Alberta Business Marketing

One of the top business books for 2011 is Richard Rumelt’s Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters, an insightful book on business strategy and successful differentiation.

What I like most about this book is the different lens which it applies to the complex topic of strategy with clarity provided through what to avoid with business strategy development. With a topic such as strategy that is somewhat intangible, defining a parameter of what not do do can be very instructive.

This same book was reviewed earlier this year by Harvey Schachter of the Globe and Mail, with the following useful summary, should you not have time to read the book:

Prof. Rumelt offers these four hallmarks of bad strategy:

Fluff
Form of gibberish that masquerades as strategic concepts or arguments. The professed strategy uses what he calls “Sunday words” – words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse – and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking.

Failure to face the challenge
The professed strategy fails to recognize or define the challenge facing the enterprise. “When you cannot define the challenge, you cannot evaluate a strategy or improve it,” Prof. Rumelt notes.

Mistaking goals for strategy
Many bad strategies are simply statements of desire rather than plans for overcoming obstacles.

Bad objectives
A strategic objective is a means to an end. Strategic objectives are “bad” when they fail to address critical issues or when they are impractical. The classic is a scrambled mess of objectives – everyone’s wishes and dreams gathered together into an unworkable plan. The word long-term, he notes, is usually added so that none of it has to be done today.

He summarizes that a good strategy has three crucial elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent action. The guiding policy outlines the approach to dealing with the obstacles highlighted in the diagnosis. “It is like a signpost, marking the direction forward but not defining the details of the trip,” he says. Coherent actions are feasible, co-ordinated policies, resource commitments and actions designed to carry out the guiding policy. “A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength; it creates strength through the coherence of its design. Most organizations of any size can’t do this. Rather, they pursue multiple objectives that are unconnected to one another or, worse, that conflict with one another,” he observes.

The UCLA interview video with Prof Rumelt provides more insight on the author's perspective on what makes for good strategy.

The right problem definition or business diagnosis is key to success. Like good medicine, having experts participate in the diagnosis and providing solutions can make all the difference.

Patricia McQuillan

Tags: Branding
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My firm attended an employee engagement conference earlier this month with a topic focused on generational workforce engagement strategy development.

"The Gen Y Guy on 60 Minutes" addresses some of the issues.

One thing is clear from the conference and that is that there is no clear answer on how to engage the Gen Y/Millennial workforce. However, that being said, there was strong agreement, that there are more similarities in what engages across the work force generations (baby boomers, Gen X & Gen Y); it is the how to engage that presents the major difference.

Similarities shared by conference participants in generational workforce engagement include Work-Life-Balance (WLB) as a primary Gen X and Gen Y engagement motivator. However how WLB is achieved for Gen Y typically involves greater flexibility including time away from the job for travel and further education. The importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the workplace was also highlighted as a similarity across generations; the difference being that Gen X felt it was important for companies to introduce and communicate CSR initiatives while the Gen Y cohort wants to participate and be part of the initiative rather than just learning about it.

There was considerable frustration expressed by many at the conference in terms of how Gen Y attitudes frustrate other employees with their different expectations in terms of timing. While there is a similarity in the strong motivator of job promotion, the difference again is in the how with they key difference being the shorter time frame of Gen Y expectations for career advancement and recognition.

The group generally agreed that there are more similarities than differences across the workforce generations, the challenge is for the employer to embrace the differences and encourage the best from their talent. Again, the 'how' is the challenge not the 'what'.

Patricia McQuillan

Tags: Branding, Marketing Talent, Strategy
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After having read the October HBR article, The Sustainable Economy, itcaused me to reflect on how often the term ‘sustainability’ is used in business language and social commentary. I was curious to check out if indeed there was some convergence in the measurement and practice of this growing area of corporate strategy.

It is Interesting when you see the multi-dimension definition posted by Wikipedia for Corporate Sustainability:

“Corporate sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term consumer and employee value by not only creating a "green" strategy aimed towards the natural environment, but taking into consideration every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment. Also formulating strategies to build a company that fosters longevity through transparency and proper employee development."

Interesting to see reference to “Triple Bottom Line”, a corporate measurement that brings in social and environmental impact. The United Nations made this the standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007 and is now used by companies committed to Corporate Social Responsibility. The Economist defines it in further detail:

“The triple bottom line (TBL) thus consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet. It aims to measure the financial, social and environmental performance of the corporation over a period of time. Only a company that produces a TBL is taking account of the full cost involved in doing business."

The term Triple Bottom Line is being used in one of my firm’s current client projects where we are working with a Canadian industry that has a challenging image. One of the opportunities of this project is to identify multi dimensional elements of this particular industry’s contribution to the Canadian economy, society and more.

