The authors of “Repeatability: Build Enduring Business for a World of Constant Change”, examine how the nature of strategy in business itself is fundamentally changing.  The topic of dealing with a world in constant change immediately grabbed my attention and the core finding that “simplicity, focus, and mastering the art of continuous change nearly always trumps strategies of radical change or constant reinvention” spoke directly to what I’ve been learning through my own business experiences.

In agile2 (www.agile2.biz) we frame the “Great Repeatable Model” of as “Repeatable Growth” as part of the business Expansion Platform we use to achieve sustainable growth by adhering to these 3 principles:

1. Differentiation.  Position your current products and services to optimize business development.
2. Promote Core Values.  Identify and use your strengths and core values to align sales, marketing, and the entire organization.
3. Continual Learning.  Build processes to learn from consumers, competitors, and employees.

It is the “Continual Learning” principle that I will explore from the content of gamifying the enterprise platform to collect behavioral across a company’s digital ecosystem in my next post.

Here’s a brief intro to the book from the HBR website with a link to the podcast.

Is radical reinvention the key to winning in today’s fast-paced world? Not judging by the results of some of the world’s best-performing companies. In “Repeatability,” Chris Zook and James Allen–leaders of Bain & Company’s influential Strategy practice–warn that complexity is a silent killer of profitable growth. Successful companies endure by maintaining simplicity at their core. They don’t stray from, or regularly discard, their business model in pursuit of radical renovation. Instead, they build a “repeatable business model” that produces continuous improvement and allows them to rapidly adapt to change without succumbing to complexity. Based on a multi-year study of more than two hundred companies, the book stresses the value of repeatability in business, showing how the “big idea” today is really made up of a series of successful smaller ideas driven by a simple and repeatable business model. Zook and Allen show how some of the world’s best-known firms combine a core differentiation model with speed, adaptability, and simplicity to land them at the top for long periods of time. These firms include: Apple, Danaher, DaVita, IKEA, Nike, Olam, Tetra Pak, Vanguard, and others. CEOs, senior executives, managers, and investors all need to read this book. It’s the new blueprint for reaching the top–and staying there.

Podcast link: http://blogs.hbr.org/ideacast/2012/03/good-strategys-non-negotiables.html

One of my daily activities is listening to podcasts while I’m having breakfast and when I exercise.  I discover lots of interesting ideas through this routine; however, I often forget a valuable source because I don’t write it down when I hear it.  This is the case with the Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/.  I heard Mr. Khan’s story over a year ago, but never visited the Academy website.  Fortunately, I was reintroduced to this amazing resource during a conversation with Keith Smith, the CEO and Founder of Big Door http://www.bigdoor.com/, a leader in Gamification.  I met with Keith at his office to discuss Big Door’s market position in the Gamification space, when I mentioned my interest in gamifying corporate training portals and my interest in continual learning.  Keith told me about his experience with the Khan Academy, which immediately reminded me of the podcast I heard in 2010.

I encourage you to have some fun learning through the Khan Academy and start thinking about how a similar learning portal would benefit your industry, your company, and your career.

For anyone that’s been following my frequent posts on LinkedIn and Twitter (@tzbaren), you know that I am very interested in the potential of gamifying most any form of training and education, which I’ll be writing more about.  However, today I’d like to introduce an online tool that I think has training value.  It’s offered by traintool (http://www.traintool.com/), headquartered in the Netherlands.

TrainTool.com enables online “soft skills” training.  I was given a little tour of the system by Peter van der Reijden, Founder and CTO and given a link to their demo.  I found the demo ‘session’ both challenging and fun.  The first part of the training I experienced in the demo is brilliant in its simplicity.

To start, I logged into the demo a it automatically set up my video camera to record me for the training session.  Once into the demo I interacted in a real sales simulation with another (pre-recorded) person.  My roll-playing partner a current customer presenting me with the challenge to differentiate myself from some of his other vendors, my competitors, who also want a bigger share of his business.  Since I didn’t know what to expect, my first recorded response was quite frankly, terrible.  Delete!

After gathering myself I did a little better on the second shot.  Then I decided to write down a few bullet points for my next session.  The cool thing is not only did my response improve, but the way I responded, facial and hand expressions also improved.

