A moment in the third person can change your world

Over the years, this idea of how to gain perspective has been a growing priority in my professional life. It was almost twenty years ago that I actually wrote this idea on the white board in a co-workers office, trying to encourage him to slow down, take a moment and reflect on his world from outside of the frenetic day to day, and reassess his action plan going forward. Well to say the least if that advice was appropriate in 1995, it certainly is more so applicable today in 2015!


This idea of finding a way to “step out” of the heat of the moment to gain some perspective is clearly not a new idea. Plutarch, as a priest at the Oracle of Delphi, reminds us that one of the key inscriptions at the temple in Delphi was the Greek phrase translated, “Know Thyself.” The ability to “know thyself” is obviously no simple thing, and finding the ability to step outside of yourself, and your day to day actions and interactions may be harder still. As I reflect on the tempo of our work reality today, fueled and accelerated by technology and devices, this ability to “step back” may be harder than ever. We spend so much time in the hectic first and second person today, the concept of “slowing down” or “reflection” seems completely counter cultural. We are either sending texts, emails, tweets, etc. or responding to those sent to us at all hours of the day, a furious back and forth in the first and second person reality of our lives. While it seems very simple to say, it is very hard to find the time/space/courage to step away from that back and forth and truly reflect on your own situation.


This idea/need was brought to life last month at a presentation that I lead at a health care industry conference. I was leading a discussion on the idea of “The Gravity of Success” (see previous blog essays, “The Gravity of Success” and “The Gravity of Blockbuster”) , and focused on the idea of what made you and your business great in the past can and will be a barrier to future success. During the Q&A session, one person commented very honestly that with everything on his plate, and how busy and challenged he was in his day to day job, he was unsure on where to start. In a bit of a “rainman” response, I blurted out that “a moment in the third person can change your world,” and I encouraged him and the audience to find just a few moments to step back/away from their day to day, in order to reflect on main drivers of their past successes and if/how/when those same drivers could be the barriers to their future success. Now in a Q&A session at a conference it certainly was easy for me to share that advice, but regardless of environment, the course of action remains very true.


Regardless of your role, industry, age or experience, this idea holds very true. Take a moment today, or this week, and find a few minutes to ask yourself a few key questions from a third person perspective:

• What’s important to me?
• How am I spending my time on what’s important?
• Am I making progress on what’s important to me?
• Am I having the impact on others as I want?
• What should I start / stop/ or change in what I am doing today?


While there are certainly more than five questions to ask, this is a pretty good place to start. Find that time, “step back” from the frenetic day to day tempo of your world, and allow yourself the time and candor to ask and answer these five questions as a starting point, and look for ways that your time in the “third person” can start changing your world!

Courage, Optimism, and Love: a response to terror in 2015

It is impossible to live today and not feel surrounded by, and at times directly assaulted by, acts of terror. Last week’s shootings in Paris, alongside the attacks, bombings, and massacres in northeast Nigeria have been another reminder that the global drumbeat of terror marches tragically forward. It knows no limits of continent, nationality or time zone; we are all under attack and all must stand together to reject and denounce this cowardly, pessimistic and hate filled agenda. Just as millions came together last Sunday to link arms and march together in the “Unity March,” so too must we broadly and virtually “link arms” together to stand up to these horrific acts of terror.


As I think about the responses to these acts of terror, there are clearly immediate actions required. What security measures must be improved and in what countries, what communities or locations are uniquely under threat and need enhanced protection, what improvements in global security collaboration and communication should be enacted, etc., etc. These responses are sensible and need to be explored and acted upon promptly. My concern is the growing cries of fear, revenge and retribution, whether directed toward immigrant communities across a variety of countries or towards specific religious groups closer to home. It is in this context that I want to suggest an alternative response to the terror of today, that response centered on the principles of courage, optimism and love.


