Plan B Mindset

Like many pursuits in life, when I get into something, I like to really understand it. For awhile now (more than 15 years), I have been “into” wine. Lisa and I had a chance to spend some time together in Sonoma this past week, I had a chance to reflect on customer service, particularly through the eyes of a wine taster. For those of you who have not had a chance to visit the wine country, we are fans of the Sonoma side. A bit more laid back, a bit less like Disneyland (Napa). While Napa has some great wines, it’s just not our speed. The Sonoma side still has some agriculture feel left to it and particularly when you find a smaller winery where the family is involved. While we were there, I experienced some things that are transferrable to any business – whether you’re in the paint business or financial services. A personal touch matters. We visited about 15 wineries this past week. Some are the sort that you walk in the door and they ask, “So are you here for tasting today?” (No, ac...

For those of you that know me personally, you know that a significant portion of my spring and summer are spent on the baseball diamond coaching youth baseball for my sons, Ben (10) and Alex (8). I believe that sports moments are often great analogies for business. There is a true scoreboard in sports, which we don’t often have in business. Leadership, performance, teamwork and inspiration are all a part of winning the game. But during the past two weeks I was given the gift of two great lessons coaching baseball that I thought I would share. I have a philosophy on youth sports that sometimes does not make Type A parents of my players happy. When I start a season, I try to remind the parents that of all of the kids in Little League, at all ages and levels, it is likely only one or two will play college baseball and, statistically, none will make it to the major leagues. I would love to be wrong and would happily eat that crow, but the numbers are what they are. Therefore, we need t...

As a part of the strategic focus of our companies, we are continuing to evolve from an organization that has traditionally focused exclusively on business-to-business marketing to becoming more of a consumer marketing company. That is, while we serve consumers through our business clients (mostly financial institutions), we need to design our products, services and customer experience around the end consumer need. In the competitive financial services marketplace, there is no other choice – if you are not meeting the current and future needs of consumers, you are toast in the long-term.   Through a connection of the marketing director at TMG, we were able to have Tina Murray, a regional marketing director from Chick-Fil-A, spend the majority of the day with us this past Wednesday. Chick-Fil-A is a unique company, in that they have created a brand that has true raving fans, as well as their focus on an internal corporate culture of quality food and outstanding service.   Whil...

There has been quite a bit of buzz in the media and social networking sites about the potential for the world ending this coming Saturday. I am curious what time, because I have a really busy day! If it going to end at breakfast, there are a whole lot of things I won’t do on Friday. That being said, the world ending brings up connotations of the afterlife – heaven and hell. This reminded me of one of my least favorite sayings, “The Devil’s Advocate.” Usually this advocate is brought out in the middle of a conversation regarding a new initiative or a product/service that someone wants to launch. A person will say authoritatively, “Well, let me be the devil’s advocate here.” What they really mean to say is, “If you don’t mind, I am going to take the license to totally trash everything you just said and let you know how stupid you really are.” Of course we are all too polite to actually say that, so we wrap ourselves in this role of being an objective questioner and looking at the d...

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius.” This quote comes from a Nightline broadcast more than 10 years ago on the design firm IDEO ( Link to Video ). I have seen the video many times which documents their process of designing something truly different and unique. But when I saw the video again a few weeks ago, this quote struck me more significantly than it has in the past. Many times we spend countless hours crafting our message, building our plans and designing our strategies. Much like an annual report, which is said to be a document that is read more before it is published than after, our business plans and strategy documents are revised and refined to “perfection.” Yet when we go to the market, our tactics are often worthless. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." Our competitors, the market, our customers and even the government are all...

For many years I participated in the Jensen Consulting Executive Roundtables . The Roundtables are a peer group of senior executives who worked in a confidential environment discussing issues in their business and offering outside input to other members. One of our Roundtable participants owned a manufacturing facility. He had a great perspective on many things but the one that sticks with me is a comment he made as we were discussing an issue regarding one individual's company. He said, “When you are standing in the shower in the morning, are you thinking about problems or opportunities? If you are thinking about problems, take care of them and then start thinking about the opportunities.” There are two lessons I took from this notion: You have make time and space to find those creative thoughts. If you don’t, mostly you’ll be focused on the problems in your world and can easily fall into “playing work” (see previous blog). You will never know the true costs of the opportuniti...

While I usually do not participate in April Fools' Day capers, I always remember the Sports Illustrated article about Sidd Finch, the Mets phenom pitcher who was deciding between a life as a pitcher or as a French horn player. If you read the story - check out the first letter of the opening and what it spells ("He's a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd's deciding about yoga - and his future in baseball."). Likely one of the best April Fools' pranks of all time (the SI issue was published on 4/1). All the better because it lasted through the April 15 edition when they finally announced it was a hoax - after announcing on 4/8 that Finch was retiring. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1119283/index.htm I laugh about the story as I think back to me as a young boy reading this and wondering what a buddlist pitcher who learned throwing in the Himalayas was really like. But then I ...