Posts Tagged ‘Kevin Lawrence’

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Amplify the intelligence of your employees…and four more insights from the 2010 Growth Summit

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

The 2010 Growth Summit by Gazelles and co-hosted by Fortune magazine was a fantastic conference packed with great networking opportunities and lots of inspiring strategies, principles and ideas from some of the top thought leaders, best-selling authors and successful business leaders across the United States. Here are five highlights that intrigued me, which I hope will energize you with new ways of thinking as you work to compete and win in 2011.

Highlight #1: David Sokol, chairman, president and CEO of NetJets on strategic planning

Known as Berkshire Hathaway’s “Mr. Fix it man,” David Sokol is the chairman, president and CEO of NetJets, an executive aviation company that pioneered the concept of fractional jet ownership. And as Berkshire’s “Mr. Fix it man,” Sokol was brought in to turn around the company, soon discovering an entrenched belief that if the company just focused on sales, they could sell their way through the tough times. Wrong approach – in reality, in addition to generating greater revenue, they needed to get back to the discipline of managing costs.

Sokol also discussed their approach to strategic planning; NetJets is focused on 10-year goals that are broken down as follows: one third are aspirational, one third are economic and one third are focused on internal enhancements. What’s really interesting is that business leaders are often consumed by financial goals (such as improving margins) and internal enhancements (increasing quantities by streamlining production) rather than the aspirational goals (we need to buy out a competitor/supplier or dominate a new market segment). But in fact, from Sokol’s perspective, aspirational goals are the most important because they ultimately put a business in a place of greater strength in the long-term.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge: Are enough of your goals aspirational (or what I would call strategic)?

Highlight #2: Liz Wiseman on why the best leaders “amplify the intelligence” of the people around them

Are you a Diminisher or a Multiplier? Check out Liz Wiseman’s book Multipliers. How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter to find out the difference and learn how you can “amplify the intelligence” of the people around you. According to Wiseman, there are five traits the distinguish Multipliers from Diminishers; Multipliers are:

  1. Talent Magnets rather than Empire Builders. They attract and optimize talent while also amplifying employees’ intrinsic intelligence for the benefit of the team, the company and its customers.
  2. Liberators rather than Tyrants. They create an energetic environment that extracts the best thinking from employees.
  3. Challengers instead of Know-It-Alls. They extend challenges and encourage employees to come up with solutions, rather than telling employees what to do.
  4. Debate Makers instead of Decisions Makers. They facilitate productive debates that involve each person on the team while limiting their own participation.
  5. Investors versus Micromanagers. They invest in delegating, coaching and teaching while still ensuring accountability.

Essentially, Multipliers boost so much brainpower and hence contributions from their teams that they practically double the workforce. Diminishers zap productivity and in fact the gap between Multipliers and Diminishers is actually the lost intellectual productivity that organizations are missing out on.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge:

Highlight #3: Is it really strategic planning or…..strategic thinking and execution planning?

Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, shared an interesting thought about whether or not strategic planning should really be called strategic planning. He suggested that we should be thinking about it in two different but complementary ways: strategic thinking and execution planning. That’s right. Business leaders must think strategically but then plan to execute.

As I thought about this concept, it made me recall many different situations where business leaders are really good at executing, but then the magic really starts to happen when they make time for strategic thinking. In practicing the Rockefeller Habits, it’s ideal to have a monthly meeting with half the day focused on strategic thinking. Some companies I know even have a weekly breakfast or dinner offsite to make room for uninterrupted strategic thinking. The most important point is that strategic thinking doesn’t happen when you are consumed by day-to-day activities or cloistered away in an office so make it happen offsite on a regular basis.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge:

Highlight #4: Finding the bright spots will help us remember what we are good at

Chip Heath, co-author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, shared how “when it’s time to change, we must look for bright spots – the first signs that things are working…we need to ask ourselves: What’s working and how can we do more of it?”

