Laura’s Winning Ideas

Comparing Microsoft to Apple is a common exercise, and I just read another analysis of why Microsoft is not improving profits and marketshare, but Apple is amazing us. However, the conclusion the author came to is different than my own conclusion.

The problem with organizations is that it is easier to focus on internal politics because the culprits are right in front of you. Of course, this mires the organization in a zero progress game. Everyone is poised to prevent internal disruption of their carefully balanced power base. The bigger the organization, the bigger the problem of internal politics constraining and consuming the creative resources of the organization.

Some analysts think that a fanatical focus on the competition is the difference between Microsoft and Apple. They are wrong.

Focus on the Competition Does Not Improve Results

If you shift the focus to the competition, you are plotting for small advantages in a world where the competitors are one step ahead of you. This will not lead to breakthroughs, and IMHO will spiral down a rabbit hole to mediocrity and “me too-ism.”

Focus on the Customer Renders Breakthrough

However, if you shift the focus to the customer, you have the opportunity to notice something overlooked by the competition. If you focus on the customer, you will be examining the root of the purchase decision, not your competitors interpretation of that purchase decision. You prevent being misguided by a competitors false interpretation if you stay focused on the customer and only monitor the competitor’s responses.

Apple demonstrates this beautifully, with offerings no competitor had invented. Microsoft, well, not so much. They seem to weigh down products with a clear offering, layering on “inventions” from other parts of the organization so that the final product is hard to distinguish from previous offerings and just too muddled to be amazing. Too bad, because the brains at Microsoft are no less brilliant than the brains at Apple. But the environments are very different.

Proposals are Opportunities for Breakthrough Invention

When I’m working on a proposal, I spend little or no time gathering competitor intelligence. Most of it is gossip and innuendo, some of it is just plain incorrect. Instead, we spend time focused on the customer. What keeps them up at night? What part of their mission can we improve? How does our work move the customer forward?

The breakthroughs always come during these discussions. The creative twist that attracts the customer to our proposal comes out in these brainstorming sessions.

The only thing generated by competitor analysis is fear and trepidation, so I avoid it.

My hit rate is solid at 85 percent and going up with this last year’s wins. I’ve kept this level of performance ever since I started using this approach. Might be worth a try.

I’ve been thinking about teaching Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) proposal writing skills lately.

The first assumption technical experts bring with them is that, what is obvious to them should be obvious to others. This isn’t correct, and loser proposals prove this. In many cases, your competitors are technically as qualified as your team. However, the winning proposal communicates value in a more illuminating way.

Chris Witt at Life after Powerpoint! said it best yesterday:

– Knowing something without acting on it is like having a candle without lighting it.
– Acting on what you know is like lighting the candle.
– Communicating what you know so others can use it is like using your lit candle to light other people’s candles.

That’s why “presentation and communication” skills are so highly rated, even for technical experts. The better able you are to share what you know so that other people can understand and use it, the more valuable you are.

This is a perfect analogy for proposal professionals. We tip the candles of our SMEs to light the candles of our clients.

Rent a Reviewer: might be a good idea to get some fresh eyes on your proposals!

It is inexpensive to hire me to review a proposal for you. I can travel to review with your review panel, or work remotely on comments for your proposal team.

I also am available to come manage a review meeting, helping coax actionable, helpful, comments from your review team. In one instance, I was asked to moderate a review team of 20 executives from six firms, with a Senior Vice President with a reputation for gutting proposals at the last minute. The proposal team was worried about what reasonably could be done if the review became a drubbing of this large, important proposal.

In that case, we brought sucinct comments to the team, which could be implemented in the time remaining, and resulted in short-listing the team.

Call me to schedule a review of your proposal!

