Monday Mornings with Madison

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Business Development

April 3, 2017

Using Chess Strategy in Business, Part 2

Issue #467

There are many benefits that come from playing chess. Psychologists often cite chess as an effective activity to help improve memory function. That is probably why chess is recommended in the fight against Alzheimer’s. Playing chess can also help the mind solve complex problems and work through ideas. It is also thought to increase one’s intelligence, although that’s not been scientifically proven. And the effects of chess on children – which has been correlated to children getting better grades in school — has led to chess being introduced in schools in a multitude of countries. That said, many are still intimidated by chess because it is perceived as a game for geniuses. But while chess is a thinking-man’s game — one that requires a great deal of strategic thought and tactical reflection — it is not just for geniuses and savants. Anyone can learn to play chess and improve through study and practice.
Indeed, many past and present political and military leaders – including U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Sigmund Freud, Queen Elizabeth I and II, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew, British Prime Minister Clement Atllee, Alfonso King of Spain, and Vladimir Lenin – all played chess. Many titans of industry also play chess, including Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft, Billionaire Investor George Soros, Carl Icahn, Chairman of Federal-Mogul, Peter Thiel, Co-Founder of Paypal, Jared Heck, co-founder of GroupMe and Fundera, Seth Bannon, Founder and CEO of Amicus, and Victoria Lipschitz, CEO of Grid Dynamics. In fact, Boaz Weinstein, chess player and head of Saba Capital, once said that “Chess helps me in trading, teaching me to focus on the important decisions and to accept risk.” Last week, we looked at a few useful strategies. Let’s look at some more chess strategies that can be applied to business. Continue reading →

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March 27, 2017

Using Chess Strategy in Business, Part 1

Issue #466

Chess is one of the fairest games there is. In chess, opponents start with an identical force. The entire playing field of a chess game is out in the open. A player can see every move an opponent makes as soon as he makes it. And, in chess, no dice are used so it is never a game of “chance” and there is no luck of the draw. Moreover, there is no referee involved in chess that might “throw” a game or be partial to one side over the other.
The business world is perhaps not as fair, balanced and chivalrous as a game of chess. In business, competitors seldom start with identical workforces, and a company can easily hire a better force. In business, a lot of deal-making is done behind-the-scenes and a company might not learn about a competitor’s initiatives until much later. And, in business, a company can innovate a product or service – or how it delivers that product or service — in ways that totally change the playing field for competitors. In fact, a company can innovate to the point of actually changing the game. Think of how Uber has revolutionized short-distance transportation and how Airbnb is changing the hospitality industry.
So, in many ways, business and chess are different. That said, chess is all about strategy and tactics. The best chess players are those who have the ability to stay ahead of their opponents and strategize goals that can be achieved as quickly as possible. In that regard, running a company is a lot like a game of chess. To stay ahead of the competition, companies must think strategically and be quick to implement. That’s where chess strategy can give business leaders guidance. While many games use methods that can be incorporated into how business decisions are made, chess requires strategic decision-making, connections, timing, tactics and evaluation. Continue reading →

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March 20, 2017

How to Spot and Hire A Players for Key Positions

Issue #465

When organizations hire employees for key positions, they want superstars. They want rainmakers and movers-and-shakers. Basically, they want A Players. They certainly don’t set out to hire 10% A Players, 80% B Players and 10% C Players. But that’s what most companies have. Still, it is fair to say that no recruiter ever hired someone knowing he would be a C Player, nor could he have known with certainty who was an A Player and who was a B Player. If only 10% of the employees at most companies are A Players, then clearly HR departments are hiring lots of B and C Players. That implies that it must be hard (or should we say nearly impossible) to distinguish between A, B and C Players.
The truth is that it is a challenge to distinguish between A, B and C Players. But when hiring for key positions, spotting A Players is essential. Certainly, companies more capable of spotting and hiring A Players for key positions will likely grow and thrive. A Players are the ones most likely to deliver creativity and innovation. They are the ones most likely to drive productivity, growth, and sales. They produce results. By the same token, it is reasonable to conclude that companies that have trouble identifying, hiring and keeping A Players will likely be less successful. So how does a manager spot and hire the A-list for his roster when they are not only hard to spot, but also when every other company is vying for the same top talent? Continue reading →