These three ideas, courage, optimism and love almost seem naïve and out of place in today’s security centered discussion of global terror threats. As a clear and strong rejection to a number of the core principles of the terror groups active today, we must be vocal and active in our support of these three key ideals:

Courage: as a response to the cowardly acts by the terror groups, whether exemplified by a shooting of innocent shoppers in a Parisian supermarket, a masked beheading of an aid worker in the desert, or the use of school girls as suicide bombers in Nigeria, our response to these cowardly acts need to be courageous. Just seeing the linked arms of a number of world leaders who marched together in Paris last Sunday, striding “out in front” of the crowds, boldly proclaiming their unity AND courage, was truly inspiring.

Optimism: whether through the lens of a global citizen, or as a husband and father of two wonderful teenagers, we must be centered on the idea that (quoting from Dr. King’s Nobel prize acceptance speech) we are not just the “Flotsam and Jetsom of history,” and that we can and must reject hatred and fear and the “isness of humanity” and be centered on the actions required to achieve the “oughtness” of our collective future.

Love: finally a very emotionally packed ideal that may seem out of place in this response to terror. In a previous essay on this blog (“the Golden Rule from Dulles Airport”) I comment on the wide variety of cultures, faith traditions and communities that fundamentally espouse the “golden rule.” While translated a bit differently across cultures and languages, simply said it’s “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or a touch more simply, “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If we can focus on acts of “love,” with a perspective that in our global village we are actually all “neighbors.” The terror groups feed the fire of hatred, why one group/faith/community should be hated and why and how that hatred can be used to legitimize unspeakable acts. We must reject that idea and NOT respond with hatred in kind. It’s my opinion that only through acts of “love to our neighbors” can we break this cycle of hate filled violence.


As we all move into 2015, try to keep these three ideas close at hand. Unfortunately, the year ahead will probably hold more painful and horrific moments, fueled by the terror groups cowardly, pessimistic and hate filled beliefs and actions. We must all strive to reject those ideas/ principles and look for ways to be vocal and active on another lens for our world, one centered on the ideals of “Courage, Optimism, and Love!”

“Nous sommes Charlie”

“Nous sommes Achmed”

“Nous sommes dans le monde”

"Do Justice," a holiday calling from Micah

Over the past few years, I have typically shared a family recipe as part of my holiday blog essay. If you dig around in the December posts over the past five years (it’s hard to imagine that the blog is now more than five years old with over 120 posted essays, more than 30,000 page views, from over 25 countries!) you will find recipes for “Kuni’s Chocolate Cake,” and “MaMa’s Giblet gravy” to name just two. Well this year I will depart from that historic culinary tradition to share some thoughts on the weightier topic of “Justice,” a principal in short supply in our country and our world this holiday season.


Since I was a boy, I have been struck by a single passage from the Old Testament. Micah was a “prophet” who lived in the early part of the 8th century B.C. in a village 20+/- miles outside of Jerusalem. While a very small book of the bible (Micah is considered as one of the 12 “lesser prophets” of the Old Testament) I have continually found my way back to this one specific passage:


Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God


This combination of “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your god” has struck a deep cord since I was young. I have seen this passage quoted on the front of Synagogues and Churches, in a wide range of texts and sermons, and while this passage is over 2700 years old, it seems a deeply important and a very current admonition for our society today!


Over the years, I have focused on the specific idea of “walk humbly with your god.” In my experience, the space of faith/religion/belief seems often lacking in this concept of “humility” broadly, and the concept of walking “humbly with your God” is applicable to so many faith traditions across the world. Over the past few weeks and months, while this idea still rings true to me deeply, my attention has turned to an earlier portion of the verse, that being the idea of “do justice.”


Clearly we are all living in a time when “justice” seems to be lacking in every corner. Turn your attention to Ferguson or Staten Island, Hong Kong or Kobani, to NW Pakistan or NE Nigeria, to countries, cities and villages all over our world and it seems unarguable that we are living in a time that lacks of justice broadly. Whether centered on race, economic, religious, sex , sexual orientation, or other sources of injustice, our worldwide community struggles with justice broadly, and seems to be making little or no headway or progress toward a more just tomorrow.

