Haters are proof that you are doing something right - Unknown

Regardless professional manager or entrepreneur, it is always good for us to take a step back to reframe ourselves and our business, and to experience what we do through a fresh lens. On my part, I regularly attend book launches, listen to interesting and inspirational speakers, and read up on the latest business dialogue through the many informative and relevant portals available.

Recently, I had the good fortune to attend a book launch in Kuala Lumpur. The authors were not Malaysian, nor to be honest, was any of the content. But, it struck a chord – offering fresh insight into the interactions I have every day, and with respect to the advice we as a business give to our valued clients.

What was enjoyable about the launch was not the content of the book per se, but the delight of the principal author in delivering her presentation. A seasoned pro, the author stepped it up a notch and demonstrated that all-important passion for her content – something, sadly missing in some other launches I have attended.

Kate Sweetman presenting about 'Reinvention'

I would be amiss to say that the content was not important, for it genuinely was. Reinvention by Shane Cragun and Kate Sweetman (Kate was the presenter) brings together current practice in business. It focuses on how businesses (and their people) can look forward positively, knowing that the operational landscape shifts on a daily basis, to create positive and supported change for the organisation. This is essential, as we know “the only constant is change”.

'Reinvention' Book Launch

The book launch was part of a broader Leadernomics event – including the launch of their own book of business wisdom too – this time, from a very local perspective. It was reassuring to see that many of the themes discussed throughout the afternoon paralleled recent themes we at Metanoia had been expanding on – many very new to the Malaysian context – and thus validated our interest in continuing to pursue these new approaches to client cooperation.

One of these themes is the power of storytelling within the organisation. This came through prominently from all speakers as a new area to investigate. Ourselves, as practitioners, have embraced storytelling concepts for several years; and more recently have made the paradigm shift from the notion of story-telling to story-doing to story-making. Personally, I was fortunate enough to have been trained by one of the worlds leading storytelling specialists, Doug Lipton, over ten years ago, in the art of storytelling for effective management within the education sector. This revolution a decade ago opened my eyes to the importance of structured content to shape organisational culture, rather than office banter as a fortunate mechanism to share values.

To this day, I utilise these skills, and others that I have embraced along my journey, in mentoring both my own team and my clients. The power of the story, executed appropriately, can sway negative perception towards positive, and can motivate people to go that extra mile. Throughout the ages storytelling has been a tool to move people – the only difference today is we are appreciating it in a fuller range of contexts, and the younger generation (Millennials) are more receptive to it within select context.

Reinvention reaffirmed many things for us. It was great to be seated in a room of like-minded entrepreneurs, business leaders, and professional managers, and to experience those collective “ah ha” moments as we reflected on our own practice, and that shared by our presenters.

What stuck with me most was ‘The Six Deadly Blindfolds’ analogy used by Cragun and Sweetman. One of the first collective ‘ah ha’ moments, when we all realise, that at some stage, we have been guilty of one or more of these practices along our individual journey; followed by the reality that such a perspective can hinder our ability to move forward in a progressive fashion. For us to remain open to positive and necessary change, we must constantly ensure no blindfolds, and must assert a changed mindset when we fall into old habits, which are so easy to do.

Opportunity to speak with Kate Sweetman

I will post a separate commentary in the next couple of weeks discussing The Six Deadly Blindfolds, and how they apply to us as managers and entrepreneurs; as well as how our current acknowledgement of such practices can help us to progress and grow through understanding the contribution that can be made from removing the blindfold.

If you do get a chance to check out the book ‘Reinvention: Accelerating Results in the Age of Disruption’, I highly recommend it as a valuable read.

Let's further embrace Reinvention and start making our mark on the business scene. 

