Strategic Discipline Blog

A Personal Story – Can You Sell Your Business?

Douglas Wick — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:17:00 GMT

Can you sell your business?

As I write this it’s Saturday afternoon I’m sitting next to my hospital bed having just discovered that the prognosis for my life ahead is possibly acute leukemia. If that’s true, (I need a bone marrow test to determine this at the University of Iowa on Monday) I will probably be out of commission for at least a month and possibly even a year. Disability is what the Dr just told me is the long term prognosis.

I’m not happy!

I checked into the hospital on Friday evening. I had been having difficulty catching my breath and just feeling tired when I went up the steps at my home office. Last Sunday when I worked out on my stationary bike I didn’t feel as if I had any energy. I was as much as 50% below my normal workout and just couldn’t keep up.

I had an appointment with a diabetic dietician on Monday and since my numbers recently had been climbing I expected to hear that perhaps my tiredness was related to my high blood sugars. She looked at my numbers and what I’d been eating. She felt the carbohydrate levels I had been eating were low. I should be eating more carbs despite my diabetes. I decided to make an appointment with my doctor to show him my eating habits and my blood sugar to get his input. This occurred on Friday afternoon. AT 5 PM my doctor called and asked me to get to the hospital as soon as I could. The blood results indicated I was anemic. A person my height and weight should have a red blood cell count around 13-14. Mine was 5.6.

Friday evening and Saturday morning they pumped 2 pints of blood in me. By 7:30 I found out I was up to 7.3, still too low and would need 2 more pints. They still didn’t know what was wrong with me, but at that point I was concerned. When they took me for an X-ray I teared up waiting for the technician to arrive. My thoughts ran to my family and the financial burden, anxiety and distress this would cause them if it was what the doctor previously indicated might be the issue: either my bone marrow wasn’t producing enough red blood cells, or something inside me was destroying those I had.

It appears at this writing that the latter is the situation. By the time you read this on Monday, I will be probably receiving a bone marrow test to determine whether I have cancer. My doctor at St. Luke’s is 80% sure its acute leukemia.

While the Doctor indicated if it is the kind of acute leukemia he thinks it is there is a 70% chance of recovery. That might be the good news. The bad news is whether my business can survive without me?

My question is can yours?

Are you too tied to one or several key performers? Do you have the critical systems in your business flow charted and do you have Key Performance Indicators measuring these systems performance? Make a plan of action to put your business in a position to be able to sell.

Take the Sellability Quiz now: http://www.builttosell.com/tools/

Business Alignment – Why Don’t Your People Get It?

Douglas Wick — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:16:00 GMT

Last blog we discussed how as your company grows and expands it seems harder and harder to communicate your vision. People at the tactical level of your company often don’t know what the strategy for your business is. In fact they don’t know a lot of things that are important for them to know about your business. There’s often a huge gap on how they work with prospects and customers due to poor communication of your vision and strategy, let alone company policies.

Why is this? Why don’t your people get it? A couple of slides from the Three Barriers to Growth Presentation Positioning Systems developed illustrate how growth affects communication in your business.

Take a simple two-point relationship where the two points represent the number of employees, number of product lines, or number of offices within an organization.

When you grow 50%, the interrelationships dramatically increase from 2 to 6…

Or by a factor of 300%

If you’re a small business that’s pretty dramatic! However imagine you’re larger, you’re growing faster. Suppose you expand from 3 employees or product lines or offices to 4?

The complexity increases even more dramatically as you add another point, jumping from 6 to 24 interactions. This represents only a 25% increase yet this 25% growth actually increased complexity by 400%.

Are you beginning to see why the One Page Strategic Plan is such a solid strategic planning device for your business? It helps you become and remain competitive three ways:

Provides a framework that identifies the key elements of your strategy and supports these.
Provides a common language in which your strategy is expressed. (Everyone is aware of the key elements of your strategy. Example: There’s no confusion as to whether you have a mission statement or a core purpose.
Provides a well-developed habit to use this framework and language so you continually evaluate your strategic progress.

The well-developed habit is the tools Positioning Systems provides as Strategic Discipline (Priorities, Meeting Rhythms and Metrics). They are the guts of your businesses ability to communicate, be accountable and focus on the right things.

As your business grows, meeting rhythms provide critical communication vital to your business to become the ultimate professional force. How these meetings are structured on a platform of clear priorities and accountability metrics makes the difference in achieving sustainable growth.

Recall from Jim Collins, in Good to Great “A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.”

His research in Built to Last, Good to Great, Why the Mighty Fall, and most recently Great by Choice affirm the impact that choosing your priorities properly, measuring your progress and establishing a disciplined routine of meeting rhythms to evaluate and monitor your progress is the differentiator between mediocre and effective businesses.

Struggling to identify your priorities? Challenged to develop the proper metrics to drive results and determine an effective meeting rhythm for your business. We promise to deliver this structured approach for your growing business at the Mastering the Rockefeller Habits Four Decisions Workshop. For a clever video on what we do click here.

One of my clients is working on a strategy statement to improve the alignment of their business. Expect to hear about this in an upcoming blog and newsletter. Another reminded me of a free tool to help you determine how well your business is doing toward being ready to sell. It’s from John Warrilow’s Built to Sell, and it can give you some very valuable insights on where your business needs to improve right now. That’s our next blog.

Click on the button to discover the method for aligning your team and transforming your company – in just one day!

Three Reasons You Need the One Page Strategic Plan

Douglas Wick — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:12:00 GMT

As your business grows does it seem like it’s been harder and harder to keep everyone on the same page? The larger you get does it feel like the vision and strategy you had that seemed so clear has become foggier to you and the people you lead?

The value of the One Page Strategic Plan can be compared to the value of a picture frame. A picture frame protects the picture from damage, supports it, allowing it to be displayed properly, and places a framework surrounding it that emphasizes the substance and beauty of the picture.

It’s been my experience working with growing mid-sized companies that for these and many other reasons your business needs a tool that can keep everyone aligned, speaking the same language regarding your business strategy and most importantly use this tool to continually evaluate your achievements toward reaching your priorities.

How do you achieve all this yet make it simple?

Here are three reasons the One Page Strategic Plan is a solid strategic planning device for your business to help you become and remain competitive:

Provides a framework that identifies the key elements of your strategy and supports these.
Provides a common language in which your strategy is expressed. (Everyone is aware of the key elements of your strategy. Example: There’s no confusion as to whether you have a mission statement or a core purpose.
Provides a well-developed habit to use this framework and language so you continually evaluate your strategic progress.

Number three is critical to making the entire framework of the One Page Strategic Plan work. It’s why Positioning Systems dedicates its coaching to the principal of Strategic Discipline (priorities, meeting rhythms and metrics). The One Page Strategic Plan is 1% vision and 99% alignment. Achieving that alignment requires this well-developed habit of meeting rhythms, choosing priorities and measuring performance in order to properly execute your vision.

