Liquid Leadership Blog Home About Brad Szollose Goodies for Event Planners Videos Testimonials

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Here's a Little Secret: Creativity is King



Image courtesy of ddpavumba at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
After turning a modest sum into a few million dollars, I realized that a close friend of mine had to have a system to explain her über success. When I pressed her to reveal the secret, she astounded me with something I always knew was there, but refused to acknowledge. It was as if she bestowed wisdom on me with the touch of a magic wand.


“So, what’s your secret, Val?”
“Well, first I look for who’s the leader in their industry.”
“Yes...and?” Everybody does that. Come on, spill the beans. I wanted investment enlightenment NOW!!!

“Then I look at the seasoning of the management team.”

Val plodded on, completely unaware of the dialogue in my head.

“Come on...what's your real secret???” This was basic investing advice. I was getting impatient.

“Creativity.”

“Really?” I blurted out loud. But, again my inner dialogue silently stated..."You gotta be kidding me?"

“I look at who’s got the most creative products. Then I invest.”

Val was right; it was creativity that separated the good from the great – both in management, training and product.



Look at the last 20 big-ticket purchases you’ve made. Unless you were raised during the Great Depression like my father, you probably chose those items because they were cool, innovative or well designed. Not because they were the cheapest. What kind of car did you buy last? Chances are, despite what consumer reports said, you boiled it down to three choices and made the decision after a test drive. The car, minivan or luxury car that won out was the one that gave you the most innovation for the dollar. You “felt” it was a sound decision. 

Once again, we don’t buy things, we buy experiences. Consumers believe the thing they purchase will provide a better life. Remember the old ad agency argument? Nobody needs a drill. They need a hole so they can hang a picture. All they need is to hang up a picture. The drill gets them there. Period.

What about your house? Unless you are into fixer uppers, or built your dream house, I would guess you bought something that stood out. Or how about the last gadget you bought. Was it sleek and cool? Did it make you the envy of your friends? We buy groceries on a budget, but when it comes to enriching our lives, we spend a little extra.

Good, creative design stirs us
at our emotional core.



Henry Dreyfus was America’s father of industrial design. When companies like AT&T approached him to design their products, he wasn’t reinventing the phone but rather analyzed how we use it. Remember the first Trim-line phone with the dial in the handset? Thank Henry Dreyfus and his team for that little innovation. He figured out how we used products and then delivered an industrial design that made sure the product work seamlessly into our world while inspiring us to buy it. Dreyfus brought sexy to the industrial design industry.

Great design does that. His work was so ahead of its time that many of his standards are being used today. Ever wonder why a stop sign in Europe has the same shape and color as one in Aruba or Canada? The International Symbol Library was Dreyfus’ opus.

The science of design and creativity starts with usability analysis. It takes months to look at how a product is used, what the consumer hates, loves or wishes of the product. Where does it sit in the buyer’s mind versus where it sits on the shelf? What is it about the competition that they love? What would be the innovation that sets the company apart?

There is a structure to great design. It doesn’t just happen because some guy named Claudio stands up and declares his love for plastic. It is strategic and methodical, and it can take years before a product hits the market. Look at the Gillette Fusion: $750 million and 3 years for research & development and industrial design before it wound up on store display racks. Now that’s product analysis!

Executives and entrepreneurs need to remember that if you want to step up your company to the next level, look no further than what you offer the consumer. Is it the most innovative, most creative product available to set you miles apart from the competition? Are your systems capable of bringing your customer a truly customized experience? If the answer is no, (be honest) then you need to get your creative team back to the drawing board.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at these companies: Samsung, WalMart, GUCCI, Jet Blue, Electronic Arts, Red Octane, Microsoft, Starbucks, Gillette, Chanel, Porsche, Nintendo, BOZE, Andersen Windows, Sumitomo, Amazon, etc… Every brand on this list is innovative, creative and the leader in their industry. They are also consistent with their innovations. Each has also taken the lead position away from a rival to such an extent that the competitor never caught up. The next time you want to decimate the competition, sit down with a creative director first. Tom Peters actually believes that designers should be invited to board meetings. Something about the right and left-brained thinking coming into balance.

Notice how GE was not on the above list. General Electric is a strong company but a weak consumer brand. Let me explain: When was the last time you ran out and bought a GE television because it was the best? Or a GE dishwasher? How about their refrigerators? The point is, GE products sell, but they try to be everything to everybody. There is no clear position for their brand (at least amongst the retail consumer). And there is no innovation – their products are just like everyone else. In the turbine engine, B2B category, they are one of the leaders. Nevertheless, here in our world, GE suffers from a sort of Jack-of-All-Trades inertia.