Craig J Selby | Craig is a long-time proponent of structured and measured change. His early career saw him teaching marketing and management at a variety of Universities and PTE’s in his native New Zealand, where he quickly climbed the management ladder to head several private sector institutes. Needing to do that little bit extra, Craig formed his own consultancy firm and was engaged by many in the sector as a trouble-shooter - responsible for internal auditing, restructuring and redevelopment of many departments and institutes in order to remain competitive in a highly contested market. This involvement motivated him to branch out and work with other industries - focussing on change and development as a core theme in business survival. When Craig moved to Malaysia, he went back into the Education sector to share his ideas with local private sector educational facilities. In 2009 Craig co-founded Orchan Consulting Asia, an award-winning Public Relations agency. His areas of specialisation are Crisis Management Communications and Change Management.

Change brings opportunity - Nido Qubein

Most organisations can identify that they want to change, or that they have the need for necessary change; some have even established a functioning framework and mindset to initiate change. However, there still seems to be a hurdle which separates those who want to start and have the capacity to begin change, from those who really embark on the process of change. What seems to be the divider which prevents aspiring agents of change from taking that leap of faith?

Having familiar routines, coupled with a deeply ingrained structural framework of habits, beliefs, and relationships, it’s to no surprise that initiating change might seem to be a daunting task. It potentially disrupts our comfort zones, and this insecurity contributes to us being apprehensive in initiating change, resulting in plans being constructed without any form of execution.

The first step to embracing change is by thinking about change differently. Adjusting your conventional everyday habits might seem to be quite the horrific experience, especially so for those who have spent the majority of their time residing in their little greenhouse, which is why adopting a new mindset is imperative to undergo successful change. Focus on how this shift forward has the potential to positively translate into a constructive impact on your daily routine, instead of how you will be required to step out of your comfort zone.

Instead of viewing change as a disorganising agent, one should learn how to integrate change into their current lifestyles. There’s nothing wrong with having a sphere of safety, but when those around you start developing and reinventing themselves, showing progress and improvement in the process, one should identify the need to exhibit new behaviours and mindsets in order to maintain competitiveness.

The article below provides a highlight on how change disrupts your daily routine, and how that should affect positively instead of adversely.

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“We recently gave a talk about change. At the start of the Q&A session, one young woman’s hand shot up. She brightly said into the microphone: “I am someone who loves change! I embrace change! I welcome change!”

She then paused, and asked a poignant yet plaintive question: “But how can I make sure that all this change doesn’t disrupt my day?”

How would you answer this question? Because the fact is, as funny as this question may sound, she puts voice to what many of us are thinking. How many of us truly want positive changes to happen around us – but still want to leave our own little worlds intact? How many of us really want our familiar, comforting routines replaced with radical changes in our ingrained habits, established relationships, hard-earned skills, fundamental attitudes, and treasured beliefs? Even when truly reinventing ourselves or our organisation requires such changes? And even if we were willing to do that, how many of us would know where to start?

Unless we can answer the question posed by this audience member about how change threatens her day (and how to deal with its many implications), we and our teams, organisations and even societies will remain stuck. She happened to work for a bank, but she could have been speaking as a teacher, a corporate magnate, a government employee, a member of the U.S. Senate, or a homemaker. Unless we can align ourselves in myriad ways with the many “newnesses” that change requires, we ourselves will be the grit in our gears, grinding against change instead of smoothly shifting forward into the spaces we all currently agree we need to inhabit — but only in theory.

Why? Because our old approaches by definition cannot not create the new actions needed to move forward in different and more effective ways. And the individual level, this can hurt our career prospects, relationships, even our health. At the senior leadership level, it can influence other people’s careers and prospects as well.

Consider Steve Ballmer, who led Microsoft as its CEO from 2000 to 2014 as if his role were simply to keep the company afloat after Bill Gates left — what we call being a “leader-caretaker.” The recipe for ongoing success would be hardware and software: what had made it successful in the past. We have been told by Microsoft strategists during the Ballmer era that Ballmer ignored pleas by his senior management team to invest in cloud computing as far back as 2007. Instead, he placed all of Microsoft’s bets on the doomed Vista operating platform. He didn’t create strategic partnerships that could have established new growth and new channels in the marketplace. Under Ballmer, Microsoft stock went from almost $60/share in 2000, to just over $30/share when he left office in February 2014.