Let’s look at why growth is such a challenging issue for most companies, and how as your business expands the communication problems accelerate beyond the scope most managers and leaders can quickly identify as a major obstacle to continuous growth. That’s next blog.

Strategic Discipline – Why It Guarantees Success

Douglas Wick — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:42:00 GMT

Albert Einstein, Compound Effect author, Success Magazine Publisher Darren Hardy, and Strategic Learning author Willie Pietersen all agree. Focus and compounding are the two most powerful forces in the universe. Developing clarity of focus is your springboard.

This is why in Positioning Systems practices of Strategic Discipline we choose first to establish your priorities.

Positioning Systems principles of Strategic Discipline absolutely guarantee success when you and your team provide the required component of discipline.

Strategic Discipline combines the essential priorities you need to focus on, including your One Thing, with metrics to measure your achievement, along with disciplined meeting rhythms that review progress and makes corrections. Suddenly you have a covenant between you, your executive team and their staff members that promises the outcomes you’ve agreed upon.

Once you start tracking your business in this manner, your attention will be focused on the smallest things you’re doing right, as well as the smallest things you’re doing wrong.

Darren Hardy notes, “don’t expect immediate fanfare. When I say “small” course corrections, I’m talking truly invisible. Chances are no one’s going to notice them anytime soon. There will be no applause. No one’s going to send you a congratulations card or a trophy for these disciplines. And yet, eventually, their compounding effect will result in an exceptional payoff. It’s the littlest disciplines that pay off over time, the effort and preparation for the great triumph that happened when no one was looking.”

Hardy is discussing personal changes to your routines and disciplines. In the big stage of your business, there will be people watching, and while success isn’t immediate, the peer pressure and expectations through these meeting rhythms, metrics, and priorities put the forces of focus and compounding together to provide the exceptional payoff he is speaking about.

Little things add up over time. The trouble is we continually are masters of the insignificant.

The formula for Strategic Discipline is simple.

Choose your priorities.
Measure your efforts to achieve them.
Meet routinely and rigorously to make sure you stay on course.

Need help establishing the formula? Please call or email us or plan to attend our next Mastering the Rockefeller Habits Four Decisions workshop.

Four Decisions – Cash

Douglas Wick — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:27:00 GMT

As children you played the game monopoly. The most disappointing part of the game is going bankrupt and being eliminated.

Business is very much like Monopoly. When you run out of cash you’re out of business.

That’s how important it is in your business to manage cash. Many business owners have learned this the hard way. Don’t be one of them. As an E-Myth coach I quickly learned first-hand how few business owners understand the impact of cash in their business. In fact E-Myth author Michael Gerber had to learn his own lesson on operating without cash, and holding off bankruptcy with his business when one of his partners mismanaged their books.

During the recent recession one of the high priorities for large corporate America businesses was and is to hoard cash. They understand the critical value cash has on their business.

What’s the result of having enough cash to run your business?

It means you have oxygen for your business to “breathe” in. You also have options that other businesses don’t. We all need oxygen to breathe, and comparing it to this vital life force is not an exaggeration of its importance. Your business can be operating at a profit, and growing incredibly fast.

What happens if you’re not getting your customers to pay you? Growing faster in this case will make you go out of business faster.

An exercise we do in our in private and public Four Decisions Workshops is called “Cash Conversion Cycle.” It examines the length of time it takes from when you spend $1 until you make that $1 back. Shrinking that time can have enormous impact on your business. In fact Dell Computers and many other companies have figured out how to make that number a negative. That means before they spend $1 on the resources to complete your order they already have your payment.

Think what that could do for your business? If you’d like to know more about the Cash Conversion Cycle and receive a process I’ve written on it, send me an email with Cash Conversion Cycle in the title.

The other result of Cash is options. When you have cash you have options: Options with your vendors, options on who you hire, options on what you purchase and what terms you receive. In fact with a boat load of cash in your coffers there’s very little that you can’t imagine doing. It allows you the confidence to ride out any temporary reflex that the economy delivers.

We’ve covered the results of getting the four critical decisions you need to get right for your company to grow in the past several blogs. With respect to these Four Decisions it’s critical to have the correct disciplines in place to achieve the results you want. Let’s look at why Strategic Discipline works in our next blog.

Execution – Alan Rudy’s Success Story

Douglas Wick — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:25:00 GMT

If you believe that achieving success is about being in the right place and perhaps being born with a silver spoon in your mouth, then consider the story of Alan Rudy.

His challenging situation is related in chapter one of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits. If you’ve read the book you’ll recall Alan being angry, wondering why as his company grew bigger, he wasn’t having more fun. The capper included scheduling a weekend ski trip with his father and two brothers (his first vacation in ten years), and then cancelling at the last minute. Then discovering that while his company was showing a $300K first quarter profit on March 30^th, on April 1^st it was revealed he’d actually lost $350,000 for the first quarter. He spent much of that day believing someone was playing an elaborate April Fool’s joke on him.

“Stress was a little high” Rudy noted, with fights in the parking lot, and one employee slashing another’s tires due to something they said to them at work!

How did Rudy take Express-Med to become a gazelle, growing at more than 20% a year, and one of the top 4% of companies in the United States? How did it become a $65 Million firm?

View his short three minute Alan Rudy Video/testimonial to understand the value of execution and implementing the Rockefeller Habits Checklist.

Rudy sold Express Med and has since taken a $7M company to $1.2 billion in sales in just three years at the same time achieving the highest customer service rating in his industry.

Rudy is currently resurrecting a $100 M company that was hemorrhaging cash.

Getting your business to execute correctly requires discipline. At Positioning Systems we focus on helping your company establish the Strategic Discipline’s of priorities, metrics and meetings. The Rockefeller Habits Checklist is a measuring stick for your business to determine how well it is doing at performing to the highest level of its capabilities.

Want to learn how to get your company on the road to achieving the same kind of success Alan Rudy’s achieved? Join us April 10^th in Cedar Rapids for our Mastering the Rockefeller Habits Four Decisions Workshop.

Despite the success Rudy’s achieved he still feels bringing his teams to Rockefeller Habits workshops is extremely important. Last fall Rudy offered, "I am bringing my new company team to this class in October so they can get more formal training in these HABITS. I urge you to do the same. If you are willing to learn and want to streamline your business, all while giving more responsibility to your subordinates, I strongly recommend you join us in October."

How important does he feel attending a workshop is? Rudy continued, “Everyone talks about managing growth and working 'on your company rather than in your company' but no one tells you exactly how. Great as it is, growth can feel like a force that slams you against concrete. You often find yourself running ragged trying to keep up. You don't understand why the rest of your team just doesn't 'get it' on their true priorities. The solutions seem obvious to you! This workshop (yes, you will be expected to have deliverable actions when you leave) goes over those HABITS that will free you up to work on your company. It will show you the practical step-by-step, day-by-day methods for getting everyone in your company aligned to the few most important items that really matter to your customers and your bottom line."

