Creating company alignement

One of the most important lessons about strategy from Michael Porter, professor at the Harvard Business School, is that a company's activities should fit and contribute to the building of a competitive advantage or unique positioning in the marketplace.

The selection of a CRM software, the hire of extra sales staff, or the development of a public relations campaigns are all major company activities that should fit the strategy and reinforce one another.

The trouble is that most companies don't have a "razor-like" strategic focus and it is questionable that each of their individual investments really clearly contribute to buidling a powerful, distinctive competitive advantage.

Below is a reminder of Porter's 5 tests of a good strategy:

1. A unique value proposition compared to competitors
2. A different, tailored value chain
3. Clear tradeoffs, and choosing what not to do
4. Activities that fit together and reinforce each other
5. Continuity of strategy with continual improvement in realization

Bullet points: how to motivate?

Motivating your direct reports is an art that cannot completely be summarized through a list of bullet points, but below are practical ways to do it.

Reward and celebrate performance, with:

• money
• lavish praise, public praise
• compliment personal qualities (not only project results - Do it sincerely and with sincere admiration).
• presentations of results to top management
• encouragements
• increased responsibilities
• increased budgets
• increased ownership of certain tasks/projects/expertise (assign them as the official champion of "x", and make sure they are required to give their opinions on every project involving "x")
• valuable gifts (trips, etc)
• training: invest in your people

It is critical for a manager to be excellent at rewarding performance - but it is also the easy part in management. The tough part is to generate performance to start with.

• find out what employees like to work on - if you assign them to projects they don't like, chances are the practical bullet points below will not help that much.
• set goals - together with your direct report. The goals must come out of their mouth (a French writer once said "those who speak will make it happen").
• explicitly mention that they own these goals (not you) and are responsible for achieving them
• give your employees a feeling of importance: why is their work critical?
• make sure they understand they are working towards a greater good (beyond just making money or helping the company make money)
• relentlessly encourage participation: discuss with them how to achieve these goals - Make sure they do speak at least 50+% of the time!! Encourage them along the way when they suggest ideas. Listen. Don't shoot down an idea.
• make sure goals are easy enough to reach, at least to start with.
• write down the goals and make sure there's a deadline.
• promote team work. Most workers get a motivation boost from working in teams.
• free up competent people to do their jobs as they see fit.

Finally: ask your employees about their work, and you will get good insights on how to motivate them.

The value of education

What is education about?

Is it about reading a book, attending a seminar, reading about an interesting idea in the Wall Street Journal?

It's not.

It's about how good you are at actually using these ideas in real-life. The "Execution" part of Education is critical and completely ignored by most.

You will often hear people say: It was an "interesting" book. Ask them how they changed the way they do business based on their findings and you will get a blank look.

Education is often worthless without the execution part. Education is not about "what's nice to know", it's about "what does this mean for my business?" or "what will I do about this now?". Sometimes, it takes a discussion with a friend or colleague.

Next time you take 5 hours to read a book, take 15 minutes at the end to ask yourself: "what does this mean for me?" and "how can i use this?". Six months later, pick up the book again and ask yourself if it's really been useful - or just "interesting".

Now of course, the long-term value of education should not be discounted. Sometimes, you need to read about a topic a few times and view the situation from different angles to really "get it".

Overal though, the value of education should be judged by results.

Laser-sharp focus on priorities

In his latest book, "Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't", Ram Sharan stresses the critical importance of "laser-sharp" focus on priorities.

Most managers are over-achievers or thrive to development/implement new ideas. The concept of "new" is exciting but sometimes counter-productive: it distracts from your core 2-3 priorities you need to focus on.

An article in the Harvard Business Review uses the example of a HR Manager who had planned to implement 3 major initiatives at the same time. Eventually, he gave up on one and did not get very good results in the other two.

To maximize efficiency, managers should focus on a couple of key priorities for their team and overcommunicate them constantly (your subordinates are probably just as likely as you to get off track). Ultimately, it is also necessary to recognize that half of our daily activities do not significantly contribute to the big picture. Simply log your time and you will be surprised to see how you REALLY spend your time. Scary.

"Laser-sharp" focus you said?