Take a different view and solve your problems faster

Google

By Gary Peacock

Do you have a problem that seems impossible to solve? One reason could be how the problem is stated. Typically, you see a problem from one view: from one perspective. But as JK Galbraith says, sometimes this protects us from thinking.

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."

John Kenneth Galbraith

One way to get a different view

Imagine you have a problem with the productivity of your team.  You might state your problem as: Increase the productivity of my team. To get a different view, a simple technique is to rewrite the problem as a bigger problem and rewrite the problem as a smaller problem.

A bigger problem might be: increase the productivity of my department; A smaller problem might be increase the productivity of Barbara. So summarising you now have three different views of the problem.

 

Now you have three different views to choose from.  When you do this you will find this simple exercise forces you to create different views of the same problem.  This may make you realise the fastest way to solve your problem is to solve a bigger problem. Or you may find the fastest way to solve your problem is to solve the smaller problem. Even if you choose to solve the original problem, you have three different views of the problem and will solve the problem faster. This simple tool helps us quickly get different points of view.

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”

 George Eliot

Other ways of getting a different view

"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."

John le Carre

A quick way to get a different view is to leave your desk and talk to others, especially customers.  A client was recently complaining about an unresponsive and inflexible IT department not being willing to make it faster and easier for salespeople to access systems when out of the office.  A quick way of getting IT to change is to send them out for a day or two with a salesperson to visit customers.  As they see and experience the pain of using systems outside the office, they will start to find ways to improve the systems, fast. 

As Margaret Attwood says, Reality simply consists of different points of view. A quick way to get a different perspective is ask others from different departments how they see the problem. In every organization there are people who always have a different view to most other people. Find those people in your organization and have a coffee with them. They will always give you a different view. Remember the words of Comedian, George Carlin: 

“Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty.

I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.”

What is your innovation appetite?

Google

By Peter Browne

If you want to achieve breakthrough change to grow revenue and profits, why not try innovation? However, Innovation has become an overused buzz word, and there are many assumptions made when the term is used.

Before undertaking any strategic planning with innovation in mind, it is critical to be clear on your organisation’s innovation appetite. At a minimum the innovation appetite must be agreed between the board and CEO.

The Innovation Spectrum

At one end of the spectrum innovation simply means doing what we currently do better or differently. In many industries incremental improvement can be enough to keep current customers satisfied, and maintain an edge over competitors. This approach is very low risk, easy to implement but has lower upside potential.

The other end of the innovation spectrum is developing new products and services that solve unmet needs of the marketplace, for example; products such as the iPhone/iTunes/App Store or low cost airlines. New products for unmet needs are typically much higher risk and higher return if they meet the needs of the market, but equally pose the risk of being abject failures.

So your organisation’s innovation appetites and risk appetites are closely correlated. It is almost impossible to introduce a more risky kind of innovation into a traditional, risk averse organisation, without some burning platform for change (and by then it is usually too late).

Developing Strategy

Understanding what innovation means to your organisation and your industry is essential. Being clear on this makes the process for developing strategy far smoother, as the boundaries can be set at the outset providing a framework for developing strategy.

For example, before undertaking strategy work we ask organisations to consider these questions:

• Will our focus be limited to existing products and services, or are you open to identifying new products and services?
• Are you focusing on the currently geographies served, or potential new geographies, even global?
• If new products and services are to be scoped what it the minimum potential market for them to be worth pursuing?
• What funding is available to fully evaluate and commercialise a new product or service?

Answering these questions up front provides clear boundaries for the strategy development team, and prevents wasted investment in time and money pursuing strategies that ultimately don’t get past the first hurdle.

Whether working with a customer on a Blue Ocean Strategy or change that is more incremental, we apply our expertise to set the foundations for developing strategy successfully. Contact us on +61 2 9450 1040 to discuss how adopting a different approach can help your company achieve a breakthrough change to grow revenues and profit.

Solving Impossible Problems: What are you assuming?

by Gary Peacock

As we strive to solve our impossible business problems, most of us are held in chains.

 "Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken."

