Seah Moon Ming, President, ST Electronics Limited, Singapore on Leadership.

June 29, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

My partners Kathryn Yap  and Daniel Soh introduced me to Seah Moon Ming, President, ST Electronics Limited  in Singapore last week. These are some of his thoughts on Leadership:

My perspective from trying to reconcile theories and experience is that, leadership style and philosophy evolve with one’s experience and are very often shaped by events. That is to say, while you may find leadership theories agreeable sometimes it is common-sense practical leadership that is far more fascinating.

As leaders, you face challenges on a daily basis, be it strategy, competition, crises or even seemingly minor problems brought to you by customers, partners and employees. Information you have will never be complete or perfect; you always have to juggle conflicting demands and there will always be obstacles, both natural and manmade. In other words, you are tested all the time. So if you are really doing your job as a leader, there will never be a dull moment, twenty-four by seven for 365 days.

Then how does one cope in practice? General Colin Powell once said, “Leadership is the art of achieving more than what management science says is possible.” I think he is right. It is sometimes an art of making things happen.

So, at the risk of over simplifying things, let me share three key aspects of leadership in practice.

Taking Charge
A leader must lead. This is opposed to managers who are supposed to manage. As a leader, you must have the guts to make difficult decision and take charge. Taking charge is more than management. Usually, a leader surrounds himself or herself with good and competent managers who then get all the tasks done. But the leader constantly clarifies the purpose of the enterprise, shows the direction for the business, and shapes its character.

A common misconception is that once you are appointed as a leader, you have the ultimate power and therefore can do anything you want. Well, life is a little more complicated than that because you are dealing with human beings. You need to care about your people more than yourself.

In fact, an article in the Harvard Business Review has summarized it very well. These include:

  1. Leadership is not about authority, but interdependency, in other words, 360-degree, multilateral relationship;
  2. Formal position and hierarchy is not the source of power, but through influence, a leader earns the respect, trust and commitment of others, in other words, not through control and compliance, but through empowerment;
  3. Leadership is about leading the team, not managing one-on-one, partly because you just cannot please everyone;
  4. A leader makes changes that will make the team perform better, not merely keeping the operations in working order, in other word, leaders go for breakthroughs, not just keeping things smooth.

Network
Next, I would like to discuss networking as a critical duty for leaders.

A leader or a business does not and cannot operate alone, but relies on a network. It has been said that very often know-who matters more that know-how. So networking is a powerful social and human capital.

My basic training was in communication engineering. And communication engineers like to tell you that the power or utility of a network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes. So as the number of node increases, the power of the network increases exponentially.

What I want to stress is that sometimes, you may never know in advance when and how certain connections or contacts you have will be useful. But when it is indeed needed, it is so vital and you will be glad you have it. And in my experience, the value of your network could come to you at the most unexpected time, in very unexpected ways.

The next thing I want to stress is that leaders not only need to connect in a connection, we need also connect the connections and in the process share and spread the network. In business, network of business leaders, network of operational people, network of networks, as a community of resources, can be a powerful force multiplier. So my Mexican friends today are working with my Malaysian friends, my Korean friends, and my China friends, in an amazing global business network.

I therefore see it as a critical duty of a leader to network, because networks serve as a strategic means to extend the company’s reach that can at times mean a make-or-break difference.

Courage and Integrity
The third aspect I want to talk about is courage and integrity as they go hand in hand. In practice and in layman term, courage means guts – guts to do the right things at the right time, guts to take risks, guts to be yourself. With integrity, a leader can be purposeful yet genuine and truthful. From there, the leader can then be bold in his goal and vision, decisive in judgement, sharp in seizing opportunities, daring in innovation, passionate in execution, fearless in facing adversity. Leaders never say die, because when guided by principles, setbacks only make them more determined.

To me, integrity is the most important virtue a person can possess. I believe that in business, your name and your integrity will be valued above all else. People need to believe that you will be able to keep your word and deliver what you promise. This is the foundation of business partnerships and personal trust and commitments.

With integrity, I believe in being daring. Dare to be different, dare to stick out your neck, dare to try new things and most of all, dare to be the best that you can be. If I feel that a project is worth trying for, I am willing to put my bets on the table and commit to making a project a success. While I must admit that this may not always yield 100% success, I have always learned valuable lessons along the way and more importantly, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have dared to try. Sadly, I think this spirit of daring is lacking today as our nature may prompt us to tread a more secured and certain path. To fully commit to a career or to something important to you in your life, a leader needs to be willing to face failures and learn from them, while pursuing success.

