Have you ever been absolutely certain you heard someone say something they later claim they didn’t say? Or inaccurately interpret requests from your spouse or colleagues when you could swear you’re right and they’re wrong? It’s interesting how mutually defined words end up causing such havoc.
Spoken language is a mutable translation system – a best attempt to impart thoughts, feelings, and world view between dialogue partners for the purpose of shared understanding, intimacy, and maintaining relationships. Senders (unconsciously) choose their words as representative of what they wish to share. Most of the time their communication partners understand them. But sometimes Receivers don’t hear a Sender’s message accurately even when they define the words identically causing them to misunderstand or bias what’s been shared, with a potential for a miscommunication. What’s going on?
When researching my new book (What? Did you really say what I think I heard? – offered free) I spent a year reading 52 books to learn why there is a gap between what’s said and what’s heard. I studied brains, bias, collaboration, filters, AI, and the neuroscience aspects of communication, and learned just how fragile our listening process is. Before the research I had naively believed that I accurately heard what others meant to convey most of the time. I was shattered to learn that’s not even possible.
The Reasons
The problem is our brain. As Listeners, we think there is a direct transmission between words spoken and our interpretation. But the reality is far murkier: just as our eyes take in light and our brains interpret captured images, our ears take in sound and our brains interpret meaning. That means we all see and hear the world uniquely, according to our mental models and filters, and are at effect of what our brains allow us to hear, not necessarily what’s said.
During conversations, our brains delete, misconstrue, and misinterpret according to filters – biases, triggers, assumptions, beliefs, habits and mental models – in order to keep us comfortable and maintain our status quo. Accuracy is not their criteria. And we’re left with the residue, assuming our unique interpretation is accurate: not only do we not realize what we think has been said might be inaccurate, we adamantly believe what our brains tell us we’ve heard is accurate. Hard to fix when it’s not obvious there is a problem.
How, then, do we know when we’ve misheard? How do we correct a problem we literally can’t get our minds around? We must go beyond our brain.
The Cure
For us to accurately hear what our communication partners intend to convey we must enter conversations from an ‘observer’ standpoint, allowing us to rise above our filters (I have a thorough discussion on this in Chapter 6 in What?). Since we can’t use the same skills that cause the problem, we must use our physical system to go beyond our brains. Try this technique: During conversations stand up (I get permission to walk around during meetings, saying “Do you mind if I walk around so I can think more creatively?”) or lean back against your chair with your feet up. It physically unhooks you from your physiology that causes automatic responses and takes you, instead, to an unbiased place in your brain. I know this sounds simplistic but try it – it’s an NLP technique that I’ve used in my training programs and coaching sessions for 30 years. It works.
It’s also possible to notice clues in your communication partner that denote ‘misunderstanding’. Visibly, s/he will look confused, or his/her face will go blank or scrunch up. Verbally, you’ll hear a response that is not aligned with your response, or there will be a long silence, or a voice/tempo/volume shift, or a ‘What??’ The cues of miscommunication will depend upon the strength of your relationship, of course. The worst result is that nothing is said and the conversation continues as if there has been understanding.
The Prevention
To have more choices when you need them, start with discovering your tolerance to adding new behavior choice:
Where or when are you willing to have a miscommunication? Are there times you need choice to ensure you avoid miscommunicating? Times you don’t mind if there is a miscommunication?
How will you know if/when a problem exists early enough to avoid a defective communication?
What are you willing to do differently to avoid misunderstanding or misinterpretation? And what happens when you don’t?
The big decision is: are you willing to do something differently to have a higher probability of having an effective communication? Because if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And just maybe you might need new choices for those times what you’re doing isn’t working. Not to change what you’re doing, but just add a choice when you need one.
Get What? Did you really say what I think I heard? (www.didihearyou.com). It’s free – to make sure you read it, to help you understand how and why people end up mishearing and miscommunicating. I also developed some learning tools for those who wish to recognize their communication choices. Should you wish to train your team to learn to hear clients or collegues more effectively contact Sharon Drew. Enjoy. Let me know how this works for you.
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Here are a few more sales, business, and life answers that can help you make more sales TODAY, and help you build a personal brand and reputation FOREVER.
1. Jeffrey, what do you do EVERY DAY to build attraction and brand?
What do you do to create consistency in your daily business habits? And I wonder how many of your daily habits take the long-term view. Or are you just trying to make sales to make quota? Big mistake.
