June Management Journey Carnival

Originally published June 2012.

Welcome to the June edition of the Management Journey Carnival. This month’s Carnival has some great information on communication, customer service, planning, time management, social media, innovation, leadership, performance management, coaching, marketing, sales and other topics.  The Management Journey Carnival is published on the third Monday of each month. Each Carnival consists of insightful articles from the web that contributors submit or that I select for inclusion.

Let’s get started with an article from the past that still has relevance today.

An Oldie But Goodie

The best leadership advice comes from individuals who have had actual leadership responsibilities. When they speak, the wisdom they provide comes both from their successes and their failures.  They don’t just repeat concepts they’ve heard from others. They have lived them!

This month’s classic post, Revisiting Colin Powell’s 13 Rules of Leadership, comes from my blog and it is actually the most popular of all my articles.  With the release of Colin Powell’s book, “It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership,” this is a good time to revisit the 13 rules that have become the foundation of his leadership philosophy.


 

Featured Podcast

This month’s featured podcast comes from the Harvard Business Review. It is an interview with Michael Schrage, author of the book Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become. In his podcast, Who Your Customers Want to Become, Michael argues that business leaders need to adjust their perspectives on how they use innovation to service their customer needs as follows:

Traditional perspective: What need does this innovation fill for the customer?

Revised perspective: What does this innovation ask a customer to become?

By changing their perspective, Michael explains that business leaders begin to treat company innovation as an investment in the customer. With this focus, they will then realign what the business is trying to do with what the customer wants or needs to become.


 

Communication Corner

Business Team Meeting Communication Talking

Special Topic This Month

The fear of being evaluated negatively in social settings which includes the fear of public speaking remains one of the top fears of human beings. The problem for managers with this social phobia is that they will likely have to make a presentation to others sometime in their careers.  Nick Morgan of Public Words | Helping People Tell Their Stories provides help in this area.  In his article, How to Create a Short Speech, he explains how to organize short and long versions of any speech.

 


Featured Articles

man typing on a laptop

Articles

Technology is a mixed blessing.  It has both simplified and complicated organizational productivity. Managers are busy all of the time but are they productive!  In his article, Two Lists You Should Look at Every MorningPeter Bregman of Harvard Business Review explains the importance of pausing, prioritizing, and focusing to make two important lists.

Understanding the customer is critical to the success of any business. Customer behavior is not always rational, however.  We are, after all, emotional beings. In fact, as John Hunter of Curious Cat | Management Improvement Blog explains, Customers are Often Irrational.

There’s many differing opinions on the business viability of the different social media platforms. Facebook clearly is the giant in the room but Twitter is not insignificant. Which is better for businesses marketing and branding?  B.L. Ochman of AdAge Digital argues for Twitter in her article, Why Twitter Is a Better Brand Platform Than Facebook.

Often, certain management activities become buzz words and their actual meanings become confusing as they become more common in conversation. Strategy and innovation are two areas that sometimes become muddled together. Greg Satell of DigitalTonto clears up any confusion about these activities in his article, The Difference between Strategy and Innovation.

Markets change rapidly. This requires managers to frequently revisit the 7 P’s: product, pricing, promotion, place, packaging, positioning, and people. In his post, The Seven P Formula for Marketing and Sales Success, Brian Tracy of Brian Tracy International explains how managers can effectively evaluate and reevaluate their marketing and sales activities.

For employee selection in highly innovative companies like Facebook, how important is it for the organization’s leadership to have higher education degrees?  Vivek Wadha of the Washington Post raises this important and provocative question (and gets some blunt comments) with his article, Would the Facebook IPO have bombed if Mark Zuckerberg had an MBA?


 

Blue Ribbon Pick

ribbon award winner editor pick

Blue Ribbon Pick

How to innovate like a startup is the topic of this month’s Blue Ribbon Pick. It comes via Jonathan Feldman of Information Week | Global CIO. In his article, Jonathan interviews Eric Ries the author of The Lean Startup. In this article, Jonathan explores how larger businesses can apply lean startup principles to their business operations.

What I particularly liked about this article was Eric’s simple explanations to Jonathan’s questions. Eric avoids the practice that many experts fall into of using too many technical terms and buzz words to share his knowledge.  Instead, with each question, Eric gives simple answers that business leaders of any industry can apply to their operations.  For example, in answering which lean tactics are most applicable to those who work in large enterprises, Eric responds as follows:

There is no such thing as a technique or a tactic that works all of the time, that works for everybody. . . . So when we talk about applying startup ideas in big companies, we don’t mean to every part of the big company. We mean to the parts of the big company that are actually startups. . . .

What makes you a startup is that you’re trying to create something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. . . . It’s something that serves new customers that we’ve never served before. It’s a new kind of product that’s never been built before. It’s taking a technology from one market and moving it to another. . . .

And the traditional management practices that run big companies today are not very well adapted to situations of high uncertainty. They work very well when we can make accurate plans and forecasts. And forecasting works when you have a long and stable operating history from which to make a forecast.

This article is full of this type of practical wisdom. Eric also provides real-world examples to clearly show how large companies can successfully apply lean startup activities. This is a good read that is applicable to any business.

This concludes the June 2012 edition of the Management Journey Carnival.

Robert

Business team photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Written by Robert Tanner | Copyrighted Material | All Rights Reserved Worldwide

This article is accurate to the best of the author’s knowledge.
Content is for informational or educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional advice in business, management, legal, or human resource matters.

Robert Tanner, MBA

Welcome to my leadership blog. I'm the Founder & Principal Consultant of Business Consulting Solutions LLC, a certified practitioner of psychometric assessments, and a former Adjunct Professor of Management. As a leadership professional, I bring 20+ years of real world experience at all levels of management.

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