This may seem all too simple but if it is naturally working, then why not do more of it in your business? Sometimes we just forget and lose track at what we, or our employees are good at.

The problem in many businesses is that regardless of whether times are good or bad, we can easily get seduced into paying too much attention to what is not working and then focus our efforts on fixing the problems. For example, one of my clients – a highly successful service-oriented business with an elite client list – appeared to have everything going for it. However, employees and the business leaders themselves were miserable.

So, we took a look back at their best year (their bright spot) when everyone was happy and we noticed two key things had changed between then and now. First, an office reconfiguration segregated the leadership team from frontline employees so there was little or no interaction between the two groups on a day-to-day basis. Second, there was no spark of excitement left in the office. The fun had disappeared. What’s happening now as a result? They are making changes to emphasis the bright spots again and while it is early days, I suspect that by going back to what worked, positive results will occur.

You can learn more about bright spots in this Fast Company book excerpt: Switch: Don’t Solve Problems – Copy Success.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge:

Highlight #5: Why do we sell the products we do? And how does 1+1+1 = 19?

Rich Russakoff, an international expert on cash flow management, profit maximization and bank financing for entrepreneurial companies, challenged participants to ask themselves why they sell the products they do. Entrepreneurs and executives naturally want to get their products and services into the hands of the most people possible, but it is this really a profitable strategy? How do you know? Well, Rich encouraged participants to analyze their business based on three to five different perspectives of margins: margins by products, margins by customer, by division, by geography and by customer segment to name a few.

Many people find that by doing this margin exercise, they uncover phenomenal areas of opportunity that they were not aware of previously, or areas that are not doing as well as they thought. The important thing is to put your energy where you have the highest opportunity for growth as demonstrated by your margins rather than putting your energy in areas where you are making little or no money, or where there’s no reward for your effort. Alternatively, if there’s poor performance, you may need to either adjust your pricing strategy or find a different market segment to focus on.

Think of it as finding the bright spots (and dark spots) in your margins.

Rich also showed us how a 1% increase in price plus a 1% decrease in the cost of goods sold (or a 1% increase in margin) along with a 1% decrease in your overhead expenses can result in a 19% increase to your net profits. 1+1+1 = 19. The final number will depend on the specific circumstances of your business, but the concept of this calculation will excite most business leaders and entrepreneurs and fortunately the numbers on the left-hand side of the equation are largely in our control.

Coach Kevin’s Challenge: Take a look at your business to determine if you can make small price increases along with small decreases in your cost structure to achieve a double-digit increase in net profits.

Many people, particularly sales people, don’t give much heed to a 5% movement on price, let alone a 1% increase. In reality, what Rich is demonstrating is that the impact of many small changes can be amplified. Everyone knows that increasing prices and decreasing costs and overhead are good as standalone strategies, but it’s the combination of all three that can have a notable impact on net profit.

I’m inspired by the new thinking and ideas shared at the Growth Summit and I hope these help spark new ways of looking your business as 2011 approaches.

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A must read author − Dr. Robert Cialdini. Just how persuasive are you?

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Two years ago, I saw Dr. Robert Cialdini deliver a presentation on the topic of ethical influence. Initially, I wasn’t sure if I would attend, because I wasn’t convinced it would be that interesting. Wow, I’m glad I was wrong.Dr. Cialdini’s presentation was exceptional and I was astonished by his research, and the science of getting people to say “yes” to your requests.

In Dr. Cialdini’s research, not only does he explore the findings from other studies, but he also analyzed industries where saying “yes” is critical to survival in the market. He defines six primary techniques to being more persuasive with people:

  1. Reciprocity – people tend to return favours. For example, if someone opens a door for you, you feel obligated to do something similar.
  2. Commitment and consistency – when people commit verbally or in writing, they tend to honour that commitment.
  3. Social proof – people tend to do things that they see others doing; hence the rise of similar behavior and purchasing habits from peers in social networks, including online networks.
  4. Authority – we tend to believe and obey figures of authority.
  5. Liking – we are influenced by the people we like and admire.
  6. Scarcity – if we believe that a product or service is scarce, we are more likely to want it. For example, if you are looking to buy an item in a clothing store and it’s the last one in your size, the odds of you buying it are higher than if there were five of the exact same items in your size.

