Most companies are in the eleventh month of their fiscal year. Some have succeeded in exceeding their goals, some have just met their goals and others are behind. The majority of companies will embark on their next journey having learned from the past, whether success, mediocrity, or failure. However some will continue on without challenging themselves to rise above their short comings.
Each company should prepare a fast close plan to meet or continue to exceed their goal for the current year structuring the stage for next year. Momentum from fast close activities has a significant effect on staff and customers. Efforts are focused on employee and customer satisfaction building and maintaining a long term relationship. Employees and customers should be identifying skills required for their future success and determine how best to assist each other over the long term. Through this process both parties will recognize partnerships are an integral ingredient for success in their future.
Dialogue carried over from a fast close partnership will guide next year’s success. The team will carry forward a product that is useful and efficient, with margins acceptable to all and geared for success. They will recognize that measurements must be structured and transparent for all to review with a reporting structure that allows everyone to understand the current performance (be it above or below the goal). The people on the team will be proficient at analyzing what it will take to succeed in a market that continues to change. The value of this experience is a network of people and partnerships, inspired by the experience of working and winning together.
When the partnership is established and action is initiated for next year, a company’s attention can become ambidextrous; executing today’s plan while researching the market for future products. The goal is to anticipate the future and fill needs before others recognize there is a need, to design a product that meets that need, and be the first to market the product or service with margins that reward the company as a leader.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
October 2009 Deep Insights
Innovation is what brings and keeps life in an organization. Innovation has always been thought of as a few gifted people working in solitude to deliver the newest next best thing. Recent experiments and measurements clearly point to two factors not considered until now: when organizations embrace engaging many minds, rather than a few, the outcome is greater; and if the many engaging minds are diversified by function, nationality and social position the outcome is beyond expectations.
Innovation is driven by forward thinkers who encourage celebrations for success and failure. They know from experience that both require a thorough understanding of why. They embrace facts not anecdotal evidence when seeking answers before they journey to another innovation. Success is being at the right place at the right time with the right product. Failure is being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong product. Analysis is the last thought when failure confronts us, easier to forget than to find the truth. Forward thinkers embrace analysis of failure, not to find fault or place blame, but because they know the seeds of innovation are more often found in failures than in successes.
It is the forward thinkers that encourage their organization to engage in a culture of inclusion, to analyze success as well as failure and to develop the ability to understand strength in diversity. Worlds that were far away are now viable markets but are also competitors. Their innovations compete with all others worldwide. If they utilize the minds of many and understand the value of diversity their product life cycle will extend beyond their competitions.
Innovation is forward thinking not limited to a few, but open to all. It must be encouraged by management through inclusion and diversity as integral components.
Innovation is driven by forward thinkers who encourage celebrations for success and failure. They know from experience that both require a thorough understanding of why. They embrace facts not anecdotal evidence when seeking answers before they journey to another innovation. Success is being at the right place at the right time with the right product. Failure is being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong product. Analysis is the last thought when failure confronts us, easier to forget than to find the truth. Forward thinkers embrace analysis of failure, not to find fault or place blame, but because they know the seeds of innovation are more often found in failures than in successes.
It is the forward thinkers that encourage their organization to engage in a culture of inclusion, to analyze success as well as failure and to develop the ability to understand strength in diversity. Worlds that were far away are now viable markets but are also competitors. Their innovations compete with all others worldwide. If they utilize the minds of many and understand the value of diversity their product life cycle will extend beyond their competitions.
Innovation is forward thinking not limited to a few, but open to all. It must be encouraged by management through inclusion and diversity as integral components.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
September 2009 Deep Insights
Throughout history disruptions occurred that made Strategy execution difficult: an economic turn, epidemic, war, or a revolution. Such an event brought a whole new environment into play. Occasionally leaders were called upon to study the event; to determine the effect on their organization and bring forward a new Strategy. The leaders knew the importance of revising the plan but often ignored the event because they were sheltered from its consequences. Their world was not connected to that world and would not be connected in the near future.
