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history of business has its examples too: Ford Motor Company of first decades of this century; IBM of 1950s, Apple of early 1980s, Wall-Mart of 1990s, Dell of past few years.
There are three ways to get a motivational growth-strategy.
First, link it to what people feel strongly about. Many leaders wrongly believe that just because they have taken trouble to develop a marketing strategy, that strategy automatically excites others.
If you don't root your strategy in fervent convictions of employees and customers, you don't have a motivational growth-strategy.
Steve Jobs' strategy for providing bringing a powerful, versatile computer into hands of average people around world, fired imaginations and ardent actions of his colleagues and, ultimately, customers.
Second, raise stakes. Follow Emerson's dictum: "Hitch your wagon to a star." Distinguish between vision and motivational growth-strategy. A vision is star. The strategy is how you will hitch your wagon to it. When people's vision and strategy provide a higher purpose in their lives, their motivation is of a higher order.
Jobs convinced John Scully to leave a high-level, fast-track position at PepsiCo and commit himself to uncertainties of working at Apple by asking: "Do you want to sell sugar water for rest of your life or do you want to change world?"
Third, make strategy simple and short. Growth can be complicated, but people's needs are simple.
Bill Gates wrote a strategy in longhand on a single sheet of paper when he founded Microsoft. He still has possession of that paper and is still following that strategy.
The processes of putting that strategy into action may take comprehensive descriptions. Still, those descriptions should flow from simple, brief motivational elements.
Action: Motivational growth-strategies aren't plans, they're action. Without people taking action, results can't happen.
Rational marketing stumbles because leaders often view such marketing as some kind of magic dust that, sprinkled out, changes behavior. But only motivated people change their behavior. In trying to realize marketing plans, top leaders often get jammed up in middle-manager meatgrinders. Those leaders can usually persuade their direct reports to participate in changes. However, far more important task is to persuade middle-managers to lead change. Because traditional marketing ignores emotional needs of middle-managers, needs that frequently illuminate ways to increase results, those managers can and will make mincemeat of even best-intended, rationally consistent, and brilliantly-conceived marketing strategy.
Hey, this isn't black hole physics! Getting results is simply about strategy and action: making a simple, powerful motivational growth-strategy happen in many, little actions taken daily by skilled, motivated people.
Because motivational growth-strategies flow out of hearts of people, rather than rain down from above, those strategies get those people championing actions that get big results.
The end of marketing is beginning of success that can only now be dimly imagined.
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at www.actionleadership.com
