StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 19 – An Interview with Arlene Johnson, author of Success Mapping
StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.
Special Edition 19 – An Interview with Arlene Johnson, author of Success Mapping explores how to identify personal success blockers, create a life strategy, and execute the actions necessary to realize your vision of success. During our discussion, Arlene Johnson, Founder and President of the Sinequanon Group and author of Success Mapping: Achieve What You Want…Right Now!
- leveraging personal strengths when pursuing a goal
- overcoming mental distractions that impede progress toward success
- maximizing personal and organizational benefit once a goal is achieved
Additional Information
In addition to the incredible insights Arlene shares in Success Mapping
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About the Author
Arlene Johnson, author of Success Mapping
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Business Survival in a Recession
It’s no secret that America is facing some hard economic times. What does this mean for business owners? It means a variety of things such as cutting spending in the right areas, maintaining an advertising budget, keeping an eye on the original goal and retention marketing. Each one plays a major role in recession business survival, but they become of utmost importance during a slow economy.
Cut spending in the right areas
Cutting spending is an immediate reaction to recessionary talk and fallout; it’s only natural and logical to get rid of that which you don’t need to stay afloat. But any cuts you make now need to be good for the short and the long term. A business needs to think long and hard before slashing spending in areas that may affect future business operations such as product/service quality and standards, customer service and advertising.
[wcm_restrict]Maintain or increase your advertising budget
Oftentimes the first thing to go in a slow economy is the advertising budget, don’t do this. It may be a cliche, but one to take to heart; if you do nothing, nothing will happen. Becoming invisible will do nothing for you. Use this piece of information to your advantage, if you know others are cutting their advertising, amp yours up. Keep your image in the public view.
Keep and eye on the original goal
You became a business owner for specific reasons; remember those. It may be necessary to deviate from a plan momentarily, but don’t loose sight of optimal business goals. If it was your goal to have 200 new clients by 2010 and 2008 is kicking your butt, don’t slash your goal in half, amp up your sales team and advertising and come out fighting in 2009. And yes, goals sometimes won’t be met, but don’t allow the “recession” to dictate your goals.
Start retention marketing
In a slow economy getting new clients and customers is key; but retaining the ones you have is integral. If you don’t have awesome customer service, now is the time to get it, learn it, and live it. Consumers need a reason to do business with you, a recession is a time for shopping around and looking for something just a little better than what you have. A truism to hold close to your heart, people love to be treated well. Treat your customers and clients like gold, give them good reasons to do business with you and in turn tell their friends and family to do business with you.
A recession is an impermanent event. Every business decision you make during a recession needs to not only be good for the time being, but good in the long run as well.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]
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About the Author
Emmy Bill is the Owner of E-Learn About and an accomplished writer and Search Engine Optimization Specialist. Find more articles on finance as well as a variety of other topics at E-Learn About on the web at http://e-learnabout.com.
Succession and Succession Planning Best Practice 1 – Turnover Checklists
Every position in any company will necessarily be different than even the same position within any other organization. These differences stem from the unique organizational personnel, policies, culture, and marketplace positioning and environment. To be best prepared to assume his or her new role, a successor must have a thorough understanding of all of the position’s critical success factors, drivers, and influencers. Turnover checklists leverage the collective experiences of past position holders to help ensure successors receive all of this vital area knowledge.[wcm_restrict plans=”25541, 25542, 25653″]
Turnover checklists represent a powerful transition tool because of knowledge conveyance they support. Founded on the experiences of past position holders, turnover checklists necessarily support transfer that hard won knowledge to the newcomer; knowledge beyond those core data points generally needed by all leaders. While not an all inclusive list, turnover checklists should in general contain information on the following topics:
Core Business Information
- Organization vision, mission, and values
- Business plans and budgets
- Outstanding commitments and ongoing negotiations
- Ongoing projects
- Organization policies and performance standards
- Directly applicable procedures
- Staffing allowances and succession plans
- Direct report performance reviews
- Marketplace data
- Customer and supplier/vendor information
- Key internal and external contact information
- Transfer of documents, keys and combinations, and general property control
Experiential Information
- Observable expression of the organization’s values
- Organization cultural norms
- Company heroes, villains, and their stories/legacies
- Internal political position insights including allies and opponents and what each brings to the debate
- Individual relationship and handling insights
- Cliques and grapevine communications channels
- Key organization gatekeepers and gaining access to those they protect
- Organization success and failure event outcomes and lessons learned
- Any other experiential information the outgoing position holder deems relevant
Completion of the turnover checklist should be reviewed by the leader to whom the successor will report. This review is often a meeting between the senior executive/manager and the incoming and outgoing position holders. The purpose of the meeting is to check the completeness of knowledge transfer prior to the transition of power.
Final Thought…
Portions of the turnover checklist may appear to be of dubious intent; they are not. It is recognized that, whether constructive or not, politics exist to some degree within all organizations. This author acknowledges the fact that organizational politics do exist and recommends the conveyance of knowledge that will help the successor navigate these sometimes perilous waters. However, politically related information should be shared in private and kept in confidence.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”25541, 25541, 25653″]
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Leadership Inspirations – Solving Problems
Albert Einstein is arguably one of the greatest problem solvers of all time. Whether examining a physical phenomenon or business challenge his thoughts on problem solving are timelessly applicable. Below are some of these philosophies:
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“It takes a higher order of thinking to fix a problem than that which created it.”
and
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
Albert Einstein
Awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, named Time’s Man of the Century in 1999, and best known for his conception of the theories of special and general relativity
Leadership Inspirations – Experience, Experiment, Expectations
“The past is an experience! The present is an experiment! The future is expectations! Use your experience in your experiment to achieve your expectations!”
Anonymous