Today disruptions are generated by technology breakthroughs and multinational marketing programs. Both are created by globalization, markets that have no boundaries. Danger arises if we continue to think we remain disconnected from the event because we will continue to do what we have always done. However, new disruptions are seldom based in current strategy. They are most often found in a breakthrough technology or knowledge discovered by cross functional integration of information around the world. Some organizations have made the effort to create an environment where information sharing has priority. They have structured forums for their people to come together and share what may appear to an outsider as insignificant functional information. These forums are the catalyst to transfer knowledge and instill wholeness of purpose to a disrupter’s strategy, their company brand, their new products and employees.
Ideas begin to flow across functions that are created through the forums knowledge exchange. The ideas have earned admiration through dialogue that has built respect between disciplines and people. Past practices would have sent the idea to a dumpster with the prejudice of “what do other disciplines know?” However, the next step in this situation is to have a TEAM, selected by the forum and with all functions being represented, research the idea for its potential ROI. If the answer is “not much” the discovery data is sent back to the forum for more dialogue or discarded and the teams move on. If the answer is positive the TEAM builds a take-to-market plan and then presents its plan to management for approval. When approval is granted the team turns its attention to execution which is already well underway because of the process. The entire organization has and will be a part of this idea’s success not just one function or person.
The new Strategy. Every organization that desires to survive disruption from around the world must have the intelligence to stay in touch with technology breakthrough and must learn to segment their markets, delivering the products that will best serve its demand and delivering ROI above the average.
Today disruptions are generated by technology breakthroughs and multinational marketing programs. Both are created by globalization, markets that have no boundaries. Danger arises if we continue to think we remain disconnected from the event because we will continue to do what we have always done. However, new disruptions are seldom based in current strategy. They are most often found in a breakthrough technology or knowledge discovered by cross functional integration of information around the world. Some organizations have made the effort to create an environment where information sharing has priority. They have structured forums for their people to come together and share what may appear to an outsider as insignificant functional information. These forums are the catalyst to transfer knowledge and instill wholeness of purpose to a disrupter’s strategy, their company brand, their new products and employees.
Ideas begin to flow across functions that are created through the forums knowledge exchange. The ideas have earned admiration through dialogue that has built respect between disciplines and people. Past practices would have sent the idea to a dumpster with the prejudice of “what do other disciplines know?” However, the next step in this situation is to have a TEAM, selected by the forum and with all functions being represented, research the idea for its potential ROI. If the answer is “not much” the discovery data is sent back to the forum for more dialogue or discarded and the teams move on. If the answer is positive the TEAM builds a take-to-market plan and then presents its plan to management for approval. When approval is granted the team turns its attention to execution which is already well underway because of the process. The entire organization has and will be a part of this idea’s success not just one function or person.
The new Strategy. Every organization that desires to survive disruption from around the world must have the intelligence to stay in touch with technology breakthrough and must learn to segment their markets, delivering the products that will best serve its demand and delivering ROI above the average.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
August 2009 Deep Insights
These four statements represent four conditions of strategy.
Knowing what you know
Know that you don’t know
Not to know that you know
Not to know that you don’t know
Each has its opportunities and dangers in the universe of strategy. In the current market, where speed of innovations and global transformations are swifter than ever, they take on a whole new meaning.
Knowing what you know. In past times knowing what you knew was enough to market intelligently; to keep pace with customers desires and develop products to satisfy them, because speed was not an important factor for success. The challenge was more in line with product improvements and serving the customer a product that did the same work more efficiently. Today the challenge is “Does anyone really know, that what they know, will provide a competitive advantage?”
Know that you don’t know. It once was the work of management to seek out new innovations for more market share and improve ROI. The danger was less of going out of business and more of becoming cash poor for a temporary period of time. The challenge was to seek out new markets for a current product or to seek out an acquisition to provide new products to your current customers. Today’s landscape is a much rougher terrain. The challenge is to admit there is more that is unknown than known. Urgency to act and learn is the operational mode that is now required.
Not to know that you know. Organizations could say ‘I knew that,” ramp up resources, produce the product for sale and maintain a strong position with good margins. Today warp speed is required to stay alive in markets. Late entries or “me too” products seldom penetrate the market. Margins are low and the product is dropped. If you have a gut reaction you must quickly seek out the opinions of others to determine if in fact the idea is worthy of action. A passive reaction to gut feelings will only put your company in a vulnerable situation. By the time you hear rumors or see print describing the idea, you and your company will have lost the edge needed for profitable margin. A company must challenge itself daily to identify what they know and how that knowledge will lead to profit and cash flow.