What’s amazing is that most of these are so deeply programmed in our DNA that we almost can’t help ourselves when someone uses one of these techniques; we are simply programmed to react. Here’s a video of Dr. Cialdini discussing the six techniques.

There are a few books that are simply a must read for anyone in a leadership or management role and this is definitely at the top of my list. The techniques are not just about securing the next big sale, but instead about getting people to say, “yes” in all kinds of situations we face.

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A must read book – Multipliers. How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

Friday, November 5th, 2010

At the 2010 Growth Summit by Gazelles and co-hosted by Fortune magazine, I had the opportunity to see Liz Wiseman speak about her research in the book – Multipliers. How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. I was pleasantly surprised to see a presentation that covered principles, which are based on data rather than just research extracted from opinions.  Liz shared how the best leaders look beyond their own capabilities to “amplify the intelligence” of the people around them. Not only was her presentation fantastic, but I was also fortunate to be able to spend a few hours with Liz discussing her deep passion for helping leaders tap into the incredible intellect that they are not currently accessing. For me, this is really powerful because business coaches are the multipliers for the people we work with, and with her framework – that can be used whether you are business coach or a business leader – we can be far more effective at helping leaders get the most out their teams when it comes to leadership. I really encourage you to read the book – Multipliers. How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. And if you have the chance to see Liz in person, do so. You can also watch this video clip to get an introduction to the concepts in the book.

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You can’t win if you’re not on the same page

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Ten reasons why the One-Page Strategic Plan created by Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits improves a company’s performance

By Kevin Lawrence (Coach Kevin)

Remember the back of the napkin – the one where you doodled your first business plan? Or perhaps it was a whiteboard in windowless room where you fervently scrawled your ideas on how to change or dominate your industry. Regardless, it was that one page that helped bring your business, or ideas to fruition.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO at the helm of established organization or an entrepreneur who created a company from the ground up, I’ve seen many business leaders develop extraordinary ideas on the back of a napkin over lunch meetings – and probably more over a dinner late into the evening. The point is – there’s a remarkable sense of clarity that comes from creating a strategic plan that fits on one page.

Equally important, is what happens next – everyone leaves energized and on the same page, off to execute on the plan or idea with a clear purpose. And even if they don’t have the napkin in front of them, the image of that plan is burnt in their mind. The challenge for executives becomes how do you sustain the momentum?

For CEOs of smaller-sized companies who are not at the mercy of the bureaucracy and complexity of larger organizations, this is less of a challenge. But what happens when there are 10,000 different versions of that plan-on-a-napkin, representing every employee’s individual interpretation of the plan?

Oftentimes, business leaders are too focused on steering their ship through day-to-day hurdles, and as a result, they lose sight of company’s vision and goals. I also see many leaders who become extremely tactical and short-term focused, causing them to miss out on the opportunities that made them successful initially. This can be detrimental because when leaders lose focus, so do employees. The result? Everyone is executing his or her own version of what they think is the plan, which is absolutely scary and certainly not good for business.

Instead, winning requires leadership teams to create a strategic plan that is easily understood, communicated and championed. This is why I encourage my clients to use the One-Page Strategic Plan by Verne Harnish, author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, because it takes a laser-focused approach to capturing all the important business strategy components – from core values and measurable targets to who is specifically responsible for accomplishing the top priorities each quarter.

The One-Page Strategic Plan makes the difference between companies that prosper and those that unfortunately tread water and here are ten reasons why; business leaders who use the One-Page Strategic Plan:

1. Get clear on who they are as a company and where they want to be in ten years. For many leaders, it may seem like daunting task to develop a long-term vision but with the One-Page Strategic Plan, leadership teams work through smaller, action-oriented components, which in the end establish the company’s vision and the plan to get there.

