Monster Goals

Monster Goals Are Imposing

Simplify each goal into sequential, measurable milestones.

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By John Bernardi

Late Bloomers Are Ready To Do Their Best Work

Are You A Late Blooming Business Professional?

When it comes to business, I've often been a late bloomer.  Today I'm a boomer that's been honed into a talented business professional.  At the top of my game I am discretely driven by what's right, not who's right, which gives me the confidence to challenge my clients.

Are you a baby boomer who has been incorrectly positioned by others as having their best behind them? [Senior tour golfers earn more than when they played on the PGA tour].

There are lots of boomers out there ready to do their best work ever.

By John Bernardi

Business Students Should Study History

Business schools should cull relevant history into snippets that form the basis of a course on strategies and leadership.  This history can be applied in business situations where there's a need to leverage an opportunity or confront a threat.

A great example is the strategy that Teddy Roosevelt used to influence the building of a 50 mile canal that would cross the Colombian isthmus of Panama and unite the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  The 13,000 mile New York to San Francisco journey took months as ships navigated around the treacherous Cape Horn. A canal would save hundreds of miles and man-hours.  Even President Ulysses Grant had sent seven expeditions to study its feasibility.

Roosevelt tried to negotiate with Columbia, but Colombia eventually lost interest. Then, Roosevelt and Panamanian business leaders collaborated on a revolution. The Battle for Panama lasted less than a day as Colombian soldiers were bribed $50 each to lay down their arms and the U.S.S. Nashville cruised off the Panamanian coast in a show of support.  On November 3, 1903, the nation of Panama was born.  The rest is history. This is an example of an indirect approach to achieve a goal.

An indirect strategy might be the best approach in certain opportunity management, market penetration, market development and product development situations.  Holden International teaches about indirect strategy in managing sales opportunities in its book, Power Base Selling.

Business Owners Fit the 80/20 Rule

Pareto's Rule 

Applies To Business Owners

 

 

 20% Have These Characteristics

• Their communication style establishes trust, honesty and dependability
• They follow through on their commitments
• They're not distracted because they behave like CEOs rather than employees
• They don't flinch when an unexpected situation occurs
  
• They have courage to take advantage of defining moments
  
• Positive change trumps the status quo
• They look for opportunities to expand comfort zones - personal and company 
• They build an action culture of great execution
• They build processes that encourage the right actions

Easiest Time To Improve Is When Things Are Going Well

Don't Miss the Opportunity To Raise the Bar During Good Times

Have you noticed when things aren't going so well your peripheral vision shrinks and you don't pay attention to opportunities for improvement?

With this in mind, shouldn't we make every effort to improve when things are going well?  More discretionary funds become available. Higher confidence levels are evident throughout the organization. There tends to be less risk avoidance and more willingness to expand comfort zones. Positive attitudes begin to take over.

Continue to raise the bar and elevate to the next level of something, whether it be customer experience, profitability, marketing process, team participation levels, efficiency ...

The Top 20% Are looking to Raise The Bar At All Times

Even when their economy isn't doing well

It's Not Micromanaging

Do Employees Say You're Micromanaging Them?

Ever had an employee whose inner child sets you on your heels when they say "you're micro managing me"?

Here's a basketball analogy that you can use to differentiate micromanaging from what you're really doing.

The Right Approach to Practice Optimizes Chances to Win

The best coach/manager leadership persona has vision to structure the team and design a style of play that integrates cohesive rhythm on offense with intensive continuity on defense by players who execute as a seamless unit through teamwork and communication.

The coaching staff avoids ambiguity by breaking down each play in order to transform goals into individual responsibilities and specific steps.  Multidimensional, skilled players fit this style of play each season.  They have strong fundamentals [shoot, pass, dribble, create floor balance, move the ball, move without the ball, exploit mismatches, know when to dish or shoot].

Professionals welcome the opportunity to participate in hours of film sessions listening to coaches and team mates candidly criticize their game and identify opportunities to improve their game.  Imagine if they viewed this as micromanaging?

