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.

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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…)

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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…)

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By: Michael Kanazawa 

AOL’s announcement to split in two is a great decision on focus, but seems very late. When AOL started, they created the best online experience by controlling the access, content, browser, content development platforms, and commerce tools. It was an all-in-one play that allowed them to do things that others couldn’t do in a simple way for the customer. Today, all of those elements have splintered and become industries of their own and have all become easier. There is less need for a single integrated platorm. AOL’s best attributes have always been about great experiences for the end-user customer, so how can they leverage that today?

One challenge in focus is that AOL still has two big segments of customers. Older email users who started on AOL because it was easy to use and never switched to other web email services like gmail or hotmail. Then there is a second segment of young customers who got to know AOL through Instant Messenger. These two segments are going to want completely different things from AOL and somehow they will need to figure out what their hooks will be going forward. Google has played it well with broad applications like search, maps, and posting videos. AOL will need to look closely at the needs of it’s customers and find the gaps, find the things that are still difficult on the web, and create a great customer experience out of those. Media management in the home and the fight for the digital living room is still a place where competing standards, tricky technology integration issues and no single platform may provide an opportunity.

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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…)

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By Michael Kanazawa

A new good friend, Phil Gerbyshak, recently posted this video on the new tech bubble on his blog, Make It Great. He lives in the mid-West but obviously gets what is going on in Silicon Valley. First, laugh and enjoy the video, then go rebalance your investment portfolio, and then think about this question that was posed on Phil’s site: The question about a Web 2.0 bubble is if it will impact how blogs and social networking sites are used in business strategies.

To me, the answer is that the last tech bubble and this one (if you believe there is one now) have nothing to do with the use of technology, but rather just the stock market valuation of the companies providing the technology.

When the first bubble burst, people did not stop using the web for e-commerce, b2b transactions or newsfeeds. In fact, the usage kept going up. It was just that the market valuations of the web companies took a nose dive. So whether you belive that Web 2.0 companies are overinflated in valuations or not, the fundamental changes they have created will continue to grow. The proliferation of content on the web (writing, video, music) and greater collboration through wikis and networking sites will continue to grow and will continue to challenge traditional media and ways of doing busienss.

If you are in a more traditional business and laughing at the bubble pop video, hoping it will all go away soon…think again. I agree with Phil’s perspective. Keep blogging, keep networking online, and also keep writing, building real-world relationships in person, and most importantly…keep learning and evolving your strategies. Don’t let your competitors be the ones to burst your bubble.

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