When Bold Strategy Becomes a Bet You Can’t Afford to Lose
Honda just announced its first net loss since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1957. The company cancelled three EV models it had been engineering for years — the Honda 0 SUV, the Honda 0 Saloon, and the Acura RSX — writing off up to ¥2.5 trillion in assets and supplier commitments in a single fiscal year.
That fact alone is worth sitting with. This is not a story about a company that failed to try.
It is a story about the difference between boldness and prudence — and what happens when a business has the first without the second.
Throw Your Lot in
On the morning of March 11, 2011, I picked out a tie, checked myself in the mirror, and then left the house to go to Tokyo without knowing that I would never again leave that house the same way. It was only hours later that the massive 3/11 earthquake struck Japan and its deadly tsunami […]
The Secret to Persuasive Strategy
All senior level executives and managers are asked to develop and present a strategy, whether global strategy, regional strategy, or simply strategy for a team or department they oversee. Many managers create long slide presentations with lots of data to justify why their strategy is right. However, the most persuasive managers talk about all the […]
The Best Educate Themselves
“I am reading every book by Peter Drucker I can get my hands on.” That’s what Tsukuba International School Principal, Shaney Crawford, said to me nearly nine years ago. Never before, nor since, has any salaried manager or company CEO ever told me anything even remotely similar even though this is precisely the type of […]
Conservatism isn’t the Problem
I define conservatism as clinging to traditional practices with opposition to change and innovation out of principle. You fight conservatism in an organization through initiating bold action independently and dealing with the consequences, not by insisting others change first. It is the way a person acts that makes him or her conservative, and not necessarily […]
Reject Status Quo Salesforce Behavior
Rapid growth of business frequently means improved selling behavior of your salesforce. Some leaders I encounter are aware there are issues in their salesforce, but often don’t have complete visibility into specific behaviors that ought to be changed. Below are five of the most common behaviors of salespeople I have encountered and what I advised.
Your Best People Build Relationships
Good employees are responsive to customers. Great employees innovate ways to build relationships. In a world where outstanding customer service is frequently the norm, it is customer relationships that count.
Empowerment That Counts
Empowering people can be motivating and serve as a boon to your business’s results, but only if you do it right. However, nothing engenders cynicism more than pro forma exercises in prima facie empowerment. Too frequently, I find ham-fisted attempts of managers at making people feel empowered, often at the behest of some kind of […]
Ignore Prognosticators of Doom
There is no percentage in fear of the hypothetical, no matter how reasonable a hypothesis might sound. Anyone can prognosticate doom about anything someone doesn’t like for whatever reasons. The impossible is only something no one has done yet.
Excellence, Not Diversity
If you are a business leader pursuing diversity, you are chasing the wrong goal. It is not diversity that matters, but rather excellence that counts. Diversity of people is merely a natural result.
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