Blog
Fixing business problems: You don’t know what you don’t know
In business, many of us have the “forest for the trees” problem. Someone, a business colleague or perhaps a customer offers us some ‘constructive’ criticism about our business. Perhaps a statement like: “Dude, you need a new web site” or “hey, I can’t find you on Facebook”. Suddenly, we feel compelled to act immediately and specifically on that criticisms or that item.
How many of us take the time to look a little further? How many of us say to ourselves: “maybe a new website isn’t the full picture, therefore I need to think about the website in the context of my entire marketing strategy”? “Maybe it is my strategy that needs a fix…not the tactic of the website.”
I suspect few of us go beyond the initial pang we feel when someone has dropped a critical comment. There is a type of anxiety that sets in and gets us motivated to quickly do a fix. Suddenly we are hunting for help with the website or fixing that Facebook page, rather that thinking through whether there are some other missing pieces.
So why do we do this? Well, sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. But we think we know!
Huh?
Some of us have a one-track mind in business. We just want to fix what appears to be broken and move on. But what we often fail to do is look at the other contributing “moving parts” and see if anything else is broken, or breaking, or starting to cause a break in our business.
I have had calls from people saying, “I need social media help NOW!” But when I ask them “why?” or “what are you trying to achieve?” some have said, “Well, one of my customers said I should be on Twitter!”
Well maybe they should be on Twitter, but does that play into the rest of their marketing communications plan, assuming there is a plan.
Furthermore, when people comment only one aspect of our business, I’m sure many of us think: “Well the rest must be fine then”. We believe the adage “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. But, as I said, sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know….that is, other parts might be broken or breaking.
We all need to take a step back when we are offered constructive criticism, or an opinion about our business or offering. Take it in, absorb it, and then look around and see if there’s something else contributing to the problem, or what’s missing or what other parts, given some attention, could make things even better.
Then we can all start saying, “I now know what I didn’t know… and my business is the better for it”.
“Set it and forget it” mentality, we have a problem
Today I want to revive an old post… I think it’s time again… plus I need my own reminder!
Remember those Ronco commercials? Remember the slogan? “Set it and forget it”
It seems this is a bit of a mantra for some businesses when it comes to any form of communication with their audiences. There’s a lot of complacency out there – a belief that just by doing the bare minimum, people will buy from you, trust you, care about your business, remain loyal to you, and talk you up to their friends.
I have an analogy, it’s not a new analogy but a good one nonetheless. Just because you buy an elliptical trainer or a treadmill, it does not mean you will get into shape. You have to work at it, you have to create a routine, and you have to commit to using the machines in order to get a result. And I have to take my own advice here too… believe me. Having a few social media accounts does not make you a social media maven. Buying a few ads here and there, does not make you a well recognized brand.
I think businesses make this mistake all the time. They don’t want to fight for their place in the market, they don’t want to look for their internet real estate carefully; they want a simple and easy solution. They have a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality. Or as my friend Kneale Mann refers to it as…. “sleep at night metrics”. There is no simple solution, and getting lulled into believing that the treadmill sitting in the basement unused will entitle you to call yourself healthy is just a load of nonsense.
And it’s very hard to break the belief. The belief that very little or no effort will bring you results. Take advertising as an example. In the good old days, creating the ad was probably the biggest part of the effort: the concept, (sometimes) focus groups, the layout, the graphic design, the copywriting, and the vehicle on which the message was delivered (newspaper, TV, Magazine). As a business owner though, all you had to do was spend a little time with the agency answering questions: give them your vision, give them your money and they mostly would take care of the rest. Waiting for people to come to your business or buy your product was the gravy. And as a result, creating an ad, from the business owner’s point of view was easy – I can see where the “set it and forget it” attitude came from. I really can!!
The agency, for the most part, was the faceless group of worker-bees gettin’ it done.
To some degree, that process still goes on a little… pepper in a few new tools and you can have one hell of a campaign!
