Thursday, March 24, 2011
Blog has Moved to http://strategysense.net/
I have moved Strategy Sense to http://strategysense.net/ same feed.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Brand You: The Strategy of Branding Yourself
What's the most important brand you know? The Nike Swoosh? Maybe...but it shouldn't be. The most important brand to you should be YOU. Nothing else should even come close. To succeed in business it's all about your brand and the goodwill it will create for you. Branding Guru Tom Peters predicts that almost all current white-collar jobs will not even exist in fifteen years, due to the changing marketplace. Peters states that the only way to stick around past the end of your current job is to have a 'WOW' factor. A brand that is you.
Before all you needed to be on the fast track to the C-suite was an MBA and the drive. Today, there are so many driven MBAs out there that it is essential to make your own brand, or you will be destined to never see the gates to the executive floor. Making your brand takes a proactive approach, not only do you need to get your name out there but you also need to have unique content. A great way to generate unique content is to become an expert in an emerging field. Read all literature on the subject and put out your own work encompassing what you have read and researched. Sign up to speak at conferences or, perhaps, create your own conferences. The idea here is that you must market yourself.
Be your own PR agent: get to know some journalists to get yourself some publicity. Work with a charity or at a sporting event and have journalists cover you working at it. Good PR will help get you known and hopefully, one day, you can hope to draw some publicity from a national newspaper. Try Help a Reporter Out (HARO), an free publicity website, simply join, share your story and get picked up by the media.
All these things support the branding of you. But you won't stop there, no, after you get some publicity or you publish an article, you must then market your marketing. Send your article to everyone you know and have them send it on to anyone who they think will be interested. This will help increase the awareness of you, exponentially.
A final thing to get you on track, join some clubs and associations. Clubs and associations are great places to meet individuals with the same interests. You'd be surprised how much it can help you. Networking with people in your field can help you increase your personal brand's awareness in your industry.
So, get out there and sell yourself - make Brand You the next Nike Swoosh.
Before all you needed to be on the fast track to the C-suite was an MBA and the drive. Today, there are so many driven MBAs out there that it is essential to make your own brand, or you will be destined to never see the gates to the executive floor. Making your brand takes a proactive approach, not only do you need to get your name out there but you also need to have unique content. A great way to generate unique content is to become an expert in an emerging field. Read all literature on the subject and put out your own work encompassing what you have read and researched. Sign up to speak at conferences or, perhaps, create your own conferences. The idea here is that you must market yourself.
Be your own PR agent: get to know some journalists to get yourself some publicity. Work with a charity or at a sporting event and have journalists cover you working at it. Good PR will help get you known and hopefully, one day, you can hope to draw some publicity from a national newspaper. Try Help a Reporter Out (HARO), an free publicity website, simply join, share your story and get picked up by the media.
All these things support the branding of you. But you won't stop there, no, after you get some publicity or you publish an article, you must then market your marketing. Send your article to everyone you know and have them send it on to anyone who they think will be interested. This will help increase the awareness of you, exponentially.
A final thing to get you on track, join some clubs and associations. Clubs and associations are great places to meet individuals with the same interests. You'd be surprised how much it can help you. Networking with people in your field can help you increase your personal brand's awareness in your industry.
So, get out there and sell yourself - make Brand You the next Nike Swoosh.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Developing a Change Plan
Following my last blog post on developing a vision and mission, this post will focus on creating a change plan for organizational change. Organizational change has been a focus topic for many years now and knowing how to create a change plan is crucial to your organization's ongoing success. Implementing change in an organization is not an easy task, any change will be met with challenges, such as low support or negativity towards the change. People get comfortable with the way things are and don't see the need for change. This is why a strong change plan is needed. Follow this framework to develop a strong change plan.
Identify Your Change Needs
There are three areas that affect strategy from where you can identify a change need: Management, Organization, or Resources. The way you identify a need for change is to take a look at how each affects your organization's strategy as it compares to the external environment. This will help you to see holes which can be made up with a strategy change. For example, if there is a technological development in the industry your organization's resources and the external environment will no longer match up. Once you identify this imbalance you can change your strategy to ensure they are linked once again. This may be through licensing or buying the new technology or increasing your own R&D to ensure your technology remains competitive.
Identify the Urgency and Organizational Readiness
Once your change has been identified it is crucial to identify the urgency. Continuing with the new technology example, will the new technology in the industry significantly reduce your market share by the end of the next quarter? If it will, the level of urgency is likely crisis. After you have identified the urgency, take a look at your organization. Are they ready to act? Are you ready to act? It is important to know where your company stands to know where it can go.
Establish Action Guidelines
The first thing you will want to do is to identify your priority objectives, things that need to be done right away. If there is new technology in your industry which could seriously affect your market share, the first thing you should do is hold a meeting with the senior executives to ensure that everyone is in the know and options can be drafted. In this meeting (or series of meetings) chose a path of action and develop your steps and targets to deal with the issue. Next you will have to decide how the change will be managed. Will you oversee the change or will you assign a dependent project team? Next, determine the pace of the change. In a crisis situation the pace will likely be much faster, make sure the pace aligns with the urgency.
Create a Plan of Action
Once you get to this step it is imperative that you create a detailed plan. I like to set it out step by step alongside my targets. At each step include an estimated time, cost and employee or manager who will be in charge at that step.
ACT!
Put the plan into action. If you decided you would spearhead the change plan then ensure that each step and target are met on time and cost. If you decided to assign the project to a separate team, don't neglect, check in and ensure they are on target.
Change in an organization is not an easy process. But, if you follow this framework and create a strong detailed plan, the change has a better chance for success.
