RESULTS.com - Business Execution Blog

Business execution: Is your business focused?

Tim OÂ´Connor — Sun, 27 May 2012 18:20:00 GMT

Is your business focused?

In the great 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance plays Curly Washburn, the weathered and wise old cowboy trying to teach the folks from the city how to drive cattle across the American west.

In a memorable scene, Curly asks the main character Mitch Robbins, played by Billy Crystal, if he’d like to know the secret of life.

“One thing, just one thing”, says Curly, “stick to that and everything else don’t mean shit”

This scene drives home the moral of the entire film. Namely, that success comes when we get really clear on the ‘one thing’ or the few priorities that are most important, and stay focused on those at the expense of other, less important priorities and distractions.

The Power of Focus.

The same can apply to organizations and their employees. A colleague of mine for many
years in the corporate training industry used to open every one of his business seminars
with the phrase, “In today’s environment it’s not opportunity that we lack, there is an
abundant and constantly growing number of opportunities at our fingertips. What we
really lack is focus, the ability to choose the handful of high priorities and stay
focused on those.”

For individuals this principle can be implemented in a number of ways including the
concept of the “Not to do list”. This phrase, credited to Timothy Ferris in his book The
Four-hour Work Week, implies that if we are going to be truly productive we need to pay
as much attention and apply as much discipline to what we take off our task lists, as what
we put on them. This is truly the art of prioritization, and is fundamental skill for
all employees and leaders today.

Another tactic is to make priorities and performance visible through the use of business
execution software and dashboards. When there is visibility, especially between peers,
there is a higher level of focus.

The concept of focus goes well beyond personal productivity for individuals. Focus is a
fundamental characteristic of successful companies and brands. In his 1996 book Focus:
The Future of Your Company Depends on It, author and branding guru Al Ries insists that
firms must find their focus in order to survive and thrive into the future.

Ries argues that the strength of a brand is inversely proportional to its breadth, and firms that narrow their focus position themselves more strongly in a world deluged with marketing
messages and communications.

A great example of this is Vancouver based 1800GotJunk. This firm grew exponentially
over the past 15 years by focusing entirely on one service and making that service the
single brand message visible in all their marketing communication: “Remove your junk
without lifting a finger”.

Clarifying your “One thing”

As leaders how do we clarify our “One thing”? It’s not easy, and may take time, but one
tool that can help is Jim Collin’s Hedgehog Concept. In his book Good to Great, Collins
identifies that great companies are like hedgehogs.

Based on the parable, the hedgehog always outsmarts the fox by doing one thing over and over again, and doing it really well. According to Collins, great companies do the same and this feature is a key characteristic that separates good companies from great ones.

Further, Collin’s prescribes that leaders can discover their hedgehog by exploring the
intersection of these three questions:

What is your organization and culture passionate about?
What can you be best in the world at?
What will drive your economic engine? What will customers pay for?

In working with many clients using this concept, we’ve found it extremely powerful in
identifying brand focus, and making strategic decisions around core and non-core
activities.

Untangling your rope.

It can be easy to lose focus, and generally it is not intentional. Leaders and employees
are constantly faced with new information, ideas, opportunities, challenges and problems,
all of which can contribute to “taking the eye off the ball”. But with the right
process and accountability to the task, companies can determine their “one thing” and use
that to drive higher levels of performance.

Tim O'Connor

CEO - RESULTS.com Canada

Photo credit: Sigurd Decroos

RESULTS.com "Business Execution Software, made simple"

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:31:00 GMT

Are you ready for better business results?

Like most of our readers, you are probably a business leader of a mid-sized, fast-growth company.

Today, more than 25,000 business leaders from all around the world subscribe to these Business Growth Tips. 95% of the time we write about best-practice business growth wisdom. Today, I want to offer you the opportunity to get head start on your competitors and learn how all businesses will operate in the future.

Are you an early adopter?

Ambitious, early adopters are rapidly adopting web-based productivity tools to help them achieve better business results.

RESULTS.com Business Execution Software is designed for business leaders of fast growth firms - just like you.

It’s a simple way for you to achieve better business results. The software guides you how to:

• Create a winning strategy
• Set and track strategic objectives
• Hold people accountable
• Turn your vision into RESULTS

Plus, you get access to our expert team of business consultants to help you with your business questions anytime you want.

Business Execution Software makes it simple and easy to get things done. Regardless of whether you decide to use the tool in your business, I invite you to get a glimpse into how all companies will operate in the future, and decide for yourself if this is the right tool for you.

Click in this link to request a Business Execution Software Demo now:

I guarantee you find this Demo to be a very valuable use of your time. Seize the advantage. Go and request your demo now!

Stephen Lynch

Chief Operating Officer - Global Operations - RESULTS.com

Photo credit: Yaroslav B

Great business execution is all about the "One Thing"

Ben Ridler — Sun, 20 May 2012 23:15:00 GMT

Strategy is just the beginning.

Successful strategy execution starts with understanding the vital few things your company needs to execute to move it along the path to future success. That is called strategy.

You then break those vital few things down into quarterly goals for your people to work on. Most companies stop here and wonder why they don't still don't get the results they are looking for. They might have made some good strategic decisions – but setting strategy is just the beginning.

Execution is the major challenge.

The far more difficult job is called execution – which starts once you know what you need to get done. Execution is the major challenge for business leaders.

To be successful, you can’t just make a decision and hope that it happens. You need to relentlessly drive execution on a weekly basis by looking at each Goal and asking the person who is accountable the following question:

"What is the One Thing you can complete this week that will move you towards achieving your goal on time?"

Write that task down. When the person completes the task it gets checked off at the end of the week. You then relentlessly repeat this formula, by asking the exact same question at the beginning of the following week - for every goal.

Business Execution Software makes this easy – it captures “One Thing” and reminds the person daily until it gets done. It also reminds them why this task is so important as it keeps their Goals visible every day.

Don’t wait until the end of the week.

Every day, a similar question should be asked:

"If you could only complete One Thing today to move your goal forward, what would it be?"

If your company is using Business Execution Software, you can display this action as a public commitment, so the rest of the team knows what everyone is working on.

When everyone in your company knows the “One Thing” they can do that will bring the most progress – every day and every week - your business will be much more likely to succeed.

Less is more.

If your people are given too many things to work on, they can't possibly get them all done. They will tend to complete the ones that are easiest or most urgent.

Too often the things they choose to work on are not the vital things that will drive strategic execution, and the “One thing” will get lost in the clutter.

Your job as a leader is to make sure every Goal has just one key task assigned to it. You need to make sure the “One thing” is clear every week.

Then, hold your people accountable to stay focused on that "One Thing" so they get it done.

If you do, your chances of getting better business results will increase dramatically!

Ben Ridler

Chief Execution Officer - RESULTS.com

Photo credit: Ronaldo Taveira

Business Execution: The importance of keeping things simple

Stephen Lynch — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:17:00 GMT

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

There is a weed that stifles business execution success. That weed is called complexity.

Unfortunately, a company tends to become more complex the longer it has existed. In addition, the pace of technology change tends to increase complexity, as does globalization, as does complex organization structures.

If business leaders are not vigilant, your firm will become increasingly complex, and your ability to execute your strategy will suffer.

A cult of simplicity.

To overcome this, you must foster a “cult of simplicity”.

According to an article in The Economist, successful, enduring companies share three virtues in common:

1. They have a highly distinctive business model.

e.g. American Express with their focus on a high income target market customer

2. They keep their business model as simple as possible.

e.g. IKEA with its showrooms of ready to assemble furniture in flat packs

3. They apply their business model relentlessly to new opportunities.

e.g. Nike takes their “swoosh” to one sport after another. Private equity firms apply the same management system to lots of different businesses (Business Execution Software makes this easy).

Weed the garden.

Business leaders need to constantly be pruning and weeding to keep complexity at bay.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple says: “We believe in the simple, not the complex,” and “We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few.”