Join us for this one day event. Learn about the Checklist and how getting your Four Decisions right and achieving Strategic Discipline can impact your future.

Four Decisions – Measuring Your Execution

Douglas Wick — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:23:00 GMT

Growth companies need to get Four Decision right in order to achieve success. These Four Decisions are People, Strategy, Execution and Cash. Depending on the severity of your challenges in these four decision areas, you will ultimately need to choose one of these four decisions as your One Thing for the year and quarterly priorities. We’ve covered the outcome for getting People and Strategy right in your organization in previous blogs.

Today’s result is what Execution looks like when your business is executing properly.

Execution is about turning your hard earned revenue (top line income) into bottom line net profit. Companies that are strong on top line performance and yet struggle to make a reasonable or attractive bottom line profit typically have challenges with Execution. Your business needs to be both efficient AND effective operationally. What are the principles and Habits that John D Rockefeller used to build an operationally excellent company? What are the principles and habits Verne Harnish and Positioning Systems have adapted to mid-market growth companies?

We’ll cover what these are and the effective tool we use to help mid-sized growth companies easily identify whether they are on track or not.

Execution is all about hitting and exceeding company targets like revenue and profit goals. Ask yourself: how many consecutive months has your company exceeded its revenue and profit goals? If you consistently meet or exceed your targets – you are outstanding at execution.

If you are not consistently hitting your targets, what’s getting in the way?

Knowing the right elements of Execution to focus helps you to identify and significantly improve in the areas that allow you to exceed your targets.

Execution starts with a checklist, The Rockefeller Habits Checklist. You’ve seen me refer to this many times in this blog. Most recently I mentioned it as the missing piece at arriving at the nirvana Michael Gerber described in The E-Myth Revisited. It’s the place where your business operates consistently and predictably without you and your executive team being constantly interrupted by daily challenges.

Please do not underestimate the value of this checklist – it helps major functions of everyday business to run smoothly and efficiently. The value of the checklist is that it helps to remind you what you need to be doing on an ongoing basis.

Just like a pilot of a plane, there are significant tasks that must be done regularly to ensure a safe flight. The pilot may have flown 1,000’s of times, but he/she still pulls the checklist out each time before take-off. The discipline to use a checklist is what drives the best companies to succeed - it helps them to focus and attain operational excellence.

If you’ve not downloaded the Rockefeller Habits Checklist and you are currently struggling with Execution please download it now. Briefly go through the 10 areas on the plan. Spend 10 min to check off those habits that you ARE doing. Check off every single box that is working throughout the company.

This is an individual exercise. You should ask the members of your executive team to do the same thing you’ve done here. See what each person comes up with. Now spend a few minutes reviewing your answers with the answers of the other members of the team. Find out how aligned are you around the activities on the checklist.

How do we feel? Where are you aligned? Where aren’t you aligned?

My suggestion? Spend a few minutes finding the one area that would give you the most impact if you focused on it in the next 90 days. Ask your executive team to choose the one they think company should work on – see what you decide. That can be your One Thing for the quarter.

What kind of results can getting this checklist right? Please view the short three minute Alan Rudy Video/testimonial. We’ll talk about Alan and his remarkable success using the checklist in my next blog.

Four Decisions – Strategy

Douglas Wick — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:13:00 GMT

Why is Strategy so powerful that even if your business doesn’t have any of the other Four Decisions right, People, Execution and Cash, you can still stimulate rocket like growth?

The very first sales managers I worked for used to repeatedly say, “There are damn few problems that increased sales can fix!” Therein lays the reason why strategy is so powerful. Increased revenue forgives a multiple of sins. The result of getting your strategy right is top line revenue growth.

Top line revenue growth is a solid indicator that your business is healthy. The quote, "if you’re not growing you’re dying," fits. Or as another sales manager who worked for me used to say, “When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot!”

Strategy is perhaps the most critical element of the Four Decisions. We’ve discovered that companies you get their strategy right can have rocket-like growth despite not having any of the other Four Decisions properly in place. That should give you an idea of how powerful the right strategy can be.

What are the components of strategy? These are the entry points confined to the left side of the One Page Strategic Plan. Look at your One Page Plan. Do you have your Core Values, Core Purpose, Actions to Live Your Core Purpose, Core Competencies, Profit per X, BHAG, Brand Promise, Brand Promise KPI’s, SWOT, and your 3-5 Year Plan identified?

Yet they include far more than this.

If I asked you and your executive team to provide your strategy in one sentence what type of answers would this bring? Would there be uniformity in their responses? Have you ever truly discussed what your strategy is? Is it clear what your company strategy is and have you delivered this to your executive team let alone your entire organization?

Strategy need not be complex – but it should be simple and consistent.

Think of Southwest Airlines (SWA) – what do you think their simple strategy phrase is?

It is “Wheels Up” – if the wheels are up on the SWA 737 fleet, they are making money and so their strategy is to do everything possible to keep the planes full of happy passengers in the air.

What about General Electric under the leadership of Jack Welch?

It was “first or second in every market or we are out” – GE would only settle for being the leader or #2 in each market they had products\services, or they would exit the market and not compete – simple, clear and compelling.”

Over the past year, Verne Harnish (Mastering the Rockefeller Habits author) has been polling Growth Company leaders in regard to which of the Four Decisions is most gnawing at them – the one they feel need important focus, consideration and development. Hands down it has been the Strategy Decision – perhaps because the impact of the recession has been deep and fundamental for many companies – they are now asking the question all over again “What is our strategy and what are the elements of strategy for our company to grow and succeed?”

From this question and research Verne developed what he calls “The Seven Strata of Strategy” – the 7 key elements to have a solid, comprehensive Strategy for a mid-market Growth company. If you’d like this type of advanced understanding of strategy development, send me an email and I’ll send you a worksheet with the 7 Strata of Strategy along with an example of a company and how they’ve achieved these 7 key elements.

Next of the Four Decisions is Execution. Execution is a specialty of Positioning Systems which is why we’ve developed our strategy around Strategic Discipline. We’ll explore execution and the results of getting this right next blog.

Four Decisions – People

Douglas Wick — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:40:00 GMT

Many experts, including Good to Great author Jim Collins, feel People is the most critical of the four decisions you need to get right to grow your business. In Good to Great Collins said, “first who then what.” The results of having the right people can be seen in many of aspects of your business, yet its most easily recognized in your culture and in how much fun it is to come to work.

Do you enjoy the people you work with?

Are the people you work with as performance oriented as you are? Do they have a passion for what your company does?

When you identified your Core Values (you’ve done this right?) you should immediately get a sense for what is important and valued in your company. When people don’t share the same Core Values it’s readily visible in their dedication and commitment. Are they looking at the clock ready to fly out when the business closes? Do they volunteer for projects or work late?