2. Identify the biggest opportunities and obstacles ahead for their business. The only constant is change and if your company is not agile to changes in the market, it will become irrelevant. Putting a bunch of smart people in a room on a quarterly basis ensures that the biggest opportunities and obstacles are identified and debated regularly. This is crucial because you don’t want to miss opportunities or unexpectedly face obstacles.

3. Build a shared conviction and greater commitment to the strategy. Having a plan is imperative, but it’s also important that those executing it are in agreement and committed to making it happen. The One-Page Strategic Plan process helps business leaders:

This all leads to a greater probability of success, regardless of whether or not the plan is perfect.

4. Enrich their leadership capabilities. Leaders (and employees) get the chance to drive major priorities, giving top executives the ability to see how their key talent handles and delivers on major initiatives.

For example, one of my clients needed someone to drive a major project and when an employee volunteered, executives were skeptical because they didn’t believe he had the caliber of leadership required. Well, to everyone’s surprise this employee was stellar throughout the project, and in fact, established himself as one of the best leaders in the company. The perspective went from “yeah he’s a good guy” to “wow, he is amazing.”

Seeing who volunteers to lead initiatives is really quite important because:

Now, some employees (and leaders) will not be able to deliver, but ideally, if this process is applied correctly, senior executives will be able to use project leadership as a litmus test to determine who is capable of assuming greater responsibility.

5. Inspire employees with a crystal-clear vision that reinforces why their efforts everyday matter. Employees have desire to be a part of something that is exciting in terms of the impact a company makes and the success it can generate. The One-Page Strategic Plan reinforces across the organization why the company matters, where it wants to be in ten years and what must happen each quarter to achieve that goal. This will without a doubt focus and energize employees.

Many leaders also engage their employees at a grassroots level to help determine how to accomplish priorities. For example, if the goal is to eliminate $10 million in expenses, by soliciting employee feedback on where to reduce costs, employees gain greater ownership in the goal. Additionally, the opportunity for success improves because employees are often the first to know where money is being used inefficiently.

6. Unleash a culture that empowers employees with responsibility and accountability. Human beings are easily distracted and generally have a hard time following through on challenging projects. Put another way – if you know you have a year to work on a project, typically, you will only focus on it during the last 30 days (that’s assuming you remembered to do it because you were given it 11 months ago and it’s amazing how fast things fall off our radar).

The One-Page Strategic Plan creates a culture of discipline because priorities are reviewed in 13-week intervals, which causes an innate urgency to get projects done. I have seen time and time again that companies get at least twice the amount accomplished when priorities are evaluated four times a year versus annually. Furthermore, if the plan is done right, employees will know exactly what the three to five priorities are, and ideally everyone will be associated in some way with the number one priority. Employees will also be empowered to say no to non-critical requests that are not tied to the company’s top priorities.

7. Eliminate priorities that simply don’t fit with the company’s strategic direction. If you don’t have a formal process for determining quarterly priorities, how do you know if your employees are working on critical initiatives that are actually moving the company ahead? Even worse, what happens if employees are working on initiatives that are detrimental to the business’ success? The One-Page Strategic Plan helps leaders identify quarterly priorities that are congruent across the organization, reducing the likelihood that employees just pick ones they think are important but that may not be beneficial.

8. Uncover hidden issues that are inhibiting success. After 12 to 18 months of executing quarterly priorities, many previously hidden issues become exposed and dealt with, which means the company can move into a position of greater strength because executives are able to notice new opportunities they didn’t see before. For example, I often see situations where newly appointed leaders join companies only to discover a plethora of issues, and the longer they are there, the more they find.

