Marry Your Business to a Strategy and the Money Will Follow

well good afternoon and welcome to the live recording of the ecommerce podcast almost caught me on unaware sir uh as
people are gathering in do say hi in the comments be great to know where you're watching from
i just need to make a quick setting change uh on my computer here but yeah
copy trying to multitask let me explain to you what's going on we are doing the
live recording of uh ecommerce podcast and today we've got an amazing guest a
fellow brit which i'm very excited about we've got a guy called mike uh jones coming on who's
actually in the army for months yes uh months definitely along with that years so
we are going to get in strategy and leadership in this podcast i'm super excited we started the conversation a
few minutes ago and so i'm really keen to get into it that's for sure so the way this works is mike is busy in
the background waiting uh that we bring him on we are going to be doing a live recording of the e-commerce podcast okay
so that's how we do it we just record it in one take and we live stream the recording of that podcast so this is the
live stream of the podcast recording uh so welcome to you if you are regular to
the show and and all that good stuff it's great that you're here so what's
going to happen is i am going to play the i'm going to roll the intro the music you'll hear the music play uh
and then i'll do the introduction to the podcast we're recording at that point i'm going to bring in mike and we're going to have a conversation so do stick
around because you are going to love this one yes you are it's going to be great so hopefully i have explained
myself clearly and concisely so here we go with the live recording of the ecommerce
podcast let's do this
welcome to the ecommerce podcast with matt edmondson a show that brings you regular interviews tips and tools for
building your business online
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stuff okay on this week's podcast we are going to
be talking about why you should marry your business to a strategy and how the
money will follow when you do yes we are talking strategy we are talking leadership and if you are an
entrepreneur looking for more profit uh or any company leader who wants less
risk in their business than this let me tell you is definitely for you so grab your notebooks as i get to chat with
mike jones about this whole topic now let me tell you about mike he is an experienced leader let's say
he's an organizational psychologist which is not actually that easy to say
he understands the need to unlock potential of leaders teams and organizations
to help them overcome the complexity and the volatility of modern business mike's
leadership skills and knowledge are grounded in an -year career in the
british army yes that's right he was in the british army for years which i am
super excited about to talk to him uh where he served actually in afghanistan and iraq
leading troops in very complex and hostile environments and it was this experience as i'm sure you can
appreciate that gave him a real understanding that only when your people are empowered
engaged and aligned around your clear mission can your team achieve its full potential
accompanied by his studies to become an organizational psychologist it has given mike an exceptional background in
leadership strategy and creating the right cultural environments for people teams and organizations to thrive
in other words he's a great guy to talk to about this whole topic uh so i'm gonna bring him in
let's bring him into the show mike great to see you welcome to the podcast how you doing yeah great thanks for having
me matt i'm really looking forward to uh chatting with you today yeah no it's great to have you here but
it's i i love the show i love all the people that we meet around the world but i always love to talk to a fellow brit
uh you know it's it's always nice on the podcast circuit to get hold of get a hold of the british guys that's for sure
so whereabouts in britain are you currently in sunny milton keynes
and is it actually sunny or is it grey and overcast like it is here ah yeah very grain overcast anyway
i can imagine i've got a virtual thing with um organization up north today and so i
just like to lie to them say it's nice and sunny down here just to whine people in the north it's
what if you're listening to the show you're going what are you talking about in england this is what happens the people in the south
like to wind up the people in the north about how much better the weather is in the south than it is in the north which generally is quite true there's normally
at least a few degrees uh better weather down south and so that's what we are talking about for
anyone outside of the british isles but i'm pleased to know that you're experiencing the same weather that i am
today yeah [Laughter] unfortunately it is what it is
so how long have you been in milton keynes i'd settled here after i left the army
so probably about coming up to four years now um three to four years
time faster than me but yeah but i've pretty much settled down here i'm not originally from here
i'm originally from oxford um but when i join the army you sort of leave your home and uh then when you
leave you sort of migrate to somewhere that you fancy then a sort of just fancy come to milton keynes
the area yeah i have to be honest it's not the first
that's probably what actually is the first time anyone has ever said someone is like the area of milton keynes to me
