Category Archives: learning

BIV Boardroom Strategy: Candid realities about business’ dirty little secret

Posted on May 3, 2012 | 4 Comments

In an effort to avoid conflict, leaders and team members often conceal their true feelings, withhold their opinions or outwardly agree and go along with the crowd while inside they are vehemently opposed.

For some, this lack of candour also extends to hoarding information or avoiding communicating with others entirely, in an effort to save face or get and stay ahead of the pack.

Strength of the strategic plan and the ability for executives to collaborate cross-silo with their teams depends considerably on trust and respect within and between teams. The willingness to come forward with authenticity and transparency is key to building up that trust and respect.

In Jack Welch’s book Winning, he describes a lack of candour as businesses’ “dirty little secret.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Business in Vancouver: Boardroom Strategy, leadership, learning, strategy

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BIV Boardroom Strategy: star power: how to tackle first things first on your company’s strategic objectives list

Posted on April 5, 2012 | 2 Comments

When you start working on the action plans for your strategic objectives for the year, one of the most important steps is to understand the order of priority of your objectives.

You might think you know what needs to happen first, but your team might not agree with you. The key is to spend time together as a team to rank the order of your objectives using a technique called the Hoshin Star (a variation of matched-pair analysis).

Originally developed for total quality management, the Hoshin Star helps leaders understand the cause and effect connection between objectives to determine the underlying order of importance.

Using this tool to prioritize strategic objectives can serve two purposes: Continue reading →

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BIV Boardroom Strategy: effective organizational strategies and other Harvard insights

Posted on March 15, 2012 | 1 Comment

In the past month, I have had two unique opportunities: the first was to spend a few days in Boston with one of my clients and Frances Frei from Harvard; the second was a fireside chat with some fellow CEOs and author Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Outliers, What the Dog Saw). There were some great strategic nuggets interwoven into both conversations, and I want to share with you what I learned.

Frei is a professor in Harvard Business School’s technology and operations management unit and the chairwoman of the MBA required curriculum. Because Frei’s work focuses on how organizations can more effectively design service excellence, I was eager to hear her thoughts on organizational strategy. I was not disappointed.

Here are some key points I took away from the conversation.

Choose great over average. When you’re considering your points of differentiation as an organization the key is not to try to become five out of five on all aspects of your client value proposition; by diffusing your efforts as an organization among so many things you end up becoming three out of five (average) on everything.

Really great, standout companies figure out what they can sacrifice (areas where they are at about a one out of five), so they can truly be five out of five on the areas that count most to their customers.

Choose differentiation versus “me-too.” For true differentiation you need to do something that the competition can’t properly replicate. Consider the example of the Heavenly Bed Wars. Once Westin hotels rolled

out its heavenly beds campaign, all their competitors had to do was provide a similar quality of bed – a simple yet costly undertaking, the net result being that consumers now get better beds from all competing hotels. But each is still in the same price-competitive space: higher cost, lower margin and no differentiation. The trick is to focus on providing something to your customer that is difficult for your competitors to replicate. Continue reading →

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Learning 2.0

Posted on May 17, 2011 | 3 Comments

Sign-up for a course, read the textbook, attend some lectures, study your notes, write an exam, and repeat. That’s the mantra that most of us used to build up our academic knowledge. Until now…

The tide has changed to move from learning in the classroom, focused on the institution, a fixed schedule, and a series of courses that “I have to take,” to a new way of learning that allows me to design a set of learning opportunities that fit what I’m passionate about. The web has given us the ability to live something called learning 2.0: a learner focused, always-on, just-in-time, designed by me for me type approach.

I thought I would share some fantastic resources for creating your own learning 2.0 path:

iTunes U – this is a free learning library built into iTunes that allows you to access video and audio of the world’s thought leaders from some of the most prestigious universities in the world. My current favourite is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series from Stanford.

Harvard Business Review - HBR is the go-to place for business people wanting bite-sized columns and articles on the most current topics facing leaders today. Recently they put their monthly magazine on Zinio.com as well so now you can receive HBR Magazine direct to your iPad, PC, or Mac.