Creating a rigorous process for establishing and measuring quarterly priorities surfaces issues, aligns leaders and focuses the business, which over several quarters, results in less emergencies to address and fix. Consequently, leaders can capitalize on new opportunities leveraging the strength in what the company has built.

9. Generate momentum that is similar to the Flywheel effect – a concept introduced by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall. According to Collins,“Good to great comes about by a cumulative process – step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel – that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.

Considerable momentum can be achieved if every business unit focuses on making notable improvements on five key things each quarter.  Additionally, imagine how incredibly powerful it would be to have every employee focusing his or her efforts on making a single, but significant, improvement for the business, for example, increasing units sold per month.

10. Communicate with clarity and engage in a consistent two-way dialogue with employees on the strategic plan. Once business leaders have a clear vision of the company’s direction, the opportunities and obstacles and the top priorities that need to be accomplished each quarter, they are perfectly positioned to engage employees in helping to achieve the priorities. Employees are typically hungry for information on the company’s goals and performance, particularly in industries facing ongoing change and competitive pressures. By improving the flow of communication, employees will better understand each individual, team and business unit’s priorities and contribution to the strategy. As a result, they will be more willing to explore ideas that benefit the entire organization rather than just themselves personally.

Improving communications based on a clearly articulated One-Page Strategic Plan will also decrease the all too often experienced communications gap between the executive leadership team and front line employees who ultimately work every day with customers, partners and suppliers.  I have yet to see an employee tell me, “my CEO communicates too much.” Instead, it’s usually the other way around with employees often sharing:

When I work with clients on the One-Page Strategic Plan, I strongly encourage them to develop a quarterly communications plan alongside the quarterly priorities where timeliness and transparency of information rules. I also encourage them to engage in a healthy debate and two-way dialogue with employees. Why? Well, if employees can challenge ideas or potentially bad decisions, two things happen. First, it builds a strong culture of collaboration and diversity of thinking beyond the senior leadership team, which means the generation of better ideas across the organization. Second, if employees contribute to the decision-making and idea creation process, they too will have a greater sense of ownership in the priorities and the outcomes.

The most effective way to plan and get plans executed

In my coaching practice, I have had the opportunity to use many different tools to help companies improve their performance; yet, I have voluntarily chosen the Rockefeller Habits methodology, created by Verne Harnish, because it is by far the best set of tools and techniques available to help businesses sustain positive and profitable growth.  The One-Page Strategic Plan is also, in my opinion, the most effective way to plan and get plans executed in a way that improves a company’s performance.

All too often business leaders are so caught up in all the urgent but not important stuff that they lose sight of the company’s purpose and goals. Creating an action-oriented strategic plan based on quarterly priorities keeps short-term priorities top of mind throughout the organization, while helping companies achieve the long-term vision. It also reinvigorates and motivates employees by demonstrating how their day-to-day efforts matter and contribute to overall success.

Now, this is my perspective, but don’t just take my word for it. Verne’s book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits is filled with testimonials from executives around the world who have shared how these techniques have made a lasting difference in their organizations. If you’re serious about accelerating positive business performance, don’t miss out on the dramatic results that can be achieved using the Rockefeller Habits methodology or the One-Page Strategic Plan.

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Kevin Lawrence is a strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams across North America and internationally. Driven by a relentless passion for helping business leaders get what they really want, in business and life, Kevin has coached clients across a wide range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, luxury retail, media, automotive and professional services. He deeply believes that CEOs and entrepreneurs can have tremendous business success along with an enriching, adventurous and fulfilling lifestyle, taking their professional and personal accomplishments to an entirely new level.