Then consider Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO since February 2014. Within 24 months, under Nadella, Microsoft became a leading expert on cloud computing, developing myriad products such as Delve, Power BI, Sway, Skype translator, Office 365, and Azure. Nadella also created strategic partnerships, even with competitors like Oracle and Salesforce, to increase Microsoft’s reach with consumers. This we call being a “leader-accelerator.” Two years after Nadella took the lead, the share price had rebounded 43% to $51.

The bottom line? Our mindsets have much to do with our day-do-day success. Is your mindset one of embracing change and seeing it as an incredible opportunity to take your game to the next level? Or does change — even change you know you need – rub you the wrong way? Being a leader-accelerator in your own life – pushing the envelope, viewing each new problem as an interesting one you simply haven’t solved yet, and embracing what Stanford researcher Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset” – is the best way forward in today’s tumultuous and global environment.

So when striving to make progress within your own sphere of influence by getting out of your comfort zone, will your day likely change? Absolutely. Because getting new results requires adopting new mindsets and exhibiting new behaviors. To get different results, by definition, means you are disrupting your daily routine.

The good news is that each day has the potential to be an improvement on the last.” - Kate Sweetman & Shane Cragun, Chief Client Officer and CEO of SweetmanCragun

Image source: 1213online.org

Benjamin Lee Cheng Han | Benjamin is a student of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, currently exploring unchartered realms in the Public Relations field. Writing is clearly his interest – a decisive contributor to his foray into the public relations industry. To date, he boasts the proud record of having tamed one of the office cats, and drinking expired tea from the pantry.

Don't cling to a mistake just because you spend a lot of time making it - Unknown. 

So, you’ve just had that “lightbulb moment”. You walked out of your comfort zone, and decided to embark on a new, yet unfamiliar journey that lies ahead of you – that is, Business Startup. In the past, successful entrepreneurs spent years and years to gain achievements and experiences during their business journey with their counterparts. It is only with determination, perseverance, confidence, and passion that will drive their motivation in building up a pathway that will lead their business to its favourable outcome.

We all know that growing a business is not an overnight success; and if it is, it will soon become your company’s worst nightmare. Working day and night to launch a dream startup is insufficient to take you down the successful part, unless you realise the importance of being able to prioritise and implement the right strategies at the right time to the right target audience of your business industry.

Pause for a moment, and have a read at the following article by Ehsan Jahandarpour, a startup coach who has helped organisations such as Microsoft, Petronas, and BBDO Advertising Agency to grow their business, in which he outlines five (5) essential pre-launch strategies which have often been overlooked by the majority of startup entrepreneurs.

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Stop Perfecting Your Product

While having characteristics like leadership, passion and determination can help you lead your startup toward your goal, you should be aware of the most dangerous attitudes that can result in failure. You may be surprised, but being a perfectionist is one of those dangerous attitudes.

The ultimate goal of perfectionists is to beat their competitors by developing a perfect product. Since there is no measurement for perfection, the only thing that keeps happening is they keep revising their product and adding features to make it better at the cost of forgetting to market and grow their business.

The solution to this issue is to include market research as one of the key activities, and adopt a lean startup and an agile development methodology. Building a minimum viable product (MVP) and releasing it to a group of volunteers to provide feedback enables you to understand what features matter the most to customers. This way, while you can develop your product in different sprints, you have the time to adapt to market demand and market your business.

Build Your Email List

There is a pitfall that many entrepreneurs fall into when applying the lean startup methodology. Ever since lean startup was introduced, many startups tried to embrace it and run their businesses based on that approach. Unfortunately, a large group of entrepreneurs have misperceived the concept of lean.

While adopting a lean startup approach encourages agility and accelerates product development, you must remember that lean itself is a mindset and promotes balance. It’s inevitable that you can only succeed if you have the right audience to promote your product, hence, you should balance your time between developing your product, and growing your list of potential customers.

One of the most important strategies that you must inaugurate is list building. While your team is working on developing your product, you must focus on implementing the first step of any growth hacking strategy. Generally, a growth hacking framework is composed of four steps: attract, engage, acquire and maintain. Although there are several strategies that fall under growth marketing, customer acquisition is among the most significant ones.