Not to know that you don’t know. Arrogance, ego, and pride were good virtues in past decades. Companies could create such a culture because the biggest competition came from within. They were able to motivate personnel to sustain their current level of performance, increase it, or to attain market share. Today HUMILITY is the strongest of virtues. There is no one who knows all and to think you do is a pact with the devil. Innovative ideas cross all existing boundaries, valueless ideas in one industry, country, or geographical area become the catalyst for innovation in another person’s world. Therefore a pact needs to be made with all personnel in a company to search out ideas from anywhere, be opened minded, and analyze these ideas: how would they fit together in your world, or in a new market outside your world, how could an alliance be structured to benefit all the stakeholders in the idea.
The transformation has begun. Organizations in the future will be driven by intellectual knowledge gathered from hidden sources with a common goal to produce a superior ROI for shareholders, life styles for employees, and a customer experience beyond expectations.
Knowing what you know
Know that you don’t know
Not to know that you know
Not to know that you don’t know
Each has its opportunities and dangers in the universe of strategy. In the current market, where speed of innovations and global transformations are swifter than ever, they take on a whole new meaning.
Knowing what you know. In past times knowing what you knew was enough to market intelligently; to keep pace with customers desires and develop products to satisfy them, because speed was not an important factor for success. The challenge was more in line with product improvements and serving the customer a product that did the same work more efficiently. Today the challenge is “Does anyone really know, that what they know, will provide a competitive advantage?”
Know that you don’t know. It once was the work of management to seek out new innovations for more market share and improve ROI. The danger was less of going out of business and more of becoming cash poor for a temporary period of time. The challenge was to seek out new markets for a current product or to seek out an acquisition to provide new products to your current customers. Today’s landscape is a much rougher terrain. The challenge is to admit there is more that is unknown than known. Urgency to act and learn is the operational mode that is now required.
Not to know that you know. Organizations could say ‘I knew that,” ramp up resources, produce the product for sale and maintain a strong position with good margins. Today warp speed is required to stay alive in markets. Late entries or “me too” products seldom penetrate the market. Margins are low and the product is dropped. If you have a gut reaction you must quickly seek out the opinions of others to determine if in fact the idea is worthy of action. A passive reaction to gut feelings will only put your company in a vulnerable situation. By the time you hear rumors or see print describing the idea, you and your company will have lost the edge needed for profitable margin. A company must challenge itself daily to identify what they know and how that knowledge will lead to profit and cash flow.
Not to know that you don’t know. Arrogance, ego, and pride were good virtues in past decades. Companies could create such a culture because the biggest competition came from within. They were able to motivate personnel to sustain their current level of performance, increase it, or to attain market share. Today HUMILITY is the strongest of virtues. There is no one who knows all and to think you do is a pact with the devil. Innovative ideas cross all existing boundaries, valueless ideas in one industry, country, or geographical area become the catalyst for innovation in another person’s world. Therefore a pact needs to be made with all personnel in a company to search out ideas from anywhere, be opened minded, and analyze these ideas: how would they fit together in your world, or in a new market outside your world, how could an alliance be structured to benefit all the stakeholders in the idea.
The transformation has begun. Organizations in the future will be driven by intellectual knowledge gathered from hidden sources with a common goal to produce a superior ROI for shareholders, life styles for employees, and a customer experience beyond expectations.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
July 2009 Deep Insights
When tracking business environments it is important to understand that there are multiple disruptions occurring at once. Disruptive strategies by competitors, speeding technologies, global transparency and shrinking markets with limited life span are the norm. Disruptions should not be tracked by individuals but teams that are structured to collect and interpret world market intelligence.
In past decades GROUPS were:
“Independent people working independently to produce a product”
Groups were successful at keeping companies afloat. The rate of change, product innovation seldom moved faster than a slow walk. Competitors did not race to win the next innovation award. They held on to products until they became extinct. Companies became successful by inventing innovations based on their capabilities and finding or creating a market. The key to success was inside/out products and marketing.