you must like concrete um so you were in the army for years what
made you decide to to sign up i really wish it was noble reasons like
i wanted to serve my country uh and all those but unfortunately there was there was a part
of me because my dad was in the army and so um i had that sort of natural
attraction to it anyway but really i didn't have much options um i didn't do very well at school
um i didn't really know what i wanted to do so i saw the army as an opportunity to
sort of get away and um give me opportunities that i didn't think i necessarily would have had if i
stayed around where i was yeah yeah and did you enjoy it or did you enjoy it
no i loved it i i honestly if you met me before i joined the army you would have thought mike you are not going in the
army you are not suited for it i was um i was sorry um unfit i was quite tubby
but i'm saying now but i'm silly so i've got probably a few uh a few silly pounds yeah so yeah but i
just wasn't i wasn't your typical person that would go into the army but i i really enjoyed it i loved it i loved the
the challenge of it i love the fact that um i found the army quite simple in a way that you know what if
if you wanted to really do really well and excel in the army you just have to listen and apply yourself
and it really is that simple people talk about um there's a lot of
rubbish and stuff with the army the discipline and all that but once you gave her that and
just you know what you you told me to do this i'll i'll go do that and that's fine you can really excel and create
create opportunities wouldn't necessarily be available to you is that what you found for yourself yeah
yeah um all the way through um you you have
you have loads of choices really in the army so you can you can go just and just do day to day and
do that you have to do four years minimum but after that you've got loads of opportunities you want to go for promotion there's not really stopping
you you just gotta go on the courses put yourself forward on the courses and do really well and keep yourself fit and go
there if you wanted to go um well do anything really um the army
where i am now uh and the education i've got is through the army and my experiences
in the army um with without that i wouldn't have um have had the opportunity to become an
organizational psychologist so was it in the army that you did the whole organizational psychology
training no not it's because of the army so there was a
lot of incidents um in afghan and iraq that made me really ponder
this question and i didn't quite understand it was why do people follow you because they
want to not because they have to and notice when when we were going into
really difficult situations there was a very very big difference between people that um that were just doing what they
told and people that actually were were have felt the shared ownership and felt
that they were really part of something and they were um trying to help you and i really
wanted to know what that was so after some difficult tours i remember coming back and i was probably i think i was
about when i read my first proper book um that's quite my favorite yeah
yeah you could spell fudge with my gcses [Laughter]
so i i came back and i wanted to discover about leadership why is this and i
started reading some new generic books on leadership and then i then that got me to onto psychology so i um
started reading about cognitive psychology and taught myself around cognitive psychology and then i found
this whole fascinating area around occupational psychology or organizational psychology
but um and at this time uh i'd unfortunately um
being diagnosed with um complex ptsd so i was getting pretty much told that i
can't be a soldier anymore um which was which was actually devastating because imagine it's everything i'd even though
i originally joined for not real noble reasons it was just a place to go i
really found a purpose in the army and if you spoke to anyone i was going to be there for um until i was old and crusty and
couldn't walk anymore and if they've had to get rid of me that way but
because of that i had no education to go really do anything but had a great
passion so i i wrote to a load of universities or broke emailed nowadays
and asked and asked them that i've got their education i've got a real passion can i can i come and
can i come on your courses a lot of them said no um but a few of them gave me a chance
and um yeah and then eventually went through the interview process so i really found a connection with wolverhampton
university they're really supportive and they let me come on their masters course become a psychologist
which which i'm really grateful that they gave me the opportunity and you have not not looked back since
wow wow so years in the army were you did you go
in as as a as an officer no no um
what's that phrase no i i own my living or something like that isn't it yeah
yeah i work for a living and um yeah i went in as a private soldier and i left
just before i left i promote to start major so i worked my way up i've done in the years my intention was always to
go to regimental start major which is a top soldier rank and then commission to be an officer but now i very much joined
as um the soldier but i was fortunate enough to be selected to
um teach at the royal military academy sanders to train the officers we're one
of the only armies where the soldiers teach the officers to become officers
that's really intriguing why why do we do that i think i think it's the experience
