#blueoceanshift

When company leadership or internal change makers are authorized to innovate, drive value innovation, or implement a specific blue ocean strategy, there will be hurdles. Rest assured. There is a good chance the hurdles will take the form of one or more of the following. Cognitive: Employees need to be aware of the need for a strategic shift. Red oceans are safe. They often times spin off cashflow and staff and investors will ask, why is there a need for change? Limited Resources: The more significant a strategic shift may be, the higher the perceived costs. In many of the companies needing blue ocean implementation, resources are being slashed, not added. Motivation: Stakeholders and sacred cow protecting staff will lack the motivation to move fast and seriously when it comes to challenging the status quo. The final hurdle found to be most common. Politics: "That's the way we've always done it." "The risk isn't worth the price." "Not on my watch." "Who's responsible if this doesn't work?" In the book, Blue Ocean Strategy, How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, the key to overcoming these hurdles has been found to be universally, tipping point leadership. Several definitions for tipping point leadership are available. From the NIH. "Tipping point leadership. ... The theory of tipping points hinges on the insight that in any organization, fundamental changes can occur quickly when the beliefs and energies of a critical mass of people create an epidemic movement toward an idea." From Blue Ocean Shift on Medium. "Tipping point leadership is about how to execute strategy fast and at low cost. It provides companies with a specific framework to be used, together with fair process, for overcoming the four key organizational hurdles that block implementation; namely, the cognitive, resource, motivational, and political hurdles." The primary focus of the book's description of tipping point leadership is found on page 148 in the text.

So how might a leader break through these hurdles quickly with lower cost? This framework is called for. For the cognitive hurdle: To make a real case for change, don’t just point at the numbers and demand better ones. Your abstract message won’t move people. Instead, make key managers experience your organization’s problems. One reason military culture works as well as it does at times is due to the fact, leadership is generally credited with having experience more or more extreme examples of what the soldier being led is experiencing. There is credibility. Beyond that point, the tipping point leader insist on making those she leads experience the real issues being addressed.  One example we're experiencing in real time is the poor leader's previous insistence on working from the office. With the onslaught of Covid-19 we're seeing cognitive hurdles drop daily as former control freaks are seeing productivity levels sustained or increased. Better numbers weren't demanded. As a result, some better numbers are now the case. In short, one of the best ways to beat this hurdle is to meet with the disgruntled. The disgruntled employees, customers, investors, or anyone that will play a role in assisting with the blue ocean transformation. When you meet, meet with intent to listen and act. People know bull-s..t a mile away now. Limited resources always present a challenge. We don't all have access the cash reserves to fund every initiative. Tipping point leaders don't emphasize their lack of resources. They emphasize the multiplication of the resources they have. The corporate move to Gmail, Google Suite, and Google Classroom, is a good example of how certain groups have made the best of limited resources. Tipping point leaders do the resource research and learn to maximize. One of the key methods used by Blue Ocean Strategists? Work in hot spots, cold spots, and do some horse trading. Hot spots are low or underutilized resource areas that have potential for higher returns. Cold spots are high cost or high resource areas that aren't returning results. Horse trading involves trading some resources needed by others for the resources you need. Pretty simple really. Manage the motivational hurdles. How can one motivate the masses with speed with limited costs? NOT FROM THE TOP DOWN! There is a need to focus on three factors that will disproportionately lead to results. Kingpins, fishbowl management, and atomization.

Kingpins are the ground zero players in your organization. They are the influencers all others watch. They are well respected and persuasive. Once you have identified and equipped the kingpin, put her in a fishbowl so to speak. If you're holding weekly calls or Zoom's, put her in the thick of reporting out. If there are leaders in the initiative, point them out and provide them a platform. this has to be done fairly with all parties involved in the process given some airtime. Blue Ocean calls this involvement of all parties as "fair process". Atomization is the process of making sure the implementation of any initiative is broken down into smaller manageable pieces. When those involved in the process see their part in the blue ocean shift as attainable, they are more likely to buy into the process and expend valuable time and emotional commitment to the initiative. If you don't atomize you risk the entire project looking to0 big, too complex, or fraught. with too much risk. Finally, the political hurdle is often real. Corporate politics is as real as any civic type. Powerful interest that have built little kingdoms inside organizations are often the primary hurdle to any meaningful change. Overcoming these powerful interests should include one or all three of the following influence factors. Leveraging angels, silencing devils, or securing the involvement of a consigliere. Angels are defined as those who stand to gain the most with the change. Devils are those who stand to lose the most with the change. The consigliere is the political insider who knows where all the bodies are buried and knows how to navigate the land mines. Appoint the consigliere as your right hand. This is the right move in most cases.  With respect to angels and devils, forget the middle ground. Identify who these players are in your organization. Isolate the devil by building a coalition with the angels prior to getting too far along. It's like crowding out weeds with healthy growth. When you know the devil's arguments you build your case in counterpoint prior to their attack. It's the only way to navigate the issues. In summary, focus on the acts of disproportionate influence. You don't always need a bulldozer when a lever will do the trick. If you are interested in a more detailed discussion around implementing any strategic initiative, especially a blue ocean shift, consider a free hour with me. There is no obligation. Schedule the call here.

