Strategic Discipline Blog

Jim Collins in Built to Last and Good to Great discussed the importance of creating your BHAG. In the real world my guess is that very few businesses discover their BHAG either because they've never heard of it, or don't understand the value it can have in growing their business.   

Would you like to get more value from your team? Maximize their output and contribution?

If you’ve been following the markets and the $700 billion financial bailout the most powerful message you can absorb as the market and the financial segment of our economic base absorbs shock waves from the continuing impact of the subprime debacle is this – there’s been a failure in following fundamentals. 

Even though I’m big supporter and believer in Michael Gerber’s principles as provided in The E-Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It, and was a Certified E-Myth Coach for ten years, my coaching experience with over 250 small to mid-sized businesses has provided a keen insight into where some of Michael’s assertions don’t always work in the real world.  

John D Rockefeller understood how to operate a successful business. That’s why he grew Standard Oil into the mega giant it became. Verne Harnish [Mastering the Rockefeller Habits] has distilled the principles Rockefeller used to achieve success and as a Gazelle’s business coach we use these daily in our coaching practices to help our clients follow the same success formula that Rockefeller gained.

How much time during your business day are you truly concentrating on your work? During the day, the average person is interrupted once every 11 minutes. It’s been estimated that it takes the human mind approximately 25 minutes to get up to speed on anything.

Last evening while reading the book I’d purchased on Civil War battles the enormity of the decision making these generals had to make occurred to me. It must have weighed on them heavily. We view the decisions of generals to delay or attack and fail to grasp the gravity of the situation. Each decision they made would lead to deaths. A decision to delay or dig in, while easily second guessed today, easily might have been that general’s effort to reduce the burden of killing more soldiers. 

“The battle Chancellorsville was one which I believe neither side, the Union nor the Confederates won. Both sides made major mistakes that hurt them in their efforts to win the war.” With these words our guide from the National Parks Service opened her 45 minute presentation on the battle of Chancellorsville and the events surrounding the death of General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson. 

This past weekend I attended my oldest sons wedding in Fredericksburg, Virginia. While there several of us attending the wedding including my son Daniel took the time to visit several battlefields from the Civil War. That area of Virginia as several important battles from that era that had a major impact on the outcome of the war, and most of them are within a relatively short distance of each other. Learning the history of several of these battles it became more aware to me that history does repeat itself if only we take the time to listen and examine the outcomes. Forgive me if you’re not a history buff like I am as I unravel the lesson I learned from the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Marketing is often considered to be a creative position. If you want your marketing to sparkle and get results you need to hire someone who has great creativity right? At Gazelles we’ve discovered that’s not necessarily true. Marketing is knowing who your cus tomers are, where they are, what their needs and perceptions are, how to communicate with them, and how to attract them.