TED.com - if you haven’t heard about TED.com chances are you are just waking up from a coma (I hope you’re feeling better – the world has changed a bit while you were out).

Cisco Webex Recorded Webinars – Webex is a fantastic virtual meeting space that allows you and your team to collaborate online. It’s always a great tool for presenting to an audience that is remote. They’ve brought together thought leaders from around the world to create a series of business webinars using the platform.

wikipedia.org - you might be thinking “why would I go to wikipedia to learn, that’s where my kids go to research school projects?” but the reality is that wikipedia has become an amazing resource on any topic, including links to research and articles that provide even deeper context and learning on almost any topic.

Peer Groups – Napoleon Hill first came up with the idea of a Mastermind Group in his book, Think and Grow Rich, back in 1937. Today there are multiple ways to experience the benefit of a peer group:

  • build your own
  • attend a Meetup on a topic you’re passionate about
  • join organizations like YPO, EO, TEC, or a ViRTUS Exchange [shameless product plug]

If you have been thinking about doing an MBA or Masters in your field and are struggling with the time, money, and energy required for the two-three year commitment, consider the resources above as a way of creating a learning path that’s built by you, for you, and takes into account the realities of your busy life.

What resources are you using to create a personalized learning plan?

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Peer Groups Podcast: Interview with Ian Portsmouth, Editor, PROFIT Magazine

Posted on August 19, 2010 | Leave a comment
[listen time: 4 mins]
I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Ian Portsmouth, Editor, PROFIT Magazine for an audio podcast for their online site. The topic is Peer Groups for Entrepreneurs (click here to listen).

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Guest post: 3 Leadership Lessons Animals Can Teach Us

Posted on April 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

My mom is a great cook, but whenever I ask her for a recipe, she tells me that mere words are not enough to do justice to a dish. She suggests that the best way to learn to cook is to watch her prepare meals and then try them out myself. Now mom doesn’t have a college degree, but she does have a point there. There are in fact many things we can learn through observation alone, and I believe that leadership is one of them. Of course, you may have to adapt what you observe to suit your environment and also use feedback to refine your technique, but in general, it pays to be observant.

  • Geese: Now here’s a bunch that knows what synergy truly means. If you’ve ever seen a flock of wild geese flying overhead, you know that they do so in a V formation. Now V may stand for victory, but it also stands for common sense and practicality. The leader of the bunch is the goose at the tip of the V. All the other birds are able to fly easier because of the uplift caused by its wings. And each of the birds that follow fly assisted by the previous bird’s uplift. This way, by pooling their resources and helping the weaker ones, the geese are able to travel 71 percent more than they normally could. Also, when the leader tires, it falls back and another goose takes its place. So for synergy and cooperation, look no further than the geese.
  • Ants: Ants are some of the most diligent creatures on earth. The tale of the Ant and the Grasshopper tells us that this tiny animal slogs all day and gathers food for its community when it is available and stores it away for leaner times. It does not waste time and does what it needs to do to secure its future. Also, the ant uses pheromones to leave trails for its fellow ants. This helps the bunch find the fastest way to food and the best way to avoid danger. Aspiring leaders can learn a thing or two from ants – how to work hard for what they want and how best to lead their followers in simple ways.
  • Dolphins: Dolphin trainers will attest to the fact that these beautiful beasts of the sea are not like other animals – they don’t respond positively to threats or punishments of any kind. Rather, if you want the dolphin to do your bidding, you must coax, cajole and praise. In our world too, praise and encouragement work much better in getting people to do your bidding willingly. The operative word here is “willingly” because any task done unwillingly is never well done.

I’ve named just a few here, but I do believe that there are many more acts that we can observe from nature and adapt to the boardroom and the corporate world. So the next time you hear the phrases “It’s a dog-eat-dog world” and call competition a rat race, remember that you can also draw positive examples to follow from the animal kingdom.