Gareth Penny, of De Beers, the diamond company, says: “The role of a CEO is to simplify the complexity and stick to a few themes.”

Companies like McDonald’s have documented systems for every process, in order to drive simplicity and consistency.

What about industry disruption?

Keeping it simple sounds like a smart practice, until an industry disruption comes along to render your current business model obsolete (think: Kodak, Xerox, Nokia, Kmart, Blockbuster).

The article argues that enduring companies survive industry changes by deciding which bits of their business model to preserve - and which bits to dump.

Bottom line: If you keep things simple, your company will be much more nimble, and able to adapt to industry changes.

What parts of your business needs simplifying right now?

Stephen Lynch

Chief Operating Officer - Global Operations - RESULTS.com

Strategic Communications Plan: 5 On-line Tips

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:04:00 GMT

With all the talk about websites, blogs, email newsletters, and social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc) it is easy to forget that these are just communication tools. If you, as a business leader, do not have a clear and focused marketing strategy with a strategic communications plan, no tool is going to save you.

Assuming you have a quality product or service that is unique and remarkable (worth remarking about), here are some suggestions to help your online communications stand out:

What is the purpose?

Don’t do something just because your competitors are doing it. Get clear on you marketing intentions. What exactly do you want to achieve? What are your options? What are the right online platforms for you? Define what business success looks like for you and how you will measure it.

Have a clear target audience in mind.

When you have a clear target market, your communications become more focused and effective.

To paraphrase Seth Godin – a blog for everybody is a blog for nobody. Keep a clear picture in your mind of exactly who you are writing for at all times.Don’t try to be all things to all people.

Don't just talk about yourself.

While your goal may be to build your brand and increase sales, it is a mistake to just write about your products and services. Always be adding value to your audience – which could include providing education, advice, case studies, industry news, or pointing people to other useful information. People will accept a certain amount of promotion from you - provided it is relevant to them - and you are adding value to their lives most of the time. A rule of thumb we try to follow is: 95% adding value, 5% promotion.

Be human.

Let your readers see behind the corporate facade, and let them discover the real human beings who make up your organization. Be friendly and engaging.

Focus.

Showing your personality does not mean writing about topics all across the board – following your personal whims. Doing this can alienate your audience. Get very clear on your strategic positioning (what your brand stands for), and give your target audience the information they want and expect to find from your brand. Be consistent.

7 Steps for Business Leadership Self-confidence

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:46:00 GMT

Self-confidence is a key factor in business leadership and ultimately business success. How can future leaders learn to demonstrate more of this? Here are seven suggestions from Marshall Goldsmith with our additional insights added:

Decide if you really want to be a business leader - MBA graduates might be great technicians, but many find the uncertainty and ambiguity of being a leader very unsettling. They are looking for the “right answers” - similar to what they learned in business school. Not everyone is cut out to lead people, and that is OK. Some people will find more fulfillment being an expert in a specific area. Do not feel obligated to become a leader.
Make peace with ambiguity in decision making - There are usually no clear right answers when making business decisions. Even your best decision has a high probability of being wrong.
Do what you think is right - Gather a reasonable amount of data, involve other people to generate a range of options, and encourage robust debate. If everyone agrees at the outset, tell them to go away and come back with some counter viewpoints. Then follow your gut and do what you think is right.
Demonstrate courage, even when you don’t feel it on the inside - We are all afraid at times - that is just part of being human. If you are going to lead people in tough times, you will need to show more courage than fear. When direct reports see worry and concern on the face of a leader, they lose confidence in the leader’s ability to lead.
Accept the fact that you are going to fail on occasion - Build feedback into your decisions to test how they fare against actual events. Even good decisions have a finite lifespan. All assumptions become obsolete sooner or later. Reality does not stand still for long.
Once you make a decision, commit and go for it.
Act or do not act - The surgeon does not take out half the tonsils. You either operate or you don’t. Don’t continually second guess yourself. If you really have to change course, then change course. If you never commit, all you will ever do is change course. The hardest part of any decision is not making it, it is executing it.
Life is short. Have fun! - Get a Chief Execution Officer to help you to drive your business froward so you have more time for fun. The last one is on us.

Employee accountability culture

Scott Morris — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 03:38:00 GMT

“Whom in your life can you really count on?” This question was posed to one of my business partners recently by author David Irvine. David has written a number of books on culture, leadership and accountability, including Accountability: Getting a Grip on Results, which he co-authored with Sean Murphy and Bruce Klatt.

As I pondered his question, I realized the people who made my list possess two key characteristics in the way that they operate.

First, they take promises seriously by clarifying and con- firming expectations, understanding the required outcomes and making sure that delivering on their promises is realistic. They don’t say “yes” to vague, undefined commitments. In fact, they don’t say “yes” very often at all, being careful to manage other promises they’ve made and not to overcommit.

Second, the people who I can really count on have a system for promise-keeping. They write down their commitments, schedule follow-ups and get things done proactively. They are organized and use paper- or electronic-based task management systems to keep track of their promises and priorities.

ACCOUNTABILITY IN ORGANISATIONS

Just as it matters who we can count on personally, accountability in our organizations matters, too. In fact, the ability to execute on our business strategy depends on our employees’ ability to make and keep promises, to be accountable for outcomes and to deliver on commitments. In our work with clients, lack of accountability is a recurring theme. Here’s what it sounds like:

• “If I could just get my people to care as much about the results as I do, we would be more successful”.

• “It seems like we cover the same issues over and over again, and no one takes ownership for solving the problem”.

• “It doesn’t matter; no one is keeping score.”

If you are hearing phrases like this in your organization, you have an issue with accountability. And because of that, your company is not reaching its full potential. Accountability starts at the top of the organization. We can’t begin to address accountability gaps if we, as leaders, aren’t prepared to model the behaviours we’d like to see in our people. We must set and meet the performance standards for ourselves first, and then look to hold others to the same standard. Then we must recognize that accountability follows relationship. We can’t create a culture of accountability without knowing employees for who they are as people, building rapport and trust, understanding what matters to them, and opening the lines of good, healthy communication. Then, and only then, can we build a framework for accountability.

ACCOUNTABILITY FRAMEWORK AND CULTURE

Last year I had the opportunity to spend some time with author and business thought-leader John Spence. John is the author of Awesomely Simple, and a consultant to many Fortune 500 firms in North America. John agrees that accountability is a huge issue for many organizations, and he recommends the following principles to address it:

• Top managers need to be clear about their expectations, modeling accountability for themselves first and then cascading clear expectations throughout the organization.

• All goals and performance targets should be specific and measurable. They are “binary” in terms of their achievement, and can be objectively assessed either as being achieved or not.

• Promote lots of transparent communication, and make performance data and results visible to all employees. Business dashboards can facilitate this.

• Celebrate when goals are met, AND deal with goals not being met. Accountability is meaningless without consequences. In my experience, making performance visible throughout the organization is one of the strongest means of delivering consequences. Weekly execution meetings should be conducted to track priogress. No one wants to be seen by their peers as a poor performer, while at the same time there is nothing more energizing and engaging than seeing a team celebrate a significant success.

I would agree with John on the points above, and would suggest adding the following elements to further build the accountability culture:

• Establish a single point of accountability. Ensure that each outcome and each key metric in your business has one person’s name beside it. That does not mean that that person must individually deliver the outcome, but he or she is the person expected to coordinate and muster the resources of the organization to make it happen (and “sound the alarm” early if the targets are not going to be met).

• Set role scorecards for every role. Each job should have a role scorecard specifying the objective measurements of success for the position.

• Turn conversations into promises. Keep a roster of actions for each functional or project team that clearly displays who will do what by when.

Balance outcomes and inputs. As a leader, constantly ask people what support and resources they need to deliver the outcomes they have committed to.

