Archive for Strategy
Are Your Systems Stupid?
Posted by: | CommentsEvery company has them–they’re the reason why we love Dilbert, laugh at The Office, yell at the auto attendant in “customer service,” who “can’t understand our response,” and can’t wait to tell our friends and co-workers, “You won’t believe what happened to me today.” Or, in the case of people like me, blog about them.
Well, this morning I ran into a couple of different stupid systems. The first one was/is a simple, but silly one. Yesterday, we had a major rain and lighting storm here in the DC area and the only thing affected in our home was the router we use with Verizon FiOS. 
I used the router before the storm and all was fine. But after the lightning strike near our home, it didn’t work. After waiting a half hour and then doing everything I knew I’d be asked to do, the customer support person (after another half hour) agreed and said he’d send out a replacement router that should be to me today. Fine.
So, what do you think happened this morning? Exactly! I got an automated voice message telling me that I can track my package by going to www.ups.com. HELLO! If I could go to www.ups.com I wouldn’t need a new router!!! Stupid system (Note: I do have an iPhone so I could track it that way but the system–on their end–doesn’t know that. So the PROGRAMMED message on their end should have first of all told me when the package was sent and when it should be arriving and then should have said, “And if you have an alternative way of tracking packages online, you may do so by going to www.ups.com and entering the following tracking code).
In addition, the auto attendant quickly gave me a long string of 18 numbers and letters to use to track the package–with no option of repeating the numbers. HELLO! Do they really expect that everyone who answers their phone does so next to a pad of paper with a pen that actually works? Or do they really believe that everyone who writes down 18 numbers and letters, gets them correct the first time they hear them? Buzz! Stupid system.
But the funnier one to me was from Citigroup. Citi called because they thought we had a fraudulent charge made on our card with them last evening (good system). When I confirmed the charge, the fraud specialist asked if I had any other questions, which I did. 
So I said, “Yes, it’s not a big deal, but I’ve wondered for awhile why Citi raised my interest rate last year. If you look at my account you’ll see I pay off my bill every month so it’s not a big deal, but as a good customer, I thought it was pretty ridiculous to raise my interest rate to 23.9% when I always pay my bills on time.” He said, “Great question. Let me transfer you to customer service.”
When I got on with phone with customer service, it all went downhill. When I asked him my interest rate question he said, “Let me look into that.” When I said, “Well, since I get 7-10 credit card offers a week and everyone–including you at Citi–offers me between 9.99% and 13.24%, it seems that you ought to be able to reduce my rate.” “Yes, Mr. Johnson.” “Okay, so what does that mean?” “We’ll take care of you.” “What does that mean?” “Just trust that we’ll take care of you.” “Okay, but what does that mean….” He said, “Just call us back and we’ll make an adjustment in your rate.” So, why do I have to call back? Can’t we do that now?” Yada yada yada. Stupid system.
I then went on and said, “Okay, I’m looking at an offer from Citi, your company, right now. You just sent me an offer that if I open up a Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card (the same one I currently have) you will give me a $50 gift card, 2 Thank You Points for every $1 I spend for the next twelve months, 0% interest on transfers in, 0% APR on new purchases until 2/11 and a 9.9% APR today. In other words, if I stay faithful I get nothing. But if I open up a new card with Citi (the exact same card that I already have with you) I get all this.” Yes.” “So, why should I remain loyal?” Stupid system.
Now, my point is not to beat up on Verizon and Citi, because, as I said at the beginning, we all have stupid systems. Instead, my point is to remind you (and me) that we all have them. And while neither of these is enough to cause me to leave either company (hey, they just happened in the last hour or so), there are plenty of stupid systems that do cause customers to leave–and that’s both a tragedy and a fiscal nightmare.
In light of that, as you look at your own company, where are your stupid systems? What systems do you have in place that customers don’t like? Or what systems do they complain about that you haven’t fixed? Remember, what you think is irrelevant. It’s all about what customers think.
So, what stupid systems do you need to change?
To your accelerated success!
P.S. This is a great exercise to do with your staff–and with your customers.
Is Your Model Still Right?
Posted by: | CommentsI was talking with someone earlier this week and the conversation got started something like this. “I have this process I’ve been trying to get people to buy in to but I’m having trouble getting more people to buy it.” Sound familiar?
My first question to him was, “You’ve started this by defining a process/product. But, for a moment, let’s forget about that and go back to the beginning and ask, ‘What’s your objective for this process?’ In other words, what do you want to produce when people are finished going through their experience with you?”
