Keeping NASCAR On Track

Do you know your customers or clients?  Or do you just know about them?

When it comes to understanding customers, or fans, maybe something can be learned from NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Racing), even if you haven't been to the track for a while.

According to news reports, "NASCAR's popularity has stalled." In addition to dealing with phase 3 of a product lifecycle (starting, growing, maturing, declining, and dying),
NASCAR was severely impacted by the recent recession as fans pulled back from spending money to attend its races, including the signature Daytona 500 held each February. 

To try and get out in front of this problem and keep itself on the right track, NASCAR commissioned a $5 million study to find out what's going on inside the minds and lifestyles of a generation it does not know but must have for its future. 

What did NASCAR discover?

In a meeting held in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2011, which included Roger Penske, Jack Roush, and other racing team owners, NASCAR chairman, Brian France, presented a wake-up call, not just bullet points.  The comprehensive research found that:

• Drivers, the lifeblood of the sport, were too predictable
• Race teams and NASCAR were slow to embrace social media
• Track owners were not doing enough to make attending races easier
• Not enough was being done to attract Hispanics and urban youths to offset the decline of older fans

A break in the pattern

As commentator Frank Deford, wrote, "A whole cohort of our young boys--and girls--have been growing up without any interest in messing around--tinkering--with cars."   What NASCAR discovered, Deford added, is that "nobody wants to do that anymore."

It's hard to believe young adults would give up their parents' and grandparents' historic love affair with the automobile in exchange for the latest mobile phone app, yet evidently, that is the case.

"Things that can't go on forever don't," said the late Nobel Laureate, Herbert Stein.  Does this include having a dependable customer base? 

Acting

Out of this year-long exhaustive research, which included 64 hours of focus groups, and observing how fans navigate racetracks, came a decision to hire Kim Brink from General Motors as head of the NASCAR brand and consumer marketing group. Brink was part of a team involved in the turnaround of Chevrolet and Cadillac, increasing retail sales in the U.S. by 40% over the past several years.  

NASCAR is already acting on a five-year strategic plan from the Taylor Strategy study focusing on:

1. Growing the youth and Hispanic fan base
2. Reaching the next generation of NASCAR fans
3. Developing a wide-reaching digital and social media strategy
4. Building driver star power
5. Improving the at-track experience for fans

Maybe establishing customer loyalty is implied in this list but should it be explicit? 

What about your business?

NASCAR does not face an uncertain future alone. 

Changing demographics, aging customers, dissimilar values, poor service, and technology are upending businesses as diverse as retailing, dining, medical, legal, and financial services.

How people make their purchases is also part of the drama.  Just ask Best Buy whose big box design is being undone by the Internet.

While the 55+ crowd is financially worth pursuing, isn't this the time to be thinking about new market opportunities? 

Where to begin?

The "skein of thread" or clue for working through a digital labyrinth is first knowing your core values which provide an inner sense of direction. What is it you believe? What is it you stand for? What is it you're all about? 

In assessing this new external environment, begin with the marketplace, not technology.  Here are some questions from the Peter Drucker Assessment Tool to help get you started. It was Drucker who once defined the essence of marketing as "knowing what is valuable to the consumer:"

Who is our customer?

How will our customers change?

What does the customer value?

What knowledge do we need to gain from our customers?

How will I participate in gaining this knowledge?

How do we go about this process?

Something to think about 

In a highly competitive marketplace, how does a company or nonprofit find new households whose values are a close match with theirs--without a seven-figure NASCAR research
budget to inform the process? 

To stay on the right track in an electronic world, how will new customers find you?   

Strategist.com

(C) Bredholt & Co. 

Becoming An Inquiring Leader

Those who succeed in top management do so in part by knowing how to ask the right questions. This discipline is often associated with strategy development, problem-solving, product launches, and competitive analysis.  

Asking probing questions, with purpose, is a habit acquired through practice, and the formulation of questions is more art than science.  

Getting started

Inquiries begin with a two-part question:  What do we need to know, and why? 

A basis for engaging in this form of communication comes from a curious mind--which may explain why so few initiate these types of discussions.  It's easier to "tell" than to "ask," even though at certain times telling or explaining a point of view is the appropriate thing to do.

In going through our library recently, I came across the book, Leadership Is An Art, by Max DePree.  Mr. DePree, a son of the founder of the office furniture company, Herman Miller, D. J. DePree, is also a former CEO of the company and served as a board member until 1995.  

