My friend Lewisa Anciano has worked with her business partner, Jacqui Noftall, to create one of the coolest new tools for growing companies that have small HR departments but not the systems required to handle their growing business: kickstarthr.com. Basically for a few hundred dollars you can buy Recruitment, Performance Management, Engagement, or Succession Planning programs with all the forms, instructions, and setup pieces you need.
The entire package was built from the ground up by experienced HR professionals who have spent years developing their own systems internally. Basically you get to leverage all of their hard work!
If you own a growing business or are in the HR department, and you don’t have the resources you need (and find the thought of building them from scratch daunting), then this is probably the best product I’ve seen out there. There are over 70 comprehensive tools that require few modifications, and a ‘how-to’ guide that helps with successful implementation.
[note: I have no equity ownership or derive any compensation from kickstart - I'm just really impressed by it.]
Maria LoScerbo from EpicPR.ca sent this fantastic video to me the other day. It shows what it would look like if consumers negotiated the same way some people do in the business world. It’s quick, it’s funny, and it’s worth a watch.
On Tuesday, June 16th, at 10am PST, ViRTUS will be collaborating with Mindfield Group to present a webinar focusing on the top 10 things that leaders throughout your organization need to focus on during turbulent times. This 60 min webinar (30 mins presentation, 30 mins Q&A) will be appropriate for anyone within your organization who is in a leadership role and is looking for practical tips and techniques that they can apply immediately.
Joel Shapiro emailed me a link to an article that Malcolm Gladwell has written in this week’s New Yorker magazine, that takes the story of David versus Goliath and connects it to modern examples of how to change the game in your favour.
Here are two key concepts that come up in the article:
If you have limited resources when compared to a much larger competitor then using a similar strategy to them in the marketplace will most likely lead to failure. The solution is to approach the market in a way that is unexpected. The best non-business example of this is the current problem of the Somali pirate attacks, IEDs in Iraq, and frankly terrorism overall. Small, poorly funded, unorganized, and badly armed bands of marauders have managed to cause significant damage by not attacking head-on, instead by attacking using stealth and their small size to their advantage.
A full court press beats the wait and see approach the majority of the time. Slowing down or completely stopping the momentum of your competitor with your actions will cause they to focus on the wrong thing and doing that means moving away from their own strategy. The current example of this is the I’m a Mac commercials from Apple. Microsoft was forced by it’s much smaller competitor to abandon it’s advertising approach (which was actually also in response to Apple) and instead focus on selling off price differential, basically saying, “hey, well, at least we’re cheaper!”
I’m interested to hear some examples of business cases where these principles have shown to be valuable so let’s turn this monologue into a conversation. Comments?
It’s during turbulent times, whether it be the current global economic situation or in times of industry or organization crisis, that CEOs have a tremendous opportunity to pull the people in their organization together towards a common goal. As Francois De La Rochefoucauld said, “there is no stronger bond of friendship than a mutual enemy.”
Here is a list of the top five things CEOs must keep in mind while leading through turbulent times:
Simplify the strategic message. The easier the strategy is to understand and communicate the more likely it is to be understood and passed on through the entire organization. The Top 3-5 goals for the year is really what people will remember. Stephen Covey takes it one step further in his book, The Eighth Habit, when he describes the concept of a Wildly Important Goal (WIG) – the most important goal for the company for the year, as the single overarching objective that everyone in the company must be able to understand, feel compelled by, and be able to repeat and pass-on. A simple catch phrase that rallies support, the WIG is something that politicians have used to their advantage for years. Side note: Premier Gordon Campbell knows this well. At the BC Leadership Lunch last week he summed up the importance of forestry to British Columbia by saying, “wood is good.” Now I’m sure the double-entendre was intentional and I guarantee that his message was passed on.
As Jim Collins said, Good to Great, confront the brutal facts but move forward with healthy optimism anyway. Be clear about what the situation is today, what that means for the organization, what the strategy is to move us is the right direction, and what each person can do to contribute to the success of the plan.
Be candid and speak authentically about the reality of the situtation. Jack Welch, in chapter 2 of his book Winning, speaks about candor, or as he calls it, “the biggest little dirty secret in business.” Jack says that he felt the biggest turning point in success at GE happened when they brought all the executives together and agreed to put true candor into place in the organization. That chapter is one of the best pieces I’ve read on the value of candor in organizations.
Keep your strategic plan dynamic. The most successful companies we work with at ViRTUS, are the ones that review, evaluate, and revise their strategic plans on a quarterly basis. Adapting the plan to changes in the market, economy, industry, company, or direct competition creates a document which decision can be made by instead of another binder on the shelf (I swear a shelf manufacturer came up with the concept of putting binders on shelves to sell more shelves.).
Be consistent in your communications to all stakeholders. In board meetings, executive meetings, press releases, articles, newsletters, speeches, blog postings, hallway/cafeteria adhoc conversations, etc., the message must be the same.
Hear’s where the rant starts: and STOP blaming everything on the “global economic situation.” Not all of the risks you take as a CEO, even as calculated as they might seem at the time, are going to pan out. Own up to the mistakes that were made and move on. You’ll make more later so now’s the time to focus on the path forward.
First off, the Wildly Courageous Decision is actually a blend of two different concepts: the Wildly Important Goal (WIG) from Stephen Covey’s book the 8th Habit and the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) from Jim Collins’ book, Good to Great.
In crafting your WCD there are five different methods that work tend to best:
compared to competition (Avis decided they wanted to be second to Hertz)
compared to an absolute (The Seattle Pike Place Fish Market decided they wanted to be world famous)
compared to an industry (We will become the leading/most admired/fastest/cheapest provider of X in the packaged goods industry)
compared to a company you admire (ViRTUS is becoming the Apple of the consulting world)
compared to a parent company (We will be the fastest growing/most profitable/more admired/leading brand of GE).
Fit squarely in the three circles of your Hedgehog Concept.
Have a long time frame—10 to 30 years.
Are clear, compelling and easy to grasp.
Directly reflect your core values and core purpose.
It took us a number of tries before we came up with a WCD that the entire team could rally around. The first two just weren’t inspiring us to move in the long term direction we wanted. As an entrepreneur I really had to ask myself this question as the final test of our WCD: “Am I willing to spend the next 10 to 30 years of my life to achieve this Wildly Courageous Decision?”
In a prior blog post I wrote about the new domain that’s now available, “.tel”. Unlike normal domains (.com, .org, .uk, etc.), .tel is actually an online business card that maintains all of your public and private contact information. I’ve registered my .tel as http://mikedesjardins.tel.
A local firm, webnames.ca, is one of the registrars. They put an ad up on youtube that very well done and worth sharing:
My friend Lewisa Anciano has worked with her business partner, Jacqui Noftall, to create one of the coolest new tools for growing companies that have small HR departments but not the systems required to handle their growing business: kickstarthr.com. Basically for a few hundred dollars you can buy Recruitment, Performance Management, Engagement, or Succession Planning programs with all the forms, instructions, and setup pieces you need.
Joel Shapiro emailed me a link to an 
