<ul><li>Managers must directly feel customers' emotional pain to be inspired to change. </li><li>Abstract data doesn't inspire action. Leaders should spend significant time immersed with customers. </li><li>Only through first-hand experiences of flaws will they understand the need for change. </li><li>Remove management from offices into the field.</li></ul>

Experience Customer Pain 


Managing costs drives costs up. Value and failure demand get hidden. Instead, manage value - design services to meet customer needs efficiently. Cost focus causes dysfunction. Value focus aligns work to purpose.

Manage Value, Not Cost

Learning to see system dynamics is critical but lacking in leaders.Leadership expertise required is competence to deeply listen to demand signals. Study end-to-end processes. Diagnose demand, value and flow.

Leaders Must See the System, not Departments

Learning how to see is a critical skill management need to learn

Back office functions often optimize for cost and standardization, not customer value. This damages customer experience. Design all services - front and back office - based on understanding customer demand and their definitions of value. Let customer priorities guide how work is designed and coordinated to deliver maximum value.

The Back Office: Design Services for Customer Value

Rational change strategies fail. Presentations don't change mental models. Leaders must experience systemic flaws first-hand to be open to new assumptions. This normative learning is emotional and personal. Logic alone causes defense mechanisms. Help leaders feel customer pain directly. This anchors the outside-in perspective.

Change Through Normative Learning

Studying demand patterns reveals treasure - a lever to improve. Gain deep knowledge of how your system attracts and retains customers. Listen, understand and clarify customer priorities. Redesign work by value and flow, not function. Demand holds a mirror to system dysfunction invisible to managers.

Study Demand to Improve

The system beats the individual. Work design limits or enables performance. Improve how work works together through cross-functional coordination guided by demand, value and flow. Don't just develop individual skills. Optimize the environment.

Improve How Work Works

Track ability to meet customer demand (capacity) and satisfy customers (capability). Not costs. Define capability through timeliness, right-first-time etc. Optimize the work system around customer purpose using demand, value and flow measures. Abandon productivity and utilization metrics.

Focus on Customer-Driven Measures

Beyond Command and Control is a book written by John Seddon. It was published in 2019. The book offers solutions to the UK productivity conundrum and is about business transformation and efficiency. The book received positive reviews and is considered to be one of the first books that can really bring about significant improvement in this field.

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

books

Books

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

John Seddon

Beyond Command and Control

Experienced mentors can help you avoid common pitfalls and fill knowledge gaps as a new entrepreneur. Be open-minded, ask questions, and gather advice from multiple experts. Prioritize and synthesize the information. Find mentors with complementary skills to get guidance on legal, financial, strategic and other key issues. Understand your responsibilities in the mentoring relationship. Expect to continually evolve.

Remain Teachable

Engage and retain talent over the long-term by fostering an inclusive, appreciative, flexible, and trusting culture. Clearly define authentic values and guard them religiously. Make your culture more than superficial words on a wall. Enable positive change driven by employees. Ensure everyone feels valued and impactful.

Foster Purpose

<ul><li>Initially hire to fill skill gaps, but prioritize cultural fit to sustain the organization. </li><li>Hire team players who rise to challenges and pitch in where needed. </li><li> As you grow, separate employees into functional areas and teams. Build future leaders by empowering your best team members. </li></ul>

Put People First

It's natural to have fears about taking the leap into entrepreneurship. Fear can motivate preparation, but it can also paralyze action. <ul><li>Be informed so you can make smart decisions.</li><li> Know yourself, your core motivations and vision.</li><li>Identify gaps or needs in the marketplace. </li><li>Develop a sound business plan. </li><li>Secure proper funding for each growth stage. </li><li>Check your ego regularly.</li><li> Continuously examine your relationship with money.</li></ul>

Confront Your Fears 

Stay strategically future-focused, even before fully staffing your venture. Envision how you will segment your team into functional groups and empower leaders. Continuously evaluate if your structure fosters growth or impedes it.

Adopt a Future Focus 

You have to ensure your team feels valued, that they know their contributions are making a difference and that you care.

Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart. <ul><li>At a minimum, it takes a person with a firm resolve, the ability to persevere and pivot during challenging times, the humility to admit mistakes, and empathy for the people around them. </li><li>Self-reflection should come long before setting pen to paper for a business plan. </li><li>Understanding who you are is critical to being a leader who seeks to align purpose with profit.</li></ul>

Broken To Better: The Premise

Sales fundamentally depends on human relationships and social skills. Passion for your product and likeability build connections. Without strong people skills, sales will always struggle. Approach sales through a human lens first. Have convictions about the value to customers. Establish trust and rapport. Sales enables all other functions.

