Results tagged “advantage-maker” from stevenfeinberg.com

Some advantages are created organically, while others are by design.

During President Obama's State of the Union (SOTU), I suggest you pay attention with a different lens. Evaluate his message through the vantage point of an Advantage-Maker. This is not a political partisan rating but an independent view of the state of his advantage-making. Rate President Obama's Shift IQ.

Advantage-Makers are strategic shifters. They interact with the world differently. In the face of constraints they consistently create superior outcomes. Their task is to shift the odds in our favor. This capacity to strategically shift is the hallmark of Advantage-Makers and advantage-making. To deal with constraints advantage-makers have high Shift IQ's (SQ).

Second, Promotion influence: tapping naturally occurring ‘decision triggers’ motivate customers to buy now, not later. One easy shift, based upon seeing what was missing, produced an immediate 45% increase in sales. This had been overlooked in plain sight.

Third, Program influence: manage customer touch-points so that each “influence-ready moment” builds upon the last.  This applies to your in-store merchandising, sampling programs, etc. One specific campaign we ran achieved a 33% response rate when the industry standard was only 3%. This was to C level executives in New York City's Financial District, one month after 9/11 when no one was supposed to be buying. Kind of like now. We questioned the business as usual mode and applied simple, easy, fast influence levers. 

Obama's speech was not soaring rhetoric, rather it had a more profound, game changing message. 

The Advantage-Makers has advanced into a new sphere of influence. Homeland Security. 

Is your boss hungry? If your job is on the line you must make the decision makers hungry. What do hungry people do? They eat. Dinner is served. And you better be serving something they want or you will be sent back or in these times, sent packing.

For Star Trek fans, the analogy is to be Scotty, the Enterprise spaceships’ chief engineer. Whenever the ship was about to blow up, Captain Kirk would ask for, "More shields (or power), Scotty." 

Scotty’s reply was never ‘no problem.’  Rather, 

Scotty would say, “I dunnot (Scottish accent) know if I can do it Captain.”

Captain Kirk: "We need this up in 10 minutes."

Scotty: "It will take at least 30 minutes."

Next scene we see, the ship is saved, once again. Scotty is a hero and lives (keeps his job) for another day.

Just a movie and TV show? Of course, but survivors make themselves indispensable. When your boss discusses issues this is not the time to say ‘no problem’. That may sound strange since most advice would be to think you should say, “Yes, sir/ma’am.” You certainly don’t want to alienate anyone, but your contribution should be positioned as key to the survival of the organization, now and in the future. You must make them hungry (without being obnoxious or foolish) and you are the only one who can feed them. If it really is no problem you are expendable sooner rather than later.

To make them hungry, you must now be adaptable, you must be the one who allays their fears of failure.

Your Advantage-Maker skills must be exercised and refined.

Shift time to produce urgency for your contribution.

Shift interaction to change the game from your need to the company’s need.

Shift perception to take on a winning mindset and influence perceptions to see you as the go to player who can multiply your value to the company.

Shift structure to shape behavior, reducing wasteful inefficiency and cumbersome conflict, this will align and advance the organization for speed, simplicity and ease.

Your talent and contribution matter. Don't forget about quenching their thirst and giving them a dessert as well. Anyone who doesn't think that people aren't spending on sweets in the recession hasn't looked at how waistlines grow in times of stress.

I wonder if you are hungry for knowing how to influence your boss, if so that should confirm that creating desire is most important for you to learn now.

If you are a college student preparing for the real world what do you do when you encounter boulders in your life?

Once upon a time there was a king who placed a huge boulder in a roadway. The King hid and watched to see how people acted. Most avoided it, some blamed the King for not taking care of the roads, but none tried to get rid of the boulder.

Until a young shepherd came along with his oxen. The young peasant saw the boulder, laid down his pack and figured out how to move the boulder off the road. After much pushing and leveraging his oxen, he succeeded.  And then, under the boulder he found a purse with gold and a note from the King saying the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the road.

We all have boulders, what do we do when we are up against a rock.  Here are 5 ways to prepare yourself to create advantages, enabling you to deal with your boulders in college and looking for and finding jobs.

The 5 factors of advantage making

1) Find a horse to ride that is profitable.

Now is the time to create the future by finding a horse to ride. You have a dream, find a horse that will help you live your dream. Trout wrote a book about finding a horse to ride for your career. It could be an idea but that's a big challenge, if you have it, go for it. It could be a specific business or industry, perhaps tech or international business, or it could be an industry that will do fine during the recession. If you have professional interests and a career make sure you pick a horse that can go the distance. In a recession cash is king, so finding a horse to ride will get you to your destination. You don’t have to find one horse for you entire life. Pick one and ride.

