Focus
Last month I delivered a keynote speech to a group of business leaders in Athens, Greece. The HMA had adopted the concept of replacing the old concept of trying to do “more with less” with the concept from our book, “doing more ON less.” I loved the signage for the event. The concept of “more with less” is completely overused and in crisis situations just results in lots of under-funded activities, diffused leadership attention and gridlock of any progress. Doing “More ON Less” is about reducing the focus to the highest impact activities, concentrating funding on those items and focusing leadership attention on just a big initiatives. Here is how the idea of transforming through “More ON Less” could be applied in Greece today. (more…)
Very often I am asked, “do we really need ‘every’ department to participate in our customer experience initiative. My quick answer is usually, “if a department truly has zero impact on customers, then maybe they should be eliminated or outsourced.” Many times this drifts into a follow up question to test the edges, “…well, what about our legal department for example.” I’ve seen this too many times and have a great recent example to share with you on why even legal departments can make a huge difference in customer experience.
Recently while booking a business trip, I found a good deal on a flight on my normal carrier, which is United. After booking it, I realized that the return date may need to flex and was wondering what any change fees or penalties may be for this potential change. That’s when I was hit with this perfect “Counter Point” example where legal language makes all the difference in the customer experience. (more…)
In our strategic transformation work we are often asked the question, “why should we limit ourselves to just three major initiatives?” Executive teams feel that a short list of initiatives is not a stretch for the organization or that it is too limited to create transformational change. The truth is that when it comes to execution, transformational change comes from making major progress on a small number of things. It is about stacking up the resources on the most high impact initiatives that will have meaningful impact on customer value and the customer experience.
Harvard Business Review just published research from Booz Allen & Company that was based on a broad executive study of 1800 global executives. Here are some of the highlights for you to consider and to use with your stakeholders and team to make the case for focus.
* Most executives (64%) report they have too many conflicting priorities.
* The majority of executives (56%) say that allocating resources in a way that really supports the strategy is a significant challenge, especially as companies chase a wide set of growth initiatives.
* 81% admit that their growth initiatives lead to waste, at least some of the time.
* Nearly half (47%) say their company’s way of creating value is not well understood by employees or customers. (more…)
In the past five years or so, our transformation work is experiencing a major shift in how to generate the engagement and alignment of all employees in an organization. It is now more common that teams at all levels may not be co-located in a single office, people collaborate across global time zones, and we have learned how to develop social clusters of expertise that extend both through and beyond traditional organizational boundaries and connections. In this post are the beginnings of a list of solutions that are worth exploring. (more…)
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What’s get measured gets done. That statement can be true, but how many of us see countless reports coming out monthly, weekly or even daily, that take hours to produce, and nobody even looks at them? Metrics can be one of the most powerful tools for generating tight focus on execution if used correctly. Or, metrics can be a complete waste of time and distraction to the real running the business and delivering value to customers. What seem like slight differences make the difference in driving high-impact and valuable work.
One challenge that seems to have come up repeatedly in our work through the second half of 2010 was the issue of setting success metrics. So, it is probably worth sharing one key insight here that can help to focus and improve the use of metrics in driving success. (more…)
It is interesting to see how the complex system of consumer spending, retail and the general economy are playing against each other this holiday season. Helen Bulwik, our retail expert at Bedrock Dissero, was recently interviewed for an ABC-TV report on retail trends in 2009. In this she pointed out that in 2008, there were 70+ percent discounts on products prior to Christmas. This was necessary to get shoppers into stores and behind the scenes, there was a great amount of excess inventory that retailers knew needed to be reduced quickly in the face of weak consumer demand.
As we enter the normal stategic and business planning season it is clear that things are different this cycle. We are all being forced to ask tough questions about how we’ll invest, carefully, for 2010. I’ve been in several strategic planning sessions with both clients and in our own company where a single question is disturbing the status quo. The question boils down to asking, “is our current business model and approach over-engineered and over-built…and if so, how do we get it right for the coming years?” There is a fantastic Wired Magazine article you can use to spark the right conversation within your team that will help you target investments in the right areas.
Today I met with about 50 professionals with a variety of experiences with M&A integration at the Association for Corporate Growth. The topic of my presentation was to share the true keys to success that have made the difference in companies who successfuly create shareholder value through business combinations. Several people were interested in getting a copy of the slides so I’m trying out an online publishing tool called DoXtop to easily share these.
In addition to the presentation, I’ve also included a link to a companion article to go with the presentation for those who are interested.
Generating innovations for future growth while the economy is down, capital sources are scarce, and the markets continue to evolve quickly is a challenge facing many organizations today. Given the breadth of companies facing this challenge, I wanted to share some best practices from our experience that are practical and systemic answers to this challenge. (more…)
A Checklist and Process for Conducting Rapid Due Diligence on Your Own Company
By: Michael Kanazawa
When economic storms strike businesses, often the first move is to quickly reorganize to reduce costs. This is often a necessary move to reduce the fixed cost structure of the business. However, if done without a sense of strategy and priorities, it can damage healthy parts of the business and miss the opportunity for even deeper reductions in ailing parts of the business. The ability to conduct a rapid and sound strategic assessment can create an important distinction between flailing and decisive action. Conducting a form of due diligence on your own company can provide a fast way to set direction and priorities without just relying on gut feel, politics, and outdated assumptions to make the changes. In this post we share a specific checklist and process to get through an assessment fast. (more…)
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Michael Kanazawa shares recent insights and tips about the no-nonsense, results-driven approach to driving business breakthroughs found in his new book Big Ideas to Big Results.