In this Quick Start Tip we talk about one of the biggest impediments to business growth, which is a lack of focus that goes far enough to create task overload, organizational gridlock that feels to employees like corporate attention deficit disorder. We discuss specific ways to get your orgnaization more focused to gain the ability to take your big ideas to big results.
by: Michael Kanazawa
CLO Magazine’s associate editor, Lindsay Edmonds Wickman, recently wrote a piece about how to better integrate people, operations and strategic initiatives across the business, titled From Ideas to Results: The CLO’s Role. The story is based on our BIG Ideas to BIG Results process and approach. For the article, Lindsay and I talked about the fact that too often, people development is treated as a separate activity from strategic planning which is also often separate from running operations. This lack of alignment puts CLOs in a difficult position of trying to drive people initiatives that may not be viewed as integral elements of executing the strategy. There are ways to improve the alignment that are outlined in the article. The article was sent out as an Executive Briefing to CLOs and other senior HR executives, but is useful for all types of leaders and managers who want to better enable their organizations to generate big ideas and turn them into big results.
The read the full article at the CLO Magazine site, click here.
by: Michael Kanazawa (note: picture source from Lisa Haneberg’s Management Craft blog)
Just recently, Lisa Haneberg had me join her for a “Fireside Chat” podcast for her popular management blog, Management Craft. During the interview she started talking about her favorite sentence in the whole book, and I knew just what she was talking about. The sentence is, “Denial is the opium of losers.” In the podcast we talk about what that means and how to avoid the problems it can cause. She also pointed out several other real keys to the book with amazing accuracy. Although we don’t quite solve every business problem in the world, we do talk about a new mantra to live by that should replace the old and ineffective phrase, “do more with less.”
You can listen to the podcast and read her post about the podcast or just listen to the podcast here.
By: Michael Kanazawa
One of the biggest challenges in driving strategic change is in following through on execution. On March 31, 2008, Lindsay Edmonds Wickman, associate editor for Chief Learning Officer Magazine, wrote an article titled Making Change Meaningful. In it, she cites BIG Ideas to BIG Results and points out one of the biggest problems in running a failed change program is not the just the missed opportunities for business improvement, but creating a jaded and cynical workforce that won’t respond over time. There is a strategic role that CLOs are well positioned to play in integrating business strategy and leadership to accomplish breakthrough resutls and avoid the common pitfalls of in strategy execution. There has long been a gap between business operations and leadership development, so as Scott Adams’ book title aptly points out, be cautious of where and how you step forward in exapanding the CLO role to be more strategic. (more…)
By Michael Kanazawa
When things get stressful, we often throw out phrases automatically to try and get beyond the issues for the moment without really doing what is right. But often these phrases don’t do much to help in the moment and don’t’ solve the true issues either. There are a few sayings that we hear in business all of the time that are about as ineffective as parents yelling at their children, “do it because I said so.” Even worse, these sayings in business cause people to make poor decisions and undermine their own leadership potential by repeating these phrases without really thinking about what they mean.
One of the most popular and most damaging of these sayings is demanding that people need to do “more with less.” (more…)
BNET is featuring a podcast on BIG Ideas to BIG Results on it’s home page. In the podcast I explain to BNET host Carmine Gallo the most important things to getting started right with change or transformation efforts, why speed is important, and specifically how to engage hundreds or thousands of employees quickly and effectively with a very simple technique described in our book as “table work.”
To listen, download and share the podcast, please click through on the link below.
BNET’s Useful Commute
Guest: Michael Kanazawa - coauthor BIG Ideas to BIG Results
Host: Carmine Gallo
http://blogs.bnet.com/intercom/?p=1686
By: Michael Kanazawa
In the March 17th edition of BusinessWeek, on page 20, there is a picture of our book with Good to Great. And in that article you can see Jim Collins’ name appear with just two other authors being mentioned, Michael Kanazawa and Robert Miles. Not bad company for a book that has sold 3.6 million copies. It was truly exciting to be in such good company.
The article is based on the idea that top selling business books have something specific in common. They have red covers. But beyond the covers, the two books also drive for the same type of greatness in organizations. Jim Collins’ Good to Great identified the key ideas and principles through historical research. BIG Ideas to BIG Results shows exactly how to put a process in place and how to lead a great company. (more…)
By: Robert H. Miles, Ph.D.
