… a continuation of garryoskamp.com

If you read the previous article, you are aware that business people are always looking for the next development, trend, style, or creation from which they may derive a competitive advantage. In considering how and what one’s business may bring to the market, there are generally two ways to approach this concern. One way is to think how one’s business might utilize the present products, services, and processes to meet, or better meet, market demand. The second way is to change one’s point-of-view in considering market demand, and this process includes all members of the management team in an all-up collaboration.

This article will address the second concern, or how one’s point-of-view of market considerations might cause one’s business management to create, think-up, or otherwise conjure new or untried ideas. It is essentially a method to cause directors of an enterprise to think in new and innovative ways. As in article one, this concept has been proposed by Innovation@Work. This is called the “Six Thinking Hat Game”, and you play it like this:

 - Assemble your management team into one room.

 - Assign one person to wear the “blue” facilitation hat.
 
 - Assign everyone else the same color hat (different from blue).

 - Verbalize that all members (not blue) are wearing the same color hat.

 - Purpose is for everyone to approach issue from same perspective/time.

The Six Thinking Hats:

 - White Hat-Objective: fact-based assessmnent using statistics/research/figures.

 - Red Hat – Intuitive: share emotions, fears, likes, hates w/o justification.
 
 - Grey Hat – Judgement: be devil’s advocate.

 - Yellow Hat – Positive: explore value and benefit for new opportunities.

 - Green Hat – Creative: offer bold, imaginative, outrageous ideas.

 - Blue Hat – Process:referee, ensure process is observed.
As you can see, this is an exercise in how to stretch your limits, and to see what may be right in front of you, but unseen. We sometimes are sitting on a gold mine, but only see the dirt and the digging. This exercise is designed to cause shipbuilders to yearn for the sea, cowboys to feel the movement of their favorite pony, and business people to sense earning and profits in just the next quarter.

Many businesses begin. Most businesses fail. Some survive. Few flourish. Why? There are as many answers to the above question as there are authors boasting an answer. In almost every issue of every business publication produced, theories are promulgated as to THE true answer. To this author, it’s a two-part question:
 - What is your vision?
 - How do you achieve your vision?

Your vision comes to you in the deepest, darkest, recesses of your heart, when you become quiet enough to listen. It happens in this way for individuals and for corporations. It holds for corporations because they are lead by a leader. How good that leader is at seeing his/her corporation’s vision, and then communicating that vision to others in that business determines how well that business performs. Observers judge the performance of a business on ROI, growth, market share. These are truly after-action reports. They report performance long after your customers and clients have determined your grade.

How should leaders link their vision to their business model? It seems to me that the clarity with which a leader sees his/her vision must be in place before the mechanics of how that vision is delivered are worked out. In brief, the leader must know what the product or service is and how the target customer or client will feel about receiving that particular product or service. Let’s talk examples.

The restaurant business is exceedingly competitive. Even more so is the fast-food segment of that industry. In-N-Out Burger occupies the top of the heap in the fast-food industry, sporting a 20% (unheard of) profit margin. Again, why? For In-N-Out, their focus has been on delivering a few products well. They have only four types of foods: burgers, fries, shakes, and sodas. They deliver these four products and leave the sundry other offerings to other, less-profitable chains.

Lexus is argueably the top of the heap in autmobile sales world-wide. Why? They have chosen to target the mind of the purchaser to be the best car in the world attainable by a working person. Granted the Rolls Royce, Lamborgini, and Astin-Martin are nice targets, but who in the working world can reasonably purchase such vehicles? On-the-other-hand, Lexus vehicles are attainable for the worker, and they are purchased in quanity.

Nordstrom’s is known for catering to the wishes of patrons. Long-term clients return again and again to the same salesperson to purchase additional items. Again Why? It’s because Nordstrom people know that they are truly selling how the patron wishes to feel…special.

What do all three of these examples have in common? They all speak to how the purchaser must feel in order to make a purchase, and they provide that feeling. In essence, at every level of a business, workers must know what it is that makes them and their company successful, and that is the work of true leaders. The future has leadership positions only for those individuals who can envision their company’s future, and communicate the company vision successfully to all levels of workers.

“You probably heard about the recent story in the news about how a 7-year old girl’s lemonade stand was shut down by health inspectors in Oregon because she failed to get a $120 temporary restaurant license. Marc Faber was recently carded for a beer at the Chicago airport (he is 64 years old).” These stories and others were reported by the National Inflation Association based in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

What is occurring is laws are being enforced without regard to the reasonableness of the law, how nonsensicial the application of the law might be to the perpetrator at hand, or any other common sense approach to enforcement procedures. Is this an issue about which one might or should be concerned? It is this author’s viewpoint that this type of behavior should cause concern because of the mindlessness of citzenery to perform these acts. These behaviors foretend a willingness to perpetrate personal rights infringements on individuals in the name of the all-comanding LAW.

This culture has occurred in various settings throughout history, but most recently in the many civil wars in Africa. Before that, atrocities were visited upon Slovania, Eastern Europe, and Afganistan. It’s a common, but lethal, disease. Perpetrators are immune to innoculation in the mistaken execution of what they perceive as rightousness. In the name of rightousness, many lives are taken.