Peter told me that the self-training component is just one part of a very rich training program that includes personal coaching and more.  Since that brief encounter I’ve began to think of the potential of this training platform as it is, but imagined incorporating it with game mechanics.

The partners’ impetus for the venture was recognition of the shift in employment trends and work culture in the U.S. and the growing likelihood that, by choice or not, a growing number of people will find themselves working outside of the traditional, full-time template, where going to work involved commuting to and sitting in a centralized corporate office and suffering through endless cupcake parties for unknown or unloved coworkers.  Read more About Grind.

How to Make People Passionate About Their Work
02:29 PM Thursday July 16, 2009

By John Baldoni

I know two CEOs: one in publishing is a friend; the other in manufacturing is an email correspondent. There is a common bond between the two; both are in their sixties and both act as if they are closer to twenty-two. Their sense of vitality springs from their passion for what they do.

Each feels a sense of pride in the businesses he leads; more importantly, each is pushing his respective organization to new heights with a vigor found typically in much younger men. Their can-do attitudes seem almost corny, as if sketched from an earlier age or at least from musicals like The Music Man. But both men are in exactly the right positions at the right time.

Generating enthusiasm, or passion, for what you do is essential. It is doubly so in perilous times. When everything around us seems to be coming apart, a leader who has a passion for what he does is essential. Such a spirit fuels the engine of enthusiasm needed to spark the enterprise. More importantly, such passion is vital to convincing others that the work matters. It is easy to get discouraged by today’s market news and so it is vital that someone, be it the CEO or another senior leader, serves as the organization’s designated cheerleader.

Ultimately instilling passion for the work is not an exercise in rah-rah; it is a search for meaning and significance. So how can you cultivate passion for work in others and do it in ways that have significance? Here are some suggestions.

Focus on the positive. Passion in leaders can be palpable; you know in an instant that the executive cares about the company. In my experience, those senior leaders who stroll through the halls with a nod or good word to say to all are those executives who get things done. And it is because they are out and about, not cloistered in their offices on mahogany row. Rather, they are meeting with employees and customers, vendors and investors, getting to know issues and concerns. They also use these times to talk up the good things.

Address the negatives. Passionate leaders are not Pollyannas; they know the score, precisely because they spend so much time out of their offices. They see firsthand what is working and what is not, and because they have a relationship with people in all levels of the company, they can more readily mobilize employees to solve problems.

Set high expectations. Those who care about the work and set a high standard challenge others to do the same.

As much as generating passion for the work matters, it is no guarantee of success, or even survival. Radiating passion is no excuse for ignoring attention to the fundamentals.

Yet successful organizations are more than the sum of fiscal prudence. Good ones are the collective values and aspirations of dedicated men and women who have made a choice to work there. Such organizations, be they in healthcare or manufacturing, consumer goods or government, ultimately depend upon the commitment of individuals pulling together to make things work. That’s why you need leaders who have a passion for what they do and are able to spread that passion to others so that people feel better about what they do, and ultimately, what they can do better.

09:37 PM Thursday July 09, 2009

By John Baldoni

Once upon a time Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a story using only six words. Impossible, some thought. Not for Papa, as Neal Conan explained on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. The next day Hemingway produced this: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

Clare Booth Luce, according to columnist Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, once told President John Kennedy that “a great man is one sentence.” Noonan writes that Lincoln’s life could be summed up as “He preserved the Union and freed the slaves.” My colleague, Scott Eblin, adapted the concept to summing up one’s leadership legacy. “It takes time and effort to boil down the essence of what you’re trying to do to a short and memorable idea.”

Reducing one’s life to a handful of words is a mighty challenge. Creating a six-word memoir, a concept inspired by a project conducted by Smith College’s magazine, can be a useful exercise in self-analysis, particularly if you apply the process to reflecting upon your goals and your results. Did we achieve what we set out to achieve? Did I help them and the team to succeed? Did our results stand the test of time?

The million dollar question for any leader is this: did you leave the organization in a better place than when you found it? Sadly we have discovered that the great recession we are enduring was in part due to senior executives who did not leave their companies better off, even though they themselves exited with pockets full of cash.