After he told me his answer I said, “Well, if what you want to produce is [X], then it seems to me that you have the wrong model.” In other words, he did what most people do, he created a model of what he thought people needed–and then set out to try to convince those same people that what they needed was what he was offering (which, of course, is the wrong way to do this).
Moreover, the model that he was using, was counterproductive. Because of the way the process was designed, it made it virtually impossible for him to attract the very kinds of people he wanted to attract. So instead of being able to attract the very best possible pool of customers, the reality was he was left with less than his optimal target market.
But he’s not alone. I find this same kind of experience in business after business. We design what we think customers’ need vs. what they want (and passionately want). We try to push marketing out to them in order to convince them that they have a need they don’t know they have. And we create processes that make it difficult for our optimal customers to use us. In other words, his story is often our story.
So, when was the last time you took a good look at your business model? Is it the right model? Does it really produce the results you want? Does it really drive the kind of outcomes you desire? Is it scalable? Is it still the right model moving forward? Remember, the world is constantly changing. The model that worked last year or last decade, may not be the right model for today–and even more importantly–for tomorrow!
If you haven’t done this recently, may I encourage you to take some time this week and evaluate your business model. I don’t know what the end result of your review will be–but I do know that the conversation I mentioned above caused me to go back and look at my own model–and yes, you guessed right–I had to make some changes to my model. My guess is that most of us do. So, when will you sit down and ask yourself the questions in the paragraph above?
To your accelerated success!
Need Some Inspiration?
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re at all like me, chances are you have some favorite quotes that you return to over an over again to pick you up and get your headed in the right direction.
I remember, shortly after my board coup several years ago, the movie “Rocky Balboa” came out and in the middle of the movie, Rocky made the following comment to his son,
“It ain’t about how hard you’re hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward–that’s how winning is done!”
I immediately put that quote up on my credenza and still look at it to this day. To me, that’s the power of a great quote. In just a few words, it can say so much.
In light of that, over the July 4th weekend, I decided to create my own favorite quote site. As a consultant and professional speaker, I’m regularly on the look out for great quotes. So, rather than horde them for myself, in the spirit of Tom Peters (when you go to the site, you’ll understand that comment), I’ve decided to make them available to everyone.
So, rather than bore you with more content, let me encourage you to go to the site and read some great inspirational business-oriented quotes. I think you’ll enjoy them! Oh, and the URL is pretty easy to remember
Note: I just created the site Saturday evening so some of the topics only have a few quotes, while others have quite a few. But over time, the approximately 400 quotes will grow. The site is still under 48 hours old. Just bookmark it and return to it whenever you either need some inspiration or you’re putting together a talk or training session and need the perfect quote to make the perfect point.
To your accelerated success!
The Four Most Important Words in Any Organization
Posted by: | CommentsIf you were to make a list of the four most important words in your business or organization, what would they be?
- Would they be your core values (for ex. respect, responsibility, honesty and service)?
- Would they be a phrase (for ex. “Make it so, #1” in deference to Capt. Jean Luc Picard of Start Trek: The Next Generation fame)?
- Would they be actions (for ex. Farm, Call, Convert, Upsell)?
- Or would they be something else?
It’s an interesting question. If you were to narrow down your business philosophy to just four words, what would they be?
Well, last evening I was perusing Tom Peter’s website and downloaded one of his Power Point ® Presentations (which are free, by the way). As I was reading through a recent speech he gave for Inc. I came across this one slide that simply said,
The four most important words in any organization are, “What do you think?”
I love that!
Note: this was a line from a comment posted on his blog at www.tompeters.com from a guy named Dave Wheeler.
But the reason why I love this slide is because I love the simplicity and power contained in those four simple words, “What do you think?” Having observed and consulted with enough businesses and organizations, I would concur that those four words could/can literally change a company.
As leaders, we so often get stuck in the “It’s my job to have all the answers,” or “It’s my job to come up with solutions to problems,” etc. that we forget that our primary job as leaders is not to have all the answers or to tell everyone the answers, but to leverage the time, talent, resources and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY of the people in our organization/business to achieve some kind of results.
Even more, when we ask, “What do you think?” what we’re doing is so much more than just asking a question. For example, when you ask your people, “What do you think?”
