Year: 2010

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Find and Feed The Feeling

Organised business activities concept

Business plans tend to be mostly head, and mostly left brain at that. They describe a business idea for making and selling stuff, and good ones present strong reasons and compelling data. That’s important, and trumps so many plans that offer little more than grandiose assertions and generic arguments.

But the heart of any business plan – and the heart of any business – can only be found in the hearts of its customers. And by heart I mean the kernel feeling this business will satisfy. What core need or desire or emotion will your products or services satisfy among your customers? What itch will it scratch, what nagging problem will it solve, what deep satisfaction will it give?

At our core, we humans are driven far more by our emotions than by our analysis, however much we may justify our decisions with arguments and data. And that applies to what we buy as well.

So as you plan your business, and do your research to understand your customers, drill down to what will truly drive them to desire your product or service. Find that core feeling, and organize your business around feeding it.

If you need help with this, think Steve Jobs. Somehow Apple has been able to figure out what millions of us really want, without us knowing it beforehand. And once that product comes out, be it the iPad or the iPhone or the iPad, millions find they cannot live without it. Research helps, but it never gets you all the way.

You don’t have to be Steve Jobs to do this. Just find the feeling and feed it. That’s the core of your business plan.

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For more resources, see our Library topic Business Planning.

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Use Grand Visions and Strategic Visions for Change

Business strategy concept with chess pieces

It’s common in change-management projects to have a vision for change. It’s very useful to have clients consider both a grand vision and a strategic vision. We do this in our consultant training services, and the consultants usually greatly appreciate that approach. Grand visions and strategic visions can be used in strategic planning, as well.

A grand vision is a very broad and long-range depiction of what the organization (and preferably its stakeholders) will be like, as a result of the project, for example, “We’re the most respected organization in our industry.”

A strategic vision is depiction of what the organization will be like soon after having finished the project for change, for example, “Our business units are closely aligned and our operations are more efficient, resulting in a 20% decrease in operating costs.”

Too often, only grand visions are used in projects for change and in strategic planning. While they initially are great for motivating people, they often don’t give clear focus and direction for people undertaking those activities. A strategic vision can provide that clear focus and direction, especially at a time when people seem increasingly cynical about projects for change and strategic planning.

In your next projects and plans, consider using grand visions and strategic visions.

What do you think?

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For more resources, see the Library topics Consulting and Organizational Development.

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.

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RipOff Report Editor Interviewed in Latest Issue of Crisis Manager

Two men shaking hands after an interview

[From the latest issue of my ezine, Crisis Manager]

Not everyone knows who ED Magedson is, but there aren’t too many consumer-focused businesses that haven’t heard of the RipOff Report (ROR), the consumer complaint site founded and directed by Magedson.

The common belief is that shortly after a complaint about any company appears on the site, it can be found prominently ranked on a Google search for that company’s name. No one, of course, wants complaints showing up on page 1 of a Google search.

There are a number of common beliefs about ROR amongst PR practitioners (self included), and I wanted to hear the other side of the story. So I asked some very candid questions of Magedson and he provided some very cogent replies. I don’t always agree with him, but I can’t fault his willingness to openly discuss sensitive topics.

You can read the lengthy interview here.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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Defining Performance

A-group-of-artists-performing-for-an-audience-on-a-stage

Imagine that you have just returned from attending a concert or play. When asked if your enjoyed the event, you reply “It was good.” What do you really mean by this statement? Do you want it understood that the musicians, actors, and support staff were talented or that the basic sheet music or script was entertaining? Or is it that the musicians or actors worked together with the proper leadership from the conductor or the director to produce something that you thought was valuable (and that is why you were willing to spend your hard-earned money on expensive tickets)?

Performance is about factors such as culture, mission, work-flow, goals, environment, knowledge, and skills all working together to produce something that is valuable to the consumer. So performance, regardless of the organization that produces the performance (be it a baseball team, software company, girl scout troop, or law firm), is about outputs or results. There are 3 levels of performance

1. Organization

2. Process

3. Individual

When the sheet music or the script has potential, but the musicians or actors just are not talented, the performance fails. Perhaps the musicians or actors are talented individuals, but they just are not working well together. The performance just was not “good.” Performance, therefore, needs to occur on many levels. Performance needs to occur on three levels:

  1. The performer
  2. The process
  3. The organization

Optimal performance is obtained when all three levels work in harmony. The three levels of performance above presents a visual rendition of this process. A breakdown at any one of the levels will prevent optimal performance, thereby requiring some type of planned action to improve performance.

