This month, I led our company in an exercise that effectively turned our entire organization over to the employees to run. After a period of rigorous self-examination through some personal development work I realised that I was a limiting factor for my organizations growth.
All the experience that I have collected had served well to create the organization. However, the same evidence was supporting a limited theory of what was possible for us. This theory was limited to what I was being, doing and creating.
I recently sold a similar business that hit a similar plateau in its growth. I was now aware that the only common dominator in both situations was me.
Having recently read “The Three Laws of Performance”, a brilliantly inspired book, I was able to find the process that I knew needed to be created.
We created a planning day in a business-as-usual way. We discussed the numbers; current challenges and invited everybody to contribute in a normal problem-solving format.
In this process my brother Damian (our CEO) laid out some of the “cold hard facts”. Painting a picture of what our future would look like if we continued to travel in the direction that we were. The direction we were heading was not bleak, but it wasn’t inspiring either.
Wrapping up for lunch, we asked our colleagues to turn their attention to the afternoon in which we would create a space for a new future.
I have to be honest, the process made me nervous at first. I grappled with the fear that my business was too “key-man centric” to survive without me – a fear I now realise was more based in ego than reality.
I felt there was something else that needed to get out of the way before we started.
I confessed that I had worked in organizations where we had created a future as a management team. We then engineered exercises to convince the staff to buy in to our objectives.
The intentions were honorable at the time. However, to me the process was inauthentic. I promised that our process would have no such parameters to restrain it.
I confessed too that I had no idea how the afternoon was going to turn out and that I needed assistance to create it.
We started by agreeing on qualities that existed in us individually that were common to us as a group. Qualities such as open-mindedness, sense of humour and integrity came up immediately.
Once the list was generated and agreed upon within the group. I asked that we only share within the context of these qualities for the rest of the afternoon.
Agreement was easy to reach given that the qualities were self-generated.
We then had a space for a new future. I asked that we forgot all the evidence that we had of what is possible and let go in dreaming of new possibilities. We took a few minutes to write out what we dreamed our lives would be like in 2 years.
One question that I threw out while the team were writing was “what would you like to be acknowledged for?”
When I asked this question, I had no idea it was going to awaken some of the most inspiring insights for the day.
We then created a future for our organization that was bigger, brighter and clearer than anything I had thought up myself.
I believe we had a view of each other and were speaking within that context. When we shared who we really were and what drives us there was a new respect and therefore a different quality of listening.
What I now notice is that we are speaking to each other in the context of whom we aspire to becoming. In effect – we are holding each other accountable for and supporting each other’s dreams.
We can now put our business under deeper scrutiny without the fear of the upsetting the people involved (mainly me to be honest). This new space allows us to objectively discard old assumptions leading the way to new innovations.
Our team has recently created some fantastic new innovations. I will share these as they develop.
Where my brother and I previously felt as though we were dragging the company along, we now have an organisation that pushes us from behind.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Note to Self
You may be reading this because you have lost some faith. Maybe you are feeling a loss of power or you just like to be reminded of who you are and what is possible for you.
Remember that anxiety is a lack of faith. You have forgotten that everything will turn out well in the future.
Remember that anxiety does not create a heightened state of readiness for future inevitabilities. This is a story that you have sold yourself to give reason to what is nothing more or less than a lack of faith in yourself and the people around you.
Remember that when you remind yourself of imagined pain and suffering in the past that you are selling yourself a story. There is only one version of this story and that version of the story is yours. You have chosen this version of the story. You continue to choose it. You use it to justify playing smaller than you are.
The story you sell yourself does not exist in any time or place in the physical world except in the neural pathways that you have chosen to create. You have created them as a choice. It may have been the best choice available to you at the time but you are still selling yourself this old newspaper. You pay an unacceptable price when you choose to review this story.
Remember that you live in a world that nurtures the innate lethargy that your body wants you to sink to. It is your ego that drags you to the couch to watch banal dramas on the TV. TV has the capacity to move, transfix and entrance you in an instant. Its effects are as strong as any narcotic – almost impossible to escape. For the most part there is nothing on television to elevate you to a higher state. There are only drama’s that allow you a vicarious sample of what an exciting life might be like. You enjoy this simulated experience without having to put yourself on the line to receive it.
