How can gender bias be removed from testing, strategy, and market segmentation?

Cindy Cruzado: “Flip the conversation from assumptions based on gender to real value based on problems! By examining their success criteria and what roadblocks or problems they face, you can better understand your audience’s market problems and know the urgencies and negative consequences surrounding those problems.

Aim to be driven by market needs, concentrating on detailed profiles and insights from the market to address specific requirements. Being market-driven involves recognizing the diverse traits of a population, with gender being just one of many factors.”

Amy Graham: “Awareness and education around bias are the first step to being better. Educate team members, various stakeholders, and decision-makers about the importance of diversity and inclusion. It’s important to create a welcoming space where everyone can have their ideas heard, especially during planning and testing. Using words that include everyone helps reduce bias. Also, we should always look at how we work to find ways to do better.”

What role do you believe mentorship plays in advancing women’s careers, and how can we foster more of these relationships?

Cindy Cruzado: “A mentor provides a safe space for mentees to express concerns, seek advice, and learn from the experiences of someone who has navigated similar paths. Mentors provide guidance and perspective based on their own experiences. Moreover, mentors can boost their mentees’ confidence and encourage them to take on new challenges.”

Amy Graham: “At a conference, I heard a female executive from a multi-billion dollar company discuss how women often hesitate to apply for tech jobs or take on certain tasks because we scrutinize job descriptions too closely. We might think, “I can do this, but not that,” which leads us to believe we’re not qualified if we can’t tick every box. Having a mentor is crucial for overcoming these doubts.

A mentor can inspire us, help us navigate through the false beliefs we hold about ourselves, and practice how to handle work situations. It’s important for women to be bold, seek mentorship, and encourage others to do the same.”

What changes would you like to see in the industry to create a more equitable environment for women and underrepresented groups?

Cindy Cruzado: “Creating a fairer workplace for women and underrepresented groups starts with intentionally creating a path to onboard people from different parts of the organization into a product role. Mentorship also plays a key role in establishing psychological safety within teams.”

Amy Graham: “I hope to see organizations worldwide pushing for more women and people from underrepresented groups to be in leadership roles. We must keep advocating for equal pay for equal work, no matter the gender or background.”

How can organizations better support the professional development and leadership skills of their female employees?

Cindy Cruzado: “Promoting women into leadership positions is not enough. Leaders should offer continuous support to newly promoted individuals. Additionally, providing opportunities for ongoing learning and development is essential.”

Amy Graham: “Organizations can enhance their support by providing dedicated funds for training and continuous learning annually.”

Creating and promoting structured networking and mentorship programs within the organization can significantly impact.”

How do Pragmatic trainings give executive leaders, regardless of gender, the skills needed to excel professionally?

Cindy Cruzado: “Pragmatic training offers a structured approach and a common language, improving communication and teamwork across product organizations. This is especially useful for leaders, enabling them to guide their teams and become a highly collaborative and efficient product organization. Pragmatic training lays out a clear path for understanding your role through 37 targeted focus areas.”

Amy Graham: “Pragmatic’s training gives executive leaders a clear plan and shared language to build top-notch product management and marketing teams. It helps executives identify key priorities for their teams, from research to business planning to sales support, leading to the success of the whole organization.”

How does the Pragmatic Alumni Community help support women in finding mentors and a support network?

Cindy Cruzado: “The Pragmatic Alumni Community provides a platform for sharing experiences, questions, and insights, and based on the activity we see, it’s an environment where members feel comfortable seeking advice and guidance. There are Pragmatic ambassadors always willing to lend a hand with encouragement and suggestions. The community also offers resources, including tools, refresher courses, workshops, and direct access to Pragmatic instructors. These resources facilitate interactions and connections among community members and can lead to mentorship relationships.”

Amy Graham: “The Pragmatic Alumni Community is a fabulous resource for everyone, regardless of gender. It provides a platform where members can connect with experienced professionals who are willing to share their knowledge and guidance. This community facilitates mentorship opportunities by organizing networking events, workshops, and forums where women can seek advice, share experiences, and find role models who have navigated similar career paths.”

Cindy and Amy’s discussions illuminate the critical role of shifting focus from gender assumptions to market needs and embracing mentorship, underscoring how these strategies can significantly propel women’s advancement in product management. Through their experiences, they highlight the imperative need for changes that foster a more inclusive, equitable environment. The path forward involves recognizing and valuing diverse perspectives, providing platforms for mentorship, and ensuring that women have the support and resources they need to excel in their careers.

Cindy Cruzado and Amy Graham are changemakers in the industry but also transformative in the classroom. Participate in one of the Pragmatic classes they lead, where you’ll gain invaluable insights into product management, strategy, and leadership, all while being part of a supportive community. Learn more about product management courses here.

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“Good leadership really comes down to one thing. Do people want to follow you? And you can’t force people to follow you. So if no one’s following, you’re not a leader.” – Eddie Ishak

In this episode of Design Chats, hosted by Rebecca Kalogeris, we delve into the world of design and its strategic impact.

Our special guest is Eddie Ishak, Managing Director of UX and Product Design at JP Morgan, sheds light on the essence of leadership in design and how it doesn’t necessarily correlate with one’s position in an organization.

Whether you are a seasoned designer or just starting, this episode is packed with insights and stories that will inspire you to think about design more strategically and consider the role of leadership in your career.

Eddie discusses:

• What makes a good leader
• Why it’s so important to connect design to the business goals and how to do it
• How design maturity will impact your effectiveness

Unlock Your Design Potential!
Elevate the impact of your designs by enrolling in Pragmatic Institute’s design courses. Our interactive and actionable courses will empower you to contribute strategically to your organization. Take advantage of this opportunity to transform your design skills.
Explore Pragmatic Institute’s Design Courses

The post Elevating the Impact of Design with Eddie Ishak appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

“Leadership is the act of driving change with others,” says Brett Macfarlane.

Brett Macfarlane is an organizational consultant who focuses on leadership development for innovation and change. Based in Vancouver, he works primarily with tech and creative organizations and counts Visa, Unilever, and Apple among his past clients. (Read his Apple Watch case study.)

