Posts Tagged ‘execution’

Your business model, strategy, organization & execution: A year of CEO Challenges!

It seems like only yesterday that we were throwing around ideas for what would become the CEO Challenge. It’s been a year now, and we’re so pleased with the feedback we’ve received from clients, colleagues and collaborators. Seems we’ve struck a few chords, and that’s great to hear, especially because our messages aren’t always pleasant. “Your business model is Best of the Worst! Your organization is in chaos! You need to think like a Chief Revenue Officer!”

This month, Jane and I decided to revisit the twelve posts we’ve published to date. For those of you who have been reading a while … how many of these Challenges have you accepted? Have you implemented the action plans?

You know the saying about assumptions. Why are you still making them?

Assumption testing has always been important in organizations. Right now, however, it’s more critical than ever. Markets are evolving so fast that the wrong assumptions can be fatal.

Worse yet, an organization’s inability to routinely identify and test assumptions is a cultural defect that can be very difficult to correct.

Rick and I often see this problem when we participate in leadership meetings held by our clients. During these meetings, we frequently hear executives mistakenly state assumptions as if they were facts.

The Cost of Chaos

During the first week of the new year, when we tend to gaze optimistically at the road ahead, a headline from the Associated Press announced “Americans’ job satisfaction lowest in 22 years.”

The article then went on to say “That is the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in over 22 years of studying the issue. If the job satisfaction trend is not reversed, economists say, it could stifle innovation and hurt America’s competitiveness and productivity. It also could make unhappy older workers less inclined to take the time to share their knowledge and skills with younger workers.”

Well, that got my attention! Of course there are many reasons for the decline, including the worst recession since the 1930s and the fact that downsizing has created more work and more demands on the workers who’ve survived the cuts. That doesn’t change the fact, however, that such a decline has somber implications for businesses, and executive teams need to address this issue in their organizations.

How To Fix A BOTW Business Model

It’s strategic planning and budgeting season. The end of a difficult 2009 and possibly a new beginning for your business. What are you thinking about doing differently next year? Are you setting more ambitious revenue goals, or are you trying to slash costs as much as humanly possible? Are you launching a new product or service, or are you contracting your offerings? Will you fix small nagging problems, or will you reinvent your business model?

In this post, I’ll address your business model and how you can change it this next year to evolve from Best of the Worst (“BOTW”) to Best of the Best (“BOTB”).