Mike Figliuolo's Blog, page 62

How would you characterize your organization when it comes to strategy execution?

Our reader poll today asks: How would you characterize your organization when it comes to strategy execution? We stay diligently focused on our strategy and avoid distractions: 22% We generally follow our strategy but occasionally chase distractions: 45% We mostly focus on distractions but still spend some effort on the core strategy: 23% We chase every shiny new distraction that comes along: 10% Don’t chase shiny objects. The core of strategy is saying “no” and staying focused on the path to your vision. While occasional opportunities might come along, your task is to differentiate between those that get you closer to achieving your vision and those that will lead you astray from your chosen path. 1/3 of you clearly have trouble avoiding the distractions. If that’s the case, push your...



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Strategic Planning: How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis

  When strategic planning, a SWOT helps you define your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A useful tool you can use to assess the environment you’re competing in is called the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And typically, it’s drawn on a grid. For strengths and weaknesses, those are typically within your own organization, capabilities you have or don’t have. As far as opportunities and threats, they can either be internal or external market-facing opportunities and threats. So let me walk through an example. As you build a SWOT analysis, you’ll want to have the team together and have people throw out their ideas. And it’s generally a brainstorming session. Strengths So perhaps...



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Manage to Meet Your Customers’ Needs

  As customers’ needs become more diverse, the managers of the future must adapt to meet their demands. Today’s post is by Jonathan Byrnes, author of CHOOSE YOUR CUSTOMER: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Managing at the right level is the most important element in effective management in the Age of Diverse Markets. This is a huge change. In the prior mass markets era, companies had homogeneous markets, so they needed to plan and coordinate only at the executive level, with the rest of the company’s managers focusing on their respective functional specialties. Today’s markets are rapidly becoming highly fragmented, reflecting diverse customer needs. This requires a much more decentralized set of management structures and...



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Have you ever been through a merger/acquisition process during your career?

Our reader poll today asks: Have you ever been through a merger/acquisition process during your career? Yes, I’ve had my company be acquired by another: 45% Yes, I’ve been at a company that acquired another one: 35% No, I’ve never been involved in one of those situations: 19% Merger challenges. 80% of you have been involved in mergers either as the buyer or the bought. They’re extremely challenging and stressful situations. One of the most challenging aspects of any merger is managing the culture combination. Processes, technology, products, operations, financials… those are all relatively straightforward to sort out. The big leadership challenge is creating one new culture from the two that came together. Failure to do so creates great risk for the organization and can...



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How to Use Porter’s 5 Forces to Assess Your Market

Identify your organization’s major threats and opportunities by assessing these five aspects of your market. As you begin your strategic planning process, it’s important to assess the market you’re competing in. A classic tool for doing so is Porter’s five forces. Dr. Michael Porter, who’s a professor of strategy, came up with this set of five forces to evaluate all the different dynamics that can affect your organization. Rivalry Among Competitors First, look at competitive rivalry, how many competitors are in the marketplace? How do they behave? How are they distributed by market share? How do they go to market, what are their core competencies? Threats of New Entry Second, look at the threats of new entry. So there’s the existing set of...



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3 Counterintuitive Tips For More Effective Brainstorming

Avoid these three behaviors to improve your next brainstorming session. Today’s post is by Samuel Sanders, author of Your Next Big Idea (CLICK HERE to get your copy). We’ve all heard of brainstorming, but what exactly is it? In a business sense, brainstorming is the process of coming up with creative ideas and solutions to problems using rapid freethinking. Brainstorming is critical in problem solving, creativity, ideation, and innovation. While in business, many imagine brainstorming as a group activity; it can be done alone or in a group. There are many tips and tricks that can help you have more effective brainstorms. However, there are three unique counterintuitive tips that many ignore. Following these tips can take your brainstorms to the next level. The first tip is, “During a...



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Who has had the greatest impact on your leadership development over the years?

Our reader poll today asks: Who has had the greatest impact on your leadership development over the years? A boss I’ve worked for: 64% A peer: 7% A member of my team: 5% A family member: 8% A leadership coach/expert/speaker/author: 12% A business personality (CEO, well-known executive): 4% Bosses by far. The vast majority of you have been most impacted by a boss you’ve worked for in terms of developing your leadership skills. Let’s flip that around – if you’re a manager, what are YOU doing to develop your people? Clearly bosses have a disproportionate impact on team leadership skills development. Are you spending enough time on it? Are you creating development opportunities for team members? Are you investing in their skills through training, resources, and most importantly, giving...



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Learn to Build Goals from the Bottom Up

Learning how to build goals from the bottom up connects individuals to the broader mission. In addition to building your goals from the top-down, a useful exercise is to build goals from the bottom-up. It helps get team buy-in and it can identify new opportunities for upside. For bottom-up goals, start with what the team thinks they can commit to. What they can deliver. Ask them what they can stretch to. Then work from those individual drivers, those individual goals, up to the bigger metrics that matter for the organization. If you have an organization that’s trying to drive sales and you have a team full of sales reps, you may look at the individual bottom-up goals of number of calls that they’re going to make in an hour. Those then roll up to the number of calls that...



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Mentorship: My Secret Weapon for Overcoming Obstacles & Becoming a Strong Leader

  Finding a mentor who has experience in your field can be a transformative step in your career. Today’s post is by Harma Hartouni, author of Getting Back Up: A Story of Resilience, Self-Acceptance and Success (CLICK HERE to get your copy). I was born in the U.S. but raised in Iran from the time I was an infant. As a gay man in an extremely homophobic country like Iran, there was no way for me to thrive while being honest about who I was. When I was 18 years old, a horrific car accident broke both of my legs and left me unable to walk for a year as I recovered. Afterward, I packed up everything and moved to the U.S., determined to create a better life and find success as my authentic self. As a Middle Eastern man who didn’t speak English, I was certainly at a disadvantage when I came...



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How effective are the leaders in your organization at coaching their team members?

Our reader poll today asks: How effective are the leaders in your organization at coaching their team members? Extremely — They’re great coaches. 1.6% Very — They do a solid job of coaching. 11.9% Somewhat — Their coaching skills could use some improvement. 36% Not very — They rarely coach and when they do, they’re not effective. 30% Not at all — They have no idea what coaching is. 20.4% Development requires coaching. It’s pretty scary to see 86% of you responding that your leaders need better coaching skills and that 50% are pretty bad at it. A leaders’ job is to build the next generation of leaders. If you can’t coach your people, it’s pretty hard to help them develop their skills. Take a hard look at your own coaching skills and those of the...



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