The Future Is Uncertain

The cycle of change has sped-up to a degree where we now have catastrophic and micro economic cycles, making the present unpredictable, let alone the future. This does not work well for traditional managers and traditional Marketing 101 plans.

5 - 10 year business plans are, at best a wish list and certainly not how the future will turn-out; and even if it did turn-out according to your plan, so much change would have transpired that you would have only managed to suffocate your organization, should you have managed it to the 5 year plan, as your nimble competitors would have sped past you at the speed of the unstoppable change we are experiencing.

So how is this good news?
Well, those that sped past you while you were anchoring your organization to its plan (the past), certainly have some answers.

Managers Manage, Leaders Lead. These 2 are not mutually exclusive. In fact, management is a role, while Leadership is an attitude, an approach. If as a manager you are not a Leader, you are probably short-changing your organization, your team and yourself.

Leadership, on the other hand is not about limiting, white-knuckling, anchoring and holding-tight to that plan. This only produces stress, depression and a paralyzed organization. Yes, Leaders have a 5 and maybe 10 year Vision for their organisation. However, true Leaders tap into their passion and purpose to find the creativity within them to inspire their teams towards a future tha, in augmenting the organizational Vision, fulfills their team's purpose and passion.

This sounds easy, simple and even simplistic. And whilst this concept is easy, the practice certainly is not. It works against convention (the past). Everything within us tells us it is unsafe, unchartered, unorthodox and even fool-hardy. Why should I stick my neck out? Why not follow the beaten track? At least that way I can always blame the system and keep my job. This is unfortunately, now, old thinking. No organization is safe from absolute failure as we have seen in the recent (and ongoing) Global Financial Crises. Your organization could be gone and so would the safety of your job unless you inspire your team to endorse Leadership by operating from their purpose.

Safe is not the same as pragmatic. Risk awareness is not the same as risk aversion.

So take a risk-aware and pragmatic approach towards restructuring your organizational DNA to have inbuilt change endorsement; another phrase for Leadership. This is achievable through a commitment to Leading by example of authenticity, purposeful approach, encouragement, empowerment and absolute determination of eliminating lethargy and inertia.

Be a Leader and empower the Leadership in others so collectively you are able to develop a dynamic and sustainable organization. An organization that operates out of respect for the individual, the team, the community and the environment.

The time of lip-service of Environmental Friendliness and Employee EMpowerment is gone. True Leaders know this and those organizations that seem to be unstoppable even in these times are likely to have already endorsed these basic concepts and deployed them.

Your organizational greatest asset is your people and if your management team still sees them as a liability and an easy cost-cutting method, I feel your organization is going to face a challenging future indeed.

Read authors like Seth Godin and books like The Accidental CEO by Tom Voccola and you will see you are not alone in understanding that the future of your organization is written with different rules to those that got it here. And seeing that few organizations have been able to endorse, let alone deploy these concepts, you will be on of the first organizations to join the few that seem to be speeding towards a prosperous and abundant future for themselves, their teams and their investors.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

A sales executive without a CRM system is equivalent to a writer still using her typewriter!

I have heard so many excuses as to why a sales executive might not utilize the Organisational CRM, and they range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Examples include; not as good as the one I used in my previous Organisation, I prefer my paper based system, I have my own and I'll load it on the company PC, I find it slows me down having to enter all that superfluous data into the system, and many more!


Any team members that utilize these and other excuses should never be part of a progressive sales effort. Having said this, there are many reasons why sales executives might be utilizing these cover-ups and they may include; previous bad experiences suffered at the hands of inadequate managers or even at the hands of your managers, lack of induction training, non-enforcement of Organisational tools, in rare cases - a desire to keep knowledge away from the Organisation that employs them. You get my point, none that you wish to accept in your Leading Organisation.


Sometimes however, it is the non-integrated concept that proves to be the Achilles heel; that is, organizations with badly implemented CRM systems that are not integrated into the standard sales process, as an example still utilizing spreadsheets for reporting, systems that do not feed straight into order-raising/invoicing/forecasting, etc..


So, if you are a Leader of a progressive Organisation, ensure that you have followed the "paper" process confirm that there is only one process, utilized by all and that is designed around eliminating paper.


If you are a Sales Executive, engage your Organisational-supplied CRM (none of them are perfect and sometimes there are good reasons for the differences), speak-up and request training, changes, and enhancements. But do not do so unless you can clearly show that you have utilized the system as otherwise it will be clear that yours are just excuses and will not be taken seriously. You can always leave and join a dinosaur Organisation that allows you to operate without their approved CRM system; and you know what happened to the dinosaurs.


Aldo Grech - CXO Consulting

To iPad or not to iPad

The following are my comments on an article recently published about the new Apple iPad.

I remember the die-hard apple lovers, knocking the PC decades ago (using similar arguments to the ones above) and we all know how things evolved from there.

Now the non-apple die-hards are at it and they are equally as out of touch. Your technology arguments might be correct. However, as Microsoft proved with it's PC OS and applications, Apple is showing that it learnt it's lesson and now engages the industry developers to produce apps that will make its hardware successful. Except that Apple has a new weapon in it's arsenal, great design.

iPad is a paradigm shifter that contemporaries are not able to comprehend and I am sure history will show that negative views are just "limited vision"!

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Random acts of Leadership

This morning's papers are ablaze with coverage of the Australian Prime Minister's response to the unions that take a short term view of employment and disregard the lessons of the past, that is; protecting jobs by forcing government or any other bodies for that matter to contract local resources that are more expensive than imported ones creates serious medium to long term negative impacts on employment.

