Do you ever feel like a hamster travelling full-speed on its little hamster wheel and by the end of the day you know you have accomplished everything you had set out to do but in reality, you are no further along than when you had started?
Sometimes it's important for us to take a deep breath and a step back so we can evaluate what it really is we need to accomplish in order to enjoy success.
I'm hosting a complimentary Teleseminar on Wednesday, June 25th at 5:00 pm PDT that will discuss your role as a Leader, what benefits Time Leadership plays in your daily life, and the importance Emotional Intelligence plays in how effective you are in business.
Sign-up - Here's How!
Email knesselroad@allypcs.com for your call-in instructions and your complimentary Leadership Roles Assessment guide in PDF format. Find out which of the five Leadership Roles you need to work on in order to balance your Leadership Effectiveness.
For Program Details and to Learn More - Click Here!
To your success!
Kathy Nesselroad
http://www.allypcs.com/
Monday, June 23, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
5 Strategies to Help Ease Economic Pain
We can’t change the economy and the outside forces affecting our business – so we need to re-evaluate ourselves as leaders in our organizations and how we view our circumstances.
What can we do to take our current reality and make it work to our advantage?
I’ve put together 5 ideas that may help you to re-focus on your current strategies and possibly look at creating new strategies – using your vision as your direction. Or at the very least – kick-start a brainstorming session.
We all agree that it is a value-driven market – and we must focus on the customer’s value perception. Their value reality is based on the benefits they will receive, less whatever their cost is. Customer/client perception is the key.
So the first idea is to:
1. Re-evaluate your Competitive Differentiators.
There are 2 requirements of a Competitive Differentiators
a. First is the factor within an industry that distinguishes one organization from another
b. And second, it must result in direct benefits to the customer
Be your own customer or client. What would you expect from your organization? What would make you choose your organization over a competitor?
Some organizations within certain industries can do Secret Shopper Programs to give them a customers’ perspective.
2. Look beyond the car in front of you.
Change is constant. As a leader in your organization, it’s your responsibility to look ahead – at the current market; new innovations affecting your industry; new innovations that may indirectly affect your industry; and trends in the economy.
a. What’s happening in the current market for your industry that may be a window of opportunity for you now that wasn’t there in the past?
b. What are some of the newest innovations in your industry that may open doors in other areas of your business model that have, until now, gone untapped?
c. What are some of the newest innovations not in your industry that indirectly affects your company and has the ‘band-wagon possibility? Going Green? Can you spin that around and make it work for you? Technological advancements? Can you apply or create new avenues that may benefit your customers/clients or perhaps use to decrease operational costs?
d. As a leader, it’s up to you to know when it’s time to make the hard decisions. Is it time to re-evaluate your organizational structure? Has your revenue dropped significantly enough where it is now crucial for you to look at the number of your staff? Was a new product or service a great addition 3 years ago but now its sales isn’t worth the cost? Do you have a stale budget? Are you using last years’ budget model? Have factor’s changed enough since then for you to consider moving budget dollars from one category to another?
3. Remember to lead from the balcony.
Take a look at your organization again – this time from the balcony. In tough times we often get caught up in the daily fires and just trying to stay afloat. When we do that – it’s difficult to see what is really happening in the organization as a whole.
a. Are you missing opportunities? No one else in the organization has this “big picture” view or the ability to understand and impact all elements of your team’s success as you do.
b. You can still be in the middle of action and be on the balcony. The balcony isn’t a physical state but instead a state of mind.
c. To lead from the balcony – involve others in solving a problem rather than doing it yourself. You can take more time to explore the root causes of a problem and fix a broken system rather than solve the daily crisis. You can remain aware of the impact of your actions by being aware of the ‘atmosphere’ of your team.
4. Empower those around you.
Go from Directing and Doing to Developing and Leading. This frees up your personal productivity. Your organization will mirror your level of productivity.
5. Get yourself in check.
What’s your Personal Paradigm – Your mental filter that is made up of a constellation of core beliefs through which you view the world and make meaning of your experiences?
You cannot solve existing problems with the same mindset (or paradigm) that created them. I have that on my email signature line and I’m passionate about its meaning. (From Einstein's quote)
What can we do to take our current reality and make it work to our advantage?
I’ve put together 5 ideas that may help you to re-focus on your current strategies and possibly look at creating new strategies – using your vision as your direction. Or at the very least – kick-start a brainstorming session.
We all agree that it is a value-driven market – and we must focus on the customer’s value perception. Their value reality is based on the benefits they will receive, less whatever their cost is. Customer/client perception is the key.
So the first idea is to:
1. Re-evaluate your Competitive Differentiators.
There are 2 requirements of a Competitive Differentiators
a. First is the factor within an industry that distinguishes one organization from another
b. And second, it must result in direct benefits to the customer
Be your own customer or client. What would you expect from your organization? What would make you choose your organization over a competitor?
Some organizations within certain industries can do Secret Shopper Programs to give them a customers’ perspective.
2. Look beyond the car in front of you.
Change is constant. As a leader in your organization, it’s your responsibility to look ahead – at the current market; new innovations affecting your industry; new innovations that may indirectly affect your industry; and trends in the economy.
a. What’s happening in the current market for your industry that may be a window of opportunity for you now that wasn’t there in the past?
b. What are some of the newest innovations in your industry that may open doors in other areas of your business model that have, until now, gone untapped?
c. What are some of the newest innovations not in your industry that indirectly affects your company and has the ‘band-wagon possibility? Going Green? Can you spin that around and make it work for you? Technological advancements? Can you apply or create new avenues that may benefit your customers/clients or perhaps use to decrease operational costs?
d. As a leader, it’s up to you to know when it’s time to make the hard decisions. Is it time to re-evaluate your organizational structure? Has your revenue dropped significantly enough where it is now crucial for you to look at the number of your staff? Was a new product or service a great addition 3 years ago but now its sales isn’t worth the cost? Do you have a stale budget? Are you using last years’ budget model? Have factor’s changed enough since then for you to consider moving budget dollars from one category to another?
3. Remember to lead from the balcony.
Take a look at your organization again – this time from the balcony. In tough times we often get caught up in the daily fires and just trying to stay afloat. When we do that – it’s difficult to see what is really happening in the organization as a whole.
a. Are you missing opportunities? No one else in the organization has this “big picture” view or the ability to understand and impact all elements of your team’s success as you do.
b. You can still be in the middle of action and be on the balcony. The balcony isn’t a physical state but instead a state of mind.
c. To lead from the balcony – involve others in solving a problem rather than doing it yourself. You can take more time to explore the root causes of a problem and fix a broken system rather than solve the daily crisis. You can remain aware of the impact of your actions by being aware of the ‘atmosphere’ of your team.
4. Empower those around you.
Go from Directing and Doing to Developing and Leading. This frees up your personal productivity. Your organization will mirror your level of productivity.
5. Get yourself in check.
What’s your Personal Paradigm – Your mental filter that is made up of a constellation of core beliefs through which you view the world and make meaning of your experiences?
You cannot solve existing problems with the same mindset (or paradigm) that created them. I have that on my email signature line and I’m passionate about its meaning. (From Einstein's quote)
To your success!
Kathy Nesselroad
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