I heard Mr. DePree speak at a conference.  His skillful approach to mentoring direct reports, and teaching them how to learn, grow, and change is simple yet profound. What's his secret?  Some of it has to do with asking thoughtful questions.

His best-selling book is the source of the oft-quoted line, "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality." To complete the thought, here is the rest of DePree's thesis: "The last is to say thank you. The leader must become a servant and debtor between the two. That sums up the progress of an artful leader."

Like most who find their way to the top, Max DePree, discovered early on that communication was essential to the task of leadership. Toward the end of his signature book, DePree underscores the idea of two-way communication by listing questions asked of Herman Miller's senior managers. 

I took the liberty of clustering his "need to know" in the following outline:

Opening

• Who are you?  How do you see yourself personally, professionally, and organizationally?

Personal

• What do you want to do (to be)? What are you planning to do about it?
• What have you abandoned?
• What significant areas are there in the company where you feel you can make a difference but cannot get a hearing?
• Do you have any feelings of failure in any particular area?
• What will you do in the coming year to develop your three highest-potential persons (and who are they)?
• In the past year, what, from the perspective of integrity, most affected you personally, professionally, and organizationally?

Corporate

• What are a few of the things that you expect most and need most from the CEO?
• What two things should we do to work toward becoming a great company?
• What significant areas are there in the company where you feel you can make a difference but cannot get a hearing?
• Does Herman Miller (insert your company) need you?
• Do you need Herman Miller (insert your company)?
• If you were "in my shoes (CEO)," what would you focus on?

Future

• What are three signals of impending entropy (disorder in the system) you see at Herman Miller?  What are you doing about it?
• What are three examples of budding synergy in your area and how can we capitalize on them?

Is inquiry a part of your team-building efforts?  Do you know your people and what they're thinking?

Perhaps we could add to the Ancient Greek aphorism, "know thyself," the importance of making time to know others as Max DePree did during his successful career.  

After all, results depend on who your associates are as well as what they do.  

Strategist.com

© Bredholt & Co.  

The Feedback Dilemma

"Planes are safer when the least experienced pilot is flying because it means the second pilot isn't going to be afraid to speak up."   

--Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers

Does your organization emphasize the importance of clear and open communication (which includes listening) as much as it does being on a "team?" Probably not. And yet clarity in ideas, conversations, and interactions are sources of oxygen allowing systems to breathe appropriately--which is a sign of a healthy team. 

Problems at the office or factory are often rooted in a lack of mutual understanding about expectations, goals, deadlines, procedures, and who the customer really is. A readily available tool of management to address this situation is the proper use of feedback--or "feedforward" as our friend, Marshall Goldsmith, likes to say.  

How is the feedback used?

Some examples:

• Employees need to know what their supervisors are thinking in terms of job performance, and not just during formal reviews
• Management is helped by getting real-time information from those around them--even if it's something they don't want to hear
• Workers require candid conversations from colleagues for instruction, to gauge how things are going, and to achieve mutual goals
• Businesses should hear from customers in order to know how they are doing, what not to change and where improvements should be made

Holding Back

Why are associates reluctant to explain how they feel about something? It could be from past experience. Speaking up may have been taken the wrong way so employees learn to be silent. Unfortunately, this means valuable information remains hidden from those who might need it most.  

Thus the dilemma.

According to the organizational psychologist, Dr. Michael Woodward, two factors that influence how individuals communicate in group settings, such as staff meetings, are "personality and position." 

Thoughts are eventually shared because employees have to talk--often with a trusted peer or spouse. Some of the more useful internal focus groups take place at lunch.

Studies also show the hesitancy to candidly convey how we feel has cultural roots as described in the Outliers chapter about air safety and the "theory of ethnicity." 

Improvements in Aviation

Recent news stories confirm a reversal of deadly crashes in the airline industry over the past several years.  The conclusion:  Air travel in the U.S., at least, has never been safer. It has been a decade since passengers died in a crash involving more than 100 people.

This is a dramatic turnaround from the 1990s when, as someone observed, "planes were falling out of the sky."

One of several reasons for this improvement in safety has to do with pilot training. The history of aviation has shown a strong, if not a dictatorial role for the captain, causing co-pilots to not speak when necessary or speak but not be heard--often with deadly results.  An example of this is the 1982 Air Florida crash in Washington, D. C.

Captains are now trained to solicit input from all members of the flight crew.

For their own health and safety, businesses and nonprofits could learn something about improving the free flow of information from changes in aviation practices. 

