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Manage to Meet Your Customers’ Needs
As customers’ needs become more diverse, the managers of the future must adapt to meet their demands. Today’s post is by Jonathan Byrnes, author of CHOOSE YOUR CUSTOMER: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Managing at the right level is the most important element in effective management in the Age of Diverse Markets. This is a huge change. In the prior mass markets era, companies had homogeneous markets, so they needed to plan and coordinate only at the executive level, with the rest of the company’s managers focusing on their respective functional specialties. Today’s markets are rapidly becoming highly fragmented, reflecting diverse customer needs. This requires a much more decentralized set of management structures and processes, which strongly affects managers at all levels of a company’s organization.
Have you ever been through a merger/acquisition process during your career?
Our reader poll today asks: Have you ever been through a merger/acquisition process during your career? Yes, I’ve had my company be acquired by another: 45% Yes, I’ve been at a company that acquired another one: 35% No, I’ve never been involved in one of those situations: 19% Merger challenges. 80% of you have been involved in mergers either as the buyer or the bought. They’re extremely challenging and stressful situations. One of the most challenging aspects of any merger is managing the culture combination. Processes, technology, products, operations, financials… those are all relatively straightforward to sort out. The big leadership challenge is creating one new culture from the two that came together. Failure to do so creates great risk for the organization and can definitely adversely affect the merger’s outcome. As a leader, stay focused on cultural issues. Pay attention to brewing culture conflicts and get in front of them. Define the culture you want to build and find every opportunity you can to reinforce it. Pointing out actions that are or are not consistent with the desired culture helps people understand what you’re building toward. Your team can handle the operating details – they need you focused on combining two cultures into one successful one. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
How to Use Porter’s 5 Forces to Assess Your Market
Identify your organization’s major threats and opportunities by assessing these five aspects of your market. As you begin your strategic planning process, it’s important to assess the market you’re competing in. A classic tool for doing so is Porter’s five forces. Dr. Michael Porter, who’s a professor of strategy, came up with this set of five forces to evaluate all the different dynamics that can affect your organization.
3 Counterintuitive Tips For More Effective Brainstorming
Avoid these three behaviors to improve your next brainstorming session. Today’s post is by Samuel Sanders, author of Your Next Big Idea (CLICK HERE to get your copy). We’ve all heard of brainstorming, but what exactly is it? In a business sense, brainstorming is the process of coming up with creative ideas and solutions to problems using rapid freethinking. Brainstorming is critical in problem solving, creativity, ideation, and innovation. While in business, many imagine brainstorming as a group activity; it can be done alone or in a group. There are many tips and tricks that can help you have more effective brainstorms. However, there are three unique counterintuitive tips that many ignore. Following these tips can take your brainstorms to the next level. The first tip is, “During a brainstorm, do not use cell phones, computers, or tablets.” This is a tough ask for everyone. We take our laptops and phones with us almost everywhere we go. Many of us are addicted to our devices. You may even be wondering, what if I come up with an idea but need to look something up? Don’t. Write down everything that you want to find out more information on in a list during the brainstorm. Then after, look it up. Staring at a device or looking something up will distract your train of thought. It is better to minimize the distractions and get out all of your ideas before bringing devices into the process. The second tip is, “Always add to ideas, don’t edit or compare ideas.” Often when we hear a new idea, our first thought is to analyze whether the idea would work. In brainstorming, that is counterproductive. The goal of brainstorming is to get as many possible ideas out there, not edit and start checking the viability of ideas. […]
Who has had the greatest impact on your leadership development over the years?