um we have officers with us so every platoon would have a color sergeant or staff sergeant and then um a platoon
commander but really it's it's the experience that um the soldiers have
um the the leadership that they've been brought up um well from the days they brought up with the day that they join
the army leadership is very much the thing it's spoken about um it's embraced
that everyone is a an individual leader and then we build that leadership up so i think
it's it really is that greater context
that a soldier can give because you think by the time they're there they've done years
in the army that's my experience so is and again for those that don't know
sandhurst is the how would you describe sandhurst for someone that doesn't know what it is
sandhurst is the royal military academy it's the um the home place
the home of of our british army leadership and it's where all the potential
officers come to train um over a year um over a year
course to become junior officers in the british army it's it's one that's always pushing the
bounds of really discovering what leadership is and pushing the
or creating the future leaders of the british army so it's a very integral part to the army
yeah so teaching there must have been quite quite i don't know i you must have been quite proud i don't i don't know a better way
to describe it but it's you know i'm at sandhurst i'm proud of him at center kind of a deal oh yeah it's it it's huge and i don't
think it really sunk in uh when i was there until that moment where you're you're on the
square the parade square with the commission yeah i've been there yeah yeah yeah you could have you would have been with you uh brother nam
and it's just it's the next to troop another color it's the second biggest parade in the um that the
british army does and fantastic and you see in these uh young officer cadets that you brought in
from day one um and and really molded them in giving
them the confidence and the abilities to then go away to
lead these soldiers anywhere in the world
that's really interesting do you find and this there's a reason i'm asking this question it's not a loaded question
it's going to tie into what we're talking about who makes the best kind of leader is it
someone that comes in to send her say straight from uni or is it someone like yourself that's kind of works their way
up the ranks and then they want and going to go and get their commission so they start off as a soldier and then they go get their commission
which one do you see or maybe it's just too generic a question i don't know but is there a
pattern which says actually the best kind of leaders come from this
i think it's different type of of leader from there there's two
the two the same i think if you're looking at it you could you can go either route and have completely
different outcomes um but really it's it's i think it's the mindset that you go in
um on those and i think the the one distinguishing factor that helps someone is is a leader that can display humility
okay um and i think that's what makes a difference in that in that scenario where someone
who's willing to listen and understand and to have that humility to be aware of
their own strengths and limitations within the context they're they're operating because you know it's it's
different what context you are your your strengths and your limitations are going to change
i've always found that going through because i trained soldiers as well so i was at purb writer's instructor so i
trained soldiers become uh or young young boys and girls who become soldiers
and it's one thing's always took out is the ones that are um are willing to apply themselves and have the humility
to learn and listen that's really interesting so humility and these it's interesting these
characteristics have they've not changed have they over the years it's not like all the good leaders now the ones that
can write computer code or do i mean it's as as the world has changed the principles
have remained the same it's humility and a willingness to apply yourself i mean it's kind of like
yeah we i think in the um the world of leadership and stuff like we all get
ourselves muddled up around what is leadership and leaders born or made
and you can tie yourself in nuts because there's if you search like what is a
leader there's a million definitions don't think we're ever going to come to a a conclusion
but really it's not changed evolutionary from
um well you've got to look at premise of what a leader is really it's about someone that can to can get a group of
people or a team to to follow them to achieve a shared objective
um and all those things it's that when we talk about leadership it's that that emotional connection that human
connection it's about inspiring them it's about um um
about being very clear and um and being able to to get people to follow
to achieve the objective you go into and then we model it further with management and we're like oh well
you're a manager or a leader well no it's it's a balance because in leadership
um without the balance of management you've got really inspired people who are ready to
achieve things but they haven't got the resources or support um or tools to achieve what you want
them to do so yeah i think people get themselves overly caught up and
tied up and nuts around these things but i think it's about keeping it simple and in an organization i think it's very
being clear actually what do you define as a leader what type of leader what what what principles of leadership do
