Archive for February, 2010.
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

Great leaders understand the power, influence, and leverage created by great messaging. Do you ever find yourself sitting back and marveling at those leaders who always seem to have the right thing to say? Contrast this with the feelings you have when you hear an awful sound-bite that makes a leader look either uninformed or unintelligent. The difference between the two aforementioned examples is that great leaders have mastered the art of finding the right message regardless of the medium, market, or constituency being addressed. In today’s post I’ll share some of the messaging secrets used by the best leaders…
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

It never ceases to amaze me at the number of people who are charged with hiring who possess absolutely no skill at doing so. While I rarely meet a CEO who is completely comfortable with turning the hiring process over to HR, most of them still seem to acquiesce and do exactly that…”Who should do the hiring?” is a question that more CEOs should spend time pondering. In today’s post I’ll share my philosophy on the best way to insure that you hire tier-one talent.
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
In a comment on yesterday’ post, Mark Oakes (@MarkOOakes) stated “Smart businesses are ’systems dependent’, not people dependent.” Mark’s comment was very astute and led me to think about the value of process. Process…even the word itself has come to hold a negative connotation for many. With the plethora of conflicting information that has been written about process management and process engineering, combined with the nightmares we have all experienced as a result of bad process, many executives fear the pain associated with flawed process less than they value the benefits created by good process. In today’s post I’ll examine the value of process…
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

There is no shortage of information circulating of late espousing the benefits of making yourself indispensable to your employer. While this mantra has clearly gained some traction, if not actually becoming quite popular, popular thinking does not necessarily equate to sound thinking. Let me be as clear as I can – nobody, and I mean nobody is indispensable. I don’t care who you are, what role you play, or what your title is…if you perceive yourself to be indispensable, you are setting yourself up for a very rude awakening. Furthermore, anyone who by design sets out to orchestrate a situation to make themselves indispensable is not operating in good faith. In today’s post I’m going to share my thoughts as to why the myth of becoming indispensable is very dangerous thinking to say the least…
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

Really? Identifying leaders? Have we really degenerated to this point? News Flash – If you have to look for leadership it doesn’t exist…Today’s post is not going to sit well with many in the leadership profession, but then many of my posts seem to have that effect. That said, I’ve never been a fan of what I refer to as “make-work” disciplines. By that I mean practice areas that serve no real purpose other than to generate a revenue stream for a coach or consultant, or justify headcount within a department. In my opinion the practice of leadership identification is simply based upon flawed business logic, and it is make-work in the purest form.
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
Are you shooting yourself in the foot with your pricing strategy? The simple truth is that most executives avoid the topic altogether. Let me be clear; Pricing Matters…Do you have a pricing strategy, or do you set your prices by some ethereal or arbitrary method? It is my opinion that issues surrounding pricing decisions are root level drivers to a successful business strategy. That said, I’m always amazed at how many corporations and professional advisers seem to pull their pricing out of thin air. Moreover, of those that actually go through some form of disciplined process, many of them seem to believe that once they have set the initial pricing that their job is finished and that the topic of pricing requires no further attention – nothing could be further from the truth. In today’s post I share my thoughts on how to develop a sound pricing strategy…
Posted on February 15th, 2010 by admin in
Leadership
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
In honor of President’s Day, I thought I’d take this opportunity to examine the leadership characteristics of the two Presidents for which the holiday is celebrated; George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. It is an astute person who studies history and then applies the lessons learned to their present day life. In the text that follows I’ll look at the unimpeachable character of our first President, and the unparalleled resolve of our sixteenth President.
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
Determining whether someone is a social media expert or a just another wannabe can be a difficult task for the typical consumer. There is a tremendous amount of noise out there being created by a plethora of ”consultants” professing expertise in what I refer to as the new social sciences: personal branding, social networking, social media marketing, etc. I just did a Google search for the term social media expert and had more than 96 million returned search results…give me a break. So my question is this: what constitutes a “social media expert,” and how do you tell the posers from the players? Which of these professed miracle workers are true professionals, and which ones are simply attempting to gravy-train a rapidly growing market niche in pursuit of a quick buck?
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth

While all of you were enjoying your weekend, watching the Super Bowl or otherwise recreating in leisure, the N2growth team was hard at work launching our new website and blog. We’ve blended some of the old with some of the new to create the next step forward in the N2growth brand evolution. We invite you to look around (please let us know if you find any bugs) and we welcome your feedback. We hope you find our efforts more pleasing to the eye, easier to navigate, but most of all, we hope it encourages more dialogue and conversation. We look forward to your comments, tweets and emails. Thanks for your patience during this transition.
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By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
Whether you want to admit it or not, competition is part of your world, and likely a bigger part than you’d care to admit. Granted, exploiting the competition is not a novel concept. Even so, it is still very common to hear many executives adopt a competition neutral position. These executives simply don’t believe competition to be a significant factor in the execution of their business plan. While this may make for a nice sound bite, I don’t buy it, and if they’re truly honest with themselves, neither do they. In business you can either choose to deal with your competition (even if that means partnering with them), or you can opt to stand idly by and let the competition eat your lunch. In today’s post I’ll share my thoughts on the proper way to view your competition and how to identify competitive threats…