We are in a global economy, and as a result we need to be globally competitive. Unions that do not remember that what more than anything else saved the automobile industry in Australia, was the Button plan of reducing tariffs over a period of time, are simply peddling ignorance or misinformation.

We trust Mr Rudd will power through this nonsense, continue to show Leadership and not buckle-in to political pressures that he would be under, in this process.

Proprietors and Leaders of these organisations, represented by these unions, know that the only effective long-term strategy to longevity in good and not so good economic periods is to constantly offer better value than their competition. We live in a world where the price has to be right and customers choose us on the basis of us offering better value, be-it; better customer service, better turn-around time, better warranties, better designed products, etc...

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Call for Leaders

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress, from the 9-11 attacks to date, the cost of the "War on Terror" has been US$863 billion, and growing. Since 1993 Greg Mortenson, an American mountaineer from Minnesota, has among other things, single-handedly built 55 schools for impoverished children in the forbidden terrain that gave birth to the Taliban. Which approach do you feel is producing the best outcomes in making the world a safer place, the War on Terror or Greg? To us the answer is simple, the latter.

We recommend that you read Three Cups of Tea and find out more about this amazing American and the power of the humanitarian spirit. And imagine what Greg could have achieved with the squandered US$863 billion! CxO and this newsletter are about Leadership, not necessarily about humanitarian stories, although we do draw courage from the human spirit of benevolence. However, this example patently demonstrates the difference between a CEO and a Leader. There are many approaches towards a desired outcome, and we believe that the only approach that achieves sustainable and great outcomes is Leadership (that emanate from our Essence). All the others come from ego and achieve a variety of short-to-medium-term good outcomes, and in some cases long-term, damaging, often irreparable outcomes. In our example above we see, one one side, the ego of a nation and its president and on the other, an American with a different approach, operating from his Essence, the stuff of true Leadership.

Ego is a difficult armour to wear

Ego is conditional and conditioned. It operates within certain parameters of expectation. It deals with image, consistency, expectations, biases, learnt behaviours, conformity, protection, defences, pride, routine, and much more. Paradoxically, it also feels safe for the carrier as it is built around known behaviours, survival instincts, and defence mechanisms.

Essence, however, is pure. It is about passion, purpose and the authenticity of the objective/s. Essence takes courage. It often goes against norms, at times it demonstrates unpredictable behaviour, and it is often blocked, rejected, and derailed.

However, these are not times for easy options. In our opinion the current global financial meltdown was brought about by ego and greed. It takes true Leaders and true Leadership to take us to the next stage of human evolution. The CEOs who led us to this place will not cut it for the next stage. Much discussion in our internal workshops, and much media scrutiny, has revolved around what to do to punish the CEOs and board members who have brought the world to this place and how they should repay society for their failings and the treacherous conditions in which we find ourselves. Whilst this would soothe the human desire for revenge, it might not be the right solution for achieving the next stage of human growth, as the "War on Terror" has so clearly demonstrated.

Most of these executives did what they thought was be st, and yes, some are possibly corrupt. However, these corrupt individuals are likely few in the scheme of things and need to be dealt with directly. We are going to have to trust that these governments that are handing out trillions of dollars hand-over-fist will take appropriate action to discipline them, but let's not toss the baby out with the bathwater. Surely they are not all crooked. Surely most were doing their best and have had a notably successful track record. Still, their best will not cut it any more unless they too learn to give heed to their Essence and change from being just CEOs to being great Leaders. The lesson from Greg Mortenson is clear, take a compassionate approach to adversity. This takes true courage and comes from our essence, which at its core is pure, exploratory, growth-attuned, astoundingly innovative, and frankly, exhilarating, for when things get to their worst and humankind seems to have lost everything, great Leaders seem to emerge and take humanity to its next stage of evolution.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting

Know but don't tell

A young executive I am mentoring in sales is very keen and knowledgeable in his subject matter. He operates in the IT industry and has an engineering background. He is a very giving individual, ready to share all his knowledge to the benefit of his potential customers. I sat with him through a potential sale to see why his closing percentages were so low when he had so much to offer.

What I found was that as soon as the customer expressed their situation, this sales executive went straight into the pitch, singing the praises of his product and explaining amazing technological breakthroughs in quasi lay terms. The potential customer eventually thanked us for the meeting and indicated he would contact us when ready to buy. We never heard again.

It is very difficult for me to sit through these meetings as I HATE losing a sale where the customer obviously requires the product/service.

The fact that we know our product inside out, does not give us the license to bombard the poor potential customer into submission.

The lesson for my mentee was...... Know but do not tell!

One of my best sales executives during my stint in New Zealand once said to me...... "there is a reason we have two ears and one mouth, I keep reminding myself to shut-up". Ask, ask and ask again is the simple but difficult to execute answer. Sales is no different to peeling an onion. The questions serve to peel away layer after layer until we get to the core; in the case of sales, the core of the customers' needs. They eventually will tell us what their real (rather than the perceived) needs are and there you have a sale. And I say those words very purposefully; it is not that you have closed a sale, it is that you have virtually received an order without "selling".

It serves to know your product inside-out as only then do you know how to pick the moment when the customer hands you the sale. The alternative, which many sales executives use is to bombard the customer with product features hoping that one or some stick. This often does not work and alienates potential customers that have real needs.

Aldo Grech - CxO Consulting