On Design Chats, Brett goes deep on leadership as an act, not a position; his guiding principles of empathy, intent, and compassion; and insights from his work in leadership and culture development. With VP of Product Strategy Rebecca Kalogeris, Brett also discusses:

• The nuances of leadership within innovation environments—which are high risk, high reward, high emotion situations
• Brett’s six practices for leading empowered teams, from questioning critical assumptions to seeking different perspectives
• The identity shift for a designer who gets that sought-after seat at the table
• Switching between charismatic leadership (setting vision, inspiring teams) and architectural leadership (putting systems in place, delegating tasks)
• How self-awareness is key to realizing change in your organization
• …and much more

For more on leading from where you are and driving change through design, enroll in Business Strategy & Design. Learn how to tie design work to business value in this interactive, actionable course from Pragmatic Institute.

The post 6 Practices for Leading Empowered Teams with Brett Macfarlane appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Is data hoarding creating problems at your organization? This article talks about what it is, the problems it causes, and tactics to overcome data hoarding.  

Data hoarding, also known as information hoarding, is a common issue that plagues many organizations. It causes problems for organizations and teams alike, from decreased morale to stifled innovation. But what causes data hoarding and how can companies identify and overcome it if it once it has taken hold?  

Let’s look at four tell-tale signs of data hoarding and solid strategies you can use to solve it.  

What is Data Hoarding and Why is it Problematic? 

Data hoarding occurs when team leads or others in positions of power withhold important information from their colleagues or team members. This doesn’t refer to information that is sensitive or restricted for business reasons, but rather to information that would be actionable and helpful if shared.  

One of the main reasons data hoarding is harmful is because it limits a team’s ability to access and use valuable information. When data is hoarded, it becomes siloed and isolated, which can lead to missed opportunities and inefficiencies. Data hoarding can be especially problematic in a data-driven organization, where access to accurate and up-to-date information is critical for making informed decisions. 

In addition to reducing efficiency, data hoarding can also damage morale and lead to conflicts within the team. When team members are not given access to the information they need to do their jobs effectively, it can create a sense of frustration and resentment. This can lead to a decline in productivity and even result in top talent leaving the organization. 

“Knowledge-hoarding is a fairly common phenomenon found in companies of all sizes,” according to RC Victorino, senior manager at Density, a workplace analytics platform, in a recent SHRM article. “It’s an uphill battle to create a culture of knowledge-sharing if you don’t address knowledge-hoarding head-on.”  

 4 Signs of Data Hoarding 

How do you know if your team leads are withholding important information? There are several signs that can indicate that they might be hoarding information from the rest of the team, such as:    

1. They are often the only ones with access to certain data or information, even when it should have been shared or would have helped a coworker or project outcome.
2. They are typically reluctant to share information with others, even if it would be beneficial to the team or organization. 
3. They have a “hoarding mentality,” where they believe that information is power and they need to protect it at all costs. 
4. They are secretive about their work and don’t keep team members informed about what they are working on or the progress they are making. 

 Strategies for Overcoming Data Hoarding 

If you suspect your team leads are hoarding information, it’s important to address the issue as soon as possible. Information hoarding can be toxic to the overall health of an organization. It can create conflicts, increase the risk of errors and prevent the flow of new ideas. To effectively deal with this issue, here are a few strategies you can use:  

• Have a frank conversation with the team lead in question. Emphasize the importance of open communication and collaboration. It may be helpful to provide specific examples of how hoarding information has caused problems in the past.
• Encourage transparency and open access to information. Implement new technologies or processes that make it easier for team members to access and share information. For example, you could use a tool or dashboard that allows all team members to view updates and progress in real-time. Consider setting the tone in meetings by openly sharing and discussing important company updates.
• Foster a culture of trust and collaboration. This may involve providing training on effective communication and teamwork or instituting regular team-building activities. It’s also important to build trust and encourage openness. This could involve offering incentives for team members who are proactive in sharing knowledge or celebrating cross-team endeavors in meetings.
• Consider reorganizing the team or restructuring the way work is assigned. If the problem is a result of a toxic power dynamic, it may be necessary to redistribute responsibilities or create a more level playing field. This could involve changing the reporting structure or establishing clearer lines of communication. 

Ultimately, the key to dealing with data hoarding is to identify the root cause of the problem and take steps to address it. By fostering an open and collaborative culture, you can help ensure that all team members have the information they need to do their jobs effectively and contribute to the success of the organization.   

Leadership’s Role in Promoting Transparency  

It’s worth noting that data hoarding can be a difficult problem to solve, especially if it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the organization. However, with the right strategies and a commitment to change, it is possible to overcome and create a more open and collaborative work environment. 

One important aspect to consider is the role of leadership in promoting a culture of transparency and knowledge sharing. If team leads and managers model this behavior and actively encourage it among their team members, it can have a ripple effect throughout the organization.   

Establishing Guidelines and Protocols for Sharing Data 

It may also be helpful to establish clear guidelines and protocols for sharing information and knowledge. This could include establishing a process for documenting and sharing important information, such as a centralized knowledge management system or a system for capturing and sharing best practices. 

It’s also important to regularly assess and evaluate the effectiveness of your strategies for combating data hoarding. This could involve conducting surveys or focus groups to gather feedback from team members. Additionally, you may want to track key metrics such as data maturity and turnover rates.  

Data is the fuel that powers business and informs decision making at all levels. Data hoarding prevents this system from working the way it should, resulting in lost opportunities, reduced productivity and decreased team morale. Fortunately, you can work proactively to identify and resolve data hoarding behavior. By regularly reviewing and adjusting your approach, you can ensure that you are effectively addressing the issue and promoting a culture of transparency and collaboration. 

The post Breaking the Cycle: How to Deal with Data Hoarding in Your Organization appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

The transition to people leadership for the first time is hard. This individual might have some amazing accomplishments regarding the product they lead and the customers they serve, but now, they have a whole set of different responsibilities.

It’s important when someone expresses they’re interested in people leadership to start assessing:

• Where do you have an opportunity within the rest of your organization to set up mentoring?
• Do you have a leadership development program?
• Are there outside programs that your organization would be willing to invest in?
• Do they have projects to work on things that are more strategic in nature or people-focused?

This content is based on an episode on the Pragmatic Live Product Chats Podcast featuring Anna Turner, vice president of product at Paycor. Listen to the episode: 

Leadership Skills Should Start on a Practice Field

Sometimes you can take a good performer, and if you don’t let them practice people leadership in a safe space, an early failure can be costly in ways that are hard to recover from.

