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I always find it useful to work with my clients to examine the nature and needs of all the stakeholders in their business. That discussion starts off with customers, partners, supplier, and investors. But there are more!
Sometimes leaders forget that their employees are stakeholders. They care if the company succeeds, because it’s often their primary livelihood and source of income.
But I often find that people forget about one of the most crucial stakeholders in any business: Yourself.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve been pondering lately how I can possibly make a difference when we have such huge, intractable problems. I’m just one person with limited resources.
It feels hopeless.
But the truth is that big changes are made in small increments. Even though it may feel ineffective at times.
Read the rest of this entry »I recently got a new camera. Yeah, a real camera that takes pictures and videos and stuff – not a phone.
And I confess that I didn’t take the photo here – I don’t yet have the talent to use the camera properly. That’ll come.
But my point today is what an absolute delight it is! It’s solid, capable, and seems to have prepared for my every whim.
Read the rest of this entry »I’m involved with several organizations for which this is the beginning of the new year. Not on the traditional calendar, but in the way we think and plan and organize.
January 1st is just an arbitrary date, right?
So now might be a good time – as good as any – to make some decisions.
I see the world as an abundant place. In a real sense, we’ve never had more possibilities open to us.
Even though it can feel like there are lots of restrictions in our lives right now, that’s only relevant to certain dimensions. You’re still free to go out there and reinvent your products, form new relationships, even rethink the norms of your industry.
And that’s a great mindset for starting out with a blank slate, as I discussed last week.
Read the rest of this entry »This is an insanely busy time for some of you, while others are taking the chance to settle back a bit and prepare for next year’s challenges.
But wherever you’re at, it’s always good to maintain perspective. That’s what leaders do, right?
Read the rest of this entry »Last week I talked about the depressing race to the bottom. That’s a strategy of focusing on reducing prices over all other considerations.
When several companies do this at the same time, it destroys profit for everyone and can even kill an industry. We see this all the time.
Fortunately, there’s a different strategy you can embrace. It’s not any easier, but it sure can be more rewarding.
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve heard several reports recently which talk about companies doing everything they can to drive profit. And of course the quickest variables to fiddle with are cutting quality and cutting employees.
Cut expenses, then you can reduce prices, so you’ll gain market share and win more profit. Here’s the problem with that logic. In a competitive market with multiple companies doing the same strategy, you don’t gain market share (or profit) at all when you reduce prices. Not unless you can do that faster than the competition for some reason – but that destroys your profit.
Unless you have a magic wand, of course. Most people out here in the real world don’t have one. You just have a bunch of companies all racing to the bottom, where NOBODY is eking out any kind of profit.
Fortunately, that’s not the only way to play the game.
Read the rest of this entry »What you measure gets attention. What gets attention gets worked on. And what gets worked on is improved.
This is such a basic train of thought, yet how often do we actually lead this way?
Let’s say that the key to your particular business success is developing personal, nurturing relationships with your customers. Yet when you have meetings and talk about progress, you’re showing revenue, expenses, on-time delivery and defects. Where did customer relationships even get mentioned?
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WE FOCUS AN AWFUL LOT on product features. We’re faster, more powerful, more fully featured than the competition.
Honestly, a lot of customers are getting burned out on that.
They’re recognizing that “good enough” is plenty sufficient for most things in life. There are a few things that each person deeply cares about, but other things … it’s OK to not have the best.
The Values-Based Business 