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March 13, 2017

A-Players vs. B-Players: Understanding the Value of Each Type of Employee

Issue #464

Employees are the most valuable resource of any company. From Apple to DeBeers to Walmart, employees are the ones who lead, manage, create, innovate, implement, interact and engage with others on behalf of the company. Only in the smallest companies do the owners perform the majority of the work. In most other companies, employees do most of the work that generates profit. For that reason, recruiting and hiring individuals with the skills and qualities to fit specific openings is the hardest thing any company does… even in the most successful organizations. And it doesn’t matter if the position is an entry-level receptionist, a seasoned salesperson, a highly-technical professional position, or C-Suite executive. Each opening has an ideal set of skills and qualities that would be the best fit for that job at that company. But the more remarkable the skills and qualities needed in an employee, the harder it is to find the right person to fill that job.
Given the importance of employees, one would think that companies should seek to only hire the most talented and successful candidates for every opening. They are often referred to as A-Players. But in reality, it is neither practical nor necessary for every employee at a company to be an A-Player. The truth is that not every opening at every company requires an A-Player and most of the time B-Players are a better fit for the majority of openings. What’s the difference between an A-Player and a B-Player (and what’s a C-Player)? When is it essential to hire A-Players? And how does one tell the difference between the A, B and C-Players when they apply for a job? Continue reading →

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March 6, 2017

When “Company Policy” Creates Lifelong Customers… for the Competition

Issue #463

There are three little words that help businesses create lifelong customers more effectively than practically any other phrase: “It’s company policy.” The problem is that those words create lifelong customers for the competition of the company saying that to its customers. For businesses that want to drive their customers to the competition, have at it. Use that phrase to your heart’s content. Better yet, just close your doors now and save yourself the time and slow agony of going out of business the old fashioned way… failure to make money.
Let’s face it. Saying “It’s company policy” to a customer is just a nicer way of saying “We don’t want your business.” That is what a customer hears when an employee blames “company policy” for an unwillingness or inability to solve a problem or accommodate a request. And when a manager says “It’s company policy” to an employee, he is saying “If you don’t like it, go work somewhere else.” As technology and innovation continues to disrupt industry after industry, leaders and managers will be forced to decide whether they are going to stick-to-their-guns and cling to outdated company policies that kill business and alienate employees, or whether they are going to innovate and evolve with the times. Continue reading →

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February 27, 2017

Content Marketing: Quality vs. Quantity

Issue #462

By now, most everyone has probably heard someone harping about the need for businesses to “tell their story” or “engage consumers with content” or “connect with customers on a personal level”. For over a decade, the mantra among marketers has been that Content Is King. Content is meant to attract and keep the attention of customers and potential customers. As the saying goes, “Be careful what you ask for; you might just get it.” Everyone jumped on the content bandwagon. Ad agencies, marketing firms, public relations firms, SEO firms and media vendors all rushed in to help. They all touted the need for “MORE CONTENT.” The goal was quantity. Tell stories. Share information.
Today, consumers are saturated – actually overwhelmed – by content. Social media has enabled and encouraged everyone to share information and tell stories. Methods of storytelling abound. Businesses are sharing more information. Experts are writing white papers. Industry leaders are putting out Forecasts. Charities are telling stories. Teenagers are chatting and tweeting and sharing pictures, videos and stories. Even religious leaders – who used to be confined to telling their stories from the pulpit – have joined the digital storytelling revolution. And the media — the original reporters of the world’s stories — now find themselves vying to be heard above the storytelling din. People are experiencing an onslaught of ‘content’ the likes of which has never before been experienced. The whole of humanity is busy creating content. It is a growing ocean of noise. Now what?
This is where the law of supply and demand kicks in. When there is a glut of supply in the market, then the value goes down. Whereas once upon a time quantity was the name of the game with content, going forward the focus is shifting toward quality over quantity. Welcome to the age of quality content. Continue reading →

