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    Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI: Unrelenting Focus – Strategy | Leadership Behavior | Results
    Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI: Unrelenting Focus – Strategy | Leadership Behavior | Results
    Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI: Unrelenting Focus – Strategy | Leadership Behavior | Results
    Ebook232 pages2 hours

    Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI: Unrelenting Focus – Strategy | Leadership Behavior | Results

    By Andrew Ortyn

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    About this ebook

    Strategy.  Leadership Behavior.  Results.  The three need to mesh for good things to happen in any business, including your own. The data, decisions, and processes that result in a game plan to improve business results all reside in parallel universes—one analytical and one interpersonal.  The analytical side of business is easy; it doesn’t talk back!  The tricky part is capitalizing on the opportunities while at the same time managing the interpersonal dynamics and the inherent conflicts that arise from competing points of view.  The Nimble Leader eBook Series melds strategy, leadership behavior, and results in ways that help leaders lead and equips them to better negotiate a dynamic and turbulent marketplace. Throughout this six-volume set, you will explore key concepts that have proven to be practical, useful, and applicable to achieving sustained improvement in business performance over the long run.  Nimble Leader focuses on the critical few concepts that are essential to business success.  If you are able to truly understand and apply the critical few, you are in a much better position to manage the urgent many . . . when the bullets start to fly! 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTriumph Books
    Release dateMay 1, 2015
    ISBN9781633194380
    Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI: Unrelenting Focus – Strategy | Leadership Behavior | Results

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      Book preview

      Nimble Leader Volumes I - VI - Andrew Ortyn

      VI

      Nimble Leader Series

      Volume l

      Create Unrelenting Focus on Achieving Results

      Volume lI

      What Do You Stand For?

      Volume lII

      Position Your Business

      Harness the Power of Alternative Perspectives

      Volume lV

      Boring Numbers?

      Make Them Sing and Dance!

      Volume V

      Tools for Profit

      Axioms for Improving Business Results

      Volume Vl

      Results Matter!

      Tools for Profit in Action

      Table of Contents

      Introduction – Nimble Leader

      Volume I: Create Unrelenting Focus on Achieving Results

      Fire on All Cylinders ... Five Takeaways!

      Takeaway #1 – Market Position is EVERYTHING!

      Takeaway #2 – Information to Results!

      Takeaway #3 – Six Variables!

      Takeaway #4 – A Quest to Build Self-Awareness

      Takeaway #5 – Practice, Practice, Practice

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Volume II: What Do You Stand For?

      Money

      What Do You Stand For?

      Statement of Market Position

      Wall Co. and the Target Customer

      Service Co. and the Competitive Frame of Reference

      Chemical Co. and the Point of Difference

      Divergent Points of View

      Addressing the So What?

      Business Complexity. Mind vs. Emotion.

      Closely Held Beliefs and the Process of Determining

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Volume III: Position Your Business

      The Importance of Positioning

      Corporate Landscape and Fiduciary Responsibility

      Start Somewhere

      Ladder of Inference

      Addressing the So What?

      Deconstructing Closely Held Perspectives

      Easier Said Than Done!

      Leaders Positioning Their Business

      The Case of the Peripheral Nerve Block Catheter (PNB)!

      The Positioning of Wall Co.

      Decorative Hardware – To Be or Not to Be!

      Key Touchpoints – The Positioning Process

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Volume IV: Boring Numbers?

      The Numbers are Beginning to Whisper to Me!

      Struggling With the Numbers

      Their Only Hope of Knowing What Was Going On

      Demystifying Financial Acumen

      The Basics

      Thanks for the Tutorial … So What?

      A Practical Perspective of Profit & Loss

      The Emails Kept Coming!

      The Smallest Market Segment. The Largest Operating Profit.

      A Practical Perspective of the Balance Sheet

      Squeezing CASH from Working Capital … Funding Innovation

      General Rules of Thumb

      Achieve Team Sync

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Volume V: Tools for Profit

      Mini Recap – Nimble Leader

      So What and What’s Next?

      Tools for Profit

      A Roof Full of Holes, Leaking Profit and Cash

      The Importance of Tracking and Comparing

      Translating Market Position into Tactics

      The Dreaded Price Increase!

      Volume Growth

      A Common Reality in Tough Economic Times

      Mix Shift

      Cost – The CASH Leaving Your Bank Account

      Operating Working Capital

      A Moment to Reflect

      Timing is Critical

      Difficulty of Implementation

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Volume VI: Results Matter!

      Tools for Profit

      Skill vs. Will

      Plan – Do – Check – Act

      Constantly Working the Relationships

      Pressing the Limits

      Planning for Profit and Cash-flow

      Manage Market Risk Through Experimentation

      Doing is Key

      Applying Price

      Tolerance for Risk

      Don’t Wait for Your Dreamliner

      Applying Volume

      Applying Volume and Mix

      Applying Volume, Mix, and Operating Working Capital

      Summing It Up

      Nimble Leader – Next Steps

      Notes

      Introduction – Nimble Leader

      Why This Series?

      Strategy. Leadership behavior. Results. The three need to mesh for good things to happen in any business.

      As a leader, have you ever felt vulnerable because your background, experience, and title suggest you should know more than you do? Join the club!

      As a leader, you are…

      • Paid to get it right … the first time

      • Paid to see the micro and macro trends before they occur

      • Paid to have real-time strategies that address multiple market scenarios

      • Paid to have contingency plans for eventualities that may or may not happen

      • Paid to be the ‘great leader’ in tune with your colleagues, subordinates, superiors, key stakeholders, alliance partners, and of course your customers!

      The above depicts a level of leadership perfection, a sense of omnipotent capability. This orientation also breeds a mindset that leaders cannot show vulnerability in any way – that an inability to understand the whole picture, all of the time, somehow implies that you are not on top of your game.

