What’s your values proposition?
The world confronts vast uncertainty, from unrest in the social climate to accelerating shifts in the climate itself. The economy faces huge challenges, from public-debt crises in Europe to the overhang of mortgage debt in the U.S. The business community faces an ongoing series of stops and starts, from the loss of an icon like Steve Jobs to the rise of new-economy giants like Amazon and Facebook.
There is a temptation, amidst the turmoil, for pundits to conclude that the only sensible response is to make bold bets — new business models that challenge the logic of an industry, products that aim to be “category killers” and obsolete the competition. But I’ve come to believe that a better way to respond to uncertainty is with small gestures that send big signals about what you care about and stand for. In a world defined by crisis, acts of generosity and reassurance take on outsized importance.
I’ve written before about not-so-random acts of kindness that humanize companies and offer an uplifting alternative to a demoralizing status quo. Earlier this year, for example, a Southwest Airlines pilot delayed a flight from Los Angeles to Tucson to accommodate the needs of a distraught grandfather who was racing to the hospital bedside of his toddler grandson, the victim of criminal abuse. Despite the obvious security concerns and schedule pressures, the pilot, who had gotten wind of this late-arriving passenger’s urgent situation, refused to budge until he made it to the plane
“They can’t go anywhere without me,” the pilot told the grandfather, “and I wasn’t going anywhere without you.” The story immediately went viral, with travel writers and bloggers celebrating the stubborn pilot and his values. His genuine kindness was a welcome change of pace in an industry known for lousy service, surly passengers, and miserable conditions.
I experienced something similar myself not so long ago, and found it a striking enough to devote an entire HBR blog post to the experience. In an entry called “Why Is it So Hard to Be Kind?” I told the story of my father, his search for a new car, a health emergency that took place in the middle of that search — and a couple of extraordinary (and truly human) gestures by an auto dealer that put him at ease and won his loyalty.
“Nobody is opposed to a good bottom-line deal,” I concluded at the time. “But what we remember and what we prize are small gestures of connection and compassion that introduce a touch of humanity into the dollars-and-cents world in which we spend most of our time.”
We remember the lack of connection as well. A month or so ago, I visited my optometrist, who was troubled about something she saw in my routine eye exam and sent me to a renowned retinal specialist for a more in-depth look. This doctor did an utterly competent exam, explained my situation, and offered a sound course of action. So I’m fine.
Yet I keep thinking back to the experience, not because of the quality of the medical care I received, which was superb, but because of how uncaring the experience felt. As I sat in the waiting room, it seemed more like the offices of a payday lender or a bail bondsman than that of a highly credentialed surgeon. “If you arrive late, your appointment may be rescheduled,” one sign warned. “Copay is due upon arrival,” another signed explained. “We accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.” However, a different sign warned, “If you do not have your copay, your appointment may be rescheduled.” Finally, blared another sign, “If you have an overdue balance, your appointment may be rescheduled.”
Since I had to wait an hour past my appointment time to see the doctor (there was no sign about what happens when the doctor is late), I spent a lot of time thinking about the surroundings, and the bizarre messages all these signs were sending. My fellow patients and I were nervous, anxious, worried about our eyesight. Yet it felt like the doctor thought of us as a collection of truants, tightwads, and general layabouts. Were we visiting a healer, or the ocular equivalent of the “Soup Nazi” from Seinfeld, for whom one wrong move means “No appointment for you!”?
Two weeks later, by the way, I got a call from the doctor’s office. “Does the doctor want an update on how I’m doing?” I asked the staffer who placed the call. “No,” she said. “Insurance did not cover the full cost of the exam, and we need to know if you want us to charge the credit card we have on file or use a different card.”
Oh, right.
It’s always risky to look to great humanitarians for lessons about business, but something Mother Teresa said long ago strikes me as a pretty good epitaph for our disruptive times — and for dispiriting experiences of the sort I had with this doctor. “We cannot do great things,” she famously told her followers, “only small things with great love.”
Yes, success today is about price, features, quality — pure economic value of the sort that requires you to rethink your strategy and business models. But it is also, and perhaps more importantly, about passion, emotion, identity — sharing your values. And all that requires is a way of doing business, a strategy for connecting with customers, that communicates who you are and what you care about.
As the value proposition gets rewritten in industry after industry, it’s organizations with an authentic values proposition that rise above the chaos and connect with customers. Few of us will ever do “great things” that remake companies and reshape industries. But all of us can do small things with great feeling and an authentic sense of emotion.