- Warren Buffet

In business, the chains that stop us solving impossible problems are our assumptions. Most of us don't know what we are assuming.  Our assumptions bounce around inside our brain unchallenged. To solve our impossible problems we must examine our assumptions. However, we can’t do this unless they are in writing.

Assumptions affect Strategic Customers and Strategic Negotiations

The American actor, Henry Winkler once wisely said: “Assumptions are the termites of relationships”. Too often when we are called in to investigate losing a strategic customer we find the supplier has assumed the customer simply wants the same product but cheaper or faster. Or the supplier assumes their customer’s strategy is the same as it was 5 years ago. So, to protect your relationships with strategic customers, ask regularly, what are we assuming? 

As well as affecting strategic customers, assumptions affect strategic negotiations. More than 20 years ago, I remember a negotiator urging me to test my assumptions. He rewrote the word assume as Ass-U-Me to remind me that if I did not test my assumptions, I would assume and that would make an ass out of you and me. I never forgot that lesson that assuming is bad for both sides of a negotiation.

Practical Tips

"The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions."

-Don Miguel Ruiz

 Ask: What are you assuming? Write a list as quickly as you can. Don’t hesitate. Simply writing a list is often enough to help you break the chains holding you from solving the problem. Often, as soon as you see the assumptions in writing you know the assumption is wrong and you see another solution to your impossible problem.

If you need to analyse the assumptions further, try this. Once you have a list, number the assumptions and then ask two more questions:

1. How uncertain is the assumption? (low or high)
2. How important is the assumption? (low or high)

You can then map your assumptions in a simple 2 by 2 diagram (See example below).  Investigate further, those assumptions that you are highly uncertain and important to your business.

  

“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”

 - Isaac Asimov

Only 15% of companies manage their accounts strategically - how does your company measure up?

Google

by Peter Browne

“Where we are at now – that’s not for me to worry about. Where we are going – that’s what I care about. And our suppliers better care about that too if they want to be our suppliers”

- President, EMEA – Industrial Products Manufacturer

Based on a 2010 study of senior managers from manufacturers, retailers and distributors in Europe and North America, only 15% of organisations measure up when it comes to managing their key accounts in a truly strategic manner. Alarmingly, 65% of companies believe they are managing their key accounts strategically, so there is a whopping disconnect between what organisations think is strategic account management and global best-practice.

In addition, the study identified that organisations with an effective strategic account management program had continued to improve their approach. This means that not only were the competitors falling behind, the gap between them was increasing. They had differentiated themselves and successfully increased the barriers to entry against their competition.

Companies that fail to address their key accounts strategically typically find that:

• They are increasingly reliant on price as the primary negotiation lever
• They are incurring costs with accounts that deliver little or no value
• Margins are declining
• They are not growing

The same study identified a number of common shortcomings in strategic account management practices.

Sales led

Many organisations think that if they have some large accounts, a dedicated account management team and some form of account planning system, then they are strategically managing their accounts.  This is simply a better than average way to allocate and sell to large accounts.

To build a strategic relationship there must be broad and deep connections between all levels of the relationship. Senior level engagement is the most critical. The growth of your company is inextricably linked with your key accounts so senior managers must be intimately aware of and involved in strategies with key accounts.

Revenue focussed

The primary focus of most account management programs is short-term revenue growth and account retention. The account plan and objectives of the account manager all relate to revenue opportunities and what the organisation can win from the key account.

The primary objective of strategic account management is to build a strategic relationship with the key account, which will achieve sustainable long-term revenue growth, increase organisational differentiation and create significant barriers to entry and exit.

Failure to identify and create value

Sales teams too often focus on what they want from the account. Not enough time is focussed on understanding what the critical success factors are with a key account, and what “value” means from the account’s perspective.

Strategic Account Management requires the account team to ask a lot of questions across the key account, and make conscious observations of what they are seeing and hearing. This information needs to be distilled into insights that provide clarity on what real value is for the key account. Only then can a focussed and actionable account plan be developed and executed.