- You’re giving your people respect (I value what you have to say, which is why I’ve asked you)
- You’re training your people to be solutions creators (I want you to help solve this so you can do this in the future)
- You’re bringing new ideas into the mix (not giving in to your own biases and prejudices)
- You’re creating buy-in (since people tend to own what they help create)
- And you’re creating relational capital.
At every juncture, you win as a leader just by remembering to ask, EVERY DAY, “What do you think?
I think Dave is right on. These could easily be the four most important words in any organization.
So … What do you think?
To your accelerated success,
P.S. Either today or tomorrow (depending on when you’re reading this), make it a goal to ask at least FIVE people, “What do you think?” Then do the same thing the next day, and the next day and the next day after that as well.
Key Lessons from Steve Jobs at All Things Digital (D8)
Posted by: | CommentsWhenever Steve Jobs speaks, it’s usually worth listening. Love him or hate him, he’s always worth listening to–especially because he masterminded one of the most amazing comebacks of all time. Thirteen years ago when he returned to Apple they were just 90 days away from going bankrupt. And then, just last week, they surpassed Microsoft on market cap making them the second most valuable company in the WORLD–not a bad come back.
Now, if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I don’t write about technology, I write about what leads to growth. And my audience isn’t techies, it’s owners and CEO’s (or other execs at the top). So, as I listened to Steve’s responses to the questions of Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the All Things Digital (D8) Conference, my ears were tuned into Jobs’ comments related to strategy and leadership, marketing and R&D. And the following would be, IMHO, the most important things he said on that front.
Note: Thanks to Macrumors and Engadget for tracking the conversation.
1. Never Underestimate the Power of Vision.
- On his return to Apple in the ’90s: “Apple was about 90 days from going bankrupt. It was much worse than I thought back then. I expected all the good people had left, but I found many of them still there, and I asked them, “Why are you still here?” They said it was because they believed in Apple.”
In other words, Steve and crew had done such a great job of establishing the culture and vision of Apple, that even when things were going bad under different leadership, great people stayed on. As I say over and over again, you can’t cast vision too much.
2. It’s Okay to Zig When Everyone Else Is Zagging
- On the Adobe Flash controversy: “Apple doesn’t have the resources others have, and we have to choose which horses to ride. We try to ride those that are on the way up. If you choose wisely, you save yourself an enormous amount of work.”
As proof of this strategy, Steve pointed to Apple’s moves over the years (ahead of almost everyone else) to moving to 3.5-inch floppies, to discontinuing floppy drives, to removing serial and parallel ports, to adopting USB, to the current removal of even an optical drive in the MacBook Air. In “typical Jobsian” fashion, Steve concluded by saying, “Sometimes people call us crazy.”
In other words, just because ”everyone“ has something or does something in a certain way, doesn’t mean you have to do it that way. All trailblazers at some point realize that have to break with what ”everyone“ is doing.
3. Be Clear on What Drives Your Company–And Stick With It
- On the future of Apple and “platform wars” with Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.: “I don’t see it. We never saw ourselves in a platform war with MSFT, and maybe that’s why we lost. We think about the competition, but we’re focused on building a better product.”
Steve is clear on what drives Apple–they’re a product-driven company. They’re not a services-driven company or a knowledge-driven company or a market-driven company etc. They are a product-driven company. When they lost sight of that in the late 80’s and 90’s, they got into trouble. Once they got clear on that again (under Jobs), everything began to change.
4. What You Think Has to Be in a Product/Service Doesn’t
- On tablets: “We did something similar to what we did with the iPhone. We started from scratch and threw out the existing paradigm of handwriting recognition.”
In other words, sometimes, you have to start by deconstructing what you believe to be true. In other words, you have to start from scratch, with a blank slate, and question every part or thing you want to put in to it.
5. Be Willing to Change Your Plans in Response to New Information
At one point, Steve acknowledged that the tablet project (what’s now the iPad) actually came before phone, but realized that phone was more important.
In other words, strategic plans need to be flexible. I’m shocked at how many leaders stick by a plan long after the market is telling them something different. I’m a strategy consultant, and I’m forever reminding leaders that the plan we created last year needs to change as we go through this year. Things change, and what seemed right in October last year, may not be what’s best in June of this year.
6. Stick to Your Values Even When It’s Not Politically In Your Favor
Regarding rejected political cartoon content, Jobs said, “We had a rule that said you can’t defame people. By definition, they defame people.”
