Greg Siefert, VP Solutions Formation

Ambassador Solutions is off to an extremely fast start in 2008! This is not by chance or coincidence, but as a direct result of concerted effort toward creating organizational focus, agility, and leveraged competencies. The exciting news is that, no matter what your scope of influence is, a focus on these three areas will enable you to transform your portion of the business and influence your company as a whole.

I have included a few questions for you to reflect upon as you read this article. I welcome your thoughts, experiences, and recommendations as they pertain to this topic. At the end of the article you will be given the opportunity to submit your ideas (anonymously if you'd prefer it) and we will be happy to publish them in our newsletter next month.

Creating organizational focus (Strategy) - Whether your organization has the ability to transform an industry or is simply able to discern market trends, you must deliver a product or service that satisfies customer needs. To accomplish this, your organization must first define its purpose, product or service, and targeted markets – in other words, you must define your overall strategy. For the strategy to truly create competitive advantage, Jim Collins asserts that an organization must: 1) be the best in the world at what they do; 2) be passionate about what they do; and 3) be financially viable in their pursuit.¹ The strategy must be broad enough to accommodate future market change, yet focused enough that the organization is not trying chase after every promising opportunity that avails itself. Michael Porter states "being all things to all people is a recipe for strategic mediocrity and below-average performance, because it often means that a firm has no competitive advantage at all." ² Conversely, an appropriately focused strategy sets the stage for excellence.

Questions:

How are you doing at setting the strategy for your part of the organization?

How does this fit into the overall corporate strategy?

Anticipating market changes by cultivating agility (Culture and Structure) With the rapid change in customer tastes, simply understanding customer needs at one point in time is not enough –it will not create sustainable advantage. Our companies must cultivate agility so that we not only recognize changes in customer tastes, but can quickly evolve products and services to satisfy these new tastes. To achieve this agility, our organizations should build a culture of continuous learning focused on understanding the customer and staying ahead of the competition. John Seely Brown, a chief scientist at Xerox, put it aptly: "the key to survival, maybe the only place where you can get a sustainable edge in the enterprise that you are in, or the industry, has to do with how you learn faster than your competitor." ³ Equally important to learning is how your organization acts upon what it learns.

Questions:

Has your organization cultivated a culture of learning?

How have you applied these learnings to better your organization?

Leveraging competencies (Execution) - In my experience, I have seen many companies develop a sound strategy or change program, but fall short, time and again, when it is time to implement or execute the strategy. My observation is that companies with leaders who lead by example are able to execute much more rapidly. If we expect our employees to understand the value of an initiative or to sense the urgency for organizational change, we need to provide a living example. On a daily basis, we must demonstrate our commitment to the initiative and clearly communicate how our decisions align to the strategy. Over time, our execution successes will lead to a series of "success stories". As we institutionalize these "success stories", they become part of the company culture and are an inspiration to others to accomplish great things.

Questions:

How important is leading by example in your organization?

There is a fine line between delegation and leading by example. How do you define that line?

Share your thoughts!

If you have any questions, please email Greg at gsiefert@ambassadorsolutions.com.

References

1 Good to Great by Jim Collins, pages 95-96.
2 "Competitive Strategy" by Michael Porter (from "Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance") as printed in Strategy Synthesis, page 329.
3 Change is Like a Slinky by Hans Finzel, page 107.

Mitch Malloy, Senior Consultant

"Hi, Mitch, it's Kristin Soracco from Ambassador Solutions," she said as I answered my cell phone at a wireless café. Reviewing the notes from my interview that morning, I did not immediately give her my full presence. There were so many recruiters with so many options and yet so few opportunities worth pursuing.; Take, for example, the interview that I had that morning. I went on the interview having had a conversation with a fast-talking recruiter from a different agency. The proposed project would take me over an hour away from home, offering the low end of what I considered acceptable for a less-than-exciting engagement that the client hoped was a contract to hire.

I recognized Kristin's voice, but it was only later that I remembered our earlier conversations. Three weeks prior, she had proposed a very interesting opportunity that had unfortunately fallen through due to funding cancellation. Now, she had another interesting engagement for me.

"I know this is short notice… " Kristin began. Polite and considerate, Kristin never made me feel like a name on a long list of consultants. Rather, she treated me as person. Later, when I became familiar with Ambassador's values, it finally connected that she really did embrace the dignity of the individual, a core tenant of the company.; I wasn't just a means to a paycheck. She really seemed to care.

Jump ahead several months, and I'm now an Ambassador employee, managing the delivery of solutions. I see Kristin nearly every day, and I still see the person who truly values the individual as she pursues excellence with complete integrity. I've also come to know the rest of the crew and have been equally impressed with each of them. I see the vision of owner Brad Lindemann flow throughout the organization with passion. I can honestly say that I've never worked with a finer group of people, committed to making people's lives better through the solutions we provide.

If you would like to learn more about how our company puts these core values into action, check out this video.

Watch the video

(Look for the video link on the left side of the web page)

If you have any questions, please email Mitch at mmalloy@ambassadorsolutions.com.

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