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February 13, 2017

Industry Insiders and Influencer Marketing

Issue #460

Reaching customers during their decision-making process is one of the most coveted goals of sales and marketing professionals. Reaching someone at just the right time with just the right information can have a profound effect in influencing a purchase, especially if it is coming from a person of trust. Say, for instance, a man is looking to invest money. There will be many steps that go into the decision-making process of what to invest in. He might read some recent articles about the stock market in reputable investment magazines. He might get some advice from blogs written by investment gurus about investing in real estate. He might hear a radio commercial featuring a celebrity recommending investing in bonds. And he might get advice from friends and family members who have successfully managed their own investments. Some of this advice will be considered and some will be discarded. The man is more likely to listen to someone who is a trusted advisor, friend or colleague, especially if he is in the midst of the decision-making process.
Indeed, this is known as Influencer Marketing. Influencer Marketing is one of the best strategies for successfully infiltrating and influencing the decision-making process. Hence the name. Just how does Influencer Marketing work? And how effective is it? Continue reading →

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February 6, 2017

When Teamwork Breaks Down

Issue #459

It was recently reported that Usain Bolt – dubbed the world’s fastest runner – was stripped of one of his nine Gold medals. Unlike other occasions when athletes have lost a medal or award, in this case Bolt himself did nothing wrong. He was not guilty of cheating or unsportsmanlike conduct. Rather, Bolt lost the Olympic gold medal because his teammate, Nesta Carter, tested positive for a banned stimulant found during a re-analysis of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Carter and Bolt were teammates on the winning 4×100-meter team, which set a world record of 37.10 seconds. Carter ran the opening leg, and Bolt took the baton third in the race. But doping by even one member of the team disqualified the entire team – four athletes – from the competition.
Besides being heartbreaking for the three innocent athletes, this case is indicative of the importance and vulnerability of teamwork. And it is instructive about what happens when teamwork breaks down. In truth, while people tend to think that teams are the democratic—and the efficient—way to get things done, research shows that most of the time team members don’t even agree on what the team is supposed to be doing or what is most important. Getting agreement is the leader’s job, and he must be willing to take great personal and professional risks to set the team’s direction. And if the leader isn’t disciplined about managing who is on the team and how it is set up, the odds are slim that a team will do a good job. This is certainly true in Olympic sports and – although perhaps less glamorous — it is also true in business. So what do we know about teams, why they break down and what can be done to ensure they don’t? Continue reading →

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January 30, 2017

Fear is the ‘Bad Word’ of Business

Issue #458

Even though we live in a technology-driven data-saturated world, emotion still plays a huge role in how businesses are managed and how economies function. When business leaders feel buoyant about the future, they are more likely to launch new products or expand into new markets. When they are hopeful about the outlook for business, they are more likely to hire staff, make capital expenditures to replace outdated equipment and invest in new technology. And most economists agree that the degree of optimism that consumers feel in regards to the economy and their personal financial situations is practically a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people feel strong, positive, secure and sure – whether those feelings are based on facts and concrete data or not – they are more likely to spend, hire and take calculated risks. The result of all that confidence is that it usually fuels innovation and economic growth which then fuels more optimism. It is a virtuous cycle.
If all those good feelings serve as fuel for expansion and progress which in turn generates more confidence, then what causes recessions and contractions? What causes the pendulum to swing from optimism to pessimism, breaking the virtuous cycle? One big contributor is fear. It is the curse word of the business world. Fear plays a big role in causing stock markets to fluctuate wildly. Fear often makes employers hold back on hiring even when they know they are short-staffed. Fear causes business owners hold on to old equipment and antiquated systems rather than invest in the tools needed to maximize productivity and increase efficiency. Fear often works as a paralyzing agent undermining businesses and economies. So how should leaders and execs deal with fear in business? What do we even know about how fear affects business? Continue reading →

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January 16, 2017

Essential Tools for Today’s Mobile Workers

Issue #456

Millions of professionals worldwide spend a huge part of their work life traveling. Salespeople are constantly driving from place to place, meeting with clients or potential clients or visiting job sites. Service professionals and consultants often go to their customer’s locations to provide support. Couriers and logistics companies constantly have their employees on the road. Even many dentists and doctors have multiple offices or hospitals to which they drive to daily. It is not unusual for busy execs to be ‘on the road’ half of their work week or more.
Working in a car is tough, even if it is only for part of each day. Mobile workers need to stay in touch all day. That’s not easy to do when constantly on the move. Staying connected to the Internet is key to remaining productive. That means having power, connectivity, and the ability to create, send, receive and print information… all from or in a car. Thankfully, technology has done a lot to make it easier than ever before to get online, dialed in, and powered up while on the road. Here’s how. Continue reading →

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