The first step to begin your list building process is to set up a landing page that is engineered to encourage visitors to leave their emails in exchange for exclusive tips, early bird membership price, or anything that inspires them to opt-in. Remember, never stop building or updating your list.

If you manage to increase your traffic, you can boost your conversion rate, and collect more emails. You should concentrate on participating in forums or engaging potential customers in social media and leading them to your landing pages. This way, you will have a valuable list of people who are interested in testing or even buying your product. General rule of thumb is to never launch if you do not have a solid email list.

Research Market Trends

Conducting thorough market research should be part of your business strategy. Large companies invest hundreds of thousands of dollars on a yearly basis to buy white papers and forecasted facts about their industry. While it is understandable that as an early stage startup you cannot allocate that much money to purchase market research data, it would be a huge mistake if you exclude market research from your strategies.

There are plenty of affordable resources that you can rely on to conduct a comprehensive market research. The most convenient and free resource to analyse the trends and understand customer behaviours is Consumer Barometer by Google.

Rather surprisingly, even smart entrepreneurs often overlook the fact that each customer segment requires a unique value proposition (UVP). In fact, if you have discovered more than one customer segment in your business model, you must revisit your business strategy and make sure that your UVP is aligned with what each customer segment demands.

Make Time for Blogging

It is an undeniable fact that websites with corporate design themes are not as engaging to customers as entertaining or educational websites are. The same principle applies to e-commerce too. In fact, even if you have recently set up a fashion e-commerce business, not many people will buy from you if you do not manage to prove your value to them.

If the nature of your business is not that entertaining, or if you have spent too much money designing your website that you do not want to change the layout anymore, you can leverage content marketing strategies to engage your customers in an efficient manner.

Taking customers through an educational path can be both engaging and rewarding for visitors. Today, you can quickly set up a blog at no cost, and publish valuable content that address your visitors' concerns.

Keep in mind that posting thin content, writing promotional pieces that only focuses only on your product and publishing too often can harm your business. The secret to success is to craft the type of content that helps your visitors address their challenges for free.

Here's One Last Tip - Optimise Your page for Higher Conversion

A common mistake that many entrepreneurs and marketers make is to direct all traffic to one single landing page.

While your website can act as your sales funnel’s entry, you can increase your revenue by optimising your pages for higher conversion. Each landing page should be designed for one customer segment and should be tailored based on your customer's characteristics.

In fact, discovering your customer’s persona enables you to enhance the customer experience and boost your conversion rate. This way you are addressing different needs with different offers and thus, it will lead you to grow your business faster.

Inspiration: 4 Essential Pre-Launch Steps for Startups

Image Source:

(1) subscriptionschool.com

(2) freeiconpng.com

(3) buildfire.com

(4) theroar.in

(5) myoperator.co

(6) act-on.com

Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will. 

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new - Socrates

In the world of business and marketing, every organisation celebrates their organisation’s successes for the achievements that they have made over the years. However, there are always two sides to a coin. Living in the digital age, a great number of social media platforms have made it a point for every organisation leaders to invest their time and focus in managing the potential negative occurrences that are bound to happen.

Knowing that the business world is evolving faster than before, the infinite power of technology has triggered the importance of Crisis Management in every organisation – as consumers today often take it to the public, via the internet, in sharing their grievances and complaints about a particular brand or products, before they even communicate directly and discretely to the brand concerned.

Speaking of which, last year, the Founders of  Metanoia, – Craig J Selby and Farrell Tan presented a paper at 2015 Indonesia International Conference on Communication (INDO ICC) entitled “New Rules of Engagement on Judgement Day: Crisis Communications in the Digital Age”. In it they discussed how this digital age presents a number of challenges for crisis communicators, as well as on how practitioners can exercise new rules of engagement in dealing with reputational issues. Supported with relevant local and regional case studies, this paper brings forth perspectives on a recent digital boom that affected the broader public relations industry.

Following is the conference paper. If you wish to download the full version of the paper, the link is provided at the end of this post.

Enjoy reading, and do share with us some of your insights about how you handle Crisis Management strategies within your organisation. 

