• What are your unique differentiators?
• Where do you have a competitive advantage?
• What is your reputation?
• How are your people regarded?
• Is your offering, be it a service or product, modern or distinct enough to be a “must-have”? How vulnerable is it to new offerings or new technology?

Granted, every company will have different points to emphasize in the selling process: better flavors, more attractive fashions, a superior finish, faster service, healthier ingredients. The key is to really understand each and every way in which your company leads the competition and to sell these together as the value of your brand.

If you can learn how to sell value, showing ROI and highlighting benefits, you will feel less pressure to compete on price alone. Sure it’s a poker game, but the more of these you win, the sturdier a foundation you can build for the rest of the company.

As I spoke with her, I was reminded of one of Peter Drucker’s frequent statements—the only information that really matters comes from outside the corporation (see Ch. 3 of Managing in the Next Society). Like many of his ideas, it’s deceiving in its simplicity. It’s actually a revolutionary statement, challenging our concept of management information.

Today’s Chief Information Officer manages “information technology” that is almost 100% focused on internal information. While we don’t want to eliminate this valuable source of information, it is ultimately market movements, technological changes, evolving customer needs, and competitive environments that are critical in determining the fate of most companies. External information is the best way to ride, rather than be drowned by the waves of change in your environment.

Spend some time creating a competitive information discipline. Think about the relative investment. What do you think the ROI is on the small competitive information effort led by our contact above versus the return on all the information systems at her company? What would the return be to your company’s results (and maybe your career!) if you were to increase your understanding of your market?

-Mary Adams – 2006

• Hard and Soft
• External and Internal
• Written and Verbal
• Quantitative and Qualitative
• Facts and Instincts
• Managers and Employees
• Customers and Prospects

After you immerse yourself in all these kinds of information, you should have the background you need to make decisions when necessary. However, to make a good decision you must deliberately close the books, take off your analytical hat, and shift your stare to the horizon. In fact, this could be described as the essence of strategic thinking—achieving synthesis—taking your understanding beyond all the details, and identifying the best answer for the moment.

Do your homework so that you are ready to make better decisions when the moment arises.

-Mary Adams   2006

Over the years, we have developed an increased respect for the value of that dialog. So, we were happy to read Mintzberg’s observations on the value of the “soft” data that comes from oral communication. He points out that a single call with an unhappy customer can tell you more than a mountain of sales reports. At Trek, we increasingly are letting go of our affinity for “hard” data. We still look at the reports, but we spend much more time digging into the reality behind it. Numbers are very easy to distort; they only “look backwards;” and worst of all, they are accepted at face value far too easily.

Mintzberg said it well, “Overall, while hard information may inform the intellect, it is largely soft information that generates wisdom.” We wish for you such wisdom.

-Mary Adams    2005

CEO’s and business owners are often experts at the product they make or the service they offer. But there is more to being the head of a company than being a good leader. You need to have a vision of the big picture that extends beyond the walls of your organization. One of the compelling ways of achieving this vision is by having strategic conversations with your customers and industry contacts. Strategic conversations focus on the future and help you identify critical challenges to the status quo.

Seek out strategic conversations through scheduled meetings with your best clients about your product offering, threats on the horizon in the industry, and concerns your client may have. (“What keeps you up at night?” is always a great question). But also seek these conversations in more informal circumstances such as industry gatherings. Ask people directly about their view of your own business. You may not heed each idea, but sometimes a different perspective could lead to the solution of a problem or the next great brainstorm.

Outsiders have a different view of your company than you do. Their ideas and comments may help you correct a weakness or further develop an area of strength. Having strategic conversations also builds a stronger bond between you and your contact, because you are showing that you respect their opinion as you ask for their input. They will be happy to provide it.

Remember, it is vitally important to keep fresh information coming in about your company, customers, and industry. It feeds innovation and helps you create a process of continuous improvement.