you really need to to to work in the context that you're operating in
that's really really powerful stuff um so a leader is someone that gets people or a team to follow them towards a
shared objective um which i think is and we should get into this whole topic
because i mean we're talking about strategy the whole time is you know marry up your business to a strategy so is that what you mean when you say
um you know when we talk about the importance of a business strategy let's get into that
so how how does that fit in with strategy what is a strategy it's probably a great question to start with
yeah this this is where it gets um people have got so if you look at traditional view of strategy what people
do and i have this argument very much today well discussion arguments
about about um strategy people people go beyond thinking it's
all about a vision and objectives and stuff like that but strategy is choices
okay and i think the the thing with um with leadership and
um all those people want there's a right or wrong answer
you're either right or wrong you're trying to duct it into two simple things but it's not um
strategy and leadership is all about choices and strategy um when we look at it is really about choices around what
what is it that you're trying to achieve what what really is it that you are
trying to win at and it strategy came from military and how we've done things and that really
came down to a choice a simple choice around where can we best position ourselves
in this fast open area that we've got available to us that would give us the
maximum competitive advantage to win now turn that into business day you're
not in in the military terms it's it's pretty much the same what what are we trying to
win out and what you normally find is that businesses are focused on oh well i've
done this last year so let's i don't know double that and that's what we're going to do this year
um which really isn't um maybe not the best strategy if you look at the rest of the market place that
they're they're in or um or the segment they're in and you think well they i don't know they made a quarter of
a million last year with x amount of sales um and that might sound good so looking at doubling it and doing uh
doing that the next year maybe sound like a good strategy but then you look at the rest of the industry and the
industry actually made i don't know million x amount of sales in what
they were doing so actually you think well your strategy really is is is to basically try and do a tenth of what the
potential of that market is so it's not really good so come to about what strategy is strategy
is a set of choices about what are you trying to win at where is best in this in this
marketplace especially with e-commerce e-commerce is is a vast growing industry
with relatively easy penetration into the market um
really relative that you don't need that much capital and resources
way you're only um i don't know you're only two guys in a in a garage away from disrupting the
place yeah so it's it's really about um
looking at where where is best for you to uh what are you trying to win at where where is best of for you to play out
and and really what can you do to to get maximum
competitive advantage so it's just absolutely yeah that's really interesting so strategy then is about choices and i
love the question and i've written it down what are we trying to win at um
so how do we if i take a step back how do we know
what we should try and win at then i mean if it's if it's not just a case of oh let's increase our turnover our
profit which is what everybody says and it's very i'll agree with you here mike it's dull it's boring it's not very
inspiring and the only person that ever cares about you doubling your turnover is the guy that said it in the first
place right and you can just see everybody's eyes as you know when you say we want double i turn over everyone
around the company their eyes just glaze over because it just becomes about numbers and making somebody maybe over
there slightly wealthier which is just not inspiring right so how do we how do we determine what what is a good thing
to win at if that makes sense um that's a good question and it's
it depends right it depends on what you want but really i i'm a big believer in
having that clear unambiguous purpose for the organization and i think that's the first stepping
stone into that having that clear purpose organizational purpose that really states um
what do you do and why does it matter because you organizations and companies
are created because there is a need and you have identified that need
and you have created your organization to fill that need to serve so it's about really understanding what
your purpose is um one and that's the first step in it and then um i'm a big advocate around
being uh having great foresight so once you understand your purpose you
start eliminating what you do do and also more importantly what you don't do
and that's a that's a good thing for about strategy because you should be very much as much as it's detailing
explicitly what you do or you what you want to do it should really indicate what you don't do so who aren't your
customers effectively um and then once you have that great foresight have
a look at the the industry and um what are those driving forces in
your contextual environment so we call it scenario planning so really looking forward to seeing what those key changes
those those weak signals that are happening um in your in your market