Since Collins suggests getting People right is critical, you should not take this lightly. In building a Good to Great Company it’s more important to have the right people working for you then selecting the type of business you’re in. Rockefeller Habits tools we use to help our clients get alignment on the right people include: Core Values, Core Purpose, Actions to live Core Values, Purpose, BHAG, Key Seats Discipline, Topgrading and a number of Employee Engagement tools from Gallup.

Do you have the right people on the bus? Are they in the right seats doing the right things right? If you answer yes, you’ve got the People Decision solved. If not do you need help?

Next of the Four Decisions is Strategy. The right Strategy can provide your business with rocket like growth even when you don’t have the other Four Decisions properly in place. You’ll want to discover why in our next blog.

Click on the button to discover the method for aligning your team and transforming your company – in just one day!

ONE THING – A Personal Story

Douglas Wick — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:13:00 GMT

In Four Decisions You Must Get Right to Achieve Growth I promised I’d provide you with a Personal Story about applying the One Thing principals. For a company example of One Thing, read this Blog from the Dream Manager. This story is about three years ago so as to provide some protection for my son Joshua. The point of sharing this is simple. Placing your primary focus on one thing, either for yourself or your company gets results. It’s extending the idea that less is more.

I’ve been applying some of the Rockefeller Habits Principles with my family. My son’s and I sit down every 3 months to set goals for the quarter. My oldest son is in his first year in cross country and also just started basketball again. When I announced just before the start of October that it was time to do our 90 day goals for the quarter, my oldest didn’t waste any time getting me his.

He had the usual numbers for getting good grades, scoring, rebounding, and for assists, and then one that I could tell was particularly important to him. Since running cross country this year he’s had one challenge that he’s not been able to overcome. Joshua is extremely competitive and one of the boys on the team, Chase, has always beaten him in every race, with the exception of a time trial run at the beginning of the year when they finished in a dead heat. Josh told me that his one thing this quarter was going to be to beat Chase in a race.

That would be no small achievement. Chase had been improving steadily and had actually increased the gap in their recent races finishing as much as 20 seconds ahead of my son in a 2 mile race.

The first race after he set his goal came the next week. It was a shorter race with fewer runners, and while Josh got off to a good start Chase immediately moved into the lead, led the whole race with Josh finishing second. After the race he was happy about his finish, but questioned whether he could ever beat Chase, “He’s so fast Dad!” I reminded him of how he could beat Chase in shorter runs when they practiced and how he’d stayed with him in the time trials and if he could just stay close he had the speed to pour it on at the end and beat him.

One of the last races of the year before state was the all school meet where all the 8^th grade teams in the city competed. It was held at a park [Noel Ridge Park] near our home and it was the scene of one of Josh’s poorer performances where he’d got stuck in the wash at the beginning of the race and ended up finishing 7^th. He told his mother this was going to be his redo, a chance for redemption.

The race started and Josh immediately started in the lead, staying out ahead for the first quarter to half mile. About that time, one of the best runners for a competitive school who had finished first several times against our team took the lead, shortly after Chase passed Josh as well. My wife and I were together as this unfolded and she looked at me disappointedly saying, “I guess we’ll have to settle for third or fourth again?” She then looked at me and said what do you feel, would that be okay? I said, “no, I think he will still when this thing!” The rest of the race these two runners stayed ahead with my son Josh about 5-7 meters back. It was amazing to watch because these three runners were setting an amazing pace literally 200 yards or more ahead of the rest of the runners. As they closed to the finish line a sharp curve with a downhill slope marked the final 100 -150 yards to victory. Just about 20 yards from the curve, my son kicked it in; he rounded the curve wide and passed the other two runners. They seemed surprised to see him kicking it in and running so fast. It took a few seconds for each to respond and by that time my son was 10-15 yards ahead. Chase seemed to have more energy left and he quickly passed the previous leader and made up ground on my son. Just before the finish line he almost caught Josh; however Josh managed to stave him off. Everyone in the crowd watching was cheering and excited by the effort and closeness of the race. My wife was crying, I was close to tears and everyone was congratulating my son and us about the determination he had shown.

My son chose one thing as his top priority for the quarter, and in the short span of less than 30 days from setting that goal he achieved it.

What’s your one thing? Even if you don’t fully believe you can do it, commit to it, be determined, put all your focus on it, and you too can achieve what is most important to you, you just need to determine what it is.

Four Decisions You Must Get Right to Achieve Growth

Douglas Wick — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:31:00 GMT

Last week I began work with a new client presenting an shortened version of the Two Day Rockefeller Habits Workshop. It occurred to me that many business owners and managers are unclear where they need to focus their attention to achieve results for their business.

In our Two Day Rockefeller Habits Workshops we begin by helping our clients focus on achieving One Thing. Answer this question: What’s the most important area of your business you could focus on to achieve the greatest impact on your business this year and the coming quarter?

To help the executive team understand where to put their energy and attention we break the Ten Rockefeller Habits into a 4-3-2-1 formula, starting with a big picture view of the Four Decisions which comprise the four in the 4-3-2-1 equation.

These Four Decisions I have been mentioned previously many times in my blogs and newsletters: People, Strategy, Execution and Cash.

The next several blogs I plan to delve into these Four Decisions a bit further to help you appreciate where your business might focus its energy. It might be helpful to review the importance and value of discovering your one thing. In our two days of meetings I told three stories, one on companies who discovered and then achieved their one thing, and finally a personal story on my son, and how in the space of thirty from setting a personal growth goal he achieved his One Thing.

Here are the links to a several One Thing Client stories: 100% January Growth, ASA One Thing

My plan is to give you the personal One Thing about my son in a blog this week. Also plan to provide how to determine which of the Four Decisions you should choose to focus on by digging into the results you can expect by getting People, Strategy, Execution or Cash right in your business.

Getting results in your business is One Percent Vision, 99% Alignment. Determining your One Thing for the quarter and the year is essential to achieve alignment. We’ll explore this process in the blogs ahead.

Michael Gerber Dreamed It Rockefeller Habits Checklist Quantifies It

Douglas Wick — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:53:00 GMT

If you’re a small to mid-sized business owner you probably have a number of aspirations for your business. To build it so you can spend your time doing what you love most while the business runs consistently and predictably without you. Or it may be to watch it grow to achieve success humming along like a well-oiled machine. The dream of many small business owners was outlined in Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It. Ultimately you want to be in a position to invest most of your time working ON the business rather than IN it.

Gerber outlined a lot of essential pieces to construct the puzzle for business, especially small business owners by creating systems. As a senior E-Myth consultant for almost ten years I saw how well and how challenging this process was for small business owners. What was not particularly evident was a simple list of elements to complete in order to achieve this consistent predictable business. Gerber’s 21 E-Myth Modules were very helpful, however they didn’t offer a clear group of specific practices that business owners could keep in front of them to measure their progress toward this frequently elusive goal. In effect Gerber didn’t create a system to measure your progress on the path to achieving the goal of having this system developed business.

