It’s not the “big” decisions that kill your company
by Miki SaxonPost from Leadership Turn Image credit: woodsy CC license
By Wes Ball, author of The Alpha Factor – a revolutionary new look at what really creates market dominance and self-sustaining success. Read all of Wes’ posts here.
It is seldom the “big” decisions that kill a company, except in the final stages, when big decisions are needed to “save” it. It is the day-to-day sacrificing of “Alpha Assets” that drive a company to ruin. Alpha Assets are the real strategic assets a company has, based upon the Alpha Factor model defined in my book.
What happens is that leaders start to believe the lies they hear from customers, retailers, and salespeople that they have to compete on price. They make decisions based upon short-term internal needs before addressing strategic needs of customers. They make budget and other decisions based upon satisfying shareholders and stock analysts, whose interest in the company is extremely short-term.
When I see the kinds of problems that most corporate leaders face on a day-to-day basis, more than 90% of them are ones that either would not exist or would be much less threatening, if the company had not made many small compromises and small “mistakes” over a long time. They have given away the competitive influence they might have had by “playing by the rules.”
In the research for my book, The Alpha Factor, I was continually surprised to find that many Alpha companies struggle with this. The difference is that Alpha’s compromise less and stay focused more upon their core Alpha Assets when making decisions.
What kind of pressure have you seen that tempts you to just solve the problem today without regard to how it might harm your long-term potential?
Your comments—priceless
July 31st, 2008 at 8:31 am
Oh how TRUE! Too many companies vie to be all things to all customers, and use ‘lowest price’ as the reason to do business together.
If you aren’t unique, high-value and worthy of talking about…you aren’t going to last. No many copanies ‘exist’, but have no story to tell! Nothing valuable or unqiue when doing business with them!