Tag: company performance

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Leaders Letter 171 – Which Do You Need, A Refresh, A Reset, A Reboot Or A Restart?

Dear leaders, I have a little secret, away from the leaders newsletter and focus, I run a dedicated offering for Execs, Growth and Marketing leaders. 

When people ask me what I do, I used to say – I am a coach, consultant and advisor. 

When people ask me what that means I tweaked it recently to ask a question, “Which do you need, a refresh? A reset? A reboot? Or a restart?”  

It’s the 4 R’s you didn’t know you needed but everyone is in this phase. 

Over the last two decades, I have actually had a lot of jobs that aren’t on my LinkedIn and aren’t specifically broken down on my resume so here are a few stories to help to frame reset, refresh, restart, reboot. 

A Reset Story

When I worked as a Project Manager (in today’s world it would be a Product Manager releasing software) in finance I actually had to do a stint of work in commissions (in the finance team) when we were really struggling and my job in that period was to talk on the phone and over email with finance brokers on why their payments were late or missing. 

It was at the brutal end of customer service. I learnt a lot in that period with mortgage brokers coming to the office to find out where sometimes 100k was missing from payment runs. 

The owners didn’t know how to stop this business from going under in the middle of the major subprime mortgage crisis (2007 to 2010) but with a little hindsight, I believe we could have reset the business by removing more of the complexity of the processing department and helping our partners and brokers to remove numerous friction points and understanding how to reject applications more quickly. 

Hindsight is a wonder thing, isn’t it?  

A Refresh Story 

In another job I had to shift the focus of the sales packages from one discipline we were known for (there were white and black hat associations) to broadening out the offering with a super talented internal department lead who had to package up solutions on the fly (sometimes in the morning of big pitches) with hardly any time as a bolt-on to bigger pitches to offer a better more holistic Marketing solution. 

We built sales packages, built bespoke tools and hired an insanely talented person to come in and service clients, build reports and be the face of the new offering and we expanded that offering 4x that year. 

It worked really well and diversified the business. The refresh helped the company refresh the offering when pitching and have a broader influence on the marketing teams of the companies we were working with and being introduced to. 

A Reboot Story

There is something I don’t share often, I joined a company and for me, despite all of the interviews, great conversations smart people within the business and negotiations, it didn’t work out within a week. 

This company had a top-tier product (this was why I reached out to them directly), had high loyalty and was a utility (for many it was essential to check before work) and it had powerful sets of data across the globe (it was not quite a moat but close enough to to be excited of what we should do). 

Speaking to the founder and the leadership team I could see what was missing to kickstart the company’s new chapter and it was a reboot around brand side and stories connect to the product, a fresh product positioning and the business could make significant money with the right investment. 

The vision I had to reboot and drive ultra focus the business wasn’t shared by the founder and their vanity-based KPI wasn’t exactly what the brand needed, what the non-users craved and that’s not what the hundreds of thousands of daily active users would ever care about. 

Like I have said before big ideas rarely hit home, especially with founders, cofounders and CEOs as it means big shifts within the business and often has large time and business costs they just cannot commit to. 

A Restart Story 

In March 2020 I left a leadership role, I poured my heart and soul into the business and through five years of being connected to the company first as a consultant and then employed I knew in late 2019 after annual planning and discussions that I needed a full restart. 

I knew from the internal coaching and the work that gave me energy, I had to start my mission to fix the broken world of work, I knew companies weren’t placing the right emphasis on creating a company-wide strategy where people (company culture) and performance (company strategy) were rarely connected or aligned that this was the focus that businesses needed. 
I knew this was the restart I needed. 

What I didn’t think would be a two-year battle (thanks to the pandemic) was a long restart and many still are catching up to the concept of bringing people and performance closer together and understanding that the way it has always been done isn’t working in the 2020’s and those leading industries (away from big tech) are tackling this in more progressive ways… 

A Hard Reboot Story

A business I have been advising this year needed a hard reboot. 

Their business is large, they are a national favourite, however,  they were being chopped down piece by piece and broken down by numerous new competitors and their features were no longer unique or value-driving vs. cheaper or free options. 

My recommendation was: 

  • To revisit their annual strategy and rethink it from a fresh perspective 
  • To rethink how their product should work for existing but also for the new use cases appearing in the market and in products adjacent to them  
  • To understand the lite product hacking (when people use your product in a completely new way you never considered)  
  • To consider how they showed up with their pricing. 

We had a number of sessions and took a hard reboot approach, to go back to if they were a startup, review their own product be brutally honest and run a keep, kill, core and copy approach to the product and run a set of pricing surveys. 

Looking Back With Fresh Set Of Eyes

None of these was fun to me, it was incredibly hard work and took a number of painful conversations but one was an enlightening business lesson for me, one has helped me understand the lay of the land in businesses and agencies and has been a brilliant foundation to my career and another enabled me to be part of an IPO, numerous M&A deals and drive positive change for people I coach and the businesses I help to reshape. 