Specialization comes from brand focus. Brand focus leads to innovation. Innovation leads to creativity. Apple is a great example of creativity and consistent innovation. What makes Apple the great company it is today? It boils down to good design, cutting-edge technology and convenience. It’s as if Apple is anticipating what I’ll need. What makes them great is they keep doing it year after year. One innovation does not a mega brand make and Steve Jobs is well aware of that. Perhaps this is why Apple has the largest niche within the computer manufacturing industry.

Look at the iPhone. It not only answers the problem of too many devices to carry by converging email, phone calls and entertainment into a personalized PDA-styled device, but it also makes several generational leaps in technology touch screen access, a robust operating system, vertical to horizontal sensors, intuitive interfacing, large icons, data management, data accessibility and of course, sleek design. I love Apple. Most people who buy Apple products eventually say that. We have an emotional attachment that I will address in a moment.

Apple’s innovation forces the rest of the industry to change. Look at how many PC laptops have a 17-inch screen, a robust operating system, icon driven interfaces, CD readers and burners as standard installations, and basic multi-media cards. They are all being forced to follow Apple’s lead. Prices have followed as well. The cost of a Mac is very close to a similarly configured Dell. The gaming industry is also a major driver as well. People want their computing, entertainment and business interaction to be seamless and Apple, Microsoft and SONY know that. There is a wicked rumor going around that game console companies want all your home computing, entertainment, and house functions like lighting and heating to be happening from one box. But that, is somewhere in the future.

Leaps like the iPhone are very calculated. I know it seems like such an arcane reference, but hear me out. - when companies like Studebaker take leaps quicker than the consumer is ready, it can leave them bankrupt and removed from the history books. Studebaker made the first economy car, the Lark, back when people didn’t know that a decade later, gas prices would go through the roof. Too soon to market can create a flop and here’s my point - how many of you remember Studebaker? Not many. Yet it was one of the greatest American made car companies ever. Built well and managed well, they took leaps that the consumer wasn’t able to keep up with. They had no contingency plan for when their ideas might catch on. Hope is not a strategy.

On the other hand, look at Netflix – the company took more than 10 years to become a household brand because the ecommerce infrastructure was not in place when Netflix was launched. The consumer needed time to adapt organically (as a whole) to a new way of getting movies (remember, VHS was still the standard in MANY households in 1996). Shopping online also took 10 years to become the standard, as did the ubiquitous use of DVD technology.

My 80-something year old Dad had 2 DVD players. This is amazing to me!

Netflix had enough of a subscriber base comfortable enough with ecommerce to be early adopters. It allowed Netflix to grow slowly, strategically and economically. By the time Blockbuster discovered Netflix had outpaced them and became the leader, Blockbuster could never catch up (and they never will). Only the paranoid stay in the number one position forever and the Internet allows more innovative brands to destroy your leadership position.

Cutting costs may make you profitable, but it won’t make you an industry leader. Today’s brands are all on a precarious edge because more and more people have migrated their shopping habits to the Internet. For a brand to stay on top, the executive team must ask themselves how the new technologies are changing their business and what they need to do to stay on top.

Moreover, most importantly, act on that analysis. Tower Records failed to realize the Internet was changing the how and where people buy music. It drove them out of business. Their mega stores disappeared overnight. I wonder how Virgin Records’ Mega Stores are holding up?

So the next time you want to take your company to the next level, start with creativity.


Thanks for reading,

Have a Happy Holiday Season and we'll see you in 2015!!!








Brad Szollose 
Bridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is the foremost expert on Cross-Generational Issues and Workforce Culture, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture, behavior, management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

The Pig & The Python:

A Long Term Marketing Strategy That Works



When I was a tween, my best friend Dieter called me up and invited me to his house. As soon as I entered he exclaimed out loud, "come...you gotta see this!"

As we raced upstairs and entered his brother Pete's room, there was a small crowd of our buddies from school. Mike, Bret, and now me and Dieter...all pressed against the glass of a small terrarium. And there it was. A tiger snake coiled up about to attack a fresh white mouse.

Okay, some of you are horrified, but how else does someone feed a pet snake?


Yes pet stores frown on this practice, but snake owners rotate stores as to not become suspect. Now back to my story....

With lightening speed, the snake leaped forward biting the terrified mouse. It squeaked and died under the comparatively massive jowls of the Tiger Snake. Slowly, the snake unhinged its jaw, and began to devour the carcass until it was nothing more than a bulge in the body of an orange colored snake.

This digestive action is called peristalsis. You can look it up online but it basically means digestion without teeth. Pure muscular movement of the esophagus, along with digestive juices...well you get the picture. This is how a python can digest a large pig. Over time, the entire pig is digested. It is also why some snakes only feed once a month.

But the concept of this peristaltic movement, The Pig & The Python - is also a marketing term.