Wouldn’t it be great to have some form of measurement to grade how well your business is doing toward achieving this ultimate goal?

The Rockefeller Habits Checklist provides a simple group of elements to check and score to discover how close you are to achieving your aim of a consistent, predictable business model. At a 9 or 10 grade on each of the ten elements you are about as close to attaining business nirvana as is possible. This may be the ultimate point to sell your business, since nothing stays the same, and once you’ve achieved this stage you are certain to continue in the direction of getting better or worse.

The results of following this Checklist can be viewed here, as Alan Rudy describes the outcome of following the Rockefeller Habits Checklist in building Express-Med. He’s since sold Express-Med and launched two other successful companies using the Rockefeller Habits principles. Check out his success.

Is your goal to reach a high degree of consistency and predictability in your business? Take a moment to download the checklist and discover how well your business is meeting the criteria to achieve this.

One of my favorite Gerber quotes is, “You can’t manage want you don’t measure, and what you don’t measure you don’t understand.” If you really want to achieve this ultimate place in your business do you truly understand what it will mean when you achieve it? Isn’t it time you began to measure your progress on the journey to your objective?

Rip Van Winkle’s Leadership Lesson from Martin Luther King

Douglas Wick — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 20:51:00 GMT

Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? You probably remember he slept for 20 years, but little else.

At a 1959 commencement speech at Morehouse College, Martin Luther King reminded his audience there was another lesson to Washington Irving’s story of Rip Van Winkle. When Rip went to sleep in the mountains, on the wall at the inn he stayed was a picture of King George III of England. Twenty years later when he awoke it held a picture of another George – George Washington.

The point? Rip Van Winkle slept through the American Revolution. King wanted to stir his audience to not sleep through the revolution he was leading.

Each of us is in charge of our own revolution. As leaders we are in charge of not only our own company but the people we lead. If you work for a company you are in charge of your part in the revolution as well. Each year, in fact each day, we receive the opportunity to lead a revolution for our own and our company’s improvement. In fact by our action or inaction we are inspiring or demotivating those around us.

There are a lot of good nuggets in King’s “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” speech. Inspiring ideas on how to change, lead change and how prophetic he was in envisioning the future.

Is your intention this year to make a difference? Is it to change you or your business' behavior to perform at a higher level? Are you prepared to lead a revolution in your life and the lives of your company’s people?

Achieving change today requires Strategic Discipline. Establishing priorities, developing metrics to measure them, and then maintaining a steady diet of meeting rhythms to monitor accountabilities on performance against those priorities with your metrics.

If you fail to be inspired by my message and do not take the time to read King’s message, please read the following quote from his speech which I hope inspires you to lead a revolution:

“As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I possess a billion dollars. As long as millions of people are inflicted with debilitating diseases and cannot expect to live more than thirty-five years, I can never be totally healthy even if I receive a perfect bill of health from Mayo Clinic. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. John Donne placed this truth in graphic terms when he affirmed, “No man is an island entire of it-self. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the maine.” Then he goes on to say, “Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

May you choose today, this Martin Luther King day to lead your own revolution.

Routine Sets You Free

Douglas Wick — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:25:00 GMT

Recently I rediscovered the value of routine when I purchased a new computer. If you’ve had the occasion to move to a new computer recently perhaps you will recognize the disruptive forces that occur when suddenly you are without the use of your computer for several hours or in my case more than a day as your old data is restored to your new computer.

Without my computer I suddenly was without reminders, and addresses, the data for habits that drive much of my behavior. Affirmations I repeat each morning, appointment and call back times that I rely on for my computer was no longer available to me. To a great extent I felt lost.

The situation didn’t automatically rectify itself once I received the computer back. There were still programs that needed to be reloaded, email to be sorted through and reminders that needed to be tweaked and corrected. My printer wouldn’t immediately work which caused delays in getting work completed. The whole process of moving to a new computer was extremely unsettling and troublesome.

You and I are creatures of habits. Nathaniel Emmons offered, “Habit is either the best of servants or the worst of masters.” Stephen R. Covey noted, "Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. It also includes the capacity to overcome deeply embedded habits and to cultivate higher, more effective ones."

Why all this stuff about habits and routines? It's the habits and routines in our business that drive performance. Good habits and routines maintain or increase performance. Poor habits decrease performance. Meeting rhythms are an essential habit for companies to establish, yet in most companies these vital communication and accountability opportunities fail to occur or measure up to the required levels of standard to produce effective results.

To achieve the right outcomes, effective meeting rhythms can be your best servants. Routine can set you free. The Rockefeller Habits Checklist is an important example of ten crucial routines when practiced can elevate your business to a higher level. Most importantly it will provide your team and particularly you the president or owner the opportunity to observe your business from the “control tower” view that provides freedom, confidence, plus the intimate knowledge and security your business is consistently on track.

We’ll explore the value of the Rockefeller Habits Checklist as the measuring stick I feel it provides toward achieving the freedom Michael Gerber described in The E-Myth Revisited next blog.

Performance Trumps Everything Right?

Douglas Wick — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:09:00 GMT

In your business do you place the highest priority on measuring performance and productivity? Sales revenue, units sold, profit margin, efficiency standards. Are these gold standard in your business?

If so be aware that without balance, including counter balances to these measures, your business can become misaligned and begin to miss the priorities you’ve set. Discussed in our last blog Inspire Your People were the critical principals of Core Values and Purpose.

If you find yourself emphasizing performance numbers to the exclusion of everything else, beware. In business objectivity needs to be balanced with subjectivity or your business will begin to resemble a vehicle with square tires.

Not too long ago a company placed an extreme focus on performance and got tremendous publicity for their efforts. That company was Enron. To the exclusion of everything else they dedicated themselves to looking good financially.

You might be saying, Doug, I’m not in danger of becoming Enron. I’m sure, okay, I hope not! Yet I can tell you from working with some of my clients their obsession with all things performance oriented clouds their ability to recognize the soft and yet critical issues that drive the emotional side of their business. This is where spirit, motivation and determination live.

Nilofer Merchant in her Harvard Business Review Blog, The Success Equation speaks more eloquently than I on the value of the human stuff. She provides an equation to bridge-the-gap in performance models It’s S(uccess) = P(urpose)T(alent)^C(ulture)Or: S = (PT)^C

Please read her article on the importance that having the right culture and why defining your purpose is so critical to success.

Customer and Employee feedback drive growth and engagement. Companies that thrive on high customer loyalty perform twice their nearest competitor (according to research from NPS scores). According to Gallup similar results appear for companies with high employee engagement. You must be careful not to put so much focus on performance that you lose sight of the business purpose and the value of employees and customers in growing your business.

Strategic Discipline focuses on meetings, metrics and priorities. How important is routine, the meetings portion of Strategic Discipline. A new computer enlightened me on the value it provides. That’s next blog.