As I reconsidered Micah’s passage this holiday season, the call to “do justice” took on a singular prominence. In a moment of research that would have made my old testament professor (from New College, the divinity school at Edinburgh University where I spent some time during my undergraduate days) smile, I dug around through a variety of translations to understand this specific portion of the verse more deeply. While clearly not exhaustive, I looked into nine English translations of Micah 6:8 with the following results:

“Do Justice:” (NRSV, RSV,ESV,NAS)
“Do Justly:” (KJV,NKJV)
“Act Justly:” (NIV,WEB,CJB)

While the specific words do change slightly, one idea rings true; this call to “justice” is an active one, pushing all of us to “do” or “act” toward “justice!” Once again it is not enough to be satisfied with thoughts, beliefs or good intentions, we must take action!

Like many reading this essay, it often seems that this call to “do justice” is meant for more significant players on the world stage. What should our president or congress do? What is the UN doing? Etc. I am convinced that all of us can and need to take action in our sometimes “small” everyday lives, communities and neighborhoods. Injustice is broad and pervasive and we can only make progress if we all find ways to “do justice” where we live every day. In my neighborhood, just a few miles east of downtown Atlanta, there is tremendous wealth and poverty living side by side. Beside the large, beautiful historic homes are individuals and families living in the streets, the alleys and the bushes. My family and I are involved in a small religious community in our neighborhood where one Sunday a month we make sandwiches for a neighborhood shelter and one Wednesday night a month we gather and share a dinner with ALL in our neighborhood… whether coming from the street or the executive suite, all gather and share a common meal in a warm, safe, welcoming space.

Now will these actions eradicate the economic “injustice” in our neighborhood? Of course not! But rather than throwing our hands in the air, thinking that the problems are too big or maybe someone else’s responsibility, it is clearly the right move for us to take action where we can. Those sandwiches or that Wednesday night meal do make a difference, and while maybe small, they are actions working to make a difference in people’s lives. Injustice is not somewhere else or someone else’s problem. Remember the quote from Dr. King where he reminds us that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”! As you enter into this holiday season, look for ways in your towns, your neighborhoods, your communities to follow Micah’s call, to look for ways big or small, to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

Building Brands, a daily regimen

At the center of my career are brands, brands that matter to consumers and shoppers, and brands that have grown over the decades. I have had the pleasure to work on a number of large, growing, expanding brands that have really stood the test of time, ranging from Kleenex, to Breyers Ice Cream, to Coca-Cola, and to Bolthouse Farms. Brands are precious and valuable, and like children, are also fragile and needing of care. Brands aren’t static, they are never in “pause mode” with the consumer or shopper; they are either gaining or losing relevancy in the lives of their consumer franchise.

Not only have I had a chance to work on and represent some amazing brands, I have also had the chance to work with a number of brands that I have watched crumble over time. In my customer management roles over the years, I worked closely with the executive teams at Blockbuster, Circuit City and Woolworth. All three WERE major brands and strong retailers in their respective spaces, and today not one of them exists in the consumer landscape.

At the center of my philosophy on building brands is the concept originated by A.G. Lafley, Chairman and CEO of P&G, where he described the “First and Second Moments of Truth for a Brand.” Now more than ten years ago, I saw Lafley give a keynote speech at the FMI convention where he introduced this idea that a brand must “First” win at the point of demand, at the retail shelf. The “Shopper” needs to see the brand as a winning option. Once that hurdle is accomplished, the brand must then win a “second” time when it is used or consumed by the consumer.

A 2003 Bloomberg Businessweek article describes it well:

As CEO, Lafley hasn't made grand pronouncements on the future of P&G. Instead, he has spent an inordinate amount of time patiently communicating how he wants P&G to change. In a company famed for requiring employees to describe every new course of action in a one-page memo, Lafley's preferred approach is the slogan. For example, he felt that P&G was letting technology rather than consumer needs dictate new products. Ergo: "The consumer is boss." P&G wasn't working closely enough with retailers, the place where consumers first see the product on the shelf: "The first moment of truth." P&G wasn't concerned enough with the consumer's experience at home: "The second moment of truth."
Lafley uses these phrases constantly, and they are echoed throughout the organization. At the end of a three-day leadership seminar, 30 young marketing managers from around the world present what they have learned to Lafley. First on the list: "We are the voice of the consumer within P&G, and they are the heart of all we do." Lafley, dressed in a suit, sits on a stool in front of the group and beams. "I love the first one," he laughs as the room erupts in applause.