      Yet – it is in acknowledging and acting on our ‘gaps’ that self-aware leaders are able to set the stage for dramatic growth, both on a personal level and with their business.

      Much has been written about business strategy, leadership behavior, and delivering results. However, little has been written about bringing these three elements together in a workable format that will help leaders lead and equip them to better negotiate a dynamic and turbulent marketplace.

      In the Nimble Leader Series, we provide a workable format. We make the connections.

      We link business strategy, leadership behavior, and financial performance, in ways not previously addressed. We identify essential building blocks upon which to grow your personal leadership skill, the skill of your teams and the skill of individuals who work on these teams.

      Our ultimate goal is improved business performance.

      While it might seem counterintuitive, this series takes a step back so that you might then leap forward with confidence and conviction. We look at strategy, behavior, and the numbers, making connections without assuming you are the ‘Great One’ who has come to save the day. We do assume, however, that you are incredibly gifted and capable!

      In Nimble Leader, we focus on a critical few concepts that make a difference in how you lead your business to success. We stay away from trying to put ten pounds in a five pound bag. If you are able to truly understand and apply the critical few, you are in a much better position to manage the urgent many … when the bullets start to fly!

      Create Unrelenting Focus on Achieving Results

      "I am not built for academic writings.

      Action is my domain."

      —Mahatma Gandhi

      Volume I

      Fire on All Cylinders ... Five Takeaways!

      Whenever we work with a team of senior executives to create alignment and achieve team sync in their own organization, there is always a magical moment when the light bulbs go on and they begin to see…

      • The power of the tools before them

      • The power of the linkages in creating team sync

      • The power of the interrelationships between various teams, groups, and functions within the organization

      • The impact to both top line and bottom line performance

      Leaders, teams, and individuals start to envision how the whole of the business can fire on all cylinders, creating step-change improvement in results.

      It is a magical moment!

      Throughout this series, we explore key concepts that have proven to be practical, useful, and applicable to achieving sustained improvement to business performance over the long term.

      If however, you pushed us to the wall and demanded we identify the most salient takeaways from our journey, we would focus on the following five points:

      1. Market Position – what you stand for in the minds of your customers – is EVERYTHING.

      2. Your ability to ‘give and receive’ information sits at the epicenter of decision-making, speed, execution, and performance! It is the foundation to moving from information to results. This process is critical to capturing the value that resides within different points of view; it is also critical to resolving the inevitable conflict that results when these same points of view compete for attention and resources within your organization.

      3. Six variables! A quantitative and facile understanding of how Market Position – what you stand for in the minds of customers – relates to Price management, Volume sales, product and service Mix, Cost expenditures, and Working Capital management is absolutely essential to delivering tangible business results.

      4. A quest to build self-awareness within, among, and across leaders in your organization is the starting point to effecting change in leadership behavior. Leadership practices represent a defining factor impacting organizational climate – what it feels like to work in your business. If your leaders are self-aware, they will translate this awareness into tangible action that will impact the future direction of your business. Just as a golfer might need a sand wedge, a pitching wedge, a gap wedge, and a lob wedge – depending on the location and lie of the golf ball – your leaders need the right tool kit if they are to navigate an increasingly complex business environment.

      5. Practice, practice, practice. Then . . . . . practice some more. So fundamental, this focus on doing and modeling right behavior and business practice is often forgotten or marginalized. Think of one example of demonstrated excellence where practice was not a critical element in achieving excellence. Not possible!

      Takeaway #1 – Market Position is EVERYTHING!

      A very close friend of ours, a true entrepreneur in every sense of the word, recently sold his publishing business. He started the business from scratch with a simple idea and a few bucks in his pocket. Over the years, he defined and built his niche, achieving great success. If you go on line or into any Barnes and Noble bookstore on any given day, you are likely to count over thirty books from this niche provider of sports publishing. We remember not so long ago sitting in his cramped Chicago office, when he had nothing but the determination to bring his idea to life. When he completed the sale of his business and the deal was done, we received a one-line text message,

      The money is in the bank account.

      Those seven words crystallized for us what we believe to be a universal business truth. A business transaction is never complete until the money changes hands!

      In the case of our publisher friend, his business stood for something in the minds of leaders from the acquiring global publisher. They were willing to spend their hard earned CASH because they received something of far greater value than what they gave up.

      Market Position – what you stand for in the minds of your customers – is EVERYTHING!

      What Comes First?

      When we put on our strategic thinking caps, we often ask ourselves, What comes first … Business Vision? Business Mission? Business Market Position?

      Yes, vision and mission are critically important to establishing a picture of some desired future state. However, for the entrepreneur, vision and mission more often than not represent a hunch or a gut feeling. For the entrepreneur spending scarce CASH resources, getting clear on Market Position (target customers, competitive frame of reference, and point of difference value proposition) can mean the difference between success and failure, between making payroll and closing the doors.

      For the business operator, Market Position becomes the operative guide for making business decisions on how resources are best used to support the growth of the company.

      You need Vision. You need Mission. You must have Market Position. In a constantly changing Lego-like world, the very act of searching for and solidifying Market Position can impact both Vision and Mission.

      Market Position is the beacon of light that guides all functions, all groups within your organization, when no one is looking. If you are clear on what you stand for, how you spend your time and scarce CASH resources becomes a little easier.

      Market Position and the positioning process is foundational to the success of your business. It is foundational to the success of every business!

      In Volume Two of Nimble Leader – What Do You Stand For? – we explore the critical relationship between CASH (the lifeblood of any business) and Market Position. We deconstruct Market Position and the process of positioning your business to achieve outstanding results. We elaborate on key touchpoints that will help you apply market positioning within your

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