Employee Engagement: Inspire Your Team

Douglas Wick — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 12:28:00 GMT

Are you ready to get 2012 off to a roaring start? Would you like to get your team more inspired this year? Mike Schulte, Fleck Sales, earlier this year shared a video on what inspires your team. People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. It’s the soft spot in your business that is frequently ignored or not valued as critically as is required. This subjective aspect of your business is included as Core Values, Core Purpose on your One Page Strategic Plan. They are often overlooked. Jim Collins in Built to Last, and Good to Great provided supportive proof that these elements are critical to business success. This video Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action offers insight into why you need the “WHY” in your business.

When our people don’t perform to the levels we expect it can be traced to two specific areas of absence. Expectations aren’t clear, and they’re not inspired by the company’s purpose and values. Setting expectations is the subject of another blog this month. Not connecting the intention the company has for providing its service or product should be addressed even before the hiring selection is made. In selecting the person you should determine whether they are aligned with your core values and purpose.

Each quarter we ask our clients to review their people by completing a simple performance matrix. It’s not intended to be a complete performance review, however it provides at a very high level a quick appraisal on whether you have the right people on the bus. The matrix has two axes. One measures performance the other core values. Grading the people you manage on this matrix helps determines which people are your “A” players, which need training, who are on the proper path, and who need to be reassigned or possibly released to find a position and company they are more aligned with.

The title of this blog suggests you can inspire your team. That can be an erroneous belief. If you need to inspire them, I believe you may have chosen the wrong people in the first place. Having the right people on the bus suggests to me that they arrive inspired! They come to work each morning ready to work, motivated by the vision and purpose your company stands for. The question might be whether or not you’ve chosen something that inspires them in the first place. Does your business have core values and purpose that are identified and communicated, starting with your recruitment process and extending into daily practices that reinforce these at the tactical level of your business?

If not then inspiration is something you and your company need to identify and remain committed to in order to achieve the results these tools are intended to provide.

Inspiring your team is the responsibility of the leader. If your team is not inspired than you truly have the wrong people on the bus and quite possibly you’ve failed to properly get your house in order by identifying your core values and purpose.

Alignment – How Will 2012 Play Out for You?

Douglas Wick — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:24:00 GMT

Twelve tired, sweat covered young men shuffle through the hall toward a classroom. Each chooses a desk to sit in, plops themselves down for an unexpected respite from a grueling first week of basketball practice. The group looks around, engages in small talk, with one team member shouting out, “Wick, do you know what this is about?” I shrug my shoulders. It’s a first time experience for me as well as the rest of the team. Shortly thereafter, the new head coach enters his biology classroom where the boys have taken up temporary residence. Coach Belke strikes a commanding appearance. He’s about 6’2” with a barrel chest, large thick forearms, and looks every bit like the man who supposedly had a try-out with the Chicago Bears. Immediately the room falls silent, such is the presence he dictates. While Coach Belke has coached football and basketball before at Princeton High School, it’s been nearly a decade since he’s done either. He volunteered to take on the task of coaching basketball this year when our coach of the past three years unexpectedly left for a better teaching position. After years of dismal sports performances, this team is expected to do well. Our sophomore year our team won the first game a Princeton basketball team had won after 37 consecutive losses. The following year (our junior season) our team finished 13-6, 3^rd place in the conference. Expectations are high.

Coach Belke distributes a small sheet of paper to each boy. He then asks us to write on the piece of paper our expectations. Where do you expect the team to finish in conference this year? In just a few minutes he collects the forecasts, reviews and then gives the results. Ten boys vote first place, two 2^nd place.

History gives us the prescience of how our team actually finished that season.

Where do you believe our team finished my senior year in high school?

Was it first place as ten of the twelve boys predicted, or 2^nd place as two forecast?

If you said first place, you as I turned out to be, would be disappointed. My senior year our team finished 16-4, second place in our conference.

This story is to remind you of the critical need to have all of your team aligned with the vision and priorities of your business. As Verne Harnish points out in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, Success is 1% vision, 99% alignment.

It’s critical you spend time now in strategy and planning sessions for your business. It’s critical to invest time in determining your SWOT each year, to look at your strategic elements and forecast for 3-5 years, your annual and first quarter plan. Ultimately your team should determine its ONE THING for 2012 and the ONE THING for the first quarter.

Is your team aligned? Do they know what the plan is for 2012? Do they have alignment on what each need to contribute for the company to achieve its priorities and most importantly your company’s #1 priority for 2012?

Do you want to finish in 2^nd place?

Make Yourself, Employees and Customers Happier – Employee Engagement

Douglas Wick — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:47:00 GMT

Did you realize when a customer says thanks, they make you happy, but they make themselves even happier. In her book The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, describes a dozen scientifically proven strategies to make yourself happier. The first? Expressing gratitude.

What is your company doing to let gratitude blossom? That’s the question asked in just one of the valuable chapters, “I Love You. Now What?” from The Myth of the Garage by Chip & Dan Heath, the same authors who wrote Switch and Made to Stick. It’s a collection of their best articles from Fast Company. Best of all, ITS FREE to download to your Kindle.

The book points out that there are about 2.7 million call-center employees in America who are standing by, ready to soothe you. It’s roughly the population of Kansas.

Yet, what if you’ve got joy in your heart? No one seems to care. There’s a state full of people to handle our complaints and, at best, a thimble full to handle compliments. Why do companies make it so hard for us to say thank you? Especially when you look at what’s happening by not having thanks from our customers get back to our employees.

In a survey of 10,000 employees from the 1,000 largest companies, 40% of workers cited “lack of recognition” as a key reason for leaving a job. A tragedy!

When was the last time a customer’s thank you at your company got relayed back to the employee who was responsible for it?

I’m sure you’ve driven behind one of those trucks that ask “How’s my driving, Dial 1-800…?

Ever wonder if the drivers hear the comments you make when you dial the 800-number? Absolutely, according to CEO and President Christina Kelly of Kelmar Safety, which manages those “How’s My Driving?” programs for trucking fleets... Every single time. At least one company has figured out how to get the right comment to the right person.

18% of the calls are compliments. (Actual compliment: “He was great. He blinked his lights at me to let me out.”

If you’re looking for a great read with a lot of good ideas. Pick up The Myth of the Garage (Yes, it does have a story about Steve Jobs starting Apple in a garage).

Now give some thought on how you can get your employees to feel happier by letting them hear your customer’s compliments. It’ll make them, you and your employees a lot happier!

Relieve Stress With Meeting Rhythms

Douglas Wick — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:39:00 GMT

At this time of year it’s very common to find people exhibiting high stress levels. A trip for groceries, or to the hardware store, takes a bit longer due to long lines and depending on where you live the weather.

What’s the cause of stress?

According to The Power of Full Engagement the source of stress is Unfinished Business. When we have a lot on our plate to complete don’t we feel our stress levels go up? The trip to pick something up builds tension when it takes longer because we know we have a long to do list. Delays only cause us to fall further behind.

