ValuExecBlog

Making Sense of it All

Nature is a wonderful teacher. If you have ever witnessed a fire, fanned by gale-force winds, race across a bushland, you will know that the resultant destruction is often swift and devastating. Anything that is dry and brittle is devoured with a ferocity that defies belief. The direction of the fire can change quickly as it is guided by winds over which we have no control. The heat and the roar of the fire can be felt and heard meters away and the smoke and the ash can be seen for miles providing a warning to those not immediately in its path to prepare for its impact. At its very centre, there is nothing that you nor anyone can do for the heat is just too intense. So you concentrate around the edges, beating back the feeder flames so that they don't become monsters in their own right. In addition, you work quickly to build a buffer by back-burning a barrier over which the flames can not cross. You work fast, and untiringly willing the wind to die down and the heavens to open up so that you can restrain the fire. Eventually, the fire devours itself and dies as there is no more fuel that it can feed off. Your buffer has kept it in check. All that is left now is a devastated landscape, a scorched earth and smoldering trees that once stood tall. You are exhausted, and you go home too numb to count the cost.

But whilst you lie exhausted, the process of birth begins almost immediately. Nature begins to rebuild. Green shoots of grass break through the earth's crust and a few months later what was once a blackened, charred earth, is now littered with green tufts of grass. New trees are emerging and those trees that had been healthy and strong before the fire, although scarred, are showing signs of growth again as new leaves appear on its branches. The landscape has indeed taken on a different appearance from what it once was. Not only is it marked by burnt monuments of trees that once stood tall but it is also marked by new varieties of flowers, grass and saplings. You grieve over the burnt monuments but as you look at their charred remains, you realize that they were hollow and that they were dead internally long before the fire; a fact that nature knew a long time ago. Then you marvel at the growth and the beauty around you.

As Nature teaches us - despite outside appearances, companies that are internally weak or hollow on the inside, will be destroyed by the current crisis. Companies that are healthy and strong internally will, although scarred - survive. Throwing money at the weak is like throwing more wood on the fire. The landscape is changing but just as Nature begins the building process immediately, so too must we.

We need to review our current business models of growth. We need to review our strategy within the changing landscape. We need to review our processes and our internal systems and be ruthless in discarding those that are monuments of landscapes of long ago. We need to review the talent that we have left in our company, and know how we will retain them. We need to plan for the day we will need to attract the best of talent back into our fold when growth occurs and it will. We need to review how we are going to keep our loyal customers who are lying exhausted and who have lost so much. We need to find ways to strengthen our companies so that they will in fact grow because through growth will come confidence. Importantly, we need to review shareholder and investor expectations of what is considered reasonable growth. 

So, I ask you - now that you have made all the cuts and have laid off people by the droves; reduced your advertising and administration spend; downgraded travel and closed unprofitable branches and knowing that as one business journalist put it, 'the hangover from 2008 will last long after the last firework is heard exploding in the night sky.' - I ask you, 'What's next? and have we in fact learned anything from what Nature teaches us.

ian

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

Some companies just don't get it. South African Airways has just announced that in the interests of improving productivity, efficiencies and ultimately the service offered to is valued customers, it will be outsourcing its call centres. Apparently, this would have an initial impact on its reservations and its loyalty program.  

Forgive me for being a cynic but my experience with call centres is that they tend to benefit the organization and not the customer despite what the company may say and no matter how it is couched in its mass mailings to customers. I have to admit that I have never understood why companies are so eager to pass on any opportunity to deal directly with its customers and taking customers calls for bookings and their questions surrounding their loyalty programs are such opportunities.  

I suspect that someone at head-office in South African Airways looked at the call-centre not as a profit centre able to generate sales revenues but rather as a cost centre filled with people answering irate customer complaints or simply taking orders. Time they woke up a smelt the coffee. Remember those days so long, long ago when sales people were seen as simple order takers - who were told to always follow the company line. As competition grew more fierce and customers more discerning, that soon changed. The same will happen with call-centres. Companies need to see them as natural extensions of the sales team, powerful individuals in their own right who have the ability to up-sell customers or disengage customers. I am not sure that that is something I would want to outsource.

ian

Learning from The Master

In the October 2008 issue of Toastmaster, the monthly publication of Toastmasters International Inc., there is a wonderful interview by Craig Harrison with Coach John Wooden, Head Basketball Coach, University of California, Los Angeles - on lessons in leadership. Inspired by the article, I visited Wooden's website at www.coachjohnwooden.com and soon realized that I was in the presence of a Master. Here was a man who was larger than life; who had reached the top of his profession and yet was modest, and humble; who had no airs about him and just told it like it was. His philosophies on success, leadership, team-building were so clear and yet so simple that you could not help but marvel at the man's clarity of wisdom. Here are some of Coach John Wooden's pearls of wisdom taken from Mr. Harrison's article:

On Leading and Motivating Teams
"In my opinion, one of the greatest motivating tools we have is a pat on the back. Another technique is listening."

Tips for New Leaders
"Lead, don't drive. And give credit. Don't blame. Criticism must always be given in a gentle way, never harshly. As a coach I had 3 rules:

1. Never be late
2. You must never criticize a teammate
3. I would not tolerate profanity from anyone, anytime

Pursuit of Excellence
"My bench never heard me mention winning. My whole emphasis was for each one of my players to try and execute the fundamentals to the best of their ability. Not to try to be better than somebody else, but to learn from others, and never cease trying to be the best they could be."

On Resolving Conflict
"Unless a problem is brought to the forefront, it will just continue to fester."

On Struggle and Difficulty
"Hardship brings people closer together if you share it."

On Patience
"Leaders must have patience for those under their supervision. Don't expect too much too soon. Maybe it was easy for you, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy for somebody else. And then you must believe in what you are doing, that what you're doing is the proper thing, the right thing."

Tremendous insights indeed from a true Master!

ian

I would recommend that you review Coach John Wooden's 'Pyramid of Success' which you can download from his website (provided above). The building blocks are a reminder of what builds winning teams.