Strategic Discipline Blog

In today’s world the consumer has turned the tables. Today’s consumer is in a position of power in just about every purchase transaction.  That’s just part of the insight you’ll get by reading Bob Bloom’s The New Experts.  Bob’s Blog on Five Most Serious Challenges CEO’s face in 2011 will give you quick insight into the consequences this shift in consumer awareness means to your business.  I’m afraid these challenges remain for most CEO’s in 2012 as well. 

Please forgive the length of my last blog.  Believe it or not it was longer but I edited some things out.  I’m afraid I was suffering from education overload.  Each day we start the Growth Summit at 8 AM.  When that concludes at 4 PM Gazelles coaches gather for another two plus hours in additional education and planning. 

Verne Harnish’s focus on the first day of the Growth Summit Strategy provided some insightful ideas about strategy.   Here’s the one that I thought was most thought provoking.  Is your strategy a plastic cup or a fine wine glass?  This question asks you to make a gut reaction to your strategy.  That’s a good way to say do you feel solid about it or not?  If you tapped your glass with a spoon would it get knocked over or would it hold up and ring true?

The principle of Strategic Discipline consists of three disciplines, meetings, metrics, and priorities. These are the essential tools that John D Rockefeller used to build Standard Oil into the largest company in the world.  They are still the essential disciplines that help your business communicate better and establish the fundamental principles to grow.

Those of you old enough to remember the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia will recognize his insight in a quote provided by Jeff Thull our Fortune Sales & Marketing Growth Summit keynote speaker and author of Mastering the Complex Sale.  Jeff said most of us are working way too hard.  He had insights into how to change that, starting with this advice, "you don't want to be the best of the best at what you do."  Rather follow Jerry Garcia's observation, "You want to be considered the only one who does what you do."  You can build your Brand Promise around an uncommon offering like that.

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.