What’s your values proposition?
Article by Bill Taylor for The Harvard Business Review.
This article is by Morten T. Hansen for Havard Business News…
How do you lead successfully in an uncertain, disruptive, even chaotic world?
In our new book Great by Choice, Jim Collins and I pondered that question. To get some empirically derived answers, we studied leaders of companies that grew to become great in highly uncertain, even chaotic, industries. They include the biotech, semiconductor, personal computer, and airline industries. Over the years, the CEOs of these companies faced massive technology disruptions, deep industry recessions, sudden collapses in demand, price wars, oil shocks — you name it. But even so, they led their companies to great long-term financial performance. Their experience can guide leaders who now must lead in today’s disruptive world.
Some of these leaders have become legends, such as Andy Grove of Intel and Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines. Others remain fairly unknown outside their industry, such as John Brown of Stryker and George Rathmann of Amgen. What then were the leadership characteristics that separated the winning leaders from their industry peers?
Surprisingly, they were not more visionary (they did not stand out for their ability to “see” the future), and they were generally not more charismatic (yes, a few were, like Herb Kelleher, but not all, and so were some industry peers). Instead, we found three other characteristics.
Productive Paranoia. Bill Gates was hyper-vigilant about what could hit and damage Microsoft. “Fear should guide you,” he said in 1994. “I consider failure on a regular basis.” Herb Kelleher predicted eleven of the last three recessions. Andy Grove ran around “looking for the black cloud in the silver lining.” Productive paranoia is the ability to be hyper-vigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action. You can’t sit around being fearful; you must act, like Herb Kelleher, who insisted on cutting costs and running lean operations in good times, so that they would be prepared for the next storm, imagined or real.
Empirical Creativity. Well, just staying alive does not produce greatness. You must also create. So we should expect these leaders to be highly creative — to create new, wonderful products. Yes, but here’s the rub. The leaders of the average industry peers also displayed lots of creativity. We found that the differentiating leadership principle was a certain approach to creativity, what we call empirical creativity — the ability to empirically validate your creative instincts. This means using direct observation, conducting practical experiments, and engaging directly with evidence, rather than relying on opinion, whim, and analysis alone (and, as a prior management consultant, I would include pure market analysis void of testing in this category). When Peter Lewis of Progressive, the car insurance company, had the idea of expanding into the safe-driver market, he did not move in one big swoop. Rather, he started with trials in Texas and Florida, then added more experiments in other states, and finally, three years later, when the concept was validated, he bet big on the new business. His idea was rooted in empiricism, not analysis alone.
Fanatic Discipline. Discipline can mean many things — working hard, following rules, being obedient, and so on. We mean something else: The best-performing leaders in our study exhibited discipline as consistency of action — consistency with values, long-term goals, and performance standards; consistency of method; and consistency over time. It involves rejecting conventional wisdom, hype, and the madness of crowds — essentially being a nonconformist. When John Brown of Stryker set the long-term goal of 20% annual net income growth, year in and year out (he hit it in more than 90% during 21 years), he was so committed to this quest that it could only be described as, well, fanatical. Markets down? Competition severe? Recession? Market hype? He did not care. He built a system of fanatic discipline to achieve the quest, no matter what. He was highly disciplined by showing consistency between his words (the goal) and his behaviors (everything he did to make it happen).
You need all three leadership skills in an uncertain world: Fanatic discipline keeps you on track; empirical creativity keeps you vibrant; and productive paranoia keeps you alive.
When I speak to leaders, I find it helpful to ask: When you consider these three leadership skills, which do you perceive as your weakest one, and how can you turn that into a strength?
A note on our research: We selected industries characterized by high levels of uncertainty and disruption, and contrasted companies that created outstanding long-term financial performance with industry peers that did not. Because our observation period was from the 1970s to 2002, we do not claim that these companies will continue to outperform in perpetuity.
by Morten T. Hansen for Havard Business News
Is Google’s hot new social network Google+ a serious “threat” to Facebook? Or Twitter? In the short or long term, I don’t think so. But, Google+ will certainly make Facebook, in particular, more agile and determined to continue improving its array of products.
(In fact, the first thing Mark Zuckerberg said at the start of the Facebook video/Skype partnership announcement on July 6 was,“Welcome to Launch Season 2011.” I took that to mean Facebook plan to roll out new features and products in rapid succession. Though, historically, that seems mostly the case!)