I want to talk about one element of your personal business habits: Your personal outreach, your daily outreach that builds attraction, personal brand, authority, known expertise, recognition, position in your industry, Google rank, social media presence, top of mind awareness, and reputation. Oh, that.
Sounds like a LOT of work. But actually it takes LESS time than your morning bathroom routine once you’re set up and rolling. And these are habits that create attraction. Real attraction. Value attraction.
The cool part is it costs (almost) nothing. All you have to do is allocate the time, and (most important) commit to DAILY OUTREACH.
Here are two of my consistent actions:
Blog or personal website. A starting place, a landing place, and a jumping off place for stories, ideas, opinions, photos, videos, training, and anything else your customers or followers would find BOTH interesting and valuable. On a blog you can mix business and personal, as long as it’s not offensive. Your posts can be subscribed to and delivered by email. OUTREACH: Blog with a minimum of a weekly, if not daily, post. You have unlimited space for text, photos, and videos. Your blog is an opportunity for people to realize both your intellect and your passion.
YouTube. Video is the new black. This is a chance to convey messages, training, subject matter expertise, testimonials, and offers of value. Your viewers can subscribe, and your posts can be cross-pollinated on your blog, your Facebook page, and your LinkedIn profile.
2. Jeffrey, there’s a HUGE misused and misunderstood word in small AND big business. The word is ATTRACTION. How do small business owners attract leads in today’s social world?
All business social media must be combined with your traditional business and Internet outreach. To attract, the key ideas are ‘personalized messages’ and ‘value-based’ messages.
If you’re looking for more attraction (who isn’t?), here are some of the small business, internet, AND business social media value-based messaging and marketing elements I use to transfer my messages. My messages and posts both attract and connect. Go to these links and follow me. Then study them, learn how I do what I do, and emulate it.
LinkedIn – Jeffrey Gitomer – The number one business resource. I post my thought of the day or link of the day. RESPONSE: People like it and share it with their connections. That has lead to more than 23,000 connections.
Twitter – @gitomer – I tweet three or four times a day. I usually send out one link a day. RESPONSE: I am re-tweeted or favored more than 100 times a day, and I gain between 50 and 100 new followers a day.
Facebook business – /jeffreygitomer – Like me, then read a bunch of my posts, then be inspired to comment or post. RESPONSE: All of my followers (likers) read it, and when they like it or comment, all of their connections can see it too.
YouTube channel – BuyGitomer – People watch a few of my 300+ videos. RESPONSE: more than 25,000 subscribers.
You cannot control how people search. You must be findable by company, person, product, topic, and keywords that will get your name to pop up.
It’s not one thing that creates attraction. It’s a strategic combination of a social, online, and face-to-face outreach MIX that attracts interested buyers. It’s a confluence of value-based things that are available to customers and prospects.
Look at the diversity of my offerings, and the multiple opportunities that prospects have to find you, be attracted to you, connect with you, and buy from you.
3. Jeffrey, how do I attract leads at a face-to-face networking event?
NOTE WELL: Most people take networking for granted, and think of it more as a place to meet friends and clients rather than capture an opportunity. They also fail to realize that people, whether you know them or not, are cultivating an impression of you – not just about what you look like, but also based on how you act, and how you dress.
Your physical presence, your physiology, and your communication prowess can determine whether the outcome is business or no business.
Here are 3 networking attraction tips for your learning and connecting pleasure:
1. I shake and look. When I shake someone’s hand, it’s a firm grasp and a direct look in the eye.
2. I smile. Even in New York City. I find that by giving a smile, I get a smile.
3. I ask before I tell. Whether I ask for their name, or a simple “how are you?” I want to hear the other person before they hear me.
Face-to-face networking is still a GREAT way to attract and connect in the world of social and online sales.
Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
About the Author
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].
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Why do we do what we do? What causes us to succeed, fail, procrastinate? Is it our environment? Our biology? Our New Year’s resolutions? There’s much debate why our motivation goals fail and how to resolve them. I believe we’re addressing the wrong issues.
Why Promoting Behavior Change Causes Resistance
Everything I’ve read on resolving ‘motivation’ issues focus on behaviors: why, how, when. Courses, keynote speakers, books, attempts to pump up, stimulate, and otherwise inspire. All trying to cause the ineffective behaviors to change to effective ones. But change doesn’t happen this way. Motivation involoves both shifting beliefs, and creating new habitual behaviours, that our unconscious status-quo will accept and adopt over time.