A Definition Of Terms

How do we begin improving this essential part of our professional relationships? In addition to cultural issues, we can start by understanding the different kinds of feedback and improving the quality of our exchanges. 

In his practical book, Getting It Done (Harper), author Roger Fisher offers enlightenment on a largely undefined process. In addition to aviation-type "warnings" mentioned above, corporate feedback, says Fisher, has three key parts:

Appreciation

To encourage and improve morale. This is an expression of gratitude or approval of another’s effort. It is an expression of emotion, designed to meet an emotional need.

Advice

To help individuals improve their skills. Advice consists of suggestions about a particular behavior that should be repeated or changed. It focuses on the performance, rather than on judging the person.

Evaluation

This relates to making wise decisions about personnel and their assignments. An effective way to do this is by ranking the subject’s performance in relation to that of others or against an explicit or implicit set of standards.

Why does feedback go awry:

• We fail to understand there are different types of feedback
• We co-mingle the types (doing two things at one time—sending mixed signals)
• We use one type (appreciation) when we should have used another (evaluation)

Think for a moment about the last time you gave or received feedback. Was it clear?   Appropriate for the circumstances? Or did you get (or give) appreciation when you should have received (or given) advice?   

In a future post, we will share "tips" on giving feedback from the book, Helping, by Dr. Edgar Schein.

Properly used, feedback can be a positive force for your organization. 

Strategist.com

(C) Bredholt & Co.

Eleven Minutes of Football

During the tenure of then CEO Jack Welch, Business Week did a piece entitled, "How Welch Manages GE."  It highlighted leadership "rhythms and rituals" over 12 months showing in detail how one man dealt with an enormous task--that of managing a company whose 1998 revenue (the year the article appeared) was $90.8 billion, with $8 billion in profits, and 276,000 employees worldwide.

The story is a case study in personal and time management--and points up the importance of having a top-notch executive assistant like Rosanne Badowski who managed Mr. Welch as he was managing GE.

The article gives an inside look at Welch's leadership agenda, focusing on those things belonging to a CEO that cannot be delegated to anyone else.   It's also a reminder of how a calendar can be a steering mechanism for any organization.

Playing the Game

Is Super Bowl XLVI (46) a teachable moment for executives?  What could be learned about managing the corporate clock from the American version of football?  

Two years ago "The Wall Street Journal" commissioned a study of the National Football League to see how much time was actually spent playing the game during a typical broadcast.  

The results:

"According to the Journal's study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes."

The writer of the story, David Biderman, concludes, "if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg."  

The balance of the broadcast, excluding commercials, goes to the following:

• Three seconds of cheerleaders
• Seventeen minutes of replays
• Sixty-seven minutes of everyone standing around

Allocation of Time

If you did a study of your business or nonprofit, what would it find?

-How much time is given to cheerleading?

-How much time is given to replaying the past?

-How much time is given to standing around?

-How much time is given to the few things that are likely to make the biggest difference?

Your Calendar

As the leader what is it only you can do?  In the coming year, what could you get rid of and never miss?

But old habits die hard.  As Mark Twain once observed:

"Habit is a habit and not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."

It could be the most important thing to do in 2012 is carefully examine your calendar and goals to see if there is a good match between the two.  

What should be the relationships between time for thinking; time for rest; time for self-renewal; time for family; and time for business?  Finding the right combination among these competing, yet complementary values are in everyone's best interests.

What are the "rhythms and rituals" of your schedule?  Are they moving the business closer to its goals?  Do the old rituals need modifying or are new ones in order?

As it was with Jack Welch, and his successor at GE, Jeff Immelt, there are only 24 hours in a day.

In your leadership role, where is the highest and best use of your time?

Strategist.com

(C)  Bredholt & Co.

Predicting the Future

"If you predict for a living you have to predict often." 

--Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist, and Nobel Prize Winner

Have you ever thought of yourself as a futurist?

Predicting the future is a lucrative profession even though the track record for peering beyond tomorrow is inconsistent at best.  Does anyone ever follow up on predictions anyway?

Predicting is hard 

Someone once asked futurist Alvin Toffler (of Future Shock and The Third Wave fame) why several of his predictions failed to materialize.  Toffler's response was direct:  "I often underestimated the power of the status quo."

You could count on one hand the number of individuals who credibly predicted the recent "Great Recession." 

