Strategic Discipline Blog

The New Orleans ScaleUp Summit 2018 starts Tuesday.  As Gazelles Coaches we always get the first sneak peek at Verne Harnish’s presentation, ahead of business leaders attending the Summit.

Sunday, Verne shared our new intellectual property, what business must be working on in today’s digital economy, the 7 – 70 strategy every business should focus on, and what two jobs, you as CEO need to be focused on. 

What would you imagine your two most important jobs as CEO of your company are?

CISCO John Chambers' Secret

Verne revealed a little known success factor, John Chambers, former executive chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems shared in an interview.  The interviewer asked what’s the one thing you did at CISCO, contributing to CISCO’s success, that people don’t know about.  (CISCO grew from $70 million in annual revenues in 1995, to a run-rate of $49.6 billion in 2015, when Chambers retired.) Chambers divulged his sincere interest in discovering CISCO employee’s with health problems. Chambers made sure CISCO took care of them. 

It’s not hard to understand why Chambers’ was so reverently admired.

Here’s another hint for you to absorb.  If you want your business to be a 10X company, as Jim Collins describes in Great by Choice, you need 10X people.

Creating 10X growth requires thinking much differently than you are now.  It requires breaking down what you’ve been doing, and frequently doing something else.

IT’S EASY

Strategies and tactics should be simple.  They may not be easy to apply.  However when it comes to your job as a CEO, it really comes down to two things:

1. Make doing business with you easy for your customers.
2. Make getting work done easy for your employees.

As CEO  your ONE THING is: What can I do to make it easier for my customers to do business with me, and what can I do to make my employees job easier to do?

Think about your own purchases.  Do you do business with someone who is hard to work with?  Do you know that when your employees are happy, your customers are happy?

Satisfying your customers, starts with making your employees happy.

Reminder- Your One Thing

Verne reminded us what Steve Job’s last One Thing was at Apple before he died. It ties back to what you must have to grow your business 10X.  It’s a recurring theme in Jim Collins Good to Great, John Chambers efforts to identify employees with health problems, and who you need to keep happy to have satisfied customers.

Speaking of which, what is the number one challenge your business faces?

SURVEY - What's your number 1 challenge?

Which of the Four Decisions represents your biggest challenge?  Would you like to know what other business leaders believe their biggest challenge is?   If you’d like to discover what leaders around the globe feel their biggest challenge is: People, Strategy, Execution or Cash, visit: 1pg. com.  Simply enter your email and zip code, and you’ll see how your response compares to what other businesses’ feel their biggest challenge of the Four Decisions are. 

I won’t reveal the #1 challenge (it was 25 points ahead of the other three decisions when I took the survey.), but perhaps you can guess.

When you take the quiz, leave a response here. Let me know if your top challenge agrees with what other business leaders feel is their biggest challenge.  Let me know what your biggest challenge is.

Growth demands Strategic Discipline.

Positioning Systems helps your business grow through the Four Decisions: People, Strategy, Execution, Cash.

Each of the Four Decisions Produces a specific outcome. In our coaching process, we repeat examples and the definitions  of the Four Decisions frequently to make sure our customers remember the value and result each decision produces for your business.

If you’re business is failing to achieve industry leading results in any of these areas, that Decision should be your One Thing.

Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $250M) business Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing!  To achieve growth, you need to evolve in today’s rapidly changing economic environment.  Are you avoiding a conversation with yourself on how to can successfully grow your business? Contact dwick@positioningsystems.com to Scale Up your business! Take our Four Decisions Needs Assessment to discover how your business measures against other Scaled Up companies. We’ll contact you.

Outthink the Competition – Kaihan Krippendorff

Our coaching learning sessions ahead of the ScaleUp Summit end Monday with Kaihan Krippendorff's Outthinker Process providing an all day training session for a select group of coaches. I’ll be in attendance, and plan to provide insights in Tuesday’s blog.