I wrote this blog post for those people who don’t “get” Google+ yet, who are not yet on Google+, and/or who might be in a place of wait-and-see. After a few short weeks, I’m convinced Google+ will become a *major* player in the social networking arena. (Stay tuned for my post shortly after this one which will be a tutorial with marked up screenshots: 10 Simple Steps To Getting Started On Google+). Also, those businesses that want to get a head start must pay close attention to what’s happening on this rapidly growing new social network.
The growth of Google+
I joined Google+ on June 29, the day after the site launched, thanks to an invite from a friend. Since then, I’ve been actively using the site daily, studying member behavior, and reading as many articles as possible about the platform. (My own blog post is certainly long overdue; I’ve had many posts about Google+ sitting in draft for the past few weeks, but have been so busy on all these social sites along with completing my next book!) Well over 14,000 Google+ members have added me to their circles. (There’s no limit to how many peeps can circle you; but the max you can add to circles is 5,000). Yes, the growth is unprecedented.
It’s fascinating to watch the incredibly rapid growth of Google+, the depth of sharing, the availability of heads of companies, the web celebs, the nuggets (and the noise!), and the amazing accessibility and responsiveness of the Google+ team. Not to mention that the user interface is so cool!
As you can see by the graph below, it took Google+ only 16 days to reach 10 million users. Whereas, it took Facebook 852 days and Twitter 780 days to reach the same milestone. Amazing! Of course, Google+ has the advantage of (finally) entering the social world now that this arena is more established by Facebook and Twitter. Not to mention the pre-existing large userbase Google already has from its array of excellent products.
Graph by Leon Haland Data by Paul Allen
Do we need another social network?
As much as I love Facebook, I have to say that I’m extremely excited about Google+. In fact, I haven’t felt this excited about a social network since I first joined Facebook in May 2007. Facebook will always be my “first love,” and the site is certainly here to stay. I plan to continue building out and maintaining an active presence with my Facebook personal profile, my Facebook page, and on Twitter.
To me, it’s a both/and world. It’s taken me many years to build up and nurture my communities on Facebook and Twitter; I’m not about to abandon them because a shiny new toy arrived on the scene. Obviously, there are only so many available hours in the day for social networks, though, and now my intent is to simply divide up the same time between these platforms. (And, I’m not here to tell you what’s right and wrong; individuals and business will need to reassess their own approach to social networking now and find what works for them).
There’s room for ALL the popular social networks to co-exist. People will simply choose the social network(s) where the bulk of their friends hang out, and/or the social network(s) with the coolest features. It’s early days yet, but with the sheer size of Google’s existing userbase of all its products, at some point I can see Google+ overtaking Facebook as the #1 social network in the world. Yep, it’s that good. Kudos to Google: I do believe they’ve finally cracked social. (Businesses, pay close attention!)
According to a survey carried out by Bloomberg, Google+ could become the second biggest social network within the next year, moving past Twitter and LinkedIn. ~Scribbal.com
Google+ vs. Facebook?
For now, I highly doubt we’re going to see any kind of mass exodus of Facebook users to Google+. For many people, it can feel like a foreign land and foreign language to have to learn a whole new social network. Many users on Facebook are still getting to grips with the (constantly changing) features on the platform. Besides, if the average user on Facebook uses the site to connect with family around the world and to play games, they will stay there so long as they can still reach their loved ones and play their games.
I understand games are coming to Google+; I do hope Google tries hard to differentiate and we don’t start seeing “farm” and “fish” updates pouring into the stream!
Some major advantages Google+ has over Facebook include integrating with all other Google products, specifically Gmail and search/SERPs (search engine results pages). Google+ was designed to PLUS all other Google products.
Mashable post showing avatar and link to Ben Parr’s Google+profile
Unless and until Facebook bites the bullet and launches a killer search engine – it’s certainly sorely missing! Yes, I know Bing has some Facebook integration. But, wouldn’t it be great to easily search fan pages (your own and others) at the click of a button? There is such a plethora of content on our pages and it would be awesome to have a way to easily archive and search this valuable content (you know, like a blog?!).
However, for now, as a social network, Facebook has the upper hand with its long-established user behavior, length of session time, amount of game players, social ads, and business pages.
What about Google+ business profiles?