2015 Indonesia International Conference on Communication (INDO ICC)

Stop trying to fit in; you were born to stand out - Unknown

Change management is often emphasised through a myriad of applicable strategies, each highlighting different aspects which contribute to the success of the overall change. Factors such as effective communication, leadership investment (financial / personal commitment), and personnel engagement are often cited as primary reasons contributing to successful change management. However, given that studies have still revealed a 60-70% failure rate in organisational change projects, what seems to be the problem?

Instead of identifying existing strategies and factors as being ineffective, and attempting to revise and rethink these widely applied basics, there could be alternative explanations which are the main reasons for failed change efforts. Change management is undeniably one of the most important facets of an organisation’s growth, and diagnosing areas of improvement for initiating meaningful and durable initiation should be the priority of an organisation.

One of the primary problems contributing to the ineffectiveness of change management is the lack of managerial capacity in initiating it successfully. Change management projects are often outsourced to third-party consultants, instead of equipping managers themselves with the necessary skillset to effectively implement change. One way to increase the effectiveness of outsourcing is by simultaneously coaching organisational leaders, providing them with the capability to helm change management projects whilst being assisted by external specialists.

Another factor attributed as a cause for ineffective change management is the lack of emphasis on upgrading existing structures of change. In an increasingly competitive environment, expediting decision-making is now a priority for organisations to stay in contention in their respective industries. The digitisation of change management tools contributes to the facilitation of effective and lasting change efforts. Prompt, personalised messages; regular communication of progress; direct connections amongst organisational personnel – are but a few areas where digitisation enhances the efficacy of organisational change.

Excerpts from the two articles below highlight in detail these problems, and suggest effective ways of application to ensure a more effective change management process. Direct managerial engagement and the digitisation of change management tools could well be keys to initiating successful change.

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“Here’s an example of this pattern: Over the course of several years, a major healthcare company introduced thousands of managers to a particular change management approach, while providing more intensive training in specific tools and techniques to six sigma and HR experts. As a result, managers became familiar with the concepts, but depended on the “experts” to actually put together the plans.

To what extent are your plans for change integrated into your overall project plans, and not put together separately or in parallel? The challenge is to make change management part and parcel of the business plan, and not an add-on that is managed independently.

Finally, who is accountable for effective change management in your organization: Managers or “experts” (whether from staff groups or outside the company)? Unless your managers are accountable for making sure that change happens systematically and rigorously — and certain behaviors are rewarded or punished accordingly — they won’t develop their skills.” – (Ron Ashkenas, Partner Emeritus at Schaffer Consulting)

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“The advent of digital change tools comes at just the right time. Organizations today must simultaneously deliver rapid results and sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive environment. They are being forced to adapt and change to an unprecedented degree: leaders have to make decisions more quickly; managers have to react more rapidly to opportunities and threats; employees on the front line have to be more flexible and collaborative. Mastering the art of changing quickly is now a critical competitive advantage.

B2C companies have unlocked powerful digital tools to enhance the customer journey and shift consumer behavior. […] Digital dashboards and personalized messages, for example, can build faster, more effective support for new behaviors or processes in environments where management capacity to engage deeply and frequently with every employee is constrained by time and geography.

Digital tools and platforms, if correctly applied, offer a powerful new way to accelerate and amplify the ability of an organization to change. However, let’s be clear: the tool should not drive the solution. […] The chances of success increase when management actively encourages feedback from users and incorporates it to give them a sense of ownership in the process.” – (Boris Ewenstein, Principal in McKinsey’s Johannesburg Office; Wesley Smith, Consultant; Ashvin Sologar, Associate Principal) 

Image Source: linkedin.com

Benjamin Lee Cheng Han | Benjamin is a student of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, currently exploring unchartered realms in the Public Relations field. Writing is clearly his interest – a decisive contributor to his foray into the public relations industry. To date, he boasts the proud record of having tamed one of the office cats, and drinking expired tea from the pantry.