Here’s why: A behavior is the action – the representation – of a (largely unconscious) belief. Lasting behavior change occurs only when there is first a shift in the beliefs responsible for the behavior (Complex, due to the habitual and systemic nature of our belief?behavior connection).
So: a belief change will trigger a new behavior to match the new belief.
Trying to change a behavior, without changing the underlying beliefs first, causes pushback because our status quo is being disrupted and threatened. So new behaviors to respond to Commit! Achieve! will create resistance without the necessary buy-in from the foundational beliefs that caused the problem.
To effectively motivate ourselves and others, we must facilitate an unconscious shift from the ineffective beliefs to successful ones, and then introduce new commensurate behaviors. While there are certainly helpful training and coaching approaches to accomplish this, one way to get there is by listening to our Internal Dialogue.
A Case Study in Motivation
I’m going to use myself as a case study, as I have had a continual issue motivating myself to get to the gym. Basically, I trigger my healthy beliefs whenever I hear my Internal Dialogue rationalizing why I don’t need to go. Motivation is an inside job.
Here’s how I do it. I deeply believe I’m a healthy person, and that the gym is a necessary evil to maintain my identity. Whenever I hear my inner voice making excuses [“It’s so cold outside. You really would be better off staying inside where it’s warm.”] I have a trigger that pings me to shift me over to my higher-level beliefs Self, Health, Excellence – who I am. “No, you idiot. You’re a healthy person because you work out, so shut up and bundle up and get out the door.”
Indeed, by listening to my Internal Dialogue in many situations, I’ve trained myself to automatically counter non-motivating behavior with my higher-level beliefs that will then motivate me. (I have written a chapter on how to shift from behaviors to beliefs in my new book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? that’s offered free at www.didihearyou.com.)
Motivating Our Teams to Excellence
We can adapt this for our teams. Right now, we tell them ‘how’ and ‘why’ to succeed. We are hiring keynote speakers to ‘Motivate’ our sales forces and leaders, bringing in consultants to ‘Motivate’ more success. But all this is accomplishing is pushing new activities into the habitual status quo and merely getting some meager shifts that last a brief time. Then we blame the failure on our staff or the training.
Let’s motivate by teaching folks to listen to their own Internal Voices. Here are a few pointers (and again, my new free book has an entire chapter on how to accomplish this):
Listen to your Internal Dialogue when you hear yourself making excuses. Behind every resistance is a belief that is holding the ineffective behavior in place.
Notice the underlying beliefs that keep your current ineffective behavior in place and see if you have other beliefs that might be reweighted to take over for the ineffective ones (In my case, I move ‘health’ up on top of ‘comfort’ when it comes to the gym).
Shift/reweight beliefs to put the effective ones on top.
Add new behavioral choices that match the reweighted belief.
It’s more complicated than merely attempting to add some new behaviors, of course. But the change will be permanent. And you can use the skill any time change is required.
Begin the process of listening to yourself more closely and more often. If you want to learn more about bridging the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (www.didihearyou.com) I’m offering the digital book for free to make sure everyone has the capability to communicate, change, and motivate by truly listening. Or go to www.sharondrewmorgen.com to learn more about facilitating change in sales.
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People not calling you back is not a problem, it’s a symptom.
Here are some of the real reasons people don’t call you back:
1. Boring message.
2. Insincere message.
3. Sales message not a value message.
4. Self-serving message.
5. No humor employed.
6. Non-compelling message.
How should you leave a voicemail? Answer:
Give your name and number first
Offer facts and valuable information on what they want to hear (not what you have to sell) – 30 words or less and ASK for a callback or text
Give your name and number AGAIN
NOTE: If you have nothing of value to say, don’t bother picking up the phone.
2. Why is cold calling a waste of my time?
The three word definition of a cold call is – waste of time.
No one likes cold calls. Not the salesperson who makes them. And surely not the prospect who receives them.
“Cold calls are a necessary evil of selling” is a false statement. “Cold calls are a necessary evil if you don’t employ the correct selling strategies” is a true statement.
Here’s what waits for you at the other end of a cold call:
You’re calling people who don’t want what you’ve got.
You’re calling people who don’t know what you’ve got.