UPGRADING THE TEAM

Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. You get what you tolerate. If you settle for lackluster performance, you’ll get more of it. But as you start to build an organization that has a culture of accountability, something interesting begins to happen.

First, poor performers will become less comfortable. There is no longer anywhere to hide when performance is objectively measured and visible. In many cases, these employees will see the proverbial “writing on the wall” and choose to find another place to work. And that’s not a bad thing! Having mediocre performers leave the organization provides opportunities to recruit more “A” players.

Second, the “A” players that you already have on your team will become more engaged. Top performers want to work with other top performers. Their ability to deliver on their promises is dependent on others in the organization, and they will see your firm as a place to advance and thrive.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Creating a culture of accountability takes time; there is no quick fix for effective business execution. But without it, your company will not meet its full potential. Just like people, admired organizations are those that keep their promises — promises to customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders. Can your organization be counted on?

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in March 2012.

Business leadership and the NEW normal

Johan Etsebeth — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:04:00 GMT

We are excited to present John Spence in New Zealand, who will be speaking to a capacity crowd of 400 people on “Business leadership and the NEW Normal”.

For the past 18 years John Spence has cultivated some of the world’s greatest business leaders. He’s developed business leaders for Apple, Microsoft, IBM, GE, Abbott, Merrill Lynch, AT&T, Qualcomm, and many other companies, government offices and not- for-profits, and hundreds of small businesses.

John is the author of Excellence by Design - the six key characteristics of outstanding leaders and Awesomely Simple - essential business strategies for turning ideas into action and take control of your business. He has been a guest lecturer at over 90 universities including Stanford, Harvard, Cornell and the Wharton School of Business on leadership and business excellence.

At the age of just 26, John was named CEO of the international Rockefeller foundation, overseeing projects in 20 countries and reporting directly to Winthrop P. Rockefeller III. Two years later John was nominated as one of the top CEOs under the age of 40, and Inc. Magazine recognized him as one of America’s up and coming young business leaders. Today, John is regarded as one of the top business thought leaders in America.

Strategic Execution

Sebastian Cadenas — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:34:00 GMT

RESULTS.com guest blog – by John Spence. I was recently invited to return to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business for the eighth year in a row to teach a special class on strategic planning. I called my contact a few months before the session to ask if it were possible to shift the class more from "strategic planning" to “strategic thinking" this year, but was surprised to find out that 98 executives had already signed up for the class based on the catalog description of it as "a solid look at how to write and effective strategic plan." So I decided to go back and take a hard look at the program and see if I could update it a bit and was surprised to have an epiphany of sorts.

I have long decried that one of the factors that inhibits the ability to write a good strategic plan is the lack of "strategic thinking" that typically goes into the planning process. If a practitioner is not spending serious time and effort on the thinking part of the equation, there is the possibility they can do the planning part of the process (the methodology, the framework) superbly, only to create a flawed plan because it was based on poor information and ideas. (The old GI = GO… Garbage In = Garbage Out -- a computer programming term) Then I realized that there was another major issue that I simply had not been stressing enough; the execution of the plan.

Every year I ask the executives in this class: “What percentage of the time do you think companies that have a solid strategic plan – actually effectively execute that plan?” The answer I typically get is: 10-15% - YIKES! Everybody knows that even a brilliant plan that is poorly executed is almost worthless (actually it is very, very costly!). And there can be no denying that every strategic planner in the world will jump up and down about how important it is to "execute to plan" - but then it struck me – that maybe the reason this number was so incredibly low was that almost no one makes planning for effective execution part of the actual strategic planning process. Ah-ha!

It has been my experience that most organizations spend very little time doing any real strategic thinking before they begin planning… then spend a lot of time, energy and money on an elaborate "planning retreat" that focuses heavily on process… and then walk away from the planning retreat and simply expect that they can pass out the plan and it will be dutifully implemented by their people. I say NO, not unless just as much energy, time and effort goes into creating a system and a process for ensuring effective execution as well. What I am suggesting, and will now add to all of my classes, is that a strategic plan is NOT complete, until you have also written a clear, specific, measurable and detailed "Strategic Execution Plan."

In an effort to better understand the "process" for being more effective at execution, I sat down and read 22 books on effective execution (4,000+ pages). What I learned is that they all basically said the exact same thing. To successfully execute any significant strategic initiative you need to follow these steps:

Figure out what to FOCUS on (and by default – what you must say NO to). Where will you allocate resources? What are your core competencies? Where can you differentiate your products and services for a sustainable competitive advantage? What do you need to stop doing? How exactly will you compete for markets, customers and profit? The answers to these questions are of course... your strategic plan!
Communicate the plan and vision to everyone involved -- over and over again - in every way possible -- in order to gain alignment and commitment. The people involved in executing the plan need to truly understand it and clearly see their role in making it happen.
Create systems / processes / procedures to ensure that the plan is executed in an effective manner. Personally I hate having to follow procedures -- but I absolutely know they are critical in ensuring that the good ideas in your plan - become reality.
Give people the training, resources, help and support necessary to follow the systems and processes. Set them up for success. Make it easy for them to win by giving them everything they need to effectively implement the plan. The most important likely being -- time!
Monitor and track business progress. A few keys on this... use as few measures as is necessary - you do not want to add in a bunch of extra paperwork and reporting. Just because something is easy to measure - does not mean you should. Just because something important is very hard to measure - does not mean you can skip it. And lastly, after you have identified the 5 or 6 key measures --- post them for everyone to see. Make sure everyone knows what the targets are, how they are measured and exactly how well you are doing towards those targets. Transparency is the watchword.
Reward successes lavishly - deal decisively with mediocrity.

If you follow these steps with great discipline, you should be able to see quite startling positive results. And interestingly enough, when I put this list up in one of my classes and ask the participants if the honestly follow a process similar to this to make sure they are executing successfully – almost no one says they are. Another ah-ha!

So, I now see planning as a three part process: Strategic Thinking + Strategic Planning + Execution Planning. You can be incredibly innovative and have stunning ideas that you run through a wonderful planning process, but without the detailed and specific systems in place to ensure execution, the plan will simply go up on the shelf as credenza-ware, only to be pulled down for next year's planning retreat - dusted off - and have all the dates pushed out 18 months. That is no way to use a strategic plan.

This Article has been written by John Spence. John has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Business Thought Leaders and one of the top Small Business Influencers in America. He is the author of “Excellence by Design: Leadership” and “Awesomely Simple – key business strategies for turning ideas into action.” John will be in New Zealand on March 15, 2012 at the Ellerslie Convention Center to deliver a seminar on” Leadership in the New Normal.

For our New Zealand subscribers, John will be in New Zealand on March 15, 2012 at the Ellerslie Convention Center to deliver a seminar called “Leadership in the New Normal”
Click here to learn more about this event

Driving human behaviors

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:16:00 GMT

Pavlov was onto something with his dogs. Recognition is the bell that drives human behavior “Thank you” - is a universal concept with an underlying definition that means, “Please do that specific behavior again.”

A survey of more than 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period showed that “purpose-based” recognition is proven to engage your employees, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and increase customer satisfaction.

What’s more, companies who effectively recognize their staff are much more profitable.

Organizations that scored in the lowest 25% for recognition had an average Return on Equity of just 2.4 percent, whereas those that scored in the top 25% had an average ROE more than 3 times higher!

To create the best results, recognition is most effective when it meets 5 criteria:

Positive: Remembering a person’s past negative behaviors and speaking about how much better they have become is not positive. Recognition is not a time for correction – make sure you just point out their positive behaviors.
Immediate: The sooner you give the recognition to when the actual performance occurs, the better. Catch people doing things right, and let them know straight away.
Close: Recognition is best presented in the environment where the actual performance occurred, ideally among their peers.
Specific: Recognize the specific behaviors that were observed – especially those that reinforce company core values, and the achievement of current company action priorities.
Shared: We usually think of recognition as coming from the top down, but interestingly, it is recognition from peers that often means the most to people.

