4 Quadrants of Change

Based on Ken Wilbers “Four Quadrant Model” (from: Building a values-driven organization – Richard Barret, 2006) , you can see, how every change has to start from the internal change of individuals. (Based on Ken Wilbur. A Brief History of Everything. New York: Shambala, 1996; p. 71.)




The four Quadrants show the 4 different persepectives that one can have on a system:

• Internal, individual—personal values and beliefs (top left quadrant)
• External , individual—personal actions and behaviours (top right quadrant)
• Internal, collective—cultural values and beliefs (the bottom left)
• External, collective—social structures, systems, processes, actions and behaviours (bottom right quadrant). (barret, p 3)

In an organizational setting, the values, beliefs (top left quadrant), and behaviors (top right quadrant) of the leader and the leadership group significantly influence the values and beliefs of the collective (bottom left quadrant), and the behaviors of the collective (bottom right quadrant). In other words, the leaders’ values, beliefs and behaviors significantly influence the culture of the organization. To be even more precise, the culture of an organization is a reflection of the values and beliefs of the present leaders and the institutionalized legacy of the values and beliefs of past leaders as reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies and procedures of the organization.




Four Conditions must be met, for a whole system to change successfully. These four conditions are:

• Personal alignment: There must be an alignment between the values and beliefs of individuals, and their words, actions and behaviors. This is particularly important for the leadership group. It is important that leaders are authentic and walk their talk.
• Structural alignment: There must be an alignment between the stated values of the organization, and the behaviors of the organization as they are reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies, incentives and procedures of the organization. It is important that the values are institutionalized.
• Values alignment: There must be an alignment between the personal values of employees and the stated values of the organization. It is important that all employees feel at home in the organization and can bring their whole selves to work.
• Mission alignment: There must be an alignment between sense of motivation and purpose of all employees, and the mission and vision of the organization. It is important that every employee, manager and leader has a clear line of sight between the work they do each day and the mission or vision of the organization, so they know how they make a difference. (Barret, p 105 – 115).

So, Go Out and Change Everything!!!
 

Value Driven Marketing - A Mind Game

A big amount of Start Ups do not make it passed the first four years of their life. Research by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nearly six in ten businesses shut down within the first four years of operation. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/ressum.pdf

Why is that?

Researchers give many reasons for that. Every reasearcher has its own take on it, every business paper its “Top Reasons Why Start Ups Fail”, every author its take on it. One thing is for sure: Business fail. All the time, and it’s always bad when they do.  And most of the explanations focus on the business or the market. Poor Execution,  no viable market, too much leverage, the wrong place, the wrong idea, the wrong staff.

But I think the most impotant component lies outside of the Company. The question is: Is this the right thing to do for me now?

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

http://www.squidoo.com/starup_failures

A mind game:

Its clear, that most of the businesses go out of business, because they do not have enough money.  It would be safe to say, that they do not have enough money, because they do not have enough sales. Most of them do not have enough sales, because they do not have enough customers. They have to few customers because they are not good on selling their product. Mostly because they cannot communicate what makes the product special. This is often because the company does not know what makes it special, what is its USP? And my assumption is that this is because the leader, the boss, the entrepreneur is not clear on who he or she is.

Therefore I think successful marketing starts with the entrepreneur knowing who he is, what his or her values are, and where he wants to go with his life. After that, he needs to find out how the company reflects his own values, which values the company needs to have, how it helps him to accomplish what is most important in his own life. After that, the entrepreneur can start thinking about the customers. Which customers think like him, have similar values, and understand what the company stands for.

1. Who am I as a person?
   What are my values, what is my vision, my goals in life?
2. Who are we as a Company?
   What are the companies values? How does it contribute to a better world, what is our vision, mission and goals?
3. Who is our customer?
   What do they value? How do we contribute to their goals?
4. What is our product/service?
   How does our product/service help the customer? How does it make the world a better place

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

There is this word in German that literally translates as Egg-laying wool milk pig.
What is it?
The egg laying wool milk pig is an animal that lays eggs, produces wool and milk and has meat to eat.
But it does not exist.
Why?
Because it is not specialized in anything.
It does everything, but nothing really good.

Everybody in Marketing knows that. Marketing 101, Lesson one: define yourself, your product and your customer group. And still, if you walk around and ask small business owners and entrepreneurs what their product is, who their customer is, they say "Everybody". They cannot say "NO", they cannot say "this is not my business", because they are afraid to loose a customer, to loose money, to loose their reputition.

Know who you are
People "know" that you cannot be everything to everybody, and if you try, you will be nothing to nobody. But still. Its the fear of missing out on something, the fear of loosing your customer that drives many companies to do stuff that is not actually their business, and weakens their strategy. Most important for every business is to know who you are, and who you are not. Be honest to yourself and your customers. Be transparent. Let them know what you can do for them, and what you cannot. Your customers will value that and reward it with more trust in you.