When you are their first-time leader, the organization should have a mentor who comes alongside you to help you through some of those challenges and tasks that no one talks about—for example, helping your team draft objective key results (OKRs) or how to conduct effective one-on-ones.

How do we help emerging leaders understand the goals of their people, listen to their people, and how do we teach them how to do things like regular check-ins? It’s those things that sometimes aren’t taught in the textbooks on how to be a good manager and leader.

Start to give them those stepping stones where they can be ready. And then also having that in the back of your mind for when you’re working on the org chart as your organization is growing and your teams change.

Here are the seven lessons they should learn as they develop their leadership skills. 

Lesson 1: How to Coach and Mentor Using One-on-Ones

Sometimes with one-on-ones, you might think “I will just make it once a month” because you think it’s adding on work or taking away time from your team. But the opportunities and the connection points you uncover in those one-on-one sessions are so valuable.

If you’re a new leader, use your one-on-ones for listening and help. Sure, you should capture some key updates in that time, but where are they blocked? What strategic context might they need? 

Set aside time quarterly when you move away from day-to-day projects and talk about them.

Who do you want to work with more or less, and what kind of projects are they interested in taking on? Are there people or connections from a market standpoint you can make for them? And then also revisit their career growth and development goals. Those goals can vary. It might be to grow in the company, or it might be something different.

Everybody has a different vision of what they want to do and what they want to achieve. And so spending time (at least once a quarter) with your people, understanding their goals, and then figuring out how you can come alongside and support them. 

Lesson 2: Leadership isn’t Standardized

People sometimes don’t realize when they’re first-time managers that you manage every person differently.

And you have to.

Not everybody likes to be managed like you like to be managed. What feels like the ideal manager for you might not be the ideal manager for someone else; it is very individualized.

Many product managers with the same title often have different strengths and interests. So how do you align people to partner up and play together? It’s not just how you manage them but also how you get the most out of your team. How do you deliver the most value for the organization?

Each person’s journey is different. Each person’s strengths are different, and what each person wants is different too. So it can’t be one size fits all.

Lesson 3: People Leadership Isn’t for Everyone

We must also recognize and appreciate that there are growth paths that don’t bring someone to people leadership—and that is a perfectly acceptable thing. That can be hard for people when it feels like it needs progress means people leadership.

Some people don’t want to be people leaders, and some try it and don’t like it. There needs to be also a path for people to continue to grow in an individual contributor-type role.

For example, you might establish a principal or a director-level type individual contributor role. This person is highly influential and senior in the organization, but perhaps they don’t want to manage people, or that hasn’t been their thing. You need to give people growth paths that reflect their desires and their skillset.

Lesson 4: Create Time for Fun With Your Team

In virtual environments, it can be easy to lose human connection. Social events may not happen as frequently or naturally. You have to work a little harder to create opportunities for people to interact and get to know each other personally.

It can be as simple as having a weekly coffee chat or hosting a virtual game. It doesn’t have to be big and expensive; it can just be something to look forward to that’s fun and different.

Consider what will work best for your team when planning social events. Some people might prefer low-key events, while others might want something more high-energy. It’s also important to consider time zones. If you have a team spread out worldwide, you’ll need to be thoughtful about when you schedule events so everyone can participate.

Lesson 5: The Two Qualities of an Effective Product Team

The first hallmark of an excellent product team is being market driven.

It’s not about focusing on what you’re hearing inside the building but spending time in the market, understanding what’s happening with your prospects, customers and people who aren’t either of those things yet.

Think about how you can get in the market, and that can show up in a whole bunch of different ways:

• Getting on some customer calls,
• Going to an advisory board,
• Joining a sales call
• Going to a conference for the persona you serve.

And sometimes there’s also negotiation you can do with other teams. Maybe if you don’t have the budget but another team in the organization needs you to come and do something that could fit with market visits, ask them if they’ll use their budget for travel expenses. I also found there are a lot of great free conferences, especially in this world of work that is virtual.

Visiting the market is exciting because you gain insights and ideas, but it also gives you confidence because you hear it from the marketing.

 

Every team is a little bit different. You might feel restricted by budget, but there are plenty of free things you can do. Sometimes it’s just making time and setting up appointments on your calendar, even if it’s just Zoom calls.

Market visits are where you will find your best ideas for innovation in understanding what problems you hear thematically across the market.

Also if you’re a people leader, especially a new people leader, in product and you’ve got people on your team that maybe are feeling the whirlwind, they’re buried under tactical tasks, help encourage them to get back up and get outside the building.

The second attribute of a strong product team is stewardship.

Teams that practice stewardship are thoughtful about value versus cost. Product teams have a finite set of resources and a finite budget to spend. With technology, we can do just about anything, but is it the right thing? Because everything you say yes to, you have to say no to something else.

When teams are empowered with the right tools and have market knowledge, they can make strategic decisions with their dollars. It’s all about understanding the market and the needs and the company.

Lesson 6: Improve Your Team’s and Organization’s Data Maturity

Excellent teams build a practice around data. It could be everything from a quarterly business review to insight sharing. But having some type of event or driver reinforces the importance of each product person taking a look at their product’s health.

Every organization is in a different place when it comes to data maturity. 

Early in the data maturity curve, it helps to start by outlining the data that matters to your team. Then, the other end of the maturity curve involves product operations, and the goal is to find ways to make the data easier for your product teams to consume. 

Data mature organizations often have a practice where they might have a dashboard for the different teams in the organization. And it’s not just data for the product teams but leaders in the organization as well. 

Where You Can Capture Data 

• Product usage data: This includes data on how often the product is used, how long users spend using it, and which features are used the most. This type of data can be collected through analytics tools or user surveys.
• Engagement data: This includes data on users’ engagement with the product, including how often they return to use it and whether they recommend it to others. This data can be collected through user surveys or customer satisfaction reports.
• Customer feedback: This includes qualitative information about what users think of the product, their level of satisfaction, and any suggestions they have for improvements. This data can be collected through user interviews, focus groups, or customer service interactions.

Look at the data and then make sure they can share it in a digestible way. Then once product teams have data, they have all sorts of ideas of how they might solve problems or improve their product. It might be a certain product in your portfolio or an internal partnership opportunity.

Understanding and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data can become overwhelming. A leader can help provide focus and clarity to their product teams by asking for specific information. It’s not limiting to providing this kind of structure. It’s empowering because it gives direction. 

