Category: Leadership

Leadership Lessons From JoePa

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I went to Penn State and though I’m not a huge college football fan, it was impossible to not feel the impact of Paterno’s passing in Penn State Land this week. So I wanted to pay tribute by sharing a few of my favorite JoePa quotes.

“You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional.”

I’ve been thinking about this idea a lot lately. What’s the difference between good and great? I believe it’s being able to perform at a higher level consistently. It’s easy to be better one day a year, or one day a month. To be something different, you have to be able to deliver beyond all others on a consistent basis. That means consistency – When it’s cold outside; When you don’t feel like it; When you didn’t get what you wanted; When you feel like nobody is watching. You can’t build a reputation for excellence on, “Yeah, sometimes she does a really good job, other times she just doesn’t put the effort in.”

“Believe deep down in your heart that you’re destined to do great things.”

This one should probably go before the first one because it’s what makes that consistency a little easier to deliver. If you believe in yourself (really, really, believe) you can perform when the chips are down, because that’s what you were put here to do. To do anything less would be to deny fate. Have the audacity to believe that you can do great things and push yourself to do them.

“The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.”

This one is classic. I’m reminded of the Saturday Night Live skit where Sarah Palin is telling Hillary Clinton that you just “have to want it.” Hillary laments that Palin is probably right, if there was one thing she could have done more it was “want it.” The point here is that everybody wants success. You have to be willing to put the work in (and here’s that word again) on a consistent basis. That means two of Coach Paterno’s favorite things; studying and practice. For those of us not privileged enough to walk between the white lines, that means analysis and testing.

The “Price Is Right” and Market Positioning

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*I’ll leave it to you to decide what inspired this!

Don’t treat your brand or product positioning like Contestant’s Row. Often instead of competing against the larger group, contestants decide simply to bid one higher than the person beside them. While this is a smart move if you are the last contestant (and that is the highest bid), people in the middle of the bidding get caught up in the excitement and fall back on what they thought they were supposed to do when they had followed along at home so many times before.

Instead of surveying the competitive landscape and offering a unique bid that might give them a better chance to win, they effectively cancel out a chance to win by worrying too much about the person before them.

The bottom line is that in marketing simply bidding “one higher” isn’t going to work. You need to OWN a space in the consumer’s mind that is uniquely yours. I’m going to go Inception on you right now and place a reference within a reference. The Price Is Right has done a very good job of owning the daytime game show space. Can you think of any others that come close? By offering a unique blend of entertainment that combines excitement, unpredictability, and ever-changing setups, the show gives consumers a product that is unlike most any other game show.

There are two lessons to be learned here:

  • Old tricks do not work in every situation – Be aware of changing environments and be prepared to act quickly.
  • You aren’t always competing with the people directly beside you – By focusing solely on direct competition we can lose sight of the game. In the meantime, some other competitor swoops in and takes all the prizes.

Be proactive and identify (or create) a differentiator that helps you own a unique position in the target market’s mind. This way you don’t always have to react to what others are doing. Instead, you can build the game around the rules that you set. Sure they can be the last bidder, but you can be the host.

3 Ways Netflix Could Have Handled Pricing-Gate Differently

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By now, I’m sure you have heard, Netflix intends to split its streaming and DVD services in two. Customers that were once receiving DVDs and streaming, will now how to pay for both. Not so bad on its surface, right? It actually sounds like a smart move, separating the company into dedicated segments allows employees to specialize and deliver more expertise. The problem is not what Netflix is doing. It’s how it did it.

Netflix has grown a loyal following through the years by over-delivering when other carriers under-performed. Blockbuster charged way too much on the way out the door and the way back in (late fees). Netflix charged an acceptable amount and made going to the mailbox fun again. When most other streaming services suffered from frequent buffering and only allowed us to watch on our computers, Netflix delivered a strong, reliable solution that made consumers overlook the dearth of content.