Recognition is just one of 12 key success factors you need to implement in your business to maximize employee engagement and boost productivity.

Becoming Referable

Scott Morris — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:40:00 GMT

Any business leader will tell you that referrals and word-of-mouth introductions are the most effective sources of new customers for companies in a business-to-business environment. A recent review of our client base showed that well over 50% of our current clientele originated from referrals, and, in some cases, we could trace numerous new clients back to one raving fan.

But ask business leaders if they have a systematic process for generating and capturing referrals, and many will say “no.” Rarely does “referral process” appear explicitly as a line in the marketing plan, or drive specific, measurable activities within an organization.

Why is this the case? If referrals are so important, why don’t organizations recognize them and have a defined referral process as part of their growth strategy?

In his 2010 book, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself, author John Jantsch tackles this question. In his research, he interviewed hundreds of small and mid-sized businesses to determine not only the importance of referrals for business growth but how referrals actually present themselves. Here are some of the key process steps that John recommends:

Step 1: Create a Superior Customer Experience

The first step in becoming “referable” is to look at your current service offering. Would existing customers refer you? Does your firm provide a superior customer experience?

In one of my previous articles, I wrote about the Net Promoter Score (NPS) approach to soliciting customer feedback; the NPS is an indicator of how “referable” your firm is. An NPS score is achieved by asking clients regularly, “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely are you to refer our firm to friends or business associates, and why?” The “and why” component of this feedback is the critical element in determining what improvements can be made to your current product, service, or overall customer experience. Look for themes and decide what changes will improve your NPS score. These changes may be minor (like offering an electronic funds transfer capability for the payment of invoices) or major (like developing a new product line). In either case, your firm must respond to the themes and find ways to stand out from the crowd. For your company to become “referable,” the experience your clients have with your business must be superior to the experience they have with your competition.

Step 2: Clarify Your Market and Your Message

First, there is little point in executing any marketing activity without knowing who you want to target. Clarifying precisely your target market, both in terms of demographic and psychographic criteria, ensures that any activity you undertake is focused and directed to the right audience.

Second, it is critical to clarify your brand position and promise. Look for a position of leadership – are you the quality leader, the cost leader, or the best at time-to-deliver? Is your promise to drive down clients’ overall cost of ownership, or to give them a leg up in speed of bringing their product online?

The answers to these questions should make up the key messaging for your firm. Sometimes called the “elevator statement” or the “unique value proposition,” this phrase or sentence should quickly and simply provide anyone with an understanding of what your company does, its position in the industry, and its brand promise to customers.

Step 3: Develop the “Referral Engine”

Once you have a “referable” product or service, and you are crystal clear about your target market and message, it is then time to build the referral engine.

The old school approach to generating referrals would be to sit down with current clients, pen and note pad in hand, and say something like, “OK, Bill, can you give me the names and phone numbers of three companies you can refer me to?” In some cases this approach may still work, but generally it is intimidating and too high-pressure for today’s business environment.

Alternatively, you can combine content and community to build your own referral engine:

Content – Business is complex. So much change happens every day; new information and techniques constantly arise in every industry. Your customers and prospects can’t keep up with it all – they are busy running their businesses.

That creates the opportunity to position your firm as a trusted knowledge source by creating relevant content. Content can take many forms, including white papers, newsletters, webinars, seminars or presentations. All these provide you the opportunity to educate, enlighten, and inform, while positioning your firm as a competent and credible source of expertise in the industry.

For instance, since late last year my firm, RESULTS.com, has hosted weekly webinars focusing on business execution. The webinar itself educates and informs business leaders about the challenges and solutions in business execution, and that positions us as a leader in the field.

Community – But how does this tie to referrals? Well, it is easy to encourage current clients to forward a white paper or bring a guest (who’s a prospect for you) to a seminar or event. That positions the referral introduction as a value-add for the prospect. In this way you begin to develop community: the relationships between existing customers and their associates, friends, or colleagues who are new leads and prospects for your business.

Consider a specific example: You host an education event and invite 20 current customers, asking them each to bring along one or two guests who they think might be interested in the topic. Through this mechanism you get a warm referral introduction and a chance to provide educational content that smartly positions your company and expertise.

This is the basic framework for a referral engine – combining your content with an appropriate forum for your clients to make an introduction.

Step 4: Exploit Technology

Technology can play a key role in taking your referral engine to the next level. Social media tools are built on the idea of community, where like-minded individuals can meet, share ideas, and post discussion in the virtual world. This creates countless opportunities for your firm to participate in online forums and discussion boards, and to add value while demonstrating an expertise or competency. Is your firm active in online industry forums and communities? Are your customers there, too, and what are they saying about your firm.

Take LinkedIn as an example. There are literally thousands of LinkedIn groups that exist as communities around particular topic areas, geographies, or associations. These groups can provide you the opportunities to share knowledge and position your firm as a leader in your industry. Combine that with LinkedIn’s profile references, networks, and company pages, and you have a complete online referral platform.

Putting It All Together

Becoming “referable” is not a one-time project, or a goal that is going to be achieved this quarter or even this year. It touches all elements of your business, and requires discipline and commitment. But in the end it could be the best way to allocate resources and grow your firm. How “referable” is your organization?

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in Nov 2011

First Fitness Centre for Businesses in Edmonton

Tim OÂ´Connor — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:24:00 GMT

EDMONTON — November 1, 2011 — Today, RESULTS.com, the global expert in business execution, opens Edmonton’s first "Business Fitness Centre", designed to help mid-sized firms develop the execution disciplines to perform at their highest levels.

Using the “fitness centre” approach, business leaders and their management teams attend weekly structured “workouts” with their business fitness specialists (Business Execution Specialists) to make strategic decisions, execute on key priorities, and hold one another and their employees accountable for results. Through the RESULTS.com program, companies turn their business potential into extraordinary results.

Clients in Edmonton are already seeing the benefit

Can Traffic Services is one of a number of Edmonton companies currently benefiting from the program; they have been working with RESULTS.com since December 2010. According to owner Mike Kelly, “RESULTS.com has provided the tools for our new managers to positively go forward, where before there was a certain amount of floundering. We also had a crisis in human resources, and, with the new tools, we were able to understand the problem, come up with a strategy, execute the strategy, and now eliminate the problem. RESULTS.com concepts will work for any company.”

Edmonton, Canada’s leading entrepreneurial centre

“Edmonton is a significant market for us because of its entrepreneurial culture,” says Scott Morris, CEO of RESULTS.com Canada. “We estimate there are over 3,000 mid-sized firms in the city and neighboring communities, many of which are led by ambitious, open-minded business leaders who are seeking better results.”

The Edmonton Economic Development Corporation agrees, stating that GDP growth in Edmonton is the highest in the history of Canada, and investment in the economy is currently over $100 billion.

Taking companies to the next level

“Making good companies great is why we exist,” says Jeff Tetz, Practice Manager for RESULTS.com’s Edmonton branch. “We are excited to see the progress we are making with several firms here already. The opening of our new Business Growth Centre will enable us to support even more organizations, and further drive Edmonton’s reputation as an economic powerhouse.”

Over the next several months, RESULTS.com will be interviewing candidate firms to evaluate their fit with its program. It will also be hosting a Grand Opening event on November 24, 2011, where guests will have an opportunity to put their firms through a “business fitness test” and learn about their unique opportunities for better performance.

About RESULTS.com

RESULTS.com is the Business Execution Experts, with offices in Canada, the USA, and New Zealand. It aggregates global research and best practices, and provides client organizations with education, coaching, and consulting in areas of business execution including vision, strategy, employee engagement, and accountability. It has been in operation since 1996 and has worked with thousands of client organizations.

