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LEADERSHIP FREAK READING LIST FOR MARCH
I’m currently two thirds the way through The Education of a Coach by David Halberstam. It’s the story of Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots.
The book is a bit dated, published in 2006, but it’s really the story of a father’s influence.
Steve Belichick, football scout for Navy, had a huge influence on his son Bill.
Dad:
Bill is often quoted as saying, “Do your job.”
Hard work was part of Bill’s life because his father worked hard, harder and longer than other football scouts. Bill’s dad reminds me of mine.
I was fortunate to be brought up on a dairy farm. Hard work is synonymous with life for dairy farmers.
My dad was the hardest working man I ever knew. He never preached about hard work. He simply did it and expected his children to live that way too. Frankly, we didn’t think there was any other way.
Work:
I don’t understand people who work so they don’t have to work.
We are made to work. Work gives meaning to life.
Success apart from hard work is shallow, degrading, and unfulfilling.
The work of leadership begins with modeling the way.*
#1. Do the work.
Get off your butt. You can’t lead from a chair. If you aren’t sure what to do. Do something and learn as you go.
Show the way. Don’t simply point the way.
- Ask more of yourself than you ask of others.
- Get dirty. Perform menial tasks.
- Identify with support staff.
- Never look down on people who do work that’s different from yours. Organizational silos disrespect the work of others.
#2. Support others while they work.
- Challenge and cheer.
- Notice progress.
- Honor the qualities that produce results – things like industry, discipline, and attention to detail.
#3. Remove obstacles to successful work.
Make the work of others less frustrating and more productive. One corporate leader told me, “My main job is figuring out how to remove obstacles that slow my team.”
If you have position, you have authority to eliminate barriers and create connections.
Reading list for March:
- Servant Leadership in Action by multiple co-authors.
- Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges 2nd Edition by C. Otto Scharmer. (Underway)
- Intelligent Disobedience: Doing Right When What You’re Told to Do Is Wrongby Ira Chaleff.
- The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future by Skip Prichard.
What are you reading in March?
Tapping real-time analytics to create a digitally enabled organization
As a society, we can and are collecting data in many ways. The question is not how to get more data, but how to use it effectively?
By 2020, approximately 1.7 MB of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet.1 That is an incredible amount of data!
Yet, of all the data the world is creating both personally and professionally, less than 0.5 percent of it is ever analyzed and used.2 Analyzing less than 0.5 percent leaves a lot of opportunity on the table.
Not just volume, connection and integration
Clearly, as a society, we can and are collecting data in many ways. The question is not how to get more data, but how to use it effectively? In healthcare, how do we capture greater knowledge from the right data at the right time for truly actionable insights?
Many healthcare organizations have started down the road to digital transformation by capturing more data from various service lines with different technologies and systems. However, that information is often captured and used within silos, which limits the impact. The true transformational change occurs when we put all of the data together – i.e., integrate the data, analyze and then share those insights across the organization.
Rapid analysis, insights and action
Better integrating and connecting data is, however, only one part of the equation. Insights from big data days, weeks, months or even years later limit our ability to make corrections and find opportunities for improvements. Speed to insights from the data is critical.
Technically, the data must be made available and analyzed in time to affect decisions. For example, near real time information is typically important for clinical care decisions. Once the data, analysis and insights have been generated, the individual making the decision needs to make that information part of the workflow and the decision-making process.
The digitally enabled organization
The organization needs to build trust in and adopt these new insights as tools to assist making the best decisions for each patient at the right place at the right time. This requires making the organization a digitally enabled organization.
The digitally enabled organization leverages experience, expertise and the best data-driven insights to make the right decisions, and operate most efficiently. The digitally enabled organization is agile and is enabled by the right insights at the right time. The digitally enabled organization drives the expansion of precision medicine, transforms the delivery of care and improves the patient experience.
Witness firsthand how digital agility and the digitally enabled organization can improve patient care and engagement. For example, organizations can create data-driven solutions to patient leakage challenges and rise to their operational opportunities. The result is optimal utilization and enhanced patient experience.3
Into the future
Achieving a digitally enabled organization lays a strong foundation to adopt new tools, ways of working and driving continuous improvement. This shift also allows the organization to incorporate predictive approaches and other advanced analytics that may include artificial intelligence. A layer of trust in insights creates a powerful data-driven culture that is transformative.