This idea that brands are precious, fragile, and ever changing, and that they are built on these two “moments of truth” is at the center of my beliefs and approach. I deeply believe that while brands matter deeply, brand loyalty is an outmoded and potentially dangerous idea (see previous blog essay) and that a consumer’s “brand preference” and hopefully “brand advocacy” has to be built, rebuilt and re-earned every day, truly a daily regimen!

Brand Loyalty, a dangerous and outmoded marketing principle

Like so many things in business today, the speed and acceleration of change is having an amazing widespread impact. Across the past thirty years of my business career, I have experienced the advent and explosion of technology across a wide number of fronts. It’s hard to imagine that in my first marketing role in 1985, there was one fax machine shared in our BUILDING, one PC that was shared by my DEPARTMENT, no use of cell phones, no concept of a tablet, and no idea of what a “world wide web” might mean to any of us, personally or professionally. Clearly the distant past!! While it seems clear that the dramatic impact of technology has changed many elements of how we get our work done, it is interesting for me to see how these changes have also affected a number of the foundational principles of business and marketing that I was taught in business school. One such example has to do with the concept of “Brand Loyalty,” and the overarching “Brand Adoption Model,” which I was taught as a student over thirty years ago and unfortunately remains in many b-school curriculums today.

This “Brand Adoption Model” was a foundational element in all b-school marketing classes, and typically was depicted as a ladder or across a horizontal spectrum, linear and clear in each distinct step of the process. It usually looked something like this:


Unaided Awareness -> Aided Awareness-> Trial-> Repeat-> Preference-> Loyalty


While I have critiques across the board and at the end of this essay will offer an alternative to the model as a whole, the really dangerous idea of this approach is the concept that “Brand Loyalty” is the destination of this model, the end point of the marketing efforts, and seemingly the unassailable hill of your marketing efforts. Well my experience over the past thirty years and most importantly over the past ten years teaches me that you are never “done” as a marketer, and that the consumer may be loyal today/this moment, but tomorrow is a different story.


The reality of the “promiscuous consumer,” is prevalent across so many categories. We all have more choices for every possible purchase decision, and more information at our fingertips giving us input, ratings, suggestions, discounts, and opinions/reviews for each and every commercial choice. Whether choosing a car, a hotel, a restaurant, a doctor or a seasonal beer for a party, there is a deluge of information and input vying for the consumer’s attention. There should be no surprise that consumers may seem a bit “promiscuous,” so many choices, so little time!!

It is specifically this reality that makes me deeply question the idea of “brand loyalty,” and makes me consider it dangerous and outmoded. No marketer should EVER think about consumers as being “loyal” to their brand. Every day we need to wake with the fear and concern that some other product or brand is out there working hard to capture the interest and imagination of our brand’s consumers, and will not sleep until they divert their attention and purchases to their brand or product. There are so many examples of big brands losing their franchises over the past few decades, just remind yourself of the current status of Blockbuster, Pontiac, Kodak, or Myspace; all at one time leaders in their fields/categories, now all gone (or almost gone) from the landscape of consumer choice. There was certainly no residual “brand loyalty” that insured their success. Quite the opposite, over time consumers explored new choices in those specific categories and found alternative brands/products that better met their needs/wants/desires.

Clearly I think the idea of “Brand Loyalty” is outmoded and dangerous, and correspondingly I think it is time to consider a new “Brand Adoption Model.” Instead of a linear model, I believe that it needs to be circular and dynamic, always working to refresh itself as consumers and marketplaces change and flow over time. And instead of “adoption,” I want to advocate the idea of “Brand Advocacy” as the central defining premise.




