Strategy is an interesting topic.
You and I can be working in similar areas of management. We can have gone through the same set of experiences in our time at our organization. We can even have a similar view of what defines success in our chosen markets. Yet we can have markedly different perspectives as to what approach it will take to get there. And that’s perfectly normal - in fact, it’s almost always a good thing.
If you’ve worked for a large corporation that’s been through any material cost cutting exercise, you’ve likely experienced the 4th quarter travel ban. (For the benefit of those who haven’t had the pleasure, that’s when companies freeze travel and related expenses in an effort to conserve cash in an effort to hit their numbers (or get as close to them as possible).
In my last post, I talked about the thought process we (should) go through when deciding if it’s time to quit what we’re doing.
While there were multiple idea threads that inspired that post, one of them was an article by Mariam Naficy, the Founder and CEO of Minted, an online design marketplace. In that article, Mariam talked about how she raised a small seed round from friends and family and then launched the business, originally intending it to be a lifestyle business. And then:
If we’ve labored over a job or an initiative or a project (of any scale) for a concerted period of time, and it hasn’t delivered what it was supposed to, we’ll find ourselves asking that very question, in one form or another.
Am I done? Is it time? When is enough, enough?
Of course, it’s a difficult question to answer.
In my last post, I said that the great thing about technology today is that everyone has a platform.
At the same time, the terrible thing about technology today is that everyone has a platform. The thing is just because we have access to a platform doesn’t mean we can use it. That access has got to come with some level of responsibility.
The best thing about technology today is that everyone has a platform.
It doesn’t matter whether our preferred medium is in written, audio or visual form, we have access to all the technology we need to create, publish, broadcast and market our message to anyone, whether they’re in our hometown or all the way across the other side of the globe.
Years ago, Yahoo offered to buy Facebook for $1 Billion. Now, this was a scant few years since the business was started in Mark Zuckerberg’s college dorm room and certainly well before Facebook became the colossus it is now. And so, at the time, $1 Billion was a pretty amazing offer.
Zuck said no.
We’re in a business environment that, for the most part, is fixated on growth. One that values year over year, double and triple digit revenue increases as absolutely essential to being considered a “successful” company, to not be considered a failure.
In particular, if the organization is funded, that’s almost always a base level expectation. You aren’t being funded to simply create a going concern, you’ve been given a charter to create something transformative, huge, the next proverbial unicorn. (The more prominent the funders, the more prominent this expectation becomes.)
In my last post, I talked about how there’s always room for value when deciding to enter a market and that the key is in defining that value in a way that matters to the customer, and is profitable for you.
In this post, I’ll discuss the idea of competition and how defining who you compete with, as well as how they go to market, can and should influence your decision to play within a specific space.
Now, our initial tendency as we evaluate a specific market will be to consider the most obvious competitor in that space. This is our direct competition, and they are always the ones with the biggest brand, revenues, mindshare.
All too often, when we’re evaluating a new product or service idea, we get caught up in the notion of '“competitive dominance”. That there can only be one competitor who owns that space and, hence, competing in that market is a non-starter. Or, alternately, that there are so many players that that market has become commoditized. Either way, there’s no point playing in that space because the opportunity (for us) is gone.
The more time you spend on social media, the more you see examples of it.
Someone posts a video excerpt of an altercation, or footage of someone acting a way we don’t agree with, or an article about someone making statements that don’t resonate with what we believe in.
And our tendency, our natural instinct, is to react. To make our judgement. And then to share that judgement with someone else, and someone else, and someone else. Because the emotion of the moment is hard to get past, hard to get over.
Back in my early consulting days, I was asked to give a presentation to a prospective client and was handed a deck to present. My instructions were to go through the material, get comfortable with the content and then do a run-through with the partner with whom I’d be doing the pitch.
The content was right in my sweet spot, so I was pretty comfortable with the key messages that we needed to get across. But some of the material in the deck didn’t sit well with me.
I don’t believe there is any such thing as Inbox Zero.
I think it’s one of those Holy Grail type of scenarios - we all keep searching for it, but we will never find it, because, in all probability, it doesn’t actually exist. Just like there’s no Ark of Covenant, no Loch Ness Monster, and no better football team than the 2003-2004 Arsenal Invincibles. (Yes, I said it.)
But while it may not be practically possible to get to Inbox Zero, that doesn’t mean we should pursue it.
Before we can make the leap from doing ‘what we’re told’ to ‘doing what we want’, we have to accept four ideas. That:
What we’re doing isn’t aligned with what we want to do
We don’t have to do what we’re doing
We can do something else
We should go do whatever that ‘something else’ is
“People want companies and the world around them to align to their values, their goals, their needs, their interests. People want to find where they belong. They’re sick of fitting in.” Chris Brogan
We’re in a very different age from the one I grew up in. Back then, consumer brands exhibited personalities along parameters that were, generally speaking, non-controversial. It was important to offend no-one and “to stand out” was to do so along ‘conventional’ lines (sexy was cool but in a heterosexual way; models were never plus-size; family units started with a man and a woman, etc.).
I’m so busy. I’ve got a ton going on. I don’t have the time. We hear (and say) these phrases regularly, and to little surprise, given all that we might have on our plate at any given time.
In most ways, of course, it’s good to be busy. To experience the buzz you get when things at work are humming along, when you’re in full flow and driving towards whatever goals you’re working towards.
The flip side, though, is when we feel as if we have to be this way all the time - and worse, to show it, and constantly say it.
In my post on Monday (Are You Too Old?), I argued that, as an experienced professional, you had to lean into your age and experience instead of trying to downplay or avoid it. As such, you either look for those who value your experience and work with them, or take matters into your own hands, and do something for yourself. In other words, take it as a Call To Action and do what you want.
The interesting thing is that in trying to do what we want, many of us are hounded - constrained - by the same conventional wisdom that drove us to this point in the first place.
I recently came across a survey of US Tech Start-Up Founders by the venture-capital firm, First Round Capital, that yielded an insight that I think most of us, explicitly or implicitly, know to be the case:
37% said age is the strongest investor bias against founders, while 28% cited gender and 26% cited race.
Age is the strongest investor bias. No surprise there. And while the survey was focused on Tech, I don’t think it would be a stretch to envision this to be the case across start ups in other sectors as well.
Earlier this year, I got rid of my landline. It was a decision that, frankly, much harder than it should have been.
The fact of the matter is that I’ve had a cell phone since the late 90’s and I’ve been using my cell for all personal calls, almost exclusively, for the last half decade at least. In addition, the only calls that I (or any of my family) have been getting on our landline the last few years have been from telemarketers, and we pretty much never answer those calls.
Yes, that title is clickbait. (Partially anyway.)
A title that is designed to lure you in and make you read what I’ve written.
Because it promises you salvation (or resolution or clarity or closure) in some form. Because it suggests that that salvation will come from a few discrete steps. Because it suggests that salvation is going to be easy (implicitly anyway).
