How do you set prices? Do you put a markup on your direct costs? Do you estimate the tangible product benefit for your customers and price for a fair return? Or does your accountant keep an Ouija board under their desk? Successful companies focus on perceived value; which is defined as the premium a buyer […]
Category Archives: Strategic Planning
My observation is that business leaders look upon business and strategic planning with the fondness of a root canal or tetanus shot. Nobody would suggest that planning is a bad thing to do, but many are hesitant to commit time and resource to the activity. Business plans only make sense if the leadership intends to […]
I have found in life that there are two groups of people: the Doers and the Servers. The Doers look inside themselves to decide what action they will take. The Servers look outside themselves to decide how to act. The simple lesson is, if you want to be successful, be a Server. Learning to be […]
Every business leader wants to see their business grow. All too often, the business owner that launched the business relies on their intuition to sustain it. While Operations professionals study process and collect data, rarely does that practice extend to the front office. Growing skills to build relationships, implement measures, and collect relevant data are […]
I cannot remember a time when government had such a deep credibility problem. The juxtaposition of reality TV actors with long-time incumbents reciting the same tired lines has energized the electorate. But, energized to do what? As one who follows Connecticut politics closely, I am exasperated with the leadership being modeled by our legislators. Ironically, […]
Intention is everything when creating strategic and business plans. Too many executives use annual plans as a “snapshot” or “State of the Enterprise” presentation rather than a dynamic instrument of change. AH Maslow is credited with developing the Cycle of Change which identifies three transformations to achieving change. They are: awareness that change is necessary, […]
While perusing a digest on LinkedIn, I came across a link to a Gallup report entitled “State of the American Workplace 2013” (http://bit.ly/1RQ5Bpa to register and download.) This is an informative report that establishes a quantitative value for employee engagement. When measuring employee engagement, the companies in the top quartile reported 22% more profit, 41% fewer […]
Whenever I work with a group regarding strategic planning, I find the words vision and mission often need definition. Perhaps some of the confusion comes from faith-based organizations using the word mission to mean what a commercial organization often calls vision. Simply put, vision is a description of how your organization expects to improve the […]
A survey by The Economist of over 1100 Millennial employees and 150 managers revealed that 91% of Millennials felt they would spend less than three years in a job before moving on. Noted author, David Burstein, wrote that it is possible that the Millennial generation will have had 14 jobs by the time they are […]
The successful manager in the digital age will foster innovation and collaboration, respect employees’ desire for work/family balance, and guide workforce development in a rapidly changing landscape. These managers will often cede their place “at the top of the pile” and behave like another node in the organizational network. Managers that rely on authority and structure […]