THE 11 MINDSETS TO CREATING CRITICAL CAPABILITIES-Part 3

Introduction  

News Alert! Remember Betamax tapes? Betamax companies are out of business! 

Is this a surprise? Of course not! Betamax manufacturers unable to transition to making DVDs are not around anymore… 

However, you may be a Betamax company if you, your team or your organization does not have the mindset to swiftly and smoothly handle change and progress. If your mindsets are not right for the rapidly accelerating world, you may be the Betamax manufacturer of the 21^st century. Even if you know how to manufacture DVDs, do you know what is next and is your team learning how to make the change over to the new generation of video streaming services that will replace DVDs? 

We believe that there are 11 critical mindsets and that if you, your team and your organization have them, you will never become irrelevant and your work environment will support a great quality of life for all of your most important relationships!

What I want you to do

Every day I have conversations with people of all ages and from all walks of life. Whether they verbalize it or not, they are running from something or running towards something. Our job is to help them identify the most powerful actions to escape what is chasing them and to get them to their preferred future vision. 

In reading this, you must have a desire for a better future. By helping you to act in new and powerful ways, we are helping you to get better results. If you always do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten. 

As you read this, I want you to consider “What new powerful action will propel you to the future you desire?”

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The 11 Mindsets Summary

Developing People

1.    Focus on the heart! The logic of what you are doing is less important than getting to the heart of those that make it happen.

2.    What is the wisdom? Having more information is not as important as having a process to screen for the critical wisdom and a mechanism to capture it.

3.    Test that they know the wisdom! Packaging your own wisdom so it is transferable and consistently transferred to new hires and existing employees will cement your foundation.

4.    Is your team incredibly better this year than last year? Increasing capabilities must occur while using existing strengths. Every member of the organization has to be willing to improve and learn over time.

Creating the Strategy

5.    Have a road map to balance short-term results with long-term investment! Use a five year strategic plan to bring your team together in a way that creates more powerful actions every week!

6.    Getting a result is what matters, not working hard or smart! You need to do whatever it takes to get the result. 

Building Leaders and Teams

7.    Interaction and teamwork are the tools that allow leaders and followers to win! Dictator leadership is the past; participative leadership and teams are the future

8.    Your best way to market and sell yourselves is yourselves! What is on the inside and what is on the outside need to be in alignment to attract the best opportunities.

9.    Values give you a strategic advantage. Values in actions are the most important capability.

Managing External Factors

10.  Understanding the interrelationships and correlations of a bigger world are required. You will be forced to play in a bigger game with less influence. (e.g. ship in a storm, complex vs. linear systems).

11.  Get your common processes standardized so that you can focus on your best opportunities! Clear, transferrable processes allow you to produce quality for a lower cost so more resources are available for your highest value opportunities.
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The 11 Mindsets Summary
Managing External Factors

Mindset #10: Understanding the interrelationships and correlations of a bigger world are required.

You will be forced to play in a bigger game with less influence. (e.g. ship in a storm, complex parallel vs. linear systems). The world is not a game of solitaire that occurs step by step. Every event causes many effects. Some of the effects are easy to see, others are very subtle, but powerful. In the same way a small earthquake in the middle of the ocean does not appear powerful, as the energy in the waves approach land, it becomes extremely powerful. As the effects come together, some waves cancel each other out and there is a non-event, but several smaller effects can come together and be devastating. Having a better understanding of the complex relationships of the external world allow you to choose actions to better protect your organization and to maximize events to your advantage.

What happens when you do not use the mindset: We know a company that purchases gasoline from Exxon, Marathon and Shell and then delivers to gas stations and convenience stores to sell, some of which are their own locations. Over the last few years of doing this, some years it appeared they grew by 50%. In some other years it looked like they shrunk by 30%. The gross profit, or contribution margin of gasoline to their profits, looks like it has dramatically gone up and down as a percentage of sales.

While this is an easy concept to understand, it has translated into employee confusion since they are simply looking at some basic numbers and not what matters. The bankers, having to justify their risk management approach, have reacted to these numbers without understanding. The leaders in the business bear the full risk of price swings are not hedging, and it takes a lot of cash to feed into this business to handle the swings. They are at risk right now since it will just take one more swing to crash the business!

What happens when you use this mindset: Another client uses a commodity material in their product that also has dramatic price swings. In this case, they not only hedge the commodity, they also measure their success based on the dollars of contribution margin to profit per ton of the product. While the price swings are just as dramatic as in the example above, in gross sales and in profit from the product, when you look at the profit from the product per ton, their pricing and cash needed are very consistent. They ensure they do not price themselves out of the market or leave money on the table. If the former company in our earlier example used this same thinking, they would calculate their profit per gallon and use that as a measure of their success while teaching the bankers and employees what is most important.

Example of how you can use: Perfect information is not available from your market and it takes time to work through the system. We play a game with teams where we set up a supply chain and play the game for 52 weeks. As the players play to win, their goal is not having inventory or backlog. However, backlog costs two points and inventory costs one point. In the drive to “win the game”, the supply chain at first dramatically pushes way too much inventory into the system. One of the after effects is that eventually it creates too much backlog. It is a great example of what we see happening today with real estate. At the end of the game, we asked why the extreme swings occurred and at first, they blame the other players. Once they realize that the consumer (the only outside “input” into the game) only changed their order one time in the game, they see that the rest of the insanity came from reactive psychology and inefficient processes. We have used this game as a powerful experience to provide employees a “strategic view” of supply/demand so there is less blame and more focus on strategy and the processes used to get the best results.

