Posts Tagged ‘leverage’

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: All about comments

BLOGTASTIC!: The ultimate leverage engine

You can use your blog as an outlet for your thoughts and ideas or you can make it something more.

Here are a few examples of what you can do:

• If you are an aspiring author, you can plan, design, and author a book using the blog (blook = blog + book). This very book originally took its shape as a series of articles on my blog–Life Beyond Code.

• If you want to start small, you can first start by publishing an e-book based on a series of your blog posts.

• You can plan your blog to be a portal to your life—linking to other places on the web where you have a presence.

• You can conduct a blog carnival and invite participation from bloggers around the world for articles on a particular topic.

• You can generate leads to your other businesses and/or use it as a platform to get speaking engagements.

Whatever you are getting out of your blog today, you can get more with some planned effort online (doing things on your blog and other outlets and linking them) and planned effort offline (doing something about your identity).

Think about new ideas yourself or brainstorm with people who are knowledgeable in the area for more ideas. But ultimately, please take action on one or more of those ideas.

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Blogging Tip: What you get out of something depends on you

On one hand, you could read a good book and get nothing out of it. On the other hand, you can be touched and moved and change the rest of your life. The same book can produce different results. Your blog is the same. You can be an “also ran” blogger, or you can use your blog to greatly enhance your power and influence. It is completely up to you.

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Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: blogging rewards, BLOGTASTIC!, leverage, Rajesh Setty

Welcome to the eighth post in this 12-part series on QUALITY, titled #QUALITYtweet – 12 Ideas to Build a Quality Culture.

Here are the first seven posts, in case you would like to go back and take a look:

1. Quality #1: Quality is a long term differentiator
2. Quality #2: Cure Precedes Prevention
3. Quality #3: Great People + Good Processes = Great Quality
4. Quality #4: Simplifying Processes
5. Quality #5: Customers are your “Quality Partners”
6. Quality #6: Knowing what needs improvement
7. Quality #7: Productivity and Quality

#QUALITYtweet The best practices are contextual – they

worked well for someone in a given context. Are you

applying them in the right context?

Imagine a doctor prescribing a standard medicine based on common symptoms without carefully analyzing other ailments and patient history. A doctor knows the best medicine to cure a particular ailment, but he would look at a patient’s context and then decide if the “best medicine” is really best for a particular patient.

Process managers play a role of doctors for the organizations. They have to identify all possible problems (symptoms) and then suggest a solution (medicine). Best medicines for different types of ailments are termed as “best practices” in business.

Best practices are a set of processes that, in a given context, have the best likelihood of delivering quality products or services. In equation of context identification, some of the variables are:

• Your goals as an organization
• Market segment you operate in
• Your target customers
• Nature of your product / services
• Types of customer you already serve
• Team capabilities and internal alignment
• Management commitment and sponsorship to improvement initiatives
• External market pressures (e.g. recession)

The list can go on. Best practices often tend to ignore these variables because they worked in past for someone in a particular context. Their context may be different, but never a static one. Implementing best practice without considering organization’s context is like prescribing a standard medicine without looking into symptoms. Both can be equally dangerous!

So how are best practices useful? Studying best practices can give you some very useful insights on possible solutions for your business challenge. They offer alternative perspectives on ideas that can minimize your risks.

For process improvement experts, having access to best practices can be their biggest asset. But their ability to apply those best practices in an organization’s context is absolutely mandatory for success. As a professional, there is no fun in having a best practice for everything and a solution for nothing!

As an organization, you can leverage best practices by carefully studying them and mapping with your unique business challenges. For this, improvement managers need to understand nuts and bolts of business. Once the context is understood, best practices can become your best guide so that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Depending on context, you can either implement a best practice as it is or select portions of a best practice that can be most useful for your context.

Simply believing that a best practice will work for you just because it worked for someone else in the past and applying them in vacuum can harm you more than it can help.

There are no silver-bullets in business and things like context and innovation does play a huge role. As one of the Dilbert comic says – “If everyone is doing it, best practices is the same thing as mediocre”.

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Tanmay is a Software Quality Management professional based out of India. He hosts QAspire Blog and tweets as @tnvora. He is also an author of the book #QUALITYtweet – 140 Bite-Sized Ideas to Deliver Quality in Every Project

Tagged as: active garage, alignment, best practices, capabilities, context, customer, external market pressure, inspection, leverage, market segment, organization, process, products, qaspire, recession, services, tanmay vora, target customer, teams, tnvora

One million dollar question is -

Big fish in a small pond or small fish in a big pond?

As I was pondering on the above question, I couldn’t resist reflecting on my conversations with my Father a few years ago.

So, here is some background:

My father always said to me – “It is better to be a big fish in a small pond rather than to be a small fish in a big pond.”

This comment was typically in reference to divisions that he would transact with when it comes to banking, accounting, legal etc.

I particularly remember his choice to bank at the local branch when many of the other businessmen he interacted with drove many miles to have an account at the supposed Main branch of the bank in the nearest city.

A relative of mine was one who believed in dealing at the main branch, he spoke of only getting an appointment with the manager if they booked well in advance. He often complained of the effort it took to get loans approved and how the service was consistently on the shoddy side, but they still stuck with banking at the main branch because it made them feel they were a part of something big and important and this was where all the power was.

On the other hand our bank manager was our account manager. On many occasions they visited us and discussed business as long as it took. I recall the manager staying for lunch on many occasions. When we went to the branch we were always known and treated as a valued client. The support staff often knew what we were coming into the branch for, as they recognized us from a previous visit or when we spoke on the phone.

When it came to requesting new business loans people were often surprised how quickly my father could get an approval, what good rates he was able to secure and the extent of the leverage on the account the bank was prepared to offer. We were not getting any preferential treatment or having any rules flaunted for us, but still things were moving fast.

The reason: It was the relative power we held at the small branch that gave us the advantage.

Let us analyze what happened a bit more.

Let us assume that the average transaction value as a metric of worth to the branch.

Typically, the Main branch where the average account is of large corporations, requiring extensive services and producing large revenues for the branch. Assume the main branch had an average transaction of $50,000 and the local branch had an average transaction of $5,000.

If my average transaction is $10,000, at the main branch I will be an “expensive” customer – who costs a lot to service per transaction. At the local branch, I will be one of the higher contributors to the banks operations and so will be deemed a more favorable client. The local branch will likely go out of their way to keep my business as I can better help the branch meet its goals. Note in both instances I have the same average transaction value.

So my circumstances are the same but the situation values them differently.

The results my Father experiences to this day are due to this relative valuation. Both branch managers have access to the same credit and loans departments, but you can see how the local branch manager is compelled to present a stronger case for a like request than the main branch manager would.

So, my point:

This is the way the marketplace works. Always be conscious not only of what offers you can make, but where you make them.

Be the big fish by choosing the right pond!

This article was contributed by Guy Ralfe, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Guy on Twitter at gralfe.

Tagged as: active garage, business, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, influence, leverage, management, power, Strategy, strength, value, worth, www.activegarage.com