Focus
In "The Disciplin of Market Leaders", Treacy and Wiersema define 3 strategies to focus your company on:

• Operational Excellence
• Product Leadership
• Customer Intimacy

None of them is superior to the other, and deciding for one will always make you loose customers in another area. BUT, and thats the big one, by focusing on one of these areas you can become a leader in it and your customers will value you for that, will come back to you for that, and stick with you. Leaders choose one of them - best total cost, best product, best total solution - and build there organization around it. Keep that in mind when you think of your own company

Have Integrity
You are a great webdesigner. Great. Stick with it, if it makes you happy. But don´t start designing posters, just because this one company needs a poster, and you need money.
Be honest to yourself. Is that what you want to do? Is it representing your values, goals, highest exitments in your life. If  the answer is "YES" -do it! If it is "NO" - don´t do it.
It sounds simple, but often these are the hardest choices for a company to make, especially when you want to grow and need money (like we all do)

In the end it all comes down to one single thing:
Know what you want and do it!
in your private life - in your workplace - in your company.

Marketing PLan 101

So, I am doing a self directed study now. Actually my first self-directed study ever. And I am getting a little bit nervous on day two already.

I gambled pretty high when I proposed my study, telling my teachers that I already know what we are going to do and that I want to dive deeper and get more out of it.
After two days of research I am still kind of where i started, not really knowing what i should do the next 3 weeks, even though my proposal sounds pretty cool :)

And I already had a bunch of amazing ideas. I got 2 companies that i can use as case studies for my research paper, that fall into the categorie of small and start up (I-Pam and the Bonnell Project). Both of them are really inspiring and are great companies.
I-Pam, a progressive asset management companie that does social responsible investment and value driven direct placement for "awakened human beings" with the goal of creating true wealth (to me at least, this sounds suuper inspiring)
The Bonnell is a social space for young creative people, with a recording studio, gathering space and a stage. Its goal is to foster community by connecting people (i actually do not really too much about it right now, but it is really inspiring too).

The only thing that is missing, and that is pestering me, is to get a plan. I have no plan of what to do, how i can integrate this in my paper...
hm... we will see.
It's gonna be 2 challenging weeks with a lot of opportunities to grow... i bet :)

Here is my proposal, btw:

Proposal for Independent study in MGT425 Marketing

for Emanuel Schachinger

November 8th - November 25th

Marketing is one of my major areas of interest within business. In the past I worked in a Start-Up Advertising Agency (2008-2009) and a Start-Up Social Media Platform (2005-2007). Furthermore I took University level classes in Strategy and Marketing and completed a 1 year training in “Event Management and Marketing”. Therefore I already have a quite deep level of understanding of Marketing. Even though I appreciate the teachings of this class, I feel that I could learn a lot more in a self directed way.

Research:

Since my background is in Start-Ups and small Companies, and the goal of the business department is to focus on Entrepreneurship i will write a paper about:
“Marketing tools for Start-Ups, Entrepreneurs and small Businesses”
for the paper I will use the theory and tools presented in the class book “Essentials of Marketing Management” and show how they can be applied to small businesses. I will furthermore conduct my own research on this topic and present this in my paper.
Furthermore I will give a presentation about my research for the whole class and create a hand out that summarizes my research.

Project:

create a Marketing Plan for EcoFair 2011
I will use the theory and tools presented in the book “Essentials of Marketing Management” to create a business plan for EcoFair 2011. I will apply these to the very specific situation of EcoFair (Non Profit, organized by volunteers, once a year Event)


We will see how much i really get done in these 2 1/2 weeks.

MUM Marketing

Just started my new class "Marketing Management" and it already started off with two interesting projects.

For the first one we had one afternoon to create a video that is explaining what "Millennials" are. The assignment was to put it on Youtube and get as many Clicks as possible within two weeks. Therefore we chose a short clip format, with a lot of information, that is presented as engaging as possible. We also got some help from Leon, a Communications and Media student.
I have to say, that I am very proud about the outcome of this very short project!

As for now (after 1 day) we have 107 views, while our concurring group has 19 :D yey :)

Also we created a presentation on Porters 5 Forces of Competition
for those who are interested, here is the link

The 5 Forces of Competition (its a really bad presentation though)

The interesting part for me, in both of the projects was, that it took a very strong leader to get the groups going. Since both projects where very short (1-2 hours class time, ready by next morning) there was quite a bit of time-pressure.
It is interesting how you can influence the group by just stepping up as a strong leader. Even though i still feel that this kind of working has a very unclean energy, cause it tends to alienate group members, it is often important to do it.
It was a great learning process for me, once again, you challenged me MUM. Even though, as most of the time, not with the obvious (the stuff we learn is just very low level, but manipulating group dynamics is fascinating)

Love to all,
click and share the Video, after all, I still want to win :)