Master Sales

<ul><li>Make customer service a competitive advantage through memorable, personalized experiences. </li><li>Take care of employees first so they can take care of customers. </li><li>Build trusting relationships over time. </li><li>Identify your ideal customer archetype. </li><li>Continuously improve service offerings. </li><li>Remain honest always. </li><li>Integrate simple processes and helpful technology.</li></ul>

Deliver Great Service 

Changing habits requires an internal decision and commitment to a new path. Perseverance and focus make new habits stick. Bad habits result when we lose resolve. To change, decisively commit to a plan and mindfully persist despite distractions or resistance.

Change Habits

Having a strong network of advisors, mentors, colleagues, and friends is essential for starting and growing a business. Each relationship offers unique value, whether it's professional expertise, emotional support, or just an outside perspective. Actively build and nurture your connections. Show up authentically, listen closely, communicate clearly, and don't be afraid of failure. Surround yourself with diverse viewpoints.

Expand Your Network

In the 2022 book Broken to Better: 13 Ways Not to Fail at Life and Leadership, CEO of Branded Group Michael Kurland candidly shares every step of his own entrepreneurial odyssey—selling everything he owned, driving across the country to launch his new business, and ultimately building a purpose-driven culture that aligns purpose with profit. Along the way, Kurland distills a lifetime of experience down to its purest essence.  

Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart. It takes a firm resolve, the ability to persevere and pivot during challenging times, the humility to admit mistakes, and empathy for the people around you. Understanding who you are is critical to that journey. In Broken to Better, Michael Kurland candidly shares every step of his own entrepreneurial odyssey-selling everything he owned, driving across the country to launch his new business, and ultimately building a purpose-driven culture that aligns purpose with profit. Along the way, Kurland distills a lifetime of experience down to its purest essence. From key principles of organizational strength to the secrets of profitability and growth, Broken to Better offers up all his triumphs and mistakes in the same spirit of perseverance, fearlessness, empathy, and gratitude. Although Kurland humbly claims he did "whatever it took to avoid failing," the truth shines through on every page-he did whatever it took to Be Better.

Michael Kurland

Broken to Better

If you confuse, you'll lose.

People don’t want more information. They are up to their eyeballs in information. They want faith—faith in you, your goals, your success, in the story you tell.

Clarify your core brand story and message above all else. Reject tangents and complexity even if they seem impressive. Simplify it down to be extremely clear, focused and concise.If customers are confused, they cannot engage.

Simplifying Your Core Message

Leverage storytelling techniques like narrative arc, emotion and drama rather than just listing product features and benefits.Stir their imagination through well-crafted stories.Build connection and empathy through shared journeys.

Leveraging the Power of Storytelling

Brand stories should follow 7 classic storytelling elements:<ol><li>The customer as the Hero,</li><li>Your brand as the guide,</li><li>An external villain (the problem),</li><li>The hero's plan to defeat the villain,</li><li>Allies who support the hero,</li><li>A crisis moment where the plan is threatened, and</li><li>The eventual transformation and success due to your brand's solution.</li></ol>

The 7 Story Structure Elements 

Identify a clear external Villain that your customer is battling against, such as frustration, inconvenience, lack of quality or high prices.Present your brand as offering the solution to help the customer vanquish and overcome this obstacle. The villain shouldn't be your competitor.

Clarifying the External Villain 

Even with an obvious external villain, recognize your customers have an internal anxiety or resistance to change as well.Address their worries openly by illuminating this inner struggle in your story. Overcome objections.

Illuminating the Inner Struggle


There are two kinds of calls to action:<ol><li>Direct calls to action; and</li><li>Transitional calls to action.</li></ol>A direct call to action is something that leads to a sale, or at least is the first step down a path that leads to a sale.Transitional calls to action, however, contain less risk and usually offer the customer something for free.

The Call To Action

Position your brand as the wise Guide who has walked the customer Hero's journey before. You have insider knowledge to help them overcome obstacles and achieve transformation.Seek to build trust by being a mentor, not just a vendor.

