CEO’s: Is there Gender Parity in Your Firm?

The topic of women in leading roles in business has resurfaced in a major way in 2010. This year on of the key topics at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland was gender parity. Women and their role in corporate America are on the minds of global leaders. Today in the UK, pay for women is -22% below their male counterparts. Women in the US are -13% below men for similar jobs and account for only 2% of board posts in the us. If over 50% of today's college graduates are women, why aren't they staying in the work force at the executive levels?



While we are making progress, we need to do more. So what's the problem?



The Insead Global Leadership Center conducted a robust research project to drill down on the issues. Here are some headlines:

• Women have had to make trade -offs of family over jobs

• For this trade off, they loose speed and power on the fast track

• Women hesitate to go out on a limb alone as their prefer to network

• Women are visionary but in a different way

• Women are reluctant to be assertive due to stereotyping

• Women don't put much stock in vision as they do getting things done

All in all, 22,244 observers contributed and evaluated the 10 dimensions of leadership: emotional intelligence, empowering,,, energizing, envisioning, global mindset, organizational design, outside orientation, rewarding and feedback, team building and tenacity.

So what are leaders doing?

Google, Coca-Cola, WPP, Bain Consulting, Nissan responded with the insights that question conventional wisdom and have been successful in their firms.

1. Make Women and women leaders s a strategic imperative
2. Develop a women's leadership council that has a voice to the CEO
3. Listen for understanding
4. Break the rigidity of your rules
5. Set metrics and hold people accountable

While it will be challenging to change the mindset of today's work force, leaders must lay a foundation for the next generation of women to success in your business.

What ideas do you have to begin to make the changes needed to create more gender parity?

Let us know or call 312.492.7772

CEO: Is Flat the new Growth?

Is ‘flat’ the new ‘growth’? Let’s face it, 2009 was a year of holding the line and hiding a bit. The fear of bankruptcy, acquisition or dramatic sales decline may have left many leaders in a state of corporate rigamortis; a stalling of growth. So it’s 2010, a new year and new decade, what can you do to reboot your growth?

There are three growth horizons for leaders. Deciding how much to invest and when is your key challenge. Here are some screens you can use as a way to stage and gauge your growth:

1) Extend and Defend your Core Business
· If you are in a highly competitive market you need to align the organization to defend your core business and ‘stop the bleeding’. If you are looking to extend your core business clearly define who your customer is, what they need and how you can meet those needs. Here we look at growing sales incrementally, 1-3%
2) Build or Acquire Emerging Business
· This growth phase can take significant capital. If executed properly a strategic acquisition can elevate your growth in a way competitors can not match. Insure you have an integration strategy for this acquisition so the cultures can merge with ease. Building a new business is more closely related to innovation growth.
3) Fill Tomorrow’s Pipeline through Innovation
· The best way to decide if you should undertake an innovation effort is to ask yourself, “Are we meeting or exceeding the needs of our customers today?” If the answer is ‘no’, assign someone in your firm to look into emerging trends that can bring you more growth by being a more relevant company.

Developing the right strategic plan and meaningful growth platforms can help you achieve your growth goals successful. Crafting a new brand story can help.

Airlift helps leaders create a sustainable culture of growth through inspiring brand story telling. Contact us to find out how: srosen@airliftideas.com or (1) 312.492.7772.



Source: The Alchemy of Growth

Do your people matter in this economy?

Do your people matter?

You might be thinking, “They are lucky to having a job in this economy!” Think again. Your people matter most. Every day, they show up to work so they can contribute to a greater good-your growth. They seek to deliver a quality product or service; one that should delight your customers with each transaction. They are your chief brand ambassadors. Yes, they matter!

McKinzie and Company outlined some tips for securing great people. The headline that leaders must create a an “extreme” EVP, employee value proposition by delivering a compelling reason why a talented person would want to work for your company.