You’re calling people who don’t want to be bothered.
You’re calling people who resent being interrupted.
You’re calling people who resent intrusion.
You’re calling people who resent your call.
You’re calling people who will get angry at you or your company.
It’s not a ‘cold call.’ It’s an intrusion without an invitation. A gate-crash. And if handled poorly, will ruin future chances for a legitimate sales call.
Let’s see… poor timing, having a tough time getting through, and when you do – you fight for attention. 95 percent of those who get through are wholly untrained and incapable of selling anything anyway. What’s the point? Isn’t there a better way? Look at the other side – there is no worse way.
3. What is the BEST WAY to make a sale?
The easiest way to make a sale is lower your price to a point that you make no profit. Not a good option.
REAL ANSWER: There is no BEST WAY or EASIEST way to make a sale. BUT there are several elements that contain the word BEST that you must self-evaluate in order to discover why the sales takes place, or why not.
KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Selling is NOT manipulating. Selling is harmonizing.
Oh, you can occasionally make a manipulative sale. But if you’re still in the 1970’s trying to ‘find the pain,’ or ‘sell an up-front contract,’ or ‘make a cold call,’ or ‘close the sale,’ you’re toast. Sales toast.
Here are a few of the BEST ways to make a sale:
The best way to make a sale is to have your reputation precede you by word-of-mouth from your Google ranking, and from your business social media presence.
The best way to make a sale is to be known as a valued resource before you start.
The best way to make a sale is to be friendly before you start.
The best way to make a sale is to meet with the CEO or actual decision maker.
The best way to make a sale is not to be salesy, or cocky, or condescending.
The best way to make a sale is to find some common ground before you start the selling process.
3.5 How did my mother help me make sales?
Mother’s rules make for great salespeople.
I know this sounds hokey, but if you want to be a great salesperson, you should have listened to your mother.
Your mom said it best. As a child, when you were fighting or arguing with a sibling or friend, your mom would say, “Billy, you know better than that! Now you make friends with Johnny.”
Here are two major sales tips right out of mouth and memory of your mother:
Make friends. There’s an old sales adage that says, “all things being equal, people want to do business with their friends.” I say, “all things being not quite so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.” Your mother never told you to use the alternative of choice close or the sharp angle close on Johnny. She just said make friends. That may have been one of the most powerful sales lessons you ever got.
Say nice things. Your mother told you, “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing.” I’m certain she only told you this a hundred times. Somehow after you got your business cards printed, that lesson was lost. Especially when you begin speaking about your competition. I’m sure your mother would approve of referring to them as, “My worthy competition.”
More motherly advice and answers next week… meanwhile, wash behind your ears.
Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.
About the Author
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].
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Every business, company or organization goes through cycles in its evolution. At any point, each program or business unit is in a different phase from the others. Every astute organization assesses the status of each branch on its Business Tree™ and orients its management and team members to meet constant changes and fluctuations.
It’s not that some organizations ‘click’ and others do not. Multiple factors cause momentum, or the lack thereof. As companies operate, all make honest and predictable mistakes. Those with a willingness to learn from the mistakes and pursue growth will be successful. Others will remain stuck in frames of mind that set themselves up for the next round of defeat or, at best, partial-success.
The saddest fact is that businesses do not always know that they’re doing anything wrong. They do not realize that a Big Picture must exist or what it could look like. They have not been taught or challenged on how to craft a Big Picture. Managers, by default, see “band-aid surgery” as the only remedy for problems… but only when problems are so evident as to require action.
Is it any wonder that organizations stray off course? Perhaps no course was ever charted. Perhaps the order of business was to put out fires as they arose, rather than practicing preventive safety on the kindling organization. That’s how Business Trees in the forest burn.
This chapter studies obsolete management styles and corporate cultures that exist in the minds of out-of-touch management. Reliance upon many of these management tenets subsequently brought Enron and many others down.
This includes the characteristics of addictive organizations, their processes, promises and forms. It reviews the Addictive System, the company way and the organization as an addict. This chapter studies communications, thinking processes, management processes, self-inflicted crises and structural components of companies that go bad, or maybe never do what it takes to be good. Topics discussed include the society that produced business scandals, accountants and auditors, pedestals upon which CEOs are placed, spin doctoring, compensations and accountability issues with managers.
