Grolistic Archives

3 Growth Culture Drivers

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Organizations that sustain profitable growth tend to demonstrate three cultural drivers.

They are guided by their Purpose Motive. The organization understands how it contributes to its customers’ strategic progress, beyond providing quality products and exceptional service. Because its people realize how they make a difference, they are motivated to invest extra effort, strengthening offerings and operations to sustain their progress.

They are committed to Innovation. The business recognizes that innovation fuels its purpose by enabling its customers’ progress, and therefore, its own. Innovations with the highest probability of success are derived by creating a new product or service that resolves a customer’s challenge, fulfilling a strategic goal.

They foster a culture of Shared Accountability. These organizations consistently clarify that their progress depends on achieving their mutual goals in a manner consistent with their expected behaviors. Rewards are team-based, not driven by individual accomplishment. Team members trust in their shared purpose which promotes respect for one another, enabling them to productively challenge each other’s ideas on how best to promptly and efficiently resolve problems or overcome barriers. This leads to faster decision-making, improved performance and better results.

How impactful are these 3 drivers in your organization’s culture?

How could they accelerate the growth of your business?

By Bob Schultek|July 9th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Why Buy the Quarter-Inch Drill?

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

“The customer rarely buys what the company thinks it is selling him.” Peter Drucker

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” Theodore Levitt

Customers don’t care about products or services – they want solutions.

Developing a creative, satisfactory solution to a vital, unmet customer need is the origin of many businesses. But as it matures, the business often loses its focus on how it makes a difference for the customer, how it produces value that helps the customer succeed. Companies begin to define themselves in terms of the products or services they sell, rather than by the unique solutions delivered to meet a customer’s crucial need.

This is a natural evolution, typically driven by readily available data generated as a company monitors the products or services sold and the resulting profit produced. It’s much easier to track quantifiable sales or production data than it is to evaluate quantifiable benefits produced for customers. And as more is invested to improve existing products or services, or to increase the efficiency of the operations used to produce them, the pressure grows to pay even more attention to the accessible, operational data than to the customer experience.

It is true that the most […]

By Bob Schultek|July 3rd, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Why Teams Bond

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Teams bond when they struggle together to accomplish an objective. Every military, athletic and business leader knows this truth and relies upon it.

Why do team members choose to join in the struggle?

Accomplishing the objective is meaningful. The struggle provides a unique opportunity to make a difference, to contribute to a vital, significant endeavor.

Participating enables mastery. Struggling with the team to overcome barriers enables the mastery of individual strengths that increase satisfaction, self-confidence and self-worth.

Experiencing autonomy drives accountability.
Sharing the responsibility for decision-making, and for the consequences of decisions, increases accountability, engagement, innovation and the motivation to invest whatever energy and talent is necessary to secure a successful outcome.

Since leaders cannot compel teams to bond, they must create the conditions for the bonding to occur. The commitment eventually made by each team member cultivates a shared accountability within the team that drives performance and improves results.

How do you encourage your teams to bond?

What might be done differently to strengthen team bonds?

By Bob Schultek|June 27th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Why Innovations Succeed

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

The pursuit of innovation is a vitally important strategy for organizations seeking to accelerate their progress. Companies dedicate significant time, energy and investment to it, often optimizing the efficiency of their innovation process with the goal of improving their success rate. But what if this effort does not improve their ability to predict which innovations will succeed?

As Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the renowned quality and management expert observed, every process is perfectly designed to deliver the results it gets. If an organization views its pursuit of innovation as imperfect and unpredictable, relying on assumptions about what customers need, what competitors are doing, or perhaps on a bit of luck, then it builds processes that operationalize the perception of a hit or miss proposition. The results of these processes are predictable – mediocrity and disappointment.

Improving the success rate of innovation starts with asking your customers about their strategies, their barriers, and what job they need you to do so they can achieve their goals. The insights you gain will increase your innovation predictability, and improve your results.

What is your innovation success rate?

How frequently do you have strategic discussions with key customers?

By Bob Schultek|June 19th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

3 Attributes That Increase Your Value to Customers

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

In a commoditized market, why do customers choose to build enduring relationships with some suppliers? It’s all about the strategic value you produce for them.

Customers cite 3 attributes that increase your value:
1. Reliability

Customers expect you to keep your promises–it’s the price of admission into the relationship. If your team makes it easy to do business, perhaps delivering exceptional service as well, then your value is increased. What drives value even higher is learning about a customer’s business so you can anticipate needs and solve emerging problems. Treat them as you want to be treated, with personal attention that communicates your respect for the business they share with you.

2. Generosity

Generosity is the genesis of trust. Learn your customers’ stories and aspirations. Then share ideas, trends and suggestions that can accelerate their progress, without expectation of an immediate sale. Your openness and generosity will further reinforce your value to them.