Similar to Google’s, ”Do no evil,“ creed, great leaders stick to their values even when it’s not convenient. To me, that’s the real test of a value. For example, are you willing to fire your best producing employee because they’ve broken (and usually consistently broken) a core value? If not, then it’s either not a core value or you’re not doing your job as the leader.
7. Price Aggressively and Go For Volume
During his comments on newspapers, Jobs noted that iPad opens up a way to offer much more than print or static webpages. But he also noted that newspapers should charge less for the online content than their print content … “The biggest lesson Apple has learned is price it aggressively and go for volume.”
So, which of Steve’s lessons do you need to take to heart and apply in your business? Playing out of Jobs’ playbook isn’t a bad strategy to start with. It’s clearly worked for him :-)
To your accelerated success!
What’s the Difference Between Mission and Vision?
Posted by: | CommentsA few months ago, after talking with a client, I decided to write a blog post on the differences between mission, vision, initiatives and goals–and it’s been one of the most read posts on my blog.
In light of that, I decided to practice what I preach (find out what people want … and give it to them). Therefore, today is the first of a number of video blog posts I’m going to put together for you that will go into more detail about each of these terms.
Today’s edition is focused on answering the most common Google query that’s linked to my site, “What’s the difference between mission and vision?” Most organizations I’ve interacted with have gotten this wrong, so pay attention. The difference is significant. Enjoy!
P.S. The link to the previous post can be found here >>
Alex Bogusky Is Wrong! Leaders Should Learn More From Failure
Posted by: | CommentsIn a video post on the Fast Company site, Alex Bogusky, co-chair of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, 
argues that the classic business mantra of learning from failure is just plain wrong. In his world (and at his company), he doesn’t debrief failure or lost accounts or why a campaign isn’t working (which I find hard to believe). Rather he wants to focus on successes not failure because he thinks that learning from failure creates a culture of fear.
Moreover, he states that when his company loses a bid or contract, he simple throws away any vestige of that client in their offices and moves on as if that client or bid never existed. In his world, they’ve never lost a bid because if they didn’t get the contract then it isn’t a client they would have wanted to work with.
Besides the fact that I find it hard to believe that his company actually works this way (like they’ve never fired someone for underperforming or they only evaluate based on successes), I find it just bad advice. The reality is that most businesses need to do more learning from failure–not less.
As a consultant, I spend my life walking into companies where problems exist (and they exist in every company, including Bogusky’s). And I have yet to find any company that is really great at evaluation and learning from failure. Most business leaders are so busy trying to stay on top of all their work, that they rarely ever take time to stop and learn from their failures/missed opportunities/mistakes etc. Therefore, they tend to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. As the saying goes (slightly altered),
“Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Now, if a leader or manager is a blamer (i.e. a bad leader or manager) then that is a problem–but not with the idea of learning from failure. Rather it’s a failure of the leader/manager to carry out their job well. Likewise, if they’re creating a culture of fear vs. trust, then that’s a leadership issue, not an evaluation problem.
Great leader/managers know that learning from the past, both positive and negative, is essential to improving and optimizing the future. They understand that if there’s a problem, it’s not a person who’s the problem, it’s the system. And the only way to fix the system is to debrief and make sure that they and their team have learned from what happened so that the same problem isn’t repeated. No learning = ongoing problem.
So don’t listen to Alex on this one. Increase your learning from failure (and success). Invest more time in evaluating what happened so that you can both eliminate/minimize any problems and optimize/leverage any successes. It’s not an either/or. It’s a both/and. And in most cases, there’s not enough learning going on. So I’d argue that you need to increase your learnings so you can increase your successes!
To your accelerated success!
P.S. If you want to know the five questions you should always ask when evaluating, click here>>
Is It Time for a Makeover for Your Business (A Lesson from BusinessWeek)
Posted by: | CommentsWhen was the last time you did a website makeover? Or changed the interior design of your workspace/office/store? Or more importantly, changed the way you do business? Or changed the way you market what you offer? Or even changed what you offer?
Most leaders underestimate the power of a makeover–and the speed at which they ought to be undertaken these days. It’s not unusual for someone to be surfing the web these days and think, “Wow! That site looks so … 2009,” and we’re only four months into 2010 (as of the writing of this post).
Next week (starting April 26th) marks the public makeover of a business icon–BusinessWeek (which was bought by Bloomberg back on December 1, 2009). They’ve even created a section on their website describing all the changes.
http://inside.businessweek.com/
Now, I haven’t seen the new remade version, but I do love what they’ve done to prep readers about the makeover. So, here are four lessons worth learning from them about creating a makeover.
