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Expect a random walk with your prospects
Customer journey mapping has helped companies improve their customers' experience, but we have to be smart about the fact that it's just a tool for planning and for empathizing with our customers. How customers actually decide and adopt our services is very unpredictable, and we should keep studying the real data all the time. VentureBeat:…
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Using micro-goals to stay on track toward our goals: the big picture is our enemy.
"Chunking," or breaking down a project into micro-goals, has long been recognized in productivity coaching. However, it's also extremely important in motivating co-workers. We tend to spend too much time on the vision and not enough time kicking around little ideas to move the project down the road. Recognizing the success of every micro-goal is…
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The Anti-Amazon: T.J. Maxx
A strong commitment to a clearly differentiated strategy is serving T.J. Maxx. One of the hardest things for a business to do is say, "no, that's not our customer," but they know what they're doing in ignoring e-commerce. Forbes: How Walgreens and T.J. Maxx Are Winning With Minimal Online Sales, 2017-May-25 by Barbara Thau The…
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The very personal mass email
Heads up… I'm starting a quarterly update email. Most of you are too young to remember the Holiday Newsletter. Thousands of women (most with families) used to type them up every holiday season, have them copied (mimeographed or xeroxed), stuff and mail them to a dozen or a hundred people. Family news was the focus:…
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The real key to customer centricity: people taking care of people
When people inside a company are kind to each other, they will be kind to the customers. Harvard Business Review: Trust Your Employees, Not Your Rule Book, 2017-Apr-20 by Bill Taylor (new book, Simply Brilliant) The entirety of the Nordstrom Employee Handbook fits on a single 5×8 card and involves exactly one rule. Here is…
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Why the strategies of Google, USAA and Vanguard have been so effective
When we decide how we want to compete, we have to look at how we're going to fit into the market, both from our customers' point of view, as well as from our internal capabilities. Harvard Business Review: Strategic Choices Need to Be Made Simultaneously, Not Sequentially, 2017-Apr-3 by Roger L. Martin The only productive,…
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What other firms refuse to learn from Costco
Why aren't the benefits of better compensation common knowledge among business owners? Harvard Business Review: Inequality isn't just due to market forces, 2017-Mar-30 by Adam Cobb For example, Costco has long been recognized as a “high road” employer that pays above market wages, offers good benefits, and provides workers opportunities for advancement. Despite these significant…
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Why we have to notice when capitalism goes off the rails, as in fake markets like Facebook and Uber
I've spent my last dime with Amazon (they would take it if they could get it). I just used up a gift card, and future gift cards will be given away to someone desperate. I'm considering giving up on Facebook, but I think I'll just do my best to avoid letting them make any money.…
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How things, including organizations, change
I tend to think that organizations won't change unless forced, but 'org designer' Kathryn Maloney reminds us that's actually not true. Managing and leading are more about steering change that instigating it. Another striking thought below: living systems (including organizations) naturally differentiate themselves. What if that need to differentiate drives a lot of change that…
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Unhealthy growth
We seem to have a growing awareness that unbridled growth is not healthy. Signal v. Noise: Exponential growth devours and corrupts, 2017-Feb-27 by David H. Hansson As Douglas Rushkoff says, we need a new operating system for startups. The current one will keep producing the same extractive and monopolistic empires we’ve gotten so far. No,…
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