Focus, man, focus!
I am running a bit of a learning marathon right now. Last week, I attended The Center for Association Leadership board meeting in Halifax, followed by the Invitational Forum on Leadership and Management. This week I am in Boston at a non-association community conference on collaborative technologies. Needless to say, my brain is boiling over with blog-worthy material.
Let’s start with the board meeting. The board took part in an exercise based on Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne’s excellent book, Blue Ocean Strategy. Chan and Mauborgne say that the way to thrive in today’s hyper-competitive environment is to create new market space, partly by breaking the trade off between producing something that is different from other stuff out there and producing something affordably.
Our board was asked to do two things—first, draft a strategy canvas describing our current state and second, explore what we would eliminate, reduce, raise, and create to change the game (Blue Ocean’s “Four Action Framework”).
Chan and Mauborgne believe that a great strategy (1) focuses on just a few things, (2) is differentiated from the rest of what’s out there, and (3) is simple enough to reduce to a catchy tagline. The key is to get rid of things that you and your competitors always assumed were important to success (but really aren’t) in favor of things that can help you achieve focus and differentiation. For example, Southwest Airlines tossed overboard seating classes, lounges, complex pricing structures, and hub connectivity to focus on friendly service, speed, and point to point departures. Cirque du Soleil kicked animal acts, name performers, and the three rings out of the tent, and added themes, artistic music and dance, and a unique environment. Neither of these were obvious choices and both required a good deal of courage to break with the norm.
So can you guess which part of the four action framework our board had the hardest time with? It was pretty easy to figure out what we could do more of and the board came up with some incredible new possibilities in the create category. The problem, of course, came on the “reduce and eliminate” side of the grid.
Cutting is hard, because you ultimately cut things people like. When Southwest decided not to have lounges and first class, they knew they would be taking away a part of the market that really liked those things. Cirque du Soleil’s creators must have known that they were going to loose a lot of kids when they cut out the lions and the clown car. But as long as associations continue to pursue an “all-things-to-all-members” strategy, we are not going to have the focus and simplicity legs of a great strategy. And without those legs, will we have the time and resources to be great at something that might really change the value equation for our members?
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Comments
Southwest Airlines and Cirque du Soleil learned they could create entirely new market space by not competing with "legacy" airlines or traditional circuses. Southwest Airlines achieved an entirely new strategic insight, i.e., we're a mass transportation company, not an airline, and then considered what it needed to eliminate and reduce, as well as raise and create, to put that insight into practice throughout the company as a entire system.
The four actions framework isn't a mechanism for rightsizing association activities nor is about "cutting what people like." It isn't a tool for brainstorming or updating the strategic plan. It is about making unconventional strategic moves that create new markets, markets that are difficult for competitors to imitate and through which it is possible for the organization to deliver value innovation, i.e., reduced costs and increased buyer value, to customers.
I would encourage you and the board to resist the temptation to look at the eliminate-reduce-raise-create grid as having "sides." Instead, look at the whole grid through the lens of the compelling strategic insight around which you're trying to organize The Center and identify what will be required to deliver that kind of value. This approach should help simplify the task of meaningful strategic thinking and action.
Posted by: Jeff De Cagna | June 20, 2006 10:55 PM
RESPONSE: Sorry, I never meant to imply that the four action framework was either a mechanism for “right sizing association activities” or “cutting what people like.” Blue Ocean Strategies create uncontested market space and new demand, break the value-cost trade off, and align activities in pursuit of differentiation AND low cost. However, my point is that a part (and I would argue a big part) of creating a blue ocean is strategic focus and value clarity, both of which can be difficult for associations. The new market space is defined as much but what you don’t do as by what you do.
Posted by: Scott Steen | June 21, 2006 6:00 AM