A recent article in the Theory & Practice section of The Wall Street Journal raised the issue of the importance of Speed in management. Titled “Speed is Key Question as New CEOs Remake Team,” the piece reported that while management churn can be a problem, many CEOs wish they had moved faster in removing dysfunctional or non-supportive executives from their team.
This finding squares with my experience over many years from my corporate transformation practice, but it the tip of the iceberg, Speed a much bigger, more pervasive challenge to that the singular aspect highlighted in the article. It is multidimensional in its impact on the ultimate success or failure of corporate transformation attempts.
So multidimensional is the speed factor in execution that I call it the “New Management Discipline,” a theme that comes through strongly in my new book with Mike Kanazawa, BIG Ideas to BIG Results: Remake and Recharge Your Company, Fast. (more…)
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By Michael Kanazawa
Just yesterday I received an email from our publisher that our first book review on BIG Ideas to BIG Results had come in. As I clicked the email link to read the review I felt like Charlie as he unwrapped that last chocolate bar, hoping so much to see the golden ticket enclosed. But for me the golden ticket would be positive words, encouragements, and appreciation for the book. We got it!
Now I know it is just the first one and there may be others that aren’t so golden. But it’s great to start with a check in the win column for sure and coming from the main source that people in the publishing world read, that means a lot to me. Here is the review…
Publisher’s Weekly: January 28, 2008
Big Ideas to Big Results: Remake and Recharge Your Company, Fast
Michael T Kanazawa and Robert H. Miles. Pearson/FTPress, $27.95 (256p) ISBN 978-0-13-234478-4.
“It takes more than a vision to launch a successful corporate strategy. It takes engagement on the part of employees at all levels. Establishing such engagement is at the heart of this punchy, dynamic book by Kanazawa and Miles—the CEO and chairman, respectively, of DisseroPartners, a strategic advisory firm. Fewer than half of employees, according to a quoted poll, understand their company’s strategic goals and only 43% think there is ever any follow-through on planned strategy shifts. This is why, the authors assert, so many corporate initiatives fail. After seeing the process break down countless times, Kanazawa and Miles developed a step-by-step guide to harnessing the energy that companies usually waste when introducing initiatives. By creating more of a “buy-in†throughout the organization and ensuring execution through accountability, employees become committed to company goals, they claim. Their clear and hands-on approach is useful for anyone whose livelihood is tied to the successful execution of business initiatives. (Mar.)”
As a second set of wins for us, I think we also may have the only book that has received advance praise from CEO’s of F500 companies, CFOs, executives of operations, HR, marketing, IT, and strategy, Harvard Business School professors, and private equity investors, including a partner at Kleiner Perkins Kaufiled and Byers. It demonstrates that we have a book that will help you make money, grow your business, is academically sound, operationally practical, and good for start ups and large companies alike.
Bob and I are very excited about the launch of the new book and hope you can share in that with us by following along and contributing to this blog and of course…here comes the shameless plug… buy the book. It is available now for pre-purchase on Amazon and B&N and will be shipping in February. Also, if you would like a signed book with an additional video, still at a discounted price, we have an exclusive special with 800CEORead (ask for Jon Mueller at 800-CEO-READ), and orders must be for multiple books and completed before Feb 19, 2008.
Michael Kanazawa: chief executive of Dissero Partners, co-author of BIG Ideas to BIG Results
If you would like me to speak at your company or association, please contact the BrightSight Group
Note: Image from CNN.com
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By: Michael Kanazawa
Sometimes the Biggest Ideas are the smallest things. Quiznos is in the midst of a major turnaround under the leadership of veteran turnaround CEO Greg Brenneman. Reviving the growth and profits of a 5,200 chain restaurant certainly qualifies for a BIG Idea to BIG Results transformation.
What is Brenneman’s answer to this challenge? Go smaller.
Quiznos has been steadily slimming the menu that had grown overly complex with too many choices of sandwiches, specials, sizes, and coupon deals. That complexity was driving up food costs and slowing down operations. There can be real costs to going too big.
They also just launched an innovative new product called the Sammie. The new sandwich is a flatbread snack that looks like a taco, but is filled with meats and vegetables. For some who are familiar, it is really like a Gyro (Greek sandwich), but with deli fillings. The new sandwich is small and comes at a smaller price than their other menu options at just $2.00. This will give them a BIG boost with an innovative product into the value-conscious snack buyers. And rather than just creating a low-end, cheap knock-off version of their famous toasted sandwich priced at $3.99 rather than $4.57, they truly created a new product to meet customer needs for a convenient and well priced snack. (more…)