For more than a decade, Kevin has helped clients overcome major obstacles, deal with tough decisions and capitalize on new opportunities to generate breakthrough results. Clients often turn to Kevin when they are faced with a frustrating and challenging issue, which causes them to seriously look at making a big change, quickly. His methods, style and savvy approach have helped his clients expand into new markets, build high performance leadership teams, attract profitable clients, improve productivity, and increase revenue and profitability. Also, with Kevin as their advisor, clients reduce their stress and hours worked so they have more time and energy to live their personal version of an outrageous quality of life. For more information, visit www.CoachKevin.com or call 1-877-564-6224

Copyright 2010, SGI Synergy Group Inc. & Kevin Lawrence

www.CoachKevin.com
inquire@CoachKevin.com
Phone: (604) 313-2229
Toll Free: 1-877-564-6224

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The basics of vision and brand promise – part I

Monday, February 8th, 2010

The clients I coach often ask me to describe the difference between vision, mission, purpose, mantra, positioning statements and BHAGs. There’s a lot of overlap in these words and different people use them differently; however, I centre my clients on two concepts to keep them focused on an action-oriented strategy – vision and brand promise. Developing an enduring vision alongside an engaging brand promise helps entrepreneurs and executives clearly determine their strategic goals, create a results-driven plan to achieve their goals and establish a fully aligned and coordinated organization that knows exactly what it needs to do to meet un-met, or under-met needs in the market. Additionally, a clear vision coupled with an entrenched brand promise sets the foundation, and in fact a benchmark, for everything a company must do in regards to the products and/or services it delivers to clients.

Defining vision

There is a lot of information available on how to build a lasting vision but essentially your vision is where you aspire to take your company in the future. An enduring vision is supported by your:

Jim has studied companies extensively and has considerable insight on what companies need to do to achieve and sustain superior performance, and as a result, I encourage my clients to learn and instill many of his principles in their own businesses.

Defining brand promise

The concept of brand promise is where I will focus on more in depth in Part II because I continue to be surprised by the rudimentary definitions of brand promise shared online and in business. Let’s start with what a brand promise doesn’t mean. A brand promise is not a tagline telling customers what they should expect from your business. This is instead a positioning statement and while this statement is important in engaging customers to do business with your company, make no mistake, it is not a brand promise.

A brand promise is an internal strategy focused on two to three non-negotiable things (pillars) that you stand for that fit with who you are and what you do to serve unmet, or under-met, needs in the market.

These two to three pillars of your brand promise must be quantifiable so you know without a doubt whether or not you are actually staying true to your brand promise. Embedding measurable pillars as part of your brand promise also provides a filter against which everything you do internally can be judged by, for example, acquisitions or product and service development.

Once you have developed your internal strategy based on two to three measurable pillars, you then align your systems and processes to deliver on your brand promise. And once your systems are in place, then and only then, do you come up with your positioning statement for customers and prospects.

I have worked with clients around the world, helping them create brand promises that have absolutely redefined their companies and go-to-market approaches. Through this work, which is inspired by the concepts and practices in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, my clients have unquestionably driven more business than their competition, reinforcing that a brand promise is far more than a tagline.

The basics of vision

In their Harvard Business Review article entitled Building Your Company’s Vision, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras shared the following:

Many executives thrash about with mission statements and vision statements. Unfortunately, most of those statements turn out to be a muddled stew of values, goals, purposes, philosophies, beliefs, aspirations, norms, strategies, practices, and descriptions. They are usually a boring, confusing, structurally unsound stream of words that evoke the response “True, but who cares?” Even more problematic, seldom do these statements have a direct link to the fundamental dynamic of visionary companies: preserve the core and stimulate progress. That dynamic, not vision or mission statements, is the primary engine of enduring companies. Vision simply provides the context for bringing this dynamic to life. Building a visionary company requires 1% vision and 99% alignment. When you have superb alignment, a visitor could drop in from outer space and infer your vision from the operations and activities of the company without ever reading it on paper or meeting a single senior executive.

This is a perfect synopsis of the challenge facing executives and also why creating a vision through these two steps is critical for executives.

Step 1 – Uncover your purpose

The first step is to uncover your company’s purpose. Very simply, this is the difference you want to make on the planet through your business.