Remember that news programs incapacitate you with feelings of overwhelming hopelessness at the tragedies in the world. You have chosen to dwell in these feelings of uselessness to justify your own inertia. This feeling of impotence that you choose is your justification for not fulfilling on your moral imperative to make a positive contribution to the world in any way you can.
Remember that if you don’t master your body it will master you.
Remember that you have a voice in your head that tells you that you aren’t important. You wrap it up in a story that you sell yourself in which you are a modest individual. This imagined humility is false and inauthentic. Nobody believes it. Nobody benefits when you play smaller than you are. You cannot stand for the possibility of great things for yourself and others with this racket playing our in your head.
Remember that there is nothing external to yourself that you need in order to create a magnificent life. You are whole and perfect. The idea that you are in some way defective is imagined.
Remember your past exists entirely in your imagination. You have other recollections that can support an entirely new view of your past. These recollections can support and give evidence to any new future possibility that you create.
Remember that you can choose at any moment in your life the direction of the rest of your life. Remember that how you perform and live in life is entirely a product of how the world occurs to you. There are few things that cannot be changed in an instant by choosing the way that the situation occurs to you. You have this power, you always have had.
Remember that there is no past and no future there is only now. The future is a figment of your imagination; invent a future worth living into. Invent a future that draws you toward it. Life will bring this future into the now.
Remember that the access to what you have committed to achieving is in removing the delusions of self-imposed limitation. It is just a choice. Make your choice.
Remember that anxiety is a lack of faith. You have forgotten that everything will turn out well in the future.
Remember that anxiety does not create a heightened state of readiness for future inevitabilities. This is a story that you have sold yourself to give reason to what is nothing more or less than a lack of faith in yourself and the people around you.
Remember that when you remind yourself of imagined pain and suffering in the past that you are selling yourself a story. There is only one version of this story and that version of the story is yours. You have chosen this version of the story. You continue to choose it. You use it to justify playing smaller than you are.
The story you sell yourself does not exist in any time or place in the physical world except in the neural pathways that you have chosen to create. You have created them as a choice. It may have been the best choice available to you at the time but you are still selling yourself this old newspaper. You pay an unacceptable price when you choose to review this story.
Remember that you live in a world that nurtures the innate lethargy that your body wants you to sink to. It is your ego that drags you to the couch to watch banal dramas on the TV. TV has the capacity to move, transfix and entrance you in an instant. Its effects are as strong as any narcotic – almost impossible to escape. For the most part there is nothing on television to elevate you to a higher state. There are only drama’s that allow you a vicarious sample of what an exciting life might be like. You enjoy this simulated experience without having to put yourself on the line to receive it.
Remember that news programs incapacitate you with feelings of overwhelming hopelessness at the tragedies in the world. You have chosen to dwell in these feelings of uselessness to justify your own inertia. This feeling of impotence that you choose is your justification for not fulfilling on your moral imperative to make a positive contribution to the world in any way you can.
Remember that if you don’t master your body it will master you.
Remember that you have a voice in your head that tells you that you aren’t important. You wrap it up in a story that you sell yourself in which you are a modest individual. This imagined humility is false and inauthentic. Nobody believes it. Nobody benefits when you play smaller than you are. You cannot stand for the possibility of great things for yourself and others with this racket playing our in your head.
Remember that there is nothing external to yourself that you need in order to create a magnificent life. You are whole and perfect. The idea that you are in some way defective is imagined.
Remember your past exists entirely in your imagination. You have other recollections that can support an entirely new view of your past. These recollections can support and give evidence to any new future possibility that you create.
Remember that you can choose at any moment in your life the direction of the rest of your life. Remember that how you perform and live in life is entirely a product of how the world occurs to you. There are few things that cannot be changed in an instant by choosing the way that the situation occurs to you. You have this power, you always have had.
Remember that there is no past and no future there is only now. The future is a figment of your imagination; invent a future worth living into. Invent a future that draws you toward it. Life will bring this future into the now.
Remember that the access to what you have committed to achieving is in removing the delusions of self-imposed limitation. It is just a choice. Make your choice.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Marketing is no substitute for integrity!
Mark Buckman the CMO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) took a swipe at the Direct Marketing industry for accepting a 2% average response rate.
The rant which included mention of the 30 million dollars spent each year came after a CBA DM ad campaign allegedly produced a 20% response rate.
