The growth plan better extend beyond financial finagling

If the primary way your company can be profitable is by moving its headquarters, you're in trouble. If production costs have increased and operating costs have followed, and the best idea your leaders have is to reduce rent, update your resume because your company won't be around long.

Of course, saving on office expenses is wise. It should just not be the primary way a company alters its Income Statement. If you're in the movie business, figure out a way to make money in the movie industry. If you run an engineering firm, figure out how to be profitable in the engineering industry. If you run a bakery, bake some revenue-generating treats. If you're in real estate, move to generate income. But, don't be in the real estate industry if you're not in the real estate industry. If you can't make a buck in the business you're in, it's time to evaluate the business you're in.

Do not expect your shareholders and stakeholders to fall for financial finagling, even if it works short-term. They recognize when a company is at the end of its rope holding on.  

Be creative, be the expert in your industry, be innovative. Come up with ideas that inspire people--employees, clients, shareholders--rather than ideas that reek of last-ditch desperation. You might be surprised by what inspired, All-In, people do when they are invited to do more than pack their desks into boxes.

What I learned from Steve Jobs

The announcement of his death was less than 24 hours ago, and Apple haters are already bemoaning the recognition and praise being heaped on the man. They say he was not really a creative genius because he didn't invent anything. They say he just copied other people's ideas and made them better. They say their lives are just fine with Android instead of Apple products.

They stumble when asked to explain how design improvements are not inventions or how bringing products to the mass market is not creative. They don't have an answer when asked if they really think their Android products would be as useful today without Jobs over at Apple. Well, they have an answer but it is defensive and short-sighted.

While Jobs is being heralded as a creative genius today, I pondered the main thing I learned from his career--ups and downs. The main thing I takeaway is that being first to market is not always best. Being #2 is good. Jobs improved on what was available already. He didn't invent the mp3 player, he made it more useful to consumers. The same is true for computers and tablets.

In today's highly competitive marketplace, it is common to scrap an idea if someone beats you to it. Thinking like Jobs, however, one might decide to do it anyway, just do it better.  Don't fear being #2. Make #1 better and you just might overtake the position (a la Apple v. Sony in the portable music market). That's what I'm going to reflect on as an important takeaway from Steve Jobs.

Well, that and his whole thing about one's time being limited on this earth so have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. That's a good lesson too--one he began teaching in the 1980s.

The one requirement of winning teams: chemistry

It is hard to be an football fan these days, especially if your favorite team started its season on a bad note. It is especially hard for someone knowledgeable about teamwork and leadership to be a fan of teams when key elements of both are so obviously missing. As frustrating as it is to watch on a football field, it is equally frustrating to be along the sidelines of a leadership team, creative team, or project team suffering losses because of teamwork or leadership.

When a football team is full of four- and five-star recruits or highly paid professionals, the team should be able to compete well with other teams with similar skills. Why, then, do teams with equivalent talent get pummeled by opponents? Why do teams with better talent get badly beaten by opponents with less talent? Once a team is full of skilled players, what makes the difference in its success?

What makes the difference is team chemistry. Team chemistry includes:

• Respect for teammates' ability to perform their role
• Reliance on the teammate's performance for one's own performance 
• Trust that the teammates will perform their role
• Expectation that the teammates will perform their role
• Recognition when teammates perform in difficult situations

Have you been on unsuccessful teams at work? If you think about those teams, you could undoubtedly identify which of the five elements of chemistry were missing. 

The impact of teams without chemistry is time. And, usually, time equals money. 

Teams without chemistry...

• Take too long to make decisions
• Miss opportunities because they are not flexible or nimble
• Spend too much time in meetings
• Duplicate work 
• Create extra work for themselves and others

Bottom Line: Team chemistry is the key to a winning team.

There are many parallels between football and business management. From hiring to managing to performing to motivating:  both sides could learn by watching each other. As a fan of one and a player in the other, the parallels hit me between the eyes every weekend during the fall. The pain of failures stings all week but the joy of victory makes both exciting.

Is your strategy inducing confidence or shaking it?

 If one of your biggest clients said "It appears that they're lost right now" about your company, what would you do?

This morning's print edition of The Wall Street Journal includes an article about Hewlett-Packard (H-P), its strategy, and how it has communicated with customers and investors. The first line of the article is: Hewlett-Packard Co.'s recent strategic moves have shaken the confidence of investors. Now customers of the technology giant are also getting nervous. A few paragraphs later a big customer is quoted saying, "It appears that they're lost right now."

It's bad enough that a big customer considers his supplier lost, but the feeling is shared by others--and published in  The Wall Street Journal!

In the article, H-P executives defended their strategy and claimed to be in "constant contact with our customers to explain our strategy and ensure their needs are being met." Apparently their customers are unaware of the "constant contact" because many are confused and disappointed in H-P's strategy.

What has H-P done wrong?

It is unclear if H-P's strategic decisions are wrong--time will tell. What is clear is H-P's communication of their strategy has been wrong. When it comes to inducing confidence or shaking it, communication is key.

Communication with employees, customers, partners, vendors, and investors needs to be precise and targeted so the strategic direction has a chance of working. Poor communication can kill any strategic plan.

What have you done to ensure your strategic direction is confidence-inducing? Have you had enough communication with customers? Do employees understand it and know they're part of it? Whether you are charged with planning the direction of an entire multi-billion dollar corporation or a million dollar non-profit or a department of three, consider communication a critical part of your success.

H-P considers communication critical: Just three hours after the online edition of The Wall Street Journal was published, a second article which more thoroughly explains the strategy and how it is being communicated was published online. H-P has strong market position, so customer confidence has been stirred but not been shaken entirely.

When is the last time you talked with your customers about your strategy? Don't wait for them to voice their concerns to The Wall Street Journal to start the conversations. Confidence should be reinforced throughout each year.

For the full WSJ article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576544822297017068.html#ixzz1Wo2juG6M