New Paradigm Overexposes Kodak

In the early 1990's who could have imagined that Canon Sure Shots, Blackberries, iPhones and iPads would be looming on the horizon?

Market leaders manage their dynamic product portfolios to keep pace with trends so that new paradigms aren't killers.

Kodak took its eye off the mark.  Now, it will file for Chapter 11 because there remains only small well-defined niches for its best-in-class traditional products.  In fact, in order to raise cash, there's talk about Kodak selling digital imaging patent rights.

Who is being held accountable for all those grandmothers whose shares of Kodak have dropped from $6 to $.75 per share ?  Who was in charge when the paradigm shift began?

Kodak was unwilling to respond to the paradigm shift that wrecked its dynasty.  The same fate sounded the death knell for many product-centric leaders. Polaroid is mostly in the past.  Digital Equipment didn't want to cannibalize its minicomputer business. Tektronix thought its proprietary hi-res graphics technology could never be topped.  Buggy whip manufacturers didn't recognize that they were in the transportation business.

What a great case study for innovators.

Business Development In Its Basic Form

Find Ways To Win Today

While Building For The Future

Allow your business to be the best it can be by answering four basic questions every day:

1. What will my business look like in a couple of years if I continue to run it in its current form?
2. What could I be doing today to improve short term results?
3. What would I like my business to look like in 2 to 3 years?
4. Will short term results subsidize my company's future?

Now, you're ready to define business development's role for your business.

Business And Basketball Are Similar

Business And Basketball Are Similar

We're well into this year's NBA playoffs.  This got me to thinking about the similarities between leading a basketball team and leading a business.

You need a great coach, manager and architect with the vision to structure the team and design a style of play that integrates cohesive rhythm on offense with intensive continuity on defense through players who work as a seamless unit and execute through teamwork and communication.

Ensure understanding by breaking down the play [not the same as micro-managing] and use candor to translate goals into a set of individual responsibilities and a series of specific steps.

You're always recruiting multidimensional, dexterous, skilled players that fit the same style of play each season.  They must have strong fundamentals: shooting, passing, dribbling, instinctively create balance on the floor, move the ball, move without the ball, exploit mismatches, know when to dish and when to take high percentage shots.

Super stars share the spotlight with complementary role players e.g. defensive stopper.  The right approach to practice optimizes the chances to win through timely hoops at the end of the game.

Most Acquisitions Are Optimized For the Short Term

There's Only so Much that you Can Squeeze out of a Sponge

For clients who have grown by acquisition I've noticed a common short term thread.  While adding revenues [maybe only for a while] from the newly acquired customer base, they also do well at reducing redundant overhead costs.  But this initial low hanging fruit won't produce a sustainable boon to the balance sheet, cash flow or income statement.

Many "acquiring companies" minimize long-term results by following financial or operational paths. They do not assimilate these acquisitions into a unified marketing environment by allowing original sales, marketing and customer service processes to continue as if the newly acquired business was still an independent entity.

Is short term thinking the path of least resistance or does the acquiring company lack a strong marketing culture along with proven sales, marketing, support and business development processes?

Subscribers React to Newsletter Themes

It's interesting to see how newsletter themes affect opens and opt out rates for long tenured subscribers.

I continually reinvent my business by adding new services, but for the same target market. Many subscribers who had opened and "clicked through" for earlier themes don't understand how the new concepts apply to them and either don't open the newsletter or opt out.

This analogy evokes the old adage, "we mock what we don't understand".  I hope that's not what they're doing.  Instead, I think it's this world of mass communications that triggers one's first option to quickly delete or opt out if they haven't heard of a new concept.  This places even greater emphasis on the need to find the pace setters and opinion leaders who can influence all the rest.

It's Not Micro-Managing

Subtle Reminders are Appreciated ... and Necessary

I've come to realize that most people do not follow through on "next steps" in the time and fashion that were mutually agreed upon.  I try to smoothly navigate this sensitive terrain through thoughtful reminders as a necessary catalyst to keep things moving.

The goal is for creative reminders to be accepted as "thanks" or "good thought", and not as micro-managing.