This week’s focus: In my experience, one of the biggest time-wasters in business meetings is where a decision on whether a new project should be pursued (a WHAT decision), becomes overtaken by a discussion on the various ways it could be pursued (a HOW decision).

Recently, for example, I was working with a retail executive team that was discussing whether they should enter a new product category, when the discussion was hijacked by a debate on whether the retailer could fit the new ranges in its existing stores. This new debate was a distraction. The company had many alternative ways to offer the products to customers – in-store, on-line, direct – and a decision on that issue was irrelevant until the team had decided whether or not they wanted to enter the new category in the first place.

First decide on your objectives, and only then determine the best route to achieve them. By splitting these two elements you will make better decisions, faster decisions and have a better chance of successful implementation.

Off the record: You Will, You Won’t by The Zutons

You will, you won’t

You do, you don’t

You’re saying you will

But you know you won’t

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.

“Stuart’s ability to engage the audience was superb. His session was relevant, appropriate and beneficial to all. I would recommend Stuart as a speaker to similar business organisations, and would love to have him back in the future.”

Are you looking for a speaker for your business or organisation? Please call me on 01636-526111.

© Stuart Cross 2012.

© Stuart Cross 2012

This week’s focus: Over the last few years I have been writing and speaking about my observation that ‘nothing fails like success’, and that many companies don’t fail because they’re bad at what they do, but because they’re great at what they do. They simply fail to adapt quickly enough to changing markets. One of the examples I use is Kodak, which sadly, but perhaps inevitably, filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this week.

There are no easy answers for successful companies wanting to succeed today and also catch the next wave of growth. But you can only do it if you are genuinely engaged in driving future growth. One CEO I know ensures that he and his team seek to spend 80% of their time on current year performance, 15% on growth in the next 2-3 years, and 5% on longer-term growth.

Are these splits of time correct? I’m not sure, but it seems like a pretty good start. So how about you? As a leader of your company are you spending at least a day a week on growth initiatives that will pay off in over 12 months time?

Off the record: Kodachrome by Paul Simon

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school

It’s a wonder I can think at all

And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none

I can read the writing on the wall

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.

© Stuart Cross 2012

How To Manage Strategy Effectively:

In fact, everyone in a given enterprise (including but not limited to C-level executives) should be actively engaged in effective management of strategy. Only then can profitable growth be achieved and (more importantly) sustained. What Stuart Cross offers in this book is a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system within which to formulate and then execute a strategy by which to achieve those separate but related objectives. There are no head-snapping revelations, nor does he make any such claim. Rather, after carefully (and concisely) identifying the “what,” he focuses most of his attention on “how.”

Readers will appreciate Cross’s skilful use of devices throughout his narrative that facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key points. For example, all in Chapter 1, Figures that illustrate “The Three Drivers of winning business strategies,” “Drivers of Turbulence,” “Innovation vs. Problem Solving,” “The reality of problem solving.” In the same chapter, there are Checklists that encapsulate three inter-connected factors that are necessary for a successful and winning strategy business strategy, situations that an organization should avoid, key roles on which to focus during the strategy development process, and “The Ten Drivers of Turbulence.” All this in the first chapter and there are dozens more throughout the remaining chapters as well as a “Key Points” section at the conclusion of all ten chapters.

It is important to keep in mind this is a “handbook” and best read and then re-read with a highlighter pen in hand to identify key passages within the text. I also highly recommend a companion notebook in which to record supplementary notes. (FYI, I favor the optic yellow Sharpie ACCENT Tank Style and used most of one’s ink supply to highlight the key passages in this book. I also favor the Mead Black Marble Wide-Ruled Composition Book that Amazon now sells at a 67% discount.) Cross immediately establishes and then maintains a direct, personal rapport with his reader and seems determined to do all he can to help his to “create, sustain and accelerate profitable growth” and do so in effective collaboration with associates. Of course, it remains for each reader to determine which material is most relevant to the needs, interests, resources, and ultimate objectives of the given enterprise.

One final point: All of the results-driven, high-impact executives I have known and worked closely with through several decades “had dirt under their nails” and set an example with everything they said and did…as well as with everything they didn’t say and didn’t do. Similarly, Stuart Cross sets an example for other authors of business books with how he organizes and then presents the material in this book. He obviously agrees with Thomas Edison, “Vision without execution is hallucination,” and with Michael Porter, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.

But what are the assumptions that underpin these forecasts? And what are the alternatives to the rail link that will meet the government’s objective (whatever that happens to be)? I have been in too many business meetings where a business case has been presented that is based on spurious assumptions, and we have all seen the cost of too many government schemes double or treble in size, to have any confidence that there is any value for money in HS2 at all.

Sometimes you can’t make a decision simply on the basis of a financial assessment – particularly where most of the data is made up! Instead you must use your commercial judgement and old-fashioned common sense.

Off the record: Downtown Train by Tom Waits

Will you meet me tonight, on a downtown train?

All of my dreams just fall like rain

All upon a downtown train

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.

In particular, I am struck with the shift in Tesco’s approach to new concept development and how the success the company had with Tesco Express, where it trialled and tested a series of prototypes over 5 or 6 years before finding and rolling out a winning formula, seems to have evaporated with Fresh & Easy. The company seems to have forgotten its approach of testing, learning and refining a small number of stores before building scale. With Fresh & Easy management have done exactly the opposite; they have built up a chain of 300 stores and then started to properly develop the offer.

Testing and improving a series of individual prototypes is a far easier and cheaper way of delivering a successful new offering than the approach Tesco has adopted in the US. At first it might appear to be a slower route to success, but, as with the tortoise and the hare, in business it’s not how you start the race that counts, but how you finish it

© Stuart Cross 2012.

I have no idea what goals you’ve set for your business this year, but I do know that without resolve, commitment and discipline they’re worthless.

What disciplines have you set in place to make sure you achieve your 2012 goals?

© Stuart Cross 2012. All rights reserved.