Regards the business side, it’ll be interesting to see how everything shifts when Google+ starts offering business profiles. Currently, Google+ only allows profiles in the name of individuals; business profiles are coming soon.
Just like we manage our communities on both Twitter and Facebook and our own blogs, (and for many businesses, also LinkedIn and YouTube and other platforms), at some point (soon!) I see that we will be “forced” to also manage a business community on Google+ to cater to those customers and prospects who simply prefer this network. Plus, you’ll need to include Google+ when managing and monitoring the reputation of your business/brand. There’s much that businesses ought to be doing right now to get a headstart though; I’ll cover this in a forthcoming blog post Don’t Wait For Google+ Business Profiles – 7 Actions To Do Now.
It took some time before we saw major brands integrate calls to action such as, “Find us on Facebook and Twitter” on TV, radio, magazine, and billboard ads. My guess is it will be a while before we see Google+ added to the mix. And, it will be added. It’s not going to replace Facebook and Twitter. (I know, I know – look at MySpace, Friendster, FriendFeed, Plurk et al. But Facebook and Twitter are too long-established, imho.)
What’s cool about Google+?
Here’s a rundown of what I’m loving about Google+ so far, in no particular order, and why I think you should jump on board now too:
- The energy is fresh and most people are excited to be on the platform.
- User response is faster and more thoughtful compare to some other networks.
- Much like Twitter and Facebook, we have to earn our followers by being follow-worthy. I’m not hearing about ways to ‘game’ the system on G+ so far (thankfully!). Though with the numbers on socialstatistics.com, a few users have blown way past the 5k circle following limit, no idea how… or why.
Easily make “friend lists,” keep spam to zero
- G+ users seem to love the circles and the ability to post specific messages to specific groups of people. For me, so far, I’m making 99% of my posts public and using G+ more like a combo of Twitter, my Facebook fan page, and my blog. (Though I remain active on all those platforms too. As mentioned above, I’ve no plans to quit my long-established other social profiles!)
- So far, the amount of spam and junk is very light and manageable. If someone posts more frequently than you prefer, just uncircle them.
Or, focus on curating content from select circles. (My circle strategy is in progress; I change it recently per this post).
Longer posts, format, and edit
- We can write much longer posts – it’s like “instant blogging!”
- On posts and comments, we can easily add *bold* and _italics_ (-and strikeout-) for emphasis. (I keep going to do this on Facebook – oops! I hope Facebook integrates the formatting feature at some point).
- We can also easily edit posts and comments. (On Facebook, you can edit posts made with a photo or video at any time. But status updates can’t be edited. With comments, you have about a ten second window to edit comments: click the “x” as if to delete and the text field opens back up).
Easy tagging
- I love that we can tag anyone in our conversations whether they’re in our circles or not. I hope we can do the same when business profiles arrive, I’m sure we will. Facebook makes it challenging to keep a conversation going and alert fans in particular know that you’ve responded.
Group video chat
- The ten-person video chats (Hangouts) are awesome and a wonderful way to add more intimacy to real-time connecting/social networking. I’m seeing and hearing about many cool, creative uses of Hangouts, such as: cooking demos, live tattooing, seven-hour concerts, pizza parties, and live news broadcasts. The possibilities are endless. (At some point, with the new Facebook + Skype partnership, we may see group video chat on Facebook. Perhaps that’s one of the paid features Tony Bates, CEO of Skype, alluded to?!)
Access to leaders
- One of the top benefits I’m seeing so far on Google+ is the unprecedented access to heads of technology companies, web celebs, and industry leaders. Power G+ users are posting frequently and garnering vast, instant responses. And, these leaders are engaging back. It’s not as though they’re just pushing out content and letting everyone have at it. Everyone is genuinely engaging. I’ve never seen this level of intimacy on Facebook or Twitter. (Again, businesses – take note!)
- You can easily join a Hangout with people like Michael Dell and chat directly with him! Tom Anderson, founder and former CEO of MySpace, is super active on G+ and posts a ton of amazing, thought-provoking posts.
Another cool feature is Sparks – where you can search and easily find content on any subject or categories of subjects and instantly share with your network. I have only just dabbled with this feature so far and have not found it to be that useful yet. Google will be adding improvements. In addition, I understand the mobile G+ app on the Android smartphone rocks. I’m an iPhone gal; the G+ iPhone app is somewhat rudimentary and slow… but a better one is coming.