Conclusion
You probably know by now that I am a strong believer in leadership. I think it was Peter Drucker who said, “Leadership is of utmost importance, there is no substitute for it.” I cannot agree more.

Jason Tafler the CEO of PointRoll on Process Improvement in a Creative Environment

June 1, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jason Tafler speaks to Marc Gasperino, Partner on Process Improvement in a Creative Environment: The Perfect Storm for Failure?

When I left the shirt-and-tie world of investment banking and first came to work at PointRoll back in 2005, the leading provider of digital rich media advertising solutions, I was amazed by the abundance of tattoos, earrings and flipflops that confronted me at every turn. As a rapidly-growing company (from 50 to 350 employees over the past three years) focused on “enabling creativity” for Fortune 500 brand marketers and their ad agencies through a combination of innovative technology solutions and full-service operations, I had a feeling implementing the process and structure needed to scale the business might be a difficult undertaking. For art directors and designers, process can be viewed as evil. And PointRoll was not only staffed with mostly creative types, but the company had several other elements that drove variation and that would make any process improvement expert shiver with fear: creative freedom, demanding customers, fast turnaround times, numerous stakeholders, high levels of complexity and customization, and poor quality of inputs. PointRoll dominated the rich media ad market, but after growing at a 75% CAGR for five years, the company’s stellar service showed signs of weakness, which resulted in more and more disappointed customers and declining market share.

Isn’t Six Sigma for manufacturing?

I knew that in order to extend the company’s lead on the competition and to truly delight customers on a consistent basis, we had to get introspective and take a long, hard look at our customers’ needs and our internal processes. Two years later, after a significant investment in LEAN Six Sigma (which initially most people laughed off as something only manufacturers or governments use… “this could never work in a creative environment” was a popular response) and a deep evaluation of our processes, we had redesigned our 130-person Operations service division from an inefficient, disjointed functional organization into a scalable, client-focused, cross-functional pod structure with significantly improved service quality and customer satisfaction. The new organization included an enhanced regional management structure with better accountability, standard communication and operating mechanisms across the department, standardized work processes, increased automation, improved career pathing and development, and a new method of “root cause” problem solving when things went wrong.

What have we learned?

Throughout this journey, PointRoll’s team learned a lot about how to scale a creative, service-oriented business while keeping an intense focus on solving customers’ problems and delighting them with great service on a consistent basis. Here are a few of the key lessons we learned for anyone in a similar environment wondering how they can mesh process with creativity:

• Involve people in the process as early as possible through training, lunch & learns, and project participation. Show them that LEAN Six Sigma is really all about focusing on the customer, being creative with improvement ideas, and making employees lives easier.

• Instill creativity into process improvement initiatives through regular open-ended brainstorming and idea/solution generation.

• Fully standardize key tasks, communication & operating mechanisms to reduce variation. Because many tasks are manual vs. automated in a service environment, standardized work & associated training are crucial to consistent quality across the broader organization.

• Focus on quality and accountability at the source.

• Remember to always start process/problem discussions with the customer and try to integrate as deeply as possible with your customers’ own processes to drive stickiness and loyalty.

• Finally, we learned that growth in an entrepreneurial company can hit several ceilings and that one must continually evolve to break through barriers and stay ahead of the competition.

In my opinion, the lessons we learned are even more relevant in a difficult economy, as the best companies will take this opportunity to figure out what is really most important to their customers, to take a hard, honest look at their own performance (as scary as that can be), and to redesign their processes and structures with a focus on quality, continuous improvement and scalability.

So the next time you’re confronted by a creative type with a nose-ring and a full “sleeve” tattoo on his arm, telling you that it is impossible to improve a process in a creative environment, smile at him, pull out some markers and start drawing him a (colorful) process map… and let the creative juices flow.

No Elevator To The Top launches in India

May 30, 2009 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The book that is associated with this blog was launched in India this week by Penguin India. Priced at Rs. 400, the book has met with critical acclaim in the subcontinent. It is available at all leading bookstores and at online outlets. An early review can be read by clicking here.

Our regular posting by corporate leaders will resume next week.

This is how you sell by Ashwin Rao, CSO of Collabera.