1. Teaser campaigns still work. The Bloomberg team has done a great job of promoting the change. If you’re a reader of BusinessWeek, then you know they’ve been talking about “change is coming,” for awhile. And while it’s nothing more than an old school teaser campaign–it’s working. I’ve been reading BusinessWeek for years–and I haven’t been this interested/excited in years.
2. Use video to tell the story of the change. If you go to their website, you’ll see a series of videos from the editor describing the change. Vision casting is usually done best with video (actually it’s best done live, but that’s not an option here). So having Josh Tyrangiel share his vision that, “We take people on journeys … and introduce them to concepts and people that will impact their lives for years, even decades …” was the right decision.
3. Use powerful, short image building phrases to describe the changes. Rather than impress us with their vast vocabulary skills, the design team has done a great job of picking up key phrases we can all understand immediately.
* Reinvented. Redesigned. Reimagined (the tagline for the change)
* More Clarity. More Energy. More Impact (each with four short sub-points defining the changes)
4. Remember that “Look and Feel”/Design matters. While story will always be first and foremost (and should be for a magazine), the Bloomberg team understands that the look and feel of a site or magazine (or whatever you’re producing for the public) does matter. The vast majority of people bring their eyes with them. And whether they want to admit it or not, within seconds, they’ve “judged the book by its cover.” Within seconds they’ve either decided, “culture current” or “old school,” or …
So, as you look at what you and your company are producing and offering, are you in need of a makeover? Is your website or are your other marketing materials in need of a makeover? Is your business model in need of a makeover?
If so, then you may want to take a page from the Bloomberg BusinessWeek playbook in order to make sure that your makeover works for you and your purposes.
To your accelerated success!
P.S. When was the last time your website had a new design. If it’s been more than 12 months, chances are it’s time for a face lift. One of the reasons I’m such a huge fan of WordPress (besides the fact it’s free and that it’s easy to edit) is that WordPress separates out the content and the theme/skin/template. So with one click of a button, you can change the whole “look and feel” of a site without having to change any of the content. In around five seconds you can have a whole new look. Then, you can update the content and layout when you have time.
What’s the Difference Between Mission, Vision, Initiatives and Goals?
Posted by: | CommentsI was talking with one of my clients earlier today and we ran into a common problem that most organizations have when they engage in strategic planning–that is, confusion (or agreement) about what individual terms mean. For example, what’s the difference between a mission and a vision? Or what’s the difference between an opportunity and an initiative? Or how is a goal different from a tactic? Different people have different definitions—which is why there’s so much confusion about what each terms means.
To help un-complicate the process of defining these terms, here are the definitions I use when working with clients (along with an example or two of each).
1. Mission: This is what a company does. It should be short and easy to memorize. However, it shouldn’t be so generic that you can’t tell what business it’s in. Note: similar businesses may have very similar mission statements. Why? Because they essentially do the same things.
- To promote and develop the growth of tennis (The United States Tennis Association)
- To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful (Google)
2. Vision: This is what a company wants to become. Vision is a seeing term. Therefore a vision statement should be future-oriented. It’s an image of what a company wants to create. It isn’t what a company is, it’s what it wants to become. While mission statements may be similar, vision statements should be very different. They should be motivating and inspiring. And they should drive decision-making.
- Be the safest, most customer-focused and successful transportation company in the world (Norfolk Southern)
- To be the preeminent publisher and provider of self-improvement resources that inspires and empowers individuals to lead the lives they most desire (Nightingale Publishers)
Note: For a video blog post on this subject of mission and vision click here >>
3. Values – Values are the foundational beliefs about how you want your employees to act. They are the beliefs that create the culture of an organization. They don’t need to be exhaustive. Nor should the simply be the same from company to company. While integrity, trust, honesty, etc. are good core values, they don’t need to appear on your list unless you believe they must. In many cases, they’re givens. I recommend no more than five core values for a company. Once you get past five, very few people can remember them.
- Excellence – To do the best we can, with the resources we have, in the amount of time we have to do the tasks we’re assigned.
- Curiosity – To be insanely interested in knowing, yet never content with what we know. To be a life-long learner.
4. Growth Initiatives – From a strategic standpoint, what are the three to five most important things you can do to grow your organization? Note: a growth initiative differs from what I refer to as a strategic initiative because a growth initiative is usually related to one or two business units or people—and it can often be completed before the end of the year.