segmentation in the next i don't know anything from to maybe i would i wouldn't suggest going beyond
years because it comes a bit a bit crazy to be fair
anything over sort of days i think most ecommerce entrepreneurs are just like what well maybe months maybe
that's a little bit fairer but yeah it all depends really on your organization so we look at e-commerce
it's quite a volatile environment we'd call it so actually your foresight would be a bit narrower because what you want
to really build is agility so that really to to respond
to be able to re-learn reorganize um adapt um to the the shifts in your contextual
environment yeah so um but yeah so you probably have a shorter
outlook on life but is really thinking about where where are the opportunities there
and then also it's thinking about where are the gaps so traditionally people look at strategy
and it's quite competitive and you go do you know what and you probably see this in the e-commerce world
you've got a lot of duplication you've got a lot of people trying to go for the same thing yeah and
and that's what strategy used to be it used to be right force on force um you're doing that so i'm going to try
and do that faster and quicker than you um and then what we've learned is that just leads to
um the race to the bottom right the only way to compete would be to go
cheaper yeah so what we're saying is actually look at the um
the the the area that you want to play in and think about actually where
where is that unique difference differentiation that we could get value from
the the needs not being met and it's it's it's looking there and how can you
create value in that i think that's great
so what are you trying to win at uh i love that phrase be clear on your unambiguous purpose i don't know if you
trademark that phrase but you probably should because somebody somewhere listening to the show is going to go well that sounds like a great book title
i'm gonna write a book called an ambiguous purpose uh so i think it's a great phrase
so we understand strategies about choices what is it we want to win at being clear on our purpose i've made
some notes here great foresight what we do what we don't do understanding our marketplace finding
those gaps and it all sounds great but why do you think this is important why do you think
it's important to create this kind of strategy
i think it's important to look at where you can continue to add value that is is not going head-on-head
competition so you've got loads of options available to you you can um you can look at partnerships
in that sense that's the way you want to go to because you can create great value from
uh aligning two two businesses similar one to create new value but
it's if you look um the e-commerce worked i think where i looked last a while back is i think by
of purchases are going to be made online
wow well what and that's huge isn't it so the growth is massive so the the amount
of competition and people trying to get into that space is going to be huge and you've got your giants
and you've got your um your amazons you're not going to go you're not going to go and compete
against the likes of amazon they'll they'll swallow you up you're not going to get that
that capital that investment that innovation unless you do decide to partner up and you can share that risk capital
innovation you do that so i think it's it's about looking at what options
are there and it's not looking at going i can either go this one or that one
and basically suffer in a mediocre option of you know one's one's a pretty poor option and one
slightly better option is about asking those those really difficult questions
of the marketplace and really think about actually where what what do we want to
win at and i think that's key as well i keep saying win and people will roll their eyes when they say about win but
that's really what it is isn't it is about winning but it's because if you
roll your eyes at it you're probably in the wrong business to be fair yeah yeah and um and then it's it's it's really
looking and delving back in there and strategy should be fun um it should be an
iterative process you should be looking at it and thinking okay well let's let's look at this what what can
we do um what what could give us the maximum value what is the need um
in the in that market space that's not being met
and then thinking about okay if you've identified that and then looking at actually what would need to be true
um for us to meet that need and it might be that we just don't have the capability
um or the expertise or something to to meet that need so we go back and we ask
better questions yeah why not that's really interesting i
yeah i i i do love these conversations about strategy i we put out one of the
questions that we've been asked um and i'll throw this out to you is i'm thinking about the guy that's maybe
starting his e-commerce business up right so um you know it's sort of early doors
the question that came was do you need a business plan before you implement your strategy
do you have any thoughts on that no business plan comes
my opinion business plan comes afterwards and i think this is what um
what removes um the sort of creative thinking um around
when it comes to strategy because you want to go it with a fresh pair of eyes and and i'll never recommend trying
to do strategy on your own i'd get diverse people around you
to look at different angles and and really explore that and the business plan
really comes afterwards because what you eventually say you're essentially saying is right okay so i'm very clear on my
