Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas Into Action

Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas Into Action

Product Description

The six core strategies to elevate any business—and how to implement them—made simple

What do the world's most successful companies and organization have in common? And what can you actually take away and use from their examples? Distilling the best fundamental business strategies, trusted advisor and strategist John Spence helps you take a hard look at your business and together develop specific plans and action steps that will allow you to dramatically improve the success of your company.

Delivered in Spence's approachable and straightforward manner, Awesomely Simple reveals the six key strategies that create a foundation for achieving business excellence: Vivid Vision, Best People, A Performance-Oriented Culture, Robust Communication, A Sense of Urgency, and Extreme Customer Focus.

Filled with case studies and clear action items, includes easy-to-follow guidelines for implementing the strategies in any organization no matter its mission or size
After concisely breaking down each strategy, Spence gives specific examples, tips, tools, discussion questions and exercises for how to execute them successfully

A perfect resource for business leaders, Awesomely Simple will help you turn ideas into positive action and achieve lasting business success.

From the Inside Flap

What do the world's most successful companies and organizations have in common? And what are the real takeaways to use in your own business?

John Spence, trusted advisor, strategist, and consultant, has spent decades helping business owners and managers cut through the clutter to determine the core needs for creating and sustaining a successful organization. Real solutions aren't necessarily complex, but they are critical, and with John Spence's guidance, they can even be made simple.

In Awesomely Simple, Spence helps you take a hard look at your business and evaluate how it is succeeding in the six areas most critical for lasting success. Every organization, no matter what its size or sector, must excel in cultivating:

Vivid Vision
Best People
A Performance-Oriented Culture
Robust Communication
A Sense of Urgency
Extreme Customer Focus

Focusing on these fundamentals, Spence breaks down each principle to readily understandable action items, offering countless tools, strategies, and measurements of success to make these concepts both come alive and be put into practice. By bridging the knowing-doing gap, Spence shows how to develop tailored plans in easy-to-follow steps that will allow you to dramatically improve the success of your company.

Whether you are solidly weathering the current economy or struggling through it, Spence's straightforward, uncomplicated approach shows anyone how to turn big ideas into action and performance.

Business strategy and success don't haveto be unattainable goals; they can be awesomely simple.

Table of contents

Introduction

The Four Ps of becoming an expert
In this book
Why l Wrote This Book
What's Inside This Book
How to Use This Book

The Six Principles of Business Success

Vivid Vision
- Basic Terminology
- The Fundamentals of Creating a Vision
- Communicating the Vision
- Summary Of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audit
- Things To Think About And Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Examples
  - The City of Oklahoma City Mission, Vision, and Values Statements
  - Dragonfly Sushi & Sake Company Mission Statement
  - For more resources on creating mission, vision, and values statements, go to
- One Last Word on Communicating the Vision
Best People
- Find and Keep Top Talent
- Creating a Winning Culture
- Leading Talent
- Summary Of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audit
- Things To Think About And Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Case Study: Interview With Bill Davidson, Connoisseur Of Talent
  - Talent Identification
  - Talent Development and Retention
  - Creating a Culture That Supports Talent
  - Leading Talent
Robust Communication
- Dysfunctional Organizational Communications
- Key Skills for Superior Interpersonal Communications
  - Body Language
  - Four Levels of Listening
  - Sensory Modes
  - Logic Versus Emotion
  - Hot Words
- Dealing with Conflict
  - The Five Stages of Conflict
  - Telling Stories
  - The Gap
- Summary Of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audits
- Things To Think About And Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Case Study: Interview With Jack Malcolm On Expert Questioning
Sense of Urgency
- Creating a Clear, Intended Outcome
- Urgency Is Allergic to Bureaucracy
- Topple the Pyramid
  - Decision levels
  - Pointing out which level decision a person was faced with
  - When You Do Have to Make a Level 3 Decision
  - Framework for group decision making
- Reward Fast Action
- Multiply the Speed of Your Brain
- Summary of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audit
- Things to Think About and Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Case Study: Bringing a Company Back From the Brink
Disciplined Execution
- How Bad Is It?
- The Nine Steps to Ensure Disciplined Execution
  - Step One: Vision and Values
  - Step Two: Strategy
  - Step Three: Commitment
  - Step Four: Alignment
  - Step Five: Systems
  - Step Six: Communication of Priorities
  - Step Seven: Support and Training
  - Step Eight: Adjust and Innovate
  - Step Nine: Reward and Punish
  - So there it is
- Summary of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audit
- Things to Think About and Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Case Study: Carl Rapp's Philosophy of Business Excellence
  - Raise Your Expectations
  - Surround Yourself with Inspiring People
  - Run to the Problem
  - Be Honest with Yourself
  - A Strong Sense of Urgency
  - People First
Extreme Customer Focus
- Attitude Is Everything
- Moments of Truth
- Own the Voice of the Customer
- Engagement Is the Engine
- Summary of Key Points
- Effectiveness Audit
- Things to Think About and Discuss
- Turning Ideas Into Action
- Case Study: Customer Service Excellence the Austin Outdoor Way
  - A Shift in Focus
  - Involves the Entire Organization
  - Ask and Listen
  - Create Clear Alignment
  - A Never-Ending Process

Conclusion: What Do You Do Now?

Things to keep in mind
A work approach--focus on high leverage areas
Final Thoughts (fundamental drivers of achieving excellence in business and life)
- The first watchword is focus
- The second watchword is discipline
- The third watchword is action

About The Author

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic”. — Peter Drucker

The shift from manual workers who do as they are being told — either by the task or by the boss — to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves ↓ profoundly challenges social structure …

“Managing Oneself is a REVOLUTION in human affairs.” … “It also requires an almost 180-degree change in the knowledge workers’ thoughts and actions from what most of us—even of the younger generation—still take for granted as the way to think and the way to act.” …

… “Managing Oneself is based on the very opposite realities: Workers are likely to outlive organizations (and therefore, employers can’t be depended on for designing your life), and the knowledge worker has mobility.” ← in a context

These pages are attention directing tools for navigating a world moving toward unimagined futures.

It’s up to you to figure out what to harvest and calendarize
— working something out in time (1915, 1940, 1970 … 2040 … the outer limit of your concern) — nobody is going to do it for you.

It may be a step forward to actively reject something (rather than just passively ignoring) and then figure out a coping plan for what you’ve rejected.

Your future is between your ears and our future is between our collective ears — it can’t be otherwise. A site exploration starting point

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