Strategy – Page 43 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

4 Failure Lessons You Should Learn from Google

April 27, 2011/3 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Innovation, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest blogger is Tim Eyre. He’s a loyal reader of the blog and when he teed up a topic for me to write about, I turned the tables and asked him to write about the topic himself! You can read more about Tim at the end of the post.

Google must be the world’s failure leader.

But how can that be, when Google is widely known as the world’s most successful search engine? How can that be, when Google has become such a powerful corporation that some people worry about the privacy implications of letting Google handle their email, keep their credit card information in an online shopping profile, monitor and forward their newsfeed subscriptions, and keep tabs on all their searches?

Google’s power has become so notorious that The Onion regularly targets the search giant for its parodies. “We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you,” announced CEO Eric Schmidt, teased a recent Onion front page story, “Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we’ve seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we’ve carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust.” Is that the Google I want to crown as the king of failure?

Yes, yes, and yes. You too can (and should) learn to fail like Google.

New Business Idea? What’s Your Problem?

January 3, 2011/3 Comments/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Innovation, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

If you have a new business idea, I’m excited for you. If you ever want to get it off the ground however, be sure you have a problem. A REAL problem. I know that sounds cryptic. Allow me to explain.

I love entrepreneurial ventures. I don’t just run thoughtLEADERS – I’m also a principal at weBuild which is a web and mobile startup accelerator. I’m also the CEO of one of weBuild’s portfolio companies called TiXiT. TiXiT offers discounts for tickets to events like theatre, jazz, concerts, sports, and family shows (and if you’re not a member yet, go join here – it’s free). I’m also a member of the Ohio TechAngel fund where we regularly evaluate new startup investments. Many folks in my network know my passion for launching companies so I regularly get pitched new ideas.

Why all this context setting? Because I want you to understand the lens I look at new ventures through.

When I hear a new pitch, the first question I ask is “what’s the problem?”

You would be surprised how many times the response to that question is a look like a dog looking at a ceiling fan (dazed and confused). If you want to be successful as a new startup, you MUST have a problem. If you cannot articulate what problem you solve for the world, there is a low likelihood you will sell anything. “Pull” selling is exponentially more powerful than “Push” selling. When the world has a problem, they will pull your solution. No problem? You’re pushing your solution on the world.

Allow me to offer some examples then some guidance on how to think about this issue.

Some example problems:

The Best of thoughtLEADERS 2010: The Greatest Posts You’ve Ever Seen

December 6, 2010/3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Career, Communications, Entrepreneur, Guest Blogger, Innovation, Leadership, Sales, Social Media, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

2010 is almost over so as usual it’s time for the year in review list of the BEST posts we’ve published in 2010.

We’re now making this an annual event therefore the award needs a name. I proudly introduce you to The Figgies! A tip of my hat to all my McKinsey buddies who used to call me that. Winning a Figgie is indeed prestigious. Here’s how it goes: this list is comprised of our most viewed, most forwarded, quirkiest, most provocative work as judged by you the readers (with a little of our discretion thrown in). We’ve also included a few hidden gems we think deserve another shot in the spotlight. There’s also a kicker bonus post on the list just for good measure (it’s a “wayback” – and speaking of wayback, check out the photo on the trophy… yes… that’s me ’80’s style baby!).

Enjoy. Share. We’ve loved writing them. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading them. I don’t ask a lot of you folks so here’s my one request for a holiday gift – invite all your coworkers, friends, and family to come check out the blog and become readers. The only way we get better is by raising everyone’s game. I would love if you would invite your friends and colleagues to come read our stuff. I’m not asking a lot here. If you found this blog helpful at all this year, here’s your chance to return the favor for all our hard work. Just email them and tell ’em to come take a look.

Thanks for your incredible support in ’10 and best wishes for ’11! We hope to be a part of your future success! A little foreshadowing for 2011 – I’ve signed a book deal with Jossey-Bass and my book on leadership will be hitting stores next fall. This is a REAL book (not one of those self-published vanity press jobbies). I hope you’ll sock away a few bucks and save up to buy a copy. More to come on that soon.

Enough sentimentality. Here’s the best stuff we’ve written all year:

How You Can Keep the Board Room from Being the Bored Room

November 29, 2010/1 Comment/in Communications, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Board meetings are a total pain. They can also be some of the most powerful get-togethers for your company. The difference between the two is how you approach the meeting itself.

Before you say “I never present to the board” and stop reading, allow me to expand the definition of a board meeting. A board meeting is any meeting where a group of impartial outside observers of your organization get together to discuss your business with you in a candid and long-term focused way. Board meetings can be with your advisory board if you’re an entrepreneur, an executive steering committee if you’re running big projects, or any other assemblage of brain power that is willing to focus on improving your business. Now keep reading.