Brand Advocacy: whether you want to think that this model begins or ends in this idea, it is vital and central to my thinking. A marketer and a business leader is working to have strong and growing advocates for their brands, and today sharing their pictures (Instagram) or ratings (Yelp) to their personal networks. The most potent way for anyone to consider a new brand / product choice is to have their friends “tell them” about it … otherwise advocate for it!

Brand Relevancy: Once advocated, is the brand relevant in my life and in my set of choices. Recently I had a friend share how much they love a specific SCUBA resort destination in the Caribbean, inclusive of pictures and specific hotel room reccos. While fascinating, I am not interested in SCUBA and thus the advocacy was irrelevant. In the sea of input, ratings and reviews, all consumers process through this “filtering” step.

Brand Action: think of this as “why act now.” Once advocated and relevant, something must trigger some sort of action. This might be an offer for a sample, a discount or a direction of where to find a certain option. Recently I was hosting a friend that not only loves craft beers but looks forward to all of the “Oktoberfest Beers” that hit the market every fall. Well this year I checked reviews on line and while reading a review for Sam Adams Oktoberfest, a pop up ad appeared, highlighting it on special at my local Publix. As a loyal Publix shopper, I was intrigued, and that little spark moved my decision making along.

Brand Purchase: Ultimately all good things need to result into a commercial action. I am a firm believer of A.G. Lafley’s first and second moments of truth for a brand (I will share that idea on a future essay) and that the fist moment of truth for any brand occurs at the point of demand. For many brands/categories that moment is at the retail shelf. Is the brand ready to win at the point of demand, to turn “advocacy, relevance, & action” into a purchase moment? Following up on my Oktoberfest beer example, on my next visit to my local Publix store, I encountered Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer in three environments in that specific store. In the deli, a small display was setup next to an area featuring brats and sauerkraut. In the beer aisle, it was clearly available and nicely merchandised and in stock and cold. Finally, towards the back of the store, there was a nice size display of a family of Sam Adams beers, clearly featuring the Oktoberfest seasonal beer. Three points of brand interaction and a number of clear calls to action at the point of demand, clearly a winning formula for the first moment of truth.

Brand Preference: Well we have come this far, how does the product actually perform to your expectations. Does that brand purchase exceed your expectations, or does it fall below your expectations? How many times have you tried a restaurant with a yelp score of 4+ stars and a sample size of n>= 200, only to be disappointed by the food or the experience? Brands need to win at the point of demand (as highlighted above) AND win at the point of consumption. What was fascinating about my Oktoberfest beer loving friend, he had dismissed Sam Adams as being to mainstream and had never bought it for himself. Once he tried one at my house, he loved it and became a quick advocate!

REPEAT and REPEAT Quickly!!


This model ends as it begins with “Brand Advocacy.” Is your brand experience good enough to make you a fan, a “raving fan,” good enough to make you a "brand advocate??" That is the destination, and hope of every marketer and business leader; that every day, you are creating more “brand advocates” than you did yesterday, more than your known competition, and you always watching the consumers and the marketplace to make your brands/products more relevant every day! This never ending cycle operates at a very high tempo, with technology accelerating the cycle over time. One needs a healthy sense of paranoia as a brand leader today; always scanning the marketplace, working to build your brand's “advocates” one day at a time, every hour and every day!

Track, Rank, & Publish

Over the past few weeks, I have had numerous conversations about performance management. Emanating from my last blog essay, “Beating Cadence, the Drumbeat of Performance Management”, the challenges and opportunities for implementing or improving performance management disciplines seem to cross industries and company sizes broadly. In those conversations, I have found myself referring back to an old practice that I call “Track, Rank & Publish.”