But here’s where it’s all changed. Don’t ask me when it changed, just know that it has. Information went from scarce to abundant, J-school journalism became citizen journalism, letters to the editor became powerful and influential Blogs, and large retailers became audience review sites. Audiences began demanding authentic engagement with all types of organizations: businesses, not-for-profits, associations, and the like. It all changed.
And as a result, the “set it and forget it” mentality fails miserably.
But if you’re not wanting or willing to work more, if you’re not willing to make this new fangled way of communicating part of your business or your routine, then it is better to not do it at all. Because like any kind of work the equation holds: the result is relative to the amount of effort.
You have to:
Create compelling content
Deliver an important message
Give people the opportunity to engage
Overriding message: GIVE YOUR AUDIENCE A REASON TO BE THERE!
Succession Planning…What’s a Board to do?
We often heard it said that the two most important functions a Board of Directors performs are strategic planning and succession planning. Both functions assure the continuity and sustainability of the organization and both are critical. Unfortunately, succession planning often does not receive the time and attention it deserves and many organizations find themselves in a quandary when the replacement of leaders becomes an issue.
Many Boards have a Human Resources and Compensation Committee that can be charged with taking the leadership on this important area; other Boards may delegate this responsibility to their Governance Committee. Others see it as a whole Board responsibility, and engage all members of the Board in the process. Where the accountability resides is not as important as making sure that the responsibility is understood and the necessary work is being done.
While the most important position the Board needs to think about in the succession planning process is the CEO or the Executive Director, those positions reporting directly to that individual are also critical in this process. Board members need to ask themselves a number of questions:
Are there individuals within the organization who can be developed to succeed the current leader? What is the time horizon for the current leader? Is he/she likely to retire from the role or is the organization at risk for a retention issue? Is the performance of the leader at a level that the Board is likely to be satisfied as the organization changes and grows? How much ‘runway’ do the potential successors in the organization have or are they likely to leave the organization at about the same time as the current leader?
These are just a few of the questions that need to be considered in a discussion that assume an orderly transition to new leadership. We do not always have the luxury of an orderly transition however, and the questions a Board may be asking in an emergency situation may be quite different.
When a CEO or Executive Director is suddenly absent, due to illness or an accident, is the Board ready with an emergency plan or a contingency plan? Who steps into the role in these circumstances? Is one of the direct reports ready, or does a Board member take the role temporarily? If it is a direct report who moves into the role, who manages their responsibilities while they are carrying the role? If none of the direct reports are suitable and there are no Board members who can take the role on, who in the external environment can be called upon to operate in a temporary assignment?
A number of different scenarios need to be examined and considered and the dialogue at the Board table needs to be respectful but frank. This discussion is only the beginning. The work that follows is documenting the decisions and making sure that the necessary developmental processes are put in place to activate the plan. The development of the appropriate direct reports and assuring they too have succession plans in place is the ongoing work required to make a succession plan work!!! More on this in a future article.
Business reborn – and other musings
As most new Blogs say, “Hello World”… well…Hello we’re here – welcome to the Raeda Group Inc. blog.
Why “reborn”? We are a new company but we’ve all been around a while, so call it a born-again business!
It seems funny to start things up on Halloween, but it makes for an interesting Anniversary down the road. There are some exciting times ahead and we hope you visit often and get to know us.
So what are we here for? Well, yes, we’re another consulting, training and outsourcing firm if you want to simplify things. But our philosophy is different. And others will say “ya, we do that too”. I guess time will tell.
How are we different? We prefer to examine the other moving parts that might be contributing to the ‘problem’ or ‘symptom’. Sure we can help you build a social media strategy or advise you about a mobile strategy or help you develop an HR policy…. but are those tactics alone, individually, going to solve your business problem? Maybe there’s something else we need to address first? And guess what? We will.
It doesn’t mean we won’t do what you want. It means that we won’t overlook the other parts of your business and potential obstacles and challenges that may need addressing first or in tandem with other business issues.
Like a good advisor, to the best of our ability, we help you look at all the variables before getting hyper-focused on one symptom. Sounds reasonable, right?
Well, that’s us!