This week’s focus action is to down and think about how you are performing and consider which R phase are you in and what you need:  

  • A Refresh 
  • A Reset 
  • A Reboot 
  • A Restart

Have a great week ahead and if I can help you on your 4R journey happily email me directly danny@focus.business

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 170 – Leadership Lessons With Jo Bird

Dear leaders, how has the start of September gone? Are you ramping up for Q4 or are you in the middle of reviewing what has happened this year? 

This week I am continuing the 5 questions theme by interviewing Jo Bird. 

So who is Jo?

  • Jo is the creative lead at Lounge (the underwear brand) 
  • Powerful creative, being responsible for a number of powerful campaigns 
  • Conference speaker (has spoken at TEDx watch below)
  • Authentic Social Media Leader – Jo is one of my go-to examples of how leaders can show up authentically on social media, particularly on LinkedIn. 

» Please do connect with Jo on her website or on LinkedIn. 

The Q&A 

Q1. You share some incredible pieces of advice and insights with your connections and followers on LinkedIn, What’s the most valuable piece of advice you would give anyone progressing on their leadership journey? 

Ask yourself: ‘why do I want to be a leader?’

A lot of people are chasing a job title so that they feel better about themselves. 
Or to gain respect. 
Or to challenge themselves in their own career. 
But the ‘me, me, me’ approach is a big fail at the first hurdle. It can also be incredibly disruptive to your team in the long-term. Trust me… I’ve had those bosses!

Being a great leader is about serving other people. It’s about standing in the shadows and applauding your team while they’re in the spotlight. It’s about empowering others to be their best selves. It’s about inspiring the team to reach a shared goal, together.

So, my advice would be to ask yourself why you want to do it. 

And then go from there.

Q2. The creative industry is likely going to experience big shifts with AI, what are the three pieces of advice you give fellow leaders on how to navigate the upcoming changes? 

  1. Be curious. You need to ask questions, do research and speak to industry professionals in order to make discoveries, learn and then subsequently inspire your team to also explore new technology, too.
  2. Be open-minded. Technology might not be your forte, or newness might feel uncomfortable, but great leaders do not stand still. 
  3. Be honest. It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers. AI will continue to develop at a rapid rate, which can feel overwhelming. If you are uncertain in any way, your team will appreciate your honesty.

Q3. You’ve given big conference talks, including a TEDX talk. Do you have three tips for other leaders who want to deliver brilliant presentations to their peers or at larger conferences? 

  1. Record yourself. Honestly. Self-awareness is the BEST tactic for developing as a speaker. Once you get over the ‘cringe’, you’ll start to notice your bad habits. ‘Ums’ and ‘ars’, awkward body language, lack of charisma. Only then can you start to practice.
  2. Practice! It’s true that preparation prevents p*ss poor performance! Do your research to make sure your presentation is air tight. And then rehearse in front of a mirror as many times as you can. When you feel like you can deliver the talk without looking at your notes, you’ll be so much more confident on stage.
  3. Treat it like a conversation. People think that being a presenter means being a robot or foghorn. It’s the opposite. The best, most captivating presenters are the ones who have built the courage to be themselves on stage. Like they’re speaking to a friend. To include their quirks, charisma and invite the audience in to their conversation.

Watch Jo’s Tedx video here

Q4. You’ve been a creative lead at both Lounge and Gymshark, both influential and culture-based brands, how do you inspire your teams when every campaign is expected to make a direct impact on the business? 

I have a few techniques that are working really well at the moment:

  1. Empowerment: I believe that creatives need to feel trusted, inspired and enabled to do their best work. For them, it can feel exhausting to constantly share their true, emotive, creative selves at work when pitching ideas. Especially if not all ideas are received well. So, they really need a leader who creates a safe space and continually champions them. Someone who ‘has their back.’
  2. Lead by example: I like to get my hands dirty, do great work and make it known to my team. If they are inspired by me – both inside and outside of the business – then they are more likely to respect my instructions as a leader.
  3. Communication: I am a high communicator. I am as transparent as I can be with my team. If there are business updates, if they have concerns, if they need more direction. I will speak to them as much as I can to make sure they feel supported and included. If they understand the bigger business goals, they are more likely to perform well.
  4. Humility: Working for rocketship brands means that the leaders can’t possibly know everything. The brands are growing at such a rapid rate, the leaders are learning and figuring things out all the time. So, I like to show a lot of humility. To leave ego at the door and encourage a ‘let’s learn this together’ attitude.

Q5. What’s the best piece of career advice you would give to C-suite leaders who don’t quite understand the power of creative (teams) or it’s just not landing right with them currently? 

I would quote Ed Catmull, the co-founder of Pixar. In his book Creativity Inc he said: 

“You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar.”

Creatives are the most curious kind of employee. We’re the ones who like to turn left when everyone else turns right. We’re the ones who thrive in problems and strive to break patterns. 

I don’t think creatives should take over the boardroom (we’d spend all the money on games machines and slides in the office), but I 100% think creatives should be in the decision-making room.

We see the world differently. And that is what every business needs in order to stay relevant, stay inspiring and stay profitable.