This behavior is occurring in the United States. It is evident in the political arena as have-nots demand more from a national pie than the total of the pie itself. It is evident as politicians enact laws and benefits for themselves which are separate, apart, and better than those laws and benefits provided to their electorate. It is evident as business leaders no longer seek to provide a good or service to consumers for their compensation, but rather seek to increase their compensation simply because they are positioned to do so.   It is evident as younger workers no longer wish to invest the time or effort to rise to positions of leadership and generous compensation packages.

As these and other stories unfold, we enter into an age of societal breakdown. When those who make up a society, or large portions of that society, are not willing to observe the mores or rules of that society, the society itself will crumble. If a society falls, the will of the strong will make the rules, and anarchy will prevail. Are we, as a people, willing to abdicate our committment for order in living one with another? Are we willing to allow sheer force to rule our dealings with others?  These events are observable for those who choose to look. It is my hope that enough of us choose to look!

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Government Fingers Reaching out to our Internet
Government  in the United States spreads much like malignant cancer. The more government reaches its’ tentacles into the private sector, the more trough-feeders sense the promise of more revenue if they can only figure out how to tax the activity in a way which will fly with the citizens. Full story.

Job Skills are Specific
Most sources agree that the Great Recession is about to give up it’s hold on the economy. As alert businesses begin to hire for the anticipated upturn, hiring for specific shills dominates the HR landscape. Leaders and managers looking to hire cannot find specific skill sets to perform the tasks necessary to complete a defined mission as a component of their statement of work. Full story.

When to Step Away
Senior members of the business community, who have long proven their worth in the returns earned their companies over many years, ask if they should risk financial security by turning guidance of their companies over to others. They painstakingly evaluate each young talent to mine just the right individual to anoint as their heir. And yet, they are asking the wrong question. The question should be, “To which of my lieutenants shall I first entrust the reins of this company? I can always give another this chance.” Full story.

New Business Trend: Trust
An historical hallmark of successful businessmen and women has been the ability to observe a phenomenon, identify how to make money with the learning derived thereby, and move quickly to the marketplace. This worked in the past because of the molasses-like flow of information and ideas. No more! Full story.

Questions Must Be Bigger
What do you think the average citizen thinks about the world in which he/she finds him/herself? It seems the average citizen thinks about that issue or those issues which most affect his/her life. For instance, the world just watched the Winter Olympics for a fortnight, and held its collective breath that one or more of their countries’ athletes would do well in the games. In the meantime, Chile and Haiti are suffering devastating natural disasters. What’s wrong with this picture? Full story.

Feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend.
Until next month,
Garry Oskamp

Welcome to the July Issue of the GOcoaching newsletter. Business is moving at warp speed, and only getting faster. It is incumbent upon business people in this environment to sit up, and pay attention to the many developments surrounding how we do business, and how those developments necessarily affect our ability to become successful in this most precarious business world. If these observations assist you in your business, please feel free to share any or all ideas presented herein.

The Flow of Money and What it Means
What is money and how did it come about? These two questions are fundamental to the understanding of what is happening in our country and in our world. Well, it’s really a simple story until the economists and government folk get ahold of it. Full story.

Holding the Tail of the Dragon
For some time now, international thinkers have felt that China was gaining control of the United States by financial leverage. Inasmuch as China holds 2.1 trillion of U.S. debt instruments, many concur with that opinion. What is not treated is the fragile nature of this particular interdependent relationship. Full story.

Tell Me About Your Business Model
It doesn’t take a Harvard MBA to understand that a better mouse trap does not guarantee success. What seems to ensure some degree of success is a business model which works. Okay, so how does one know it will work? One knows it will work when it works. More than a little circular reasoning here, huh? So what are the essential components of a successful business model? Full story.

R&D is Now More R Than D
The average American now spends 59 hours per month on the Internet. He /she visits 90 websites, views 2621 pages and spends 7 hours on Facebook. Why is this important? Like most “important” determinations, it relates to money, and how we spend it. For example, if your friend on Facebook dishes a Chevy, are you likely to buy a Chevy or any other brand? Obviously, any other brand! If your friend sees the movie Avatar, and texts you how great it is, are you likely to be at the next showing? Obviously, Yes! Full story.

BP’s Oil Spill Gets to Washington
British Petroleum is on the lips of the citizens of this country as well as the lips of many around the globe. The oil spill  onto the shores of the gulf states is proceeding at the estimated rate of 35,000-50,000 barrels per day. That’s a bit more than the few gallons we fill up with each week. And yet, the uncapped well continues to spew forth oil at the date of this writing. Why? Full story.

Health, Medicine, and Standardization
For several centuries now, having the word “Doctor” in front of one’s name implied the ability to cure sickness, return the ailing to health, and leap tall buildings with a single bound. Well, ah, not exactly, but close. Full story.

Feel free to forward this newsletter to a friend.
Until next month,
Garry Oskamp