Having so many data sources about customers and products within the organization can be both a blessing and a curse. How do you get all that data together, and how do you work with all the other data owners?

Partner with Other Departments on Data Projects

The data you might want to look at may not be available to the product team. For example, you might not have access if you want to look at financials. 

Explore what data is available at your organization. Sometimes, it’s just hidden. For example, one team in the organization has it, but it hasn’t been shared widely. You might be surprised how much you may be able to access early on to start building reports. 

Once teams understand why the data matters, they become more open to sharing and often get very excited. It is important to clarify how the data will be used so that teams do not get apprehensive about sharing information.

You should communicate why you are asking for certain types of data, how you’re consuming it, and what actions happened because of it. And the big shift you’re striving for is going from finding data to consuming and analyzing data.

It’s hard if you’re doing monthly reports and spend a day getting the numbers—you don’t have the time to reflect. There are so many opportunities to use data in our decisions when we’re not spending all of our time chasing it down.

A result of cross-functional collaboration for data projects is getting everybody moving in the same direction.

If you looking for ways to help your product team incorporate data into product practices and decisions, enroll in the Pragmatic Insight Course >> Learn More 

Lesson 7: What to Look For When You’re Hire New Team Members

If you’re looking for a product manager, product owner or product portfolio leader, look for somebody who’s market-driven. Ask questions like, “If this type of scenario happened, what would you do?”

Look for someone who is thinking about what the competition is doing. Have they talked to clients? Have they spent time from a sales perspective? Do they know what’s going on in this particular space? Look for someone who focuses their time on what’s happening outside the building. It’s determining if they understand the NIHITO (nothing important happens in the office) principle because that’s one of the ways product people win.

That’s also how good product people get everybody in alignment in the organization and really add value.

It’s very easy for a product person to get distracted and help with other things. But, if a product manager is not focusing on the strategy and trying to understand the market, other people might try to fill the gap. And they’re not going to do a great job at it because they’re actually in charge of sales, finance or some other part of the business.

Refine Your Leadership Skills With This On-Demand Course 

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Given the pace of economic and technological change, it’s crucial for product leaders to understand and report on performance drivers such as price, volume, fixed variable costs, and investments that stimulate both profitability and enterprise value. To do this effectively, you must leverage data analysis tools and take a data-driven approach.

Unfortunately, a company’s consolidated financial statement fails to reveal the profound variables of profit within the business. From the transaction level through vendor/product family, customer, sales territory, brand, and customer group, there are substantial variances in net profitability that tend to be obscured by revenue and gross margin statistics. Each business’s definitive net income is a result of the tension among three distinct groups of customers and products

• Profit makers: products and customers that increase peak internal profitability
• Profit neutrals: products and customers that either maintain or match peak internal profitability
• Profit takers: products and customers that reduce peak internal profitability

The dynamics of these three groups and the effort to understand and influence each determine the actual net profit of the business—its enterprise value and ability to target and manage profitable product growth. By remediating profit takers, improving profit neutrals, and growing profit-makers, the company can point its resources toward optimal, profitable growth. Also, because two customers of the same gross margin can consume organizational resources at different rates, a deeper analysis is crucial for understanding the true profitability of your products.

Regrettably, most product managers don’t know where products or customers fall among these categories. Thus, they fail to identify and mitigate profit takers, effectively reducing net income and enterprise value. Additionally, they often fall short in working with and focusing sales and support teams on the segments that drive profitable growth and market leadership.

Interestingly, many executives believe that their largest customers and product categories are their most profitable. However, this frequently is not the case. When the true cost to serve (CTS) is appropriately attributed, sizeable customers and categories are found across all three profitability groups.

Problems with Identifying Product or Customer Profitability

Revenue and gross margin are inadequate for identifying individual product or customer profitability. Today’s macro income statements do not calculate profitability at a granular level. True profitability analysis (TPA) has become a critical tool that product management leaders can implement to help executives, managers, and sales identify their profitable, neutral, and unprofitable products and clients. The TPA further highlights the drivers that produce these outcomes.

To analyze the drivers of net income, it’s important to calculate—at the line-item level—the volumes, prices, and cost of goods sold. This leads to gross margin and sums to gross profit. But, to arrive at net income, we must assign the variable, semi-fixed, and fixed CTS of invoice line items based on the products and customers served. Activity-based costing (ABC) establishes the real cost assigned to individual invoice transactions for a given time.

The CTS of products or customers results from a combination of inherent factors (rather than behavioral choices), the resulting support costs they incur, and the company’s decisions about the efficiency and cost of performing those activities. Product or customer factors (e.g., a product’s sourcing and delivery costs) tend to be fixed or stable over time. In contrast, behaviors tend to be affected by a vendor or client’s operational choices. CTS is a function of how your company chooses to perform activities, such as automation versus human labor or online ordering versus call centers. Again, CTS is a function of factors, vendor/customer operations plus internal choices, factors, and efficiencies.

Along with assigning operational costs, it also is crucial to identify the nature of such costs—fixed, semi-fixed, or variable. Over short or medium terms, fixed costs do not change proportionally as a function of broad changes in volume. Semi-fixed costs vary when specific step-level volume changes are triggered. Finally, variable costs change quickly and proportionally to sales volume. Understanding operating costs at this level allows executives and staff to determine if it is possible to remediate underperforming market segments and restructure operations to achieve greater efficiencies, as well as decide whether (and how) to serve, expand, shed or restructure market segments, customers and product offerings.

Using the Whale Curve to Maximize Profitable Growth and Enterprise Value

Pareto’s Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, defines the tendency in large, fragmented data sets for the top 20% of the data points to contribute 80% of value outcomes and the bottom 80% of data points to contribute just 20% of value outcomes. This principle is a popular way of understanding opportunities to simplify, prioritize and exploit advantages.

Nonetheless, when it comes to customer and product profitability, the Pareto Principle broadly fails to account for the true underlying economic levers in business. Each business has its own characteristics. Within a company, segments and territories will have their divergent properties and ratios.

Once operating costs are assigned to individual customers and products, the results can be illustrated in a graphic depicting, in descending order, the net profit of all customers and products. The resulting chart, often called the whale curve because of its resemblance to a whale breaching, allows decision-makers to see the profit makers, neutrals and takers, their constituent members, and the effect they have in determining peak internal profit versus net profit. (See Figure 1.)

