I believe it should be this: Leave your business stronger than you found it. It doesn’t matter how good those soon-forgotten quarterly financial results were. If the leader weakened the business by degrading its ability to grow—through either neglect or raiding capabilities for short term gain—that leader failed. I’m puzzled that boards of directors and executive teams allow business leaders to perform well in the short term while damaging the long-term health of their business. Very odd.
More in article, B2B Organic Growth: Moving to earned growth
540 B2B professionals—with over 10,000 years of combined experience—responded to our research survey. Here’s what we learned: They were much more eager to improve growth drivers for understanding customer needs (e.g. customer interviews) than meeting customer needs (e.g. gate-review processes). Of 24 growth drivers, what were they most eager to improve? Market insight.
More in article, What Drives B2B Organic Growth? Now we know
We see three areas where leaders can have a greater negative impact on innovation than positive: 1) organizational friction (travel bans, spending freezes, hiring delays, excessive re-orgs, etc.) that slow innovation to a crawl, 2) spreading too few resources over too many projects so that nothing moves briskly, and 3) short-changing the front-end of innovation, so that a clear picture of customer needs is lacking. Companies pay a heavy price for keeping such leaders in place.
More in article, Accelerate New Product Innovation
Let’s say you’ve led a business for three years. If this year’s financial performance looks great, it’s likely this is mainly because a) the last business leader put strong growth capabilities in place, or b) you’ve cut costs and taken other short-term measures that will ultimately degrade this business. It takes a long time to build a growth juggernaut, and very little time to “raid” it for short-term gain. Companies should recognize this and reward the “builders” among us.
More in e-book, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth (Lesson 7)
If you want profitable, sustainable B2B growth, you must develop "growth muscles." You wouldn’t try to climb El Capitan without climbing skills. Yet many business leaders proclaim double-digit growth plans year after year, but do nothing to build the capabilities needed to succeed. ... Read More
Do you admire business leaders like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos? Why… because they were great at financial reviews or quarterly investor calls? Great leaders march to a different beat, and so must you. Consider these practical leadership tips to build your own legacy as a great business leader.
Benchmark your growth capabilities, and chart a multi-year improvement plan with our free B2B Growth Diagnostic.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a factoid as an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often it becomes accepted as fact. Too often in product development, what we view as a fact is just a factoid. Its fine to have assumptions, but make sure they don’t dress up as facts. What you think you know is more dangerous than what you know you think.
View video, De-risking Transformational Projects
The vitality index—percent of sales from new products—is a metric you should keep using. But it’s not predictive, prescriptive or precise. Consider 2 leading-indicator metrics from The AIM Institute: The Commercial Confidence Index (CCI), and the Growth Driver Index (GDI)… both quite easy to run.
Use this free diagnostic to find out your CCI and GDI, and benchmark your growth capabilities.
If you expect your business to be around in 10 years, why are you focusing so much of your energy on this quarter? Especially since less than 10% of your company’s stock value comes from current earnings… while the rest comes from the market’s expectations of your future earnings. Sure, this is what most leaders focus on… but not leaders like Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs.
More in article, The Inputs to Innovation for B2B
I think this rule should be on every business leader’s desk, and perhaps stamped on their paychecks. Should we be impressed if they pumped up the stock price during their tenure? Not if they did it by mortgaging the company’s future with short-term moves, perhaps chasing away top talent in the process. Glory lies in building something of lasting significance… not in pillaging it.
More in article, How to become a great business leader
When you drive at night with just your low-beam lights on, you may observe small animals as you run over them. But you can’t avoid them. To do that, you need to have your high-beams on. Same with all those short-term financial reviews: You can only observe the bad results. To change the results, you’d need to build growth capabilities for the future. Run your business with your high-beams on.
More in e-book, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth (Lesson 7)
Your market is growing at 3% and your operating plan says you’ll grow faster than this next year. Of course, your competitors have similar plans… meaning everyone plans to grow faster than the market served. As TV psychologist Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that been working for you?” Could it be time for a different approach… e.g. understanding customer needs far better than competitors?
More in Leader’s Guide Videos Lesson 1, Recognize your growth challenge
In the long-term stockholder and employee interests align. This is also true of customer and community interests. In the long-term, it’s in the best interests of everyone—except your competitors—for your business to develop high-value products, sustain strong growth, provide stable employment, and increase market capitalization. Given this alignment, doesn’t it seem odd that many business leaders seem so fixated on the near-term?
More in e-book, Leader’s Guide to B2B Organic Growth (Lesson 30)
Developing B2B customer insight skills for this growth requires a commitment your competitors may be unwilling to make. Good. You need them to remain shortsighted. As you gain insights, you may enjoy a bonus: Customers are impressed with suppliers that listen to them… and often offer near-term adjacent opportunities.
More in white paper, Catch the Innovation Wave (page 15).