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For more information, press only:
Tim O’Connor
RESULTS.com
403 234 0999
tim.oconnor@results.com

For more information on RESULTS.com:
http://RESULTS.com

Top employee recognition programs

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 18:26:00 GMT

Pavlov was onto something with his dogs. Recognition is the bell that drives human behavior.

“Thank you” - is a universal concept with an underlying definition that means, “Please do that specific behavior again.”

A survey of more than 200,000 managers and employees over a 10-year period showed that “purpose-based” recognition is proven to engage your employees, reduce staff turnover, boost productivity, and increase customer satisfaction.

What’s more, companies who effectively recognize their staff are much more profitable.

Organizations that scored in the lowest 25% for recognition had an average Return on Equity of just 2.4 percent, whereas those that scored in the top 25% had an average ROE more than 3 times higher!

To create the best results, recognition is most effective when it meets 5 criteria:

Positive - Remembering a person’s past negative behaviors and speaking about how much better they have become is not positive. Recognition is not a time for correction – make sure you just point out their positive behaviors.
Immediate - The sooner you give the recognition to when the actual performance occurs, the better. Catch people doing things right, and let them know straight away.
Close - Recognition is best presented in the environment where the actual performance occurred, ideally among their peers.
Specific - Recognize the specific behaviors that were observed – especially those that reinforce company core values, and the achievement of current company action priorities.
Shared - We usually think of recognition as coming from the top down, but interestingly, it is recognition from peers that often means the most to people.

Recognition is just one of 12 key success factors you need to implement in your business to maximize employee engagement and boost productivity.

Scientific marketing by Seth Godin

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:30:00 GMT

Seth Godin has authored more than 10 books on marketing, all of which we recommend to our clients.

Here is a summary of 10 tips he offered in his blog under the topic of “scientific marketing”

Don't run out of money. It always takes longer and costs more than you expect to spread your message. You can budget for it - or you can fail.
You won't get it right the first time. Your marketing will need to be reinvented, adjusted or scrapped. Count on it.
Just because something is easy to do – does not mean that it is your best choice.
Irrational, strongly held beliefs of others should be ignored.
If it makes you nervous, it's probably a good idea. If you're sure you're right, you probably aren't.
Focusing obsessively on one niche, one benefit, and one market is almost always a better idea - than trying to satisfy everyone.
At some point, you're either going to have to stick to your convictions or do what the market tells you. It's hard to do both.
Compromise in marketing is almost always a bad idea. Extreme A could work. Extreme B could work. The average of A and B will almost never work.
Test, measure and optimize. Figure out what's working and do it more.
Read and learn. There are a million clues, case studies, books and proven tactics out there. You don't have the time or the money to make the same mistake someone else has already made. It's cheaper and faster to read about it than it is to do it.

If you want to learn proven strategies for marketing success, join our next webinar

Most effective businesses

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:56:00 GMT

This quote came from Peter Drucker who also asserted, “Most businesses try to accomplish far too much. They lose concentration and give in to the temptation of trying to be all things to all people.”

“If what looks like an opportunity does not advance the strategic goal of the institution, it is not an opportunity. It is a distraction.

“Economic results require that staff efforts be concentrated on the few activities that are capable of producing significant business results. Managers must minimize the amount of attention devoted to activities which produce primarily costs."

Peter Drucker also coined the term ‘purposeful abandonment.’ He argued that the best way for a company to grow, is to first stop doing what’s not working. That is, abandon projects that fail to deliver results. Abandon products and services that fail to increase profit. Abandon people that fail to make worthwhile contributions to the company.

“In order to grow, a business must have a systematic policy to get rid of the distractions”

Similarly, in the book Good to Great, Jim Collins recommended a ‘Stop Doing List’. He wrote, “Take a look at your desk. If you're like most hard-charging leaders, you've got a well-articulated to-do list. Now take another look: Where's your stop-doing list?”

“Those who built the good-to-great companies made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists.”

Both Drucker and Collins agree - distractions must be avoided.

Smart organizations identify and relentlessly focus on their core activities, while ignoring and eliminating those activities and investments that are distractions.

These smart organizations will not only survive this recession, but will thrive when the economy invariably turns around. Those who ignore the advice of these two business greats do so at their peril.

Perhaps Mark Twain said it best; “I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure, which is: Try to please everybody.”

Get Real, creating authentic organizations.

Scott Morris — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:15:00 GMT

Communicating “Inside-Out”

Not that long ago, organizations considered internal communications as separate from external communications. Our Human Resources or Corporate Communications departments were responsible for internal messaging to employees, while our Marketing and Sales teams were in charge of crafting messages, creating campaigns, and communicating with existing and potential customers. And for many organizations in our industry, these discrete departmental structures still exist.

But should these groups be separate? Should we “silo” internal and external communications? Should they be managed by different people and deliver different messages?

I would argue that for organizations today it’s imperative that we communicate “Inside-Out,” that our company messages, communications, and personalities be consistent whether we are speaking internally or externally. As described in my last article (July 2011), the fundamental underpinnings of everything we say (and do) are our corporate values, purpose, and vision – together, our firm’s “personality.” These elements should guide our decision-making every day and act as the foundation for consistency in both internal and external messages.

“Do As I Say,…“

I remember, as clearly as yesterday, the day my father tried to teach me to drive. His first sentence to me was, “Do as I say, not as I do.” That was not to say he was a bad driver, but his message was that he had a different set of rules, a different standard of driving. Needless to say, his approach did not always deliver the best results.

Whether we are parents or leaders in our organizations, we must “walk the talk.” We must act consistently with what we say to others and hold ourselves accountable to the same standards. In a word, we must be “authentic.”

Being authentic is more important today than it has ever been. There are no secrets in our business environment anymore. Through the power of technology – and specifically, social media – conversations are happening, and they are happening in many directions. Clients are speaking with prospects, prospects are talking to employees, employees are communicating with shareholders, shareholders are in touch with government agencies, and so on; the communication network is extensive and frictionless. Everything is public – even that email you may be sending today could end up somewhere on the web tomorrow.
In this environment, there is no room for inconsistencies; to say one thing to one group and spin a different message to another is not acceptable.

Creating Authenticity

Arguably, one of the most admired companies in Canada is WestJet. Modeled after Southwest Airlines, WestJet’s culture is all about fun and caring. In fact, we currently have a client whose goal is to “become the WestJet of our industry.”

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some one-on-one time with Sean Durfy, former CEO of WestJet (and president of Enmax Corporation before that). Sean claims that keeping a company culture alive and healthy is a CEO’s number-one job. “At WestJet, the ‘I Care’ motto wasn’t something dreamed up by the marketing department and pushed out in our advertising campaigns. It was a fundamental part of our internal culture; it’s what we stood for, both internally and externally. We cared as much about our employees as our guests, and I believed that if we did a good job of caring for our own people, they would do a good job of taking care of our customers.” And this approach continues to work at WestJet: It was, and still is, one of the most profitable airlines on the planet.

WestJet is just one example of how being authentic and communicating consistently, inside and out, goes hand in hand with strong corporate performance. In 2008, a major study on “Brand Authenticity” was undertaken in Australia by the Authentic Brand Index (www.authenticbrandindex.com). Companies and brands that ranked high in authenticity – firms like Microsoft, Coca Cola, IKEA, Google, and Vegemite (Kraft) – are also some of the best performing companies. And they possess huge brand value.

Getting Real

So what can we do to create authenticity in our organizations? We’ve seen many times in our work that it starts with you as the leader. We sometimes joke, “the fish rots from the head down,” but what that really means is that leadership behavior is contagious, and how leaders act influences the entire organization.

Can you look at yourself and say you are operating authentically? Do you “walk the talk” each and every day? Are there mechanisms in place for you and your leadership team to get open and honest feedback? Do you get “straight talk” regularly, or is communication veiled in political correctness? Are you the same person at work and at home? These are difficult questions, but essentials ones on the road to creating true authenticity.