April 29, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ashwin Rao, Chief Sales Officer of Collabera, an on shore and off shore IT services firm, tells us how how you sell effectively when your space has become largely undifferentiated.

It’s a great question, even though I firmly believe that ITO/BPO services are far from commoditized. But if customers have that impression – if they are beginning to push back and say, “A Developer is a Developer so, From now on, it’s just price” – then the question needs to be answered.

The answer is embedded in the word “services”. I think it is virtually impossible for services to be of uniform quality from one company to another. If you’re selling a service, you have the opportunity to differentiate. True, it is harder when your customers don’t see your differentiators. But that just means you need to work harder at making your differentiators visible. First to yourself, then to your customers.

Where to look for your differentiators? Three places occur to me immediately:

1.Energy or Passion – You, as an individual, purchase “commodity” services all the time. Laundry, medical care, car repair – you have many comparably-priced options for almost any service you need. What makes you a loyal customer in some cases and not in others? In many cases it is the energy exhibited by those who provide it. A doctor who takes an active interest in your complaint and questions you energetically to diagnose it. The launderer who takes pleasure in pointing out the buttons they replaced for you. The mechanic who insists on riding around the block with you to make sure you don’t still hear that sound. In their own ways, they are binding you to them with their passion and energy. You pay them with your loyalty; you don’t shop those providers on price.

Jack Welch’s first two Es of Leadership are Energy and Energize. Go along on the next sales call with your ITO and BPO salespeople. Do they exhibit energy and passion about your services? If not, you are forfeiting differentiation that is virtually free to you.

2.Innovation – It’s great if your technology team can invent a grand new technology that leapfrogs you past your competition, but that’s rare. What does not have to be rare is the every day, every way kind of innovation that refreshes the customer experience at every stage of the relationship.

To innovate, make sure you regularly question how things are done now. Encourage your people to do the same. If you’ve been using the same tool for years, ask why. “This is how we do it here” might lock in best practices, but it can also impede innovation. Encourage experimentation. “I wonder if we could get even better results if we…” If I were a customer, and your sales person came to me and said, “We’ve been thinking, we have a new idea for you – would you be open to trying this?” I wouldn’t think “commodity”. I would think “trusted advisor.”

3.Expertise – When I hear a CIO talk about the commoditization of ITO/BPO services, I can’t help thinking about the commoditization of CIOs: “Surely by now, if you’ve seen one CIO, you’ve seen them all.” Not really, but you get my point. In ITO/BPO services, there ARE experts who have earned the appellation, just as there are amateurs who have not. The former bring extraordinary value to our customers. They are profoundly differentiating. Expertise is not amorphous – it is measurable and demonstrable. By contrast, amateurs can be costly for customers.

In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes about violinists, “By the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.”

Where in your company do you truly have 10,000 hour people? Where do you have expertise that outweighs your competitors’? Have you quantified these areas of expertise? Do your competitors sell amateurs as experts? Do your salespeople know precisely how your true experts increase value for the customer? If not, you are underselling one of your greatest assets, making a commodity of a powerful differentiator.

Don Friedman, CMO of CA, one of the world’s leading software companies on why marketing is critical to survival now…

March 5, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Don Friedman, CMO of CA, one of the world’s leading software companies on why marketing is critical to survival now…

In good times and bad, it all starts and ends with the customer. Clearly, customer’s requirements have changed dramatically in the last six months as the economy has faltered. Customers are no longer looking for long term strategic projects; but rather they are looking for two things: projects that produce short term ROI (Return on Investment) and vendors that can survive the downturn.

Marketing always needs to support the business, specifically sales, and must focus on driving revenue. From a purely tactical standpoint this means adjusting the marketing messages globally to reflect the new economic realities and emphasizing products that are more easily installed and produce immediate and attractive returns. It also means positioning your company with confidence and as a thought leader, acknowledging the short term realities, and keeping an eye on the future. It means maintaining share of voice so customers know the value you can provide and you are seen as a viable vendor.

But marketing can and should do much more. It is a mistake to narrow the role of the CMO. He/she are in a unique position having to deal with many functions including development and sales. In times of growth, companies focus on revenue and earnings per share. In tough times, survival means focusing on cash flow and the balance sheet. It means further improving internal efficiencies and productivity, and in many cases doing less, not more. Yet “efficiency” and “productivity” are just words. And while widely used, these powerful words are sometimes elusive. Marketing can help by ensuring the customer needs are well communicated throughout the organization and there is close alignment between the company’s strategy and the functional organizations. Perhaps most important, marketing can cross functional silos, and become the grease that improves the alignment and creates a common understanding that yields greater efficiencies.