(And if that didn’t work, I’d probably just hit them with a research study like: 70% of companies that engage with creativity had above-average total returns to shareholders – McKinsey & Company.)

I think you’ll agree Jo offered some incredible tips and you can apply them this week. 

This week’s focus action is to ensure you embrace your creativity and ensure you enable your team to integrate creativity into their work. 

Have a great week if you haven’t subscribed you will miss out on with the big question you need to answer: 
Which Do You Need, A Refresh, A Reset, A Reboot Or A Restart? 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 168 – The 5 Simple Questions To Ask This Week To Improve Prioritisation & Performance

Ask Better Questions & More Often To Improve Work & Performance

Dear leaders, this week I am introducing 5 questions to clarify situations and remove ambiguity.  

These questions are basically my frequently asked questions from the last three months, the questions come from recent conversations, coaching sessions and helping leaders with personal development questions from expert calls.  

  1. For when meetings and performance aren’t flowing:
    Ask: What context am I/are we missing? 
    Why: Simple questions and stopping poor meetings to gain realignment are critical 
  2. For when you need deeper feedback loops:
    Ask: What is your analysis here?
    Why: It is critical it is not first opinions or thoughts. The analysis framing allows people to dive into issues and create compelling arguments for both sides. 
  3. For when ruthless prioritisation is required:
    Ask: If we were to stop this activity today what negative impact would it have? 
    Why: Most people default to more and have a bias for doing more, being ruthless and clearly calling out tasks will reduce strain and cognitive load on teams. 
  4. For when to understand output at a greater level:
    Ask: what is x’s performance like over the last nine months? 
    Why: Results are often too binary. Performance allows you to understand the wider impact and uncover the deeper actions and decisions taken. 
  5. For when to understand performance and productivity: 
    Ask: What expectations do you have for this project? And how are you prioritising your tasks within this project? 
    Why: When performance is struggling and when team members feel stretched autopilot kicks in and many team members just start, very often understanding the required steps are missed out and prioritises these tasks are overlooked and underappreciated. 

This week’s focus action is to ask these 5 questions when required and move your business forward with smarter questions and reduce the bias for more and have an eye for prioritised (aka smarter) work. 

Have a good week and land in your inbox next week,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 167 – The Comprehensive Guide & Ranking Of Company Culture Activities

Dear leaders, are you considering your options to improve your company culture? I hope so. 

Why? I am often asked by CEOs, leadership teams and founders about how to invest in company culture and what are the best activities to improve culture. 

Each business is in its own phase and each business has specific characters who will have their say on what’s best, particularly the internal influencers. 

What is important is to balance these factors out and select the best most inclusive event. 

Company Culture Activities  

I bet you have asked your fellow leadership team members what you should do. 

I bet you gathered a wide-ranging list of events, and you might now be considering a getaway, an army assault course or even starting a computer game league or sorry startups – a ping pong tournament? 

I have worked since 16 years old and over the last 25 years, I have experienced 16 different attempts to connect and improve company culture. 

I have ranked them below with a score out of 5, a cost implication and a breakdown of the score. 

If you want to expand or have a detailed look at the list, request full access here. 

My top 5 recommendations to improve company culture would be to consider the following: 

  1. Problem Solving Day – a revamp on the hack day, a way that the whole business can come together and select existing problems, bring the team closer together and develop new tech, and different approaches and release a new working practice collectively. Work out whether you remove the leadership team from this as it can bias the problems solved or how problems are shaped  
  2. Hack Day (Aka Hackathons) – a staple in most businesses, a hack day can be a great way for devs to demonstrate their skills and their broader ways of thinking and collaborate with many they just don’t have a chance to work directly with. It’s key to encouraging or constructing teams who rarely work together to work together. It is key to ensure you remove the boredom from hack days as it can be a lot of start-stop without real structure and deadlines throughout the day  
  3. Sports Day / Sports Team – sports can divide people (sporty vs non-sporty) but in my experience, it is the closest thing to connecting people quickly and easily across the ability scale. Here in the UK rounders (like softball), giant egg and spoon, sack race, and tug of war is the go-to, I have been part of a company that hired an athletes track and we took part in an Olympics-style event it was brilliantly done and everyone stepped up for the event. The key to winning this is keeping everything light-hearted and encouraging people to give it a go and making the in-between about connection, not competition!  
  4. Company Retreat / Holiday – you either love or hate retreats, I have had some brilliant company-wide holidays/vacations/retreats and I have had some of the worst professional experiences at leadership retreats. I found company-wide holidays work particularly well for those companies from 10-200 and then effectiveness can scale down quickly from 500 as it is logistically so challenging and you need people to force people to interact and speak to complete strangers. Leadership retreats aren’t treats they are hard work and it’s important to onboard new members of the leadership team to the way you do offsites or retreats and then gather rounds of feedback to improve retreats.  
  5. Cooking Class – I am a cook (not quite a Masterchef) and I have always enjoyed cooking classes, from pasta making to pizza making to Indian cooking classes, they bring people together, everyone tends to get a job and then there is healthy competition and connections. For those who just don’t or can’t (or won’t) cook if you want them to engage create a judging panel or drinks classes to encourage making the drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks) and make for those cooking etc. 

