Christmas gifts in cash for a child is as exciting as it gets. You can see it in their eyes and hear it in their conversation.
Twenty Dollars! I can get a new video game, a basketball, take you and me to the movies, get a pizza or put it in my saving account if I have any left over.
When organizations plan for the next year they sound a lot like that child at Christmas with a twenty-dollar bill. The company’s resources have a lot more zeros but the look in the eye and the conversation sound very much the same.
Those businesses have a lot of talented people and often a few exceptional people who can build, sell, deliver or invent almost anything the market will pay money for.
Most businesses have at least a few growth opportunities knocking at the door from current customers, ideal buyers not yet contracted, technology advances or market gaps identified. Many of these businesses have additional products and offers to launch, that certainly will be successful – Right?
Like that child the organization has resources. That is, they have resources to do one or two things at the most. The issue is too much visible opportunity for the resources available.
The child has no disciplined way to make a decision to say NO other than emotion and energy. They have the passion to decide now based on which stores are open on Christmas, which helps narrow the child’s choices.
Many businesses will decide like the child. They don’t have an intentional way to NO. The business will be driven by emotion and some “which can we get to first to create revenue” decision criteria. The difference between the child and the business is more in the outcome of the decision. Whatever the child’s outcome it does not threaten survival. There may be some short-term emotional results (good or bad), some learning and then on to the New Year’s party.
The business, on the other hand, suffers anytime decisions are random and without the discipline to say NO to those random things. Random creates habits and culture that will not long survive in today’s complex, competitive and fast-changing world.
So how does a business apply discipline to say NO and continuously improve outcomes – not just for the week after Christmas but for long-term survival and success.
They answer and then deploy these five questions:
- What is our brand promise?
- What’s the customer “problem” that we solve that no one else solves?
- What niche/s do, or will we dominate?
- Who is our ideal customer?
- Which are our key offers for dominating the niche?
These are hard questions to answer (you must say NO to so many bright shiny objects). They force a business to put away the Christmas thinking of the young child. The business commits to a plan that will not start out perfect, but since it is specific it can be and must be continuously improved month after month and year after year.
The result will never be perfect, but it will create a team of people who are engaged in a single worthy intention with an aligned plan and empowered to say NO to random shiny objects. The resources human and financial are applied to support that aligned plan and are measured for positive leverage achieved.
There is nothing an organization can do that will produce a higher probability of survival and success than answering these questions (say NO to everything else) and deploying the answers with a discipline of continuous improvement. Then take the result and give as many children as possible the experience of that twenty-dollar decision.
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