Once leadership authenticity is established, then it can cascade to other parts of the organization. Tactics could include:

Internal Value Audits – Assuming you have stated values, regularly survey or poll your teams to measure how consistently the organization (and management) operates within those guiding principles.
Brand Audits – Consider hiring an external firm to undertake an audit of your brand. Have them check the consistency of the messaging against the core principles, priorities, and strategies of the company.
Interviews with Exiting Employees – The best people will always have a choice, and it is critical to understand and collect insights about why people are leaving.
Employee and Customer Feedback – Look at formalizing your feedback mechanisms by using Net Promoter Score[i] surveys. Consider having these executed by a third party to ensure honest feedback.
Open Dialog – Promote candid feedback without negative consequences. Encourage employees to have the hard conversations and to share information even if it is negative, without fear of repercussions.

Creating a culture that is authentic and consistent – it takes effort, and the effort starts at the top. Are you ready to help your organization “Get Real”?

[i]The Loyalty Effect is a 1996 book by Fred Reichheld of the consulting firm Bain & Company describing the “Net Promoter Score” approach.

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in Sept 2011

Winning strategy, how to create one?

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:42:00 GMT

Research from the Harvard business school shows that 90% of strategies fail due to poor execution. This assumes your company even has a real strategy. Many companies think they have a strategy, but all they have done is a meaningless exercise in financial goal setting.

Growth is not a strategy. Efficiency is not a strategy. Yes, we all need to continuously improve – but improvement is not a strategy. Strategy is not about being better.

Strategy is about establishing a meaningful point of difference you can preserve. Strategy is about resource allocation. Strategy is making clear-cut choices about how to compete. You cannot be everything to everybody - you have to figure out what to say NO to. Once you have a clear vision, your strategy is the road map that outlines "how" you are going to achieve your vision.

Leaders need to keep one eye focused on the short-term - and one eye focused on the long-term. Short-term is about improving the current core business, and meeting the needs of today’s target customers. Long-term is not about performance improvement – it is about forgetting the past and reshaping the business to compete more effectively in the future. Balancing these two opposing concepts is one of the great challenges of leadership.

Here is a brief introduction to the kind of questions you need to answer in order to effectively set strategy:

What competitive forces will impact your firm (e.g. competitors, new entrants, substitute offerings, suppliers, customers) – and what moves do you need to make to address these?
What macro forces will impact your industry (e.g. political, economic, social, technological) – and what moves do you need to make to address these?
What geographic area do you plan to serve, and how will you access those locations?
Who will be your target market customer?
How will you strategically position your brand in your marketplace?
What benefits will you offer?
What will change in the way you interact with customers?
What core competencies will you need to develop?
What is your business? What should it be?
What core activities will you perform / develop / acquire?
What is NOT your business? What should it NOT be?
What non-core activities will you stop doing / outsource / divest?

Taking these (and other) factors into account – what are the key strategic moves you need to make to position your firm for future success in your industry?

Strategic planning should be an ongoing process - not an annual event. Effective companies update their strategic plan every 90 days to ensure relevance with the competitive environment, and to align all their people to the strategic priorities.

Setting strategy is just the beginning. The real leadership challenge then becomes the successful execution of your strategy. But of course, you must start with a winning strategy – if you want to have any chance of winning at the game of business.

Plan Key Performance Indicators

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:47:00 GMT

Most companies try to set clear numerical targets (goals). However, they seldom do a good job of measuring progress toward them.

Unfortunately, very few companies are good at setting and tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) - the small handful of predictive measures that will ultimately drive goal achievement. Nor do they do a good job of holding people accountable for their achievement.

The book "Transforming Performance Measurement" describes the benefits of Key Performance Indicators:

Directs people’s behavior.

Most employees operate on the following assumption: “Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave.”

Makes performance visible.

You can only manage what you measure. Keeping the scores visible where everyone can see them, shows you how well the various parts of the business are working, and who is performing and who is not.

Focuses attention.

What gets measured gets done. Employees are faced with many competing demands on their time and resources. When they know the 1 or 2 numbers that their performance will be measured on, it keeps them focused on doing the right things – particularly when it is linked to reward / consequence systems.

Clarifies expectations.

Prioritizing a small handful of Numerical Targets (goals) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) enables managers to communicate their expectations to employees in a clear and unambiguous manner.

Provides objectivity.

Data enables you to “manage by fact.” Evaluating employee performance is not about whether people are working hard or being busy. What did they actually achieve?

Improves execution.

Larry Bossidy, co-author of the book "Execution" remarked, “When I see companies that don’t execute, the chances are that they don’t measure.” See: Execution is STILL the major challenge for business leaders.

Promotes consistency.

Activities and outcomes that are not measured properly - tend to be fluctuate – with negative implications for the quality of your results.

Clear feedback.

Holding people accountable for achieving their target level of performance every week / month is vital to ensure the company (and individual) is on the right track.

Improves decision-making.

One of the major causes of failure in decision-making is poor use of data. One accurate measure can be worth a thousand opinions.

Promotes understanding.

Quality guru W. Edwards Deming said that systematic process measurement led to the “profound knowledge” that was essential to top quality outcomes.

One final tip:

KPI’s should be graphed to show trends and the scores color-coded so they can be easily understood at a glance:

Green = Good. Exceeds target level of performance. Praise and recognize the person accountable.
Yellow = OK. Minimum acceptable threshold. Get an explanation and keep a close eye on.
Red = Bad. Unacceptable performance. Urgent attention required.

Employee engagement drives strategy execution

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 02:24:00 GMT

One of the crucial roles of a leader is to clearly communicate your vision and strategy - over and over and over again. They need to be kept visible. They need to be understood. They need to be absorbed and lived by all of your people.

However, your ability to execute strategy will be greatly impeded if your people are not fully engaged.

Do you have a highly engaged workforce - who shows up every day passionate and dedicated, and willing to give you their best efforts?

Depending on which research you look at, on average only 10 - 20% of the workforce is fully engaged. Less than 1 in 5 people give both their hearts and minds to the job.

Unfortunately, 60 – 70% of employees do the bare minimum to not get fired. They are disengaged. They meet the minimum standards that you hold them accountable for (and that’s the subject of another article), but really, they are just filling in time to earn a paycheck, and can’t wait for the weekend (or a better job offer) to come along.

The remaining 10 – 20 % are what we call actively disengaged. They are actively undermining your success. With these toxic people, you must “free up their future” as soon as possible.

Your aim as a leader is to foster a fully engaged workforce – one that is committed to executing your strategy. Increasing employee engagement has been proven by research to: increase sales, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction - whilst reducing accidents, absenteeism, and staff turnover.

The great news is employee engagement can be measured - and improved - once you identify the right levers to pull. (And you may be surprised to know, those levers don’t include giving people more money or trying to make them happier)

Effective companies survey their team members every 6 months using a simple, replicable process. They use the findings from each survey to create a prioritized set of actions to improve employee engagement and ultimately their business execution.

How engaged is your workforce? Do you even know? Do you know what steps you need to take to improve it?

Accountability, simple but not easy

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 17:55:00 GMT

Here are some key success habits you can incorporate in your business to help drive accountability for strategic execution.

Establish the top 3 Company 90 Day Action Priorities.

If you can’t clearly explain the top 3 things the company is working on every quarter – then you are not leading well. Focus on less to achieve more. (Of course this assumes you already have a winning strategy in place and know the top 3 moves you need to make next).

Assign each team member their Individual 90 Day Action Priorities.

The combined effect of these must add up to ensure the company achieves its top 3 Company 90 Day Action Priorities. These individual “projects” need to be clear, concise, measurable and achievable. Set your people up to “win” every quarter – not discourage them with failure. As a leader, you only win when everyone on your team wins.

Single point accountability.

Only 1 person can be accountable for each item. They own it. Give them the freedom and responsibility to determine how it should best be accomplished, and provide them the necessary tools and resources to do so.