In researching this Blog, I decided to Google search the term CSR, unsurprisingly, the most recent Corporate Knights ranking with the 2011 Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies came up; interesting that the first Canadian company on the list was ENCANA at ranking 12. Most of the top 10 companies are located in the Netherlands with a US entry through Johnson and Johnson at #2 and Intel at #6.

With a search in the Globe and Mail, I found tips for building sustainable practices in to small business that could be useful even for the average consumer.

Corporate Social Responsibility is an evolving area of business strategy and corporate practice where measurement is tantamount to effectiveness. There are more resources available for CSR quantification than there are for brand measurement and little excuse to not to use these newer corporate accounting measures.

Patricia McQuillan

Tags: corporate social responsibility, Ethics / Legal
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After having read the October HBR article, The Sustainable Economy, itcaused me to reflect on how often the term ‘sustainability’ is used in business language and social commentary. I was curious to check out if indeed there was some convergence in the measurement and practice of this growing area of corporate strategy.

It is Interesting when you see the multi-dimension definition posted by Wikipedia for Corporate Sustainability:

“Corporate sustainability is a business approach that creates long-term consumer and employee value by not only creating a "green" strategy aimed towards the natural environment, but taking into consideration every dimension of how a business operates in the social, cultural, and economic environment. Also formulating strategies to build a company that fosters longevity through transparency and proper employee development."

Interesting to see reference to “Triple Bottom Line”, a corporate measurement that brings in social and environmental impact. The United Nations made this the standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007 and is now used by companies committed to Corporate Social Responsibility. The Economist defines it in further detail:

“The triple bottom line (TBL) thus consists of three Ps: profit, people and planet. It aims to measure the financial, social and environmental performance of the corporation over a period of time. Only a company that produces a TBL is taking account of the full cost involved in doing business."

The term Triple Bottom Line is being used in one of my firm’s current client projects where we are working with a Canadian industry that has a challenging image. One of the opportunities of this project is to identify multi dimensional elements of this particular industry’s contribution to the Canadian economy, society and more.

In researching this Blog, I decided to Google search the term CSR, unsurprisingly, the most recent Corporate Knights ranking with the 2011 Global 100 Most Sustainable Companies came up; interesting that the first Canadian company on the list was ENCANA at ranking 12. Most of the top 10 companies are located in the Netherlands with a US entry through Johnson and Johnson at #2 and Intel at #6.

With a search in the Globe and Mail, I found tips for building sustainable practices in to small business that could be useful even for the average consumer.

Corporate Social Responsibility is an evolving area of business strategy and corporate practice where measurement is tantamount to effectiveness. There are more resources available for CSR quantification than there are for brand measurement and little excuse to not to use these newer corporate accounting measures.

Patricia McQuillan

Tags: corporate social responsibility, Ethics / Legal
Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

I had the pleasure of attending the Annual Rotman Life-Long Learning Conference for Leaders May 6, 2011 at the new Ritz Carlton in downtown Toronto. The keynote speaker was Daniel Pink, past speechwriter for Al Gore, bestselling business author (Free Agent Nation). He was speaking on the topic of motivation and his most recent New York Times Bestseller, DRiVE – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. .

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation. Daniel delivered an entertaining speech on the juxtaposition of what we think motivates employees and what is the most effective means. This content built on the general theme of the conference, which was “How to Get Your Business Back to Reality.” Pink discussed what he found to be the three elements of true motivation – ‘Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.’ He advised on how to set context as a leader to truly inspire employees. Contrary to traditional theories that financial reward works best – he challenged that this really works better with more mechanical work not today’s knowledge workers. Pink advised that long-term motivation and productivity is best achieved by using the three elements of ‘Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose.’ Autonomy was stressed as a key factor to allow people to do better work. The Google 20 per cent time projects policy was cited as an example of greater autonomy resulting in greater productivity and creative gains.

Pink briefly overviewed the importance of ‘Mastery’ as key to employee engagement. He advises that, “only engagement can produce mastery – getting better at something that matters to you…it is a mindset that you can always improve”.

‘Purpose’ was explained as the importance of finding meaning and context in your work. Several examples were cited of the importance of finding meaningful work with business school graduates within the first 10 years of their career and non-profits’ ability to attract highly skilled employees from the corporate sector.

Perhaps these are not brand new themes in what motivates us mere mortals to be more productive in our work. However, when these three themes are combined this does make a strong argument against avoiding too much of a focus on traditional monetary rewards in the workplace. I would add that this provides insight towards greater engagement of our Gen-Y workforce.

Patricia McQuillan

Tags: Marketing Talent
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