Companies are collections of individuals who possess fatal flaws of thinking. They come from different backgrounds and are products of a pop culture that puts its priorities and glories in the wrong places…a society that worships flash-and-sizzle over substance.
Characteristics of Corporate Arrogance
Support others who are like-minded to themselves
Scapegoat people who are the messengers of change
Blame others who cannot or will not defend themselves
Find public and vocal ways of placing blame upon others
Shame those people who make them accountable
Neither attends to details nor to pursue a Big Picture
Perpetuate co-dependencies
Selectively forgets the good that occurs
Find three wrongs for every right
Do little or nothing
At all costs, fight change… in every shape, form or concept
Making the wrong choices
Inability to listen. Refusal to hear what is said
Stubbornness
Listening to the wrong people
Failure to change. Fear of change
Comfort level with institutional mediocrity
Setting one’s self up for failure
Pride
Avoidance of responsibilities
Blaming and scapegoating others
People who filter out the truths
Non-risk-taking mode
Inaccessibility to independent thinkers
Calling something a tradition, when it really means refusal to change
Preoccupation with deals, rather than running an ongoing business
Arrogant attitudes
Ignorance of modern management styles and societal concerns
Failure to benchmark results and accomplishments
Incorrect Assumptions that People Make
That wealth and success cure all ills
That business runs on data. That data projects the future
That data infrastructure hardware will navigate the business destiny and success
That all athletes are role models. That all well-paid athletes are national heroes
That the CEO can make or break the company single-handedly
That doctors don’t have to be accountable to their customers
That education stops after the last college degree received
That TV newscasters are celebrities and community leaders
That having an E-mail address or a website makes one an expert on technology
That the Internet is primarily an educational resource
That technology is the most important driving force in business and society
That buying the latest software program will cure all social ills and create success
That community stewardship applies to other people and does not require our own investment of time
That white-collar crime pays and that highly paid executives will avoid jail time
That senior corporate managers have all the answers and do not need to seek counsel
That return on shareholder investment is the only true measure of a company’s worth
That all people who grew up in the south are racist
That government bureaucrats are qualified to make decisions about taxpayer money
That activists for one cause are equally open-minded about other issues
That corporate mid-managers with expense accounts are community leaders
That deregulation is always desirable and in the public’s best interest
That home-based businesses are more wealth-producing than holding a job
That professionals can get by without developing public speaking and writing skills
Fatal Quotations Often Voiced to Justify Fatal Thinking
“Might makes right. Take no prisoners. Wear the other side down.”
“Everyone knows who we are and what we do.”
“Our accountants will catch it and take care of it.”
“It’s none of their business. The public be damned.”
“We’re not paying people to think… just to do. Make them understand.”
“We don’t need outsiders coming in and hogging the credit.”
“If you don’t cooperate with me, I’ll bring you down.”
“We cannot do that right now. Once this crisis is past, we can think about the future.”
“How does this contribute to our bottom line?”
“If it does not contribute directly to the bottom line, we’re not interested.”
“We have more business than we can handle.”
“Too much competition destroys free enterprise. We need to eliminate competition.”
Addictive Organizations
Addictive organizations are predicated upon maintaining a closed system. Alternately, they are marked by such traits as confusion, dishonesty and perfectionism. They are scarcity models, based upon quantity and the illusion of control. Only the high performers get the gold because there are not enough bonuses to go around. Addictive organizations show frozen feelings and ethical deterioration.
Addictive organizations dangle ‘the promise’ to employees, customers, stockholders and others affected. People are lured into doing things that enable the addictive management’s pseudopodic ego.
All that is different is either absorbed or purged. The addictive organization fabricates personality conflicts in order to keep people on the edge all the time. There exists a dualism of identifying the rightness of the choice and a co-dependence upon the rewards of the promise.
In such companies, the key person is an addict. The CEO and his chosen lieutenants have taken addictions with them from other organizations. The organization itself is an addictive substance, as well as being an addict to others. They numb people down and addict them to workaholism.
The addictive system views everything as ‘the company way.’ The entity is outwardly one big happy family. It is big and grandiose. The emphasis is upon the latest slogans of mission but does not look closely at how its systems operate. The term “mission” is a buffer, excuse, putdown and roadblock.
Rather than embrace the kinds of Big Picture strategies advocated in this book, the addictive system seeks artificial fixes to organizational problems, such as bonuses, benefits, slogans and promotions of like-minded executives.