As I mentioned in my previous essay, I deeply believe in the practice and discipline of performance management in business. Keeping a steady “cadence” in that practice has been vital to my past success, and I shared a view in that essay of my “daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual” approach. What I want to elaborate here is that at every step of that “cadence,” I would use this idea of “Track, Rank, & Publish” to illuminate and communicate the status of the team’s performance not just as a whole, but broken down into more accountable entities. Simply put, we would “Track” performance with a regular cadence and I worked hard to eliminate any data/reporting issues that raised any questions with the reports. Second, we would “rank” performance by market, customer, and sales leader very simply high to low, first to worst, good to bad, ahead of plan -> on plan -> below plan, etc. Finally we would “publish” those results in a variety of forums, looking to stay on a “cadence” so the organization would see results and rankings regularly and become accustomed to the idea of “Track, Rank, & Publish.”


There are a number of approaches that I have used over the years to heighten the impact and awareness of the published rankings. One technique was to simply highlight the top 10% vs the bottom 10% of the ranked performance to spotlight the top and bottom performers. Clearly no one wants to be identified as a bottom performer and finding yourself in the bottom 10% was never a desired or comfortable outcome! Taking the smallest move to identify those groups in bold, or to color the top 10% in green (for money!!) and the bottom 10% in red (for stop!!) I was amazed by the impact of just color coding the list; if no one wants to be in the bottom 10%, then REALLY no one wants to be on that list when it is colored red!



Using another approach, I developed a report that I called the “Triple D” report in my last role where we tracked customer performance weekly and sorted the customers in three groups, “Drivers, Defectors, & Drains,” thus the “Triple D” report. To make the “Driver” list, the account had to have positive sales for the week vs year ago, a “Defector” showed no sales for the week and may be a lost or lapsed account, and a “Drain” account showed sales declines for the week vs year ago. Not only did we sort the accounts into these three groupings, we then ranked each list high to low, highlighting the biggest “Drivers, Defectors, & Drains” for the week. It didn’t take long for each sales leader to be watching this report like a hawk, emailing me quickly to emphasize that their customer was a significant “driver”, or WHY their customer was showing up on the “drains” list.


Regardless of approach or technique, the intent (like always) is to accelerate performance by heightening accountability across the organization. Think about your business context and find an approach that works for you, whether using the color coded top and bottom 10% approach, or something like the “Triple D” report, look for ways to expand the visibility and accountability of performance results and use the approach of “Track, Rank & Publish” to accelerate your teams performance!

Beating Cadence, The "Drumbeat" of Performance Management

Tempted as I am to wax nostalgically of my days in The College of Wooster’s Fighting Scot’s Marching Band (yes, fully attired in a Macleod tartan Kilt!), this essay is about the tempo or “cadence” required to make performance management come alive. Let’s start with a definition:


Cadence: Noun,

a: a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language
B: the beat, time, or measure of rhythmical motion or activity



It’s this idea of “rhythmical motion or activity” that I want to focus on today. Over my career, I have had the chance to lead teams and manage businesses of various makeups and sizes. Early on I realized that my natural orientation was NOT to build processes or disciplines to aid me and my team in managing the business, but to move from issue and opportunity as they arose. Oh the naiveté of youth! This “reactive” approach was a mess, often leading from one crisis moment to another, creating a culture of “knee jerk” responsiveness versus one of “planful” discipline. I knew I needed to make a big change, quickly!


What became clear to me was the need to not only identify the key data points and sources, but how often to measure, track and report those key metrics. I won’t go deeply today into the concept of a “core score,” but it is vital in every business to identify the few truly vital pieces of data/metrics for your business, i.e. the “core score/s”, and then be maniacal in your management focus of those metrics. In a world of wildly expanding data, this process of focus and choice of a FEW metrics is difficult and key. My focus today is more on the tempo or cadence of that management “dance.”