2) Adaptability. Shift.

You must be able to shift your behavior. The people who succeed are the fastest and best adapters. The worse thing that could happen is if you are successful in your first set of interactions. Why? Because you will become overconfident, and it will be a false confidence. You will think you know what you are doing, and the likelihood is that you have only a partial understanding, but you were good enough and lucky enough this time to make it work.  Your adaptability should be based upon thinking your don’t know, rather than your certainty that you do. Therefore use doubt to your advantage rather than certainty to your disadvantage. Persisting in what doesn’t work thinking it does will get your fired.

3) Influence. Yes.

Whatever your field, if you want people to say yes to your request you need to be able to influence them. And no matter how much you think people will be reasonable, they make their decisions emotionally. Think about times when you spent money on something you couldn’t quite afford. Why? Because it made you feel good. Unless you are the brightest person in the room, and even if you are, if you can’t persuade people to your way of seeing things you may continue to be the brightest person in the room, only you’ll be all by yourself. Hard to make a living, even over the internet that way.

4) Networking. Connections count.

Yes it is who you know, your connections that will get you in a position for that first interview you actually want. There is an old saying, “Build your well, before you need the water.” Its better to build your connections over time and cherish those connections. Your college friendships are worth more than future jobs, they are a wealth of memories that you will cherish always, especially the one’s that you will laugh about, and are glad are way in your past. So be the first to help others. When I see a little old lady cross a street I’m the first to offer her a hand if she wants it. My thought is someone is doing the same for my family members. We are in this together.  Help someone. Doors will open you didn’t think possible. Recall the 6 degrees of separation. It’s not just an interesting idea.  Your connections and your network are more valuable than anyone can realize.  Help your friends and their parents will appreciate you. And when you need it most there will be hands to help you across the river. Ask yourself, how does this person feel about themselves in my presence? Not do they like you, but do they feel they can do their best, be their best, do what is most meaningful. If you can do that for people you will have a rich deep connection and network.

5) Leverage.  Be an Advantage Maker

Act as if you can create advantages for yourself and others. Look for leverage. Take on a job and do it better than anyone expected. Use your creativity and people will notice. Market your ability to create advantages, people will want to know what and how. Develop your ability to shift your perspectives. Shifting time creates possibilities. TIVO is a product that shifts time, watch it when you want to. Knowing how to shift time to create urgency is most marketers specialty. Shifting interactions changes the game. Managing your interactions will determine how fast you move up the ladder. Facebook and MySpace are services that shift interactions. Shifting perceptions influences outcomes. You can’t be a leader unless you can influence perceptions. L’oreal perfume, ‘expensive but worth it’, is a product that influences the perception of women across the land. Shifting structure changes behavior. The internet shifted the structure of business online. Be an advantage maker now.

These five factors are what the most effective leaders use. Now its your turn to 1) find a horse to ride that is profitable, 2) expand your adaptability 3) Influence others 4) build a network and 5) create advantages through leverage. These skills will travel with you not only in the remainder of your classes but also in your job search and interviews. They may not teach you in school, but this is what works in life. As you live these 5 advantage making actions, putting them into practice, doors will open you didn’t think imaginable.

We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.   The Talmud

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, was old and ugly and fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain. He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. 

Cost savings is sound business. We shouldn't argue that point. But executive cost cutting may be going overboard and it may not be their fault.

In these recessionary times there are leaders who always meet their numbers, do more with less, and despite this crazy economy are able to compete and come out on top. There are a few key reasons why the big winners are consistently successful, and its worth knowing how the big winners do it.

I've been studying these people, Advantage-Makers, for decades, and have figured out that they do it by asking a few simple questions that no one else asks.  I’ve began the discussion of questions in the previous blog, let’s take it another step forward.

The first question for Advantage-Makers is that they question the givens.

For example, FedEx CEO Fred Smith's, hub and spoke system questioned the routine of how packages should be transported. How did he think that sending packages in the middle of the night to Tennessee and then distributing to the rest of the country would work? It earned him a "C" grade in his graduate school class. The professor never consulted for him. But FedEx is guaranteed overnight delivery and as we know a huge success.

Any of you play golf? Jack Nicklaus, renown golf legend, was asked to design a golf course for the Caymen Islands. One catch. The Island is too small for standard golf courses. He didn’t ask golfers to change there swing, the given he questioned was the ball. He changed the ball so it wouldn’t travel as far. Just the opposite of what was expected. Maybe they just yell 2 when they hit it awry. Never the less, they play golf on the Caymen Islands.