What does it mean to be a strategist? A common definition: A strategist is a person with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of a strategy. Strategy generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. Not a bad definition. There are numerous proven models that strategist use in business today. Chron.com states its definition of a "strategy model" as one that exists within the term itself. Basically, a strategy model constitutes a strategic plan, or model, designed to improve a process. Organizations use strategy models to improve operations and meet their goals. Blue Ocean Strategy works outside the primary focus of other strategic models. That focus being the known industry boundaries where competitive rules are understood and accepted. Blue ocean are defined as untapped market space. Typically, the blue ocean is an expansion of existing red ocean competitive, you know where all the bloody competition takes place. There are tremendously strong strategists in the market that never once refer to Blue Ocean Strategy tools or frameworks. That's all good. There is room for everyone. Blue oceans are about abundance and new markets. We don't believe in zero-sum games. One of the reasons I planted my flag in Blue Ocean Strategy as my "deliverable" is the processes and frameworks that make, asking the right questions, corporate implementation, and employee engagement so much more measurable. My mindset and philosophy is not built to be a natural skeptic or doubter. I don't instinctively ask the right questions that always lead to discovery. Discovery of solutions to problems or even the problems themselves. I'm guilty of assuming I'm right about most things without sufficient evidence. I'm betting I'm right in assuming I'm not the only one with that problem. Blue ocean strategy and the tools it provides give me the strategic thinking rail and questioning process to run on. Let's highlight the qualities of a Blue Ocean Strategist. These qualities I can now attest are for the most part my qualities as well. I. Blue ocean strategist do not take industry conditions as given. They set out to reshape those conditions in the favor of their companies or clients. II. Blue ocean strategist do not seek to beat the competition. They instead, aim to make competition irrelevant. III. Blue ocean strategist focus on creating and capturing new demand, not fighting over existing customers. IV. Blue ocean strategist simultaneously pursue differentiation and low cost. They seek a complete break from the traditional value-cost trade-off. They have an expansive field of vision. As you can see, these qualities are found in some of the most successful leaders in all industries. Today's market conditions are forcing the hand of traditionally minded business thinkers. There is little room for sacred cows and words like, that's how we've always done it. In my view, having a strategic rail to run on will enhance a company's chance of thriving in a post-coved-19 world. Someone recently asked, what are your attitude about the next 6 months? What are your plans? My answer was this, hope for the best, plan for the worst. How might you plan for the worst? Ask the right questions. Use the right tools. If you have questions about how Blue Ocean Strategy thinking, mindset, and implementations, feel free to set up a call. No obligation and we'll chat for an hour or so about anything related to your business that you wish. If blue ocean applies in some way, I'll let you know and steer you in the right direction. Set up that appointment here. 

It's time to disrupt and innovate the promotion and marketing model of spirits, wine, and beer. Sampling and tasting methods of marketing are broken and hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted on what brands perceive to be tried and true models. In Blue Ocean Strategy parlance, there is a need for a new value proposition. One of the ways a new value proposition is developed is via the ERRC Grid in Blue Ocean Strategy. One goes through and exercise, generally with use of the As-Is Strategy Canvas to determine the current strategic key factors of competition. This helps define the current state of play.  It provides data and insight leading to the hard decisions around what may be eliminated, reduced, raised, and created. Hence, ERRC. The culmination of the ERRC exercise is a new value proposition. Ideally, one that creates blue oceans of uncontested market space. In the image below, one can see the power of the process. In the Four Actions Framework, the practitioner is lead to ask key questions around what should be eliminated, raised, reduced, and created.

I contend it is well past time for these processes to be used to address the broken spirits, wine, and beer sampling and activation models. This has never been more the case then now. Billions of dollars in marketing money are at play with the recovery of the global economy completely undetermined. The ways brands previously built their business, sales, and brand equity was through on-premise promotion. Sampling and tasting as a marketing method are okay in and of themselves. They just aren't good enough anymore. The competition is too strong and the market for spirits, wine, and beer are under more competition than ever. Moreover, the Covid-19 crisis and its lockdowns have changed the way street teams, promo girls, and samplings at venues will be done in the future. New thinking is required. My take on what should be don't in the marketing of samplings, tastings, and activations are made clear in the image below.

Elimination should include street teams, point of sale merch and other schemes sold by agencies are useless spends. If the giveaways are not attached to measurable digital metrics the dollars may as well be burned at the distillery. Reduction of out-of-home advertising, in-store tastings without real strategic planning, and poorly targeted advertising should be a priority. Raising of priorities around highly targeted advertising and converting all samplings and tastings into actionable micro-moments with associated measurements. If you're not advertising as a bourbon brand to the individuals that have visited the bourbon aisle of your retailers two to three times in the last six months, you're dropping the ball. Finally, the creation of true brand ambassador success metrics that have to do with integrated depletion goals as well as truly individualized post-sampling or post-tasting marketing after every event. This all has to be tied to retail. My colleagues and I have this figured out. I'm certainly not sharing the solution in this post. There are Blue Ocean strategies at the ready that would work for your brand. I have little doubt. In the spirits, wine, beer business, your brand is fortunately still viable. If you're a small craft distillery, there are ways for you to grow sales based on a per-performance basis. If you'd like to discuss Blue Ocean tools during a free one hour visit, book it here.