strategy i know exactly what i want to win at i know where i'm going to go the channels that i'm going to reach the
customer buy and how i'm going to reach them um and
then when you do you look at your knowing that information that's your future state
then you've got to be really self-aware which is another key thing for a leader and an organization is look at what's
your current state and that gap then becomes your business plan
and that's that that's the activity then those those even organization that's your change programs that's your
priorities to get yourself from your um current state to your future state because you know that that
future state will give you the competitive advantage um in that environment you operate
well okay now the um i'm just thinking you said that don't
don't create the strategy by yourself so if you're starting out in business or you're just a you know you're doing it
as a side hustle or you're by yourself does that mean strategies beyond your reach as a single person or
or how would you do that if you were by yourself as i know a lot of people are yeah
it's not your reach you can do it it's just that uh we're human right we're
finite um we we we look through things in our own little world and definitely when
you're an entrepreneur you've got the greatest idea in the world and you've got that comment i've
always got those mike i'm not going to lie the best ideas in the world yeah exactly and
but we've all got and we should have um especially in in being a leader we
should have that network around us those those good people those experienced people and don't be
afraid to um reach out and and get people involved in exploring um
exploring strategy with you to make sure that you you get it right and well i said get it right that you've
you've made the best choices how would you i mean what if you were by
yourself starting out then what kind of people would you look for or does that is that a a question that depends on
um you talked about being self-aware as a leader so do you look for do you go like i'm not great at this this and this
so i'm going to find someone that's got some ideas in these areas and get them to input on what i'm trying to do
or is it just a case of actually there's just three or four key people you need to go and connect with regardless of
whether i'm good at it or not yeah i think um
i ideally i'd look at uh people that are probably a bit more dif cognitive diverse to you
so people because the great thing around strategy is perception and friends we want frames so
everyone's got a different frame and how they look at things and what we don't want is a group of people with the same
frame look at the same problem because you're going to get the same answer so i i'll get those those people that
are a bit different to you um those um i think shell calls them those those beautiful people that
probably have got no experience in that organization that you're in that can can stand back and give that
really objective view so i think the more different frames you can have looking at problem and the
better you can articulate your questions looking in there i think
that would be a good a good start okay so uh very helpful i
so a strategy then what am i looking for at the end of this process in terms of is it is it like a one-page document i'm
trying to create is it like a -page novel i mean what's the german where am i what am i trying to create in this
process if i can put it ideally it's all about like i said it's all about choices i
mean being very clear where i see the strategy just is his
best intentions is when i see it it's it's over five plus five pages beyond i've seen
strategy documents that are like pages long you're like come on all right and i've seen i've seen those
and i've never read them yeah yeah and that's the that's the problem that causes great friction that doesn't happen um and i've
seen strategy with things like um we're going to be we're going to treat our customers
really well well cheers for stating the obvious yeah i mean so ideally you you want a
page no more than five pages because no one's going to read that more a page of of clearly
just simple clear um of those things like what is
what are you going after how are you going after it
and where are you going to go to go after it i think those those really key things
you've got to look at what what what the capabilities that we need to be able to do that
yeah let me write that down so what are you going after how are you going to get it and what was
the third one what's the route you're going to take to get there yeah or yeah where you're going to go to
together so basically you you imagine our um our marketplace the e-commerce is is
vast isn't it it's like a vast plane um but then within there they've got loads of different segmentations that you can
have so it's about in that vast place what area are you going to
to go to and and and really break it down into there because otherwise you're you're trying
to do too much you're trying to appease too many people yeah and it's about really who are your
customers um and who are not your customers so how do you how do you go about
communicating this strategy because i mean if i go back to what you said at the start right so a leader is someone that has a team follow them
towards a shared objective um how do you do that how do you get people inspired
to with your strategy how do you communicate it in a way that enables people to follow you
yeah yeah great point and that that is um really key and where you see a lot of
