"...keeping
you great"
HEADLINES:
Seven
Strata of Strategy -- the framework for my
next book, here's a link
to my latest 750 word "Growth Guy" column outlining the Seven Strata
of Strategy -- my latest attempt at a unified theory of strategy.
BuildDirect.com, featured in the article, will be my live case study on stage
at the Fortune Growth Summit in
Orlando. Please take 3 minutes and see if the framework is helpful to you.
Yahoo! As A (Bad)
Example -- Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, is quoted in a Fortune article yesterday
describing Yahoo!'s strategy:
"Yahoo is a company
that is very strong in content," she said this past May."It's
moving towards the web of one. We have 32,000 variations on our front page
module. We serve a million of those a day. It's all customized. Our
click-through rate went up twice since we started customizing this. People come
to check the things they like. 'You can just get it together.' Yahoo is one
site people always stop at."
OK,
that was clear as mud!! Take another four minutes and read Fortune's September 30
article on Yahoo! -- and read how her Chief Product Officer, Blake Irving,
describes Yahoo!'s strategy.
Executing a Mess -- therefore,
unless you get your strategy nailed, you risk maximizing the next three to five
years. In fact, you risk executing a mess, resulting in a lot of wasted time
and effort. Tale of two companies I met this past month: One, that has nailed
its Seven Strata, will see revenue go from €30 million (up from €15 million
last year) to almost €60 next year. The other, which hasn't, will continue to
limp along until they do.
WebMD -- one of my
favorite strategists, ex-McKinsey guru Kaihan Krippendorf (author of Art of the Advantage), also produces my
favorite weekly strategy newsletter. His latest newsletter/blog
post is about WebMD and how they've outperformed Google the past five years
in terms of stock appreciation. In each newsletter, he interviews a top CEO and
extracts their strategic lessons -- in this case, three strategies Wayne T.
Gattinella,WebMD's CEO, used to make them one of the best performing tech
companies in the world.
It's Okay to Run Away -- this is
Gattinella's Lesson #1 -- it's about stripping everything out of the company
that isn't core and focusing on one strategy. Kaihan will share the next two
lessons over the coming weeks. Take five minutes to read his latest newsletter
on WebMD and then sign-up (delivered by email) at http://www.kaihan.net/index.html.
Two New One-Page Tools -- BTW, I talked
with Kaihan last night and asked him to fly down to the Fortune Growth Summit
to lend me a hand onstage as I walk you through our two new One-Page tools --
one designed around the Seven Strata of Strategy and the other designed to help
you focus on your core processes. And he'll be around to discuss strategy with
those that want to talk shop.
6 Myths -- Still Need
Stories for Latest Fortune Column -- OK, this is
column #5 for the year (thanks for the cash ideas -- that column will feature
four of you). Email me immediately (vharnish@gazelles.com)
if you've recently experienced any of the following, what I call the 6 Myths of
Growing a Business:
1. My margins will improve as my company gets bigger (normally the opposite happens -- so, did your margins shrink as you grew?).
2. The folks running the big companies are smarter than us (truth, they are not -- your firms can easily beat the big guys)
3. The company founder has got to go sooner or later, because the company is going to outgrow them (wrong, the Hidden Champion founders lasted 25 plus years).
4. As CEO, you know what's going on in your business better than anyone else (you're really the last to know what's going on -- any examples of being the last to know?).
5. Grow or die. (sometimes it's better not to grow -- remaining a "small giant" as Bo Burlingham suggests in his book by the same name)
6. Be a self-help junkie (actually, self-help is an oxymoron -- you can't help yourself -- the best business leaders have lots of advisors, consultants, coaches)