"It is a globally accepted fact that top world governments, central banks, economists, investment bankers, and financial journalists were caught off guard by the financial crisis and the ensuing economic crisis of 2008-2009," according to the Economic Predictions website.

The IBM list

IBM recently issued its annual list of five predictions about the future of technology.   Bernie Meyerson, who does the technology forecast, said something worth noting when releasing the list.  "To predict the next five years you have to have a deep understanding of the last 50."   (This principle may hold true even for start-ups who are seeking to introduce innovative products and services).

One IBM prediction, in particular, caught our attention:

• There will be no more passwords as increasingly powerful phones and sensors will store your personal biometric information enabling machines to automatically know who you say you are.

We can only hope.

Seizing the day

What about your organization?

1. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. 

This insight comes from Alan Kay, a scientist at Apple, Inc., whose charter is to pursue far-out ideas.  "This is a century in which you can be proactive, not reactive about the future."   While the future is not risk-free it's possible to calculate risks and minimize the downside of new ventures.

Why not start with the "what if" question?

2. Learn to connect the dots.

Take time to look around to see what's already underway.  The old idea of predicting from extrapolation, or the creation of new data points, is filled with uncertainty. 

New realities are likely in some stage of formation for most industries but are overlooked in the press of time.  Leadership tends to become aware of disruptions or opportunities when it's too late to take advantage of them.

3. Pay cautious attention to feedback.

Listening to employees, customers, and prospective customers is important when thinking about the future.  Be mindful that individuals sometimes want to be heard more than heeded.  Knowing the difference comes with experience, judgment, and being a good listener. 

Steve Jobs didn't do focus groups because participants were not likely to have any frame of reference for the products Apple was thinking about developing. 

Nonetheless, feedback is important. But filtering what is heard through the company's mission, values, and capabilities is a reliable way of reaching decisions on what to do with new information and insights.

4. Avoid the hype. 

This may be the hardest thing on the list to do.  There is a lot of "noise" coming from different directions requiring a fairly disciplined leader or manager to know what's worth pursuing and what's best left alone.

5. Stay flexible. 

"Flexibility" could be a core value of everyone's company.  Being able to adapt along the way is essential for an enduring future.

There is always the possibility of unforeseen problems with product launches, competitive forces, or new government regulations being imposed.  The ability to adjust to circumstances without having to toss your basic strategy is why success is more of a zig-zag than a straight line.

Thinking ahead

What's on your list of personal and corporate predictions for 2012 or beyond? 

What merits undivided attention? What can come off the radar?

What's the one thing in the coming year, that if properly understood and successfully implemented, could be your next profitable idea?

As we learned at the beginning of this post it's okay to revise predictions.  After all, this is what professional futurists do to stay in business.  As the late British philosopher, Carveth Read once said, "it is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong."

Happy New Year!

Strategist.com

(C) Bredholt & Co.

More Than A Pollster

"You first have to learn to be good. Then learn to be fast."

--George Gallup, Jr.

The first time I met George Gallup Jr., who passed away on November 21, 2011, at the age of 81, was in February of 1983.  I operated a research business at the time and wanted to know if there was any chance of learning from or even working with the Gallup Organization. 

It sounds like a stretch but this is how we came to know some of the mentors in our life--by reaching out to people we admire.  A lesson learned early in life is to let the other person say, "no."

After several attempts to get through by phone, Marie Swirsky, George's executive assistant, suggested an alternative.  Marie asked us to put our introduction on a cassette (no CDs in the early 80s), and the purpose for meeting with George, and she would put the tape in his briefcase so he could listen to it over a weekend.

The tape arrived at the Gallup offices in Princeton, New Jersey on a Friday.  The following Monday I received a call from Marie to set up a meeting in Princeton at my convenience.

It was the beginning of a 21-year professional relationship with George and a friendship that extended until last week.

Of all the trips to Princeton in the ensuing years, the most memorable was the time George took me to meet his mother, Ophelia. It was a warm gesture that became quite an afternoon.  As it turns out Mrs. Gallup played the piano, George played the trumpet and I play the drums.  All three instruments were in her house, so George suggested we have a "jam" session.  

Which we did.

How special that time proved to be.

Most of what I learned from George is what I saw in his life.  His curiosity.  The intellect.  Keen insights.  Ethics.  Compassion for others.  A willingness to share what he knew, not keeping it to himself.  Making time to invest in someone like myself.

Conversations in his office, over lunch, and in our home are memorable. 