After my early false starts in this area, I realized that I NEEDED a regular disciplined cadence to help me successfully manage increasingly complex and sizeable businesses. Over the years I have come to an approach that has allowed me to build a regular cadence across the year. In my most recent role, this cadence has come to fruition over the past 4+ years with great results. Let me work my way by time period:



Daily: It’s important to be careful in this area. Businesses move very dynamically and you could theoretically track performance on an hourly or minute by minute basis. A major retailer tracks their scanner data in 15 minute increments, and it is possible to download store by store data in those 15 minute increments. Fascinating, yes; meaningful, I am not so sure! For me, I like a daily sales report to start every day. I have had the pleasure to work for a California based company over the past few years and we worked out systems to report out daily sales trends by 6am pacific time every morning. Tracking our key eight product categories, we would see trends versus plan and versus year ago. Keeping in mind the vagaries that might arise daily, unique weather events, shifting holiday timing, strange year ago cycles, etc., this daily “wakeup call” allowed me a very close, daily feel for the business. While this daily sales report is widely distributed, I used it personally, not for a team based performance management discussion.


Weekly: I deeply believe in keeping a close eye, or finger, on a business. Things happen so quickly that if you don’t pay attention, a business trend can get away from you. A few months into my last assignment, business trends were very challenging and I instituted a weekly, every Tuesday WebEx/call for my entire organization. I wanted/needed everyone to focus on the immediate issues and opportunities at hand, and a weekly “all hands” call was my approach. I chose every Tuesday to allow the past week’s results to get tabulated, a few customer and product specific reports to be run, and to allow me to digest the landscape and work to guide action. Once I started that weekly call, I never stopped, holding over 200 “Tuesday calls” over the past four years. If I was on vacation, I had another leader fill-in. I lead them from airports, customer lobbies, train stations, parking lots, etc. It didn’t matter the circumstances, the “cadence” continued.


Monthly: As we closed every month, we reviewed a deeper set of metrics, diving into the entire p&l, decomposing our trends to identify action areas for immediate or longer term action. We convened a relatively small, senior team, for this review. Identifying a ½ day monthly to be devoted to this important work. Unlike the “Tuesday call” described above, we learned that this meeting needed to happen in person with all the senior staff in attendance live. We tried “calling in” at first but soon realized that we needed to really dive into the monthly metrics deeply, and discuss them aggressively, and at least our team quickly realized the need for us all to be in the room together. Monthly performance was key, and I would share the results on the next “Tuesday Call” to the broader team and work to focus our efforts on the challenges and opportunities at hand. Additionally we received a variety of syndicated reports on our market based performance relative to competition. These highly awaited “market share reports” were widely and broadly circulated, and then we would do a detailed review in the next weekly “Tuesday Call.”



Quarterly: While obviously a collection of the three prior months, quarterly closes were more than just a financial exercise. We used the quarterly “cadence” to update our team deeply on performance versus plan, since we have been on a quarterly bonus system for a number of years. Realizing that successful months make up successful quarters, and successful quarters make up successful years may seem beyond simple, but breaking a business down into “bite sized” chunks is a vital element of performance management. (read more about “bite sized chunks” in a previous essay, “Aunt Lorraine’s Law.”)

Annual: Now this is big, annual plans and annual performance management is central to success. Annual performance is the real report card of business! Finishing every year NOT ONLY tracking performance to pay bonus (if earned!), but to measure our progress against long term goals AND to gather key learnings/insights on consumer/shopper/category/competitive dynamics is vital. You NEVER miss the annual plan timing, NEVER! You are NEVER too busy to dive into the results to understand performance and to gain key learnings. I have usually tried to time annual or bi-annual sales/marketing meetings to correspond with the fiscal year end so the results and the learnings can be key elements of those experiences.

This little review of performance management cadence is clearly my approach, but one that has served me well across my career and especially over the past few years. Look deeply into your own business and its unique dynamics. You may have different tempos to consider, maybe thinking about unique seasons, or key release dates that may not fit neatly into my “daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/annual” model. Find the cadence that works for you and your unique situation but stay on track. Just like my 200+ “Tuesday Calls,” don’t be inconsistent with the drumbeat of your cadence. I strongly recommend that you stay on track, stay on tempo, and “beat cadence” for your business; I am confident that once you find your “right” rhythm, you will be pleased with the results and your organization will actually “count on” the consistency of your approach.