Think of it this way: imagine each person in the company as a vector. They have strength and direction. Their strength varies according to the person’s roles and capabilities. The direction is determined by what the person is trying to achieve. Optimal effectiveness and productivity is achieved when the vectors are aligned and their strengths are additive. Keeping the vectors aligned in a steady state environment is a challenge, in this environment where there is little historical precedent to steer the ship, alignment becomes even more difficult and critical.

Don’t waste the opportunity that this short time economic crisis provides. Use the uncertainty to reexamine and ensure alignment and focus across the organization while keeping your eyes on the customer. Companies that do this will not only survive but flourish as the economy improves.

PolyOne’s SVP, HR on Lessons Learned from Communicating During an Economic Downturn

February 11, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Kenneth M. Smith, Senior Vice President, Human Resources of PolyOne Corp. offers Lessons Learned from Communicating During an Economic Downturn.

Communicate honestly and frequently: When accurate predictions are not possible, do not attempt to make a forecast. Instead, let employees know what you know—both the good and the bad. Be open about areas of uncertainty, but be emphatic about areas of certainty. Use all communications vehicles available to you, and consider adding new ones. Every executive-level or management-level communication is an opportunity to reinforce your economic crisis messaging.

Use the facts, but show empathy: All of us know that an economic crisis is occurring—we hear about every day in the news and we see it whenever we look at our personal finances. Employees need to understand the impact on the company’s customers, competitors and suppliers. Relate the larger economic picture to your individual situation and use the facts to emphasize the need for action or changes. At the same time, demonstrate empathy and compassion because the economic crisis that is impacting your company also has personal financial implications for each of your employees. While you are explaining the impact on your industry, they are thinking about how much ground their child’s college savings fund has lost.

Reinforce the fundamentals: Now is not the time to abandon your company’s core values, vision or strategy. Repeat the messages you would be communicating to employees even if the crisis was not occurring, but explain their importance in the context of the external environment. For instance, customer service is always a priority, but understanding that exceptional customer care at a time when your customers are struggling will both help your best customers survive the crisis and will instill customer loyalty that will augment your own bottom line is a powerful message. Further, message continuity provides an opportunity to reassure employees that despite a difficult environment, their company is acting rather than reacting.

Encourage involvement in the solution: Employees want to be a part of the solution—they want to help their own company survive. Changes to salaries and benefits are ways that employees are coerced to help the bottom line, but employees should also be encouraged to show initiative. Find examples of innovative cost-cutting actions taken by employees and share them throughout the company in order to inspire others. Employees need to understand that every little cost savings can make a difference and that their actions contribute to the company’s success.

Confirm your appreciation: Even under normal circumstances, it is not possible to thank your employees enough. During times of extreme duress, when perks and rewards are financially unfeasible, remember to show your appreciation for the hard work and dedication of your employees. Let them know that you value the extra hours and increased pressures they face.

Barry L Shuler, CIO of the Ritz Carlton on Organizational Structures for this economic climate

January 12, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

As many much smarter than I have observed, we have never had an economic climate like today. Many of our tried and true approaches don’t seem to apply. But, I believe strongly that the fundamentals of business process analysis and design do still apply and need to be revisited during this turbulent time. I just as firmly believe that now is the time to look for ways to inject game-changing technology into our business processes, to permanently transform them in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.

The knee-jerk reaction in times like these is to look for things to cut. Firms can cut staff and try to deliver the same service levels with fewer people. Without supporting changes, this is sustainable for a limited time, and it burns employees out. Firms could also reduce services or cut back on service levels. This is sustainable, but not a model that will endear the firm to its customers. I could give more examples, but you get the idea.

The firms that will emerge stronger from this downturn, and any challenging economic period, will be those who use the times as the “burning platform” to made radical changes to the way they deliver their products and services for sustainable efficiency. A key to discovering the right things to change, and to make changes that will have the highest probability of improving organizational performance, is to understand the “architecture” of the organization (including the information technology components).

Here are some fundamental principles that form the underpinning of enterprise architecture analysis and modeling.