Today Teams are:
“Independent people working inter-dependently to produce a
collaborative product for performance”
Teams must work together to gather and share data, leading them to understand what is happening in their market. Who is doing what and how do these events affect their market space. Research must provide insights for tomorrow’s markets leading to choices for outside/in products. Teams must understand their environment but work with other members in their environment to produce a business model that provides respectable income for each. Their products are collaborative innovations developed in an atmosphere of secrecy. Seldom does the team become recognized for its creativity, its function is to capture a market before others discover it’s potential. Members share in profits, not notoriety, choosing confidentiality as a core value for continued success.
These teams exchange information within their existing work assignments seeking their next collective product innovation. They access their environment for another unmet need and begin a search to meet the need. They find a path which combines each others ideas to create unique products that no one can duplicate, insuring successful profitable products.
In past decades GROUPS were:
“Independent people working independently to produce a product”
Groups were successful at keeping companies afloat. The rate of change, product innovation seldom moved faster than a slow walk. Competitors did not race to win the next innovation award. They held on to products until they became extinct. Companies became successful by inventing innovations based on their capabilities and finding or creating a market. The key to success was inside/out products and marketing.
Today Teams are:
“Independent people working inter-dependently to produce a
collaborative product for performance”
Teams must work together to gather and share data, leading them to understand what is happening in their market. Who is doing what and how do these events affect their market space. Research must provide insights for tomorrow’s markets leading to choices for outside/in products. Teams must understand their environment but work with other members in their environment to produce a business model that provides respectable income for each. Their products are collaborative innovations developed in an atmosphere of secrecy. Seldom does the team become recognized for its creativity, its function is to capture a market before others discover it’s potential. Members share in profits, not notoriety, choosing confidentiality as a core value for continued success.
These teams exchange information within their existing work assignments seeking their next collective product innovation. They access their environment for another unmet need and begin a search to meet the need. They find a path which combines each others ideas to create unique products that no one can duplicate, insuring successful profitable products.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
June 2009 Deep Insights
Disruption of status quo is, has, and always will be a pathway to future cycles of prosperity. When organizations embrace the question “What happens after what comes next,” disruption of the status quo can begin.
The simple truth is an organization’s longevity is most often predicted by its ability to market products that customers will buy at a margin, producing a return on investment equal to or better than their competition. In the past the evolution of products moved at a pace that allowed early adopters to play, purchase and influence the market; developing years of success. Today’s new products move rapidly past early adopters into the mass market. Organizations must make the most of this small window for success or watch their profits quickly shrink below historical markers. Armed with this knowledge marketers must determine the best use of their influence over and communication to the mass market. The strategy must be confident and controlled. Quick and nimble execution must occur, so as not to allow competitors to displace the organization’s disruption initiative.
How do organizations prepare themselves to answer “What happens after what comes next” and profit from their own successful product disruption? First, they must create a culture of urgency, urgency that moves beyond individual gain and focuses on the whole winning. Second, an organization must be focused on OUTSIDE -- IN product development. Markets determine product development, not manufacturing or design capabilities. Third, research must be capable of searching for unseen synergy here-to-fore viewed as impossible. Through its research an organization must leave the comfort zone of home and visit all continents, countries and industries; it must be challenged to deliver innovations driven by connecting unexpected discoveries. Fourth, seamless integration must be embraced by stakeholders who play a part in the execution of new product development and introduction to mass markets. Fifth, “next” works best in an environment of the many versus the few. Therefore everyone must be accountable for their daily activities permitting more time to be spent on “next.”
Organizations must take charge of their future. They need to predict the future in an unpredictable climate, disrupting others, not being disrupted by others
The simple truth is an organization’s longevity is most often predicted by its ability to market products that customers will buy at a margin, producing a return on investment equal to or better than their competition. In the past the evolution of products moved at a pace that allowed early adopters to play, purchase and influence the market; developing years of success. Today’s new products move rapidly past early adopters into the mass market. Organizations must make the most of this small window for success or watch their profits quickly shrink below historical markers. Armed with this knowledge marketers must determine the best use of their influence over and communication to the mass market. The strategy must be confident and controlled. Quick and nimble execution must occur, so as not to allow competitors to displace the organization’s disruption initiative.
