LSA Global Insights Newsletter

September 28, 2019

The Impact of Raising Performance Expectations

Raising Performance Expectations Can Dramatically Increase Performance
Done right, leaders know that raising performance expectations can dramatically increase performance. When people know that more is possible, they can lift their performance to higher, and often previously impossible, levels.

Hot Dogs and Performance Expectations
Joey Chestnut has been the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest winner for twelve out of the last thirteen years. There's no doubt he's the performance king in this arena. The question is what can we learn from this food eating competition master about raising performance expectations at work?

Here's how Joey drastically changed expectations about what was possible and the effect that it had on other contestants.

For 26 years (1974 to 2000), the hot dog eating record was between 10-20 hot dogs.
Then in 2001 Takeru Kobayashi smashed the record and ate 50 in one sitting.
From 2002 to 2016, after people saw that eating 50 hot dogs, once considered impossible, was possible, every new contestant was able to eat 50 or more hot dogs.
Then in 2016, Joey Chestnut consumed 70 hot dogs.

For decades, the performance target of 20 and then 50 hot dogs appeared impossible to beat. It was as if there was an invisible performance barrier which could not be surpassed. What happened?

The Performance Barrier Phenomenon
When performance barriers are overcome, people are often able to perform at heretofore unimaginable levels. They simply need to see someone else doing it to realize what was possible.

It is amazing what can be accomplished once one person crashes through the performance bar. Think about when Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile barrier in 1954. Runners had been trying to break the record since 1886. But just 46 days after Bannister's "impossible" performance, John Landy set a new record with a time of 3 minutes 58 seconds.

Then, only twelve months later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single race.

Since then, over one thousand runners have broken the 4-minute mile barrier - something that had once been considered impossible by the best athletes in the world.

We see this performance barrier phenomenon everywhere - in speed records, in computer chip sizes, in acrobatics, and the list goes on.

Something is only impossible until it is shown to be possible.

Read How to Apply These Lessons to Your Business Now

About LSA Global
Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

12 Must-Have Leadership Tools to Rise Above

Effective leaders create organizational alignment by developing compelling strategies, building high performance cultures, and differentiating top talent.

At a strategic level, top leaders create understandable, believable, and implementable strategies, goals, roles, and success metrics that their teams are committed to making work.
At a cultural level, top leaders create a healthy, high performing, and aligned culture that accelerates both the people and business strategies.
At a talent level, top leaders consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain the people needed to execute the strategy in a way that makes sense.

Download 12 Research-Backed Leadership Tools Now

August 27, 2019

12 Must-Have Sales Tools to Rise Above

Effective sales leaders create organizational alignment by developing compelling go-to-market strategies, building high performance sales cultures, and differentiating top sales talent.

At a strategic level, top sales leaders focus on target clients with a differentiated value proposition, aligned success metrics, and the right bets.
At a cultural level, top sales leaders create a healthy and high performing sales culture that 100% aligns with the go-to-market strategy for success.
At a talent level, top sales leaders consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain top sales talent that fits the brand promise.

Download 12 Research-Backed Sales Tools Now

July 27, 2019

22 Questions Every New Manager Should Ask on Day One

New Managers Need to Hit the Ground Running on Day One

Based upon feedback from thousands of new managers, we have identified the most important questions new managers should ask on day one if they want to be set up for success.

Too Many New Managers Are Not Prepared

The shift from being an individual contributor to taking on the role of manager is huge. Unfortunately, very few new managers are well prepared to succeed without a lot of management training and support.

A recent McKinsey study found that nearly 70% of senior executives are only "somewhat" or "not at all satisfied" with the performance of their companies' front-line managers and that 81% of front-line managers are not satisfied with their own performance.

Even Experienced Leaders Stumble

Leadership can be daunting. But there are steps you can take that will minimize leadership mistakes and maximize both your performance and the performance of your team. Those steps are the same for new managers who are in over their head and for leaders who have been leading ineffectively.

Questions New Managers Should Ask On Day One

Smart leaders invest the time and energy to understand the current situation, complications, and implications of their role and their team from day one.

Here are twenty two questions new managers should ask, and answer, from the start. The questions are divided into categories of Alignment and Focus, Decision-Making, Resources, Information, and Interpersonal.