Casting Your Brand as the Guide

<ul><li>Rather than talking about your brand, position the customer as the central Hero of your story.</li><li>Show how you can guide them to solve a problem and achieve the transformation they desire.</li><li>Let them see it as their own personal journey and arc, with them in the starring role.</li></ul>

Positioning the Customer as the Hero


Lay out the specific plan of action for how your product or service will empower the customer Hero to defeat the villain. Don't be vague - provide clear, succinct steps they can take.Show don't tell how you facilitate their success.

Presenting a Concrete Plan of Action  

Everything can be a story! Even your brand! The book Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller provides a framework for crafting a compelling brand story that resonates with customers. It applies storytelling techniques to business messaging.

More than half-a-million business leaders have discovered the power of the StoryBrand Framework, created by New York Times best-selling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. And they are making millions.If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners struggle to effectively connect with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue.In a world filled with constant, on-demand distractions, it has become near-impossible for business owners to effectively cut through the noise to reach their customers, something Donald Miller knows first-hand. In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers.The StoryBrand process is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their companies. Without a clear, distinct message, customers will not understand what you can do for them and are unwilling to engage, causing you to lose potential sales, opportunities for customer engagement, and much more.In Building a StoryBrand, Donald Miller teaches marketers and business owners to use the seven universal elements of powerful stories to dramatically improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses.His proven process has helped thousands of companies engage with their existing customers, giving them the ultimate competitive advantage. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching you:<ul><li>The seven universal story points all humans respond to;</li><li>The real reason customers make purchases;</li><li>How to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and</li><li>How to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media.</li></ul>Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion-dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

Donald "Don" Miller is an American author, public speaker, and business owner. He is the CEO of StoryBrand, a marketing company. He is also an author of personal essays and reflections about faith, God, and self-discovery.

Donald Miller

Building a StoryBrand

<ul><li>Simple, regular monitoring and reporting of progress provides visibility into what's working or not.</li><li>This allows quick reinforcement of successes and addressing of issues.</li><li>It builds change-capable habits of tracking data and engagement.</li></ul>

Tracking and Reinforcing Progress

Adjustments are made to cement the change rather than reverting to old ways. Seeing ongoing adaptation as normal embeds change-capability.Reflecting on enhancements to systems and processes facilitates continual improvement.

Institutionalizing Adjustments

Leaders must clearly frame the specifics of the change and build agreement on the "shape" of it. They should realistically assess both risks and rewards - obstacles as well as benefits.This provides a balanced perspective and compelling rationale to motivate employees through their own change process.

Clarifying the Change Rationale

Built on the previous foundation, the change and transition plans are now executed. Change happens through new behaviors and systems while people are supported through the human process.Strong coordination is critical between logistics and emotional elements.

Executing Change and Transition Plans

The transition is led by identifying who is most affected and clarifying what exactly will change for them. A focused transition plan then accelerates their adjustment through endings and beginnings.This support is crucial for people to traverse their own change arc.

Supporting People Through Change 

<ul><li>Beyond the individual change, the organization's systems, processes, structures and culture are assessed for alignment.</li><li>Improvements here are made to facilitate this change and build general capacity to handle change effectively going forward.</li></ul>

Embedding Change-Capability

<ul><li>With the change framed, leaders can describe the future state and scope.</li><li>They paint a realistic but hopeful picture of success to show new possibilities.</li><li>Quantifiable measures also reinforce and track the benefits.</li><li>This envisions where the change can lead.</li></ul>

Envisioning the Future State 

Making important positive changes in our lives requires thoughtful, concerted effort over time - along with faith in ourselves

<ul><li>A credible, competent core team is assembled to drive the change.</li><li>They should move through personal change readily and help engage stakeholders.</li><li>Broad input builds an effective plan for communication, new behaviors, systems impacts, and gauging readiness.</li></ul>

Assembling the Change Team

"Change from the Inside Out" by Erika Andersen is a book about the importance of building change capability in individuals and organizations. The book offers a straightforward process for overcoming resistance to change and building support for change from the ground up.