For leaders, this six-word exercise works well as a form of aspiration, that is, how do I want to be remembered? So if you are early or mid career, you have time to make changes so that you can become the leader you are capable of becoming. Consider the following three questions to help you consider how you would sum up your work life in six words or less.

What gets me up in the morning? A very basic question! What do you do and why do you do it? For some, the answer is the opportunity to work with others on a project that has real meaning, that is, improves the quality of life for others. If this question throws you, then you need to consider what you don’t like about what you do. Is it possible to change something, or must you change careers?

How can I help? We humans are motivated to work for goals greater than ourselves. Leaders achieve through the efforts of others. It is imperative that they create conditions for others to succeed. They help others achieve intentions that enable the team, and by extension the organization, to succeed.

What is my influence? Line authority over someone on your team is a point of leverage but its effect may be limited. For organizations, particularly in challenging times with dwindling resources, leaders need to exert their influence. Such influence is built upon good example but transmitted through effective persuasion rooted in trust.

You can adapt the six-word memoir exercise to fit other needs. For example, how might you describe a challenge facing your team using just six words? “Tough job. Committed people. Keep working.” Or “Need ideas. Sooner than later. Help.” You can even make a game of it at your next staff meeting. Encourage your people to contribute their six words as a means of getting to think about the issues, the challenges, and the opportunities you face.

Summing up your career in six words may not produce a eureka moment of sudden clarity, but the exercise challenges you to think about what work means to you and how you influence the way others work. “Big idea. Profound thoughts. Truthful moment.”

1. Leaders must invest in themselves to be personally proficient. Effective leaders manage their physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual selves well. They learn constantly. They are capable of quick, bold actions as well as great patience. They constantly deepen their insight about themselves. This is especially true in tough economic times when people look to their leaders for hope and confidence.

2. Good leaders know how to be strategists and are able to answer the question “Where are we going?” They test their big ideas pragmatically, and they work with others to find the path from the present to the desired future.

3. Effective leaders are executors. They ask: “How will we ensure that we reach our goal?” They understand how to make change happen, assign accountability, delegate appropriately, and make sure that teams work well together.

4. These leaders are talent managers and engage people to get things done now and in a manner that generates intense personal, professional, and organizational loyalty. They help people bring their best to the job at hand.

5. Finally, they are human capital developers who build the next generation. They make sure that the organization has the longer-term skills, knowledge, behaviors and attitudes for future strategic success.

As we are experiencing a historical market correction in real estate there is increased emphasis for new construction sales and marketing plans to be more cost effective and accountable.  Budgets are being reduced to be more in line with current market conditions; expenditures are more strategic and marketing costs are being correlated with new metrics such as increased web traffic, registrations, personalized interactions, etcetera, in addition to the traditional sales center traffic counts and sales.  At the forefront of the movement to increase efficiency and track effectiveness are Web 2.0 technologies.

In simple terms Web 2.0 is the transformation of the web from primarily an information and presentation source of “one-to-many” to a communications vehicle that supports dialogue of “many-to-many”.  According to Wikipedia, “Web 2.0 refers to what was perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.”  Some familiar examples are social-networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, plus blogs, and video sharing sites to name a few.

There is no question that social technologies will continue to grow as an important part of our marketing strategies.  According to a recent Forrester Research report titled, “The Growth of Social Technology Adoption”, in 2008 “three in four US online adults use social media tools to connect with each other compared to 56% in 2007.  In a recent posting on the AdAge “Digital Next” blog, another Forrester report, “Social Media Playtime is Over”, states that fifty percent of corporations surveyed are increasing social media spending in the face of the recession.  Adopting Web 2.0 applications into sales and marketing plans will facilitate more engagement with prospects, add layers of communications, and increase the collection of meaningful consumer data that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of sales and marketing, if properly managed.

Transforming the benefits of Web 2.0 into improved sales performance requires a fresh look at the entire sales and marketing process.  It all starts with a plan.

Like Dennis Hopper says in one of his commercials for Ameristar, “You can’t start this journey without knowin where you’re goin.  You my friend need a plan”. 