Most board meetings suck. Bad (or should that be “badly?”). That’s because folks want to update the board on all the great things they’ve been working on. Between that dynamic and the insecure paranoia of not wanting to have any question unanswered for the board, most organizations completely overprepare for the meeting. That overpreparedness becomes totally dysfunctional very quickly.

The good news is you can make board meetings productive, insightful, and enjoyable. You merely have to understand the current unproductive behaviors and shift your thinking on how you want to approach the board and what you want out of them. Here’s how to do that:

The Big Jump: Go From Having Answers to Asking Questions

October 25, 2010/12 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Do you know the difference between a “worker bee” and a senior executive? Have you ever wondered what it takes to move up in the world to those loftier roles? It’s pretty simple. You need to move from a world where you provide all the answers to a world where you ask all the questions.

I know there’s a cheeky clueless executive joke in there somewhere but I’m actually not joking around (today is my 40th birthday and I’ve decided I’m going to be completely serious and professional this decade and if you believe that last part, you’re obviously a new reader to the blog).

As we enter organizations and rise through the ranks, we’re expected (and trained) to have the answers. We, after all, are the front line. We do the work. When someone more senior asks us for information, our job description is to provide it. And provide it we do. We become experts in our field. We know all the answers. We become that “go to” person Scott Eblin describes in this recent post.

And every day we kick butt. We know everything that’s asked of us. Heck, we get to a point where we’ve created everything around us. But one day we wake up wondering why we’re not getting promoted. We can’t figure out why we, the expert of all experts, isn’t rising to the executive ranks. After all, those guys are clueless. All they ever do is ask questions that we have to provide the answers to.

And that my friends is the key to the paradox of advancing to senior management. Questions.

4 Surefire Ways to Destroy Your Brand

October 4, 2010/7 Comments/in Communications, Customer Service, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Brands. Some are worth billions of dollars. We revere them. Coca-Cola. Nike. Apple. thoughtLEADERS (hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?). They seem monolithic and untouchable. The dirty little secret is they’re as fragile as a porcelain doll.

A brand is nothing more than a promise. It sets an expectation with a consumer or customer. They know what to expect when they interact with your brand. And I don’t care how big or small your brand is, it promises something to your customers. The operative key to all of this brand building is that point of interaction. That is where your brand is at its most vulnerable.

For example, if you get a can of Coke that’s filthy and the soda in it is flat, the brand is diminished. You tell 10 friends about it and it’s diminished more. You get an iPad that doesn’t work. Same thing. You run into a rude associate at Best Buy and the brand is tarnished. A brand becomes the summation of all those small touch points with your customers. The risk is you’re likely doing some things every day that are putting your own brand at risk.

From where I sit, I’ve seen four major points of failure that destroy brands:

8 Critical Steps to Getting Your Talent Management Strategy Right

September 29, 2010/4 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Strategy, Training /by Mike Figliuolo

Today’s guest blogger is Heather McCulligh talking about talent management strategy. It’s a great complement to this three-part article we’ve written before on the subject of why HR strategy fails (check them out too). Here’s Heather:

Great companies have a well-articulated strategy that guides their business decisions. But many of them fail to then take that strategy and translate it into a talent management strategy. Yet the successful execution of a strategic talent management plan can determine your company’s ability to succeed.

Let me explain how…

Why is it important?

More and more research is showing the strong link between mature, integrated talent management processes and financial results. The Hackett Group recently found that companies with more mature talent management capabilities have on average18% higher earnings, 54% greater net profit margins, and greater return on equity and assets than their counterparts without mature capabilities.

The Aberdeen Group’s latest research finds that companies who integrate their talent management processes see significantly greater performance gains, and can measure a correlation between their talent management efforts and business operational results. IBM, HCI, IDC and others have shared similar findings.

Truly successful companies are realizing that the only sustainable competitive advantage they have is their people. It’s clear that to achieve your goals, you need to effectively manage your workforce.

Now let’s stop for a minute and look at what I mean by a talent management strategy.

Can’t Diversify Your Business? It’s Because You’re an Addict

September 27, 2010/1 Comment/in Entrepreneur, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I had a great conversation with a friend of mine. He was bemoaning the fact that his company was almost completely dependent upon one huge customer. He saw the inherent risks in that relationship but confessed his organization had a bad habit they couldn’t kick. They had succumbed to the addiction of predictability and comfort.

Is your business overly-reliant on one key customer? Is your organization tied closely to one key client or partner or supplier? If that customer went away, would your world come to a crashing screeching halt? The rule of thumb I’ve always heard is no customer should be more than 25% of your business (and the same holds true for your suppliers or partners).

We always hear about diversification but usually it’s in the context of our stock portfolios. If your 401k became a 200.5k in the past few years, you know what I’m talking about. It’s easy to do the diversification thing in a portfolio – sell a few stocks, buy a few stocks and presto! you’re done. Diversifying your customer base is much harder to do.

If you’ve never thought much about this topic (or even if you have) you need to understand the true risks involved in not diversifying, understand why it’s hard to diversify, and use some practical methods to achieve the diversification goal.