I awaited in anticipation to see the remakes of The Green Hornet, True Grit and The Mechanic, I am always reminded of the Pig & The Python by David Cork. Who is ready for The Avengers: Age of Ultron?





As a marketing term, The Pig & The Python is an attempt to take a brand that Baby Boomers grew up with - think Batman, Speed Racer, and Battlestar Galactica - and repackage it with special effects, a story rewrite and a few sequels - and resell it. But here is the peristaltic part: refeed a group of people with something they already know and love, just update it.

But more importantly, get a new generation
hooked on the brand as well.


Boomers drag their kids to these movies...or more importantly, tell stories from the glory days of their childhood. This gets another generation hooked on the same brand. Over and over again. thirty years from now, be on the lookout for a remake of The Transformers, Harry Potter and Pokemon movies.

When trying to find a target audience, keep in mind, a built in audience and the Pig & The Python.


Why do you think they have remade Batman, Superman (and tried to match the Christopher Reeve's version) The Manchurian Candidate, Star Trek, Arthur, Speed Racer, Alice in Wonderland, The Addams Family, etc...or even more amazing is the landslide of all the comic book heroes being reimagined...Iron Man, Spider-Man, Green Lantern and Avengers 3:Age of Ultron.  

All of these remakes are an attempt to bring back the glory days of the Baby Boomer and the brands they grew up with.


Now some of these remakes bomb miserably, like movie remake of the British TV Series also entitled The Avengers. Or The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp. Did you see any Speed Racer cartoons out when the Speed Racer movie was about to be released? Or The Avengers TV series with Diana Rigg, or the original Lone Ranger episodes on TV Land? No...The reason is, no one primed the pump to get Boomers excited again to go see the remake. Yet executives at the top wonder why it didn't do so well. Duh.

Try building our anticipation folks.

The Pig & The Python. Keep feeding a brand over and over until it is completely digested.

Cool huh?

Thanks for reading,








Brad Szollose 
Bridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is the foremost expert on Cross-Generational Issues and Workforce Culture, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture, behavior, management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Is It Safe to Tell The Truth in Your Office?

The Most Important Element for Leadership to Be Taken Seriously

http://liquidleadership.blogspot.com/2014/11/happy-thanksgiving.html

On page 9 of Liquid Leadership I point out the Credo of a Liquid Leader. Most importantly, the 2nd law stands out the most for leadership to be affective...


Ever work for a company that micromanages everything to death? In these environments a paper trail becomes more important than getting the work done. Our current enthusiasm for technology has created even more potential for micromanagement, via massive amounts of emails and documentation and endless meetings to sort through it all. Yet when this temptation is given in to, the result isn’t better communication or higher productivity, but the opposite.

Management becomes the last to know
what is actually happening.


Conversely, in companies that have moved to flatten their hierarchies and create environments where it is safer to point out the truth, you begin to notice that each person takes their role seriously. When responsibility is shifted to the individual—when people are given the freedom and power to manage their time and solve problems—the result is that no one wants to let down even a single member of their team.

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.com

An organization like this runs more smoothly and with more trust. The best and the brightest naturally gravitate toward the chance to work with one another. They know courage will be rewarded, not penalized, and innovation will see the light of day. Such environments operate like entrepreneurial start-ups, with each individual engaged in the success of the company. People are encouraged to challenge one another. They operate with confidence and a sense of personal ambition because they have skin in the game.

This approach may fly in the face of every business manual you have ever read, but those manuals are out of date. We are not in easy times. Consider that betting on one direction or a single type of technology can send a company into bankruptcy overnight. All the more reason to put aside your ego, to listen, and to encourage the sharing of knowledge in every area of an organization’s operations. Environments such as these do not centralize creativity; they make it a systemic part of what drives their entire organization.

It is your job as a leader to support the development and creation of big ideas, integrating them into your company’s mix of products..."

The truth has become fuzzy these days as people are more interested in the almighty dollar instead of doing great things. We know fluoride is not safe to put in our water and drink on a daily basis. We know our food supply is filled with carcinogenic chemicals. We know our politicians are...well you get my drift.

But when drug company whistle-blower Cheryl Eckard tried to fix problems at a GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical factory in Puerto Rico she was fired.

The 60 Minutes story is here:
--------------------------------------

Bad Medicine: The Glaxo Case  

January 2, 2011 7:00 PM


Yet when Cheryl brought well documented problems to her boss, she was dismissed, told that it would be taken care of and eventually, when she pressed harder, fired. Admitting the truth can destroy entire companies and bring about unwanted changes. Yet the truth is where progress begins.


It is hard to tell the truth when doing so could bring a wave of lawsuits


By the way, how hard is it to act like a human being?