Outcome-Based Market Segmentation Outperforms Milkshake Marketing
The Milkshake Marketing segmentation methodology does not segment the market around unmet needs. It risks leaving possible opportunities hidden from view and targeting unattractive segments.
When it comes to discovering hidden segments of opportunity, outcome-based market segmentation gets the job done best.
When thinking about market segmentation, an important first question to ask is, “What is a market?” After all, how you choose to define a “market” will determine just what it is you will try to segment. For example:
- You could define a market as a group of people — and segment those people based on similarities in their demographics, psychographics, attitudes, behaviors or the generation in which they were born.
- You could define a market as a technology, such as semiconductors — and segment your market around technology applications.
- You could define a market as an industry vertical, such as health care or retail — and segment your market around geographic region or size of the business.
But when it comes to informing product marketing and innovation, what is the best approach? To answer that question, let’s remind ourselves why we want to segment a market in the first place.
Companies employ market segmentation methods as a means to discover groups of customers that have similar needs so that product offerings can be uniquely tailored to — and effectively positioned at — each segment. In short, market segmentation is a method companies use to discover segments of opportunity: groups of customers with different under/over-served needs.
Consequently, the segments resulting from a good market segmentation scheme should possess these 4 characteristics:
- Homogeneous population: the population of each segment should be homogeneous, with little variation in the needs customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served.
- Mutually exclusive: the set of needs that customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served should be different from segment to segment.
- Collectively exhaustive: 100 percent of the customer population should be effectively classified by the segmentation scheme so all customers are accounted for. This ensures all segments are discovered and the most attractive segments can be targeted.
- Actionable: each segment should possess characteristics that make it attractive for pursuit with a unique market/product strategy, e.g., disruptive, differentiated, dominant, sustaining, etc.
When it comes to putting Jobs-to-be-Done Theory into practice, two alternative approaches to market segmentation have emerged: Milkshake Marketing (a methodology, as I will explain, that is technically flawed) and Outcome-Based Segmentation (a methodology that is proven to work in practice).
When Clay Christensen employs his Milkshake Marketing segmentation methodology, he defines a market as a group of people who buy a product, e.g., milkshake buyers — and segments them into groups of buyers that have a unique product use case. That product use case is defined by what is considered a unique set of circumstances faced by the buyer and the emotional and functional jobs the customer is trying to get done in that set of circumstances.
So what’s wrong with segmenting a market around product use case and then profiling that segment by the jobs that are causing people to buy a specific product in that circumstance? Quite simply, as a methodology it fails to reliably reveal segments of customers that share a unique set of under/over-served needs.
Consequently, while the Milkshake Marketing approach may be useful for uncovering unique marketing opportunities (selling more of an existing product by telling stories about a use case), it is not the right tool for innovation.
Where does Milkshake Marketing go wrong?
If a company wants to use market segmentation as a method to discover groups of customers who have the exact same under/over-served needs, then it follows that the most effective means for segmentation would be to segment around unmet customer needs. Only after the need-based segment is defined should a company identify the unique set of circumstances that are causing customers in each segment to have the same under/over-served needs.
Milkshake Marketing segmentation does the exact opposite — it makes the use case or circumstance the bases for segmentation, and after the segment is defined, it seeks to understand customer jobs/needs in that circumstance. It is not needs-based segmentation.
In addition, when employing the Milkshake Marketing method, only people who are using a specific product (e.g., milkshakes) are considered, leaving those that bought competing products (eggs and muffins) out of the market segmentation analysis. These two factors contribute to the creation of a market segmentation scheme that is technically flawed along several fronts.
The population of each segment is not homogeneous
The segment of milkshake buyers that find themselves on a long, boring commute to work and want to stave off hunger do not all share the same set of under/over-served needs. Some milkshake buyers in that circumstance may value finding something to do with their free hand, while others may not. Some milkshake buyers may be time-constrained and underserved along many fronts when variations in the restaurant’s ability to delivery cause them to be late for work. Other milkshake buyers may have all the time in the world and have few, if any unmet needs. Segmenting the market around a unique product use case does not guarantee the resulting segment is comprised of a homogeneous population, i.e., a segment in which all members agree on which needs are underserved, overserved and appropriately served.