All company culture activities and days have a series of costs, from internal costs (like the number of hours missed of work) to large external costs of hiring event spaces and paying for external facilitators. 

Tip: Always have a dedicated budget in mind before the events are created rather than react to the potentially large quotes you will likely receive. 

This week’s focus item is to review the full list and then create a series of activities or events to connect and galvanise the company employees in line for Q4 and the associated ramp-up. 

Have a great week ahead,

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Need help with company culture? Get in touch, just hit reply or email me directly >> danny @ focus.business 

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Leaders Letters 163 – 3 Priceless Quotes

The 3 Quotes I Often Think Of & Revisit When Creating Strategy & Hosting Workshops

Dear Leaders, with it being the last stretch in July it means two things:
(1) seasonality (for most) it is the summer slow down
and
(2) it’s prep and away day season with most mid and large businesses likely running their annual planning cycle and then re-forecast cycle (basically the hardest cycle we go through as leaders).

(» If you are going through AOP or LRP here are a number of free resources)

In most of my workshop sessions, I have a stack of quotes to share, most business owners look for well-known CEOs when sharing quotes, it’s an inspiration and ego play.

The go-to quote that is used by most consultants is (which admittedly I love and use myself) –

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”
— Henry Ford.

Here are my three favourite quotes I share, they come from:

  • Google co-founder Larry Page suggests they are competing with competitors by serving them organically
  • Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of why his competitors own the wider eco-system is a significant strategic risk
  • Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos reminds us that tactics are temporary, strategy is ten years aka the longest term for Amazon, unlikely for most others.

“On the Internet, competition is one click away.”
— Larry Page (Google Co-Founder)

Why is it important?

  • Google traditionally serves their customers by serving organic listings and ads against core keywords searched and users’ behaviours on & across their products
  • Google’s approach was one of the smartest moves in business history, to make money from other people’s data, crawl their sites, then rank and importantly create a moat around this by serving intent-based ads (remember their motto – don’t be evil) and knowing switching costs will limit us moving from good free services and better paid for services (like Google Suite)
  • And then charging their competitors to appear in their search results aka the click away (for years we have called it downstream) in mind. What I call —
    Make Money From Your Data Moat With Your Competition Click In Mind. If you ask any CMO or CFO, the one thing they truly hate paying for is brand terms and others bidding on them…

“Our biggest competitor by far is iMessage,” 

“In important countries like the U.S. where the iPhone is strong, Apple bundles iMessage as a default texting app and it’s still ahead,”— Mark Zuckerberg (Meta Founder)

Why is this important?

  • Knowing your enemy (competitor) is critical in business, most struggle to not fixate on their competitor’s activities. Meta and Apple are still in business battles over the App Stores, associated charges, mass personalised data collection via product usage, the open vs closed web.
    Tim Cook Vs Mark Zuckerberg is going to be decades-long battle
  • One of the smart moves reducing their friction was their acquisition of WhatsApp (in 2014) and Instagram (in 2012) – it still couldn’t easily compete with iMessage groups and sharing in private, and how content from their properties was to show up was out of their control
  • Facebook knew via their famous Growth Department (including its current CMO Alex Schultz and famed VC Chamath Palihapitiya and many others holding influential roles) they needed to hit external mass and share across the primary messaging app iMessage to drive more adoption and to serve better ads you’ll click and buy from
  • Facebook’s big issue is still others own their destiny with the sharing of Meta content (think Facebook, Instagram, Threads posts) across other networks and platforms and their app downloads are being controlled by app stores and search engine algorithms this is costly, particularly across their vast user groups
  • What Facebook did was to unbundle Facebook and push ahead with messaging across all of their platforms and focus on the different jobs to be done on each network. Facebook still struggles with the dominance of iMessage in the US market

Long-Term Thinking & Planning Wins

“Be strategically patient, tactically impatient.”

— Jeff Bezos (Amazon founder)

Why is this important?

  • Amazon has been the long-term first company for the last two decades, with Jeff Bezos telling investors repeatedly about their long-term approach since 2003 and hinting their investors should share the same view
  • Amazon are constantly sticking to their ten-year plan and smartly tactically they have to be flexible and on rare occasions, reactive (Covid and mass industry changes). Amazon has accelerated their tactics and rolled out Prime Day in response to competitors and had record years since its launch
  • Jeff Bezos also famously said “Your Margin Is My Opportunity” when quizzed on their low-price prime pillar. This has made Amazon the trusted place of convenience
  • Andy Jassy (the current CEO) has helped to evolve the company into a more efficient business aka day 2 while doubling down on customer-centric what I dub prime expectations. Amazon adding to their famous flywheel has been critical to customer retention and signing up net new customers.

Quotes in isolation can be great in workshops and conference talks, however, the context behind the quotes and insights that are shared are vitally important and can drive change within businesses by understanding the thought processes.