10 Alignment and Focus Questions New Managers Should Ask

How is my boss' success measured?
Has the team been achieving its objectives?
How do the team objectives map to overall company priorities?
Are individual and team goals clear?
Does everyone know how success and failure are measured?
Are rewards at the individual and team levels clearly understood?
Is everyone clear on their roles and responsibilities?
Have inter-dependencies between team members and key stakeholders been identified?
Is work organized in a way that clearly leads to accomplishing individual and team's goals?
Do we agree upon who our key stakeholders are?

Read the Remaining 12 Questions New Managers Should Ask

12 New Manager Tools to Rise Above

Effective managers create organizational alignment by ensuring strategic clarity, building high performance cultures and differentiating top talent.

At a strategic level, good managers set the right course, create clear goals, roles, success metrics, and career paths.
At a cultural level, good managers commit to making it a great place to work and value people as their most important resource while ensuring that their direct reports are held accountable and recognized for their contributions.
At a talent level, good managers consistently attract, develop, engage, and retain top talent that fits.

Download 12 Research-Backed New Manager Tools Now

June 29, 2019

3 Signs of Good and Bad Strategies

3 Signs of Good and Bad Strategies

Ineffective Strategies Hinder Growth.

Too many leaders settle for strategic growth plans that won't work. Why? If leaders do not understand the difference between good and bad strategies, their strategic plans are flawed from the beginning.

Strategies that lack an understanding of the key challenges that need to be overcome, or that have an insufficient focus, or that take an unrealistic approach are just wishful thinking.

The best leaders know not to settle or be fooled by a bad strategy - one that does not represent the hard work it takes to design and implement a good strategy.

3 Signs of a Bad Corporate Strategy
A bad strategy is likely to be loaded with slogans and wishful thinking. A bad strategy:

Fails to Address the Organization's Real Problems
A bad strategy fails to address the true root causes of stalled growth, ineffectiveness, and sub-par performance. They also tend to underestimate unintended consequences and the inevitable time delay between action and results.
Tries to Do Too Much
Strategic planning should not reflect a laundry list of "to do's" or strive for an unachievable summit. A company's strategy should focus on the critical few attainable strategic actions that will make the most difference. While every business can benefit from improvements on multiple fronts, plans that are diluted, confusing, or impractical do not work.
Is Misaligned
Strategies that are misaligned with the company culture, or with the people who must execute it, or with the market forces at play are just swimming upstream. Bad strategies tend to fight the natural flow of how work gets done and the capabilities required to be successful.

A Good Corporate Strategy

A strategy that can be effectively followed and that can guide an organization toward a successful future has three fundamental elements.

Voice of the Customer

"Having tripled in size and recently merged, LSA helped our executive team to increase our level of strategic alignment, solidify our new direction, and push our agency forward. As we look to rapidly scale, the clear and actionable critical few strategic moves combined with how we differentiate ourselves has really set us on a great path to success. This is exactly what we needed to get to the next level."

Matt Britton | CEO | MRY, a Publicis Groupe Company

About LSA Global

Founded in 1995, LSA Global is a leading performance consulting and training firm that helps high growth technology, services, and life-science companies create a competitive advantage by powerfully aligning their culture and talent with their strategy. Learn more about getting aligned

12 Leadership Tools to Rise Above

Effective leaders grow their people and the business through organizational alignment by ensuring the strategic direction is clear, by building a high performance culture and by attracting, developing, engaging and retaining top talent.

At a strategic level, good leaders set the right course and create clear goals, roles, success metrics and career paths.
At a cultural level, good leaders ensure that the way work gets done is not only healthy, but 100% aligned with the business strategies.
At a talent level, good leaders consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top talent that fits.

Download 12 Research-Backed Leadership Tools Now

May 29, 2019

How to Sell Value versus Price to Land Big Deals

The real winners in complex and high stakes sales situations focus on customer value, not price - even when price is a critical factor.

How?

Top sellers know that buyers ultimately care more about the value that they receive than the price. A less expensive product or service that doesn't fit their needs or that adds more risk or complications is usually not worth it - you get what you pay for.

