by the “strong” (at innovation.)

The Boston Consulting Group used to do an annual survey to assess the total shareholder return of innovative companies versus their peer groups. Not only was it continually affirmed that innovative companies created greater returns, but the corollary finding was that reinvention of the business model yielded demonstrably higher results than simply changing products or services offerings. Prosperity proved evasive, then, for those management teams who had “inbred” in their perpetuation of what was familiar.

Frederick Kappel, former president of AT&T, during a lecture at Columbia University, cited six dangers of management inbreeding:

  1. People cling to old ways of working even though they have been confronted by a new situation.
  2. They fail to define new goals with meaning and challenge.
  3. Action is taken without studied reflection.
  4. Institutionalized contentment:Business becomes stable and secure, not venturesome.
  5. Old “wisdom” is passed on to new people. Older managers tend to adhere too rigidly to old ideas, to antiquated approaches and methods. Note, they mold the minds of young managers.
  6. Low tolerance for criticism acts to stifle independent thinking.

I remember hearing of a speaker at a turnaround conference who said that the antidote to such mismanagement lies largely in moving people around to different jobs on a regular basis. He argued that a type or rottenness took root when people held onto jobs (positions) for too long. He felt that giving people new challenges, rewarding the hungry “chomping at the bit” with opportunity to test themselves, was a way to keep the organization invigorated. By creating an atmosphere where people have the chance to perform, the whole company usually performs much better!

Too Much? Technology Intrusion @SXSW

The Washington Post, reporting from Austin, provided coverage of South by Southwest 2012. While there were certainly gadgets galore, applications abounding, and technology that teased, today’s article brought up the premise that technology threatens the fabric of our relationships. The intrusion of interruptive “advances” can overwhelm the brain, says Amber Case, a cyborg anthropologist.

Avi Zev Weider offered a documentary for screening, “Welcome to the Machine,” that attempted to ask the question of how inter-human relationships are compromised. Similar to the Matrix film series, there was a strong undercurrent that the network is not always our friend and we need downtime, to unplug and be human and regenerate.

How does this vein of thought factor into our office environments? The tyranny of emails, interoffice communications, tweets, posts, etc can overwhelm even the most resolute worker. I’ve been in many businesses wherein the employees–even department heads–are afraid to walk away from their desks for fear that they may receive a communication to which they do not have the opportunity to respond in real time.

There is something inherently wrong with being captive to the powerful tools that were created–ostensibly–to make our lives better. In working with employees in a number of companies, I have given the employees permission to work strategically on projects, check their messages according to a predetermined schedule, and enjoy the resulting focus, clarity, and peace of mind.

In my own life, it can be harder to set the smartphone down when I know someone may try to communicate with me. The Tweets, email messages on my work email, emails on my home email, text messages from family & friends, alerts that I’ve set up to keep the day flowing, blog updates, LinkedIn updates, etc just keep rolling in and it can be soooo seductive to allow the flow to determine my pace and disposition.

What can we collectively do? Simple, purposeful choices can break the habitual “checking in” that can be so distracting. Determine when you will pick up your cell–make it less frequent than you’ve been observing. Schedule email reading and response time. Most importantly–schedule “think” and “rest” times. Without them, our collective quality of life, contentment on and off the job, and health–physical and emotional–will all suffer.