The organizational level establishes the necessary circumstances for the other levels of performance. When performance is not optimal, examine first the organization’s culture, policies, mission, goals, and operating strategies. These factors delineate the boundaries by which we define processes and jobs.

The process level is where the actual work gets accomplished. When performance is not optimal, examine factors such as workflow, job design, required inputs and outputs, and the performance management procedures to see if these processes actually work and support the organizational goals.

The individual performers within the organization affect the processes. When performance is not optimal, determine if the individual performance goals, knowledge and skill, work environment, availability or support tools, coaching, and feedback support the processes.

Seldom is it true that only one set of factors (organization, process, or performance) are adversely affecting performance. When trying to identify why the performance problem exists, it is critical, therefore, to examine factors at all three levels of performance.

As always happy training and comments, concerns and guests are always welcome.

Leigh

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

– Looking for an expert in training and development or human performance technology?
– Contact me: Leigh Dudley – Linkedin – 248-349-2881
– Read my blog: Training and Development

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Developing Leadership Capacity? Ask for Their Best!

Developing Leadership Capacity - Ask for Their Best!

My leadership development journey began in 1961, when I popped into the world as the first CEO of the Donna and Jim Fabris Family. (I’ll use the organization’s acronym, DAJFF.)

Jim and Donna founded DAJFF less than a year earlier. They were 23 years old. Jim says he’d been planning DAJFF since he was about 12. Donna had needed some convincing. At any rate, they named themselves President and Vice President of the Board, and have held those positions ever since.

Family as organization/Oldest daughter as CEO

I took the job of CEO because I liked DAJFF’s vision statement (which was something like: “Loving each other always, though we don’t talk about it much”). I could see that the Board knew how to work hard. I’ll also admit that, early in my career, I needed the security they offered. Little did I know.

Managing the chaos

I learned management skills on the fly (alongside walking and talking). I labored in vain to teach Donna and Jim the basics of organizational development and collaboration: I urged them to slow down. Do some strategic planning. Balance reflection and action. They wouldn’t listen.

The Board refused to think about anything but Growth.

By 1970 we’d mushroomed to a staff of 6. Yes, we were making an impact. But (from my perspective) the budget was out of control. Why hadn’t I chosen to work in a for-profit family!!

Donna and Jim had all but insisted on hiring: John, Director of Communications (1963), Jim, Director of Outrageous Ideas (1964), Jerry, Integration Manager (1967), and, in our final and most ambitious hire, twin Operations and Technology Managers, Andy and Fred (1970).

We’d had a great first decade, true. But in subsequent years, vision usually out-paced capacity. As CEO, I struggled to hold all the pieces together.

Sixteen years into the job, I was burned-out. Between the Board’s inadequacies, staff issues, and the size of my own job description, I knew it was time to move on to bigger and better things.

Debriefing the metaphor

I landed on this “big family as organization/oldest daughter as CEO” metaphor in the first nonprofit management course I ever took, in the mid-1990s. Back then, my role in the metaphor was (brilliant) executive mediating between an ineffectual board and a staff of 5 cantankerous employees.

I’ll be honest with you. In management class, I was looking at my childhood through the lens of what my parents didn’t do.

It’s Leadership Development, Stupid!

Today, I’m thinking about who I am, who my brothers have become over the last 40+ years, and what my parents did every single day when we were growing up. They Asked For Our Best.

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Why Does Coaching Work?

A coach standing beside a projector screen

“We never understand a thing so well,and make it our own,
as when we have discovered it for ourselves.”
~ Rene Descartes

  • Coaching works because the coach guides the client to come up with their own solutions versus telling them what to do.
  • The coach helps the client learn more about themselves.
  • Through the coaching interaction, the coach guides the client to focus and take action.
  • As the “success partner” the coach provides accountability.