Defining Value During the Sales Process

Value is truly in the eye of the customer or buyer. In order to make an important and material purchase, a buyer has to fully understand how the tangible and intangible benefits outweigh the fully loaded costs.

If your sales team is feeling pricing pressure, remember that while price is an important piece of your value proposition, it is only one component of the overall buying decision.

What really counts is your ability to fully deliver what matters most.

The Role Your Value Proposition Plays

Your unique value proposition should be an essential part of your brand positioning, messaging and go to market sales strategy. Every sales rep should be able to clearly articulate what sets you apart from the competition to your target clients.

An effective value proposition answers three key buyer questions:

1. Relevance

How your offering will tangibly improve their situation in an area of high importance.

2. Differentiation
Why your offering is uniquely better than any other available alternative - is it better, faster, or cheaper?

3. Proof
What specific evidence do you have that your claims of superiority are accurate?

Defining Customer Value is Dynamic

The best sellers understand that their value proposition may need to be customized according to the needs of each customer. Not every buyer is the same; they have different needs, come from different backgrounds, occupy different situations, have different working styles, fulfill different roles, etc. High performing sellers intimately know their target customers and know how to craft a unique value recipe that is nuanced for each individual customer.

And because high performing sellers intimately know their target customers, they know that the unique recipe for customer value has important nuances across customers.

Read the Rest of the Article Now

Sales Toolkit to Stay Above the Competition

Effective sales leaders grow revenue and profits through organizational alignment by ensuring the go-to-market sales strategy is clear, by building a high performance sales culture and by attracting, developing, engaging and retaining top sales talent.

At a strategic level, good sales leaders set the right course and create clear goals, roles, success metrics and career paths.
At a cultural level, good sales leaders ensure that the sales culture is not only healthy, but 100% aligned with the sales and business strategies.
At a talent level, good sales leaders consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top sales talent that fits.

Download Sales Toolkit Now

April 26, 2019

New Manager Toolkit

At a strategic level, good managers set the right course, create clear goals, roles, success metrics and career paths.

At a cultural level, good managers commit to making it a great place to work and value people as their most important resource while ensuring that their direct reports are held accountable and recognized for their contributions.

At a talent level, good managers consistently attract, develop, engage and retain top talent that fits.

Get field-tested manager tools to outperform your peers.

Get the New Manager Toolkit Now

March 23, 2019

6 Field-tested Steps to Restructure Your Team

Effective organizational structures help teams to perform beyond the sum of their parts.

Before restructuring their team, leaders should be clear about what their current and desired organizational structure encompasses in terms of goals, roles, tasks, and processes used to organize the flow of work. This includes the underlying relationships and beliefs required to get work done on a day-to-day basis.

Can Restructuring Solve Your Problem?

Periodically and for a variety of reasons, it makes sense to reorganize your team to unlock value or to fix a problem. While team reorganizations sound like a relatively fast and concrete way to solve complex problems, a recent McKinsey survey found that over eighty percent fail to deliver the desired benefits on schedule.

And teams that have been through a reorganization often report higher levels of stress, lower levels of productivity, and decreased levels of employee engagement. So while structural change sounds like a smart way to improve collaboration, communication, and performance problems, team reorganizations are fraught with performance and people challenges.

The Top Reasons to Reorganize Your Team

As with any change, there is typically a specific catalyst that drives the need to restructure a team. The most common reasons reported by our clients include:

Realigning functions and people to new strategic directions
Adapting to changes in leadership
Solving collaboration, communication, decision-making, or performance problems
Reducing costs
Refocusing priorities
Unlocking potential in terms of efficiency or effectiveness
Keeping up with the fast pace of external change
Aligning confusing or contradictory goals, roles, scope and success metrics

Why Up to 80% of Team Reorganizations Fail

Any reorganization upsets the status quo. And change is likely to be at least resisted and at worst feared and fought. Like most major corporate change initiatives, team reorganizations typically fail due to employee resistance driven by a combination of:

Lack of a compelling reason for the change
Unclear vision for success
Ambiguous or misaligned goals, roles, or success metrics
Contradictory cultural norms
Misaligned leadership
Insufficient resources or capabilities
Inability to monitor progress and continuously improve

Is your reorg set up to succeed?

Read the 6 Field-tested Steps to Restructure Your Team Now