friction happening is because the the the direction towards the strategy is so ambiguous
it creates diversions so when divergence exists that's when people start opening up their own
wills and agenda and start following their own thing so i think the the key
to it is to keep it um i say keep it simple not not not simple
in the sense that you're trying to dumb down something very complex but be very clear in what you're what you're
saying and one once you can be very clear and
ambiguous about what you're trying to do in those those questions um i always think it's really good
to get back their understanding their interpretation of actually what
you're asking them to do and it's allowing them to understand
their choices in that so as we go down the organization we're
not going through this really long list of to do's and not to do's
it's it's been very clear about what we're trying to achieve as a whole and then um making that very clear
allowing them to read back their understanding interpretations so we minimize that mis
information transfer and then leaving it to them to understand about their choices this
presents them so if you think about your you've got your
winning aspiration which is to i don't know to be um the
number one in um gotten problem as well trying to think
of a winning aspiration for the the e-commerce world but you know it could be the fact that you know you want to be
the num number one uh in e-commerce market for um
baby goods or something i don't know um and actually your
your is going to be around agility customer agility understanding the needs and
understanding anticipating the needs of your customer then if you go down to the customer service you don't have to go
into detail and show them exactly what they've got to do or how they're going to do it you just communicate very clear
and think what we're trying to win at the the the the where we're going to play out um
how we're going to do it how we're going to reach people and then allow the choices for them so they get to their part and
they're going okay so if that's what their intent is for us how can we make that true
i think that's is keeping it very simple so you're talking there about um
uh autonomy aren't you that the way you're the way i'm hearing what you're saying mike is actually you create a strategy
that people understand it's clear it's compelling but it allows the leaders in your
organization which at this point in time may only be you but you know let's assume your business is going to grow
um it's going to allow those to be autonomous in that area in achieving
that objective yeah in a true sense i think um
i think autonomy or what we call it the army mission command is probably one of the most unders
most overused words but most misunderstood yeah
because they're going i always go into an organization they go well mike our people are empowered mike because
they are i've told them they're empowered it's and i'm like all right okay um but
to be truly empowered there's this there's really three main things need to be true
that one is uh the first one is to have clear understanding of your um the
organization's intent or strategy so and what part you play in it
so you must understand what your organization is trying to achieve and what part you play into that
the other part is your constraints so god love it everyone has constraints
um even the ceo of of audi has constraints
and it's understanding your constraints gives you your freedoms and then the third element is competence
in your role you are competent in in that role to do it so
if something is to happen and to change and you've got a shift in what's happened something's gone
horribly wrong by understanding the intent and your part to play in it and then
understanding your constraints you know what you can do to
adapt in line with what the organization's trying to achieve
wow that's really good so yeah and i love the phrase mission what did you call it missional command
mission command mission command yeah that's much better than autonomy yeah i like it
very british army we have mission command we have mission command um so
so on a practical basis right on a practical day-to-day basis what do you do with your strategy you've got your
document you've got you know as your organization's grown people have got the mission command
um how practically on a day-to-day basis are you managing this strategy
so it should start so if you do it properly when you you start the thing where you
have that full site like we talked about you really understand the contextual environment and the transaction
environment you're coming in you then understand the um the strategy so you you've clearly identified
um like you said what you're going to win at um where you're going to do it etcetera all that stuff to form that
strategy really in the part of doing that and this is different so it could be a large
organization or you could be a very small team it's that process starts that conversation
because you've involved people in that you they you started that conversation you start to create that shared
consciousness around what the organization's trying to achieve so it should be something that should be an
ongoing conversation strategy forms what we call the decision making
framework because like i said you you're only presenting the choices
so as things change as things come up you should be using your strategy as a
framework to make choices and decisions so it should be practically there
