STRATEGY CENTRAL

What do you do when you’re stuck?  You know, when no matter how hard you try you just can’t make it work.  And it seems like there’s really no way the things going to work.  Alan Kay said that "perspective is worth 80 IQ points."  It may be time to look at it from another angle.

Mike Sansone has some questions that might jog your thinking.  What are they?  Take a look:

• What if…?
• How is _____ like ____?
• What would it take to _____?
• How would people respond to _____?
• What would it look like if we turned this so?

Is what you do designed to reach the masses?  Or a carefully selected niche?  Are you attempting to be all things to all people?  Or have you chosen a target and then designed what to do to reach that target?

This is the challenge for many of us.  In the attempt to get the most we’re really not designed to get the group we’d love to get.  We’re not really set up to be the best at any one element.  Instead, we’re often hoping that by going after the crowd we’ll reach a larger number.

Seth Godin has an interesting post today about a religious order in Belgium that makes beer.  Not just any beer.  This beer has been called the best beer in the world.  Not the best-selling beer.  In fact, they produce a very limited supply.  Godin points out that they’re not trying to produce the most.  They’re not trying to maximize their output.  Instead, they’re clear about what they do and how they do it…and really good at doing that one thing.

And on the day they sell the beer some people have driven 16 hours to pick up their two case limit per person.  Must be some pretty good beer.  Anyone producing something that people will drive 16 hours to get?

How does what we do compare with that?  Are we producing that kind of product?  Or are we trying to maximize?

If you want to read the back story you can get it over at the Church of the Customer blog.

Wondering what has your change initiative stalled?  It could be one of the three killers of continuous self-renewal.  Take a look at this deadly lineup:

The first is the tendency of management teams to deny or ignore the need for a strategy reboot.  The second is a dearth of compelling alternatives to the status quo, which often leads to strategic paralysis.  And the third: allocational rigidities that make it difficult to redeploy talent and capital behind new initiatives (The Future of Management pp. 43-44).

Recognize any of these guys?  Wonder how many change initiatives they’ve killed off?  Pretty frightening how familiar they are.  After all, they’ve pulled this off in broad daylight!

You’re getting ready to launch a new program or initiative.  You’ve brainstormed the creative elements.  You’ve put together the team that will run it.  You’ve even begun to develop the marketing concept (you may not call it the "marketing concept," but you’re developing it).  The real question?  Have you decided what you will call "success"?  Huh?

Right after a couple other key questions (What business are you in? and Who is your customer?), this is a huge question.  Without spending the proper time analyzing what "success" will look like, you can spend a lot of time ramping up to do something that is irrelevant or even counterproductive.

This is really important right now.  Without this understanding your chances of connecting with the customer are very low.  On this point I love the thinking over at Mavericks at Work.  Bill Taylor’s got an interesting take on just this topic, writing about how winning companies are coming to terms with "the new logic of competition in a world defined by overcapacity,
oversupply, and utter sensory overload."  Know anything about overcapacity?  How about oversupply or sensory overload?  Look around!  Those realities aren’t confined to any one industry!  They’re in ours as well.

What if you defined success more completely than "launching the new product"?  What if you really drilled down and developed a more detailed understanding of success?  For example, look at this line from Taylor’s piece on the power of customer connections:

Success today…is not just about price, quality, and
features—selling pure economic value. It is about passion, energy,
identity—sharing your values with customers.

I guess the question today is, "Can you really succeed without defining success to this level?"

Don’t know about you, but I’m always in the market for productivity help.  Don’t have an assistant.  Have enough attention deficit to always be interested in something just outside my peripheral vision, and love learning about new things.  Potentially a BAD combination.  So when I find certain things, new technologies, I love the potential.

Heard about I Want Sandy over at one of my favorite blogs today.  It’s an email-based, automated personal assistant that is very cool.  I can see how this will help with simple reminders and even scheduling.  Love my Treo.  Use it all the time.  But this looks like a good addition.  You can check it out right here…and it’s free.

Ever think about the concept of "forfeiting the future"?  Sometimes when I read a line it almost causes a shiver.  Check out this line from Hamel’s, The Future of Management.

Sometimes the real hurdle to renewal is not a lack of options, but a lack of flexibility in resource allocation.  All to often, legacy programs get richly funded year after year while new initiatives go begging.  This, more than anything, is why companies regularly forfeit the future—they overinvest in "what is" at the expense of "what could be." (p. 46)

Here’s the question of the day: What does it take for resources to get reallocated in your organization?

Today was the day that the decorations came out of their boxes.  Hard to sit out on the patio on that day.  So instead, I took charge of the front yard.  I’ve been looking forward to wrapping the dwarf palms.  Makes a nice backdrop for Frosty and his little buddy.  Stop by if you can.  They’re selling hot cocoa for 5¢.

P.S. If you look closely, you can see Maxwell’s eyes glowing behind the screen door!

Gary Hamel’s newest is in the briefcase right now.  Interesting stuff.  I have to say I really enjoyed Leading the Revolution.  The Future of Management is off to a great start.  Already quite a few ideas that will lead to implementation.

If you’re like me, you’re always looking for questions that will inspire a great discussion and lead to action.  How about this set as the framework for a series of off-sites:

• What’s the "tomorrow problem" that you need to start working on right now?
• What’s the frustrating "either/or" you’d like to turn into an "and"?
• What’s the espoused ideal you’d like to turn into an embedded capability?
• What’s the "can’t do" that needs to become a "can do"?

Let’s just say it this way, any one of these questions could turn into a great discussion that leads somewhere even better.  Ready for a read-along?  You can pick up your copy right here.

Tomorrow’s the day!  Hope you have a great one!  In the meantime, there’s lots to do around here to get ready.  I’m already hungry for the great Greenberg Turkey.  Nothing says "Thanksgiving" like the smoky, peppery taste of Greenberg.  Well, maybe Debbie’s cornbread dressing.  And the cranberry sauce.  And the green bean casserole (the recipe from The Texas Cowboy Kitchen).  Can’t forget the sweet potatoes.  And then there’s the pecan pie.  28 hours to go.

Don’t know if you’ve caught this yet, but there’s an interesting and FREE podcast of the sessions from the recent Personal Branding Summit.  Some really good stuff on here.  I listened to Phil Gerbyshak’s talk this morning.  Very helpful.  If you’re in the relationship business (and most of us are) you need to hear what he’s talking about.  You can download his talk right here.