Create space for strategic execution.

“Business as usual” – the tasks that keep the business operating on a daily basis still need to happen. Balance this by creating sufficient time and space for your people to execute the strategic actions that are going to move the business forward.

Clear the path.

Keep your team focused on their strategic action priorities – and help remove any blockages that are holding up progress. Take great care not distract them or overload them with conflicting demands.

Knife and fork it.

Just as you eat an elephant one bite at a time, strategic execution is accomplished one week at a time. What is the #1 thing each person is going to do this week (not business as usual) that is going to move their strategic action priorities forward? Everyone must know and agree their #1 Action Priority every week.

A culture of keeping promises.

If you hold people strictly accountable for completing their #1 Action Priority every week – they start to be very careful about what they promise to do. This is exactly what you want. Your job as a leader becomes much easier when your people get very clear on what they will do each week – and you can count on them to actually do it. (This sounds simple – but it takes real discipline to instill such a culture)

Monthly progress report.

Every month, get a full situation report on the % complete of every Individual 90 Day Action Priority from the person accountable. Color coding progress makes it obvious: Is it “green” (on schedule), “yellow” (they need help to get back on track), or “red” (sound the alarm!)? There should be no surprises at the end of the quarter.

Accountability is meaningless without consequences.

Those who achieve their objectives each quarter should be publicly acknowledged and rewarded. Conversely, as Peter Drucker said, “Leaders owe it to the organization and their fellow workers, not to tolerate non-performing people in important jobs.” At the very least, those who do not achieve the desired outcomes need to discuss and agree with their manager what changes both parties need to make in order for successful execution to occur the following quarter. Remember - the leader wins when the team wins.

Business success fundamentals

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:42:00 GMT

I spent an enjoyable afternoon recently speaking with author John Spence about the key business success fundamentals which apply to firms of all sizes - from our fast growth entrepreneurial clients, as well as to our large multi-billion dollar clients at RESULTS.com.

John should know. He consults with companies of all sizes too. Some of the larger companies he consults to include Microsoft, IBM, GE, AT&T, & Abbott Labs in the USA, as well as New Zealand dairy products giant, Fonterra.

John shared his views on these key fundamentals in his new book Awesomely Simple. Here is our summary:

Whether you lead two people or 2,000 it is critical that you have a clear, compelling and extremely well-communicated vision of where the organization is headed and what it stands for. Especially now, a time of turmoil and change, people need the security of a clear direction to help them keep focused and productive.

2. A team full of “A” players.

The success of your business is directly tied to the quality of the people you have on your team. Many companies say, “Our people are our most important asset,” but very view have put in place a system (like Top Grading) to make talent management a key strategic advantage.

3. Robust communications.

Be transparent. Knowledge is power, and the more information you share with your people, the more power you give them to help your business succeed.

4. Culture of urgency.

This is not about wild, out-of-control speed. The goal is “speed + results.” You want everyone in the business to have a strong sense of urgency, combined with clarity of focus - in terms of what are the most important Action Priorities they need to focus on and implement.

5. Disciplined execution.

Many companies have grand ambitions, but only about 10% of businesses can effectively execute on their Strategic Action Priorities in a disciplined and thorough manner.

6. Extreme customer focus.

At the end of the day, the only critic whose opinion counts is the customer’s, and the company that owns the “voice of the customer,” owns the marketplace.

Test yourself:
Score the following statements on a scale of 1-10: (10 = “We are world-class at this, we totally rock” and 1 = “We are horrible at this; this does not describe us at all.”)

We have a clear, compelling vision that is well communicated throughout our entire organization.
Our company is a talent magnet. We have only “A” players on our team.
We have lots of open, honest, and transparent communication across the entire company
Everyone in the business works with a strong sense of urgency and focus to deliver results.
We are fantastic at executing on all of our Strategic Action Priorities.
We have strong, trusting relationships with our customers and listen to them intently to understand their needs, wants and concerns.

If you score a combined total of less than 50, click on this link to find out how RESULTS.com can help you transform your business potential into extraordinary results.

Core Values and the Importance of FIT

Scott Morris — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:34:00 GMT

We’ve all been to seminars or read books where the topic of “Core Values” has been explored. And many companies have a core value statement that is printed beautifully in their literature or hanging on a plaque on the lobby wall.
But are your values really alive in your company? Do they really matter?

The value of value

Whether it’s explicit or not, every company has a personality, a culture. It can be defined in many ways, but one of the simplest definitions I use is that a culture is “how things get done around here”. Culture defines the guiding principles, the ‘non-negotiable’ rules of play. These are the companies core values.

For small organizations, values often reside in the hearts and minds of the owners or leaders. And that works when a company is small and every decision, customer interaction, or employee issue is handled by the owner. Where it breaks down is when a company grows and the owner isn’t involved in every interaction any more. At that point and beyond on the growth path, employees now have to make decisions and represent the brand consistently, in the same way the leader would.

In order to do this, your employees need to understand explicitly what the values of the company are.

Implication in the marketplace

Values also come into play in the competitive marketplace. Successful companies win the battle for two things - great people and the best customers. Great employees don’t work for you because of a pay cheque or a benefits plan. If they are really good they can get that anywhere. What they are really looking for is a place where they fit, where their personal values are aligned to the company values.

One of our Energy Services clients has a core value called “Live Safely”. Everyone from the CEO down the organization is very clear on the behaviors that support this foundational principal. Those who act in accordance flourish; those who don’t, will not survive in their culture.

Similarly, the best customers are attracted to vendors who ‘fit’, who’s values are aligned to theirs. They look for strategic suppliers who share the same belief system. In his book, “Start with Why” Simon Sinek argues that customers don’t buy from us because of what we do, they buy from us because of what we believe. He cites Apple as an example; Apple didn’t create a cult of fanatic customers simply by producing good computers, MP3 players or phones. Customers are attracted to the brand because of what their company stands for – Apple believes in challenging the status quo, by creating products that lead in design, and that break new ground. This is part of its value system – a system that has help catapult Apple to becoming the number 1 brand in the world (May, 2011 Study by Millward Brown).

Creating meaningful value statements

Many company value statements look something like this

Teamwork
Honesty
Customer focus
Innovation
Respect

Snoring yet?

The problem with value statements like these is that they don’t define the business; they look the same as everyone else’s and are too generic. And they certainly don’t have any meaning to employees and customers. There is no personality here.
Value statements need to be relevant, meaningful and simple. They need to apply to everyone in the organization, and they need to paint a picture of what the value-based behaviors look like.

A great example is from one of our clients. The firm is a residential painting company and they wanted to express a value around quality of work. They could have used the word “Quality” or “We do a good job”, but that was what all their competitors were saying and it wasn’t meaningful to their staff or customers. Instead, they crafted the statement “Two coats means two coats” in response to the reality that in their industry their competitors often promised two coats of paint, but often only applied one to cut time and cost. “Two coats means two coats” is a unique and meaningful value statement for that company.

Living the values

For values to be really alive in your organization, they need to be used on an ongoing basis. And in order to use them, your people need to know them. So step one is to make sure that everyone in the organization can state the company values. Consider creating a simple acronym to help your employees remember them.

Once your employees know and understand values, here are some ways to keep them alive in the organization on an ongoing basis:

Recruiting – successful recruiting is about ‘fit’. Will the people you are bringing on board fit the culture and personality of the business? Will they represent the brand appropriately? The only way to know is to test for fit in the recruiting process. Testing for values fit is not about asking, “Here’s our values statement, what do you think?”. Consider instead creating a set of structured questions to test for values fit. For example, one of our values here at RESULTS.com is Passion for Learning. In our recruiting process we have designed several questions to test for fit to this value, including “What are you reading right now to keep up your professional knowledge?”, and “What courses have you taken in the past year for professional or personal development?” The responses to these questions give us insight into the candidate’s fit for our environment. Remember, you can always change what someone knows; you will never change who they are.
Values Stories – values come alive and are better understood if your employees hear stories within the company about other team members living the values. Consider making “Core Values Stories” a part of your regular weekly meetings. One of our clients has created pre-printed index cards called “Value Nominations”. On the card, there is space for employees to nominate their peers when they see them living the values. These cards are shared at the weekly meetings, and handed off to the nominee as a formal method of recognition.
Performance Management – Your performance management system should evaluate employees on two spectrums; performance to role measures and performance to values. This approach is well documented in the book “Topgrading” by Geoff and Brad Smart. “A” Players are those that consistently demonstrate the company values AND meet or exceed the performance targets for the role. Managers should be measuring on both spectrums during performance reviews.

