Sync’Em: How to Drive Alignment on Critical Priorities, Part I
Is your leadership team on the same page when it comes to critical issues your company will face in the next 90 days? Or do you feel like you’re stuck in the above conversation with your inner circle – trying to convince them that “Caesar Romero was tall”?
My firm has worked with over 200 CEOs and their inner circles over the past 14 months. We often start our interaction with clients with a short online assessment that allows them to respond to statements regarding
- Their Market (Value Proposition)
- Their Management (Are the right people in the right positions?)
- Their Economic Model (Will the company make money at higher volumes?)
- Their Money (available capital for future growth)
Without exception the results are similar to this sample summary:
I’ve stated before that over 95% 0f our clients are severely misaligned on their company’s value proposition. Why is alignment so important to an emerging company? How can misalignment effect growth, strategy, execution and momentum as we finish the tumultuous 2010 and as we enter the potential maelstrom of 2011?
I’ll delve more into the severity of misalignment in the next post; but allow me to start the process by offering the best definition of culture Ive ever heard – provided by my partner, Doug Tatum:
In case you’re wondering – here’s the secret sauce to sync your team if you’re in the hunt for the “same page” on critical priorities: create a trusted decision making process.
Romero was tall. Just sayin’.
The Promise: I Can do That – How do I do That?
How often do we make promises to customers we’re not quite able to meet:
My partner, Doug Tatum, describes this phenomenon:
And while we’re finding that core issue to scale – how do we handle those promises when we’re pseudo, sort-of, quasi able to meet them:
We are constantly amazed that over 95% of the corporate leadership teams we help are not aligned on their value proposition. How does that effect the team’s ability to create the right priorities to execute? How does that misalignment create havoc when different promises are made to different customers outside of the company’s unique competitive advantage?
If you as CEO have told clients “I can do that!” and then asked yourself, “How do I do that?”: if you have made promises that, as Doug states, you’re only 70% able to keep you might want to make sure your team is aligned on the company value proposition. Once aligned you can either reconfigure your services to meet those promises, or fire specific customers so that you can refocus on that “thing” you business does best – which is also that thing you do best.
Can you do that? Yes you can do that!
What’s Your Sole Purpose in this Market?
My company has worked with over 200 CEOs and their inner circles in the past 14 months. Over 98% have a common problem. Michael Arrington from TechCrunch describes it:
It’s a problem that pervades Silicon Valley. Sometimes people think that a simple description of a product means there isn’t much there. But really it’s the opposite. You have to be able to distill down what you do in a way that your customers can easily understand the value proposition. It’s hard, but it’s also a business necessity. (from What is it You Do: The Need for Simplicity, September 13)
So, in one sentence, what is your company’s value proposition? What is your sole purpose in this Market?
My company’s one hour deep-dive includes what most would consider a simple question. We ask CEOs and their inner circles, “What is your unique competitive advantage?” It’s one of the best questions to reveal misalignment on the leadership team. Answers often vary dramatically and descriptions ramble, sometimes for an entire paragraph.
A business can’t scale without an effective economic model; a model that scales a crystal clear value proposition so that the company makes more money at higher volumes. Ask Steve Jobs how he would describe the first iPod – “A thousand tunes in your pocket”, remember? Or how about this one from your college days, “Hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes, or it’s free” – Dominos sold enough pepperoni to fill the Rose Bowl with that one.
“The Ultimate Driving Machine” (BMW), “The Best Free Way to Manage Your Money” (mint.com – over 1,000,000 users), “The Chicken Sandwich” (Chick-Fil-a), and so on. If a company’s leadership team can’t articulate (in unison) the reason a customer would choose them over any other provider - do they know why they’re in business? Can they make it through the No Man’s Land minefield without that clarity?
Don’t wait for the drill sergeant. Ask the members of your team to articulate the company’s “sole purpose.” You’re a genius if you do.
Eat Mor Chikin’ in No Man’s Land
No company to my knowledge enjoys the same credibility for quality products and uber service than Chick-fil-A. My son worked at a local Chick-fil-A in high school and reported that the product and management were indeed “what you see is what you get.” A pristine, scaled Value Proposition supported by a model that includes a shut-down on the potentially busiest day of the week. And yet, Chick-fil-A generates more revenue per restaurant than any other fast food restaurant in the industry, by far.
Surely such an icon of success should be able to skirt the perilous journey through No Man’s Land? No, not even Truett Cathy and his “early” bird brigade. Cathy, in his excellent corporate biography, “Eat Mor Chikin’” describes his company’s transition through the second stage of company growth.
All I had to do was look at the table of contents to find the story – chapter 10, titled “Crisis and Purpose”. It was mid-1980′s and Chick-fil-A was a late bloomer. Over $100 million in sales, but still on the verge of scaled growth through No Man’s Land. Management issues, confusion, capital constraints, economic model clarity, competitive copycats, etc. to the point where Cathy and his team met and asked the questions, “Why are we here?” “Why are we alive?”
I encourage you to read Eat Mor Chikin, not only to enjoy the story of a highly valued and brilliant entrepreneur who lives his (scaled) value proposition every day, but also to see a classic case study of how a company beat the odds to become a member of the 1 in 10 ventures that survive and thrive. They made it because they embraced the brutal facts of No Man’s Land and made the critical decisions that so few make. Cathy was and is, a SCARY GOOD Economy Hero!
Unique is a Relative Term for Many Companies
I’ve worked with over 200 companies in the past twelve months. I used the new Inc. Compass as my analysis engine for all of these businesses, an online experience that generates a concise and comprehensive report on the company. When asked to respond to the question, “What is our company’s unique competitive advantage?”, leadership team members almost universally provided varied and often rambling statements. These companies did not know how to communicate their product’s primary value to customers, which means they did not have an economic model in place to scale that value, which also means they probably lacked an accurate assessment of the funding required to grow.
Listen to my partner Doug Tatum describe the necessity of a scalable Value Proposition:
This might not shake you, but if a company is not aligned on a unique and scalable value proposition, it’s shouting – “We don’t know why we’re in business!” If “unique” is relative term when it comes to your value proposition, you might want to schedule a meeting with the leadership team and brew some Storyville coffee (www.storyville.com); you’re going to be there a while.
Give me a call. I’ll bring the Inc. Compass; we’ll lock and load on what makes your company unique. And please save me a cup of Storyville.
Brent Sapp