In a whale curve, customers or products are ranked by profitability, from highest to lowest. The X-axis plots customers or products while the Y-axis reflects accumulated profit. For most businesses, the whale ratio (the range of peak internal profit to net profit) ranges from 1.5 to 3. Within a smaller sample (e.g., a sales territory), the ranges can be substantially higher. The data also can be presented to focus on either profit makers or profit takers.

Once the whale curve is graphed, share it with executives and sales teams. Starting on the right side of the curve—the profit takers—your internal team has several choices to cut the whale’s tale

• Raise the product price
• Ask for cost support from the vendor
• Sell more products and services (the increased spend amortizes the margin across the total sale)
• Lower the cost of sale by using the inside sales reps
• Lower the cost of sale by assigning this account to an inside sales team
• Lower the cost of sale by having the customer order electronically
• Work with production to lower the cost to manufacture
• Work with sales to lower the cost to serve

Businesses also should focus attention on the profit makers to identify and create plans to grow and replicate them.

Generally, in whale curve economics, the top 20% of clients tend to be clear profit makers, contributing between 150% and 300% of net profits. The middle 60% tend to be profit neutrals and the bottom 20% tend to be profit takers, destroying from 50% to 67% of your peak internal profit to arrive at the final net profit level. Remember this critical insight by calling it the 20/300 rule or the 20/67 rule. Most importantly, though, is to remember this and act on it.

For a business with $1 million of net profit, it is likely that its peak internal profit—before taking on profit takers that reduced net profit—was $1.5 million to $3 million. If the company had identified and remediated or discharged its profit takers, the potential net profit could have been 50% to 200% higher than the actual net profit. Most notably, the company would be prosperous without adding customers or suppliers, raising quotas, or opening new operations. It would be managing its book of business for profitable growth as well as setting itself up to become a strategic market maker instead of an indiscriminate order taker.

For any complex business, the overall whale ratio and its distribution and variability become a critical operational set of metrics to identify where and how to remediate underlying drivers. It also guides the restructuring of business cost structures and growth targets and provides a way to align organizational resources to maximize profitable growth.

Learn More:

Find these related resources on PragmaticInstitute.com

Podcasts

• When Product Profitability Is the Wrong Metric for Success

The post Maximizing Profitability with a Whale Curve appeared first on Pragmatic Institute - Resources.

Why take this type of inventory? Because you need to understand the tools you have to work with. How will you influence others? How do you have the conversations that only you can have? The tools of your personality—your leadership assets—are what enable you to answer these questions.

Decide the Type of Leader You Want to Be

Every leader has two faces: a public face and a private face. The private face often falls short of the ideals expressed by the public face. This doesn’t mean that leaders who fall short in their private lives are bad anymore than it means the rest of us are bad when we fall short of our ideals.

Before taking your leadership inventory, decide what kind of leader you want to be, and take those two faces into account. Think about the public face of the leaders you admire and don’t get hung up on their private affairs. Ideals matter because ideals live forever; faults do not.

Professionally, you have a public leadership brand that you need to manage if you want to be effective in your work. Your leadership brand should be a little aspirational—it’s OK if you’re not everything you hope to be. People won’t know you’re faking, and if you act like the leader you want to be for long enough, you’ll eventually become that leader.

The star player often isn’t the team leader. Likewise, you can be a terrific leader but not the smartest person in the room. Making yourself a good leader is a great way to increase your value in your organization.

List Your Assets and Defects

A Brand Deck is my favorite way to begin a leadership inventory. A prop used by marketing teams to identify the core elements of a brand, a Brand Deck costs about $25—and is worth the money. (Plus, it’s a cool product worth studying if you like to geek out on cool products.)

Each card has a black and a white side, each with words that aren’t exactly opposite, but will get you thinking about what part of the golden mean you come down on. For example, one side might say “conventional” and the other might say “experimental.” Your job is to sort through the deck and place the cards into four piles

The Brand Deck was created to help businesses define their brands, so some words won’t apply well to individual people. However, the physical act of sorting helps you think about yourself in a way you wouldn’t if you’d just made a list. Eventually, you should settle on 10 to 12 key elements of your leadership brand. These are the “you are” cards, and they’re you’re leadership assets.

And knowing what “you are not” is as critical for leaders as it is for products. It can be hard deciding what you are not when you’re early in your career because it feels like you’re giving something up. But saying “no” to things is liberating. “No” is a powerful commitment to the things you say “yes” to. The fewer things I say “yes” to, the more committed to them I am. Try to get at least five cards in the “you are not pile.”

Getting 360-Degree Feedback

An effective exercise I’ve done with my clients is having them share their list of 10 or 12 “you are” words with their colleagues in an online survey. They ask their colleagues to select the three terms they believe most describe the individual with whom I’m working.

Asking your peers to help you identify the key elements of your leadership brand—your leadership assets—is like a mini-360 that focuses only on your good parts. Narrowing the list from 10 or 12 to three or four with the help of others is a prioritization process for how to focus your leadership brand.

If you don’t want to invest $25, you can make your own list of leadership assets. Give yourself about five minutes and keep writing the list until you run out of things to write. The important characteristics will surface within that time.

Whether you use a Brand Deck or handwrite your inventory, your final leadership inventory will be a two-column list, with the first column identifying your assets. Figure 1 shows what your list may look like.

You might ask, “why is good humor a leadership asset?” It’s because being loved as a leader is certainly a good thing, and good humor surely is lovable. Plus, when you turn your good humor off, people know you mean business even if you don’t get angry.

Now, create a second column to your list, add a “Defects” header and think of the corresponding defect associated with your assets. While not all assets will have a corresponding defect, many will. Figure 2 shows how your list may look.

Now you’re beginning to understand your public leadership brand. Placing your assets and defects next to each other should help you understand why some of your work relationships are difficult. What you consider to be a strength could be perceived as a defect by your colleagues.

Assets and Organizational Culture

Your leadership assets exist within your workplace culture. Empathy, patience, and sacrifice are great leadership assets for grammar-school teachers but not combat leaders. Are your leadership assets suitable for your organization? It may be fine if they aren’t—particularly if you’re happy being an individual contributor and don’t aspire to lead large teams. Think about your organization’s culture, too, when you take your leadership inventory.