Mindset # 11: Get your common processes standardized so that you can focus on your best opportunities!

Clear, transferrable processes allow you to produce quality for a lower cost so more resources are available for your highest value opportunities. Much overhead in terms of time, energy and money can be tied up into tasks that should be low cost in those terms. Getting those items standardized in a way that they can be easily handled and run in the background is important. This frees up time, energy and money to be invested into the best opportunities that come from Mindset #9.

What happens when you do not use the mindset: We talk with a number of companies where most of their resources are tied up in servicing their existing lower margin business.

When they try to create a strategic advantage in their organization, develop the people or change the culture, there are too few resources available.

Two years ago I met a company in the above situation. We worked hard with them and offered a lot of “free” time. Everything they did was very mediocre. All of their big successes were very much in the past. One of the key people was rumored to be drinking heavily, perhaps during work. They were unable to do anything very different because they were locked into existing circumstances and had no time or energy to do anything different. For them, it is even more critical to break out of the “same old, same old”. Scaling down the complications of their current processes and trying to focus on “less doing more” is inconceivable to them. My sense is they do not have a future. So far they have been unwilling to make changes. While I continue to talk with them a couple of times a year, they have yet to muster up the courage to work towards a better future!

What happens when you use the mindset: One of our clients was investing 90% of their time and energy into their existing systems to take care of their customers. As we streamlined processes and approaches to focus on the most valuable ones, they were able to reduce this to 60%, leaving 30% to pursue new opportunities. They have hired new sales people and revamped their website. They have trained and reinforced leadership, teamwork and continuously improving capabilities in their entire culture. This 30% moved them up several levels of market share in their industry.

An example of how to use: One of the most useful tools we teach is the “Truck Book”, so called because if someone in a position is “hit by a truck” (or any emergency that makes them unavailable for a time), anyone else can step into that position easily. We recommend testing each position in the company annually, where someone is sent home and another employee that does not know the position is asked to do it for a day using the “Truck Book”. If the “Truck Book” is well done, then the employee gets a day off. If not, they end up getting called back in soon and have to fix the “Truck Book” where it was deficient.

Teaching written processes is another valuable tool. One company we are working with is making a list of their top 15 processes and then building a model process that will keep the format consistent internally as they build their structure. They are a business that is growing rapidly and so it is important that they are efficient as they add locations. This is protecting the efficiency of their current system as well as allowing them to quickly get new locations up, running and profitable.

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Conclusion 

It may be true that the more things change, the more they stay the same…however, the reality is that the world is significantly different now than 2,000 years ago, 200 years ago, 50 years ago, 10 years ago, 3 years ago or even 1 year ago. The rate of change is speeding up and new generations are bringing new energy and life to new methods and new visions. If we do not embrace these changes, our organizations will not survive. 

While the physical world had such a strong impact throughout history, our growing ability to manage and control the physical world allows us to become more focused on the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of what we do. This creates new opportunities for increased angst as well as greater good in the world. What we do with our mindsets impacts whether we get more angst or more good in our lives and of those important people and organizations around us. 

Act Now!!! 

Every day I have conversations with people who are all ages and from all walks of life. Whether they verbalize it or not, they share what they are running from and/or what they are running towards. Our job is to help them identify the most powerful actions to escape what is chasing them and to propel them to their future vision. 

In reading this, you are indicating some level of need for a better future, but, if you do not act in new and powerful ways, then you are not going to achieve better results. If you always do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten. 

What new powerful action will propel you to become who you are and realize the future you desire? 

One step is filling out the worksheet below. It will help you clarify your strengths and where you need to work on improving your mindsets. Secondly, email your worksheet to us. We will keep your information confidential, but it qualifies you for a complimentary two hour Exploration Session with us. 

The Comprehensive Independence Builder

If you are interested in learning more about The 11 Mindsets and how they can help you avoid having no future, please contact us. 

You may also wish to learn more about our unique process for leaders and leadership team called The Comprehensive Independence Builder^TM, in which we address all of the obstacles you face and help you use innovative strategies to protect and enhance your organization, improve your quality of life and better achieve your goals. 

To schedule The 11 Mindsets Exploration Session or for more information, please contact us at 800-786-4332, or info@appliedvisionworks.com.

Quality control on this manuscript was professionally provided by Ted and Rebecca Gill.

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The 11 Mindsets Worksheet

Rate your organization from 1 – 10 on each of the mindsets below. Then use the issues in each column to brainstorm possible steps you can take to improve your capabilities for a better future. 

Review your answers above.

What do I observe about my results?      

Where do I need to focus to improve our mindsets?      

What three SMAART actions will I take in the next 30 days?

Who will I share this with?      

Who can help me with my Action Plan?      

On what date will I revisit this scorecard? Enter it on your calendar now.   __/__/__