  • There is no reason to invest in change to information technology or business processes unless there is promise that the change will result in improved organizational performance, or the game has changed and the organization no longer has the “price of admission”.
  • To change organizational behavior (and therefore performance), one must change the structural relationships within the processes of the organization. Exhorting employees to be more efficient and effective won’t change behavior. And just providing new information or direction, while important, is not sufficient.

With this in mind, to effect behavioral change, we need to change a component of our business process, like adding a new information system, a machine, or a new incentive plan. Or we need to change the process itself by adding, changing, deleting, or combining steps.

I’ll give an example from a prior life in the hospitality industry. We wanted our sales people to sell meeting space across all brands and hotel properties. In so doing, we wanted not only to increase individual hotel revenue and profits, but also to maximize revenue and profit across all hotel properties

To effect this change in salesperson behavior, among other things, we needed to:

  • Provide background knowledge of a broader range of “product”, e.g., the types of available inventory;
  • Give access to what inventory is available at any given time; and
  • Give access to rate programs available for that particular inventory for that particular customer.

That was the information side of things. But, as I said earlier, we needed more than this to change behavior. We also needed to:

  • Change the compensation plan;
  • More robust processes and procedures for consistency and fairness across hotel properties; and
  • Give real time electronic access to inventory information for all properties to all sales people.

Processes all have critical results to be improved. In my example, the critical result of the business process was the “yield” in terms of revenue and profit generated from hotel meeting space. Another critical result of this changed process was strengthened customer loyalty and increased brand awareness and preference.

But, how do we know that what we are doing will have the desired effect? At the risk of becoming really academic, I will get into a bit of the “how”.

The real enabler of organizational change is an enterprise architecture model and a proactive plan to evolve the actual processes and results of the organization to those depicted in the model and proven through simulation prior to implementation.

Enterprise architecture is a true depiction of all of the “components” of the enterprise (i.e., resources, management controls, environmental factors, products and services, and external agents); their persistent inter-relationships (i.e., those that are “designed in”); and their behavior within the processes of the enterprise (i.e., the “transient or transaction” relationships over time) that provide the firm’s products and services to the marketplace.

Academic sounding, yes. But it is also practical. In simple terms, we should be always looking for design changes to the business (including information technology) that have a direct and lasting effect on the firm’s performance in delivering products and services to customers.

One might ask, isn’t creating an enterprise architecture hard to do? Yes. But that doesn’t reduce the need for it, nor does it make it less valuable.

The good news is that it is possible through a technique known as “middle-out” to initially create enterprise architecture models for only the most critical aspects of the business, or those that seem to be either “most broken” or “most promising for improved results”. The totality of all business processes within the company need not be tackled all at once.

As the business world becomes increasingly dynamic and unpredictable, a solid enterprise architecture model becomes absolutely essential to thrive, and perhaps even to survive.

Sadly, keeping the model current also becomes more challenging during these critical times. But, in times like we are facing today, organizations that do have this view of their business will have an incredible advantage in speed and appropriateness of change to meet the challenges of a changing and increasingly uncharted world.

The CEO of Builder Homesite speaks of using Servant Leadership as a model for sustainable business growth.

December 12, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Tim Costello, Chairman & Chief Executive, Builder Homesite Inc. talks about Servant Leadership as a model for sustainable business growth. He will continue to expand on this theory in future posts.

Having spent over 25 years in a broad range of industries, I have heard the term partnership used in many bilateral business discussions. It is usually presented in an effort to mitigate a company’s fear that the proposed relationship is asymmetrical. While the idea of partnership sounds appealing, it seldom manifests into the mutually beneficial and equally balanced relationship it implies. The problem stems from the fundamental motivation of both parties. As independent companies, driven to maximize their own shareholder’s value and as individuals, motivated to maximize their personal income, the concept of true partnership is handicapped from the outset of the relationship. The incentive structure for both companies and individuals drives them to attempt to gain advantage in partnership, forgoing the potential long term benefits of a true partnership. Think how different negotiations would go if all revenues were to be pooled and shared equally as well as all compensation. This may sound more like a merger than a partnership, but isn’t the intent of a partnership to align two companies completely while keeping them separate entities? Without such alignment the relationship will really be one of negotiation for advantage with the desired appearance of equality.

