STRATEGY
No More Problems , Please !
A Different Approach To Strategy For All Companies
First , my public apology to all the companies I ’ ve misguided over the past two decades , as well as an apology to my employees . And while I ’ m at it , let me add a public apology to my family and friends .
I apologize for dredging up all their problems , for focusing on what is wrong instead of on what is right . I apologize for focusing on the F ’ s instead of the A ’ s . I just didn ’ t know any better until I read a thin 70 page book called the Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry .
“ I JUST DIDN ’ T KNOW ANY BETTER UNTIL I READ A THIN 70 PAGE BOOK CALLED THE THIN BOOK OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY ”
QUICK SUMMARY – FOCUS ON WHAT ’ S WORKING INSTEAD OF ON WHAT ’ S NOT WORKING . PERIOD . Here ’ s the rub . During quarterly planning and consulting sessions the tendency is to make a list of problems and then spend the bulk of the time discussing these problems and trying to solve them . No wonder people dread the process .
This was brought home to me recently when a client introduced me , as his new consultant , to some of the people in his accounting department . One of the women quipped “ I suppose you ’ re here to point out everything we ’ re doing wrong .” Ouch ! But an accurate description of the role of most consultants . As a leader of my own firm , I ’ ve fallen into this same “ problem analysis ” focus of solving my growth company challenges . And as a father , during a recent teacher-parent conference , I caught myself focusing more on the “ B ’ s ” than the “ A ’ s ”, even though I now know better – these are difficult habits to break .
DRIVING REVENUES So what ’ s the alternative ? Let me go back to my latest planning session with the client mentioned above . Their main challenge was driving revenue . Rather than analyze all the reasons why revenues were NOT growing as rapidly as they would like , we took a different tack . Instead , we explored a time when revenues were exploding i . e . when things were going great .
“ RATHER THAN ANALYZE ALL THE REASONS WHY REVENUES WERE NOT GROWING AS RAPIDLY AS THEY WOULD LIKE ... WE EXPLORED A TIME WHEN REVENUES WERE EXPLODING I . E . WHEN THINGS WERE GOING GREAT .”
Back a number of years ago , one of their divisions had driven revenues from $ 2 million to just over $ 9 million in the span of twelve months . Since then , that division ’ s revenues have gone flat . So we brought in the head of that division and rather than spend an hour analyzing why revenues had gone flat , instead we asked “ what were you doing right back then that caused revenues to explode ?”
First , the head of the division was getting to re-live a positive time , rather than hash through a bunch of negatives . More importantly , about an hour into the conversation , as we continued to explore what worked for them in the past , the head of the division had a major insight .
Back a few years ago , he was spending about a week a month out in the field visiting with his main distributors and customers . However , after experiencing the sharp jump in revenues , he was
6 | SPRING 2017