Summary

Whilst there a many more success factors for your strategic account management program, these are some of the most critical. The fact is that companies that have effective strategic account management programs achieve better growth and financial returns than companies that do not.

We have worked with many organisations to develop and implement strategic account programs, and identify ways to deliver more value to your largest accounts, so if you need help to make this shift please contact us at Gordian Business on +61 2 9450 1040 or www.gordianbusiness.com.au.

Negotiating and the Daintree Forest – Prepare for the Unexpected

Google

by Stephen Kozicki

“A skilled global negotiator will always connect at an emotional and rational level in the negotiation and will always be on the lookout for the unexpected to occur!”

Like many in the APAC region, our family’s holiday plans to Fiji were disrupted by Cyclone Evan in December, 2012 and instead we had our holiday in Port Douglas, Australia.

One of the highlights was flying into the Daintree Forest, in the far north of Queensland, by helicopter into a reasonably isolated part of the Daintree and being taken by a guide through the forest.

The Daintree forest is estimated to be over 180 million years old – tens of millions of years older than the Amazon rainforest in South America. The plant life is amazing and as other observers have noted, the Daintree is a living museum that catalogues the evolution of plant life on Earth. Covering 1200sqkm between Mossman Gorge and the Bloomfield River north of Cairns, the World Heritage-listed Daintree is the largest continuous rainforest area in Australia and is home to the traditional indigenous owners of the land and the current custodians, the Kuku Yalanji people.

The first lesson for me, as a negotiator, came from the appreciation and understanding of the history and greatness of the Daintree. Sometimes in major negotiations we are so keen to start negotiating, that we don’t really understand the context and the emotional connection of what we are negotiating and the other people involved.

As we alighted from the helicopter my wife Gillian, our youngest daughter Hannah and I met our guide, Prue from Coopers Creek. We started the tour and it was clear that not only was she passionate about the forest, she was also passionate about teaching us how to observe and see what we would normally miss. It was like walking on the scene of Avatar and Jurassic Park all rolled into one.

She pointed to a tree, a vine and a group of ants and said boldly, “Wow, this is a perfect example of obligate mutualism!”.  Obligate mutualism is a type of relationship in which the species involved are in close proximity and interdependent with one another in a way that one cannot survive without the other. Often key customers and key suppliers see themselves as independent from each other and fight over scarce resources, normally, what is the cheapest price. Then there are innovative suppliers who work with key customers as partners, who see themselves as interdependent to each other, they focus on value creation not price. For those of you looking for business examples the best would be 3M and P&G.

The final lesson relevant to negotiation is to prepare for the unexpected!

We finished the walking tour and Ryan, our pilot, carried the lunch and drinks down to the clearing in Coopers River for a swim and lunch. As we were swimming, Hannah noticed a small dark thing on her left little toe which was wiggling with great enthusiasm and when I lifted her foot it was clear it was a leech, trying as hard as possible to burrow into her toe. When I informed Hannah it was a leech, I am sure everyone in Australia heard her screams.

I finally removed the offending leech and Hannah jumped on my back still screaming. I did not expect her to do that, I expected her to rationalise that no matter where she was in the river a leech could attach itself to her.

Often in negotiations we believe that we can present a rational and compelling reason to reach an agreement and expect the other side to coolly examine our offer and, with the weight of evidence so great, say yes. Often in reality, the other side responds quite emotionally.

We have recently seen a great example with the fiscal cliff crisis in the USA. We know that prior to the end of 2012, President Barack Obama was looking for a way for the US Senate to cut a deal to lower the federal deficit through tax increases and spending cuts. Both sides of US politics believed that their requests were both rational and compelling. Neither really prepared for the unexpected, which was no deal! Both took strong positions and almost brought America to its knees, again.

Enough about negotiation lessons, wherever you are in the world, you should take a visit to the Daintree and put it on your bucket list.

Remember, when you do go to the Daintree, stay in Port Douglas, do the helicopter tour www.skysafari.com.au and book the tour guide Prue www.ccwild.com. More importantly watch where you step and swim, as the crocodiles love tasty humans and the leeches love fresh blood! Enjoy!