Instead of building on this brand equity Netflix  under-delivered AND under-performed. The brand began by alienating the enablers of its tremendous growth, its customers. Some customers (like me) did not receive notification of the change in a timely manner. The news exploded on social media and some customers had to find out from friends and the Twitterverse before hearing directly from the provider.

Recommendation Number One: The Customer Comes First
No matter what the message, it’s important that the first news of the change comes from the brand. Otherwise, the noise from social channels amplifies the negative and drowns out the positive. If your brand can get the first word in, it’s at least a building block towards understanding. Be proactive with the message.

Recommendation Number Two: Be Honest
The blog message that Netflix used to announce the pricing changes was informational in nature but I’m still questioning if the “Lowest Price Ever” angle is the best way to go. Consumers in this digital age are smart, and if they aren’t all smart, they’re probably friends with somebody that is. So let’s not try to spin this in such a positive light. Let’s be honest. What if Netflix were to lead off by saying thank you to all the customers for the tremendous growth. Then explain that in order to continue offering a strong selection and incredible service, we have to make changes. The low price angle just doesn’t resonate when, for most customers, it’s actually a price hike (to continue the same service(s)).

Recommendation Number Three: The Customer Always Comes First (and Last)
Now, let’s consider how Netflix is implementing these pricing changes. They go into effect immediately for new customers and in September for existing. Most of the posts I’ve read felt like this treatment was a slap in the face for existing, heretofore, loyal customers. These customers have helped fuel the company’s meteoric growth and they get a 60 percent price hike and a 45 day respite for their efforts? Why not reward those that have been with the company by grandfathering them in or offering special loyalty rates? In an age where competition is high and switching services is as easy as downloading a new app, customer appreciation is key. Verizon recently moved to tiered data plans but avoided similar outrage by grandfathering in current unlimited plans.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that Netflix has built its brand around convenience. A price hike is not convenient and finding out about it from second-hand sources is also not convenient. Be proactive, be honest, be consistent, and always think of the customer – or someone else will.

If It Ain’t Broke – Break It!

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“When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

But what happens when the going gets good? Rita McGrath via HBR reminds us that past success is not a guarantee of future profit. She’s right. It’s important (though all too common) for companies that experience success to be lulled by it as well. The once ubiquitous Nokia is scratching and clawing to remain relevant in the brave new iWorld (and as Rita states – RIM may not be far behind).

These two industry giants had once enjoyed immense popularity. But throughout the years, they started losing focus on delivering innovative products. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Wrong. While it can be quite alluring to sit back and watch the profits roll in, that success won’t last. The only way to remain relevant is to augment existing products while innovating new ones. Innovation is tough, really tough, especially the market-disrupting, status-quo destroying kind. It’s important though to pay attention to your product and to continuously look for ways to improve or make it obsolete. If you don’t, someone else will.

One way to brainstorm ideas is to list the attributes of your product/service. List the materials, the pros, and the cons of each. By separating the material from the whole, you are able to critically analyze the product (hopefully without too much bias). It’s important here to listen to consumers but also to remain aware that they may not know what they really want. As consumers I think we tend to think in terms of incremental innovation. How can we make this specific product better? While that type of thinking leads to some advantages, it won’t bring market dominance. To create a game-changer, we as marketers, need to strive for the discontinuous, disruptive type.

Find the unmet needs and meet them. And just when we have that need met – you guessed it – time to start over. Head back to the top of this post for help with that!

Share. Share. Share.

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One of the keys to long term growth is innovation. One of the keys to innovation is sharing. When all sorts of different ideas are floating around and bumping into each other, chaos (and creativity) ensues. Let it happen and encourage it to happen in your absence through creative seating, facilities design, and social media. Working in groups is often more challenging but the product is often a more complete offering.

Though Lennon and McCartney are legendary for their creativity, perhaps there is a reason neither’s solo work did as well as when they worked together.

‘Tactical Strategy’

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I came across this phrase today and it sounded great at first — then I went back and thought about it.  Does it really make sense? The interesting thing about this phrase was that it gave up something about the presenter. The presenter was more concerned about tactics than the overall strategy.