Which brings us to the next question. George Prince, CEO of Synectics, an innovation firm, asked,  “What is the anomaly here?” That is, what is unexpected that seems to be pushing forth. This attention to what isn’t expected has earned the company millions and produced millions more for their clientele including many in the Fortune 500.

 A national Science foundation code breaker and scientist, asks,

“What am I not supposed to notice here?” As we talked at a restaurant he pointed to a series of ceiling chandeliers that were hanging above us. He described his thought process beginning with the notion, “What is attempting to distract my attention.” He pointed out that the chandeliers were attached about 30 feet above, and we weren’t supposed to notice how high the real ceiling was. Our attention was drawn to the light fixture and light, not the ceiling height. If most patrons had looked at the ceiling the restaurant would not have much clientele.

 My friend and colleague, George Silverman, Word-of-Mouth Marketer, asks, “What is obvious that is missing here?” It is his contention that in this information-overloaded marketplace, the product with the easiest decision path tends to win.  He works with companies to make their customers decisions easier.  His question, “What is obvious that is missing here?” leads him to systematically eliminate the most important bottlenecks and provide customers with exactly what they need when they need it.

My advantage-making question is, “How am I taking this ‘situation’ and making it what it could be? It drives counterintuitive solutions that have generated millions of dollars of profitability, created advantages that to others don’t even appear to exist and consistently enabled leaders and their teams to compete more effectively than others and gain credibility others lack. The key is to look for possibility, and shift your vantage point, rather than follow the expected procedure.

Other advantage-Makers have asked, “What is the real driving force, the leverage in this situation? By using this question the path of least resistance was found in a major negotiation that had been overlooked.

Once you ask the question you sort for answers, if you are doing it right the usual answers will be background while foreground will be the new unexpected solution. Just as Fred Smith’s hub and spoke delivery system and JacK Nicklaus’s golf ball for the Cayman Island sized golf course demonstrated. Real world unexpected advantages.

The difference between the managers who survive and those who fail is their ability to create advantages every day with employees, customers and vendors. 
60% of daily advantage opportunities are overlooked and missed by struggling managers, who, surprisingly, seldom ask, "What else should I do?", or "What am I missing". 


Are you providing the daily advantages to employees, customers and vendors that are that are hidden in plain sight? If not, you might want to start paying attention to both what is given, the anomalies and then questioning the givens.

Obama wins. Transforms the election process, and the country. Change has won.

Headwinds. That’s what you are up against. It stresses you and your people. It would be great if in the midst of all this chaos you could find a tailwind. 

Recessions are slippery ice. No one knew how to score better on ice than Wayne Gretsky. Arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretsky scored more goals, 894, than anyone else.

How did he do it? And how can he teach us to score on slippery ice?

Gretsky was an Advantage-Maker.

Fundamentally, Advantage-Makers interact with the world differently. In Gretsky’s words, instead of waiting, I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.

We should take Gretsky’s advice to heart. Shift into the short term future to score. In hockey a few seconds can make all the difference. Gretsky read the ice so well time seemed to slow down for him.

In my book, I make the point: There is no time like the present to create the future.

In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake devastated the city and its banking community. Bank of America, a small bank at the time, seized the advantage-making opportunity, continued making loans and went on to become one of the largest bank in the U.S.A.

You live in the real world of constraints. Limited resources and time. You must to do more with less, do it faster and better.

Are you skating to where the puck is going to be?

As one of the four levers for advantage-making, shifting time is the most fluid. 

You shift time to create possibilities. TIVO has shifted time on your television viewing. Walt Disney envisioned Disney World by imagining a future in Orlando, Florida, and then making it a reality.

You can identify your own time profile or time IQ:

The Now or Never folks need immediate reactions, but may press too hard, move too fast and miss opportunities that a little perspective may have landed.

The Eventual, Steady Eddy types who take their time and have a long time frame, they deliver results over time but they miss market changes and can’t adjust fast enough to opportunities.

The Same Old, Same Old, Past Oriented, let’s not break it if it works while the competition runs right by with innovations.

The Time Shifters who are able to adjust their time frame, they can take action now, be patient to grow organizations and companies, use what worked in the past but not get stuck in any one time frame. For Advantage-Makers there is no time like the present to create the future. 

What do most people think of their time shifting?

Most people think they are time-shifters but in fact when they get stuck or shoot themselves in their own foot its because they haven’t made the right time shift.

Now or Never tends to press to hard.

Steady Eddy delays when they should be pressing the point.

Same old, Same old doesn’t consider future changes.

You can use time shifting in your negotiations. By adjusting time frames you can help overcome resistant thinking. For example, if the customer says they can't buy today, have your customer imagine doing business with you in the future rather than right now. At that point they will be more open to considering your offer. And while its likely to be later, at least it is later, and you might get them to open up a new train of thought in the process.