This week’s focus action is to understand how you can think about competition and think differently, consider how you can over-serve your customer by adding mutually beneficial services and understand how partnering with competitors with services they can’t refuse to use (Amazon also does this (alongside Google & Facebook) with ads and with their logistical offerings.

Have a great week ahead!

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

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Leaders Letter 156 – The 5 Questions To Ask Ahead Of Q3

The 5 Questions To Ask Ahead of Q3 - Leaders letter 156

Dear leaders, this week marks the third year anniversary of Leaders Letters. Thanks for being a part of it by reading the newsletters weekly, sharing across social and replying and even challenging my leadership advice. 

I look forward to landing in your inbox every week and love debating with readers if they like the post, dislike the newsletter or feel you could add more to that week’s topic. 

I have a dedicated newsletter coming soon to break down my learnings and share some of the insights from the last 3 years. With a focus on those who I have collaborated with and worked with through this leadership newsletter. 

The Q3 Questions To Tackle 

With Q3 starting in just a couple of weeks, here are the most pressing questions to ask internally to help with people (aka company culture) and performance (aka the company-wide strategy) and drive change for the future months.

The hints below are there to help you think slightly differently or position the points internally

  1. How are we scoring with company performance and our people’s performance?
    Hint >> Score out of 10 and where do we need to improve the score by 1 or 2 points? 
  2. If we were to change 3 things to improve our working environment, what would they be and how would they improve performance? 
    Hint >> Don’t just think office environment, think of all working environments (remote, hybrid, etc), look at reviewing meetings, look at how you are encouraging cross-functional collaboration, look at reviewing how your skip meetings went, and look at reviewing the exit interviews and onboarding flows. 
  3. What three themes (bigger than trends) have we seen this quarter we need to address and build for the future?
    Hint >> AI is definitely in there already, but what else is happening within your space or with your customer spending / customers new habits that you need to address and refactor 
  4. Are we in the place to accelerate growth?  
    Hint >> Find where you have some seeds planted with small bits of traction and question how much water we might need to get it to grow or where we might place more resources to really take this to the next level. Anything with say 6/10 traction is already in plan and in flight and often causes confusion if you push too hard on what people are already aware of. 
  5. What two areas of the business are struggling most and what is the next quarter plan to address these or remove these?
    Hint >>  This could be from a hiring perspective, this could be from a retention POV or could be performance related and if you might need to:
    keep (the activities that are doing well but could do with some extra attention),
    kill (stop the work on it, it won’t work again),
    cure (optimise or tweak elements of existing tactics or plans)
    or copy (copy features or styling) from others. 

If you cannot answer these questions easily, consider building management pods for ownership and tackle these together with their teams.

This week’s focus action is to add these five points to your next management or leadership meeting and help to progress the company forward.

Thanks and have a great week and I’ll see you with one of my favourite newsletters to date, titled 3-3-3. 

Danny Denhard

Recommended 5 Essential Must Reads For This Week

>> Strategy is baking a better cake

>> Annual Strategy Template

>> Strategy Cheatsheet

>> WTF is strategy really?

>> Your Infected MOAT Is An Internal Disease

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Leaders Letter Newsletter

Leaders Letter 152 – The Impact Of Fractional C-Suite Role

The Impact Of The Fractional C-Suite Role - Leaders Letter 152

Dear leaders, have you noticed the trend of more fractional leaders? 

There have been numerous articles written in recent weeks about the rise of fractional leaders. Some have been positive, and others have questioned the risk and the reward of a “part-time lead” within businesses. 

Data via exploringtopics.com

Having been a fractional lead covering Operations, Growth and Marketing within a marketplace, I can speak on my personal experiences, however, to get to the bottom of this growth and the business impact of the fractional roles I wanted to dig deeper and ask current fractional leaders to give me their take on fractional roles and how they are driving businesses forward. 

The fractional c-suite leads interviewed were (click names below to connect): 

Q. With fractional roles becoming more and more popular, what are the two common themes you see when taking on fractional leadership roles? 

Camilla: In my experience, the main reason businesses are investing in Fractional roles is due to the unstable economic environment we are in – and the flexibility and reduced-financial risk these roles can offer. But, also the increasing understanding that a business that is not yet ready for an expensive CMO hire, can actually still afford to have the strategic prowess of one, and find it valuable despite not being full-time. 

Fractional briefs also allow you to be laser-focused on the job at hand, removing some of the fluff and politics that often come with a full-time role– so I have actually witnessed personally, and from peers, companies actually getting more impact from someone part-time, than a full time equivalent.

Mehul: I find the awareness is still very low outside the immediate group. Although in the current environment, companies are facing a multitude of challenges and there is an acceptance that they need to supplement their internal teams with external expertise to resolve those challenges

Mike: Early stage companies struggle to see the value of it until they try it. What can seem like an expensive upfront investment pales in insignificance when compared to the time that can be saved in up-skilling and waiting for a developing leader to meet the required level. More open, less defensive budding leaders see fractional leaders for what they are – a great opportunity to rapidly up-skill and increase the tangent of their own career development.
It’s not a threat, it’s a huge unfair advantage in their career.

