A generation ago, people used to often sit around a table to eat, discuss, debate and solve problems. Today, we may sit together in the same room and people text each other. Is dialogue dead or just different today? What valuable role can disruptive dialogue play in growing your business? ….
The pressure is on. You have to turn it around to not only survive, but thrive. You cannot change the game by continuing to do what no longer works. So what do you do? How can you reinvent yourself? Where do you begin? How do you create business solutions that are sustainable? Change the game by changing your thinking.
Have you ever prepared a powerful presentation full of energy and your best sales points, only to be interrupted one minute into the presentation by an impatient executive who looks at his cell phone and asks, “So what’s the bottom line?” Presenting to an executive team has the potential to open tremendous doors of opportunity. However, in order to pass the glance test, keep their attention and reduce interruptions, senior executives have shared with us some things they wish you knew for a successful dialogue.
Advice is plentiful, but wisdom is hard to extract. Here are 15 bits of wisdom shared by successful business executives from a variety of industries
In working with leaders, we have discovered that many organizations have been frustrated that they cannot solve their problems by just handing leaders a new directive, a new book, or sending them to a new one-day management program at the Hilton. The truth is that each organization is uniquely complex, therefore no one has a “Cure-All” or special sauce that will solve all your problems. Even so, here are some tips from a recent issue of Fast Company magazine entitled “How to Lead in a Time of Chaos” by Roberta Mauson on how great leadership is created and a special sauce ingredient from Richard Branson, founder and chairman of Virgin Group of more than 400 companies and the fourth richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to Forbes 2011 list of billionaires.
In my last blog, I related a story about a great breakthrough win for a firm in a new market. (See WOA blog: Positioning to Succeed – A True Story.) Today I want to tell you that it didn’t just happen by itself. In fact the pursuit was over an extended period of time as implied by the tale of how our winner gained credibility and positioning to overcome considerable obstacles to success. Our hero and his teammates needed a plan, and they needed to execute the plan in a timely manner. An effective execution plan has several critical characteristics…
When it comes to executing your plan, have you ever felt like you are trying to drive forward by watching your rear view mirror? We know you want to see progress, but are your time and energy being devoured in the whirlwind of urgent activities to maintain day to day operations that you run yourself ragged trying to measure everything and wonder if you are even moving forward? If most of your numbers are lag measures (after the fact), it does not mean that you are a poor leader, it means that the game has changed and you need help executing a winning strategy. In these changing times, you may relate to Mickey Mantle when he said, “It’s amazing how much you don’t know about a game…you’ve played all your life.” At a time when companies and organizations are discovering that they must do more with less, we have found important lessons for the world of business in the book/movie Moneyball.
Winning projects these days has changed. Here’s a true story of what it takes to position yourself to win projects today…
One challenge that all our of our clients encounter in different ways at different times is realizing an opportunity and not knowing how to effectively get “in the room” and access though executive business and political drivers. That grasp of those issues get us” in the room” with the top decision makers who have the power to write the checks. We interviewed Anthony Polusny, a principal at Meyer Borgman Johnson who has been working with Wayne O’Neill & Associates and recently experienced some breakthrough transformations that have burst open doors of opportunity and helped them change their game in ways that build sustainable growth.
Every organization tries to be as smart as possible in terms of strategy, marketing, finance and technology. You want to create different value propositions and distinguish yourself from your competitors. Ultimately, you want to draw a parallel to the business differentiators and how your organization can use them to gain the competitive advantage. The challenge today is that it is hard to be smarter than the next organization. Even if you establish an advantage in strategy, marketing, finance or technology, competitors can duplicate it quickly. Information and ideas spread so quickly today that you need more to maintain a competitive advantage.
According to successful businessman, leading consultant, and best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, in his newest book, The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, many have knowledge and understanding of strategy, marketing, finance and technology, but not enough health within the organization to use that knowledge to gain a competitive advantage….