Clearly, the Gen X and Y work force will make us think differently about how they work. Deloitte has a point of view on the distinct differences between a Boomer work force and Gen X and Y. Boomers put a heavy focus on work as an “anchor to their lives” while Gen Xers are concerned about “work/life navigation” They are willing to do the work, but not as interested as being seen sitting in their cubicle as a Boomer would.

Price Waterhouse conducted a global study stating “recruiting and integrating younger workers was seen as a challenge by 61% of chief executives globally. Less than a third (30%) believed they had a good understanding of their employees' needs and views.
What are you doing to hire, train and inspire your greatest asset, your people?

Let us know at http://www.airliftbrandstorytelling.blogspot.com/

Source: Fast Company, McKinzie and Company, Price Waterhouse

CEO's Are you Achieving Brand Longevity?

We are a world obsessed with staying forever young and living longer. Can the principles of life-longevity be applied to business? Yes, longevity, the length of one’s life or career, can be applied to business. Here are some things to think about:

In a book, “Seven Principles for Living in Balance”, they articulate driving principles of a well-balanced life that can be applied to business.

• Attitude-Change is an opportunity, not a threat (Can do)
• Accountability- Holding an accountable point of view brings our life into control and balance by focusing on where we can get leverage and where we can make a difference.( Results)
• Commitment-A meaningful role to fulfill and hold a strong inner belief in its importance. (Passion)
• Supportive Relationships-We are social creatures who thrive on meaningful, caring, and affirming contact with others. (Teamwork)
• Service-Highly change-resilient people view service as their true mission in life, and hold material wealth and success as secondary to helping others
• Personal Mastery- Personal energy management is that people are able to maintain optimal energy levels throughout the day without dependence (Well-Being)
• Faith -See their lives within a larger perspective and gives them a sense of belonging to a greater whole. (Community)

Is there an example of a brand that really does that? Yes!

Let’s look at Danone.

When you create products that you believe in passionately as a force for good — in this case, generating health and well-being — you too can live to 103 and build a global empire! Founder Daniel Carasso did both. In 1929, Carasso, having studied business and bacteriology, established the Danone brand in France.
Along the way, Carasso remained dedicated to yogurt no matter what happened. He ignored the beginning of the Great Depression because he was too busy trying to find dairy stores for his product in France. Yogurt rose from obscurity and niche markets into the mass consumer mainstream when adding fruit jam to the sour product proved a marketing breakthrough. In 2008, the Danone Groupe had worldwide sales of $20.48 billion.

Carasso lived though a century's worth of turbulence and destructive change, some of it much worse than anything happening today. He persisted when others gave up, reached out to partners to help him implement his vision, remained true to his values, and never lost his passion for yogurt.

Each of the principles of longevity and balance can in fact be applied to business. What principles should you deploy to improve the longevity of your brand? Let us know your thoughts by commenting in our blog.

Source: Bloomberg.com, Seven Principles for Living in Balanceby Joel Levey and Michelle Levey

Why Buy American?

Buy American? Why?

Do you remember when “Made in Japan” meant low cost, low quality and cheaply made product? I do. Today, Japan brings us world class products like Toyota/Lexus, Sony, Canon, Nintendo, Panasonic and more.

Do you think that the “Made in America” has the same meaning as that Japanese label did in the 50’s? I fear it does.

Americans are so enamored with all things foreign. We aspire to buy foreign cars, luxury fashion brands and technology from Europe and Asia. We are proud to be American, so why aren’t we buying our own products? Did you know employees at major US car manufacturers were known to have purchased Japanese cars like Toyota and Honda? These were the very people making the American cars for the American people. If we ourselves are not buying our own products who will?

What can we do to have the “Made in America” label stand for leadership, quality and prestige? If are ever to help turn around the brand "America" we all have to do our part and buy the products and services the people of our country make. We need a new brand story.

Send us your comments on how we can instill the quality, pride and value in buying products that are made in America. srosen@airliftideas.com

CEO's Less is the new More

Every day we hear about down-sizings, lay-offs and reductions but are they really all that bad? In good economic times, an enterprise can get too large, too cumbersome and have too much bureaucracy. Now is good time to ask, “How can we do less and still win?” This economy may force your management team put a tough lens on the productivity of the work we do to improve ROI.

