Saturday, May 15, 2010

Accelerating Out of the Great Recession

I did an aussi carboload today in preparation for a half marathon tomorrow. And of course now that I have told the world, it is tough to not go run it.

I read Accelerating Out of the Great Recession - How to Win in a Slow-Growth Economy- by The Boston Consulting Group, David Rhodes and Daniel Stelter.

Of course my instant "title reaction" was "everyone always thinks these are the worst of times and wish for the good old times".

As would be expected this book contains lots of interesting statistics. One point that I found interesting because people are often saying that China can help us accelerate out of the recession is "This is not going to happen". Facts just do not lie. Even if China doubles consumption, the impact will be minimal.

There was a section on what they thought today's agenda for CEO's need to be; "Reassessing the challenges and opportunities presented by globalization". "Rethinking how businesses are managed for shareholder value". "Reorganizing compensation systems to align with the risk taking". "Regaining public trust in business". "Developing new models for business leadership". "Helping the management team to think ambitiously about growth by looking beyond today's tough economic environment".

There was a chapter on strategies that included the following: "Focus on innovation". "Capitalize on changes in the external environment". "Unleash marketing and advertising power". "Take the flight to your competitors". " Invest in the future through M&A and divestment". "Employ game-changing strategies".

I particularly like the section on leadership during our crisis: " Walk the floor -and be visible".
"Set clear expectation". Employees respond more positively if they have well-defined expectations. Leaders need to establish the measures of success, both for the short term and for the future. They need to provide clarity about what is the most important in this environment.
"Mobilize the extended leadership team". Leaders should not pilot through the difficult times on their own. They need to bring in their broader leadership group, which will provide complementary skills and multiply the personnel power and brainpower available to tackle critical issues. There is strength in numbers.

It's a good book worth reading with a fairly hopeful message.

They also talked about the golden rule of online marketing which of course is permission. I find that blogging is one of those online ventures that is the ultimate permission. People don't have to look at my blog or I don't send people my blog who have not subscribed.

Of course this means you have to keep value high or you will have no readership.

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