Unbreakable competitive advantage is created by highere ground leaders who lead from the heart and not from the fist. Its like comparing power vs Force.

Breaking an Unbreakable Competitive Advantage

In today's highly competitive service, emotional economy, and radically changing times, how do you gain and maintain the advantage over your competitors?

How do you ensure you retain your existing market share? How do you grow your share when there are such similar products and services? How do you stop riding the profit razor down towards zero because that’s how your competitors are reacting?

One strategy has real long-term power and effectiveness that almost everyone can harness. The only problem is that we seldom ever receive effective training, instruction, guidance or coaching on how best to successfully achieve this powerful advantage in our personal or business domains. We seldom have a valid measurement or useful diagnosis of their states.

All you have to do is look at the divorce rates, the wannabe-divorced rates, and customer and staff attrition statistics and you will see the challenge.

We seem not to know how to build and maintain awesome relationships. We even have trouble with our relationship with ourselves!

The real power is in a clear, honest, authentic, reliable, valuable, deep relationships based on a you win AND I win = we all win framework.

To many men, relationships are based upon superficial common interests, some basic values and male perspectives. To most women, real relationships are the bedrock of everything. By having honest, strong, resilient and authentic relationships with your clients and customers (Internal and External) you leverage your opportunities for success immensely.

Once you understand your clients “hierarchy of buying decisions” and how your relationship and trust levels with them fits into this, you are able to position yourself as the “top of their mind” and only possible supplier in your category and area of expertise.

The most powerful criteria affecting and influencing a buying decision is linked to 3 prime dimensions

“are we already dealing with them”,
“how good is our relationship with them”,
“can we/I trust them”?

The stronger the connection and experience between these 3 dimensions the greater your chances of being their primary or sole supplier. The lower your/your companies rating on these dimensions the greater the danger from your competitors. The real challenge business faces with leveraging this strategy, is when staff leave for greener pastures, time and again the client goes with them!

In South Africa we have the additional challenge of cultural and historical “static” that interferes with building these relationships. Too often personal beliefs, prejudices, blaming and past stories, negatively filter and simmer in the space between possible relationships. It takes special people to build authentic, honest, heartfelt relationships across the cultural (political) divide.

Even in my experiences with the local Mankind Project, where men have strong bonds, honesty, openness, integrity and tolerance, the historical cultural programming and memories still infects the potential space genuine relationships could hold.

With the current trends where women are rapidly filtering into all levels of business management and leadership, men will have a challenge, and an opportunity, to reassess their approach to the foundation of relationships and the role that emotions, Emotional Intelligence, AQ/Resilience plays in the building blocks of a successful organisation. The balance is moving away from forceful towards powerful.

Many men resort to forceful/aggressive tactics to achieve the desired results, which is not always healthy for relationships. Whereas women typically build, influential bonds based upon sincere caring, listening - real listening, open communication and focus on building the relationship. Often for men the focus is in the short-term result vs women where the focus is classically on the longer-term relationship.

One thing is for sure, the world is changing radically, and, fast. Event-horizons are right in front of us. Competition is increasing, competition for talent is relentless, customers have ever-greater choices, and many margins are sliding.

The old paradigms of business being like a football game where we attempt to annihilate the competition are no longer valid. New rules are in effect, but many companies are still holding on to try and play by the old rules.

Many leaders are using stone-age tools, outdated attitudes and invalid actions to motivate by fear, force or threat. There are still some cultures, in business, that still resort to the "do what I tell you - or be fired" approach. Unfortunately these people/cultures will not experience true loyalty or staff engagement.

And customers will react to these negative attitudes as well. If your business is not doing well, remember the book "The fish rots from the head"?. Take a look, a really truthful look at your, and your leadership/management's, attitudes and actions.

If leaders don't trust, they resort to using force, fear, coercion and threats. And all astute leaders know where this kind of behaviour ends up.

Relationships are the bedrock of your competitive advantage. Strong, powerful, real, authentic and honest. Even within an organisation 2 of the 3 prime dimensions are important.

“how good is our relationship with them”
“can we/I trust them”?

If you are using fear as your motivator to get the job done, you are a weak leader.
If trust is low in your organisation, look at your behaviours as the leader.
If integrity is low in the organisation look at the leaders and managers integrity.

If the truth cannot be told, if fear and manipulation abound (Motivation is a form of manipulation), If results are not what you expect - Look at the leadership, don't just blame the lower ranks.

If your workplace culture does not support, open and honest communication, where people can become fully engaged and inspired, you will never be able to build a world-class team. Success is an inside job. It starts on the inside of every staff member.

If staff feel good, they can perform well. If staff feel bad, they'll perform badly. It is the leaders job to ensure that the workplace environment supports, inspiration and engagement, not prehistoric - "work or be beaten" threats. Good leaders know this instinctively.

If you use fear, or any other underhanded tools and manipulation to try and achieve results, you will have no long-term competitive advantage.

For more information or reprint rights please contact Tony Dovale
of Lifemasters International www.lifemasters.co.za 083-447-6300