When I think
about what to post each week, foremost in my mind is how I can leverage my
startup experience into actionable information that you can use in your
business. Startups and small businesses as you all know operate at business
velocities that are significantly higher than most companies. Most of the time
you are too busy selling, providing services and/or producing product and you
don’t have time to think, strategize and vision. I have learned that this can
be an important time to stop, think, and look closely at where you are and what
the road ahead could be like if you visioned it out and prepared for the growth
ahead. It is also an important time to evaluate your long term business model
and look for ways of optimizing business critical processes. As Socrates once
said “the very thing that made you great will be your undoing,” and how many
times have we heard CEOs say, “We made the biggest mistake when we were at the
top of our game.” This week’s post is all about seeing the forest and the trees
at the same time and creating an organizational culture of thinkers that think
things through in pursuit of the Holy Grail, sustainable and profitable business
model innovation.
One of my
favorite business books is Blue Ocean Strategy, written by
Professors W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne of INSEAD, now one of the world’s
leading business schools.
In my view,
Visioning off sites are not uncommon in
Results from off sites can deliver amazing
results in my experience and bond together executives and regular staff in ways
that you never imagined. Make sure to clearly set objectives and if possible
break out into sales, marketing and product oriented groups, with each bringing
back their own vision of success. The focus is always on the bottom line,
seeking sustainable profitable growth and applying what I call “joint value
assessments” to business models and processes. Engaged and empowered executives
and staff can bring out the best ideas for optimizing individual processes and
models to meet the growth demands of the company. Always remember that the most
valuable capital in your company is the human capital, and sales does not fix
everything all the time, as some pundits say.
The Personality of Fish: The Mole Crab
At approximately twenty miles out to sea all
scents of land and earth disappear and the smell of the ocean dominates. Last
week we talked about the ocean being a river of rivers and we followed some of
the rivers, visited with their inhabitants and experienced the unique
personality of the Portuguese Man o War. One of the amazing things about going
to sea for several weeks is the unique scent of the different water masses, and
just like fish these water masses have their own personality, including destructive
forces like warm core rings and the havoc they bring onto larval fish
populations. This week we come closer to shore and enter the hostile world of
the surf break zone and experience the life of Emerita, the Mole crab.
One of the most hostile places to live on our
planet is within the surf or intertidal zone, where thousands of tons of water
regularly crash onto sandy beaches, rocky outcroppings, breakwaters and barrier
islands. Animals and plants that exist in this zone are some of the toughest on
the planet and are regularly exposed to extremes of heat, cold, water and
pressure. Mole crabs live in one of the safest places to exist in this
environment, just below the surface of the sand and away from the pounding
waves. I am sure you have watched birds running along the wave breaks probing
the sand with their beaks in the wash zone of beaches; they are in search of mole
crab colonies. Mole crabs are slightly bigger than the size of a human thumb
and live along most beaches worldwide. In some parts of the world Mole crabs provide
an important source of protein are harvested regularly.
Until next time great marketing and selling
in the Millennium!
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