Interoperability
I’m enjoying reading articles about potential interoperability: the option to interact with our friends in their preferred network on our chosen network. (At the rate Facebook is booting out friend list scrapers – and banning Google+ ads – I may question its desire to be open. Still, it’s a good protection for users to be able to choose what happens to his/her email address/contact info).
Technology journalist and Lead Writer for ReadWriteWeb.com, Marshall Kirkpatrick, wrote that Google Plus’s real goal is not to kill Facebook, rather to force it to be open and allow interoperability:
Back in the bad old days, customers of one phone network couldn’t call customers of other phone networks, then people couldn’t email out-of-network. Today people can’t be social across networks, but few people mind because everyone they care about is on Facebook. [Google] Plus is a big push to change that. – Marshall Kirkpatrick
Tips for getting started on Google+
If Google+ is brand new to you, stay tuned for my very next blog post: 10 Simple Steps To Getting Started On Google+ with marked up screenshots. Meantime, here are a few quick tips to getting started on G+:
- You’ll need a Gmail account. Then you’ll need an invite to Google+. With the recent release of invitation links, you may find plenty here. (I’m sure Google+ will open the floodgates shortly anyway and do away with the invitation process).
- Fill out your bio, links, and add a profile photo to your new Google+ profile. Remember, you need to use your real name for your profile, not a business name. (Note: if you previously had a Google Profile, this is now your Google+ Profile).
- Then get familiar with the circles: they work similarly to Facebook friend lists insofar as you can view your stream of content filtered by these lists and you can publish content to specific lists. Begin to create a few circles. You can find people to follow here and here. Feel free to circle me.
- Think about content curation as one approach to G+; create a circle with select individuals that post on topics of interest to you. When you view your stream, this makes it easy to skim and share content with your own followers. (I’m choosing to share 99% of my content publicly vs. only posting to certain circles).
- If the stream from your circles gets unwieldy, don’t be afraid to either uncircle individuals or simply place in a “Following” circle. Then, stay focused on the streams of your smaller circles, not your main stream.
- Browse the following mega list of tutorials and tips:
Helpful G+ resources and recommended reading
Chrome Extensions:
- G+Me Chrome Extension – allows you to collapse/expand posts and comments (a must have!) and a few more bells ‘n’ whistles.
- Replies and More – adds Reply to Author to all posts and comments. Also allows easy sharing of content on Twitter and Facebook.
- Usability Boost – adds several visual features to enhance readability, among other nifty features.
- Plus One Anything - adds a nifty +1 button to your browser toolbar for plussing any website whether they have the +1 button or not. Any webpage you +1 shows up under the “+1″ tab of your Google+ profile.
Google+ widget for your blog:
- Google Plus Widget – place a widget on your blog/site to display your follower (people who have circled you) count and realtime rotating updates.
In conclusion (for this post!), I just love this nugget from Tom Anderson, who is one of the most active and most followed users on Google+:
…more than anything, I think, you need to remain flexible and pay attention to how the Internet is evolving. There’s no one-size fits all strategy, and you’ll probably want to modify your own strategy as it suits your needs. ~Tom Anderson (former President, founder and first friend on MySpace) excerpted from this guest post on TechCrunch.
I know this turned out to be an uber long post, and there’s even more to share about Google+. Stay tuned for the following two posts coming right up:
- 10 Simple Steps To Getting Started On Google+ [SCREENSHOTS]
- Don’t Wait For Google+ Business Profiles – 7 Actions To Do Now
SO, are you active on Google+ yet? What do you think so far? Do your friends and colleagues use Facebook more, or Google+ more now? If you’re not yet active on Google+, why? Do share your thoughts with me in the comments below:
Remember, Facebook is still home to 750 million active users, half log on daily for an average session time of 55 minutes. Well over 250 million users access Facebook via their smartphones and these mobile users are twice as active as web users. There is a massive captive audience on Facebook and if you’re serious about taking your business or brand to the next level, you owe it to yourself to truly understand and tap into all that Facebook offers. Come join me for the Facebook Success Summit 2011! It’s entirely virtual, no travel or hotels. Learn from 19 Facebook marketing experts as they share exactly how you can maximize your marketing on the world’s #1 social network. Featured presenters include Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, Jesse Stay, Paul Dunay, Mike Stelzner, myself and many others! Tickets are currently half-price, but you can also try before you buy with a free online class lead by yours truly: Facebook News Feed Optimization: How to Dramatically Increase Your Visibility and Engagement.