So, is the fundamental concept of business partnerships flawed? Is the idea that two organizations can exist to form a truly symbiotic relationship where both parties achieve more together than apart merely conceptual? Is it impossible for two companies to really align their interests and act so selflessly? I don’t think so. The problem is not a lack of potential benefit, or structural options. The problem seems to revolve around how we measure success, who we believe we serve and the definition of the system in which we operate. Unfortunately, these are pretty big issues and decades of management training has ingrained a certain uniform set of rules into the consciousness of the world’s industrial leadership. Compounding the situation is the fact that capital markets do not seem to effectively value long term relationships, strategy or the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire value stream.

To remedy this situation, we must engage in systems thinking and adopt the management philosophy of servant leadership. By exploring our role in the value stream through this lens we open ourselves up to a completely new paradigm of how we measure success, how we treat our customers and how economic rents are distributed throughout the value stream. The most important question has always been…..Who is your customer?

Following Black Friday, the CMO & Head of E-commerce of Nutrisystem gives tips on leading here & now…

November 30, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Monica Woo, Executive Vice President, Ecommerce & Chief Marketing Officer, Nutrisystem spoke to us on what leaders should be doing today:

All business leaders are navigating through turbulent economic times, not only in their local markets, but also, on a geo-political basis. I don’t profess to have all the right answers, but would like to share some pragmatic tips that have worked.

1) Don’t Play The Blame Game

It is very easy to blame the economic downturn as the sole reason for disappointing business performance, but neglect to assess weak links in the business’s value chain, and continuously optimize the drivers of sales and profit.

Now more than ever, business leaders need to rigorously assess the fundamental drivers of sales and profit growth, and continuously optimize those drivers.

2) Steer With A Steady Hand

During traumatic times, it is tempting to over-react and hastily make sweeping changes in strategies or organization structure, without the benefit of analyses or testing. The goals and strategies designed for survival and prosperity in the long-term continue to be important. One may need to reprioritize the initiatives required to achieve a goal, or implement a strategy with less time and money, but one should not over-react and abandon a sound strategic course. Pendulum swings not only cause confusion, but also, undermine the rank and file’s confidence in their leader.

3) Stabilize the Here and Now, while Investing for the Recovery

Leaders must invest in high-return longer-term strategies, such as product or service innovations that require long lead time, in order to prepare for future economic upturn. We need to be able to conduct a moving train, while simultaneously building a new station and train track.

4) Necessity Is the Mother of Invention

I would like to share a story as child growing up in Hong Kong. One day, I bought a frozen pizza from a posh Western-style supermarket. Mind you, I did not know what a pizza was, or how to cook a pizza. When my mother and I read the instructions that the pizza must be baked in an oven, we faced “a moment of truth”. As a low-income Chinese family, we did not have an oven! So, what did my mother do? She proceeded to stir fry our pizza in a wok! My first pizza -stir fried—was, by far, the most delicious pizza!

I told this story because necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is a critical currency in a recessionary economy. We need to challenge our team to leverage existing manufacturing asset, distribution capabilities, or media properties, to create incremental profit streams or solve business problems, without additional CAPEX or Operating Expenses.

5) Pursue Coalition to Deliver More With Less

I am a big believer in partnerships and strategic alliances in good times, and even more so, in tough times. Pursue marketing, sales, or innovation partnership with third-party brands to accelerate expansion into new geographies, new customer segments, or new channels, without the significant investments needed to create new businesses from the grounds out. Furthermore, join forces with non-competitive brands in “bartering” assets (e.g., “pay” for display ads on a partner’s site with incorporation of the partner in one’s TV ads), or secure better media rates by consolidating buying between two partner brands.

6) Communicate and Celebrate

During challenging economic times, leaders must frequently communicate up, down and across the organization, from weekly updates of performance, to progress on key business initiatives.

Also, we must make every effort to celebrate successes, whether small (e.g., leads have expanded by 10%) or big (e.g., launch of a redesigned website). Communication and celebration are especially important to the Millennials – those born between 1980 and 2000, and are inspired by inclusive communication, collective goal achievement and positive attitude. Communication and celebrations cost almost nothing, but can generate substantial return.

No Elevator To The Top launches today

November 13, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

As readers of this blog know, postings on this site are usually by CEOs & leaders of corporations around the world. Today is an exception. The book, “There’s No Elevator To the Top“, published by Portfolio/Penguin, hits bookstores & online stores today. As part of the national launch, we are posting a podcast interview with the author of the book, Umesh Ramakrishnan. We will return to our regular leadership posts next week.

To listen to the podcast, please click on this:

http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/008554.html

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