Pay attention to the time horizon present in your thinking, then shift it and you will find solutions you hadn't thought of before.  

The Democratic Presidential race will have historical consequences. 

Advantage-makers spot opportunities in problems - and a recession can be a real problem. And there's the opportunity. Everyone wants their problems solved. 

Most people think about taking advantage of an opportunity, shift to focus on how you can take advantage of a problem. 

People became millionaires during the Great Depression.  And while I don’t know any personally, I don’t think they were all robber barons. Some businesses typically do fine, such as automobile and truck parts.

Be an Advantage-Maker inside your organization. You can either create the horse to ride or pick a winning horse. Your choice. Finding a horse to ride may be faster, simpler and easier at this time.

The first Advantage-Point: 

Adapt and Stretch - the person with the widest range of responses wins. Non-adaptiveness is costly. 

It's not the best who wins, its who is most adaptive

While most people are engaged in cutting and reducing, Advantage-Makers put their attention on creating more value.  Now is the time to distinguish yourself in the marketplace compared to the cut and reduce crowd.

Dr. Fleming discovered peninsulin when a pesty mold killed his bacteria culture. Not a good thing. Fleming made a dimensional shift in his thought process and saw the mold not as a problem but a solution to another problem - that of ridding unwanted bacteria. Solutions are waiting to be found in the recession. Shift your efforts to providing targeted advantages for your customers.  

A person with attention deficit disorder takes his malady - short attention cycles and becomes a master at disaster recovery – ever ready to multi-task and fix things rapidly. 

What solution is looking for the problem you face?

Money is on everyone's mind now. 

Use the code of the advantage maker: time, interactions, perceptions, structures. (T.I.P.S) with the two main problems people are concerned with: surviving and/or saving money. Focus on shifting one or a number of the T.I.P.S. and you may find your opportunity knocking.

For example, shift payments into the future, it will reduce resistance and accelerate sales. Speed is also a time shifting advantage. Taking too long will undermine your responsiveness to customers. Remember customers are really willing to leave now, applying the different shifts can create new value. 

During the recession efficiency becomes the catchword.

There is nothing more efficient than creating an advantage.

How do you categorize experiences?

Do you notice what is there or what is missing?

First, why does it matter?

1) A  technology manager accepted the vendors judgment that shutting down the data center was just like the time before.  This time the system crashed and results were  disastrous, millions of dollars lost.  They missed the small but significant difference.

2) A sales V.P. viewed all challenges as the same old, same old. He almost lost his job because the CEO didn't think he could develop new strategies. Fortunately, we identified and changed his tendency to categorize experience with what he already knew.

Second, do you sort for sameness or difference?

Do you always notice how things are similar to what you already know and do? What's the relationship between this job and the last?  Same or Different?

In other words do you look for matches for your current knowledge?

When a presenter is speaking do you find yourself agreeing with most of what they say? That's just like ...

or

In your thinking do you always find counter-examples.  Ways in which what the speaker is saying isn't accurate.

Are you noticing the mismatches?

The sameness sorting pattern looks for commonalities.

The difference sorting pattern notices what stands out from the rest of the group.
 
Another way to say this is that there is a tendency to either match with, or mismatch what is already there.

Advantage-makers are fluent in both matching and mismatching.

If you want to spot opportunity and create advantages it is useful to mismatch, that is, sort for differences.

Advantage-Makers walk into situations with their ability to actively sort for differences. They note weaknesses, threats, and problems, as well as opportunities that others aren’t seeing. Instead of seeing what is expected, they notice what is unexpected. They are able to spot anomalies and then take advantage of them. The point is not to get caught in any rut.

Practice noticing what is different.

In a task or negotiation, ask yourself,

1) What appears obvious, along with what am I not seeing?
2) In the unlikely event that a problem occurs what will we do?
3)  When you are stuck shift from sameness to mismatching, or from difference to matching.

You can spot opportunity but only if you notice difference. 

How do you categorize experiences? 

Do you notice what is there or what is missing?

First, Why does it matter?

1) A competent technology manager accepted the vendors judgment that shutting down the data center was just like in the past.  The system crashed and results were  disastrous, millions of dollars lost.  A small difference had a huge consequence. 

 

2) A sales V.P. viewed all challenges as the same old, same old. He almost lost his job because the CEO didn't think he could develop new strategies. Fortunately, we identified and changed his tendency to categorize experience with what he already knew.

 

Second, Do you sort for sameness or difference?

