Tag Archives: management

November 14, 2014 · 11:30 am

It’s The Tortilla, Stupid

Foodie Friday! For our fun this week, let’s consider the taco. Not the Taco Bell sort of dish but the real deal one can find everywhere from food trucks to bars to restaurants. They come in many varieties with different types of wrappers. I’m a fan, mostly because you can order a couple of one type, a couple of another type, and not be overly full. I’m also a fan of finger food and tacos meet that criterion as well.

English: Don Chow Tacos Ultimate LA Taco

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tacos de asador, tacos de cazo, tacos dorados (flautas to you!) – that’s just the start to a list of the dozens of varieties that exist. They all share one thing. They are some sort of filling encased in either a corn or flour tortilla. The meat may be marinated and grilled, fried, or boiled. Fish may be grilled or fried. The taco may be soft or hard, flat or puffy. There may or may not be guacamole or salsa or onions inside. But there is also a business point in there.

The proteins in the taco are the star of the show.  As you eat them you’re probably thinking about the flavor and texture of the meat or fish.  What you might not realize is that the tortilla is what makes the dish.  First, without the tortilla you’ve got a salad (or a very messy hand!).  But it’s the subtile flavor and crunch (or not) of the tortilla that brings the dish together.  That’s my business point.

We tend to focus on the “stars” in business.  The CEO, the productive salesperson, the marketing genius.  We forget sometimes that without the support staff – the tortillas – they would not be able to bring to the business what they do.  More importantly, just as the “wrong” tortilla (what the heck are puffy tacos anyway?) can run perfectly cooked and flavored filling, disgruntled staff can kill a star performer.  Try a taco with a fresh, homemade tortilla and you will understand the importance of the wrapper in making up for any flaws in the “star”.  Run your business with a happy, productive, supportive staff and you’ll find out how much better the “faces” of the company become.

Make sense?

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November 4, 2014 · 12:24 pm

Mine! Mine!

Two of my current clients are start-ups. They’re small but getting bigger. Although there are a number of challenges in this environment one big challenge that I used to see all the time in the “big” corporate world is missing and it’s a wonderful thing.

Big companies tend to breed silos and possessiveness. You don’t really get that in a start-up since everyone is overlapping and helping with almost everyone else. Those silos are a huge problem, as is the possessive nature of the executives involved since that fosters them. Want an example?

I saw an article yesterday which reported on a study conducted for Yes Lifestyle Marketing. This is some of what was in the study:

A sizable chunk of marketers are having trouble coordinating efforts between divisions, and well over half think their marketing departments don’t even share common goals. Generally, oversight under one group seems to be lacking at a lot of companies with 68% of respondents saying enterprise marketing executives lack central ownership of programs across channels.

According to the study, poor data practices appear to be one of the biggest reasons for the failure of multichannel marketing programs. Only 37 percent of enterprise organizations and 29 percent of mid-market companies have a central repository for customer data. Less than a third of marketing executives overall said their companies centralize customer data into a single record across channels.

That data division and lack of coordination seems not to be an oversight. In other words, turf wars are derailing marketing, and that is having a negative effect.  One could also look to the other types of conflicts (read turf battles) between sales and marketing, IT and marketing, and even business analysts (the dreaded “strat planning” department) and everyone else in some companies. How can we fix this?  In the words of my Mom: “Oh grow up.”

The start-up mentality of interdependence is visible every day when the entire company is in a small space.   Out of sight, out of mind might just hold in bigger companies.  Maybe it’s easier to vilify the group on the other floor.  There is no “mine” other than accountability for the goals the entire group is trying to achieve.  You can’t win if other members of the team lose, not in the long-term anyway.

Those are my thoughts.  Yours?

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October 30, 2014 · 10:51 am

Better, Not Busier

The NYC Marathon is this weekend.  I used to be a runner until my knees gave out although the longest race I ever ran was a half-marathon.  One thing I learned while running in that and other races was the importance of pacing yourself.  We all have a limited amount of energy and it was almost possible to go faster by slowing down as the energy banks were always there when I needed them.alarm-304042_640

Business is a marathon yet sometimes we get focused on the “busy” part that we forget the “better” part.  One client’s office has little signs posted with a red circle over a fire alarm.  In other words, no fire drills.  I like that.  The point is to maintain focus on the long-term business goals of the organization (the marathon) and not lighting fires by chasing short-term distractions.  It means a focus on process and planning which permits better execution.  When someone pulls a figurative fire alarm what inevitably happens is that those processes break down, the work is less than optimal, and often everyone walks away angry.  We were busy but we weren’t better.

More isn’t always better.  I don’t know about you but I’ve cut way back on many of the social media channels I use.  I’ve begun cutting back the number of newsletters I see – many of them were just regurgitating the same news anyway.  I want to finish the marathon hand in hand with my clients and not have either of us hit the wall many miles from the finish. I want to be better, and while it’s dangerous for a consultant to say they want to be less busy, I want to be less busy with “stuff” and more busy with substance.

How about you?

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