MARKETING AFRICA MAL 18/17 mal 18:17 online | Page 77

Competitive Advantage.
Involve Everyone: Business is all
about capturing intellect from
every person. The way to engender
enthusiasm is to allow employees
far more freedom and far more
responsibility.
Inspiring People: Strategies
Freedom To Fail: Start with
yourself. Encourage people to take
initiative. Use the brains of every
worker. Create an atmosphere
where workers feel free to think and
speak out. Yin-Yang of Employee
Empowerment.
Make Everybody a Team Player:
Managers should learn to become team
players. Middle managers have to be
team members and coaches. Take steps
against those managers who wouldn’t
learn to become team players.
Stretch: Set stretch goals. Stretch
targets energize. “We have found
that by reaching for what appears to
be the impossible, we often actually
do the impossible; and even when
we don’t quite make it, we inevitably
wind up doing much better than we
would have done.”
Instill Confidence: Create a truly
confident workforce. Confidence
is a vital ingredient of any learning
organisation. The prescription for
winning is speed, simplicity, and
self-confidence. Self-confident
people are open to good ideas
regardless of their source and are
willing to share them. “Just as surely
as speed flows from simplicity,
simplicity is grounded in self-
confidence.”
Have Fun: Fun must be a big
element in your business strategy.
No one should have a job they
don’t enjoy. If you don’t wake
up energized and excited about
tackling a new set of challenges,
then you might be in the wrong
job ... More fun helps Build the
‘‘ Create a vision and then ignite your
organisation to make this vision a reality.
Get people so passionate about what they
are doing that they cannot wait to execute
this plan. Have great energy, competitive
spirit and the ability to spark excitement and
achieve results. Search for leaders who have
the same qualities.’’
Market-Leading Company.
Be Number 1 or Number 2:
“When you’re number four or five
in a market, when number one
sneezes, you get pneumonia. When
you’re number one, you control your
destiny. The number fours keep
merging; they have difficult times.
That’s not the same if you’re
number four, and that’s your only
business. Then you have to find
strategic ways to get stronger. But
GE had a lot of number ones.”
Strategies of Market Leaders
Evolve a game plane, a business
strategy “number one, number
two.” Send shivers throughout your
organisation. Exact the highest
standards and make sure that
everyone in your company meets
those standards. Look for the
quantum leap. Get rid of fat...
Live Quality: “We want to change
the competitive landscape by being
not just better than our competitors,
but by taking quality to a whole
new level. We want to make our
quality so special, so valuable to our
customers, so important to their
success that our products become
the only real value choice.”
Constantly Focus on Innovation:
“You have just got to constantly
focus on innovation. And more
competitors. You’ve got to
constantly produce more for
less through intellectual capital.
Shun the incremental, and look
for the quantum leap.” Now the
fundamentals have got to be more
education. More information
knowledge, faster speeds, more
technology across the board.
Live Speed: “Speed is everything.
It is the indispensable ingredient
of competitiveness.” Speed,
simplicity and self-confidence
are closely intertwined. By
simplifying the organisation and
instilling confidence, you create the
foundation for an organisation that
incorporates speed into the fabric
of the company.
Behave Like a Small Company:
Small companies have huge
competitive advantages. They “are
uncluttered, simple, informal. They
thrive on passion and ridicule
bureaucracy. Small companies
grow on good ideas – regardless of
their source.
They need everyone, involve
everyone, and reward or remove
people based on their contribution
to winning. Small companies
dream big dreams and set the bar
high - increments and fractions
don’t interest them.”
Dr Clifford J. Ferguson is the
Managing Partner of Rainmakers,
and chairman of Glad’s House. You can
commune with him on this or related
matters via email at: Cliff.Ferguson@
rainmakers.uk.com, or visit their
website: www.rainmakers.uk.com.