Make It Happen

Not long after writing about the Long Game with respect to career planning, I was thinking about the same thing at the corporate level.

Of course, with corporations, the Long Game concept is usually called "Strategy" and is the result of "Strategic Planning". Or is it? There are two interesting examples that recently hit the news: the contrasting fortunes of eBay and Google.

eBay: In case you aren't familiar, a few years ago eBay spent a few billion dollars to acquire Skype, the internet phone company. While analysts generally agreed that the transaction was significantly overvalued, eBay-boosters spoke about the reasons why the transaction made sense:
- It would improve the "community" aspect of eBay by allowing better communication between players.
- It is a pre-emptive, defensive purchase, against Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
- It would provide access to peer-to-peer technology, in the same way that eBay's earlier purchase of Paypal provided access to payment technology.
- It was a vastly growing segment of the market.
No matter the rationale, recently eBay took a $1.4 Billion write-down. The Long Game didn't pay off. Or, it was paying off, but not fast enough financially.

Google: Google has also had a history of growth, funded both through acquisition and internal R&D. Their acquisitions ranged from geographic mapping, to radio advertising software, to YouTube, to Blogger: over 24 companies in the last two years alone. Beyond this, their engineers are told to spend 20% of their time working on projects that interest them. These Long Game activities turned into Gmail, Adsense, Google News, and a full 50% of Google's new services. (HP in it's heyday had the same type of rule.)

While it is still uncertain whether YouTube will actually be worth what they paid for it, this particular acquisition is a great example of the Long Game: how long before they sell advertising to commercialize the vast library of clips? (They could sell "play-before" clips, CNN style overlays, post-clip banners, etc.)

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The toughest question for most CEOs and planners is figuring out how to have your Long Game look more like Google's than eBay's - especially given the quarterly pressure of the public markets. If you make no investment (and therefore take no risk), then there will definitely be no return. If you invest based solely on hunch (or ego), this is also a gamble. In my view, Long Game strategy is simply putting one foot in front of the other - but with your eyes firmly planted on the horizon.

Recently, a client sent me an email with the title of this blog posting in it. He was decrying the problem of another vendor who was not responsive, and who was only giving "good" service.

I've certainly read that other great book, Jim Collins' Good to Great, which speaks to the same issue.

The Enemy of Great is Good suggests that client expectations are high, and rising. Interestingly, Greatness is only relevant from the perspective of the client - so if we don't know how they define it, then we might be investing time doing precisely the wrong thing. Or rather, spending time doing merely doing good work.

It seems that the problem of "good" has infected pretty much everywhere. When we speak to our colleagues, we ask them to do a good job - not a great one. When we speak to our children, often the best feedback we give is "very good".

At the same time, the opportunity of "great" is a big one. With so many others only providing good service, then it should be exceptionally easy to differentiate yourself by being great.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com

I was remarking the other day how crowded my fitness club was, and I was reminded about the semi-annual migration that tends to happen just after the holiday season, and just before the bathing suit one.

For those who have figured out how to embed fitness into their weekly routines, the migration (and the crowds) are more an annoyance than anything else.

Research suggests that it takes 21 repetitions before an activity becomes habit. So after 7 weeks of working out 3 times weekly, presumably you will continue working out in the future.

The question that I am pondering has to do with corporate habits - or rather, corporate culture. How can we short-cut these 21 repetitions if we wish to change a corporate culture?

Some ideas so far:

- Communications strategy
- Tone from the top
- Company-wide Kick-offs and town-hall meetings
- Reward system for proper behaviour and attitude
- Bona fide career development, not just job evaluation
- Loosened policies to empower thinking
- Rebranding (and most importantly, building the brand below the logo)
- Use of new technology to encourage change (wiki's, discussion boards, etc.)

What else should go on this list?