- To add five new joint venture partners by September 30th
- To open an office in Shanghai by July 31st
- To complete a merger or acquisition by December 31st
- To create a strategic partnership with Apple by May 30th
5. Strategic Initiatives – Strategic initiatives, if you want to keep your entire top team involved, should be initiatives that everyone can play a part in fulfilling. And they should be year-long initiatives. The main key thought of a strategic initiative is that it’s something everyone can contribute to, that will advance the organization. Also, strategic initiatives are usually designed to overcome constraints (whereas growth initiatives are often strength focused).
- To double the number of leaders who have completed our Level Three Leadership program and are ready to take on new assignments.
- To raise the level of execution excellence so that the number of errors rate falls to less than one per thousand.
- To train everyone in every department in effective customer service skills so that every customer has a more positive experience regardless of whom they’re interacting with from our company.
6. Goals – Goals are dreams with deadlines. They are quantifiable. You should clearly know if you hit them or not.
- To generate $5.7M by 12/31
- To raise our customer service rating to 4.75 by 9/30
- To raise our profit margin from 30% to 35%by 12/31
7. Tactics – Tactics are the individual activities an employee engages in to complete a goal/initiative/strategy/etc.
- To hire a merger specialist by 3/31
- To design a leadership development process by 6/30
- To recruit three college marketing interns by 3/31
- To renegotiate all vendor contracts by 6/30 to reduce our cost of goods sold by 40% (and saving us $1M)
Hopefully, those definitions and examples will help you get everyone on the same page as you work on (or refine) your strategic plan!
To your accelerated success!
P.S. For a clean pdf of the above definitions and examples, click here >>
P.P.S. If you’d like to go a little deeper on the difference between mission and vision, click on the videos below (which are from more current blog posts)
What’s Holding You Back, Part II
Posted by: | CommentsIf you didn’t read part one, scroll below (if you’re on the blog right now) or click on the following link>> (if you’re reading this by RSS).
Note: If you didn’t answer the question from the last post, “What are the major constraints that are hindering me (and my business/organization) from achieving my (our) potential?”, then make sure you do so before proceeding any further.
Okay, so you’ve now identified your major constraints (and as I said last time, they could be external or internal, mental or physical, systemic of situational). They could be a person or a process, a self-limiting belief or a financial limitation (for example).
The next thing you want to do is order them. You want to take each constraint and ask the question, “Where does this constraint come in the priority list of which constraint needs to be solved first?” In other words, you want to play each constraint off the others as you seek to find the major constraint that needs to be solved first.
I liken this to a playoff system (brackets) you see in sports. For simplicity’s sake we’ll call constraints “C”. So you play C1 vs. C2. Let’s say C2 needs to be solved before C1. Then you play off C3 vs. C4. Let’s say C3 needs to be solved before C4. Then you playoff C2 vs. C3 and let’s say C3 needs to be solved before C2 (which means it has to come before C1). You now know what has to happen first. In other words, once you work through this process, you’ll quickly know what the major constraint is for you (or you and your business) this year.
Using the four constraints listed above, it would be understandable to think that you need to solve the financial problem first. But that might not be true. It may be because you don’t have a systematic and methodical process in place to acquire new capital. However, it may be that the reason you don’t have a systematic and methodical process in place is because Sally is in charge of that area and she’s not very competent. She’s been at your company for ten years, she’s loved by every one, but she’s incompetent. You know you ought to let her go, but you haven’t pulled the trigger yet. Why?
Ah, it’s that self-limiting thought that keeps you from changing her out. It may be a belief that letting Sally go will demoralize your team. Or the belief that, “If I just give her some more time and training, she’ll succeed” (which could be true, but hasn’t been for the past five years). Or it could be the belief that, “She’s a single mom and she needs our help.” Or it could be the belief that, “Maybe in a year another position in our company will open up and I can move her over there.” Etc. We all have them. And those self-limiting beliefs do get in the way of making good business decisions.
The beauty of working through this process is that once you play this game, you’ll often find out that what you thought was the major constraint (in this case, “We don’t have enough access to capital”) may, in fact, not be the most important constraint to solve first.
So, before I give you the next step, why don’t we stop here for today. Take out your list of constraints and order them. Play them off against one another and see if you can reduce your constraints down to a handful of the most important constraints to solve first. And most importantly, make sure you identify what the first constraint is that you need to solve before any others!
To your accelerated success!