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Three Secrets to Thriving in an Organizational Matrix
First, recognize that almost all medium to large organizations are actually matrix organizations. Most of these organizations have a direct “vertical” reporting line based on one organizational dimension and at least one “horizontal” based on another dimension. Sometimes the formal vertical is a function like development, production, marketing, sales, etc. Sometimes it’s geographical or line…
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Disruptive Technologies Create New Growth Opportunities for Your Professional Services Business
New technologies can help professional services businesses to grow their business beyond billing hours of one-to-one client services. The one-to-one service model has dominated the professional service industry for years and the value proposition has been built around a richly personalized one-to-one real-time interaction. Like everything these days, technology has disrupted this model and created…
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Four Secrets to Successful Business Marketing Strategy
1. Test the market early and often. Before you invest too much in a product or service, you need to find out if people actually want it. Seems obvious, but it’s amazing how often businesses skip this step. I was waiting at a traffic light the other day and I saw this yellow sign about a foot…
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It’s Time For You to Think About Hiring Four-Dimensional People
One of my posts from a few years ago keeps re-surfacing and in discussing it with someone a few days ago, I decided I should update it. In the original post, I made the case that you should hire three-dimensional people who have depth, breadth, and length. I am not a fan of the prevailing…
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Evil Geniuses Win $6.6 Million Playing Video Games: eSports May Be Good for You
The prevailing parental narrative about video games is that they are likely to be an anti-social addictive waste of time or, at best, mind-numbing entertainment. It might be time to reconsider that narrative. Imagine an arena with tens of thousands of fans and millions watching online cheering for their favorite team in a team-based video…
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The Power of Experiencing What Your Customers Are Experiencing
Do you know what your customers are experiencing when they use your product or service? If you had the same experience they were having, you could be knowledgeable, empathetic, and encouraging – you could be really helpful! Our kitchen faucet was about seven years old and the bracket under the counter had rusted out so the…
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Five Reasons Your Company Is Addicted to Reorganization and How to Survive the Next One
Some companies seem to be in a constant state of reorganization. It’s almost an addiction. If you want to survive reorganizations, you need to be a bridge not a box. More on this in a minute, but first, it helps to understand why companies reorganize so often? 1. Modern enterprises tend to describe themselves in…
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Is Your Market Going to be Uberfied or AirBnB’d? Disruptive Innovations Coming Your Way
Uber is a “private car for hire” service which uses a mobile app to handle the whole engagement and payment transaction including rating both drivers and riders. It has the taxi industry trying to set up roadblocks. AirBnB matches up people who want to rent out their apartments (trailers, rooms, etc.) with people looking for…
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Great Teams Are Worth Watching, Learn Their Secret and Pass It On!
I am a big fan of the perfect pass. If you follow professional basketball in the US, you were treated to some perfect passing last week. In a pivotal game in the championship series, the Spurs passed the ball 113 times more than the Heat. Especially at the professional level, the teams tend to rely…
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Give Your Idea to Someone Else to Run With – Sometimes a Horse Needs a Different Rider to Win
First, here’s a little exercise for your mind. An aging monarch decides it is time to name an heir to the throne. The monarch’s two children are identical twins and no one is now sure which one was born first. Both twins are excellent riders and each owns a very fast horse. So the monarch…