Culture is like gravity: We can’t see or define it, but we sure can feel it. It’s possible for your work to consistently exceed the limits of your organization’s culture—in the same way flying to the moon is possible. It takes a ton of energy and a lot of personal risk. If you aren’t comfortable in the gravity of your organization’s culture, you will need the energy of a rocket to burst through and escape it. Rockets don’t carry many people. Your small team may be able to find a comfortable orbit, but you’ll never carry the whole organization with you.

All of us have control over who we won’t work for. It’s not the same as being able to control who we will work for, but it’s close. We can always say no. It’s not typically an easy decision, but it’s liberating to keep the option in mind.

The purpose of all action, according to Aristotle, is to produce happiness. Happiness is the end to which all other actions aim. Leadership is different. The purpose of leadership is not to be happy—or even to produce happiness in others. The purpose of leadership is to accumulate and exercise power, for good or ill.

The ethics that define good and bad leadership are not the same as the moral virtues that produce happiness in our personal lives. At Fortune’s Path, we believe good leaders demonstrate good virtues, but that’s not true in all organizations. How much you can embrace the leadership ethics of your organization as opposed to your personal moral virtues will affect how much power you will accumulate.

The cost of power is another thing defined by organizational culture. It is also defined by your own will and ambition. The more aligned your leadership assets are with the leadership ethics of your organization, the less it will cost you personally to accumulate power and lead.

Share Your List with Someone You Trust

We often take our strengths for granted; to us, they seem easy. The work that comes most easily to us often is the most valuable work we do. The time it takes to create something is no reflection of the value of the thing created. An igneous rock takes millions of years to make, but it’s still worthless.

Now that you have a list of assets and defects, share the list with a peer. Sharing your list of assets and defects with a trusted colleague helps give you perspective that you wouldn’t otherwise get by looking in the mirror. It also helps confirm what you do well and brings a sense of proportion to your defects.

Embrace Your Assets, Give Up Your Defects

Your leadership defects are the evil twins to your assets—your assets taken to an extreme. You can minimize defects if you decide to give them up and focus on your strengths. Develop the discipline and awareness to recognize when your leadership assets have become defects and spare the people you work with by keeping them private.

Remember that leadership has two faces: public and private. A critical part of being a responsible leader is not showing the people around you your private face. That’s where your leadership defects belong. Just as parents shouldn’t share their deepest fears with their children, good leaders shouldn’t share their deepest doubts with those around them. Leaders have an obligation to remain positive. No one wants to follow a whiner or coward.

Leaders need a small number of intimates, people who help them recharge and regain positivity by listening, offering encouragement, and maybe even advice, if requested. Our leadership assets are the core elements of our leadership brand. Like any brand, there are two faces, the public and private. Our intimates see our private face. Those we lead mostly should not. That’s managing our brand and making the most of our leadership assets.

Learn More:

Find these related resources on PragmaticInstitute.com

Webinars

• Tuned-In Leadership

Articles

• Winter 2017 issue of Pragmatic Marketer
• The Top 10 Things Amazing Leaders Do
• Exploring Breakaway Leadership
• 5 Ways to Become a Respected Product Leader in the C-Suite

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In the 1980s, Intel rescued itself from a major sales decline by introducing growth strategies that supported OKRs. Learn how they implemented those strategies to exceed sales goals.

Intel’s Operation Crush was designed to combat a sales slump driven by a customer exodus to a new market competitor, Motorola. Former CEO Andy Grove introduced 3 ambitious strategies that enabled Intel to turn its sales around and remain a resilient and respected company.

Keep reading to learn more, or use the links below to jump to the section that most interests you:

• What is Operation Crush
• Intel’s Strategies for Growth
• Strategy 1: Implement an OKR Framework
• Strategy 2: Change Positioning and Messaging
• Strategy 3: Align Campaign Blueprint with Buyer’s Journey

In his New York Times bestseller, Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, legendary tech investor John Doerr featured the story of Intel escaping a near-death situation in the early 1980s.

Already rich in details thanks to Doerr’s professional background (he worked at Intel from 1975 to 1980), the story is further informed by Bill Davidow, then-VP of Intel’s microcomputer systems division. Davidow had a first-row seat during the crisis: Former Intel CEO Andy Grove chose him to lead the operation that would get Intel out of its slump and pave the way for its explosive growth as it went on to secure deals with multiple large clients, including IBM.

Though Davidow had already dedicated an entire chapter to this story in his 1986 book, Marketing High Technology, Doerr shared new, behind-the-scenes information that is of significant interest to tech innovators looking to thrive in today’s complex business world.

Intel vs. Motorola: Operation Crush

Intel’s 8086 16-bit microprocessor chip was introduced in 1978 and, according to Davidow, “quickly gained the top position in the market.” The chip captured the lead from older, less capable products that Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor supplied. However, it took two years to achieve wide use, and during this time, Motorola produced a competing product—the 68000—that was faster and easier to program. Clients noticed the difference and were eager to switch from Intel to Motorola.

Motorola was much bigger than Intel and had more than enough resources to push Intel back and grab the lion’s share of the market. Intel was in troubled waters. According to Davidow, several of Intel’s multimillion-dollar businesses depended on the success of the 8086. If it failed to secure its market share, the microprocessor division was at risk, and so was Intel as a whole. This fight-for-survival situation led to the creation of a special operation at Intel: Operation Crush.

Unwilling to settle for incremental gains, Intel’s management team decided to set an incredibly high goal: 2,000 design wins over the following year. This correlated to one new sale every month for every salesperson.

The sales team was dumbfounded.

Doerr recalled the reaction to the news: “Management was asking our field reps to triple their numbers for a chip so unpopular that longtime customers were hanging up on them. The salesforce was beaten down and defeated, and now it stared up at Mount Everest.”

Intel’s Growth Strategies

Little did he expect, though, that by the end of the year, Intel would surpass this goal, bringing in 2,300 design wins and recapturing 85% of the 16-bit microprocessor market. And all of this would be achieved without creating—not even modifying—a single product.

At its core, Operation Crush was a massive relaunch campaign of Intel’s existing product line. A thoughtful read of Doerr’s and Davidow’s books reveals that the campaign’s success was built on three fundamental strategies. Each strategy promises as much to present-day tech innovators looking to bring new products to market as it did to Intel in the 1980s—and potentially even more, considering today’s increasingly competitive market.

Strategy 1: Implement an OKR Framework

“As my dad used to say, no one becomes an astronaut by accident.”

