<font color=red>ON THE ROAD</font> Striving for Success

When most people think of strategy, they think of some common business analysis methods, such as the S.W.O.T. (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) Analysis, Management by Objectives or Key Result Areas.

But these items are only elements of strategic planning – not total business strategy, according to John Spence, a Gainesville, Fla.-based business consultant during his Achieving Business Excellence Workshop on Wednesday, Nov. 1 at the Green Industry Expo in Columbus Ohio. “It is important to realize that the planning part is simply a process,” he says, “and that without putting superior thinking and strategies into the process you will yield a very well-written, but unsustainable plan. The key here is that only with proper inputs can you get superior results.”
 
Unfortunately, on average only 15 percent of the 120 top chief executive officers that Spence surveyed actually said they executed the plans they created.
 
As a result, Spence reviewed the various business methods of top companies across the United States, including Toyota, Microsoft and IBM, and showcased how they put strategic thinking into action, advising contractors to “steal” some of these methods for their own businesses.
 
First, Spence discussed Microsoft. The company insists on requiring failure – “if managers never do anything wrong then they can never be innovative,” Spence says, adding that the company also believes that employees should view their roles as more than a job – a quest.

In addition, Microsoft executives refuse to waste time on meetings – they believe that if they have hundreds of thousands of dollars of talent in the room and aren’t producing hundreds of thousands of dollars in ideas then they shouldn’t have a meeting. As Spence explains, “When Bill Gates was asked what makes his company successful he said, ‘If I hire people who are smarter than me, everything will be OK.’”

Spence also reviewed the business practices of Charlie Trotter, a high-end restaurant based in Chicago, Ill., where a typical dinner for two costs on average about $1,000 and the waiting list for reservations is six to nine months. First, the company hires for desire. Those who want a job there start by working six months for free and at the end of that internship they are told if they have a position or not. If they do, their culinary careers are set for life – as waiters are known to make six-figure salaries and chefs make seven-figure salaries.

The company also believes in teamwork and refuses to hire primadonnas – that means that if a new hire questions the chef’s preparation of broccoli the chef takes the inquiry seriously instead of using his experience to override the viewpoint. To be able to charge such a high amount for dinner, Charlie Trotter also pushes the highest standards. “They have clear, measurable standards for excellence on the most important things they do,” Spence says. “For instance, they know to a millimeter exactly what the perfect place setting should look like.”

IBM was another company Spence analyzed. He pointed to their collaborative partnerships with customers that builds their trust, making the company their hero, Spence points out. “They leverage talent and knowledge through communication and trust,” he says.
 
Toyota’s big business driving ideas stem from their method of constant improvement called Kaizen, which is a part of their Lean Management philosophy. Here, they strive to improve business operations by 1 percent each day for an overall 200 to 300 percent improvement by year’s end.

Regardless of their varying philosophies, all of these companies believe that it is “absolutely critical that you be brutally honest with yourself everyday,” Spence says, “and pursue the best vs. the easiest in every situation.”