Identify Your Change Needs
There are three areas that affect strategy from where you can identify a change need: Management, Organization, or Resources. The way you identify a need for change is to take a look at how each affects your organization's strategy as it compares to the external environment. This will help you to see holes which can be made up with a strategy change. For example, if there is a technological development in the industry your organization's resources and the external environment will no longer match up. Once you identify this imbalance you can change your strategy to ensure they are linked once again. This may be through licensing or buying the new technology or increasing your own R&D to ensure your technology remains competitive.
Identify the Urgency and Organizational Readiness
Once your change has been identified it is crucial to identify the urgency. Continuing with the new technology example, will the new technology in the industry significantly reduce your market share by the end of the next quarter? If it will, the level of urgency is likely crisis. After you have identified the urgency, take a look at your organization. Are they ready to act? Are you ready to act? It is important to know where your company stands to know where it can go.
Establish Action Guidelines
The first thing you will want to do is to identify your priority objectives, things that need to be done right away. If there is new technology in your industry which could seriously affect your market share, the first thing you should do is hold a meeting with the senior executives to ensure that everyone is in the know and options can be drafted. In this meeting (or series of meetings) chose a path of action and develop your steps and targets to deal with the issue. Next you will have to decide how the change will be managed. Will you oversee the change or will you assign a dependent project team? Next, determine the pace of the change. In a crisis situation the pace will likely be much faster, make sure the pace aligns with the urgency.
Create a Plan of Action
Once you get to this step it is imperative that you create a detailed plan. I like to set it out step by step alongside my targets. At each step include an estimated time, cost and employee or manager who will be in charge at that step.
ACT!
Put the plan into action. If you decided you would spearhead the change plan then ensure that each step and target are met on time and cost. If you decided to assign the project to a separate team, don't neglect, check in and ensure they are on target.
Change in an organization is not an easy process. But, if you follow this framework and create a strong detailed plan, the change has a better chance for success.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
HOW TO: Create a Great Vision and Mission in 4 Steps
One of the cornerstones of corporate strategy is the company's vision and mission. The vision of the company is essentially the overarching "I have a dream" ideology. The mission is how the company plans to act on that vision.
Take Southwest Airlines’ mission, "The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit." Now if you take a step back and think to yourself, what do I want in an airline? If Southwest's mission sounds like exactly what you would want in an airline, then it could definitely be possible that Southwest's vision is to be a great, if not the best, airline. See the connection? It is absolutely necessary that your mission be based on your vision, whatever it may be.
Here are four steps to making a great mission statement:
Step 1: What's your vision? Decide where your passions lie and where you want your company to be. No goal is too great; it is a vision, so make it amazing.
Step 2: After you have a good idea of what is your vision, stop, and decide on the factors that will make that vision a reality. For example, if your vision is, "to be the quick-service restaurant of choice," than you will have to think of how you could be the quick-service restaurant of choice. I would think that fast, accurate and great service would be at the top of the list for a quick-service restaurant. The point here is you know your industry, so you probably know what factors can make your vision a reality; jot those factors down.
Step 3: Once you know the factors, formulate your mission statement. It doesn't have to long or metaphoric, just make it to the point incorporating those factors decided upon in Step 2. Continuing with the quick-service example, that mission statement might be, "To offer the best customer service while ensuring accurate and timely orders." A mission statement is a communicative actionable statement, based off your vision.
Step 4: When you have a great compelling mission statement, display it proudly in your workplace. Communicate your vision with your employees and ensure they live the company's mission. If you are starting a company this is much easier, you get to start off with a strong vision and mission. If you are changing the vision and mission of the company (or creating one), you may need to implement a change initiative (stay tuned: developing a change initiative will be blogged next week, March 14, 2011) to get your employees on board.
Bottom line: to create a successful company you need a good foundation. If your company has an overarching goal (vision) with a clear actionable way to get there (mission) you can be sure that success will follow.
Take Southwest Airlines’ mission, "The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit." Now if you take a step back and think to yourself, what do I want in an airline? If Southwest's mission sounds like exactly what you would want in an airline, then it could definitely be possible that Southwest's vision is to be a great, if not the best, airline. See the connection? It is absolutely necessary that your mission be based on your vision, whatever it may be.
Here are four steps to making a great mission statement:
Step 1: What's your vision? Decide where your passions lie and where you want your company to be. No goal is too great; it is a vision, so make it amazing.
Step 2: After you have a good idea of what is your vision, stop, and decide on the factors that will make that vision a reality. For example, if your vision is, "to be the quick-service restaurant of choice," than you will have to think of how you could be the quick-service restaurant of choice. I would think that fast, accurate and great service would be at the top of the list for a quick-service restaurant. The point here is you know your industry, so you probably know what factors can make your vision a reality; jot those factors down.
Step 3: Once you know the factors, formulate your mission statement. It doesn't have to long or metaphoric, just make it to the point incorporating those factors decided upon in Step 2. Continuing with the quick-service example, that mission statement might be, "To offer the best customer service while ensuring accurate and timely orders." A mission statement is a communicative actionable statement, based off your vision.
Step 4: When you have a great compelling mission statement, display it proudly in your workplace. Communicate your vision with your employees and ensure they live the company's mission. If you are starting a company this is much easier, you get to start off with a strong vision and mission. If you are changing the vision and mission of the company (or creating one), you may need to implement a change initiative (stay tuned: developing a change initiative will be blogged next week, March 14, 2011) to get your employees on board.
Bottom line: to create a successful company you need a good foundation. If your company has an overarching goal (vision) with a clear actionable way to get there (mission) you can be sure that success will follow.
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