3 Simple Steps for Achieving Global Domination

August 9, 2010/3 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

So you want to take over the world, huh? Not quite sure how to get started, you say? Then I have a treat for you

Building on our last post about how to think about capturing the huge global opportunities that are out there to improve your business, today I’ll offer some practical advice on how to get started.

Going global is intimidating. For some, anything beyond buying toys with a “Made in China” stamp on them can freak them out. But with a focused and measured approach, you too can start down the path of making your organization global.

In the last post, we covered some notions around evaluating opportunities on the revenue side and the cost side of the ledger. To capture them, you have to think about market entry, product/service delivery, and communications. Without those three, your efforts are dead on arrival. Are there other considerations? Sure. These are simply the first three I recommend considering as part of your global conquest plan.

How Your Business Can Achieve Global Domination

August 2, 2010/2 Comments/in Entrepreneur, Innovation, Sales, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m going to take over the world!

It’s really fun to say that. It’s even more fun to take action toward that goal.

Our world has gotten smaller. Way smaller. Globalization is an unstoppable trend. But as they say, the trend is your friend so why not take advantage of it? I don’t care how big or small your business is – there are huge opportunities out there for you beyond the shores of your country (assuming yours has shores).

The real trick is understanding what globalization can do for your business then figuring out how to exploit those opportunities. Today I’ll cover some simple notions around what the global opportunities are and in the next post I’ll more importantly discuss a few key ways to capture them.

Going global is intimidating. It sounds huge. You need a passport and visas (and we know what a joy those processes can be). You need to understand new languages and cultures. And heaven forbid you have to take a coach class 14 hour flight across the ocean (trust me, it’s painful). Okay. So get over it and dive in.

To illustrate today’s points, I’ll use examples from two businesses I’m running: thoughtLEADERS (leadership training) and TiXiT (discounted event tickets). Sure, they’re simple businesses but they’re microcosms that will help get the following points across.

Think about it simply – opportunities exist in terms of revenues and costs. It’s not that hard. As far as how to capture the opportunities, it boils down to market entry, product/service delivery, and communication. So let’s go global! Here we go:

Leadership 102: Leading the Thinking

July 19, 2010/0 Comments/in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

Continuing on our theme of articulating your leadership philosophy on one piece of paper (your leadership maxims), we now need to move on to leading the thinking. This concept is the second major section of my upcoming book One Piece of Paper – go get a copy by CLICKING HERE

Once you’ve taken care of defining how you’ll lead yourself (learn how to do so in this post), you need to create some maxims that get you leaning forward and taking your organization to new places. The status quo is never good enough.

I can’t think of a single leader I’ve ever met whose strategy was “Don’t change a thing! Everything is perfect!”

In fact, the best leaders I’ve worked with continuously challenged the thinking, blew up business models, and constantly questioned how they could get their organization to a better place. This is what leading the thinking is all about. This approach is all about thought leadership (and lucky for you we not only cover the topic on this blog but we also teach a course on thoughtLEADERSHIP as well – click here to learn more about bringing the program into your organization).

Obviously the benefits of leading the thinking are that you’ll see new trends and opportunities (or risks) before your competitors. You’ll shape the market rather than the market shaping you. You’ll uncover those huge new breakthrough opportunities that get your team excited and energized about their work.

To do all these great things, you need to establish some maxims that force you to think about new opportunities and set a vision for where you’re headed. On top of that, I highly suggest you set aside some “think time” every month (at least 1/2 day) to take a step back and evaluate how you’re thinking about the business.

Now let’s dive into making leading the thinking practical and pragmatic.

Want a Powerful Business? Take Your Own Medicine

April 12, 2010/2 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Entrepreneur, Leadership, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

You’ve all been to the doctor at some point. There’s always that moment of truth where he tells you to change your bad habits, eat better, and exercise more. It all makes sense and is sound advice.

But how likely are you to follow his advice if he’s wheezing it out because he weighs 350 lbs. and you keep getting distracted by the piece of Ho Ho hanging off his lower lip? Not so much, right?

As a trainer, coach, and communicator I dispense more than my fair share of advice and guidance. A lot of it even makes sense. Occasionally. But there’s something I find more difficult than just about every other aspect of my job: taking my own advice.

The weird thing is I regularly advise leaders on how to improve their businesses yet I sometimes get lazy about doing the same exact things I tell them to do. Why do I demonstrate this shortcoming? Maybe it’s pure sloth. Maybe I run under the misguided belief that all the things I advise others to do I must naturally do myself in my own business dealings.

Then one of my friends proves me wrong. When you surround yourself with incredibly smart people, they tend to ask some really smart questions. Needless to say I get asked smart questions quite frequently. If you stop and listen to those questions though (either from others or the ones you’d ask yourself if you were dispensing advice to you) you can make your business exponentially more powerful. Here’s how: