I finished Ram Charan's new book last night. As with most of Charan's work, this is a big company book. A huge company book. It has almost no relevance to small to medium sized businesses. And I have to say, I'm not sure it's worth the time it takes to read, even for big businesses. There were, however, a couple of good ideas.

Charan calls for a new intensity of management, which he describes as:

"... a deep immersion in the operational details of a business and the outside world combined with a hands-on involvement and followthrough."

Hard to quarrel with that. But his most practical idea is to increase the frequency of control, which I described as the span of supervision in a post about the culture of discipline. Worth thinking about.

I had the privilege of working with a group of entrepreneurs yesterday. Our discussion focused on creating a culture of discipline. In Good to Great, Jim Collins said this:

"When you put these two complementary forces together – a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship – you get a magical alchemy of superior performance and sustained results."

Sounds pretty good to me. But what is a culture of discipline? I think it starts with everyone in the organization being crystal clear about exactly what the organization is trying to achieve. If there hasn't been robust discussion and even some significant conflict about this topic, that absolutely needs to happen. Now.

The next step toward a culture of discipline is making sure everyone, and I mean everyone, in the organization is 100% focused on their own highest value activities. That means the vast majority of the working day is spent head-down, actively involved in the one or two activities that have the greatest impact on the organization. Anything else is just screwing around.

Finally, the span of supervision needs to constrict. If your habit is to review progress every month, start doing it every week. If in the past you reviewed results on a weekly basis, do it every day. The world has changed. If we want to survive, our companies have to change. That's what a culture of discipline is all about.

In a previous post, I mentioned deliverables of great leadership. The second deliverable is amazingly engaged employees.

The term employee engagement gets bandied about quite a lot these days. But I've never found a concise, satisfying definition. So, I've come up with my own:

Employee engagement is an emotional connection that produces a commitment to organizational success.

In posts to follow we'll be exploring specific methods for creating and enhancing employee engagement.

A couple of other thoughts about how value innovation can help you create wildly enthusiastic customers: As I mentioned in a previous post, the concept of value innovation was introduced in Blue Ocean Strategy. Value innovation reduces a company's cost structure while at the same time improving its value proposition to buyers. So, I'm thinking ... sounds good, but has it ever worked?

Seems like it has. Southwest Airlines did away with in-flight meals and assigned seats. It seemed like heresy to the legacy carriers, I'm sure. But as a result of what it eliminated, Southwest needed fewer employees, less time to board the flight, even fewer airplanes. Their costs were and are dramatically lower than the competition. Then they cut fares and added fun – improving the value proposition for the customers.

And how about what we once called "service stations"? You know, those places that sold gasoline, cleaned your windshield and worked on your car? Well, they stopped cleaning your windshield and working on your car, again lowering their costs. But then they stuck a little grocery store in the building, improving the value proposition by adding convenience.

Maybe Bob Seger had a point when he said:

Well those drifters days are past me now

What to leave in, what to leave out

Wildly enthusiastic customers can be created by a variety of methods. One method is a strategic logic called value innovation. In Blue Ocean Strategy, authors Kim and Mauborgne say:

"... instead of focusing on the beating the competition, you focus on making the competition irrelevant by creating a leap in value for buyers and your company, thereby opening up new and uncontested market space."

Uncontested market space. Wouldn't that be nice? If it sounds impossible, think about this – 30 years ago these multi-billion dollar companies/industries/products didn't exist: FedEx, minivans, iPod & iTunes, snowboards, cell phones, Starbucks, home video & DVD.

Sure, some of these involved new technologies and maybe you're not a technology company. But others involved innovation – the recombining of existing resources to create a new capacity and new value. Cirque du Soleil recombined circus, theater and musical components to create a new entertainment phenomenon.

Cirque created a leap in value for buyers by presenting a new take on an old concept, the circus. (Starbucks did much the same thing for the coffee shop). And Cirque created a leap in value for their own company by eliminating a huge cost component, live animals.

One possible road to creating wildly enthusiastic customers is to ask yourself what features/costs you could eliminate in your business that would have little or no negative impact on your customers – while at the same time adding features that provide a leap in value (enjoyment, convenience, utility, status?) for your customers. It's not impossible, but it's probably hard.

Last year about this time, I couldn't run a quarter mile. But I trained consistently and in April, I ran my first half marathon. I ran a second half marathon in the Fall, taking 15 minutes off my initial time.

A couple of weeks ago I started training for a full marathon. It seems almost impossible. I was at the health club, running on the treadmill, listening to my iPod. The TVs were on in the club, I could see them but I couldn't hear them. Barack Obama was being interviewed. And it hit me:

On January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama would become President of the United States. Just a few short years ago I had never even heard of Barack Obama. Not many people had. And in less than a week, he'll lead our country. That this could happen seems impossible. That this man, this black man, could travel from the streets of Chicago to the White House in so short a time is staggering. It makes me wonder:

What's Possible?

What can you and I accomplish? What great goal can we achieve? What "impossible" dream have we turned away from?

We've always heard, in America, anything is possible. Barack Obama has made that real for me. I won't be President. But I will dream big, do the work, and achieve something grand because Barack Obama has proved to me it's possible. I hope you will too.

And somehow, 26.2 miles doesn't seem impossible.

A few days I wrote a quick post about kicking the recession's butt. But I realized there was more to say on this critical topic. So, I collected my thoughts in the form of an eBook. You can download the eBook here - it's free, no registration required.

If you find what I have to say helpful, please pass it on. Good luck.

A few weeks ago I signed up for the Thomas Nelson Publishers Book Review Blogger program. There was a little hiccup getting my first book, but when I emailed Michael Hyatt (CEO of Thomas Nelson) he and his staff solved the problem immediately. I selected The Truth About You by Marcus Buckingham as my first review. Here goes:

First of all, The Truth About You is more than a book. It's a package that includes the book plus an enhanced DVD and a job aid called the "ReMemo Pad". The DVD is exceptionally well produced and interesting in its structure. The primary content on the DVD is Marcus talking directly to the viewer. Throughout Marcus' presentation, the camera cuts away to tell a story of a young trombone player who seeks to play to his strengths. It's an effective mechanism.

Anyone who has ever seen Marcus in person knows he's a commanding presence and a remarkable presenter. That's true for his work on this DVD as well. However, I was disappointed the content of the DVD is essentially the same as the content in the book. The DVD does contain links to an internet site with additional content and this content is solid and helpful.

The Truth About You builds on Marcus' impressive body of work, including First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths. Those previous books were "organizational" in nature – that is, they spoke primarily to the goals and objectives of business organizations. The Truth About You on the other hand, is more "personal" – it speaks to the goals and objectives of the individual. This book offers the counterintuitive idea that:

"Your strengths aren't what you're good at, and your weaknesses aren't what you're bad at."

I suspect Marcus' former associates at Gallup might quarrel with that statement and so do I, but the book puts forth a convincing and provocative case.

I like this book. But one thing is apparent to me: Marcus' work suffers because he no longer has access to the Gallup research that supported his earlier efforts. He seemed to be at his best when he was interpreting data and drawing conclusions. But that does not diminish the value this book can provide to anyone interested in building a better life and a better career.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I intend to kick the recession's butt. Enough being nervous. Enough being afraid. Enough wringing of hands. I'm ready to get busy. Here are some of the things we're doing:

Find a Way to Be More Valuable to Our Current Clients – We're reviewing every single client relationship. We're determined to provide more value at the same cost or the same value at a lower cost.

Are your clients important to you? Prove it. These are extraordinary times. Do something you never would have considered. Think of it as an investment in the relationship plus an investment in the future.

Sell to a Brand New Category – If we confine ourselves to the industries we've always sold to, we're just not likely thrive in this environment. So, we're going to find some new places where our stuff can be of huge value.

Is everyone who could benefit from your product/service using it? Doubt it. Are there any new uses for what you sell. Probably. It's time to go find them.

Connect With New People/Make More Friends – Business has always been about relationships and that's even more true now. New connections and new friends will absolutely provide new ideas and will probably lead to new opportunities.

The idea here is to do well by doing good. The focus is on finding some folks we can help. Shouldn't be too hard, lots of us need help right now. It requires putting our own troubles aside for a while – which is, at least, a prescription for a better life.

Obviously, not an exhaustive list. But a pretty good start, I think. What do you think?