Why does coaching work for you?

For more resources, see the Library topic Personal and Professional Coaching.

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Thought Leaders Then and Now – Raymond Rubicam – Marketing Hall of Fame

The Marketing Hall of Fame gives us deliciously interesting insight to Thought Leaders who shaped our Marketing and Advertising industries. Do their core philosophies transfer to Web 2.0 marketing and social media marketing?

In the case of Raymond Rubicam, Founder of Young & Rubicam, YES!

He forever changed the ad world with his beliefs and practices:

  • HE NURTURED THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF THE COPYRIGHTER – a basic tenet of Web 2.0 marketing. The web is a glorious instant publisher for all creatives!
  • HE KNEW THE CONSUMER – another foundation of Web 2.0 marketing and social media marketing. The consumers’ needs and wants are finally being heard!

“Marketing” Creativity – The Cornerstone of Success

Raymond Rubicam and John Orr Young founded Young & Rubicam with $5,000 and the belief that an advertisement should “mirror the reader.” While Raymond Rubicam’s emphasis on creativity was innovative in itself, his philosophy and copywriting approach revolutionized the industry.

He believed that in effective marketing, knowledge and understanding of the customer was a critical component of effective advertising.

David Ogilvy credited Rubicam with assembling “the best team of copywriters and art directors in the history of advertising,” whose advertisements “were read by more people than any other agency’s.”

The agency quickly became the world’s third largest, representing many of America’s leading companies, such as Gulf Oil, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Fortune, Life and others. They EARNED these accounts through their creativity and because they knew their consumers.

Pioneers in Consumer Research

Rubicam constantly stressed the necessity for ideas founded on facts. His idea was to “know more than your competitors do about the market, and put that knowledge into the hands of writers and artists with imagination and broad human sympathies.” Rubicam set out to put his beliefs into practice.

Rubicam hired Dr. George H. Gallup, then a Northwestern University professor, to lead the agency’s research department in 1932 and pioneered in new methods of research on people’s preferences, prejudices, their reading and radio listening practices.

– Marketing Hall of Fame

Click on the following link for more Insights into Rubicam.

Social Media Marketing’s Core Principles include:

  • Know your target audience
  • Listen. And based on what you learn about them, engage in meaningful two-way conversation

Rubicam couldn’t be more right-on today. For more basic social media marketing principles, see this eye-opening PowerPoint by iBrand Masters.

Which marketing powerhouse Thought Leaders still influence us today?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business coach, business planning consultant and social media marketing consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media marketing consulting firm, Lisa Chapman assists clients in establishing and enhancing their online brand, attracting their target market, engaging in meaningful social media conversations, and converting online traffic into revenues. Email Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

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Whose Capacity Should We Be Building Anyway?

Woman in checkered shirt teaching colleague using a macbook

In another sterling example of checking brains at the nonprofit boardroom door, I recently learned of a charity that is financially on the ropes.

Poor decisionmaking, weak leadership, the struggling economy, and ho-hum programming have this cultural entity (with a multi-million facility) on the verge of collapse.

No one is currently at the helm, and the board is hunting for a new chief executive. After a bumpy search, the choice is down to one of two candidates.

Candidate A has fundraising experience, but has never managed people, never served as the senior executive of any organization, and has never worked with an agency within the cultural sector. But the person is bright, likeable and local.

Candidate B is a seasoned E.D. with a track record of performing turnarounds at charities with a similar mission. This person, however, would be relocating from half-way across the country, and has an aggressive personality tinged with a helping of arrogance.

The search committee sums up their choice this way: Candidate A has a lot of potential and, we believe, could grow into the job. Candidate B could definitely do the job.

Slam dunk choice, no? After all, the charity is at the verge of shutdown.

But since Candidate B is not as “nice” as Candidate A, this group is seriously considering banking on “building the capacity” of Candidate A as a chief executive.

Am I missing something here? If this were a multi-million dollar company with stockholders, would this board even CONSIDER making the same choice?

Sometimes, real capacity-building is nothing more than engaging the full capacity of our brains … the ones we checked at the boardroom door.

Farewell, and fare well till next week …

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For more resources, see our Library topic Nonprofit Capacity Building.