I also see a lot of dysfunctional leadership teams with a lot of false harmony. Lots of back-slapping and perceptions that everything is rosey.
It’s only when you start peeling back the layers when teams realise that there’s a lot more to building an exceptional team.

James : Flexibility: More companies are welcoming the flexibility that working with Fractional CMOs brings. It certainly suits current market conditions, but also aligns with the remote working world.
Contractors would often be viewed as separate to the business, remote working is a great leveller with a lot of these barriers being removed. I also seeing this coming more and more into the agency world, with less “”lock in deals”” and lengthly contacts that companies are being held to. 

Multi-faceted Problem solving: Seeing more businesses looking for general senior problem solvers, who have operated in a similar space and can solve a set of key issues and problems that a business may face as it pertains to their growth.
This can often be less “straight-up marketing”, diving into a multitude of other areas – from strategy to data – all part of the modern CMO’s skillset.

Oren: Businesses early on with inexperienced leadership have a hard time rationalising the increased investment of fractionals. Why pay +1k a day when I can hire a 40k a-year marketer full-time? – The perceived value and remit of a fractional is directly proportional to the C level’s belief and confidence in the impact of marketing, and hence how and if it will influence growth.”

Q. How do you feel fractional roles are helping companies move forward?

Camilla: In so many ways but as mentioned above and below, the primary beauty of a fractional role is being able to support a business that otherwise wouldn’t be able to invest in a full-time role.
For so long these businesses went without senior leadership in key functions, as they believed unless someone was full-time, they couldn’t be valuable – but the increase in Fractional roles has proved otherwise.

Mehul: Fractional roles bring a high level of expertise along with benchmarks of what good looks like. This helps the companies and the teams to maximise their learning opportunities, contextualise their performance and ultimately unlock success earlier and more efficiently vs. what they may have achieved internally.

For e.g., most of my clients give me a consistent feedback that I have helped them identify the right projects, scope them correctly and get the required investment which supports their medium and long-term objectives.

Michael: I think they lower the barriers to excellence. Where companies previously couldn’t afford to hire experienced leaders they can now tap into the expertise of more established professionals without having to foot the bill of paying a full-time salary.

Great leadership isn’t doing more. It often involves being more selective over the things you do, making better decisions and managing teams more effectively.
I’ve made countless mistakes over my career that less experienced teams no longer need to make. What might have taken me working long days & weekends to achieve earlier in my career I can now do a day/week with a more junior team supporting me.

James: Instant expertise: Companies can have FCMO’s parachute into a business at little to no notice and immediately provide expertise in key areas. These skills would often take time to acquire, build, buy-in as well as time to ramp up. This can be a shock to the system, but also an instant energy change for both parties.

Try before you buy: This works on both sides with the FCMO and company being able to determine fit for longer term engagement in weeks, not months – saves time, money and organisational strain. It feels like an incredibly optimal way to work for senior hires especially.

Oren: Fractionals pull in C-level experience for the marketing function that was not previously available for companies pre B-round.

Q. Do you feel there are any limitations in fractional roles versus having a long-serving full-time department lead? 

Camilla: The ultimate goal for a business is to be at the size where it can justify investing in a full-time CMO. I see many businesses doing this before they are ready, however, and then unfortunately it therefore sometimes doesn’t work out. Until they are ready, a Fractional CMO is a very effective way of ensuring they have senior counsel and leadership without the risk and large investment.

Mehul: Business and category knowledge is one of them. Although you are being hired for your functional expertise.

Developing trust with the team that you are there to unblock and empower them and not make their lives harder or replace them.

You have to feel comfortable for not getting the credit or value created by your foundational work in the years to come.

Michael: The main one is logistical – it can be challenging scheduling team meetings/offsites when dealing with multiple teams with different rhythms and priorities. It’s not insurmountable but certainly requires some thought.

James: The limitations do align around people management, which is particularly salient in the remote working world. It’s difficult to develop deep management relationships with FCMO engagements, especially when it comes to line management, it means these people management areas need to be filled from other areas in the org, which requires transparency all round.

Oren: Yes, many limitations. A fractional, unlike a part-time CMO, presents a hybrid of strategy and tactical deployment, and hence with limited time/scope is constrained by time/energy. This impacts team management the most, but also availability for the rest of the c-suite who often have packed schedules making finding meeting time difficult enough. 

In general, the challenge is that business owners/founders are wedded to their businesses, and having someone who isn’t in the trenches with them 24/7 as they are, is a hard pill to swallow.

From all of the underlining data being shared and the expert answers above, the fractional role is here to stay and in many businesses, it will add a huge amount of value, particularly those at an early stage or looking to mature at an accelerated rate. Many companies will need to consider how a fractional c-suite member(s) can work and how they’ll add value away from execution and add a level of insight and education in leadership meetings and to the leadership team.

