Five myths that make you slow
All leaders believe in certain myths
that prevent them from building a high speed company
Do you worry about a lack of ur
gency at your company? If you do, you're in good company. I've asked 11,000
highly successful business leaders in the last dozen years, “What keeps you
awake at night?“ A lack of urgency has consistently been at the top of the
list.
“It's hesitation and half-hearted
execution that'll kill us,“ they say, “not our competition.“ Here are five
myths that that keep you from creating the urgency you need to compete in a
nanosecond culture.
Go big or go home
HP made a huge bet on Compaq and it
cost them $13 billion. Merrill Lynch bet big on sub-prime and it cost them
their company.Time Warner and AOL was the biggest bet of the new millennium and
the biggest loser too (costing 70% of their stock's value). Sprint and Nextel
were another sad tale. Like so many `go big or go home' strategies each was a
business bust costing billions.
High-speed companies go big too.
They acquire, they merge, they expand, and they reinvent whole categories. But
before they go big they follow the first rule of creating a fairy tale ending;
if you want to find a prince you got to kiss a lot of frogs.
High-speed companies think big and
act small, making many smart, bite-sized bets to uncover big opportunities.
They experiment more and prototype everything. They've learned customer's
stories and can read be tween the lines. They've curbed their egos.They have
the courage to anticipate further, fail fast and to say, “It's okay to make
mistakes.“ They get more buy-in. And they've filled their ranks with the rarest
type of business executive the open minded, lifelong learner.
2 You must amaze and delight your
customers
You can't grow fast if your good
customers are leaving you. But the critical first step in keeping good
customers isn't to “amaze and delight“ them.
“We're not looking for over-the-top
service to stay loyal,“ 75,000 business clients and consumers told the
researchers from the Corporate Executive Board. “Just don't lose our luggage,
make dealing with you a pain in the ass and deliver less than you promised us.“
In other words; don't suck.
High-speed companies understand all
business has a blind spot that must be cured.“By the time you figure out you
suck ...you've sucked for a long, long time,“ is our immutable law of suckage.
Any business that's lost good customers was disappointing them a long time
before revenues headed south.
High-speed companies figure out the
four or five basic expectations customers have.Then they find out if they've
executed flawlessly. Stop asking, “Do you like us and are you satisfied?“
Instead ask, “Did we do A, B, C & D as we promised?“ If they say no to any
one of them how can you think they're satisfied?“ And if you discover you've
dropped the ball, take heavy action.
Every minute of planning saves ten
Companies have taken common sense
(don't run your business by impulse and emotion) to exaggerated levels. How
exaggerated is planning these days? Big organisations now spend 200,000
man-hours planning and budgeting for every one billion dollars in
revenues.Effective planning can save time and money.But as the North American
President of IKEA told us, “Exaggerated planning is death.“
Exaggerated planning wastes time.
80% of meeting time these days addresses only 20% of what's important.
Exaggerated planning causes
executives to be rigid and lose flexibility as they blindly administer the “500
page plan from headquarters.“
And it contributes to “paralysis by
analysis,“ where our worry over being wrong ties individual initiative into
knots.
Instead of exaggerated plans, truly
highspeed companies have a short list of “the shall's and shall not's“ for
their business.Their guiding principles act as boundaries increasing ethical,
strategic action and motivating everyone to adapt, improvise and overcome all
obstacles quickly.
Consequences make people more accountable
When an engineer in ancient Rome
finished building a bridge, by law he had to sleep under it. Centuries later
the English upped the ante, making his family join him under that new bridge.
Harsh consequences made people more accountable in ancient minds if your work
was defective you and your loved ones would suffer. Some bosses totally agree.
High-speed CoBank has a better
idea.Under CEO Bob Engel's leadership the fast growing, highly profitable,
incredibly productive bank uses engagement and clarity instead of blame and
punishment to achieve greater accountability.
“Our leadership teams sit across the
table from those expected to follow through and says, `This is something
important and we're going to entrust you to be accountable. Now, let us tell
you what we were thinking, where we're trying to go and let's discuss it and
find out what do you need from our end?'“ “You got to be out there,“ says
Engel, “and get on the same page.“
Nothing succeeds like success
In 1988 one in four beers sold in America
was a Budweiser. Now it's one in twelve.
Between 1990 and 1999 The Gap grew
sales double digits every year. Since 2004 sales have stalled.
Blackberry (RIM) surged, $300
million in 2003 to $20 billion eight years later. By 2014 Blackberry had
tumbled to just $6.8 billion.
In all these cases and at every
other high flyer that plummeted over the last four decades, success has been a
double-edged sword.
Nothing beats the elation of
winning, putting up big numbers and leaving the competition in the dust. But
success also makes risk takers risk adverse, empowers a bureaucracy and
motivates “yes men“ to sweep any uncomfortable truth under the rug.
High-speed companies follow the
wisdom of Franklin, Grove and Solo.
“Doubt your own infallibility,“
wrote Ben Franklin.
“Only the paranoid survive,“ wrote
Intel's Andy Grove.
“Great job kids...don't get cocky,“
advised Han Solo. CD Jason Jennings is a business consultant and co-author of
the recently released The High Speed Company Creating Urgency and Growth in a
Nanosecond Culture with Laurence Haughton
|
by Jason Jennings
|
CDET10APR15
No comments:
Post a Comment