STRATEGY CENTRAL

If you were hiring for a journey from which you might not return…what kind of want ad would you run?  What about this ad for Ernest Shackleton’s South Pole expedition?  I’d say he was spot on…but definitely not a master of spin.  Unless he was only looking for heroic on the Strengthsfinder!

 Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of
complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and
recognition in case of success.

Truth in advertising was part of his deal.  Gotta love it!

It’s been a couple weeks.  I’m sure I’m spoiled…but if it’s above 80 degrees I don’t feel like posting from the patio!  According to the weather channel it’s 97 and feels like 97 at 5:47.  Dohhhhhh!  As Randy said about David Cook’s Music of the Night , "It’s a molten hot lava bomb!"

On the bright side?  My Pride of Madeira echium has a massive bloom (foreground) on the way! Starting to turn blue…but still light blue.  Should be turning a much darker shade soon.

In the meantime?  Hope you’re able to be out on the patio…wherever you are.

What do you think about building a consulting practice around the idea of "satisfaction guaranteed"?  Over on David Maister’s blog (Strategy and the Fat Smoker) he had a post this week about providing a promise on your website that makes this promise:

If you’re interested in seeing whether we are right for you
and your team, try us on a
matter. What separates us from our competitors is that you have our value promise
on every invoice. If you don’t think we’re worth the amount you agreed to pay,
you make whatever adjustment you think is necessary. If your other firms don’t
walk that walk, it’s time to try Valorem.

Interesting…don’t you think?  Will Mancini (Church Unique) makes a similar promise.  I’m thinking that would be a good thing to do.  What do you think?  Would it work for me?

There’s no question that Andy Stanley has had tremendous impact on my thinking over the last 10 years.  Love the way he thinks about vision, mission, the need for change, etc.  In terms of organizational ideas…he’s got it.

Didn’t get to catch his talk at Exponential, but Scott Hodge did.  You can read some great notes on Andy’s talk right here.  By the way, in the live stream after the talk Andy mentioned that the one book he’s been reading that he’d recommend was Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.  Once you’ve read the notes from his talk I think you’ll see the roots of some of the outline.

Amazing confluence ($10 word) of technology today.  Andy Stanley at Exponential was suddenly streaming live via ustream.tv, brought live by Todd Rhodes over at Monday Morning Insight in what seemed to be an experiment.  To top it all off, I found out about it when I checked Twitter and happened to be on there when Scott Hodge sent out a tweet that it was happening.  Not knowing how many people who follow me on Twitter couldn’t see Scott’s tweet…I put the same tiny url up and then noticed several others did the same.

Wildfire?  Very interesting times.

Andy’s best line?  "You can push the snowball up the hill or ride it down the hill.  I like to find ways that I can ride it down the hill."  Oh, I’ll be using that one  

Got a vision statement?  Sure you do.  Happy with it?  Probably not.  Just a guess…but it may not even be your vision statement.  Might be a slightly doctored version of another organization’s statement.  Might not even be slightly doctored…might be word for word.  Truth be told?  Been there, done that.  Want to develop your own?  Here are the five rules of a contagious vision statement from Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement:

• The Junior High Rule: Can a 12-year-old boy who has not been to church understand it? (Clear)
• The One Breath Rule: Can it be stated in one breath? (Concise)
• The Resonance Rule: When people say it do they want to say it again? (Compelling)
• The Actionability Rule: Does it inspire action on the part of the participant? (Catalytic)
• The Bouquet Rule: Do the words communicate biblical truth arranged for the listener’s time and place? (Contextual)

When you run your vision statement through these 5 rules, how does it come out?  Weak?  Or strong?

Want more?  You can pick up your copy of Church Unique right here.

How does it happen in your organization?  When you’re in a strategy discussion do you start with assumptions?  Preconceived notions?  A script?  Love this simple line from Tim Armstrong, Google’s President of Advertising and Commerce in North America:

People here don’t start with conclusions.  They start with questions.

How many organizations does that describe?  Does it describe your place?  What would have to happen for it to become part of your corporate culture?

Not exactly sure what category to file this in…but this morning as I checked in over at Twitter I noticed several tweets about last nights earthquake that rocked the central states.

Couldn’t help but remember that earlier in the day I had mentioned the New Madrid, MO quakes of 1811-12, reported to be three of the strongest quakes in US history.  Actually changed the course of the Mississippi River.  Damage as far away as Washington D.C. and Charleston, S.C.  The February 7th, 1812 quake was reported to be the strongest of the group.

Why was I talking about an earthquake?  Years ago I heard Lee Strobel refer to the New Madrid quake in an illustration about making a radical change, a trajectory change.  Great metaphor.

Was it a coincidence that I talked about it yesterday?  Nahhh.  It caused me to get up this a.m. and look up the facts for myself.  Next time I refer to the quake I’ll be able to add some pretty rich detail!      

Just subscribed to something new from Tom Peters.  He has a daily email with a quote of the day.  Good stuff…something to think about.  Loved today’s idea:

Today’s triumph (or setback) is just one step in a long journey.

That was a good word for me today.  Maybe for you too.

You can sign up for the daily quote right here.

Ever read something that just makes your hair stand up?  Like…as your eyes flicker across the page you realize in your gut that it’s true and you can’t help the goose-bump feeling.  Might be a good kind of goose-bumps, might be a bad kind of goose-bumps.

Reading an interview that McKinsey did with Pixar’s Brad Bird, I had a moment like that.  Talking about his first experience with Disney, in the time period when the veterans of the Walt Disney era were leaving.  Here’s the section that gripped me:

The company’s thought process was not, “We have all this amazing
machinery—how do we use it to make exciting things? We could go to Mars
in this rocket ship!” It was, “We don’t understand Walt Disney at all.
We don’t understand what he did. Let’s not screw it up. Let’s just preserve this rocket ship; going somewhere new in it might damage it.”

Ever been part of an organization like that?  If you have, those lines will prompt a visceral reaction.  If you haven’t, you probably don’t even know what you have.