Schlagwortarchiv für: Growth

Crisis? What Crisis?

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We are currently in London for our consultants meeting where we are working on internal development and on ways how to further improve our clients’s conditions. We are staying at The Stafford, an excellent boutique hotel in the heart of the city, St. James Place. The hotel is well booked and the people are friendly – as they always are.

Having had dinner the other day at Scott’s in Mayfair and today at Les Trois Garcons at the East End made us think about „the crisis“ and „the recession.“ What crisis? The restaurants are full of guests, on a Monday evening as well as on a Tuesday evening and we had quite a lot of traffic within London on our ways back to the hotel, around 11 PM so that it took us more than half an hour to get back to the hotel from the East End.

There is money available and there are people who are willing to spend this money. What we advise our clients is to offer products and services that are attractive enough for customers and not products and services that have been offered for years. Innovation is a key to growth, if not THE key to growth.

Don’t let people tell you there is a crisis. Show them the real attractive restaurants, shops, outlets, service providers. People are spending their money there.

Do you also belong to the group of the winners who are asking „Crisis? What crisis?“

Yours,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH

The „Pick-One-Philosophy“

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I know a lot of people who have tons of ideas how to improve their business. C-level executives, general managers, managing directors, business owners, all of our clients have in common that they don’t complain about a lack of good ideas. In fact, they have more ideas than they have arms to execute.

The trouble is, that success isn’t just about having good ideas. Success is about taking action. Success is about implementing. Strategies never fail in the conceptual phase. When strategies fail, they always fail in the implementation phase.

Ideas are intangible. The first step to success is to make ideas more tangible by writing them down. It is not important if you have an „idea booklet,“ if you have a file on your computer or if you have a box where you can collect all your notes with good ideas. The most important thing is to make them tangible by writing down what the idea is about.

People often ask me how they can deal with the remarkable number of ideas they collected over the time. My answer is always the same: „Pick one and play with it.“ That’s what I call „The Pick-One-Philosophy.“ Assuming that your ideas to improve your business, to grow profitably, are very important and that you just collected ideas of a certain caliber, it doesn’t matter which one you pick.

The time that you need to decide whether or not to follow-up on a particular idea can be used more effectively by thinking about this idea more intensively. You will soon figure out if it is a really good idea that has the potential to boost your business or if it is „Just an idea.“ If it is a good one, get your people at the table to make an execution plan. If the idea doesn’t seem to be good enough, pick another one.

The only thing you need to do: Pick one. Now.

Best,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Consulting Group (Mandat Managementberatung GmbH)

Good News, Bad News – Language Makes The Difference

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I was boarding a US domestic JetBlue flight from West Palm Beach to New York and there was already an announcement at the gate long before boarding that the entertainment system will not work during the flight due to a technical problem – nothing I consider to be a real issue, especially not on a two hours flight.

Apparently this must be an issue for some passengers, because the crew mentioned this again when everybody was seated. Now, how could the leading stewardess could have said this? Here’s an example: “Ladies and gentlemen, our entertainment system doesn’t work today due to a technical problem. We apologize for any inconvenience.” Message delivered. Period.

The JetBlue language was different: “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please. I have good news and bad news for you. First the bad news: Our entertainment system doesn’t work today due to a technical problem. Now the good news: You have more time to talk to the person sitting next to you which is special, because we tend to do this not too often any more. And I’ll be with you; we will go through this together.“ Everyone laughed. Moreover a $15 refund was offered that was automatically sent via email as a rebate on future flights.

The leading stewardess built on this when we landed in New York: “Welcome to New York, we hope you had a pleasant flight and everyone has made a new friend today.” Again: Laughter.

Wasn’t that great language? What do YOU do in YOUR company to encourage your employees to use language that is friendly, customer oriented and still to the point?

Sometimes we can learn just by listening to other’s best practices.

Yours,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH

Differentiation – People Do Matter

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Too often we hear that people don’t matter, but that the „system“ does matter in order to let a company successfully growing.

Wrong. People DO matter. Actually, given the fact that services, processes and even whole systems can be copied – some of them at the speed of light -, people are a critical aspect of differentiation.

I am currently staying at The Breakers at West Palm Beach having a workshop together with colleagues from the US, Canada, and Australia. Coming back to my room after the session I had a voice message at my room phone. It was the concierge who already left a written message at my arrival. She told me that she is happy to have my staying at The Breakers and that she is looking forward to anything she could arrange for me during my stay.

Even if I am not able to take her up on her offer, because these are really intense days and I probably don’t have time to enjoy the Spa, I don’t play golf, and I don’t need to take care of dinner arrangements, this is a polite offer. The concierge left her personal phone number which I can use within the whole hotel area.

What the concierge did was little: She just invested two minutes of her time, but the effect is large. She even didn’t need to call me, because I know where the concierge’s desk is in the lobby. But as a guest I feel like being recognized and invited to really take her up on her offer to be of help. And I would do this, of course, as I always do.

Hotels are often complaining about a highly competitive market. You know what? It is so easy to stand out from the crowd. Just hire the right people who are passionate about what they are doing and who are not just there to get a paycheck every month.

Simple as that.

Have a great day, I’ll now go out to the beach.

Yours,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH

“Because we love our job“ – A Matter of Leadership

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I’m writing this on my way to New York, 30,000 ft over the ground in the first class of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747. Singapore Airlines is one of the world’s best airlines and certainly the best one I used. The key success factor? … (drumrolls, please) … The people at the ground and the crew.

I asked the leading stewardess how she and her crew can be so friendly, calm, and polite all day (and in fact every time I flew with Singapore), delivering this extraordinary service. She said „I think the training was good.“ We laughed and she added: „It’s passion. We all love our job.“

So, here we go again: It’s not about external motivation, not about walking over hot coals. It’s about loving your job and having competent, enthusiastic leaders who are willing and able to inspire their employees, helping them to live to the core values of the company and make a vision reality. Leadership is a craft.

What are your experiences with enthusiastic employees? Where does the enthusiasm come from?

Best,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH

Wachstumsprojekte: „Early Warning Signals in Projects“

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A colleague from the US recently asked me for some „… early warning signals that a project is going astray or not delivering on its promise …“
Here’s my answer:

Early warning signals

You need to seriously review the setting of your growth project or to reconsider the project at all if you recognize one or more of the following aspects:

– People are not showing up at the reviews
– Reviews are not implemented or don’t happen on a regular basis
– People are complaining about the project
– Project manager is always asking project sponsor for permission
– People ask their bosses „do you want me to do my job and reach my goals or do you want me to take part in the project?“
– The formal hierarchy trumps the project organization
– Ambitious goals are smoothened
– Over-ambitious goals
– Too many controllers (or no controllers) in the team
– Frequent team changes

You get the idea …

Best,
Guido Quelle

(c) 2011, Prof. Dr. Guido Quelle, Mandat Managementberatung GmbH, All rights reserved.