–Keith Ferrazzi, author and entrepreneur

What are your top-level goals? Have you broken them down into smaller, measurable pieces with a fixed deadline? Those are the central questions Doerr asks in Measure What Matters. He has evangelized objectives and key results (OKRs) for years—a framework for defining and tracking objectives. From startup founders to CEOs of large corporations, many have been inspired to adopt the methodology. Today, the list of OKR believers includes Amazon, Google, Juniper Networks, VMware and more.

An OKR framework has four superpowers, according to Doerr

• Focus and commit to priorities
• Align and connect for teamwork
• Track for accountability
• Stretch for amazing (doing more than we thought possible)

Although OKRs may seem simple, their implementation comes with some risk. To this end, Doerr provides useful guidelines and examples to help management teams implement the framework.

Both Doerr and Davidow are adamant that Operation Crush would have failed without OKRs; they were the secret sauce that allowed Intel, then a billion-dollar company, to get thousands of employees to change course and work in an entirely new direction in (almost) perfect synchronicity—all in a two-week timeframe. “Intel Corporate Objective” is an example of Operation Crush’s corporate OKR for the second quarter of 1980, as provided in Doerr’s book.

In five short, declarative sentences, Intel stated its top-level objective and called out core tasks for four major departments, incorporating deadlines and measurable targets where appropriate. Department managers had no escape from Operation Crush’s OKRs.

1. Develop and publish five benchmarks showing superior 8086 family performance (Applications)
2. Repackage the entire 8086 family of products (Marketing)
3. Get the 8MHz part into production (Engineering, Manufacturing)
4. Sample the arithmetic coprocessor no later than June 15 (Engineering)

In terms of Doerr’s aforementioned list of superpowers, it’s easy to see how the OKR framework brought focus, alignment and accountability to the team. In the end, OKRs gave Intel’s cargo ship the agility of a laser sailboat.

Strategy 2: Change Positioning and Messaging

“I would rather be different than better.”

–Bill Davidow

Examining Intel’s OKR list, we notice that the second key result, “repackage the entire 8086 family of products,” is the only one without a deadline or measurable goal. It’s also a bit of a mystery. What exactly does it mean to repackage? Doerr and Davidow both provided ample explanation. In fact, if there was one key result they insisted on as they described Operation Crush, it was this.

Intel knew that Motorola’s 68000 was a better device. The company also knew it would lose if it kept the discussions happening at the microprocessor level. This forced Intel’s management team to spend significant time and resources to find a way to change the 8086 product’s position and message—to repackage it.

Davidow recalled hiring Silicon Valley’s top marketing consultant at the time to help drive this process. Out of intense strategic sessions came a realization: While Intel looked bad from a pure microprocessor standpoint, it had several advantages over Motorola from a system-level standpoint, including a broad product family, better system-level performance, and a better-trained technical salesforce. The net result for customers, the team asserted, was a reduced risk of integration problems, faster time to market, and a more efficient engineering team. The team was on solid ground to create a new narrative.

Intel not only changed its positioning and messaging, but it also changed to whom it promoted its new message—the company stopped selling to programmers and started selling to CEOs. This was essential to Operation Crush’s success, as most programmers had little interest in the new features and benefits Intel was about to offer.

What mattered then continues to matter today: Repositioning a product for a higher-level audience is a powerful, strategic move for technology innovators to capture new growth. In fact, redefining the industry buyer group is one of the six paths to growth in another New York Times bestseller, Blue Ocean Shift by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.

One caveat to remember is that successful repositioning requires properly segmenting the market. “In actual practice, a marketing department that talks to enough customers will gather sufficient data to define enough markets to guarantee confusion and paralyze any management team,” Davidow wrote. The solution, he insisted, is to “identify the dominant characteristics in a customer population.”

Clearly establishing Intel’s differentiator, this breakthrough system-level positioning formed the basis of a new message and value proposition that the company relentlessly marketed over the following months. “We had been playing to competitors’ strengths, and it was time to start selling our own,” Davidow wrote. This was the turning point for the Intel team, and they never looked back.

Strategy 3: Align Campaign Blueprint with Buyer’s Journey

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole.”

–Theodore Levitt

Equipped with a new value proposition, Intel’s management team organized the company to deliver the message. Whereas the repositioning and messaging effort required a lot of thinking and brain power, this last strategy is about taking massive action. A campaign blueprint is the guiding map to ensure all actions are aligned with one another.

This step is thoroughly described in Davidow’s book, wherein he strongly advocates for a systematic approach to marketing campaigns. This starkly contrasts the collection of disjointed activities he witnessed at other high-tech companies. Rather than random acts of marketing, Davidow favors an approach that relies on systems that are subject to quality control.

Inherent to this approach is the need to break down the path leading to a sale. The result, often referred to as the “buyer’s journey,” describes the key learning elements clients need to evolve in their journey from suspects to prospects to qualified prospects and, finally, to clients. For most technology innovators, the buyer’s journey can be broken into three main stages: awareness, consideration and decision. Rather than trying to take a shortcut and go straight to the sale, “Operation Crush Campaign Blueprint” shows how the company aligned with each stage of the buyer’s journey.

“The sheer complexity of technology products is often a trap,” according to Davidow. “Time and again, a high-tech company will try to tell its customers everything about its complicated product in a single promotion. The resulting copy is impenetrable, the headlines are long and arcane, and the graphics are incomprehensible. It is always easier to tell a lot about a product than to tell just a little. But simplicity is the key.”

Even though they were proud of their new product and eager to inform the market, Intel knew that most customers would not care about their new datasheets and demos—at first. To get there, Intel had to warm them up.

To achieve this, Intel first directed prospective customers to their awareness-level content. The goal was to make them realize they had a problem and recommend seminars to learn about Intel’s top-level solution. After the seminar, prospects went through a qualification process and then were offered the opportunity to attend a users’ forum during which more in-depth information was provided. Only then were they exposed to demonstrations and product-focused technical information.

Like a trail of breadcrumbs, this alignment of content to the buying process allowed Intel to gradually build trust and guide buyers on their journey from prospect to client.

Motorola’s Billion-Dollar Mistake

As with all principles, these strategies aren’t applicable only to major corporations and product relaunches. Tech companies of all sizes regularly apply these principles to launch new products, whether they’re medical devices, industrial systems, telecommunications equipment, or consumer electronics. Regardless of the industry or product, the principles remain the same—it’s their implementation that varies.

