I was excited to see the CMO of one of my clients speaking about a pillar their culture, “Pursuing Better, Differently….”
It’s such a critical concept, particularly if we want to stand out to our customers and differentiate our companies. It’s so important, if we want to continue to grow, outperforming others. It’s, also, so obvious–or should be.
But how many organizations actually do this? Somehow, it seems too many believe, we pursue better by being the same. (head scratching moment…..)
We believe we get better by doing more of what we’ve always done. My question is, “Then how do we get better? We may be doing more, but we aren’t changing or getting better.”
We believe we get better by doing what everyone else is doing, justifying those strategies by saying, “It works for them…” But then, how are we better, how are we different? What are we learning that enables us to change and grow?
Some will say, “But Dave, our product is different and better. Go to our website an look at the comparison chart, we check all the boxes.” But is that what our customers care about? Is it only about our products? Is that what makes us better?
What about our people? How do we create a better work experience for them? How do they improve and get better? We can’t do either of these unless we start thinking and behaving differently.
We mistake doing more, or following the same growth strategies, or by focusing on our products as the way we get better.
The reality is these are unsustainable strategies. They work only for so long and then we have to change.
We only get better by doing things differently.
Good stuff, as always Dave!
Your article here got me thinking…
Do business leaders confuse & conflate “doing different” and “doing differentLY”?
A subtle difference, just 2 letters difference… but in focus & outcome it can be a huge difference… perhaps the difference that makes the difference?
For the past 6 months or so I’ve been taking a pretty wide-spread view of sales enablement leader requirements/demands as communicated by companies across many industries advertising for director and VP-level sales enablement positions.
When I look at the details of the job requirements as advertised I see almost all of them focusing the person hired into that position to up the ante on product launch, sales & marketing materials and training, the production of fighting or sales guides on a ‘by product’ basis and owning & populating the tech stack to make such materials available easily and on demand to folks in the field.
That’s an example of “doing differentLY”
As you say in your article, not sustainable.
An example of “doing different” would be switching the focus of these roles to changing the mindset, approach, behaviors etc of how the organization as a whole engages with clients and prospects, be it directly as sales & marketing folks and customer service folks do (and some legal folks), as well as indirectly, as HR does in attracting & retaining folks with the right mindset to start with, and L&D can in equipping anybody engaging in client interactions to undertake these in full alignment with this different focus.
Copying and price-cutting a clone or “me too” product is a matter of time and money – basing your organization strategy primarily on product differentiation is blinkered and bordering on insanity, given it very very rarely works long-term. There will always be somebody out there who will offer what you have, or close enough to it, and at a lower price (but is it also a lower cost?!)
Cloning a way of thinking, doing and engaging clients and prospects is much harder to do effectively. It certainly takes a LOT longer than providing a “me too” product.
I guess if you have a company focused largely on the quarterly drumbeat of financial reporting, headed by lots of product people, with no clear strategy that is truly different, then why should we be surprised?
The corollary to this is that there is plenty of opportunity for those few organisations and leaders who do have the foresight and confidence to focus on “doing different” rather than “doing differentLY” – the latter is the safe option, easier to get rewarded for, hardest to get fired for… but the future lies with the former. One only has to look at history to see how true this really is.
Cheers
Martin
Great observations Martin. You sum it up well in the last paragraph.