STRATEGY CENTRAL

One of the resources mentioned in Peak is Shrinking Core, Expanding Periphery: The Relational Architecture of High-Performing Organizations, an article from the by Ranjay Gulati and David Kletter.  Downloaded it today…a few pages in…already well worth the investment of $6.95.  Really good stuff.

Key concept?  Organizations are shrinking their cores by "increasing focus on fewer activities while outsourcing the remainder to strategic partners."  At the same "top performing firms are expanding their horizons by trying to provide customers with greater sets of products and services, many of which come through partnerships with other firms and are bundled together into what are loosely called customer solutions."

Make sense?  Can you see how this fits with so much that we’ve talked about here at StrategyCentral?  Think about the idea of narrowing your focus.  Perfect example of trimming what you do to the small set of things that you are the best at doing.

Might be a good idea to download a copy yourself!  You can get started by clicking here.
 

I’m sure you’re familiar with Abraham Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs.  Most of us have seen it.

It’s certainly not new information.  What might be new to you is that according to Chip Conley’s Peak, where you focus your organization’s attention (on the base or the peak), determines a lot about your ability to survive big challenges.

What?

Simple.  If your organization only focuses on the base needs of your employees, customers or investors (this could easily be interpreted to mean team-members…paid and unpaid, attendees, and donors-of-record), you will have great difficulty keeping them in the game when the going gets tough.

On the other hand, if you’re focusing on the peak needs (much more about inspiration and aspirations) keeping your team, customers and investors in the game will be much more likely.

This book has big implications.  You can order your copy of Peak right here.

Every once in a while I sort’ve stumble across a book that’s just different.  Sometimes I can’t even tell you later how I found it, but it turns out to be really a great read.  I think that just happened!   Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow by Chip Conley has all the ear
marks of a book I’ll be talking about for some time around here.

Conley, the founder of Joie de Vivre Hotels, has quite a story…and this is a fascinating part of it.  While Joie de Vivre is California’s largest boutique hotel chain their uniqueness can be seen in things like their heart statement and their philosophy and mission.

First 44 pages…great stuff.  Stay tuned.  I’ll have more tomorrow. 

When you’re determining what to do next…do you look for your ideas on the inside (with your team or current customers) or do you look on the outside?  Saddleback has popularized the notion of "crowd-to-core" vs. "core-to-crowd" as a way of understanding how to develop people.  This is not really that.  Inside-out vs. outside-in has more to do with the thinking and planning you do as you’re attempting to launch a new product or concept.

I tripped across The Secrets of Market-Driven Leaders yesterday.  Actually John Moore over at Brand Autopsy referred to it (and there is always a ton of good stuff over at Brand Autopsy).  It’s a very interesting 16 pages that has a lot to say to all of us.  For now, just think about this one concept: Inside-out vs. Outside-in.  What is at stake is the future of your organization and your ability to design new products and concepts that connect with people who are not yet your customers.  That’s big, isn’t it?

Inside-out thinking may be most likely when your organization has a degree of success with a previous product.  You’ll be more likely to rely on input from insiders—staff or existing customers—to come up with the ideas for what to do next.  Because the article focused on the realities of technology companies, it uses the Apple Newton (a massive failure) as an example inside-out thinking.

Outside-in thinking occurs when organizations actually pay attention to "the needs of the marketplace".  When that happens, products like Apple’s iPod emerge.

Can you see how this same kind of thing affects your business ?  Be sure and check out The Secrets of Market-Driven Leaders for the secrets that explain the difference between "market-driven leaders and the rest of the pack".

Tripped across a fantastic new resource over on ChangeThis.  The Secrets of Market-Driven Leaders, an e-book by Craig Stull, Phil Myers, David Meerman Scott.  I can see that this is going to be the source of some great conversations.  You can download it for free right here.  This is good stuff.  You won’t want to enter the next few discussions unarmed.

When you put together a new program or redesign an existing one, are your expectations connected to reality?  Or are they based on wishful thinking?