Communications are always indirect, vague, written and confusing. People are purposefully left out of touch or are summarily put down for not co-depending. Secrets, gossip and triangulation persist, as a result. The addictive organization does communicate directly with the news media and often adopts a ‘no comment’ policy. Company officers (who should be accessible to media) are cloistered and unavailable. The addictive organization does not recognize that professional corporate communications are among the best resources in their potential arsenal.
The addictive system does not encourage managers to develop thinking and reasoning processes. The system portrays forgetfulness, selective memory and distorted facts into sweeping generalizations. We are expected to take them at their word, without requesting or demanding facts to justify.
In the addictive organization, those who challenge, blow whistles or suggest that things might be better handled are neither wanted nor tolerated. Addictive managers project externally originated criticism back onto internal scapegoats. There is always a strategy of people to blame and sins to be attributed to them.
Management processes tend to exemplify denial, dishonesty, isolation, self-centeredness, judgmentalism and a false sense of perfectionism. Intelligent people know that perfectionism does not exist and the quest for quality and excellence is the real game of life and business. Addictive organizations do not use terms like ‘quality’ and ‘excellence’ because such terms must be measured, periodically reexamined and communicated… the organization does not want any of that to occur.
There persists a crisis orientation, meaning that everything is down to the wire on deadlines (not to be confused with just-in-time delivery, which is a good concept). Things are kept perennially in turmoil, in order to keep people guessing or confused. Management seduces employees into setting up competing sides in bogus feuds and manipulating consumers.
Structural components include preserving the status quo, fostering political games, taking false measurements and pursuing activities that are incongruent with the organization’s announced mission.
7 Layers of Organizational Addictiveness.
Companies that Go Bad… self-inflicted Crises.
Self Destructive Intelligence. There exists a logic override. Since the company does not believe itself to be smart enough to do the right things, then it creates a web of rationalism. Since the mind often plays tricks on itself, management capitalizes upon that phenomenon with people who may question or criticize.
Hubris. This quality destroys those who possess it. Such executives exhibit stubborn pride, believing their own spin doctoring and surrounding themselves with people who spin quite well on their behalf. They adopt a “nobody does it as well as we can” mentality. Such companies scorn connections, collaborations and partnering with other organizations.
Arrogance. Omnipotent fantasies cause management to go too far. The feeling is that nothing is beyond their capacity to succeed (defined in their minds as crushing all other competition).
Narcissism. Company executives possess excessive conceit. They are disconnected from outside forces, self-centered and show a cruel indifference to others. The view is that the world must gratify them.
Unconscious Need to Fail. These companies try too hard to keep on winning. With victory as the only possible end game, all others must be defeated along the way. In reality, these people and, thus, their organizations, possess low self-esteem. Inevitably, they get beaten at their own games.
Feeling of Entitlement. Walls and filters have been established which insulate top management from criticism (which is viewed as harming the chain of armor, rather than as potentially constructive). Anger stimulates many of their decisions. The feeling is that they deserve it all. Power satisfies appetites. These executives have poor human relations skills. They believe that excesses are always justified.
Collective Dumbness. Such organizations have totally reshaped reality to their own viewpoints. The emperor really has no clothes, but everyone overlooks the obvious and avoids addressing it forthrightly. The organization dumbs down the overall intelligence level, so that people are in the dark and cannot readily make judgment calls. Cults of expertise function in vacuums within the company. Neurotic departmental units do not interface often with others. Employees are slaves of the system. There exists total justification for what is done and an ostrich effect toward calls for accountability.
Techpitfalls.com
Reasons why companies fail.
Roadblocks to growth, opportunities missed.
Companies come and go. Not every start-up is destined to make it. Yet, in this era of super-hype about tech and dot.com companies, unrealistic expectations precluded most of their successes from the beginning.
The hype now is that the bubble burst. Former dot.com owners are crying that they were stripped of their entitled riches. Employees who were promised stock options came away without still knowing what it takes to build a real business.
The e-commerce and dot.com wars have more than their share of casualties because their players never had the artillery and mindset to play seriously in the first place. Overt marketing hype led to an unwatchful marketplace… which always wakes up to the realities of business eventually.
Technology companies must now learn the lessons that steady-growth companies in other industries absorbed. Actually, most companies still have not truly learned the lessons. Thus, most businesses are at frequent ‘crossroads,’ where turns have deep implications and far-reaching.
