Top 10 Managers You Don’t Want to Be Like.

Hey, You Wanna Work for Me?

See this guy?  He was a manger of a fairly big operation.  Quite successful too (if you judge success on cajoling people into coughing up their dough and making shady deals… which some of you might).

The problem with his management style was the “success at all costs to everyone else” approach, which ultimately and ironically cost him everything.

Two questions every manager ought to consistently ask themselves:

1.       What is my motivation for doing what I’m about to do?

2.       What might the consequences be on everyone around me, and then back on myself?

I know, you think that you are no different than Al Capone.  But doing business with people has taught me that time and time again, we let the ends justify the means.

And when people get into tight situations, they tend to move towards short-term actions that save the career, the reputation, the finances, etc.

This is why we keep saying that clear purpose and values in organizations are so important. They give members a handrail to grab onto when decision-making gets stressed. They provide clarity where there may not otherwise be such.  They also provide a handrail for those moments when nobody is looking. They’ll never replace personal character, but they sure can help a soul with good intentions.

What this Means to You:

For managers of front-line staff, beware of shutting down contributions, imposing policies and constraining action in favor of maintaining your own semblance of control (i.e. satisfying your own internal needs and validations, making yourself look-good at the expense of organizational purpose, etc.).

For senior managers at the strategic apex, be careful of making the entire organization work for your personal gain (i.e. serving yourself at the expense of the entire organization. Think Enron, not just Capone).  Avoid the assumption that those below you are of less capacity or lower social structure.

If you are not careful, you will find yourself bereaved of organization and influence, and left with your head in your hands.  Let’s just hope it’s still attached to your neck.

So, here’s the list of the Top 10 Managers You Don’t Want to Be like.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

3 Simple Steps to a Prosperous Business

I read a great post by Steve Woodruff about businesses that get lost in the crowd.  It’s tongue-in-cheek, funny and sadly accurate. Here is my response:

Steve, great points. I think you nailed it. But you and I both know that for the myriads of businesses that fall underneath this sad banner that you have so simply illustrated, it’s not that simple.  Why?

Why is it that even though we know we should practice “opposite day” to everything you’ve mentioned, we still fall short?  What’s missing?  What’s the secret sauce?  What do I need to know?  Tell me! Ahhhhh! (read screaming, fingers in hair and running away while wiggling the elbows).

Too many businesses set “money” as their number one goal, and since there are so many ways to make money, it’s not enough to provide clear direction for management, decision-making and especially branding.  They need to rethink the core of the organization.  For the majority of small businesses in the United States, that means the core character or identity of the individual business owner.  For large firms, it’s the “Holy We” management team that serves as the core group of the organization.

Organizations that have lost sight of “who they are” cannot articulate their unique contribution to the world, let alone the target market.  Branding becomes a logo, sales fall into the price/promotion cycle, any business is good business and before they know it, they are commoditized and done.  In standing for everything, they have stood for nothing and become what they stood for.

The fact is: Many organizations fail. Most businesses that start in the U.S. fail. Many other types of organizations eventually fall out of favor with their members and are thus disbanded.  How do we find and keep our identity while prospering as a business or other organization?  Here are three thoughts:

1. Don’t let your product or service become your purpose. All great organizations have a purpose (and making money isn’t it).  Since a brand is a reflection of who you are and the relationships you have with stakeholders, GET CLEAR ON WHO YOU ARE and then figure out the products and services necessary to sustain it.  Don’t let the products define the organization.

2. Make everyone a brand manager.  That “who you are” determines the direction of your organization’s brand. Hiring people who ”don’t get what you’re about” only sets you up to have your products, and your brand, prostituted at the moment someone starts looking out for numero uno (themselves). Help people feel responsible for the brand and they will defend it from desperate decisions.

3. Don’t sell anything.  A “Man (person) convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”.  Chasing the ambulance and pushing product will get some sales, but it’s not going to build long-term, sustainable revenue generation.  In the information-rich and advocacy-intensive social networks that permeate today’s purchasing processes, the best thing you can do is build strong relationships. 

Do these three things and the relationships you build will reflect the brand you want and the products will sell themselves.

Remembering What Marketing is All About

I hope, for most us, that we’ve known what marketing has really been about all these years.  I’ve thrown this Drucker quote around enough and still, I have found too many marketers (a general term, I know) in big corporations who are bent on the creative, promotional side, cutting off their real efforts at the launch of a campaign, like building a ship and simply pushing it out to sea, leaving it to the mercy of the wind and waves.  Marketing isn’t about design, creative, advertising, etc. Marketing IS the business, and the business must generate revenue.

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker

It seems that small business marketers often get it better than big business marketers.  Let’s take the typical online marketer, for instance.  In the big corporation, the online marketer is optimizing pages, tagging code and doing site research.  They are tracking visitors and clicks and collecting all sorts of information.  The small business online marketer is tracking sales.  That’s the difference.  We’ve let marketing grow to be such a creative outlet, that creative activity has become the end, and its grown and grown, spiraling away from accountability and away from tracking what matters most: sales.

Technology is changing that.  Between marketing analytics programs like Omniture and Unica, we can now entertain ourselves with all sorts of metrics, etc. And with marketing automation systems like Silverpop B2B Engage, Marketo and Eloqua, we can track activities into the funnel.  We can now, more easily than ever, measure the results of a marketing activity from launch, all the way into the funnel and win/loss.

The chasm is closing between sales and marketing.  Technology is moving us marketers closer and closer back to direct accountability for revenue generation.  The only thing holding us back is ourselves, as “marketers”. I think we ought to change the term. I think we ought to call ourselves “Revenue Generators”.

I had a good talk with a friend about some of their marketing practices at their high-end management consulting firm.  I noticed that their site, approach and positioning had changed several times over the last year, and each time it became less clear and less open.  He told me that they had let their original marketing director go last year, and that’s why it changed. When I asked why they let him go, his answer was a simple, and striking, tell-tale of the landscape that we marketers venture today:

“He didn’t tie himself to sales, so the Principals couldn’t see how all the great things he was doing was impacting the business.”

And that, is that.