With title inflation, clever wordsmithing, and self-marketing campaigns, every employee or potential employee appears to be a great employee. However, we all know the truth; few people are stars. In order to differentiate people and find the gem, seek out people with all of these four innate qualities: Continue reading
In his still-insightful 1999 book, Fast Track to Waste-Free Manufacturing: Straight Talk from a Plant Manager, John W. Davis discusses how to improve a manufacturing operation by a simple and relentless focus on waste. The methodology he describes is really applicable to improving any process in your business.
Introduction
Over the last month, my family and I have moved from Chandler, Arizona to Newport Beach, California. We sold our house in Chandler, moved ourselves and our belongings, and bought a house in Newport Beach.
As so many of you who have done similar moves know, we became “turbocharged customers” during this two month process, hemorrhaging money as we fixed up our former house to get ready to sell, moved, and fixed up our new house. By my latest reckoning, we have dealt with 106 stores, companies, and service providers in the course of this move.
The overall lesson from this one customer is sober.
Good Customer Service is Rare
In their book, The Leadership Machine (Architecture to Develop Leaders For Any Future), Michael W. Lombard and Robert W. Eichinger discuss ways to build leaders and develop leadership competencies (skills) in any company. Although the book is a bit too full of consulting speak, it does contain useful ideas on what makes good executives and leaders. And it provides insights and ideas on how to develop specific leadership skills that may be lacking in your executives.
Why Leadership?
A few months ago, there was a lot of discussion and a bit of vitriol about Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and her habit of leaving the office at 5:30 pm in order to have dinner with her family. Much of the discussion has focused on the difficulty of women in executive positions to balance work and life, etc.
For me, the issue is that Ms. Sandberg is puncturing that greatest of American entrepreneurial and corporate myths:
To work hard is to work long hours.
In Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? – Leading a Great Enterprise Through Dramatic Change, former IBM CEO, Lou Gerstner, gives a first-hand account of how he led the turnaround of IBM in the 1990’s. I recommend the book for businesspeople (in any industry) to see a case study in turning a company around and significantly changing a business culture.
McDonald’s employees are trained to ask all customers whether they want fries with their meal. This little question, repeated millions of times a day in thousands of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide, creates millions of dollars of profits for McDonald’s as millions of customers go ahead and purchase the high margin McDonald’s fries.
In today’s slow-growth economy, all businesses should follow McDonald’s lead:
What other related products or services can you offer to your customers at the time of purchase?
Way back in 1999, Ethan M. Rasiel (full disclosure: a business school colleague of mine) penned The McKinsey Way: Using the Techniques of the World’s Top Strategic Consultants to Help You and Your Business. In the book, Rasiel reveals the ways and methods by which the renowned management consultancy, McKinsey & Company, analyzes and solves problems for its clients.
Problem solving requires you to be fundamentally skeptical about everything
Whether we like it or not, a good deal of what happens to us in our lives, our careers and our businesses comes down to luck and fortunate timing.
Yes, luck and timing matter a great deal. Continue reading
In their book, The Oz Principle – Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability, Roger Connors, Tom Smith and Craig Hickman discuss the pervasive lack of accountability in the corporate world.
Dirty Little Secret
The dirty little secret is that most companies lack accountability and responsibility at all levels from the leader to the top executives to front-line managers to individual employees. As a result, companies do not execute and achieve what they set out to achieve. Continue reading
In today’s slow-growth economy, companies are struggling to find new ways to grow. All too often, current products are mature and current markets are saturated with competition.
To escape these brutal facts and find a new avenue for growth, companies are looking diligently for that new and profitable product or service opportunity.
So, what are the fundamentals for new product and service development?
In Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs, Craig Stull, Phil Myers and David Meerman Scott describe the ‘Tuned In’ methodology that your company can use to find your next avenue for growth.
‘Tuned In’ creates a product or solution that is a ‘Resonator.’
Achieving operational excellence is vital to ensure that your company executes and fulfills its strategic goals.
As a result, companies have spent millions of dollars and countless hours on advanced programs such as lean manufacturing, six sigma, kaizen events, ISO 9001 quality certification, etc.
In doing so, they have often overlooked the basics of process mapping, focusing on the constraint, and keeping it simple, clean, and organized. Continue reading
Published in December 2011, Joan Magretta’s Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy, is an excellent and timely book about business strategy. It discusses the ideas and frameworks from the guru of business strategy, Michael Porter.
I include detailed notes here; but I encourage you to go out and buy the book (or at least borrow from the library). It will be worth your time
Mergers and acquisitions can be effective tools to speed the growth and development of your company. Through acquisitions your business can expand into new geographic areas, enter new market spaces, broaden product lines, develop relationships with new and growing customers, and bring in new and useful technologies. And, yes, acquisitions can be used to buy out pesky competitors, thus eliminating them from “screwing up” your market.
So, what are the basics of growing by mergers and acquisitions?
Published in late 2004, How to Grow When Markets Don’t by Adrian Slywotzky and Richard Wise (with Karl Weber) is more relevant than ever in today’s slow-growth business climate.
The Growth Crisis
The majority of businesspeople are drowning in meetings – staff meetings, review meetings, planning meetings, etc….
The majority of businesspeople are inundated with distractions – colleagues stopping by open offices, a tidal wave of E-Mail, the allure of Facebook and web surfing.
The majority of businesspeople multi-task throughout their day – flitting from one issue or emergency to another…
As a result, the majority of businesspeople struggle to get done what they most need to get done. They just do not have the opportunity to create a solid block of time to work on their most important tasks.
How to solve this issue?
Simple, schedule more meetings. Continue reading
In their excellent book, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney discuss the importance of willpower in ensuring that you get done what you need to get done and thus achieve your goals. Please use my detailed notes on the book as a quick summary. Then, go out and buy this book or borrow it from your library. It will be worth it.
Fundamentals of Willpower
In most industries, the business environment remains brutal: growth is slow or non-existent; and price competition is rampant.
The question on the minds of many business executives is simple:
How can I increase profits and grow when all my customers care about is low price, low price, and low price?
The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management is an indispensable read to help you enhance your business leadership and improve your business. What makes it particularly interesting is that much of it was written (up to) 40 years ago. It seems that insights into the fundamentals of business and leadership success really have not changed all that much over the years.
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