This guest post is contributed by Shannon Wills, she writes on the topic of Online Engineering Degrees . She welcomes your comments at her email id: shannonwills23@gmail.com.

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What I wish I’d known when I was a teenager.

Posted on November 29, 2009 | 4 Comments

 

Here is the Core Values experience I speak about in the first part of the video.

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Figuring out your core values

Posted on November 28, 2009 | 2 Comments

One of the challenges to goal planning is understanding how your goals will affect the quality of your life. Many people (including me in the past) set goals that led to outcomes they don’t want. By planning your goals around your core values you set yourself up to create the life you want while you achieve your goals.

The best online goal tracking website I know of is Lifetick.com. It’s focused on values before goals, and goals before actions. The challenge is that if you don’t know what your core values are you can get stuck at the first step.

Focusing on personal and business core values has always been a critical part of our ViRTUS Exchange experience. For our Exchange Members we created a competency that will allow them to figure out their personal core values. At a speech I gave the other day at UBC I promised I would share  the core values worksheet with step-by-step instructions. Here it is: Core Values Experience PDF Download.

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Posted in human resources, leadership, learning

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Change: the right way and the wrong way

Posted on October 20, 2009 | Leave a comment
Change Diagram

Click to enlarge

One of the mistakes I see consistently in organizations trying to create or manage change is thinking that through theoretical understanding somehow people will manage to change either a behaviour or a system. The challenge is that when we apply the Video Test to the outcome the test fails.

Change occurs in organizations when people are led through a process which helps them collect the data, push it through a process which involves them coming up with a solution to change behaviours and systems. Sound more engaging than listening to someones diatribe or theory?

The diagram on the above on the right blends a simplified methodology for how to create real change within an organization with an understanding of what the underlying learning stages that are occurring for individuals.

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My annual reading and planning week.

Posted on September 9, 2009 | 5 Comments
The view from the deck.

The view that relaxes me.

Starting 9 years ago I have taken the last week of August off to head up to Whistler and do three things: plan for the year coming up, read some of the books that have been stacking up on my nightstand, and decompress. BBQing, motorcycle riding, watching all the movies Sabrina (my fiancé) isn’t interested in, and drinking lots of red wine are also on the program each year.

What Do I Do With My Time?
Wake up, eat, read or plan until I’m hungry, eat, go to the gym or take my dog for a walk or read/plan or ride my motorcycle, BBQ something to go with red wine (notice the order), watch movie, read until I fall asleep. Wake up and repeat.

Which Books?
1)    Personal Development/Spiritual – Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
2)    Fiction – World Without End by Ken Follett
3)    Business – Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham

What Planning?
1)    ViRTUS Focus Plan – a 2 sided 8 ½ x 11 template which blends my goals in three areas: managing self, focusing on career/business, developing relationships, and sharing resources
2)    Rockefeller One Page Strategic Plan – this 11 x 17 one page plan is how I keep track of the quarterly, annual, 3-5 years, and 10-30 year goals for ViRTUS
3)    Lifetick.com – I discovered this tool last year. It’s an online values-based goal planning software that has an iPhone page as well. I’ve learned through personal experience and study that goals planned in absence of an understanding of a connection to values can lead me to achieving everything I plan and still not having the life I want.

What About Business Priorities That Come Up?
Every year I’ve had some pressing business issue that caused me to consider cancelling the trip. Each year I go anyway and manage to sort out the business issue while away taking far less time and energy than I expected it would. I have never regretted going but I’m sure I’d regret not going.

Why the Last Week of August?
If you’re wondering why I choose the last week of August the answer is simple. Whenever we do emails to a large number of people for marketing purposes we get the largest number of out of office replies during that week. On top of that it’s the week right before the new business year starts in September for everyone and it’s heck of a lot easier to do this uninterrupted than it is at the end of December!

Many of my friends have started doing a similar retreat on an annual basis and others have asked about the details so I thought it would be a good idea to share this. Do you do something similar? If so, let me know by leaving a comment so others can share from your experience.

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