How do organizations prepare themselves to answer “What happens after what comes next” and profit from their own successful product disruption? First, they must create a culture of urgency, urgency that moves beyond individual gain and focuses on the whole winning. Second, an organization must be focused on OUTSIDE -- IN product development. Markets determine product development, not manufacturing or design capabilities. Third, research must be capable of searching for unseen synergy here-to-fore viewed as impossible. Through its research an organization must leave the comfort zone of home and visit all continents, countries and industries; it must be challenged to deliver innovations driven by connecting unexpected discoveries. Fourth, seamless integration must be embraced by stakeholders who play a part in the execution of new product development and introduction to mass markets. Fifth, “next” works best in an environment of the many versus the few. Therefore everyone must be accountable for their daily activities permitting more time to be spent on “next.”
Organizations must take charge of their future. They need to predict the future in an unpredictable climate, disrupting others, not being disrupted by others
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
May 2009 Deep Insights
If you don’t know where you are going you could easily wind up someplace else. To avoid “some place else” organizations must do more than use goals to keep urgency and energy focused on results. Organizations must capture learning through the use of leading indicators tracked with dashboards.
The pace of business has gone from years, months, weeks, days, minutes and now nanoseconds. In the past lagging indicators were sufficient because speed was not an issue. Today speed is the catalyst for innovation. Organizations must focus on goals measured by dashboards that indicate to everyone we are going in the right direction, that outside influences have not made our strategy obsolete. Traveling at warp speed without dashboard indicators could cause insurmountable damage to an organization. Blotted inventories, massive consumer defections, employee dissatisfaction and unnecessary cash drain. This damage can only be avoided with the construction of navigational dashboards indicating an abrupt course correction is required, now.
Dashboards are an integral warning system used to catch issues before damage is done but they are at best a warning system. When the warning light or alarm indicates an emergency, PEOPLE must act. They must quite the alarm, verify the emergency and have the ability to generate urgency from those who can make decisions. Damage control must be focused; What has/is happening? Why is it happening? What are we learning and Who should we tell? Answering these questions directs people to act, keeping their goal in mind and focusing on results not effort. Learning is the reward of following processes that lead us to a goal. Rewards that are ahead of damage control, that prompt employees to grasp urgency and take action, without waiting for management to take control. Organizations that achieve this state have created transparency of information leading to many informed decision makers not just a few.
Learning captured, transferred, and shared becomes the process by which future indicators can be built. Indicators are forever changing because problems occur that are immune to old dashboards. The alert sounded will seldom repeat itself. Speed helps everyone realize tomorrow is another sunrise never seen. The new day will not be yesterday nor will tomorrow be like today. The only road that will lead us there is a process capturing learning for immediate action.
The pace of business has gone from years, months, weeks, days, minutes and now nanoseconds. In the past lagging indicators were sufficient because speed was not an issue. Today speed is the catalyst for innovation. Organizations must focus on goals measured by dashboards that indicate to everyone we are going in the right direction, that outside influences have not made our strategy obsolete. Traveling at warp speed without dashboard indicators could cause insurmountable damage to an organization. Blotted inventories, massive consumer defections, employee dissatisfaction and unnecessary cash drain. This damage can only be avoided with the construction of navigational dashboards indicating an abrupt course correction is required, now.
Dashboards are an integral warning system used to catch issues before damage is done but they are at best a warning system. When the warning light or alarm indicates an emergency, PEOPLE must act. They must quite the alarm, verify the emergency and have the ability to generate urgency from those who can make decisions. Damage control must be focused; What has/is happening? Why is it happening? What are we learning and Who should we tell? Answering these questions directs people to act, keeping their goal in mind and focusing on results not effort. Learning is the reward of following processes that lead us to a goal. Rewards that are ahead of damage control, that prompt employees to grasp urgency and take action, without waiting for management to take control. Organizations that achieve this state have created transparency of information leading to many informed decision makers not just a few.
Learning captured, transferred, and shared becomes the process by which future indicators can be built. Indicators are forever changing because problems occur that are immune to old dashboards. The alert sounded will seldom repeat itself. Speed helps everyone realize tomorrow is another sunrise never seen. The new day will not be yesterday nor will tomorrow be like today. The only road that will lead us there is a process capturing learning for immediate action.
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