I advised several technology companies during their gravy years. I tried to warn them about the things that would get them into trouble:
Focusing upon technology… not upon running a business
Maintaining too much of an entrepreneur and family business mindset
Branding before being a real company
Their system’s inability to deal with any kind of disruption
Each side picks their favorite numbers for ‘success’ because they really do not know
Not comprehending the business you’re really in
Venturing too far from your areas of expertise
Thinking that the rules of corporate protocol did not apply to them
Misplaced priorities and timelines
Making financial yardsticks the only barometers
Wrong relationships with investors… letting angels call too many shots
Getting bad advice from the wrong people, mainly other tech professionals
Rationalizing excuses, ‘the rules have changed’
Feeling entitled to success and exemptions from business realities
Copycats of others’ perceived successes
Working long and hard, but not necessarily smart
Failure to contextualize the product, business, marketplace and bigger picture
Inability to plan
Refusal to change
Most of these pitfalls are common to so many industries. They simply were focused upon tech companies from 1994-2000 because they were the latest flavor. Some heeded the advice of myself and others… many did not avail themselves.
Reasons why some want to grow beyond their current boundaries:
Prove to someone else that they can do it
Strong quest for revenue and profits
Corporate arrogance and ego, based upon power and influence (as well as money)
Sincere desire to put expertise into new arena
Really have talents, resources and adaptabilities beyond what they’re known for
Diversifying as part of a plan of expansion, selling off and re-growing subsidiaries
The marketplace dictates change as part of the company’s global being
Circumstances under which they expand include:
Advantageous location became available
Someone wanted to sell out… a great deal was tough to pass up
Can’t sit still… must conquer new horizons
Think they can make more money, amass more power
Desire to edge out a competitor or dominate another industry
Create jobs for existing employees (new challenges, new opportunities)
Part of their growth strategy to go public, offering stock as a diversified company
This is what often happens as a result of unplanned growth:
The original business gets shoved to the back burner
The new business thrust gets proportionately more than its share of attention
Capitalization is stretched beyond limits, and operations advance in a cash-poor mode
Morale wavers and becomes uneven, per operating unit and division
Attempts to bring consistency and uniformity drive further wedges into the operation
Something has to give: people, financial resources, competitive edge, company vision
The company expands and subsequently contracts without strategic planning
7 Defeating Signs for Growth Companies
Systems are not in place to handle rapid growth, perhaps never were
Their only interest is in booking more new business, rather than taking care of what they’ve already got
Management is relying upon financial people as the primary source of advice, while ignoring the rest of the picture (90 percent)
Team empowerment suffers. Morale is low or uneven. Commitment from workers drops because no corporate culture was created or sustained
Customer service suffers during fast-growth periods. They have to back-pedal and recover customer confidence by doing surveys. Even with results of deteriorating customer service, growth-track companies pay lip service to really fixing their own problems
People do not have the same Vision as the company founder… who has likely not taken enough time to fully develop a Vision and obtain buy-in from others
Company founder remains arrogant and complacent, losing touch with marketplace realities and changing conditions
Everything we are in business stems from what we’ve been taught or not taught to date. A career is all about devoting resources to amplifying talents and abilities, with relevancy toward a viable end result.
Business evolution is an amalgamation of thoughts, technologies, approaches and commitment of the people, asking such tough questions as:
What would you like for you and your organization to become?
How important is it to build an organization well, rather than constantly spend time in managing conflict?
Who are the customers?
Do successful corporations operate without a strategy-vision?
Do you and your organization presently have a strategy-vision?
Are businesses really looking for creative ideas? Why?
If no change occurs, is the research and self-reflection worth anything?
Failure to prepare for the future spells certain death for businesses and industries in which they function. The same analogies apply to personal lives, careers and Body of Work. Greater business awareness and heightened self-awareness are compatible and part of a holistic journey of growth.
Business is in transition… with unclear anchoring of where they’ve been and where they could head. Young and mid-level workers do not really know what it takes to succeed long-term and been.
About the Author
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.
Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.
Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.
https://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/HankMoore2.jpg333290StrategyDrivenhttps://www.strategydriven.com/wp-content/uploads/SDELogo5-300x70-300x70.pngStrategyDriven2015-04-17 06:21:172015-12-19 19:31:26The Big Picture of Business – The Fatal Flaws of Corporate Thinking