Don't believe in taking right decisions. Take decisions and then make them right. - Ratan Tata

Technological innovation has enabled us so much convenience compared to ever before. Let’s face it; last millennium, entrepreneurs used letters to communicate their business deals. Now that we live in the digital era, and that almost everyone owns a mobile communication device, that’s not the case anymore: business communications are far more likely to be reached via Email, or otherwise, instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and the like.

Over the last couple of decades, the advancement that we are experiencing has evolved beyond our belief and has made our lives different by transforming the way we live and do work. Interestingly enough, as we live in a time now that the advent of technology has led us to advancing in some aspects of our lives, simultaneously, it is also taking major steps backward in others – that is – to oversimplify things during the journey to success. 

Do you think every successful individuals that we know today, like Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs, became an overnight success for their entrepreneurial journey? Hardly! To crush the myth of overnight success in business, there is no shortcut to business success. At most times, oversimplification could make things worse. Therefore, following are some words of warning by Chris Myers, the co-founder and CEO of BodeTree.com, to those who choose to do so.

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Beware the path of least resistance.

Entrepreneurship is about connecting with people and understanding their motivations and desires. As a result, the products and services produced by the entrepreneurial class are a reflection of the times.

We live in an age where attention spans are short, and instant gratification is an expectation. That’s why, as entrepreneurs, we’re taught to embrace simplicity. The simpler the product, the easier it is to get people to adopt and utilize it. This, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. As da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” But is it possible to take this sentiment too far? At what point does the quest for simplification of products, stories, and experiences become damaging?

At some point, the embrace of simplicity veers into dangerous territory. Complexity is viewed as the enemy, and people become addicted to convenient, oversimplified thought processes. When this shift occurs, everyone suffers.

Simplification can lead to intellectual laziness for entrepreneurs.

Startups live and die by growth. Nine times out of ten, if you’re not growing, your days are numbered. The incredible pressure to grow constantly influences the decisions that entrepreneurs make, for better or worse.

One easy path to quicker adoption and growth is to simplify processes. Modern users want products that are like magic. Added work is looked down upon. As a result, entrepreneurs like myself face the temptation to constantly dumb-down messaging, product features, and design.

The problem, of course, is that not everything in life lends itself to such dumbing down. Take my company, BodeTree, for example. We work to make financial management simple and easy for the average small business owner. However, finance is inherently complex, and there is only so far we can go to make it accessible for the average consumer. In the past, we’ve held off on producing new features or going into more depth for fear of alienating our customers. However, in doing so, we’ve done them a disservice by sacrificing long-term value for short-term gains.  

Simplification can limit growth for consumers.

What forms as a result is a vicious cycle for both entrepreneurs and their customers. However, it is the consumer who pays the price for these simplifications and shortcuts. We have faced this challenge at BodeTree many times.

We know finance is complex so we’ve simplified many of the processes required to maintain up-to-date and organized finances. However, when it comes to financial education, simplification can be difficult, if not damaging.

We produce a large amount of educational content for our customers within the app itself and my team and I have long understood the need for including technical content as well. But our internal usage statistics tell us that people don’t spend much time reading anything that is perceived as overly complex.

The challenge of sharing digestible content while also delivering value to our customers is an ongoing struggle. We know that by giving into temptation to oversimplify our educational content, we do our customers a disservice. The path of least resistance stymies growth for the very people we want to help most.

It stunts us as a society.

As a people, we have become so accustomed to the push-button conveniences of modern life that we now crave it in all things. As a result, we’re rapidly transforming into a society that is crass, shallow, and often oblivious. Whether we’re talking about the conflict inherent in trying to oversimplify product design, or something more important like foreign policy, we are increasingly ruled by laziness and emotion. This path is easier, but it is ultimately hollow.

Never mistake simplicity for elegance. All of us, regardless of our calling, must learn to once again embrace deep thinking, complexity, and nuance and reject the temptation to oversimplify. It’s time that we embrace a higher calling and push ourselves to thrive in a complex world.

Inspiration: Why Oversimplification is Bad for Entrepreneurs, Consumers, and Society as a Whole

Image Source:

(1) weknowmemes.com

(2) under30ceo.com

Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will.