-Mary Adams    2005

Confronting Reality’s examples include EMC, Cisco, Home Depot, and the Thomson Corporation. The authors describe how these businesses transformed themselves by recognizing threats and changes in their external markets, and altering their internal activities to reach new financial targets. Bossidy and Charan emphasize aggressive information gathering and vision of the industry’s direction—advice with which we heartily agree. A must read for CEOs and those advising them.

It is a great sentiment for a feel good baseball movie—not a good idea for a business, however. Recently, we helped two companies by conducting market research. For one, we canvassed a difficult market to determine the viability of a product on the drawing board before a lot of money was invested. For the other, we investigated six financial services sectors to identify new markets for a software product.

The first exercise pointed out that our client needed more capital and industry experience in the field before buyers would get on board. As a result, our client has gone back to the drawing board and come up with a less risky and more patient road to success. The second client is now developing a marketing and sales program to pursue those markets we identified more efficiently than if we had not done the research.

Do your homework before you enter a new market, you will save yourself money and be much more effective in delivering new sales.

We call your attention to the middle ring. It is here that you see the rhythm of art and science:

What do we mean by art and science? We use the words to contrast the kinds of skills needed to be successful. Art, for example, implies dexterity, creativity and vision. Science is different. It requires adherence to a process, precision and quantitative outcomes.

When you think about it, business education tends to emphasize the scientific side of business, including analysis, accounting and process. These skills are easier to teach. And, most companies have a basic infrastructure in place to provide and deal with quantitative, hard data. Being former bankers, we absolutely appreciate the role of hard data and analysis in business.

But good scientific skills alone don’t usually solve problems. Success often involves some degree of art as well—having an intuitive sense of what’s important, what to do about it, and how to get it done. These skills are as critical to success (maybe more so) than the hard, scientific skills. They include instinct, vision, and leadership.

But how does this play out for your business in practice? Here are some ideas:

• Understand that you need a variety of skills to succeed
• Identify the mix of skills applicable to your situation
• Develop a balanced team that has varied strengths
• Make room in your management processes for both art and science

Business success is usually the result of a healthy combination of both art and science. Managing that combination can be challenging. Make sure you are aware of the right skills for the task at hand and give both the scientists and the artists in your organization room to thrive.

-Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak    2005

The information you gather about a foreign market includes some of the same data that you would use domestically: size of the market, competitive structure, and needs of the customer. But, there is significant additional data that you may not think about because it includes factors that you take for granted in your home market:

• Local market practices
• Culture and customs
• Legal requirements on business
• Political trends and power structures
• Currency regulations and/or restrictions
• Language and communication norms

Many of these factors change greatly from country to country; it is extremely important to spend the time to learn about a market and find the best partners possible. When I worked in Latin America for Citibank, we frequently hosted visiting companies to gain a first-hand view of the country. If you are doing business offshore, ask your bankers, lawyers, and accountants for personal introductions to trusted contacts in your new market. Use these introductions to make sure that you get off to the right start.

But, don’t rely on advisors alone. You also need to travel there to see things for yourself. Take the time to see the local situation, get to know your partners, and/or your employees. And, do your homework:

• Are you asking your international partners to do something they’re experienced in doing?
• How do their references check out?
• Have you evaluated the risks against your expected return?

As with any project, the more research and planning you do up front, the fewer nasty and expensive surprises you will encounter later on.

-Mary Adams     2004

• Risk Identification – In the initial stages of planning, companies should be very conscious of the assumptions they make. These should be explicitly listed and set up for follow-on monitoring.
• Intelligence Monitoring – A clear process for monitoring the data related to the key planning assumptions should be put into place. Any significant change should be highlighted to the planning team.
• Management Action – A good analysis of changes in the competitive environment should be the inspiration for management to react and adjust its strategy.

Although we recommend this book for much of its content, we should warn you that its style is annoying. The author constantly uses acronyms of his own invention and editorializes about the kind of managers that he expects will ignore his advice. Nevertheless, he includes many real-life case studies of this kind of warning system in action that make it worth your time.

For more information about this book, visit: www.amanet.org/books/catalog/0814407862.htm.