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“The Annual Fund Is Obsolete”

persons-in-a-fundraising-event

After thirty years in the non-profit sector, I often find myself questioning, not what we do, but how we label what we do — and how those labels often limit us. The best example of that concept, I believe, is the label “Annual Fund.”

It seems as if, for as long as there have been formal development programs, there have been “Annual Funds.” Each year, goals are set, development staff gears up for another year of activity, constituents get letters and/or phone calls asking for a gift, development staff worries about making/exceeding their goals and they look forward to the end of the fiscal year, when they can put it all to bed and take a deep breath….

While going through this process, however, we are sending the wrong message, not only to our constituents, but also to ourselves. The message is that we should only ask for one gift per donor per year, and that the donor should only give once each year !

Somehow that seems contrary to what fundraising is all about.

By focusing on the (single) annual gift, we and our constituents lose sight of why the giving is important — what and who it supports. People become focused on the process, not on the reason for the process.

Let’s name the process (of raising money on a fiscal year basis) in honor of a founding member of our organization, after the organization itself, or what the funds support, but no more “Annual Fund.”

Let’s not allow what we call an activity to limit what we can accomplish via that activity. And let’s not stifle the creativity that takes us beyond mere process.

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Have a question about starting or expanding your fundraising? Email me at AskDCA@Major-Capital-Giving.com. With over 30 years of counselling in major gifts, capital campaigns, bequest programs and the planning studies to precede these three, we’ll work to answer your question.

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The Value of Spirituality in the Workplace

Woman doing yoga on a rock

Research shows the impact spirit in the workplace can have for individuals and organizations. Here are five key outcomes that everyone can benefit from:

  1. Boosts morale. Engaging in practices that support spirit in the workplace can uplift the spirits of everyone involved.
  2. Influences satisfaction. Since spirit in the workplace encourages each individual to bring their whole self to both work and home, it increases the satisfaction level in both areas.
  3. Strengthens commitment. Being aligned with an organization that fosters the essence of who you are enables you to feel and display a tremendous sense of loyalty.
  4. Increases productivity. When you feel a greater sense of connection to your work, you are more motivated to produce good work. Which in turn increases the overall productivity of an organization.
  5. Improves the bottom line. According to a nation-wide study on spirituality in the workplace, organizations which integrate another bottom-line into its practices – like spirituality – actually increase the financial bottom-line. These organizations believe that spirituality could ultimately be the greatest competitive advantage.

For example, Southwest Airlines is often described in terms that would identify it as a spirit-driven organization. This was the only airline to be profitable after the September 11th tragedy that had an incredible financial impact on the airline industry and continues to remain profitable. They have a triple bottom line – People, Performance & Planet. “It takes a lot of dedication, perseverance, and hard work to do the right thing for our Customers, Employees, and Planet. We began operations in 1971 with a revolutionary idea that everyone should be able to afford to fly instead of drive and to enjoy the Safety, comfort, and convenience of air travel. For the past 38 years, we have devoted ourselves to meeting that goal. ”

Since 1987, when the Department of Transportation began tracking Customer Satisfaction statistics, Southwest has consistently led the entire airline industry with the lowest ratio of complaints per passengers boarded. Many airlines have tried to copy Southwest’s business model, and the Culture of Southwest is admired and emulated by corporations and organizations in all walks of life.

According to their Southwest Cares Report: Doing the Right Thing, “To better understand why we at Southwest try to do the right thing, it is important to understand how we do business and how we integrate our Core Values into everything we do. It is the Southwest Culture that sets us apart.

The 35,000+ Employees of Southwest Airlines are the heart and soul of our Company. Doing the right thing for these Employees includes providing them with a stable work environment with equal opportunity for learning and personal growth. As we “Live the Southwest Way,” our Employees are recognized through several Employee recognition programs for the hard work and caring Spirit they show to each other and our Customers. Not only do we work hard with what we call a Warrior Spirit, we work smart.” Part of living the Southwest way is also by having a servant’s heart and a fun LUVing attitude.

How have you seen the value of spirituality in the workplace play out for you individually or in your organization?

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For more resources, see our Library topic Spirituality in the Workplace.

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