This person routinely struggles with building and adhering to an effective strategy. Instead, each new task is of the highest priority. The problem with that is that when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Everybody soon puts their head down in an effort to get things done, and they never look up to see where they are headed.

If your day-to-day actions are tied to tactics and not strategy and vision, you will get things done. But, simply getting things done  does nothing to get us closer to our objectives.

Lay out a strategy, identify priorities, and plan tactics that feed into that strategy like a hot air balloon. Doing this helps transform disparate self-centered entities into a cohesive force building towards a common goal…soon there’s only one place to go.

Lessons From the Sock Drawer

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You start out with the best intentions. Everything is in order. Everything has a reason for being there. But somewhere down the road, it happens. You stop getting the same results. Sometimes you take out more than you put in. Sometimes you add new things in to the mix without taking out the old.

At some point, things start getting a little out of line. No worries though, you always seem to find what you’re looking for, it just takes a little more time. Fast forward a little bit. Soon, you can only find one pair that matches and one of them has a hole in it. But it’s 6:58 and you have to be out the door by 7 so you take what you can find and rush out the door. Everything was so orderly at one time and now it’s a wreck. How did this happen?

Sound familiar? Is your sock drawer a mess? Don’t keep adding to an already cluttered agenda. If something needs added, see how it fits in with earlier plans. Does it replace something you already do? Are you (or somebody else)  already doing it and don’t know it?Are you doing some things just because you’ve always done them?

Often this is the case. If we keep adding responsibilities and initiatives without regard for prior objectives, it’s easy to get off track. If this new initiative truly is more useful than the old one, figure out how to effectively combine them. Or, better yet, get rid of the old one. If you  keep your agenda focused, it’s easier to focus on your agenda.

Subtle Leadership

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Respect goes both ways, up the leadership ladder and down it. Show the employees below you the same respect you show the ones that will be performing your review. Why? It helps to build mutual respect. For example, if people lower on the totem pole see you showing up early to meetings where the higher ups are, but constantly showing up late to meetings with them, it subtly suggests that they aren’t as important to you. The fact of the matter is that you probably depend on these people way more than the higher ups. Show them the same respect. Make them feel as important as you KNOW they are and they’ll respect you more for it. Employees that feel respected are much more likely to go the extra mile, to speak up when something is going wrong, or suggest a better way to do things. What manager doesn’t need employees that do that?

Four Ways to Keep Projects in Motion

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As Newton’s first law states:

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Ever feel like you are continually being acted upon by unbalanced forces? While trying to overcome the unbalanced forces is probably another (series) of blog posts. I would recommend that each of us do our best to keep the project rolling. How do we do so?

  • Sum it up:
    Projects often get bogged down when people aren’t sure what they are expected to deliver in the next phase. End each meeting or call with a wrap up that details specifically what was decided and who is responsible for handling each deliverable. This is often relegated to the meeting minutes but it’s important to reinforce what’s been decided before the meeting ends. This gives everyone involved the chance to clarify the goals one last time, something we may be unwilling to do if we are simply e-mailed a meeting summary.
  • Check up:
    If you’re worried about a project and haven’t heard anything on it, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Just make sure to come across as helpful, not as a dictator. This can also be achieved by building a project time line with regular update intervals. Don’t forget to give credit where it’s due!
  • Keep it moving:
    We’ve all been stuck behind the car driving a little too slow and it’s always amazing to see the trail of cars that piles up in the rear view mirror. Don’t be the project roadblock. Respond to inquiries in a timely, organized manner. Alan Weiss, adheres to a two hour rule.
  • Keep it moving (forward):
    Keep the project moving forward, don’t get bogged down with endless details  and re-dos. Once something is done, put a stake in the ground and move forward while keeping your goals, quality, and the customer in mind. This gives the project momentum and gives those involved a sense of accomplishment.  Motion is good, but direction is a key component, otherwise you’ll end up where you started, just more tired.