Some believe that Cheryl Eckard did what she did for the money - (she was awarded $96 million from a $750 million suit against GSK)...really? Did she know she would be a multimillionaire when she discovered drug mix-ups and unsanitary conditions at Glaxo's plant? It was her job to oversee quality control and if she had not followed through she would have been fired. But what is unforgivable is the reaction of the executives; they simply tried to make it seem as if conditions weren't that bad.


Shame does not seem to exist in some boardrooms


Want to make changes in your organization? How about your life or your community? Start by facing the truth...not your opinion. Like maybe my wife is right – I don't look good in that sweat suit anymore, (not that that has ever happened to me. LOL).

What is important to you? Paper trails, micromanagement, telling people what to do? Truth telling is not pretty...but it is transformational.

And as always, a special thank you to everyone who reads my blog. THANK YOU for your support my friends,









Brad Szollose 
Bridging The Generational Divide: Multigenerational management expert, award-winning author, business consultant and keynote speaker


PS: If you are interested in one of our white papers entitled... 

YES, send me a copy of What Every Business Needs to Know About Millennials!

What Every Business Needs
to Know About Millennials:

Understanding How Technology Transforms Corporate Culture, Generational Behavior, and Impacts Management, Interaction and Expectations 


Email us with your name, title and email address.
Your information is confidential.

Ask me how I can help your company evolve into the 21st Century.


Brad Szollose is the foremost expert on Cross-Generational Issues and Workforce Culture, management consultant and keynote speaker who helps smart companies understand just how much technology has transformed corporate culture, behavior, management interaction, expectations and sales in The Digital Age.



But this is not based on management theory: With a 30 year career as an entrepreneur he knows firsthand what it’s like to grow a company from a simple idea in a coffee shop to an internationally recognized brand.


Brad is a former C-Level Internet Executive who went from entrepreneur to IPO in 3 yrs—co-founding K2 Design, the very first Dot Com Agency to go public on NASDAQ. His company experienced 425% hyper-growth for 5 straight years, expanded from 2 business partners to 4 with 60+ employees and offices worldwide. At its height, K2 was valuated at over $26 million. 

His results only management model (ROWE) was applied to the first wave of young Generation Y workers producing great results—winning K2 the Arthur Andersen NY Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation.

Brad Szollose is also the *award-winning author of Liquid Leadership: From Woodstock to Wikipedia which explores the subject of new leadership styles – mainly how to get the tech-savvy Generation Y and analog driven Baby Boomers working together. ISBN-13: 978-1608320554

Known for his humorous and thought-provoking presentations, Szollose received the highest testimonial of his career from a C-Level audience member: "I just had my mind blown." Brad’s keynotes and workshops are highly interactive, heart-warming, humorous, and filled with high-content information that challenge assumptions and help leaders and managers create a better work environment for innovation to thrive.

Today, Brad helps businesses close the Digital Divide by understanding it as a Cultural Divide – created by the new tech-savvy worker...and customer. 



* 2011 Axiom Business Book silver medal winner in the leadership

* #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

"I just had my mind blown..." - A.S., Vistage, New York

Liquid Leadership by Brad Szollose is available at all major bookstores and for Kindle, Nook, iPad and Sony ereaders. Internationally published in India and S. Korea.

Brad Szollose Bio:


__________________________________________________________________

Who Is Brad Szollose?: 

Brad Szollose, host of Awakened Nation®
First things, first. How do you say Szollose?
It’s pronounced zol-us.

From founding partner and CMO of K2 Design, Inc. the first Digital Agency to go public on NASDAQ to international leadership development expert, Brad Szollose has worked with household names like MasterCard, American Management Association and Tony Robbins, to create leadership training programs for a new generation.

As an award-winning creative director, he has been the creative force behind hundreds of high-end corporate events, personal and consumer brands, and website launches. Brad is the recipient of the Corporate Identity Design Award and the Axiom Business Book Award along with various awards for website and print design.

Brad's unique management model was awarded the Arthur Andersen New York Enterprise Award for Best Practices in Fostering Innovation Amongst Employees (Workforce Culture).

Today, the world’s leading business publications seek out Brad’s insights on next-generation leadership development, branding and modern Management Strategies, and he has been featured (both print and online versions) in Forbes, Inc., Advertising Age, USA Today, New York Magazine, The Huffington Post, International Business Times, Le Journal du Dimanche (France), and The Hindu Business Line to name a few, along with television, radio and podcast appearances on CGTN America, CBS, Roku Network and other media outlets.

Brad continues to challenge the status quo with the 10th Anniversary Edition of Liquid Leadership, and his new podcast, Awakened Nation®: a Deep Dive into Extraordinary Conversations.

After 35 years in New York City, he now splits his time between Las Vegas and Denver. In his free time, he enjoys hiking in the mountains, working Star Trek quotes into everyday conversation, and painting and drawing the stunning landscape of the American Southwest and The Rocky Mountains.