Participate in or monitor enough management team conversations and you will invariably conclude that it’s darned hard for these teams to spend quality time discussing external issues.
The gravitational pull of internal “stuff” is overwhelming and resists all attempts to move the conversation to topics outside of the firm’s four walls, preferring instead to keep managers focused on the nuances of their own operations. The result is a self-fulfilling management myopia where the view on the world is grossly limited to the immediate surroundings…and ranges as far as the eyes can see outside conference room windows.
Myopic firms miss market moves and focus incorrectly on improving yesterday’s systems and products and services while customers are looking and moving forward in search of new solutions to emerging vexing problems.
Overcoming this myopia requires extraordinary effort on the part of key leaders to train and enable their teams to move outside of the four walls and to build a more comprehensive market view that is constantly in the process of being refreshed.
5 Simple Suggestions for Minimizing Management Myopia:
1. Start by scheduling regular forums where the only items discussed are external in nature. Create a series of core questions that challenge team members to show up prepared to talk about what’s going on with customers, competitors and other industry ecosystem players. Resist the urge in these forums to move towards actions and internal items with one exception.
2. The one exception to the “no internal discussion rule,” is to teach your team members to end their discussions of external forces/factors/changes with “What this means for our firm is… .” Capture these notes.
3. Charge team members with the task of monitoring specific competitors and industry participants and providing regular updates to the group as well as instantaneous updates as conditions change. Remember, that the insights must always be accompanied by, “What this means for our firm is…” statements. Rotate assignments periodically to keep people fresh.
4. Interview customers. Regularly. It’s interesting to sit around and speculate on what customers are doing or thinking, but it’s much more compelling and actionable to truly understand what’s on their minds. Again, create a simple customer survey script and charge your key managers and contributors with keeping tabs on specific customers. I’ve done this with development resources, product managers and of course executive managers, and it gets people on your team connected to someone in the market. Bring the findings into your “external forums” and share.
5. If your team is internally focused such as IT or an internal support group, make certain to forge relationships with external facing colleagues and departments. Invite members of these groups to join your meetings and to share updates on current market issues. Pay attention for opportunities to better tune your function’s activities and priorities to issues and opportunities that your external facing colleagues see in the market.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Inevitably the best outcome of good external awareness is the reflection of insights in program, product and service improvements that create value for customers and profitable growth for your firm. You will need to develop a good mechanism for translating external awareness into internal execution, however, that’s a post for another day.
For now, set a goal to increase your team’s external IQ and try the suggestions here on for size. And be certain to double-back and share with us your own suggestions. After all, your input is part of my program to stay externally aware!
This is a great article on organizational leadership essential for stability and growth. As a leadership strategist, I feel your points were right on target and can be an essential for any organization wishing to grow their success potential. I’ve forwarded the article to a colleague to send to his 7000 individuals in his database.
Billy, thanks so much for reading and forwarding. Let’s hope we can cure some bad cases of myopia! Best, Art
My favorite point: ” Interview customers. Regularly.”. So often leaders and stakeholders assume they know what factors really influenced a client to stay, go or pick you over the competition. Unless you’re going to hire your own services, such speculation is presumptively arrogant. You may not hear what you’d hoped – you may actually uncover some lovely trait of your business you thought held little impact, but really was you’re winning attribute.
Sarah, well said! After years spent in both sales and marketing management, I’ve seen this mistake of “presumptive arrogance” as you describe it, over and over again. BTW, that phrase alone is worthy of a blog post. Thanks for reading and commenting! -Art
12/2/09: Midweek Look at the Independent Business Blogs…
Every week I select five excellent posts from this week’s independent business blogs. This week, I’m pointing you to posts on tips for all leaders, avoiding management myopia, asking for feedback, intimacy (in management), and learning from John Wood…
Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/12/02/12209-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
Very interesting post. Working in the team that i do currently, I sometimes feel myself focusing on the internal “stuff.” I think its great how you mentioned to “make certain to forge relationships with external facing colleagues.” These relationships are great to keep aware of what is going outside your team and to remember how each part works together as a whole in the company. I’ll definitely keep your suggestions in mind.
Art,
I really enjoyed this posting. I agree that too often departments can get wrapped in themselves. In my experience this has led to those departments looking down their noses to other departments that they consider to be “less important”. It would be nice to see some of these high and mighty departments follow your advice and associate with others. This would not only lead to more information being shared, but also to a greater respect among departments (also I would like them more).
Wally, thanks so much for including me in great company!
Jennifer, those that labor behind the scenes are well served to develop connections with colleagues in external facing groups. It’s great to have context for your work and this is one small way to do just that.
Zac, I’m chuckling as I’m reading your post. I know those departments and people! They are in every organization. It’s really silly. Good leadership helps breed some of that “siloization” out of the organization.
Thanks to all for reading and commenting! -Art
Great post and I especially enjoyed #4 Interview Customers. Customers are the reason you are in business and their opinion is key to the success of the organization. Understanding “what they are doing or thinking” will allow you to change with your customers rather than your customers leaving for a competitors. Too often business fail to get feed back and then are left in the dark when there customer leaves. This would allow for a better relationship and ultimately that is what people are looking for rather than price. Customers want to know what they think is being valued by the organization and gives them a since of ownership creating an advocate for the product or service.