Strategic Discipline Blog

In October of 2008, I wrote a blog Even in a difficult economy Customer Service can Make a Difference! My car wash customer was looking to improve his business during the summer, due to skyrocketing gas prices. The solution: measure customer satisfaction. Autopia Car Wash in California was one of the first customers I shared Fred Reichheld’s Ultimate question, Net Promoter Score (NPS).

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Topics: Good to Great, customer survey, Net Promoter Score, customer satisfaction metrics, Jim Collins, customer loyalty, Fred Reichheld, Winning on Purpose

You’ve probably attempted to change and failed. It could be trying to lose weight, quit smoking, be on time, be better at time management or create systems and innovate your business.

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Topics: habits, Experiences & Beliefs Drive Actions & Results, Atomic Habits, James Clear

One of the reasons Strategic Discipline works well for our customers is the habit for leadership reflection in each Quarterly and Annual planning meeting where we review

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Topics: Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, habits, mastery, Path to Mastery, What did we learn, Atomic Habits, Review & Reflection, What can we Work on?

What exactly does James Clear mean by, “You Do Not Rise to the Level of Your Goals. You Fall to the Level of Your Systems?”

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Topics: Business Dashboards, Build Business Dashboard, Dashboards, Systems & Process, Goal Achievment, Atomic Habits, James Clear

It’s easy to forget Jim Collins in Good to Great shared great companies didn’t become great overnight. It took slow, steady momentum, continuous, consistent pushes on their flywheel, eventually leading to breakthrough. See 12 QUESTIONS to Take You From Good To Great - #1 & 2 for Collins' definition of Greatness.

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Topics: Success Habit, Winning Habit, Atomic Habits, James Clear

Shannon Susko, author of 3HAG WAY, Metronome Effect, and Metronomics refuses to accept a customer who won’t participate in Daily Huddles with their organization.

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Topics: Accountability, Aubrey Daniels, daily huddle, human behavior performance, Job Summary Scorecard, Clarity of Expectations

“You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first” ~ Peter Drucker

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Topics: Accountability, Business Scorecards, Create Business Dashboard and Scorecard, Job Summary Scorecard, CEO Leadership Focus, The CEO Test

“Terror is the ultimate way to paralyze a people’s will to resist and destroy their ability to plan a strategic response. Such power is gained through sporadic acts of violence that create a constant feeling of threat, incubating a fear that spreads throughout the public sphere. The goal in a terror campaign is not battlefield victory but causing maximum chaos and provoking the other side into desperate overreaction. Melting invisibly into the population, tailoring their actions for the mass media, the strategists of terror create the illusion that they are everywhere and therefore that they are far more powerful than they really are. It is a war of nerves. The victims of terror must not succumb to fear or even anger; to plot the most effective counterstrategy, they must stay balanced. In the face of a terror campaign, one’s rationality is the last line of defense.” ~ 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene

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Topics: strategy, Effective Leadership, Strategy - How, 33 Strategies of War

How does money flow through your organization? How do customers flow through your business?

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Topics: leading indicators, Profit per X, 3HAG WAY, KFFM (Key Function Flow Map)

Fred Smith’s vision and focus helped drive FedEx to become one of the most successful companies in the world.

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Topics: Profit per X, Hedgehog Concept, Business Driver, KFFM (Key Function Flow Map), FedEx