Some things worth noting about a man who was more than a pollster:

• He paid attention when you were talking.  The first thing George did was get out his notepad and start writing things down for future reference.  George focused on the points you were trying to make.  In an age of permanent distractions and inattention in meetings, his disciplined approach to interpersonal communication was instructive.   

• He chose words carefully.  George's counsel was inside the conversation requiring one to be a good listener.  Like the time he was visiting and getting ready to go to the airport.  He said, "You first have to learn to be good.  Then learn to be fast."  The order was right because George was speaking from experience.  Nearly 25 years later I don't remember the context in which this wisdom was passed along but I recall those specific words as though they were spoken this morning.

• He knew the relationship between information and ideas.  It wasn't just a matter of conducting surveys.  Adding to data bases doesn't accomplish much.  The real issue was knowing how to act on the findings.  As good as the knowledge might be it's secondary in value to taking the right action, whether personal or corporate.  

• He was a person of great faith.  The choices were being an Episcopal priest, which he considered at one time, or a pollster. However, the greater calling was living a life of faith.  One of George's favorite questions in religious surveys was, "How have you put your faith into action in the past seven days?"

I am grateful for the privilege of knowing George Gallup, Jr.--and I am thankful to Marie Swirsky for putting that cassette tape in his briefcase many years ago.

Strategist.com

(C) Bredholt & Co.

Steve Jobs and Buzz Lightyear--BFF

Our grandsons visited some time ago when the youngest of two brothers, Brody Schriver, had a strong attachment to Buzz Lightyear, one of the characters from the Pixar movie, Toy Story.  

We took the boys to lunch one day and upon arriving home, discovered Buzz was missing. 

Unable to deal with the heartbreak I went back to the restaurant to see if, by chance, Buzz was still there.  The staff at the restaurant went so far as to move the booth where we were seated an hour or so earlier just to be sure the toy wasn't lodged between the seat and the wall.  

Another search of the car came up empty as well.

Rather than face a tearful grandson with empty hands, I stopped by a store and purchased a second Buzz Lightyear because that's what grandfathers do. (As it turned out the first Buzz was on the back porch all along).

This incident came to mind while reading backstories to the life of Steve Jobs, including successes at critical moments allowing him to keep going with his creative pursuits.   

What does this have to do with Buzz Lightyear, Woody, and the other characters in Toy Story?  While Apple and NeXT get a lot of attention, Pixar Animation, purchased by Jobs in 1986, put new life into this American icon.

As recounted by Lev Grossman in TIME, Steve Jobs netted almost $260 million when Apple went public in 1980.  However, that financial success was followed by nearly 18 years without producing a successful product.  

"It was Buzz Lightyear who saved Jobs' career: after eating money for a decade, Pixar finally produced Toy Story in 1995.  It took in $30 million on its first weekend, and a week later Pixar went public. Jobs' shares were worth $1.2 billion," according to Grossman.

Almost 60 years earlier Walt Disney was looking to expand beyond short subjects to features.  Walt made a big bet on his company's future taking three years to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which premiered in 1937.  

Sometimes referred to as "Disney's Folly," Snow White cost approximately $1.5 million forcing Walt Disney to mortgage his house to finance the film's production.

In its original release, Snow White grossed $3.5 million in the United States and Canada.  Walt Disney received a full-size Oscar and seven miniature ones presented to him by Shirley Temple at the Academy Awards.  This was a huge success making it possible for Disney studios to move into a higher realm of creativity and production. 

There are numerous articles comparing Steve Jobs to Thomas Edison and other inventors.  A better comparison might be with Walt Disney.  Both found a way to combine consistent quality with innovation in order to make their products stand out from the competition. 

It's fitting that Jobs, upon completion of the $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar by Walt Disney Company in 2006, would join the company's board of directors and become Disney's largest shareholder.   

What are the lessons to take away from the life and career of Steve Jobs?

What does a wider audience learn in his death that it couldn't know, by design, in his life?  I am thinking now about his family; growing into the role of a corporate leader; his mercurial management style; all the people decisions; the failures and rejections; and a sense of mortality. 

What could you "Apple-ize" (simplify) about your life and business?

What was the driving force for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad? 

What's at the heart of Pixar's success? Maybe creativity and desperation.  

What causes our grandchildren (and yours) to make an emotional connection with a character like Buzz Lightyear?  The answer to that last question is simple. It's because Steve Jobs, like Walt Disney, knew young minds (like older ones) are wired for a good story.

Strategist.com

  

(C)  Bredholt & Co.