Question: Hi Laura,
I read your posts about Fun at Work and loved your ideas. I am an Admin Assistant for a satellite office of a large company. Our satellite office has roughly 14 people, but there are usually around 7-8 people in the office at a time since many employees can work from home or are traveling, and I am the only means of Administrative support physically in the office. I am finding it difficult to keep spirits up with the sagging economy and such a small office — many of our employees tend to complain no matter what I suggest. I have planned a few potluck lunches which we all enjoy and will probably institute a chili or salsa making contest as well.
With limited space, budget, and employee numbers, I would greatly appreciate some ideas to put smiles on some faces.

Tough crowds. I love ‘em.

Here are a few ideas. The first two are holiday events (tuck them away for next year) and the third is good anytime, with a few random suggestions to get your own creative juices flowing.

A) Mystery Gift Exchange

Create descriptions of each person that does not identify them. You are the perfect person to know some tidbits about each person that are not generally known by the rest of their colleagues.

For example:
I once played pool with a professional pool shark, as his ?bait man.? I would start the play, and be good enough to be a challenge, but not good enough to be overwhelming. Once we had an agreement to bet on the game, I’d set up the table for the professional, and then step aside while he cleared the table.

When I was fifteen, I bought my first car. It was a drag racer, and my buddies and I were going to soup it up for racing. My Dad went along to sign the papers and drive the car home since I was too young to drive on the streets. When he drove it, he realized the car was dangerous because it was already very fast off the start. He made me agree never to drive this thing on the streets because it was so dangerous. I guess it didn’t occur to him that drag racing might be dangerous as well.

My sister lives in Nicaragua as a missionary.

My mother worked on an assembly line for a munitions plant during WWII.

Pass out the descriptions to folks as their Xmas gift exchange. No fair sneaking around trying to figure out who you have. You have to buy a gift based only on the description you have.

You’ll be surprised at the gifts folks come up with. Much more interesting than the usual desk calendars you see at office gift exchanges. Participation is pretty good because no one knows who has the boss’ description.

B) Xmas Pixies

You draw names for your secret pixie, and no one tells anyone whose name they got. Between the drawing, and your holiday party, the pixies get to work.

Secret pixies can be good (leaving a few pieces of chocolate on their desk while they are away at lunch) or nasty (emptying their trash can on their chair while they are away at lunch). Folks who witness a pixie can’t let on that they know who the secret pixie is. Most pixies vacillate between being good and nasty. (Leave a bowl of fresh popped popcorn one afternoon, pour a cup of salt on their desk the next afternoon with a note ?Forgot the salt.?

C)   Kidnap your bosses stapler, favorite coffee mug, favorite pen.

The purloined item will be traveling a good deal, so get a sturdy container for shipping it back and forth. Take several pictures of yourself with the item, holding, using, scrubbing or having the item in the background. Print the pictures to send along with the instructions. Include these instructions in the shipping container with your pictures:

Tag! You are it! BOSS’SNAME will be looking for me soon, but I am anxious to get out of that stuffy office. Thanks for letting me visit.
Take a picture for my vacation album, add it to my box, and send me on my way to someone else from the office who I haven’t yet visited. OOPS! Don’t forget to cross your name and address off the list, or I’ll end up back again to visit soon!

By the time the item has made the rounds, it will likely be a topic around the group, by email and phone. Your boss may ask about the item, and that is always helpful.

This is a nice stunt for the month or two before Boss’s birthday. Helps to knit folks together. If you have a WIKI for your office, the pictures could be posted there, in an album you’ve tucked away on the site.

Good morale boosters are designed around your own office antics, and avoid ridicule. For example, we had a PM who mentioned that they hated yellow M&Ms. When a big project was won by that PM, we awarded them a jar of M&Ms with the yellow ones picked out.

When a fellow retired from full-time employment but continued on as a part-time consultant, we gave him a “gold office key” as a retirement gift, rather than a gold watch. (Took an office key out and had it gold plated)

Once you get the hang of noticing things peculiar to your teamates, it gets easier to knit folks together with morale boosting events. Practice makes perfect.

Have fun!
Laura Ricci

P.S. Congratulations to you for leading organizational change. I hope your boss appreciates your efforts or comes to recognize them before someone else recruits you to their firm.