Your strategy really does need to contemplate WAR

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Where does true value add come in to your business or professional strategy?

Geoff Wilson

Hedge fund and other investment managers call it alpha. That’s the value a particular investment or configuration of investments creates after you strip away all the risk taken by making the investment.

Baseball statisticians call it WAR, or “Wins Above Replacement.” That’s the number of wins a particular player theoretically accounts for by being on the field instead of a backup player.

Any old general manager might simply call it value add.  That’s the very tired but still useful term for what’s added to a product or service that a customer actually wants.

Choices, choices

Your business strategy is about choices.  In running your business or building your career, you are going to make two very important choices.

One is about where to play.  That’s about what kinds of customers to serve, what segments to specialize in, or what company to work for.

The other is about how to win.  That’s about what value proposition you are going to offer the world.  This is true for you as an individual or for your company.

But, here’s the rub:  In thinking about these choices, what you really ought to be thinking about his how to create alpha…or WAR…or value add.

In other words, the question on your mind when creating strategy is one of how to create excess risk-adjusted value in the eyes of your customer. The fundamental question should be about how you create wins for your customer above that customer’s next best alternative.  After all, the only thing sustainable (at least in the private sector) is to create excess value for customers.

The test

A good test of this that you can practice right now is to think about a current client, boss, or other customer relationship.  Take a recent case, and ask yourself: Were you a differentiating partner, or were you along for the ride?  Did you “sell” to the customer, or did you really “add value?”  The proof is in how you answer that question. Usually a positive answer comes with some kind of phrasing like “they would have had a very hard time finding a partner who could have accomplished X in that particular case…and we (or I) did that.”

That’s a “Win Above Replacement.”

That’s WAR.

That’s value add in the moment.

So what?

So many businesses have client or customer case histories that read like a “who’s who” mashed up with Good to Great and In Search of Excellence.  But when you dig into the details, the business itself was a bit player. They perhaps have some reflected glory from a project or get tremendous cachet from merely referencing a huge brand name on their customer list; but the huge brand name might say “who?”

Don’t let your business be a “who?”

Don’t just be “there.” Be alpha.  Be WAR.  Be value.

What do you think?  How do you employ a WAR mindset?

 

Are you a micromanager? Oh, I hope so…sometimes

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Micromanagement is a bad thing…until it’s not.

Geoff Wilson

Micromanagement has a really bad reputation.  But, is it deserved?

The term conjures mental images of a manager standing over the shoulder of a subordinate, hand on the subordinate’s mouse, clicking on a graphic to put it in the right place NOW.  Or, you imagine a manager who constantly lays out task lists and methods of doing the tasks for every member of the team.  Or, you see the manager who questions every decision of his subordinates. Why did  you spend $15.09 on pens last month?

Micromanagement as a term elicits the image of a bad manager.  And while that reputation is in some ways well earned, I think that the truth of the matter is that “micromanagement” can actually be a smear used by frustrated subordinates against managers who actually care.

Here’s why:

A great manager understands the needs of her people.  I’ve used the skill / will matrix in the past, with its management imperatives.  It gives a good indication how to handle different employee skill and will (that is, drive or energy) profiles. Here it is.

See that lower left quadrant that says “direct” for low skill, low will people?  That’s the “micromanage” quadrant.  In other words, whatever you call it, a good manager knows when it’s time to lock in and direct, micromanage, task, or otherwise be all-up-in-the-grill of a subordinate who is either (1) untrusted or (2) not up to an existing, critical task.

Anecdotally, I have seen far more trouble conjured up by managers who didn’t know how to lock in on task when the time comes.  So-called players’ coaches are great when it comes to ensuring “happiness,” but it’s the rare players’ coach who can be a players’ coach with every player and still be successful.

This post comes from the question of a colleague on my own style of management…and whether I’m a micromanager.  The only answer I could dig up was “not generally, but specifically, possibly, yes.”  I’m a big believer in allowing talented people to run and only adjusting course.  I’m also a believer in being very specific with inexperienced people.  Where the pain comes in is when a “talented” or “experienced” person gets a lot of rope and tangles himself with it, and I follow up with a whopping dollop of micromanagement.  That hurts, because it’s a clear signal that the person wasn’t up to the task, and I was asleep at the switch.

In other words, you may dislike micromanagement, but it’s a pretty darned good indication of how your talent is regarded and how much trust you have from your manager.  Before smearing your manager with the term, consider whether your manager is simply a mission-oriented manager who had  to micromanage you.

What do you think?  Is “micromanager” a justifiable epithet or simply another management hat of an effective leader?

Two ways to grow in the new year

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If you want to grow this year, do these two things.

I confess, this entire new year thing has gotten ahead of me this year.  I thought it was December and now it’s January.

The new year comes with a sense of renewal.  It comes with a sense of burying all that was “bad” last year and focusing on what we want to succeed at this year.  Only, I think that for most of us that is a totally broken approach to growth–whether growing a business or growing a career or growing a skill-set.  We tend to set resolutions that we know we will break. We stretch only to settle back into our old habits before long.

So what is a person to do in order to win in 2018 (which is right now)?

I’ll offer two things that work for me, and that I think can work for most any executive out there.

First:  Focus on the strengths that you can deploy today.  Sure, sure…you know how to find your strengths. You probably have a winning smile and a wonderful personality, but what if nobody is looking or listening?  You have a problem.  You have the same problem if you have a great product in the pipeline that won’t get out until Q3.  It doesn’t matter that you have the perfect strength “coming.”  What you do with what you have today is what matters. So, focus on what you can do…right now.

Second:  Listen to your weaknesses. This is extremely hard for most executives to do–especially those who have mastered the spin of their “greatest weakness” being simply a strength in disguise (you know the ones: they always have an answer for how their weakness isn’t really a weakness). Like it or not, most executives (not you, but people you know) got where they are by sidestepping their weaknesses, not by confronting them head on.  I’m not saying “shore up your weaknesses,” I’m saying listen to them.  Find ways to grow from what you learn about your weak supply chain, or your weak sales force, or your (personally) weak communication skills.

Building on your deployable strengths and learning from your present weaknesses might just be your recipe for “better” this year…which means better right now.

Just to show that none of this is new (you didn’t really think it was, anyway), I’ll leave you with a fantastic lyric that implores you to focus on these two objectives. It’s a piece of the song Anthem by the late Leonard Cohen.  Take a moment to read it:

Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack, a crack in everything.

That’s how the light gets in.

As you blast into this year, think about the bells you can still ring–now. Forget about the perfect strength–focus on what you have today. And, perhaps most importantly, find the light that comes through the cracks in your armor by listening to your weaknesses.

That’s how the light gets in.

Happy new year!