Some of us old-timers can instantly recognize that the response rate quoted could only be yielded from an incentivized publishing environment. That is, the end users would have been given some incentive to engage with the brand. An embarrassment that will reveal itself as the downstream data from this campaign is considered.
Please know that I make this assertion completely ignorant of the specifics of the campaign in question. What I do know is that a 20% response rate is possible without any additional enticements to the end user. I also know that no product produced by the CBA in the last 10 years qualifies for such an ovation from end users.
So what does it take to attain a response as high as 20%? While there are many factors that contribute to a successful DM campaign, one of two elements is essential – a great brand and a great offer. Having both elements in play will virtually guarantee a high response.
It has been a long time since I have allowed mailing of a “big four” bank offer to my list. The big four banks are one of the only advertising groups that send my unsubscribe rate through the roof. I am talking more unsubscribes than clicks!
Hold on – don’t the CBA have a great brand? Mark Buckman says they do. Here is my rather long-winded point…
Your brand is not the construct that the marketing department decide it is. Your brand is your reputation.
The reputation of the “big four” Australian banks stinks. Just ask anybody in the street.
So why does their reputation stink?
It stinks because of their cynical attempts to defraud their customers of every last dollar through newly invented fees and charges. It stinks because of their deliberate failure to make banking efficient for the end user. It stinks because we are subjected to endless reports of growing profits while having to watch our accounts constantly for exorbitant expenses associated with any oversight on our part. It stinks because we watch our government guarantee banks survival when they wouldn’t spare a second thought for ours.
We are clever, us humans. We know where these profits come from.
You can’t polish a turd. Sure, you can cover it up, put icing sugar on it, spend millions of dollars giving it a new and “hip” geometrical shape. But there is no prize for guessing what is underneath the veneer.
Open your ears Mark Buckman. Listen to your customers. Give people what they want where possible and have the courage to face your own demons as an organisation. Clean up the messes you have created and commit to producing an internal culture that inspires your people to listen to and exceed your customers’ expectations.
If you were a bank that did that – you wouldn’t need to spend 30 million on DM.
The rant which included mention of the 30 million dollars spent each year came after a CBA DM ad campaign allegedly produced a 20% response rate.
Some of us old-timers can instantly recognize that the response rate quoted could only be yielded from an incentivized publishing environment. That is, the end users would have been given some incentive to engage with the brand. An embarrassment that will reveal itself as the downstream data from this campaign is considered.
Please know that I make this assertion completely ignorant of the specifics of the campaign in question. What I do know is that a 20% response rate is possible without any additional enticements to the end user. I also know that no product produced by the CBA in the last 10 years qualifies for such an ovation from end users.
So what does it take to attain a response as high as 20%? While there are many factors that contribute to a successful DM campaign, one of two elements is essential – a great brand and a great offer. Having both elements in play will virtually guarantee a high response.
It has been a long time since I have allowed mailing of a “big four” bank offer to my list. The big four banks are one of the only advertising groups that send my unsubscribe rate through the roof. I am talking more unsubscribes than clicks!
Hold on – don’t the CBA have a great brand? Mark Buckman says they do. Here is my rather long-winded point…
Your brand is not the construct that the marketing department decide it is. Your brand is your reputation.
The reputation of the “big four” Australian banks stinks. Just ask anybody in the street.
So why does their reputation stink?
It stinks because of their cynical attempts to defraud their customers of every last dollar through newly invented fees and charges. It stinks because of their deliberate failure to make banking efficient for the end user. It stinks because we are subjected to endless reports of growing profits while having to watch our accounts constantly for exorbitant expenses associated with any oversight on our part. It stinks because we watch our government guarantee banks survival when they wouldn’t spare a second thought for ours.
We are clever, us humans. We know where these profits come from.
You can’t polish a turd. Sure, you can cover it up, put icing sugar on it, spend millions of dollars giving it a new and “hip” geometrical shape. But there is no prize for guessing what is underneath the veneer.
Open your ears Mark Buckman. Listen to your customers. Give people what they want where possible and have the courage to face your own demons as an organisation. Clean up the messes you have created and commit to producing an internal culture that inspires your people to listen to and exceed your customers’ expectations.
If you were a bank that did that – you wouldn’t need to spend 30 million on DM.
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