Your purpose is the lifeblood of the organization; it is what motivates employees, attracts customers and keeps your team focused on achieving success.

For example, Coastal Contacts, co-founded by president and CEO, Roger Hardy, is the worlds’ largest online retailer of vision care products. Through its website, Coastal Contacts sells brand name contact lenses and eyeglasses combining outstanding value, quality and convenience. After working for a contact lens manufacturer, Hardy realized that contacts had incredible mark ups and didn’t agree with customers being taken advantage of; as a result, Coastal Contacts’ purpose was born, which is “saving the world from overpriced vision care.”

Another great example is Amazon, which is well-known for selling books online, and yet when you examine the company’s purpose, “books” does not even appear in the positioning statement: Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

The BMW Group with its portfolio of unmistakable brands, including BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has a clear purpose, which is to provide automobiles and motorcycles that fascinate people all over the world and which win legions of new admirers every day.

Coach Kevin’s tips for precision performance

Do you have a clear purpose? Ask your employees to articulate it? Ask your customers and partners to articulate it? If no one can clearly state your purpose, it’s time to either go back to the drawing board and create one or ensure your purpose is well defined, understood and communicated.

Step 2 – Create your Big Hairy Audacious Goal

The next step is to create your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): This goal is exactly as the name suggests – it is big and visionary (this is typically a 10 to 25 year goal); it is daring (people will compelled and your competitors will be envious); and it is daunting – this is no ordinary goal, but a complex and seemingly unattainable goal, yet one that is potentially lucrative and rewarding with the potential to revolutionize business markets.  Importantly, your BHAG must support your purpose. In fact, it is a tangible achievement on the path to your purpose, which will require your team to think big, be innovative and move quickly.

Most companies have a big hairy audacious goal and in fact many centre their goals on a financial target, for example, to be a $100 million or $1 billion organization. Another popular BHAG is based on becoming the dominant company in terms of market share in the industry. There are also companies with a unique and inspiring BHAG like one of my clients in the fresh food business, which has a BHAG to sell a number of pound of fresh product per person per year in every country they operate.

I encourage my clients to develop and articulate their BHAG in a way that engages and galvanizes the workforce. I’m not surprised that I hear “I want to build a $100 million (or $1 billion) company,” all the time. It’s just that not everyone in the organization will necessarily rally around an ambitious financial goal.

Coach Kevin’s tips for precision performance

Do you have a BHAG? If not, why not? Assuming you have a clear purpose, what will absolutely showcase to the market that your company is driving towards its purpose?  Think big and conceptualize a daring goal. Do a litmus test – does it motivate, inspire and excite you? Does it scare you?

In Part II, coming soon, I will review the basics of brand promise. Stay tuned.

_____________________________________________________________

Kevin Lawrence is a strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams across North America and internationally. Driven by a relentless passion for helping business leaders get what they really want, in business and life, Kevin has coached clients across a wide range of industries, including consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, luxury retail, media, automotive and professional services. He deeply believes that CEOs and entrepreneurs can have tremendous business success along with an enriching, adventurous and fulfilling lifestyle, taking their professional and personal accomplishments to an entirely new level.

For more than a decade, Kevin has helped clients overcome major obstacles, deal with tough decisions and capitalize on new opportunities to generate breakthrough results. Clients often turn to Kevin when they are faced with a frustrating and challenging issue, which causes them to seriously look at making a big change, quickly. His methods, style and savvy approach have helped his clients expand into new markets, build high performance leadership teams, attract profitable clients, improve productivity, and increase revenue and profitability. Also, with Kevin as their advisor, clients reduce their stress and hours worked so they have more time and energy to live their personal version of an outrageous quality of life. For more information, visit www.CoachKevin.com or call 1-877-564-6224

Copyright 2010, SGI Synergy Group Inc. & Kevin Lawrence

www.CoachKevin.com
inquire@CoachKevin.com
Phone: (604) 313-2229
Toll Free: 1-877-564-6224

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