As ever if you have teams in place, do consider how a fractional lead could come in and positively or negatively impact company strategy and company culture, especially if they are not onboarded into the business properly and are not a match for the existing team in place. 

This week’s focus action: consider how a fractional leader could add value and build momentum in your business and how, rather than consider it as a hindrance how it could help your business progress and grow. 

» As ever if you have something to say about this week’s newsletter? Don’t be shy, subscribe (below) and then you can just hit reply!

Thanks and have a great week, 

Danny Denhard

Want To Work With Me? I Coach, I Advise & I Consult (email danny@focus.business)

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 150 – The Ten Essential Leadership Questions To Ask Each Other This Week

The Ten Essential Leadership Questions To Ask Each Other This Week - leaders letter 150

Dear leaders, there has been a lot made of disagreeing and committing in the recent macroeconomic times. 

The chances are you are in either of two camps;
(1) Survive at any cost: have had to reduce the size of your department or lose whole teams, you have likely lost some budget and have to revisit another 9-box exercise.
Or
(2) Attempt to grow without spending the same budget you had at the turn of the financial year and requests for more headcount are not entertained. 

Either camp is hard, but you are being pressured to either get on board or disagree and commit to where you have landed or where the HiPPO is driving the business. 

The Backstory: The 13th Amazon leadership principle “have backbone; disagree and commit” has become a default principle in many boardrooms to ensure everyone is on the same page around the significant changes, whether that’s hiring, headcount freezes, company restructuring or mass layoffs. 

(Re)Connect With Leadership Colleagues 

In hard times, it can be a real challenge to be a manager, it can be a real challenge to continue to be a leader and support those around you.
You can become unsure of your role and your own future and connecting to these huge shifts can feel like a constant uphill battle. This is where I recommend you deepen your working relationships and keep improving the bonds within your leadership team.
(FYI here’s how to build better management teams with management pods). 

It is essential to refresh and reconnect with your colleagues when times are good but when they are at their most challenging I find a refresh is group therapy and can be group-defining.

Here are the 10 questions to ask each other:  

  1. What have you achieved in your career? 
  2. What piece of work are you most proud of working here? 
  3. What do you want to achieve here? 
  4. What inspires you every day? 
  5. What was the worst day of work here?
  6. What was the best day of work here? 
  7. Tell me about when you made a big work-related mistake and learnt the hard way? — And what was the lesson?  
  8. If you had to take three colleagues from three different departments to run a secret mission to save the company, who would you take and why? 
  9. If you were told to reduce your department by 50% what process would you take to do this? 
  10. If you were to revisit one project to optimise for better success what would it be and why? 

These questions can be asked in many settings and work from one to one, one to few (small groups of the management) but ideally in offsite settings as an exec leadership team. This is where open conversation will flow and your colleagues will want to connect with you on a personal and professional level. 

Why Ask And Answer These 10 Questions? These questions take real thought, a chance to show you can be vulnerable and a chance to create materials for the management team to onboard others onto the management team and add their experiences.  

This week’s focus action: Create a time slot where you and your colleagues run through the ten questions and learn about each other and what drives and motivates you and see how you could form a squad or SWORM to complete a secret mission within the company. 

Have a great week and remember IQ will only get you so far, EQ and PQ will take you and your business further. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard 

Here are 3 other essentials tips to follow to improve leadership within your business this week: 

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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 149 – Can The Undercover Boss Act Work For Your Business?

Can The Undercover Boss Act Work For Your Business? - leaders letter 149
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Dear leaders, a simple but big question this week: 
Could a stint of working undercover leadership help your business to improve? 

For years we have seen numerous press clippings, TV shows and social media accounts devoted to a high-level exec becoming an employee again and experiencing a number of reported and real common issues.  

PR Stunt Or Connection Builder?

It has always been seen as a PR stunt, “the big-time boss” goes back to getting their hands dirty to find out how their company operates outside of the boardroom. 

But can this tactic actually be a friction-removal exercise?

Want Recent Examples?
  • The Deliveroo founder (food delivery app) William Shu often references him going back to deliver food – this has rarely helped Deliveroo with recruitment (despite what the PR-driven narrative will have you believe)
  • GOJEK (Indonesia’s super-app) founders delivered services via their on-demand app for a month
  • Dara Khosrowshahi (Uber’s CEO) recently drove his own Tesla for Uber under an alias and then after the experiment, agreed with drivers (there were many issues Uber had to address for their drivers and ignored before this experiment) – this has landed well in the business press but the cultural press is having a field day on this tactical approach 

Marketplace For Change? Recently we have seen a number of marketplace CEOs take on the challenge and experience what their drivers or delivery drivers do and they have in short come to similar conclusions.

Sympthonising With Your Customers: 

The issue with marketplaces is, you always have to hear the two or three sides of the marketplace voice their opinions, it can be hard to understand which is more pressing and it is hard to see it or prioritise this question within the boardroom if you don’t have first or second-hand experiences.
Especially when you are attempting to balance demand and supply side feedback. 