Frequently we’re not even clear what's causing stress. We haven’t tracked what we need to get done. Add to it the activities and projects those who report to us should be getting done and it’s not hard to see why people can go postal this time of year.

Strategic Discipline focuses on identifying priorities, putting metrics in place to measure your progress on priorities (including success criteria) and then establishing meeting rhythms to ensure vigilance is maintained on achieving your priorities. Included in the weekly meeting is a step on the agenda to review accountabilities. (If you have trouble tracking accountabilities with your team, send me an email for Gazelles accountability spreadsheet.)

By establishing meeting rhythms, including a weekly accountability check, you’ll remove some of the pressure and tension that comes with remembering your personal and delegated accountabilities. It won’t relieve the pressure of getting it done. It will relieve that gnawing feeling of wondering what you and your subordinates forgot to do. It might be the perfect tool to help you this last week before Christmas in your personal life as well.

Established meetings develop routines that relieve communication gaps, providing a pattern that increase structure and stability. When change occurs in your organization, an established meeting routine at the same time each week provides balance. This offers security and comfort in the face of the challenge, adversity and chaos that change often brings.

The next week will be short or absent on blogs as I spend it on site working with my clients on several annual planning meetings.

We’ve moved into the video world with a Positioning Systems YouTube Channel. Check out the update on our Inspiring the Team video if you’ve not already seen it. Expect to see more videos in the coming months.

Best Wishes for the Holidays to you and your families!

Priorities Require Metrics

Douglas Wick — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:56:00 GMT

If you want to improve something what should you do? First make it a priority, then begin measuring it. One of my clients and I share a goal to improve our lead generation activities. We‘ve been talking about improving performance for months and recently decided in order to improve our behavior we need to make this intention a priority. Establishing the priority came first. Then we had to decide to measure it and finally put accountability in place.

Developing a dashboard for my lead generation activities I sent this to my client. He liked the dashboard and began using it to report his progress daily. We keep each other accountable to the priority we set, utilizing the dashboard to track our progress.

This is a simple routine. It sets the stage for growth. Do you have employees that you’d like to see improve their performance? What’s the priority you’d like to set? What kind of dashboard can you create to make them accountable? What type of reporting routine makes sense to set up to keep them responsible for improving?

One of my priorities for 2012 is to improve my speaking and presentation performance. I’ve joined Toastmasters to make sure I’m held accountable for improving. As required by Toastmasters each week I will practice speaking in front of my peers. I will be held to a high set of standards that will require me to continually work on my performance and be graded. Improvement comes from making a decision to get better. Without feedback and measurement you gain little understanding on whether you are making progress.

Priorities requiring metrics is a good reminder of Pearson’s Law, “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back performance improves dramatically.”

Based on Pearson’s Law when making your plans for 2012 you can confidently predict you will make progress. Set your priorities, determine the metrics you will use to measure progress, and then get an accountability partner. Do you have someone to help you be accountable to your 2012 priorities?

This Boss Is Always Right – Value Collective Intelligence

Douglas Wick — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:50:00 GMT

You've heard the story of the boss who has two rules: Rule #1 The Boss is Always Right. Rule #2 When the boss is wrong, refer to Rule #1.

In many companies this time of year for annual planning revolves around one person making plans, usually the president or owner(s). The reason this occurs is often multiple. First the business owner started the business and in order for the business to grow it’s always been dependent upon him/her to make the plans. Another reason is that getting input from others takes time, precious time that many owners and company presidents don’t have or don’t care to take. Habits are hard to break. Setting directives and being in a commanding if not dominate position has worked in the past. It’s decisive, impactful, quick, and if it’s gotten results in the past there’s no reason to change.

As your business grows however the problem with this one person or small group making all the decisions on direction, objectives, and priorities is its limited ability to take into account all the obstacles and challenges that your priorities might face.

In How Deep Do You Dig we discussed Todd Klein, “Built for Change” authors disclosure at Phoenix Growth Summit suggesting successful companies he identified went deeper in their discovery process for their planning then companies in their peer group.

Collective Intelligence is an integral part of meeting rhythms and the practice of Strategic Discipline. Collective Intelligence is including your executive team and important contributors in the process of planning, strategizing, and solving problems. It should be a weekly exercise in your weekly meeting rhythms. If you are practicing this, then the process of annual planning should naturally include these members to formulate your plan for 2012.

Collective Intelligence results in better planning because your people, who know the landscape, recognize the bottlenecks and challenges that can derail priorities. They can offer insights and feedback on the length of time it may require to reach an objective. They can tell you why forecasting achieving a specific goal may be premature or possibly can be reached more quickly with the right resources.

Furthermore including your team in planning and strategizing for the year brings with it the likelihood they’ll have more ownership and accountability to achieving the results. In this evolving environment it’s also one of the critical ways to retain your best people by getting them involved in decision making.

You’ve hired the people in your business for a reason. If you’re collecting a staff that is sharp, achievement oriented, and committed to your success make sure you tap into the resources and investment you made. Include them in your annual planning process and then make sure you are continuing to mine this asset, its capabilities and talents consistently through collective intelligence in your weekly meeting rhythms.

Missing Element in Annual Planning

Douglas Wick — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:04:00 GMT

In 2012: Planning or Strategy we discussed the distinction between planning and strategy. While many companies struggle to execute their plans, the reality is most companies fail not due to execution, rather due to poor decisions.

Annual planning is a critical time for strategy development.

Are you using the One Page Strategic Plan as the fundamental tool for growing your business? Look at it now. Can you see how the left side deals with strategy and the right side the execution? The One Page Strategic Plan is meant to focus on both strategy and execution. Strategy elements consist of Core Values Purpose, Core Competencies, SWOT, Brand Promise, Brand Promise KPI’s, X Factor, BHAG, 3-5 Year Plan, 3-5 Year Key Thrusts and Capabilities. From the section on Annual Plan over to the right, these entries are focused on execution.

When you schedule time to work on annual planning make sure you invest at least 25 to 50% of your time reviewing your strategy elements. Do you have these critical strategy elements all completed? If they are, are they still on target? Can they be modified or improved?

There are Four Decisions your business needs to get right in order to grow: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. How are you doing in these four areas? Reviewing these four decisions provides the proper perspective for determining your One Thing for the next year.

To determine your One Thing and make definite plans to achieve it, you need to review last year, the previous quarter and get the input of the important decision makers on your team. Examine your key initiatives for next year within the context of the four decisions.

People is about harmony in your culture, how do you and your people enjoy working together?
Strategy is about top line (revenue) growth
Execution is about getting things done efficiently and effectively so that you convert revenue to profit
Cash is about having “Oxygen” – that is, sufficient cash flow (or cash reserves) so that you have options (choices) and are not living month to month just to survive.

Arguments can be made that simply determining which of these four to focus on is a strategic decision. Yet without question growth is a requirement for any business. When you’re green you grow, when you’re ripe you rot.