3. Vulnerability
Personal interactions are the glue that bonds relationships – people want to buy from people. When your people share their stories and personal insights, their vulnerability is revealed, making it easier for a customer to recognize authenticity and build trust. Asking about a customer’s interests or family, or discussing a shared experience, […]

By Bob Schultek|June 13th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Powerful Moments of Connection

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Last weekend, a few of my closest friends and I gathered to share memories, stories and laughter at our college reunion. Each of us wandered off at times to reflect on our personal journey during those years, but by far, the most rewarding, enjoyable moments occurred when we were together, reconnecting with the experiences that created our bond.

In addition to being the essence of a meaningful lifetime, enduring relationships are the lifeblood of a sustainable business. Customer relationships grow stronger and more intimate when we join their pursuit of success, when our caring about their business is evident in the openness and responsiveness of our people who support their progress.

Enduring, intimate customer relationships are built one moment at a time, powerful moments of connection. These are moments during challenging situations when our people act to deliver more than expected, helping our customers make a difference for their customers. They are moments when we discover what our customer values, revealing how well their organization’s purpose aligns with ours. They are moments when two organizations share a struggle, and in the process, create a memorable bonding experience.
How do your key customers make a difference in their market?

How can your people deliver […]

By Doreen Tusick|June 6th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Prioritizing Opportunities

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Promptly and efficiently evaluating multiple business opportunities can accelerate your reaction to them; move too slowly and the best opportunities may vanish.

Ask these three questions for each opportunity to prioritize the alternatives by potential strategic value produced for your business:

What quantifiable benefits are produced if the opportunity is successfully exploited?
How soon will these benefits be realized?
How likely will identified obstacles be quickly overcome?

This prioritization will enable you to invest precious resources only on those opportunities that can drive growth, improve results and accelerate progress.

How promptly and efficiently does your organization assess opportunities?

How might these three questions accelerate your process and decision-making?

By Bob Schultek|May 30th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Creating Your Future

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

Balancing stability with the need for innovation is a key obligation for leaders. The sustainability of your business depends on finding a suitable equilibrium.

Stability pays the bills, relying on structure and standard procedures to boost productivity and ensure high quality that increases reliability and reduces risk. But another consequence of this conformity is the cultivation of bureaucracy that breeds fear of failure, compromising innovation and resulting in a drift towards mediocrity. The more there is to lose, the greater the pressure not to lose it.

On the opposite side of the scale, to accelerate progress and improve results, leaders are expected to drive innovation, not merely react to changes impacting their organization. If adapting to change is your focus, then you’re already behind and your sustainability may be uncertain. It’s innovation that accelerates progress and creates your future by resolving a challenge in your market or promoting your customers’ growth. And because innovation is a truly human endeavor, enabled more by your people’s investment of discretionary effort than by data or technology, its success relies on your ability to influence and inspire.

The future is yours to create, don’t let it just happen to you. Redefine fear of failure to balance the benefits […]

By Bob Schultek|May 22nd, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments

Growth Is About Progress

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

You may believe that your business is not changing but is that true for your customers? How do you know? How will changes they are experiencing impact your business?

Contributing to a customer’s growth is the most sustainable means of building enduring relationships that help your business thrive. Growth is about progress, and progress requires navigating change to succeed now and in the future. Change cultivates innovation, which then enables progress.

According to Clayton Christensen’s book, “Competing Against Luck,” customers define innovation as “a new offering that resolves a challenge and fulfills an aspiration.”

How are benefits generated by your products or services resolving a key customer’s challenge and fulfilling an aspiration? How are you helping a customer progress? How are your offerings stimulating your customer’s growth? How are they strengthening your customer’s competitive advantage?

Answering these questions requires that you discover why customers choose your offerings to help them progress. What goals are you helping them achieve? What jobs are they “hiring” your products or services to do?

In his book, Mr. Christensen describes how this “Jobs to be Done” concept can accelerate a customer’s progress, and boost your growth. Understanding what job a key customer hires your product or service to accomplish strengthens your knowledge about your customer’s strategies and […]

By Bob Schultek|May 15th, 2018|Grolistic|0 Comments

Speaking to Persuade

Bob Schultek
Author of
The Gauntlet

It requires empathy to convince someone that your stance on an issue is worthy.

We tend to communicate messages the way we like to hear them, without realizing how our listener might hear them. As a result, messages are often not understood as intended.

Asking the other person to explain first, and listening for how they try to persuade you, provides clues about how they interpret what they hear from you. Then, you can adapt how you describe your position to match their communication style

Arguments based on concepts like tradition, fairness or relationships will not be heard as intended by those who prefer to communicate on the basis of science, analysis or studies. Folks who prefer to get directly to the point do not fully hear arguments that hope to lead them to some conclusion.

Communicate your message in a way that ensures that the listener will hear you.
How often do you strive to be first in presenting your position?

How strong are your active listening skills?

By Doreen Tusick|May 8th, 2018|Grolistic, Growth & Leadership Insights|0 Comments