Thinking. About Business.
Ten Ideas To Cleanse
The Managerial Mind
When the trees grow thick, it’s good for an executive to
remember what the forest is about.
By Stan Telson
January, the month for deliberation, is done and the new year is taking shape, along with its choices.
Andrew Jackson, said, “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go
in. One man with courage makes a majority.” With respect to domestic and world challenges, February is
the last best chance to affect results for the entire year. Which makes this the moment to consider “bigpicture” ideas. Here are ten, which my clients find capable of enriching strategies and tactics. More
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importantly, each one stands alone as an exercise to let the manager—to paraphrase Apple Computer—
think different.
1.
Sell or wither away like a bad dream
You’re either responsible for selling, or you don’t understand you are responsible for selling.
Everyone sells directly, by control, by influence, or maybe just passively. If you’re lucky enough to
be in sales, or accountable for sales, you live it already.
Some people, some organizations forget that great goods and services don’t just sell themselves.
What, in depth, are your sales channels? How are they working out? What growth could make
sense? If you and your team don’t have a “sales” role … think again. What is the value you and
your span of control bring to the table? How do you sell that value to support the growth and the
impact you could have?
2.
Create a supportive environment to get sales, or just take those marbles home
Short but not really adequate version: Offer valuable goods (ok, products) and services. Create
awareness and desire. Price them fairly. Deliver as promised. Have a cost model that leads to
profitability. Invest in growth. Do this over and over while getting a little better each time.
Selling is not marketing. Marketing is not selling. Once you get the difference, it’s really clear.
Before you get it, you just don’t know that you just … don’t … know. Since a picture’s worth at
least a thousand words, and since we can’t just drop a picture right here, let’s use a thousand
words on this. Just kidding, it can’t be done so easily.
Thriving organizations drive what and how they market/deliver, for maximum impact. They have
a strategy for growth and pay attention to the critical.
3.
Go fast, or melt like a snowball in a bonfire
Jennings and Haughton wrote the book “It’s Not the Big that Eat the Small... It’s the Fast that Eat
the Slow.” In example after example, if you’re not in the game timely, it’s pretty hard to buy your
way in later. How many large companies do you know that just don’t exist any more, except
perhaps as a brand name licensed to a more nimble company?
I have clients that are depending on velocity, on flow, to drive results.
4.
Plan enough but don’t blow it, don’t overindulge
When I was at Johnson and Johnson more than 50 of us senior types spent a whole week “offsite”
(nice place!) doing some “planning” that really wasn’t very useful.
Instead, you should lay planning tracks for the train “just in time.” Be sure you have a long-term
direction, but don’t take it too seriously. Question anything that looks like a “comprehensive” or
“strategic” plan unless you’re confident it makes sense for your situation. If you’ve never done
planning at all, it’s time to do some. If you’ve done planning, you may have done too much, too
long ago. Get just right.
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5.
Link and align all over the place … or do your own thing until you’re gasping for air
Linkage and alignment are cousins in organizations bigger than a few. Is everyone working
toward the same goals? How do you know? What do you do to influence? Align your strategies,
processes, and people toward common goals. Create linkages between people, between
organizations and among goals.
Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the
one most responsive to change.” Get the results you deserve through the efforts of your whole
organization; use proven practices.
6.
Get balance because the unbalanced wobble and topple
Gotta do all the right things, and not too many of the wrong things. Balance means getting to the
goal together. What does balance mean for you, for your organization? How will you prevent
toppling?
Ensure time expended and money spent supporting balanced goals to get intentional results and
measured productivity. Pay attention to critical success factors.
7.
Set clear goals or just go in circles
How will you know when you are done? Although they won’t always, goals should meet the
SMARTY criteria … Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistically high, Time-bounded, and
Yours.
Once set you’ve got to follow-through by reviewing, probing, measuring, and acting.
8.
Delegate, please … prepare for growth
A little secret from some of your staff: They’d really like you to stop micro-managing and even
meddling in areas they’re perfectly capable in. Another secret: People rise to the expectations you
set for them. If you’re ever to achieve the lofty goal of guiding rather than doing, you’ve got to
master delegation.
There are several delegation “levels” and you have to actively decide which level is appropriate
for each situation. Some of the levels go like “I will tell you what to do” (which is not delegation at
all) or “I want you to investigate and bring me a recommendation.” Levels go all the way out to “I
want you to do this and I don’t want to hear about it again, unless something goes wrong.” Can
you visualize the other levels, the degrees, of delegation?
Best practice also includes the idea of establishing ways to review progress, and checkpoints to
manage risk.
9.
Systems are our friends, really
I have a client that has classically avoided using systems. Over time, we are getting better at using
information in productive ways, clarifying processes, and measuring. It’s tough, but it’s a useful
experience. Compare two situations I know. One has 4 administrative staff supporting a double-
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digit million dollar revenue stream. The other has the same staff, but less than a third of that
revenue. All other equal, which company is more profitable?
10. Assess or just keep the lights off
How will you know when it’s going as well as you want it to go? How will you find strengths to
share, and opportunities for improvement? The badly-named Baldrige National Quality Award
really isn’t about “quality” as you and I know it. The dominant factor is results. And the Baldrige
criteria form an outstanding framework within which to have assessment, change, and growth
discussions.
Don’t do it because Baldrige-winning companies, as a group, outperform their peers. Do it because
decisions made with information, balanced with gut, are better decisions.
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s
being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t. It’s knowing where to
go to find out what you need to know; and it’s knowing how to use the information you get,” said
William Feather, an author.
Be courageous. What one action should you take now to pump up results in 2004? How’s your education
… do you know what you know, and what you don’t? What should you do now?
Stan Telson ([email protected]) specializes in Assessment and Alignment for Results as President of QSPP Group,
Quality, Strategy, Process, People.
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