There is no guarantee the segments are mutually exclusive
When segmenting around circumstance/product use case, it is possible, even likley, that the same under/over-served needs will show up in multiple use cases. For example, when it comes to buying milkshakes, it is quite possible that the segment of morning commuters who buy milkshakes and the segment of parents who buy milkshakes in the afternoon share a common set of unmet needs — both may complain about waiting too long in line, not getting what they ordered, or feeling bloated after finishing their shakes.
If the needs that customers believe are underserved, overserved and appropriately served aren’t different from segment to segment, then the segmentation scheme is rendered useless.
The segmentation scheme is not collectively exhaustive
When segmenting a market, a company would typically want to understand how the entire population of interest is segmented, not just a subset. The Milkshake Marketing methodology does not seek to, and is unable to, account for the entire population — it cannot place each individual into a segment.
Discovering the morning commuter and the afternoon parent purchase segments of milkshake use does not account for all milkshake purchases. Nor does it account for people who purchased other products from those same locations in the morning or afternoon. It offers an incomplete view of the market, leaving possible marketing and innovation opportunities hidden from view.
The action you’d take to pursue a segment is unclear
When segmenting the market by circumstance/use case, there is no guarantee that the segment population has an actionable set of under/over-served needs. Worse yet, half the segment population may have one set of unmet needs and the other half of the same segment may have a different set of unmet needs. If the segment population is not homogeneous, then a single market and product strategy cannot be devised for that segment. This is one reason why the milkshake client in the famous Milkshake Marketing example was wise to reject the team’s recommendations.
When segmenting a market, each segment should contain a homogeneous population and the segments themselves should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. While the Milkshake Marketing methodology is not capable of producing a segmentation scheme with these characteristics, Outcome-Based Segmentation methodology was designed with this end in mind.
Outcome-Based Market Segmentation
It’s true that a circumstance can cause a need to be unmet, but the way to figure out the circumstance (of which their could be thousands of possibilities) that is causing needs to be unmet is not to speculate on the thousands of possible circumstances. Rather, it is to segment the market around unmet needs to discover segments of customers that have unique under/over-served needs — and then determine the circumstances that are causing those needs to be unmet.
This thinking has an important impact and poses a major constraint on how a market must be defined in order to discover the ultimate segmentation scheme — to find the ultimate targets for innovation, you must define a market in a way that makes it possible to segment around the customers’ needs, forcing us to define exactly what a “need” is.
For this reason we define a market as the core functional job that a group of people are trying to get done — and segment the market around the metrics they use to measure success when getting that job done. These metrics, a special form of need statement called desired outcomes, are the customer’s needs. This thinking forms the foundation for our outcome-based segmentation methodology.
What makes outcome-based market segmentation a breakthrough approach is the way it defines a “market” (as a functional job people are trying to get done). This enables a company to define a complete set of needs for that market — for all those people trying to get that job done — and to use those needs as the bases for market segmentation.
More specifically, when applying Jobs-to-be-Done Theory to market segmentation, we study the core functional job-to-be-done, making it the unit of analysis, and uncover all the customers desired outcomes along with all the emotional, related and consumption chain jobs (and outcomes) associated with the core functional job. The data set employs a large number of variables — often totaling 150 or so. (See Customer Needs Through a Jobs-To-Be-Done Lens for more details.)
Next we survey up to 1000 people to document the circumstances they were in the last time they executed the job — and to rate the importance and satisfaction of each desired outcome and job statement, given the solution they chose to get the job done, whether it be a product, service or a homegrown work-around. (See Quantify Your Customer’s Unmet Needs.)
Using statistically valid data that is representative of the total customer population, we are able to discover how the market is naturally segmented. In other words, we are able to use factor and cluster analysis to discover and size all the unique under/over-served outcome-based segments that are representative of 100 percent of the market. Analyzing the profiling data that is collected enables us to discover the circumstances that are causing the outcomes to be underserved.
Outcome-based market segmentation makes no assumptions about the optimal theoretical framework. Instead, the empirical data (knowledge of what needs are important and satisfied in a representative sample of the population) drives the segmentation selection. Half the population may think outcomes 10, 15, 20, 30 and 50 are highly underserved. The other half may think that outcomes 7, 11, 19, 32 and 61 are highly underserved. Cluster analysis reveals these segments within the data.
