Last Thursday I meet with a fast-growing international company to help them define their SMaC recipe.
We started the meeting reviewing their Flywheel, and Hedgehog Concept.
Immediately following my short presentation of examples and reasons for having a SMaC recipe the first question from one of their leaders, David, was, “With all the changes going on, and the significant change in just the last 6 months due to COVID, is it really possible for us to come up with an enduring SMaC recipe? It this even relevant in today’s environment?”
The leadership team of seven concluded despite this frequent, and constant disruption, many of their business practices should remain specific, methodical, and consistent.
In fact, this is the irony SMaC reveals about successful companies. Most everyone acknowledges how difficult it is to accomplish change.
Yet in Great by Choice their research discovered poor performing companies change frequently, while great companies change less often. In fact, the comparison company’s in Good to Great change much more, at a scale of 4 to 1.
Great by Choice is not from a long-ago era. It was published October 11, 2011, just ten years after Good to Great.
The question Great by Choice asked is, “Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?”
The surprising answer:
“The Signature of Mediocrity Is Not Unwillingness to Change; The Signature of Mediocrity Is Chronic Inconsistency.”
Change is much more frequent, more disruptive today.
Collins concluded the more uncertain, fast-changing, and unforgiving your environment the more SMaC you need to be. A SMaC recipe reflects empirical validation and insight about what actually works and why.
Far more difficult than implementing change is figuring out what works, understanding why it works, grasping when to change, and know when not to. In Great by Choice Collins indicates they anticipated innovation might be a primary distinguishing factor for the 10X success in unstable environments characterized by rapid change.
3 Core Behaviors
The supreme difference between the company’s in Great by Choice who were 10Xers and those that failed were 3 Core Behaviors identified as
Fanatic discipline keeps 10X enterprises on track, empirical creativity keeps them vibrant, productive paranoia keeps them alive, and Level 5 ambition provides inspired motivation.
One of my coaching customers had the prescient paranoia and empirical creativity to develop a new service for their business 2 years ago in their annual planning meeting. This new service will provide $2 Million in new business this year.
It’s the same creativity and paranoia Intel displayed in 1985 when they moved their focus from memory chips to microprocessors, a product they’d been working on for years.
These 3 Core Behaviors translated into three Fundamental Practices they all followed to achieve 10X the results of the comparison company’s Collins team studied.
The team arrived at nearly 20 different possibilities. They’ll meet again to discuss and determine which are and have been the key recipe for success they need to adhere to guarantee future success.
Does your business understand why you have been successful? Is it time to develop your SMaC recipe and understand the Habits/Practices of your business success? Contact us today to schedule a free exploratory meeting.
Growth demands Strategic Discipline.
Discipline sustains momentum, over a long period of time, laying the foundations for lasting endurance.
A winning habit starts with 3 Strategic Disciplines: Priority, Metrics and Meeting Rhythms.
Meeting Rhythms achieve a disciplined focus on performance metrics to drive growth.
Let Positioning Systems help your business achieve these outcomes on the Four most Important Decisions your business faces:
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PEOPLE |
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STRATEGY |
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EXECUTION |
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CASH |
Positioning Systems helps mid-sized ($5M - $250M) business Scale-UP. We align your business to focus on Your One Thing! 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.
Relationships work best when your partner challenges you. In business the best leadership teams should too! Next blog why.