The question you might be asking now is… Why take this big leap when you have teams dedicated to this? 

Internal Trust & Storytelling Matters

NPS surveys, user feedback sessions and customer support tickets are only as good as the story that is told by the Customer Support, UX or Product teams and the trust these department heads have within the leadership circle.
These can come down to the words on the PowerPoint presentation or the categorisation in the Excel spreadsheet.
Often these forms of feedback are dismissed if there is a weak story or no picture you can genuinely connect with showing the issues. Pairing this with a high cost per ticket attached to fixing these issues these are then deprioritised. 

Coachable Moment; Dive into these issues and understand how you can address these and embrace the power of video to see first-hand the issues.
Often these user stories are too long or too opinion based, match the user stories with insights before feeling like you have to put on the uniform or download the driver app etc. 

PR Or Product Improvement? Some CEOs will struggle with being part of this, others will embrace the opportunity to drive headlines, and others will want to experience what their employees are.   

Hint: Be the product improvement leader (not the PR-hungry leader), don’t seek this out for headlines, headlines work for and against you, seek this out to improve the product and understand how employees feel from the driver, to the internal team feeding back to the data analysis team struggling to get cut through from the way they might be retelling issues.  

One pitful to look out for; is when you experience something first hand it can seem to be much bigger than it is as you can become biased versus stack ranking all issues together.  

The Internal Question To Ask: Should you and can you as a leader truly embrace this type of deep research to understand how the company operates out of your view and spreadsheets and make a real material difference? 

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This week’s focus action: Consider how you can fully embrace getting into customer problems and connect with both company problems but also the customers’ problems. 

The best leaders truly understand both issues and can then help to support from the front on these and then put the right prioritisation on them. 

Have a great week and remember leadership has many forms, either smaller steps of helping others story-tell better, listening more to quant and qual feedback or getting deep into research to experience issues first and second hand. 

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Thanks,

Danny Denhard

Image source WSJ dedicated article on Uber CEO going undercover

Looking for a coach? I have limited slots available, find out more about my coaching services here
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Leaders Letter Newsletter Leadership

Leaders Letter 148 – Have You Lost The Special Thing That Makes You Unique?

Have You Lost The Special Thing That Makes You Unique? - Leaders Letter 148

Dear leaders, a few weeks ago, I took my puppy to get his first groom. For me and my girlfriend, it was like sending off our first child to the nursery for the very first time. 

We were a couple of minutes late, I hate being late it’s one of my bug bearers, and picking him up and with a mad dash, we were only a couple of minutes late. 

The groomers were brilliant from the first micro-moment, they asked if it was ours by his name, they told us what they were going to do and not do and they asked us if we wanted a call halfway through with an update or a reminder call just before to make our way back to their shop. 

It instantly put us at ease, they gave us clear instructions and one option to select, reducing our choice fatigue and nervousness. 

The 90 minutes whizzed by and they called when they said they would, they were super friendly when we came through the door and explained the process and how our puppy got on. Thankfully, he got on very well and importantly it was an experience, a positive experience and it made us know we would be going back. It would be his spa. 

Special Touch: They gave great follow on recommendations and said how much they liked him and even put a bow on his collar as a little extra touch. 

The experience wasn’t just for our puppy it was for us too, the groomers knowing how we would feel, what we would want to experience and where we may feel anxious. The special little touches really stood out, the bow as a lite touch branded reminder of the experience. A product manager or UX expert would have been super proud if they had engineered this flow. 

Why was it special? They said hello to the puppy by his name, they made us feel at ease straight away, they did what they said and promised, they gave us clear instructions and an option to suit us, they communicated very clearly and gave our puppy an experience and a special treat. This wasn’t just a transaction, it was an experience for the three of us.  

To me, this is one of the biggest and simplest forms of leadership you can have.

Do You Still Have That Special Sauce? 

This got me thinking, so many brands have lost that special edge, that secret touch that goes over and above their competitors.  

A few more examples: 

Amazon’s Famous Strategic Flywheel Drives Their Core Customer Centric Decisions
  • “Prime Expectations” – Amazon delivers when they say they will, in their simple packaging. They have set the tone for others to deliver within 24 hours at a fair price (mostly) and be given numerous prime perks like prime music, prime video etc. Their famous flywheel makes it difficult for anyone to compete at scale 
  • Zappos’ famously upgraded customers shipping on their first order 
  • Superhuman (the email client) 30-minute hands-on personalised onboarding (aka productivity coaching) for every customer 
  • Five Guys and their extra scoop of fries 
  • Jumbo (Dutch supermarket) introducing slow lanes so customers who want to chat at the checkout can

This week’s focus action: Work through how far away are you from what made your brand or service special?
Maybe it’s time to embrace that expert within your business as of leaders letter 146

How far away from that uniqueness you once offered are you? 

Alternatively, a personal quest: Ask yourself, have you lost that edge? How far away from your secret sauce or superpower are you now? 

It made me rethink a couple of elements and ensure I continue my special touches in my mentor process.

Thanks and have a good week,

Danny Denhard