Our reader poll today asks: Who has had the greatest impact on your leadership development over the years? A boss I’ve worked for: 64% A peer: 7% A member of my team: 5% A family member: 8% A leadership coach/expert/speaker/author: 12% A business personality (CEO, well-known executive): 4% Bosses by far. The vast majority of you have been most impacted by a boss you’ve worked for in terms of developing your leadership skills. Let’s flip that around – if you’re a manager, what are YOU doing to develop your people? Clearly bosses have a disproportionate impact on team leadership skills development. Are you spending enough time on it? Are you creating development opportunities for team members? Are you investing in their skills through training, resources, and most importantly, giving them your time and attention? A leader’s job is to create the next generation of leaders. Make sure when your team members answer a poll like this in their future that they’re thinking of you and selecting their boss as having had the greatest impact on their leadership development. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!
Learn to Build Goals from the Bottom Up
Learning how to build goals from the bottom up connects individuals to the broader mission. In addition to building your goals from the top-down, a useful exercise is to build goals from the bottom-up. It helps get team buy-in and it can identify new opportunities for upside. For bottom-up goals, start with what the team thinks they can commit to. What they can deliver. Ask them what they can stretch to. Then work from those individual drivers, those individual goals, up to the bigger metrics that matter for the organization. If you have an organization that’s trying to drive sales and you have a team full of sales reps, you may look at the individual bottom-up goals of number of calls that they’re going to make in an hour. Those then roll up to the number of calls that they’re able to connect on in an hour, which rolls up to a broader goal of the number of pitches that they’re making to customers, and a goal above that of how many pitches are being accepted by the customer. That can tie to a bigger goal of the number of contracts sent and pricing being achieved, a bigger goal of number of contracts being closed, and ultimately, end up in the big organizational goal of how much revenue is being generated. Working from the bottom-up ties the individual to the broader mission. In terms of identifying new opportunities, I found this out firsthand. I had a team where I went to all my team members and I asked them for their profit goal for the year. One team came back to me with five times what I would have expected. I would have given them a goal of say, $5 million. And they came back and said, we’re going to get you 25. I was shocked and I asked them, where did you get this? They showed me they had found a huge […]
Mentorship: My Secret Weapon for Overcoming Obstacles & Becoming a Strong Leader
Finding a mentor who has experience in your field can be a transformative step in your career. Today’s post is by Harma Hartouni, author of Getting Back Up: A Story of Resilience, Self-Acceptance and Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy). I was born in the U.S. but raised in Iran from the time I was an infant. As a gay man in an extremely homophobic country like Iran, there was no way for me to thrive while being honest about who I was. When I was 18 years old, a horrific car accident broke both of my legs and left me unable to walk for a year as I recovered. Afterward, I packed up everything and moved to the U.S., determined to create a better life and find success as my authentic self. As a Middle Eastern man who didn’t speak English, I was certainly at a disadvantage when I came to this country. But I found success through diligence, investment in myself, and a strong belief in the value of mentorship.
How effective are the leaders in your organization at coaching their team members?
Our reader poll today asks: How effective are the leaders in your organization at coaching their team members? Extremely — They’re great coaches. 1.6% Very — They do a solid job of coaching. 11.9% Somewhat — Their coaching skills could use some improvement. 36% Not very — They rarely coach and when they do, they’re not effective. 30% Not at all — They have no idea what coaching is. 20.4% Development requires coaching. It’s pretty scary to see 86% of you responding that your leaders need better coaching skills and that 50% are pretty bad at it. A leaders’ job is to build the next generation of leaders. If you can’t coach your people, it’s pretty hard to help them develop their skills. Take a hard look at your own coaching skills and those of the leaders working for you. Do you need to improve those skills? What are you doing about it? When are you going to do it? Hold yourself accountable to improving in this arena. Read a book. Take a course. Find a mentor who is a great coach and ask them to help you build your coaching skills. The sooner you start building your coaching skills, the sooner your people will get the leadership and development they need from you. You owe it to them to improve your abilities in this arena. Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below! – Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC Did you enjoy this post? If so, I highly encourage you to take about 30 seconds to become a regular subscriber to this blog. It’s free, fun, practical, and only a few emails a week (I promise!). SIGN UP HERE to get the thoughtLEADERS blog conveniently delivered right to your inbox!