Once a company knows with confidence what segments of opportunity exist and why, i.e., what circumstances explain causation, they are able to devise a product portfolio strategy that addresses each of the segments they choose to target. They also know size of each segment, which is critical when forecasting revenue potential.
The segments discovered using the Outcome-Based Market Segmentation methodology inherently (by design) possess all the characteristics of a good market segmention scheme. Outcome-based segments contain a homogeneous population and are mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive and highly actionable.
In Competing Against Luck, Clay Christensen et al say:
“In the context of a data-obsessed world, it might be a surprise that some of the world’s greatest innovators have succeeded with little more than their own intuition about a Job to Be Done to guide their efforts.”
True, but unfortunately, not all of us are born great innovators with perfect intuition. Most of us need a repeatable, proven process to ensure success at innovation. While Christensen’s Milkshake Marketing segmentation approach relies on observation and intuition to try and find segments worth targeting, the ODI methodology uses hard data and statistics to discover segments of opportunity that companies can count on to make innovation both predictable and profitable.
42 Inspiring Quotes That Demonstrate the Importance of Emotional Intelligence
EQ is often cited as the difference between winners and losers. Use these quotes to up your game.
As far as I know, my MBA program didn’t teach any classes in emotional intelligence. While I got a solid education, I can’t help but think that I might have been served better by taking a course or two in EQ. After all, study after study has shown that emotional intelligence is the different between a successful CEO and an also-ran.
Here are some of the best quotes to inspire you to become a more emotionally intelligent leader:
- The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.
-Rasheed Ogunlaru - Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. -Jack Welch
- In my 35 years in business, I have always trusted my emotions. I have always believed that by touching emotion you get the best people to work with you, the best clients to inspire you, the best partners and most devoted customers.
-Kevin Roberts - When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion. -Dale Carnegie
- When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self-esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us, so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves. -Jess C. Scott
- No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
-Theodore Roosevelt - Never react emotionally to criticism. Analyze yourself to determine whether it is justified. If it is, correct yourself. Otherwise, go on about your business. -Norman Vincent Peale
- When you listen with empathy to another person, you give that person psychological air. -Stephen R. Covey
- Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution. -Kahlil Gibran
- Remember that failure is an event, not a person. -Zig Ziglar
- Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place. -Oli Anderson
- Emotional intelligent people use self-awareness to their advantage to assess a situation, get perspective, listen without judgment, process, and hold back from reacting head on. At times, it means the decision to sit on your decision. By thinking over your situation rationally, without drama, you’ll eventually arrive at other, more sane conclusions. –Marcel Schwantes
- It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. –Travis Bradberry
- The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and influence their actions. -John Hancock
- Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. -Epictetus
- Every time we allow someone to move us with anger, we teach them to be angry. -Barry Neil Kaufman
- Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values. -Joshua L. Liebman
- Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. -Leo Buscaglia
- Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way. -Mavis Mazhura
- Experience is not what happens to you–it’s how you interpret what happens to you. -Aldous Huxley
- Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. -Bill Gates
- Don’t let the baggage from your past–heavy with fear, guilt, and anger–slow you down. -Maddy Malhotra
- Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. -Charles J. Sykes
- It isn’t stress that makes us fall–it’s how we respond to stressful events.
-Wayde Goodall - Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame. -Benjamin Franklin
- Pausing helps you refrain from making a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. –Justin Bariso
- No doubt emotional intelligence is more rare than book smarts, but my experience says it is actually more important in the making of a leader. You just can’t ignore it. -Jack Welch
- Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand … prejudice, fear, and ignorance walk hand in hand. -Peart
- Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. -Charlotte Brontë
- The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. -Donald Calne
- Change happens in the boiler room of our emotions–so find out how to light their fires. -Jeff Dewar
- If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far. -Daniel Goleman
- Don’t compromise yourself. You’re all you’ve got. -Janis Joplin
- Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance.