One of my favorite books over the last several years has been Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton.  Really, really helpful stuff.  If you haven’t taken the time to digest it, you are really missing out on an important tool.  You may be able to see from the title that one of the key takeaways is that there is a lot going on that is not based on hard facts!

Need a "for instance"?  How about the situation where you come home from a conference all excited about a program you see someone else doing and decide to try it in your own place…only the building blocks that make their program work aren’t part of your reality.  Do you look the other way and go ahead with your plan?  Or do you take a step back and determine what must happen first, build the foundation, and then go forward?

Be really clear on this.  I’m not talking resignation.  I’m not proposing that we all throw in the towel.  I am suggesting that moving in the direction of dreams is hard work.  First understanding and clarifying the win.  Next building the foundation that will support the new direction.  Then launching the program that will result in a win…based on hard facts, not wishful thinking.

What wins around your place?  Wishful thinking?  Or reality?

Disneyland may be the happiest place on earth…but there are few happier sights than an arriving shuttle to head home after a good day!

Maybe you caught the iPhone controversy in the last week or so.  Apple lowered the price from $599 to $399 for the 8gb iPhone in order to capitalize on the upcoming "holiday" season.  Missed it?   Bet you didn’t if you bought one in the first wave!

Either way, check out this post from Seth Godin and then this open letter from Steve Jobs to the early adopters who felt a little singed by the quick drop in the iPhone price.  As usual, Seth has some great insight into how the price drop could have been handled.  But you have got to read the open letter.  For all of us in the business of pursuing the main thing, here is a great example of commitment to the main thing.

Can you see the similarity to anything that goes on in your world?  After all, you have early adopters.   The question is, how do you treat them when the pursuit of the main thing is leading you to switch strategies?  What do you do when the right thing to do is not in the very special interest of the crew already on board the bus?

Interesting dilemma…don’t you think?  But it’s clearly at the heart of lots of what goes on in our world.

What is your objective when you do long-range planning?  What are you hoping to accomplish?  One of the whiteboard drawings that I often include in my work is a version of what you see to the left.  The point?  There is no problem-free solution.  Instead, every possible solution is really an opportunity to choose the set of problems you’d rather have.  This is a key assumption at the beginning of any planning session.

Once you’ve arrived at the conclusion that there really is no problem-free, the next step might be to clarify the purpose of long-range planning.  In determining that purpose, I love this quote from Peter Drucker’s Managing for Results:

"Long-range planning does not—and cannot—aim at the elimination of risks and uncertainties.  That is not given to mortal man.  The one thing he can try is to find, and occasionally to create, the right risk and to exploit uncertainty.  The purpose of the work on making the future is not to decide what should be done tomorrow, but what should be done today to have a tomorrow (p. 173)."

What’s the point?  There are several really good ones:

• Long-range planning isn’t about eliminating risks and uncertainties (there is no problem-free)
• Long-range planning is about finding the right risk (you can choose the problem-set you’d rather have)
• Long-range planning is about making decisions today that will make tomorrow possible.

Take the pebbles from my hand, Grasshopper.  Gotta love Drucker!

P.S. For more on Problem-free check out this previous post: The Pursuit of Problem-Free.

When you carefully examine the likely scenarios for your organization…are there some things that get ruled out right away because everybody knows that that can never happen?  Word to the wise?  Be very careful that you don’t casually exclude some things because it’s common knowledge that those things can’t happen.  Puzzled?  Here’s a little to chew on.

A look at history will show you that it’s usually something that could never happen that turns out to be the game-breaker.  A personal computer.  More households with only a cellphone than households without a cellphone.   Bottled water.  BOTTLED water.  Think about it.  Who would have guessed even 10 years ago that Americans would spend more on bottled water than on iPods or movie tickets.  Okay…if they could have guessed that then they’d be pretty smart.  Most of us would have said, "iWhat?"  But you get the point.

The point is "what everybody in the business knows can never happen should be examined carefully (Managing for Results, p. 170)."