Valuable Lessons

If you are still skeptical about the importance of core values in your organization, consider this final thought. Companies that are built upon strong core ideologies and values outperform those that consider it lip service. The research supports it, and business leaders and CEOs agree that a strong foundation built on core values help move companies from GOOD TO GREAT.

This article, written by Scott Morris, has been published by OilWeek Magazine in May 2011.

Cadence of business execution

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:01:00 GMT

Cadence is the rhythm that brings your strategic planning and business execution together

Picture a rowing crew in the Olympic finals with the coxswain calling out the tempo of the rowing strokes. Everyone in the crew is rowing in time and the boat is rapidly slicing through the water. The race winners have a plan. They stay focused on the execution of their race strategy even though they can see their competitors jockeying for position in their peripheral vision. They maintain their synchronous cadence – a fast, even tempo for the duration of the race, even when they are tired and don’t necessarily feel like it.

Just like the rowing crew, effective companies use a disciplined cadence to execute their strategy. They have a rhythm that keeps everyone in their company synchronized and executing the strategy at the optimum pace.

Quarterly Strategic Planning.

Strategic planning should be an ongoing process - not an annual event.

Effective companies have the discipline to stop and debrief their strategic execution every quarter and learn from it. They ask questions like: Did we achieve our targets this quarter? Did we execute our strategic priorities effectively? What did we learn this quarter? What will we start doing? What will we stop doing? What will we do better next quarter?

Then they use a disciplined strategic thinking and decision making process to confirm their key priorities for the coming quarter. This ensures the plan’s relevance with the competitive environment, and re-aligns everyone to the strategy.

Weekly Execution Meetings.

Just as you eat an elephant one bite at a time, strategic execution is accomplished one week at a time. It’s all about the “1 Thing”.

Every person in the company must commit to doing 1 Thing each week. Not to be confused with their “business as usual” tasks – things which must be done every week anyway – rather it is the 1 Thing that is going to move their quarterly strategic priorities forward a step. The 1 Thing they will be held accountable for checking off as “done” by the next weekly execution meeting.

If you hold people strictly accountable for completing their 1 Thing every week – they start to be very careful about what they promise to do. This is exactly what you want. Your job as a leader becomes much easier when your people get very clear on their #1 priority every week – and you can count on them to actually do it.

Good progress should be acknowledged every week with positive praise and recognition.

Lack of progress should be confronted every week. The discipline of holding people accountable every week – drives strategic execution – and very quickly weeds out the poor performers on your team. Performance appraisals are not an annual thing. People should know every week whether they are performing or not.

Do you apply a discipline cadence to the way you set and execute strategy?

Quick test: What is your #1 Action Priority this week? Do you know? Do your staff know?

Business leaders need to keep in touch

Stephen Lynch — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:14:00 GMT

As a leader, it is easy to get stuck in our office and isolated from the realities of the workplace. We need to “escape from management land” and find out what is really going on.

Leaders need to practice what Tom Peters calls “Management By Walking Around” (MBWA) - which we have previously written about here.

Here are some more suggestions inspired by a post in the Great Leadership blog

Tag along

Take a genuine interest in their work, and tag along with your employees as they do their jobs. You will learn what is working well and what frustrates them. You will see which of your systems are helping or hindering. You will also identify their coaching and development needs. Hint – don’t try to correct every mistake. Identify the #1 area for improvement and address one thing at a time.

Have regular 1 on 1 meetings with your employees.

Sounds too obvious? Try asking a random group of employees if their direct supervisor has regular formal 1 on 1 meetings with them to discuss performance and see what they say. Don’t leave this to chance. Make formal 1 on 1 meetings with direct reports something you measure and hold all your management team accountable for. Have them document the key points of each meeting and scan these to identify overall themes for improvement.

Measure employee engagement.

Increasing employee engagement has been shown to increase employee productivity. Survey your people anonymously to find out what they really think. Then share with your people what you have learned and what actions you are taking to improve things. They will participate willingly in surveys – but only if they can see that doing so will make a positive difference to their work environment.

Face to face time.

If you have employees in multiple locations, get out and visit each location on as part of a planned schedule. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. Yes we have amazing video conferencing tools available, but that does not replace sitting down face to face with your people and building strong bonds over a meal together. Again – make this a measurable practice.

Break bread.

Eat with your employees or go out for coffee every chance you can get. Take an interest in them as people. Share personal aspects of yourself too.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

Establish a culture of open, honest dialogue. Make it safe for your people to speak up about things they disagree with, and to challenge the status quo. You may not always agree with them – but you need to show that you care enough to listen and can empathize with their point of view.

Get regular feedback.

Research shows that leaders who regularly ask for feedback from their peers and employees are rated higher than leaders that don’t. Asking for feedback is a sign of strength and confidence. Do a 360 assessment every year and take action to address the issues that are holding you back from realizing your full potential as a leader.

Employee accountability

Stephen Lynch — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:24:00 GMT

Accountability is one of the major pillars of effective business execution. It’s not about your people working hard or being busy. It’s about everyone doing the right things that will move their area of the business forward - in line with the company’s strategic priorities.

Strategic Priorities.

People are more engaged and productive when they clearly understand the specific strategic priorities they are personally accountable to execute each quarter - and when they can clearly track their execution progress. Business Execution Software are ideal for this purpose.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).

A major key to effective business execution is to identify your KPI's - and to measure on a weekly basis the small handful of "predictive measures" that will ultimately be reflected in positive outcomes on your monthly financial statements. Effective companies use dashboards to graphically and publicly display their KPI numbers every week. This forces everyone in the team to confront reality, and visually drives accountability for results.

Seats on the bus.

If your business could be described as being like a bus - what are the key seats on your bus - i.e. what are the key functional roles on your team? Two common problems are often identified:

Do you have someone who is sitting in too many seats – i.e. performing too many roles and not able to do justice to them all?

Do you have roles where more than one person is trying to squeeze themselves into the same seat? Many people can contribute, but only 1 person can be accountable for overall performance in each role – if you want to drive accountability.

Performance standards.

Do you know what’s expected of you in your role? Is it measurable? Every role should have one objective number that measures performance. This number should be tracked and made visible every week – or at least every month. Everyone should know how they are performing, and whether or not they are doing a good job.

Accountability is meaningless without consequences.

Once we know whose butt sits in which seat, what strategic priorities we need them to execute, how we are going to track progress, and what number we will use to measure performance in that role every week - then it’s your job as the manager to hold people accountable.

When your people do achieve the required standard – they should be praised and appropriately recognized. Managers tend not to praise and recognize their people enough.

Conversely, if someone is not achieving the required standard – you as the manager need to do something about it. Your people already know who the poor performers on the team are – they are just waiting to see if you are going to do anything about it. Are you really serious about accountability for performance or not?

The discipline of holding people accountable for meeting performance standards every week drives effective strategic execution – and very quickly weeds out the poor performers on your team. Performance appraisals are not an annual thing. There should be no surprises. Your people should know every week whether they are performing or not.

Sometimes you do need to make an example and let someone go. You need to do what’s right for the business. You owe it to your team not to tolerate poor performance.

Are your people being held accountable for meeting the performance standards required in their role?