-Anthony de Mello - The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
-Carl R. Rogers - I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. -Socrates
- If we can’t laugh at ourselves, do we have the right to laugh at others? -C.H. Hamel
- We are at our most powerful the moment we no longer need to be powerful. -Eric Micha’el Leventhal
- When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. -Ernest Hemingway
- Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone … just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had. -F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. -C.G. Jung
What’s your favorite quote about emotional intelligence that needs to be added to this list? What inspires you to develop your EQ further on an ongoing basis?
Senior Executives Get More Sleep Than Everyone Else
https://hbr.org/2018/02/senior-executives-get-more-sleep-than-everyone-else
It’s no secret that most of us don’t get enough sleep and suffer for it. If you’re between the ages of 16 and 64, and don’t get seven to nine hours of sleep per night, your logical reasoning, executive function, attention, and mood can be impaired. Worse, severe sleep deprivation can lead to depression, anxiety, and symptoms of paranoia. In the long run, sleep deprivation is a main contributor to the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Surprisingly, one group that doesn’t need to heed these warnings is executives. In our assessment of 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 more, we found that the more senior a person’s role is, the more sleep they get.
There are two possible explanations for this. Either senior executives, with the help of assistants and hard-working middle managers, do less and take more time for sleep. Or senior executives have had the wisdom and discipline throughout their career to get enough sleep and thereby maintain a high performance level without burning out.
Our conclusion is that the latter is the case. “Sleep has always been foundational for my performance,” Cees ’t Hart, president and CEO of Carlsberg Group, shared with us. “And especially to perform in a way that is required by my current job, I need seven hours of sleep, every night. Of course, with intense travel and work commitments, sometimes this is compromised, and when that happens, it comes with a cost. When I sleep less, I perform less.”
In contrast, our data found that 68% of nonexecutive leaders get five to seven hours of sleep per night. When there are not enough hours in the day, they steal some from the night. Many leaders stay up late to catch up on email or other tasks. According to our research, this tendency is widespread, regardless of gender.
This is a problem. For leaders, sleep is not a luxury. Research has found that there is a direct link between getting enough sleep and leading effectively and that sleep-deprived leaders are less inspiring.
It used to be a badge of honor to brag about sleeping few hours, but our research should serve as inspiration for aspiring leaders to make sleep sacrosanct. The key message: If you want to be an effective leader, and rise in the ranks, get enough sleep.
Of course, it’s one thing to make a commitment to go to bed early, and another to actually get seven or more hours of quality sleep. For many leaders, going to bed is only part of the problem. The other part is getting high-quality, restorative sleep.
Fortunately, a good night’s sleep is not a random event; it’s a trainable skill. Here are a few guidelines that will help you.
- Catch the melatonin wave. Go to bed when you’re just starting to feel drowsy (usually between 10 PM and 11 PM). Melatonin, a natural hormone released from the pineal gland, deep inside your brain, makes you relax, feel drowsy, and ultimately fall asleep. If you learn to notice it and go with its flow, you’ll enjoy falling asleep and have better-quality sleep during the night.
- Avoid screens. Turn off TVs, smartphones, and laptops at least 60 minutes before bed. Why? Each of those screens emits high levels of blue light rays. That blue light suppresses your pineal gland, and in turn, the production of melatonin. It’s almost like your brain reads the blue light as if the sun is still up, when in reality the sun has probably been down for hours and you should be sleeping.
- Enjoy only perceptual activities 60 minutes before bed. Too much thinking is another enemy of late-evening drowsiness. Conceptual activities like intense conversations, replying to emails, working, or reading can arouse your attention and suppress your natural sleepiness. In contrast, perceptual activities like doing the dishes, going for a walk, or listening to music can help you better catch the wave of melatonin as it rises.
- Avoid eating two hours before bed. Most people know to avoid caffeine in the hours before going to bed, but in fact, eating anything can negatively impact your ability to get good sleep. Eating activates the flow of blood and sugar in the body, keeping your body and mind alert and awake. Not the ideal state for a good night’s rest.
- Practice five minutes of mindfulness when you go to bed. Practicing mindfulness has proven to enhance sleep quality. Do five minutes of it sitting on your bed before you go to sleep, as the last thing of the day. You can find simple instructions here.
Cartoon – Helping Employees Embrace Strategic Changes
Cartoon – Employee Happiness
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Cartoon – Bold Innovative Change Today
HENRY KOTULA 