Clearly our auto manufacturers are in the midst of media crisis headlines. General Motors announced the closing of 1,100 dealer locations and Chrysler is announcing the closing of about 1,900. But is that really a bad thing? Do consumers really need so much choice? The proliferation of choice may sound good but it can confuse the customers.

Here are some times to “skinny-down” in this economy:

1. Define your core competency and do everything you can to protect it. Insure the resources and competencies of your firm are intact so you can grow profitably when the economic downturn turns-around.

2. Review all of your systems and processes. Ensure the ones in place are effective, needed and critical to getting high quality products out the door profitably.


3. Take work out. Do you really need all those reports? Jack Welch created the famous “GE Work-Out Program” in his pursuit to make GE a better company. The goal of the Work-Out program was to "clean up" GE, to make workers more productive and processes simpler and more clear-cut. "Work-Out" was also designed to reduce, and ultimately eliminate all of the wasted hours and energy that prevented GE from performing day-to-day operations.

4. Offer less choice to your customers. Food companies create value through three business levers: improving unit margins, volume growth, or market share. Too often, product proliferation doesn't help any of these. The number of new products introduced in 1980 almost doubled the number introduced in 1970 --1,030 intros in 1970, 2,016 in 1980. The number of new products introduced in 1990 (9,192) was more than three and a half times the 1980 total and almost nine times the 1970 total!

There are many benefits to a lighter enterprise. Being less cumbersome can free your employees to think of new ideas, work on teams more productively and be more customer-centric. Less is the new more.

What are you doing to take work out, trim down and streamline so you can be ready for growth? Let us know. Send your comments and thoughts. srosen@airliftideas.com

CEO's:Make a plan. Execute a plan. Modify the plan

This economy makes leaders skittish about planning. What does the future hold? How do we prepare for the future in this volatile economy? How do we know what the right strategic investments are? The 2010 planning season is around the corner. Airlift knows it is better to have a plan and modify the plan, than to have no plan at all.

Here some planning principles you can deploy today to help you achieve your goals?

1) Engage a Cross-Functional thought leadership mantra
The best way to achieve a plan is to have your direct reports all play a key role in the planning process. Have a vision and some key metrics you want to achieve. Then allow the team to come together with their best thinking to develop the plan. After all they need to execute. Remember people help support what they help create.

2) Grow from your core strengths
Grow because you know who you are in the market and how you are going to compete to win. It might feel a bit scary to focus. Fear a competitor is gaining share is normal. But if you keep your team focused on the reason you are in business, new ideas can come from this thought.

3) Hold leaders accountable for their function and cross functional role in making the plan come alive – metrics
While success has many inventors and failure has none, the success of your plan will be the leadership team’s ability to make it happen. Establish quarterly reviews to check progress. Reward a job well, done, new ideas and even failures. It is the failures that will take the firm to the next level because we learn from our mistakes.

4) Keep your eyes wide open. Listen to new voices. Get outsiders in to help.
Once the plan is underway, it is possible a competitor comes out with a shiny new penny that can be distractive. Stay the course. If you assessed the market right going in, you can still achieve the plan despite a competitive entry in the market. However, when we get complacent and think we have all the answers, we may miss a new insight or idea. Stay open minded but keep the team focused to win. Brands like Daily Candy help leaders see first hand what consumers look for in new ideas.

5) Be ready to change the plan on a dime
A year ago, none of us would have predicted GM would be in this financial situation or a brand like Pontiac would seek to exist. We must be ready to change if the market presents dramatic new market conditions.

Finally, make time to celebrate even the small wins. Executing a plan is a marathon and even your senior people need to know you notice their contributions.

What are some best practices you have deployed for planning?
What works? What does not work?

Give us a shout so we can share your great planning tips. Comment in our blog, e mail at srosen@airliftideas.com or give us a call.