Do you notice how things are similar to what you already know and do? In other words do you look for matches for your current knowledge. 

When a presenter is speaking do you find yourself agreeing with most of what they say? That's just like ...

or

In your thinking do you notice counter-examples.  Ways in which what the speaker is saying isn't accurate.

Are you noticing the mismatches in the case. 

 

The sameness sorting pattern looks for commonalities.

The difference sorting
 pattern notices what stands out from the rest of the group. 

 

Another way to say this is that there is a tendency to either match with, or mismatch what is already there.

 

Advantage-makers are fluent in both matching and mismatching.

If you want to spot opportunity and create advantages it is useful to mismatch, that is, sort for differences.

Advantage-Makers walk into situations with their ability to actively sort for differences. They note weaknesses, threats, and problems, as well as opportunities that others aren’t seeing.

Instead of seeing what is expected, they notice what is unexpected. They are able to spot anomalies and then take advantage of them. The point is not to get caught in any rut. 

Practice noticing what is different.

In a task or negotiation, ask yourself,

1) What appears obvious, along with what am I not seeing?

2) In the unlikely event that a problem occurs what will we do? 

3)  When you are stuck shift from sameness to mismatching, or from difference to matching. 

 

You can spot opportunity but only if you notice difference.  

 

- Steven

Two shoe salespeople go a foreign country to sell their shoes.

The first shoe salesperson calls up headquarters and says,

“They don’t wear shoes here I’ll be on the next plane home.

The second shoe salesperson calls up headquarters and says,

“They don’t wear shoes here, send all you can!”


This story illustrates the difference between accepting the givens or taking advantage of the givens.  

One salesperson has a long tiresome plane ride home, the other salesperson spots opportunity.

Who would you want on your team? Which salesperson are you?

An Advantage-Maker’s judgment begins with questioning the givens.

Are you just going along with your circumstances?  

To be able to see solutions that others don’t even know exist you must first question the givens.

When it comes to creating advantages it pays to know what you are after.

The 'R' word. 

 I've been asked, "How do you define leadership?" a thousand times.

Do you know how to shift the odds in your favor in the best of times and the worst of times?

Imagine that you are a commander of a fortress under a daily siege for six months, your supplies are down to two bags of grain and one cow. You have no way to communicate to the outside world for help.  What would you do?

 Expecting to hear the expected – ration as best you can, you can empathize with the quartermaster’s surprise and shock when told to stuff the cow with grain, and catapult it over the wall during the next attack.

What would you think of this bovine assault if you were on the receiving end? The field officer interpreted the counter attack as an act of disdain and defiance.  There must be plenty of supplies - since the cow was well fed...

The result? Fearing a long, drawn-out battle, the enemy ordered an immediate retreat, ending the conflict.

As the leader, would you have been able to shift the odds in your favor under the duress of battle?  More importantly does this have any application to 21st century leadership?

That's the subject of my book, The Advantage-Makers: How Exceptional Leaders Win by Creating Opportunities Others Don't. It's also the subject of this blog.



Advantage-Makers see things differently.

Military analogies have their uses and limitations when it comes to business. What matters here is the illustration of changing the game.

The Advantage Maker Strategy is a radical new tool that changes the game by helping you see what your competitors do not, and act on these insights to gain and sustain the leadership position in your field.

Your ability to consistently create superior outcomes when a wall is placed in front of you separates the leaders from the followers, the advantage-makers and the disadvantage-acceptors.

Advantage-Makers consistently transform challenging situations (whether its competition, customer, organizational, team or people issues) into the best possible outcomes more often. Perhaps you are not under the harsh conditions of war, but your ability to strategically shift in the face of constraints is called into action repeatedly.

Derek Gordon (the CMO at Clorox) tells me “that’s what we have to do, to deal with the walls, and get over them.”

You have walls placed in front of you, how do you relate to them? Advantage-maker or disadvantage-acceptor?

Our fortress commander didn’t get over the wall, he tossed the cow over the wall.

Advantage-Makers see solutions others don’t even know exist.

It’s not news that the best leaders are those able to spot opportunities, create benefits, and influence outcomes.

What is new is knowing what is going on behind the curtain, what strings they are pulling to see opportunities where others see only problems, move forward when others are stuck, and create successes where others fail.  It almost looks like luck, but it isn’t.

Advantage-Makers aren’t any more creative, intelligent, or determined than you. Advantage-Makers do not possess any specific personality type or traits. In fact, it’s not about positive or goal-oriented thinking, although there is nothing wrong with those things.

Advantage-makers are in a different league.

How do they do it? There is a secret code Advantage-Makers share and use. If you wants to play in their league this blog will help you learn the code, play and succeed.