Change initiatives fail because humans are hardwired to return to what's worked for us in the past. This book offers a straightforward process for rewiring ourselves and those we lead to be more change-capable. Erika Andersen says avoiding change has been a historical imperative. In this book, she shows how we can overcome that reluctance and get good at making necessary change. Using a fictional story about a jewelry business changing generational hands, Andersen lays out a five-step model for addressing both this human side of change and its practical aspects: Step 1: Clarify the change and why it's needed—Get clear on what the change is and the benefits it will bring. Step 2: Envision the future state—Build a shared picture of the post-change future. Step 3: Build the change—Bring together a change team, engage key stakeholders, and plan the change. Step 4: Lead the transition—Build a transition plan that supports the human side of the change, then engage the whole organization in making the change. Step 5: Keep the change going—Work to make your organization permanently more change-capable. With opportunities to self-reflect and try out the ideas and approaches throughout, this book is a practical guide to thriving in this era of nonstop change.

Erika Andersen

Change from the Inside Out

Practice conscious empathy, deep listening, and genuine care for others' wellbeing and growth. Take time to understand different human perspectives without judgement. Build trusting relationships through openness, compassion, humility, and service to human needs. Care for the whole person.

Leading with Empathy, Care and Emotional Intelligence

<ul><li>Handle all organizational affairs, decisions and conduct with ethical behavior guided by moral principles concerning fundamental matters of right and wrong. </li><li>Do what is fair, just and avoids harm according to the highest standards. </li><li>Uphold impeccable integrity to make wise, compassionate choices. </li><li>Conscious leaders self-regulate egos in service of ethics.</li></ul>

Elevating Ethics and Integrity as Top Priorities

<ul><li>Invest in developing people's full human potential on emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual levels. </li><li>Help them find deeper meaning and purpose in their work.</li><li> Provide enrichment opportunities for creativity, learning, contribution and growth. </li><li>Nurture those you lead.</li></ul>

Promoting Continuous Personal Growth and Development 

Through meditation, self-reflection and other self-awareness practices, consciously cultivate higher levels of moral wisdom, altruism, inner peace, presence and spiritual purpose within yourself as a leader. Apply this elevated consciousness to leadership.

Cultivating Higher Levels of Consciousness

Nurture organizational cultures characterized by trust, empowerment, accountability, ethics, caring, inclusiveness, continuous learning, vitality and higher purpose. This kind of elevating culture attracts and retains conscious talent, and elevates customer experiences.

Creating Conscious Cultures of Higher Purpose

Anchor the organization around a purpose and commitment to creating value for society beyond solely maximizing profits. This higher ideal gives meaning, attracts talent who align with the mission, builds customer affinity through shared values, and unlocks deeper motivation to contribute to a greater cause. People desire to express their higher nature through work.

Defining a Higher Purpose Beyond Profits

<ul><li>Promote mindfulness, work-life balance, psychological safety and physical/mental health. </li><li>Foster positive emotions, strong relationships, meaning, accomplishment, engagement and human flourishing. </li><li>Protect staff from chronic stress and burnout. </li><li>Maximize joy and vitality. </li></ul>

Enhancing Wellbeing, Fulfillment and Vitality

<ul><li>Adopt an inclusive, humble servant leadership approach focused on empowering others over ego. </li><li>Value diversity and all voices. Lead collaboratively with an open heart, not from top-down authority. </li><li>Share power and leadership opportunities. Lift others up.</li></ul>

Exemplifying Humility and Inclusion as a Servant Leader

Leadership is about empowering others to excel. Consciousness gives empathy, compassion, and wisdom to leaders.

In Conscious Leadership, the authors argue that businesses should focus on purpose beyond profits to uplift humanity. They propose integrating higher levels of ethics, empathy and awareness.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER! From Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and his coauthors, a follow-up to groundbreaking bestseller Conscious Capitalism—revealing what it takes to lead a purpose-driven, sustainable business. John Mackey started a movement when he founded Whole Foods, bringing natural, organic food to the masses and not only changing the market, but breaking the mold. Now, for the first time, Conscious Leadership closely explores the vision, virtues, and mindset that have informed Mackey’s own leadership journey, providing a roadmap for innovative, value-based leadership—in business and in society.   Conscious Leadership demystifies strategies that have helped Mackey shepherd Whole Foods through four decades of incredible growth and innovation, including its recent sale to Amazon. Each chapter will challenge you to rethink conventional business wisdom through anecdotes, case studies, profiles of conscious leaders, and innovative techniques for self-development, culminating in an empowering call to action for entrepreneurs and trailblazers—to step up as leaders who see beyond the bottom line.

Beyond Command and Control

Broken to Better

Building a StoryBrand

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Change from the Inside Out

It's time to
Read like a Pro.