Customer centric are you, hmm? – Yoda

Do you  struggle with the mistaken belief that becoming customer centric requires you to become a “yes person”, for the customer. This could not be further than from the truth form my point of view. Becoming customer centric in my view is that you say “no” when it is appropriate to say “no” while offering other approaches to meet the customer’s need.

To be successful don’t you think that you need to align the resources of your company to effectively respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer, while building mutually profitable relationships?

Becoming customer centric should include the position of your people and organization, processes, technology, products and services to the customer.

Customer Centric Priority

There are many steps to becoming customer centric, but at the top-level, there are three primary imperatives:

1. Know Your Customer
2. Align Your Resources
3. Listen and Respond

Truly listening requires that you obtain input from each customer touch point, integrate this information, internalize, analyze and…respond!

Update your customer with the following:
- This is what we heard
- This is what we have done
- This is what we have planned

I ponder what can you do to provide better customer solutions?   I think back to an article that I read by Ranjay Gulati “Silo Busting”.    He clearly stated that you have the four Cs of Customer –Focused Solutions.

Coordination – Establishing structural mechanisms and process that allow employees to improve their focus on the customer by harmzing information and activities across work units.

Cooperation – Encouraging people in all parts of the company – through cultural means, incentives, and the allocation of power – to work together in the interest of customer needs.

Capability – Ensuring that enough people in the organization have the skills to deliver customer-focused solutions and defining a clear career path for employees with those skills.

Connection – Developing relationships with external partners to increase the value of solutions cost effectively.

Let’s Play Hardball

Introduction

George Stalk’s 2004 article, Playing Hardball: Why Strategy Still Matters, reveals how leaders can orchestrate attacks on competitors by being zealously committed to strengthening their competitive position. The current business environment requires companies to have solid, winning strategies in place to successfully compete and become industry leaders. Yet strategy is being pushed off of the manager’s agenda. Management is being distracted by recent “soft” issues of management science such as leadership, culture, customer care, and employee empowerment. This pulls their attention from the heart of the matter, which is creating and reinforcing competitive advantage which leads to benefits such rapid growth, leading market share, and big margins.

Two extremes in business competition can be found in business today. The first are those companies that play “softball” and rely on weak tactics that masquerade as strategies. “Softball” players either have no competitive advantage or do not know how to exploit it, so they manage to stay in the game for the short term, but never win. The other extreme are the “hardball” players who use every legitimate strategy and resource to gain competitive advantage over their competitors. “Hardball” players do not settle for competitive advantage. Once they make gains, they reinvest them into the business to strengthen it even further. Their competitive advantage becomes so commanding; they emerge as more than just market leaders in their industry. They create shifts in the industry by changing the rules of the game, leaving competitors to either try to follow or quit.

Hardball players live by five principles

The strategy that is the focus point of George Stalk’s article is that of the “Hardball” method. This strategy enables companies to trounce on and overthrow and their competition if deployed and followed. Hardball players live by five principles:

1. Hardball players focus relentlessly on competitive advantage. Hardball players will persistently use a company’s resources and distinctive competencies in order to succeed and maintain longevity. They single-mindedly strive for a competitive advantage and then do not settle, but try their utmost to strengthen it.

2. Hardball players strive to convert competitive advantage into decisive advantage. Hardball players ensure their competitive advantage is not fleeting, but instead grows stronger and stronger. They continually try to widen the gap between themselves and others, pushing further away from the reach of competitors until their advantage is unassailable. This leaves competitors to find away around that competitive advantage or leave the playing field.

3. Hardball players employ the indirect attack. Indirect attacks have often been a part of successful military strategy. Resources are applied where the “enemy” is least able to defend themselves. Indirect attacks provide the element of surprise as opposed to meeting the competition head to head.

4. Hardball players exploit their employee’s will to win. Employees must be action oriented and must never be content with the status quo. The will to win must constantly be fostered. Success must not be allowed to produce complacency or indifference.

5. Hardball players draw a bright line at the edge of the caution zone. The relentless drive to maximize strengths can often bring companies to the edge of the caution zone. “Hardball” strategies never mean engaging in illegal or unethical behavior. Legal and accounting council can help leaders draw a clear line for employees so they can clearly see the line of the caution zone. When operating in the caution zone, leaders must make sure they are not harming the industry or society with their actions. If they find they have stepped over the line, corrective action must be taken immediately.

Six Classic Hardball Strategies

Strategy that provides a critical competitive advantage is considered a hardball strategy. Although there are numerous “hardball” strategies, the article describes the six classic ones that have been used over the decades by firms to create competitive advantage.

1. Unleash massive and overwhelming force. When companies choose a direct attack strategy over an indirect attack, a massive assault must be deployed. The company must be fully prepared for such an attack and keep in mind that this strategy is often very public.

2. Exploit anomalies. Hardball executives embrace anomalies because they can potentially reveal an opportunity to gain competitive advantage.

3. Threaten your competitor’s profit sanctuaries. This is a risky strategy because it can take you up to the line of the caution zone and can engender retaliation. Occupying a competitor’s profit sanctuary can have a significant impact competitor’s strategies.

4. Take it and make it your own. Hardball players are on the watch for any ideas that might help them create a competitive advantage. Hardball companies look around at competitors, other geographic markets, and even other industries to find ideas they can borrow and improve upon so they can be used successfully.