In the case of Intel versus Motorola, the result was far from inevitable. Motorola could have used these same strategies to its own advantage. “(Motorola) had the opportunity to consolidate its victory, yet instead, it fell into the trap of confronting our strengths head-on,” Davidow explained. “(The company) could have been different, but it chose to be the same.”

Rather than defending against Intel’s strategy by calling it out as an act of desperation, Motorola legitimized Intel’s efforts by going toe-to-toe—but with an inferior imitation.

“Had Motorola chosen to remain aloof from our challenge, I think Intel would have been in deep trouble,” Davidow wrote. And this is a great reminder that if you don’t have a strategy, you’re probably part of someone else’s.

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“THIS ISN’T A PROBLEM; IT’S AN OPPORTUNITY” is a cliché with oomph. It’s a simple, oft-referenced statement masking a powerful tool called reframing. The essence of reframing is to encourage us to look at situations from different perspectives in search of unique and improved solutions.

For individuals involved in the world of design and design thinking, reframing vexing problems is a standard part of the process. For the rest of us, a bit of design thinking focused on reframing is invaluable in our daily labors. In my experience, effective leaders at all levels are masters of reframing when it comes to tackling the vexing issues and challenges of organizational life. Here are some examples you can leverage and build on in your workplace.

Reframing in Action

Here are three situations where reframing can create potentially remarkable results.

1. Challenging Conversations

Most of us dread difficult feedback or performance discussions, or meetings with managers seemingly resistant to the idea of change. For many, just the idea of confronting these conversations generates considerable stress that feeds our desire to delay or avoid them as long as possible.

Reframe:

Accept and internalize that challenging conversations are where problems are solved and the seeds of innovation are identified. Recognize that the sooner you move to tackle these conversations, the faster you create new solutions or uncover opportunities to innovate.

Approach the challenges in a positive spirit of issue identification and mutual problem-solving. There’s a strong chance that the employee with the performance issue doesn’t want to lose his or her job. And there are likely some good reasons why your managerial counterpart resists change. Once you’ve framed these as opportunities, you open up the lines of communication for productive dialogue.

2. A Competitive Threat

Competitive threats tend to induce a bad case of organizational tunnel vision where everything is viewed through the lens of this threat. Meetings to discuss the threat sprout like dandelions in a June Chicago lawn and many companies respond with what Jim Collins references as, “the undisciplined pursuit of more.” These chaotic situations burn critical organizational energy in unproductive ways and often work to help the competitor succeed.

Reframe:

One potentially helpful reframe is to recognize the competitor has exposed their strategy and where they are committing resources, leaving other areas potentially vulnerable. Instead of focusing on the question, “How can we match their strategy?” reframe the question to some variation of “Where can we solve problems for our customers that our competitors will be too distracted to pay attention to?” or “How can we minimize the value of what they are doing by drawing upon our unique strengths and relationships?”

Regardless of the question, you select, the one you are likely not choosing is the most common (and weakest): “How fast can we match their offering?”

3. Talent Selection

Many of us frame talent selection around the question, “Who’s the most qualified for this position?” And while this is understandable, it fails to take into account many important issues, including what your organization might look like in a few years and how you’ll be successful in adopting new technologies or shifting to new markets.

Reframe:

I unabashedly encourage organizational leaders to look for the best learners, the most open-minded individuals, and individuals who thrive on exploring the new and different as part of the talent-selection process. Instead of asking, “Who’s the best qualified for the job?” where the focus is on evaluation against some potentially dated or limiting job description, ask “Who’s most likely to help us move from where we are today to where we need to go in the future?”

This issue of reframing your criteria for talent selection helps you avoid hiring clones and minimizes your risk of hiring individuals who aren’t well-suited to helping you rethink (reframe) and reinvent your organization.

Help Your Team Embrace Reframing

These four approaches can help you jump-start reframing on your team.

1. Encourage Solution Development Using Multiple Frames

When your project teams or functional groups are navigating a tough decision, encourage them to use more than one frame to identify potential solutions.

In working with an engineering team stumped over an important and very technical issue, the manager encouraged them to shift from “This is a problem” to “This is an opportunity” and develop a unique solution. Using the opportunity form of framing, the team identified a completely different approach that likely never would have emerged with just the negative framing. It involved unpacking some assumptions and rethinking their design, but that’s what reframing is supposed to do.

2. Increase the Field of View

Often, we get bogged down in the minutiae of a problem, and our thinking becomes constrained to the small, almost microscopic, view. Instead, much like playing with Google Earth, zoom out and look at the bigger picture.

An organization struggling with a revenue shortfall focused initially on identifying where sales and marketing were falling short with their execution. By zooming out, they were able to locate a bigger issue with changing customer tastes.

I like to continue to increase the field of view so that I can see the issue in the context of the environment, marketplace, and even the world at large. Too many of us view the world only through the lenses of our industry and competitors when the real threat or opportunity is likely somewhere outside that field of view.

3. Reframe the Problem by Rethinking the Question

Although implied in these reframing activities, strive to deliberately challenge the question you are asking and either increase the field of view or challenge the assumptions behind the question.

I love the example provided by Tina Seelig, a creativity and innovation expert at the Stanford Design School, in a recent Fast Company article. She uses the question, “How should we plan a birthday party for David?” and the reframe “How can we make David’s day memorable?”

This example reflects a fundamental reframing of the problem. The problem isn’t the birthday. It’s creating a memorable day. Now that you’ve permitted yourself to look at the problem differently, the ideas can and will flow.

4. Try “Why?” and “Why Not?” as Powerful Reframing Tools

Most of us have heard of using “five whys” to help crystallize a problem or challenge a solution. You keep asking yourself or your colleague “Why?” until the situation achieves a new level of clarity (or they storm off with steam coming out of their ears!). My alternative is the equally simple (but not simplistic) “Why not?”

Asking “Why not?” helps uncover false assumptions and self-limiting beliefs, and it is, in itself, a direct reframe, leading to new veins of idea gold as individuals and teams let go of their constraints.

The Bottom Line for Now

Learning to reframe is a behavior worth developing. It frees you to think beyond the constraints of the moment and to look at situations from many perspectives and varying heights. It’s a powerful tool for stimulating curiosity and promoting innovative thinking on your team. It’s energizing to think beyond the perceived limitations of any situation. And it just might be the difference-maker for the big problems in front of you.

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