Sales Process Mapping

We now have the ability to learn much more about our prospects than simple demographics and product preferences typically collected from most registration forms.  For example, we can automatically identify which search engine the prospect used to find our website; where they spend most of their time on our website; and our sales teams are using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications to record more personal information through their ongoing dialogue with prospects.  More information can have a direct impact on sales performance, but it will provide little competitive advantage if not organized, analyzed, managed and distributed across communication channels to all project stakeholders.  To accomplish these management objectives we need to use a multi-dimensional flow chart to orchestrate internal and external communications and sales activities, which is the outcome of sales process mapping.  To illustrate the importance of process mapping, which is in essence thinking through the entire sales process and exchange of information, we’ll examine a very basic part of the sales and marketing process; the lead source.

Let’s assume that a visit to the project website is the first point of contact.  Where did the web visitor come from; was it Google, another search engine, the project website, or another source?  Will the first reply to a lead from Google be different than if the source is your website?  Is a lead that comes directly from your website better quality then a lead through Google?  Is your data organized to identify correlations and trends that can answer this question? Who in the organization receives data analytics and how are they used to improve relevant engagement between the sales organization (not just the sales agent) and the lead?    Is the website lead registration process designed to optimize the conversion ratio of visitors to registrants or is it designed to learn as much from the new registrant as possible?  How many visitors exit the website in the process of completing the registration form?  Clearly each decision, or often non decision, affects the sales process and subsequently sales performance.    If we do not have a clear plan to manage today’s multi-dimensional sales process we will not effectively leverage the benefits of Web 2.0 technologies and CRM.   

There is much written about incorporating business process mapping principles into sales and marketing process management; however, I think the following excerpt from an article written by the authors of “Business Process Mapping – Improving Customer Satisfaction”, by J. Mike Jacka and Paulette J. Keller, is an ideal introduction to the topic and offers an easy to follow guide to map your sales and marketing process.

The Four Steps of Business Process Mapping

1. Process Identification – attaining a full understanding of all the steps of the process

2. Information Gathering – identifying objectives, risks, and key controls in the process

3. Interviewing and Mapping – Understanding the point of view of each person in the process and designing actual maps

4. Analysis – using tools and approaches to make the process run more effectively and efficiently

 In order to effectively analyze business processes, reviewers need a tool that takes into account the objectives of the business, the actual work being accomplished, and, most importantly, the impact of processes on customers. Business process mapping is just that tool. In a four-step process, analysis can be performed that accomplishes this holistic approach. At the same time, business process mapping also helps gain employees’ buy-in and can result in an increased sense of pride for employees.

The first step is process identification.  Many companies think they know their processes — manufacturing, sales, accounting, building services. But it is just this silo mentality that causes processes to lose their customer-centric approach. Instead of defining processes based on the company’s understanding, they must be defined by the customer’s understanding. Walking through customer experiences helps the reviewer identify those trigger points that can make or break success. These then form the basis for process identification.

Once the processes are identified, the second step begins — information gathering. There is a large volume of information that should be obtained before trying to learn the intricacies of a process. Primary among these is identifying who the true process owners are — the ones who can effect change. Their buy-in and agreement throughout the analysis is paramount. Additional information that should be obtained includes the objectives of the process, risks to the process, key controls over those risks, and measures of success for the process.

In order to effectively record and maintain this information, some important worksheets have been developed. Two of the most important are the Process Profile Work Sheet, and Work Flow Surveys. The Process Profile Work Sheet includes such information as the process owner, the trigger events (beginning and ending), inputs, outputs, and, as mentioned above the objectives, risks, key controls, and measures of success. Work Flow Surveys are completed by individuals actually working on the process and request from them a list of tasks — including inputs and outputs — which they perform in support of the process.

Only after all this is done is actual “Process Mapping” completed. This involves sitting with each employee and having him or her describe what it is they do. This information is recorded using a sticky-note method. Each step in the process is recorded on a sticky-note and built in front of the individual completing the work. This allows them to interactively ensure the final map matches their understanding of their work. The final process maps are developed using flowcharting software. Time flows down the page, and each individual involved is represented by a separate column. In this manner, a simple map can result from a complicated process.

While Analysis is considered the fourth step, analysis must really occur throughout the review. While defining the processes, the reviewer may determine that objectives are not in line with the processes in place. In gathering information, it may become apparent that measures of success do not correspond to department objectives. These are just some of the examples of ongoing analysis.