5. Entice your competitors into retreat. Hardball players can often be successful by enticing competitors to focus on business that drives up their costs and ultimately weakens them. A superior understanding of your own business is required in order to employ this strategy effectively.

6. Break compromises. Often customers are forced to accept compromises because they feel they have no alternatives. By identifying such compromises, and creating a new model of business, hardball companies can often create fast and profitable growth.

Characteristics of Hardball Players

Companies that wish to use the hardball strategies must have a certain mindset. Leaders that use hardball strategies are not “bad guys.” Conversely they generally have a number of admirable traits. The following are some of the characteristics of hardball players:

• Intellectual toughness that enables them to face facts and see reality

• Emotionally aware • Dissatisfied with status quo

• Have the will to catalyze change

• Are tough, but not bullies

• Are serious about their business

• Rub off on others due to their passion

• Are often deceptive in appearance and demeanor

• Succeed in staying at the heart of the matter by keeping their organizations in “perpetual turnaround mode, no matter how successful they are

The Discipline of Building Character

Article Summary

“The Discipline of Building Character”, by Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. explains the “defining moments” that managers and leaders face.  Badaracco explains that there are three types of defining moments that are common in the business world: “Who am I?”, “Who are we?”, and “Who is the company?”  Managers who learn to identity these three types of defining moments will be more able to effectively navigate the right-versus-right decisions they face throughout their careers.

The first type of moment is centered on personal identity.  This requires the manager to ask the question “Who am I?”  The example that was provided in the article is when a manager is faced with two “rights”, each one representing a reasonable and attractive choice. In most cases both choices are right, so the manager must make choice of “right versus right”.

The second type of moment is centered on groups as well as individuals.  It leads managers to the question “Who are we?”  The manager must not only look at situations as conflicts between two personal beliefs but also take into account the values of their work group and their responsibilities to the people they manage. The manager has a direct impact on a how a group’s future and values are formed by the way these types of defining moments are handled.

The final type is that of defining a company’s role within society. It presents the question, “Who is the company?”   A leader who has this responsibility must be able to redefine the direction of his or her own life and the direction of the entire organization. These leaders are asked to make visible their understanding of what is right on a large scale.  They not only commit to themselves or to a single work group but to the entire company with an irreversible course of action during this type defining moment.

The author provided the following guide for defining moments which can be used as reference.

A Guide to Defining Moments

For Individuals
Who am I?
•    What feelings and intuitions are coming into conflict in this situation?
•    Which of the values that are in conflict are most deeply rooted in my life?
•    What combination of expediency and shrewdness, coupled with imagination and boldness, will help me implement my personal understanding of what is right?

For Managers of Work Groups
Who are we?
•    What are the other strong, persuasive interpretations of the ethics of the situation?
•    What point of view is most likely to win a contest of interpretations inside my organization and influences of thinking of the other people?
•    Have I orchestrated a process that can make manifest the values I care about in my organization?

For Company Executives
Who is the company?
•    Have I done all I can to secure my position and the strength of my organization?
•    Have I thought creatively and boldly about my organization’s role in society and its relationship to stockholders?
•    What combination of shrewdness, creativity, and tenacity will help me transform my vision into reality?

Application
This article has has provided me with a great deal of insight and I am seeing an immediate impact on the way I handle issues that I face on a daily basis. “The Guide to defining moments” provided by the author has been typed up, printed out, and placed on the wall in my office.  I have also shared it with my peers.  I was surprised that so many of them also faced the same challenges that I do with defining moments.  They really appreciated me sharing the guide and a few of them also requested to borrow the article for their reference.

I have been in many situations that resulted in defining moments that required me to ask “Who am I?”  This article introduced me to the concept of the benefit of taking a step back and evaluating the conflict not as a dilemma but as an expected tension between two valid perspectives. I have spent many hours having internal struggles on situations that have two valid “rights”.  I have taken the author’s suggestion and started to ask myself “What feelings and intuitions are coming into conflict in the situation?”  I need to put value in the feelings and intuitions I have with a situation and recognize that I can get important insight.  I have always down played my feelings and intuition but the author pointed out that they are both a form of valuable intelligence.

The article gave me a very interesting perspective on decisions that I make and don’t make. I found value in the points the author made about defining moments of “Who are we?” I have made the mistake that my entire group views situations the same way that I do.  I understand that people in my team come from different types of upbringing, religion, ethnicity, and education.  The article has made me more aware of the fact I should not impose my understanding of what is right on my team but to take the time to understand how they see the situation. The differences in team members will lead to multiple interpretations of a situation and add valuable insight when making decisions that impact the group.  I am also more aware that when I don’t make a decision on a controversial topic that has two “rights” it can be as destructive as a poor choice in regards to the impact on the team. I need to make sure that I fully understand what type of support I have from my employees and coworkers on choices that I make between two rights.

The points the author made in regards to defining moments of “Who is the company?” have really given me a different appreciation of the stress that executives face with the decisions they make.  The choices they make have a huge impact on the entire company.  Their defining moments go beyond the “Who am I?” and “Who are we?” dilemmas.  The executive is chartered with bringing forth their vision of what is right for the organization in a given situation.  They need to be in constant check with “Have I done all I can to secure my position and the strength and stability of my organization?”  Executives can use defining moments as a chance to redefine their company’s role in society.  This is a lot of pressure that I did not give much thought to until reading the article.  Executives must be accountable to themselves, shareholders, customers, and employees.