Strategy is the driver of revenue growth. Are your revenues growing? Can you consistently predict that your revenues will increase 15-20% or more in the coming year? If not, then you absolutely need to make strategy a priority and invest the time on making sure the elements of strategy are in place for your business.

The best strategist have developed a depth to their strategy following the principles Verne outlines in Seven Strata of Strategy. If you are struggling with revenue growth, or you simply wish to improve your revenue, strategy is absolutely the place you need to put your emphasis on.

Annual Planning is often considered a methodical process examining last year’s budget and setting slight increases for revenues and expenses. Usually considerations are made for any new plans for additional people, departments or initiatives. This is not planning, this is a budgeting process.

Make sure you invest time to work on the critical elements of strategy. Review whether or not your strategy is still on target due to competitive or changing market dynamics. An essential part of your annual planning process should include a review of your SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats).

Don’t go into 2012 without making a significant investment in strategic development. A critical part of developing Strategic Discipline is to make sure your meeting rhythms include annual planning with the right agenda. Your meetings should telescope and integrate with each other. In this way each meeting has meaning to build on each other. Does you annual planning process include sufficient time for strategy development? Do you need help conducting your annual meeting to include strategy development?

Human Behavior – One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Douglas Wick — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:32:00 GMT

Each of us is different. We are not all motivated by the same thing. It’s a lesson that Aubrey Daniels consistently reinforces in Bringing Out the Best in People. It’s the reason managing people is so challenging. It requires thoughtful observation, persistent communication and enduring energy to discover and maintain relationships that support and encourage your people to be their best each day.

Fundamentals in business success frequently duplicate sports success. Legends in sports frequently make the business speaking circuits simply because the competitive nature of business is echoed in sports. As a Packer fan I found a recent article on Aaron Rodgers understanding of human behavior mirrors Aubrey Daniels theme of discovering what motivates each individual. It’s a key to success. Great leaders in sports and business understand the fundamentals well and apply them. Read Rodgers learns 52 ways to motivate teammates to discover how one of the best NFL quarterbacks understands how to encourage and motivate his teammates. His recognition that what motivates one person does not necessarily motivate another is exactly what we and each of our managers need to do to get the best out of the people we work with.

Dan Pinks’ Enduring Motivators – Balance In Priorities

Douglas Wick — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:23:00 GMT

If you’ve not seen Dan Pink's video yet RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, I urge you to view it. Pink presented his views on human behavior and motivation during the Phoenix Growth Summit. I’ll have more on his offerings in future blogs.

During an annual planning workshop a week ago my client worked to balance their productivity priorities for the year with a relationship metric. We considered NPS score, absenteeism, core values, employee retention and fun factor before someone suggested measuring Dan Pink’s Enduring Motivators:

Autonomy
Purpose
Mastery

Please view the video to get a better understanding of what these mean. In essence what Pink offers is that people in the workplace are motivated most when they feel they have a good degree of independence, work for a business that provides a purpose they believe in, and have the ability and opportunity to improve their mastery in something they enjoy.

The idea to measure this speaks to the creativity and brilliance of my client’s team. They plan to use a scale of 0-10 to ask their team each quarter how they feel in their positions in terms of these three enduring motivators. Because the company has had some difficulty retaining staff due to competitive compensation issues, they also included a scale for staff to express their beliefs about their compensation.

I’ve sent human behavior expert Aubrey Daniels an email to discover how he feels these triggers are for measuring employee’s job satisfaction. I’ll share with you his response when I receive it.

What’s your take on these measurements? Do you agree with measuring these three and what’s your feeling on measuring your staff’s satisfaction level with their compensation? Please provide some feedback if you have any thoughts on this metric for measuring relationships and balancing the productivity scale in your business.

2012: Planning or Strategy?

Douglas Wick — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:50:00 GMT

Last week I spent two days with a client planning 2012. As we worked to identify their top priorities I urged them to include strategy as one of their priorities. The company is growing better than 15% the past two years, however this pace is down from three years ago when they grew better than 50%. As I pressed them to consider strategy a question arose, “I thought we were doing strategy by completing the One Page Strategic Plan. Isn’t that what strategy is? ”

If you believe you’re working on strategy by completing the One Page Strategic Plan, you may be right and wrong. Here’s why. Certain elements of the One Page Strategic Plan are Strategy while others are simply Planning. In fact your Annual Plan through your quarterly plans are part of your Execution Process. Strategy on your One Page Plan includes Core Values, Core Purpose (including your actions), Core Competencies, Your 3-5 Year Plan (including Key Thrusts & Capabilities), Brand Promise, X-Factor, BHAG, SWOT, and Sandbox. If you’ve completed these to the extent they provide you with a defining competitive advantage and differentiation in the marketplace, then congratulations! You’ve achieved success in developing your strategy. Understand there’s still room to improve by defining your Seven Strata of Strategy which Verne’s describes here.

Want to understand the difference between Strategy and Planning? It’s provided in a book I’ve written about several times entitled Strategic Learning. To learn more about Strategic Learning visit these blogs:

Execution or Bad Choices – Why Do Businesses Fail

Strategic Learning - Five Killer Competencies

Strategic Discipline’s Approach to Five Killer Competencies

The Pace of Change Requires Strategic Discipline

To understand how Strategy differs from Planning listen to what Strategic Learning author Willie Pietersen says:

“We must change our approach from “strategy as planning” to “strategy as learning.”

Strategic Learning is a learning-based process for creating and implementing breakthrough strategies. The leadership challenge is to repeat it over and over, so that an organization continuously learns from its own actions and from scanning the environment, and then modifies its strategies accordingly. Strategic Learning combines strategy, learning, and leadership in one unified process.”

Pietersen goes on to note that both strategy and planning are vital, but one is not a substitute for the other.

The golden rule is: strategy first, and planning afterwards.

What gave birth to strategy was the need to respond to two inescapable realities: the fact that we have limited resources, and the inevitability of competition.

Strategy is about doing the right things. It involves making the most intelligent choices; it clarifies where an organization will compete and how it will win the competition for value creation; and it creates an intense focus on the few things that matter most.

Military analyst Antoine Jomini writes that strategy is the concentration of mass upon decisive points. It’s the same in business.

The ultimate purpose of a strategy is to create clarity of focus. This, in turn, is the essential platform for leadership effectiveness.

Planning, on the other hand, concerns doing things right. It provides orderliness, discipline, and logistical rigor; its purpose is not to produce breakthrough thinking, but predictability; and it generates forecasts, blueprints, and budgets.

The difference between strategy and planning is to think about running a railroad company: Strategy defines where you will lay the railroad tracks; planning ensures that the trains run on time.

How are you doing on your strategy? Do you have a strategy or do you have a plan? Which do you feel now is more important? If you’re not sure I suggest you read my blog on Execution or Bad Choices – Why Do Businesses Fail.