[Yes, I know; it's ironic plugging a Facebook program on a post raving about Google+; but, like I say, Facebook is here to stay and there's massive business to be had by using the site properly!]
Article by Mari Smith for www.marismith.com
What do successful entrepreneurs have in common? What sets apart a good leader from a great leader? Recently, the Guardian Small Business Research Institute studied 1,200 small business owners with 2 to 99 employees in 12 industry sectors, and determined key factors based on the successful companies in the pool. Success was qualified by those businesses that had higher revenues over the past two years than previous years and that also expected to grow their business over the next two years, regardless of a dismal economy.
Based on their findings, the six characteristics of a successful entrepreneur are:
Collaborative.
Successful business owners have mastered the art of delegating effectively so their business runs like a well-oiled machine. Within their company, they build strong personal relationships with clients, customers, employees, and higher management.
Self-fulfilled.
They get personal fulfillment from running their companies and being in control of their income and long-term net worth. They relish the self-determination and respect that comes from being their own boss.
Future-focused.
Business owners who get it are those who know how important it is to not only plan for the short-term, but also have a grasp of the long-term, bigger picture of their companies.
Curious.
They actively seek best-practice insights regarding management, business innovation, prospecting, and finding, motivating, and retaining employees.
Tech-savvy.
They value their company’s website and are more likely to rely a great deal on technology to help make their business more effective and efficient.
Action-oriented.
They take initiative to build their businesses. They see adversity as a kick in the rear to help move them forward. Not surprisingly, they are less concerned than other small business owners about the overall state of the economy.
While all these traits are related to the success of a business owner, according to the study, they are not necessarily inherent. Entrepreneurs can develop these characteristics throughout their career and the course of their company’s development. For example, one way to become more action-oriented is to develop a Central Operating Premise (COP).
Ditching the Mission Statement
A mission statement is about what you want your company to be, while a COP explains how your company will become what you want it to be. It serves as the day-to-day guide to your and your employees’ activities. The COP works by helping you and your employees visualize future success. If employees are consciously working day-by-day toward a central goal, then ultimately, the goal becomes engrained into their mentality.
With the right COP in place, anytime something new—a product, a service, an internal process— is being considered or proposed, all you need is to ask yourself: “How will this contribute to advancing our COP?” or “How will this contribute to the success of our shared goal?”
A few well-known brands, such as Coca-Cola and Stew Leonard’s have developed COPs to help employees on all levels stay focused. For example, at Coca-Cola, whenever the company’s leaders make a strategic decision, they ask themselves a question based on part of their COP: “How does this contribute to putting a Coke within an arm’s length of everyone on the planet?” If the answer is “it doesn’t”, then they don’t do it.
Stew Leonard’s COP is two-fold: “1: The customer is always right; 2: Whenever in doubt refer to #1.” They use this COP as part of their branding, and make it visible to customers.
5 Steps to Create Your Own COP
Step 1
Hold a meeting and include everyone who contributes to the success or failure of the company. At this meeting, instruct everyone to write seven answers to this question: What makes us different from everyone else?
Step 2
As a group, reduce the input from everyone to a concise list of seven statements about who you are, what business you’re in, and what makes you different from your competitors. If you have too many ideas, synthesize the other ideas into higher-level ideas or figure out what “theme” covers several from your original list. In a perfect scenario, people end up arguing for why their ideas should be included in the list of seven.
Step 3
Now it’s time to hone down the seven into three. The reason we need three is that humans naturally tend to support an idea with three points. Don’t fight it; it’s just the way our brains are wired.
Step 4
Once you have your three points finely tuned, it’s time to try weaving them into a story or statement about your company to form your COP. Ideally, the story goes something like this: “Because (a), and (b), and (c), we are the people who…” or “If (a), and (b), and (c), then we’re obviously the people who…”
Step 5
To cross-check that your COP is really a COP, ask your team three questions:
- Does this help everyone understand the business they’re really in?
- Does this help everyone understand what they personally need to do to help the company achieve its goal?
- Will this COP stand the test of time?Can they see it being part of the company’s daily routine, corporate strategy, and vision for the next 20 years?
If the answers are “yes” to all three, you have written a good COP. If not, go back to the beginning, and see if there’s a better way to rearrange your learning.
Article by John Krubski for NY Report.