on a day-to-day conversational basis around that but organizationally this strategy should be
aligned to the organization or the organization should be aligned to the strategy
we call that strategic alignment uh and it's very important for any organization no matter what industry
size sector whatever to make sure they're streaming aligned to to ensure that you can
um best be competitive in the strategies that you've made and so we look at
it starts off with purpose our strategy so what we're trying to win at our core capabilities so what what
actually do we need to be good at to win that could be innovation it could be
cost minimization logistics it could be anything that that you need to be good at to win then we then look at your
architecture so your your uh culture and this is the the old argument you've
probably heard strategy eats um culturally strategy for breakfast yeah
hello rubbish [Laughter] that's really interesting why do you say
it's a load of rubbish because they should be mutually supporting so there's no point in having a culture
that is really um curative and um you know quite free and open and
you know you got really autonomous when actually your strategy is about efficiency
is all about um you know look at mcdonald's they're all about efficiency last thing you want is the guy on the
burger um station to start thinking do you know what i think i can do this a lot better
actually i'm going to move that over there because that's and it's right and we should open no matter what what industry
you're in you should have that that a place where employee can suggest and do
that but this whole thing with efficiency is that do you know no matter what mcdonald's you go in in the world is exactly the
same isn't it i didn't get any other experience and you do exact same experience i get the same burger as you
that's the same if you're looking at google or amazon or something like that
there's no point in um for them having their strategy around
partnerships and creativity and innovation to then have a culture
which is all about hierarchy it's all about discipline it's all about efficiency
they won't match so they have to be mutually supportive so the culture has to be designed to
best enable you to achieve your strategy yeah not the other way around
well okay so um you talked about then obviously knowing you know your uh what it is that
you want to win at you talked about knowing your core capabilities you talked about um you know the architecture and uh what
you called culture is there anything else that we need to think about on your on your list yes under architecture you still got
leadership um structure and sort of processes how you about your work and then the final one
is your management systems so your your it management systems your
performance management systems how you finance um all those things
have to be aligned they have to mutually support and it's it's it's a thing about going
back and checking those to make sure that you're not getting a misalignment so what what you tend to find
um this has caught a lot of people out especially if you're an entrepreneur and you've you've hit on a
fantastic idea and you grow quite quickly and that's what happens to a lot of people especially in this marketplace
they grow quite quickly but then they they focus on the outcome
and forget about the component parts of their business and that creates misalignment which
creates risk in their organization look at people like uh recently in the
news quite popular brewdog tesla
all those have come foul because they've grown quite quickly they've not looked at the rest of the
components of the business to make sure that that's also changed to reflect what
their their strategic position is so they got caught out with culture because their culture was very much of a
start-up all hands on deck everyone just does everything and you know it's it's fast it's furious and done that and then
as they've grown they've not looked it and it's turned quite toxic and there's been
bullying because they've not done it and you always find that organizations struggle because
they will look at all these elements of the business in isolation to the detriment of
the rest where it should be really what is our purpose what are we trying to win at and then looking at the
rest of the organization to make sure that's aligned to help them fulfill their strategy
wow mate there's a lot there i and i i'm kind of thinking if i'm
listening to this and it's the first time i've sort of got involved in this whole idea and thinking behind strategy
um [Music] i mean all the buzzwords aside like autonomy and strategic alignment and all
that sort of stuff there's a there's an there's an awful lot of common sense isn't there in this whole thing
yes and and that's the that's the thing that normally i feel
like a fraud sometimes because i'm going in and talking to these people and helping organizations
and i've helped um organizations from the nhs to to their rail to
smaller enterprises um and and sometimes i feel like they're looking at me going
yeah that's obvious mike um
but when but it's amazing how obvious it is but it's
very rarely um happens is we get so
um focused in on on the short terms and the bau
that we we take our eye off um i i love the phrase from
the great general mcchrystal which is um izon hands off
and i think that's it it's about it's about stepping back from the fog and in the vau and then now and yes it's
what do you mean when you say bau oh sorry uh business as usual type things yeah
yeah so delivering yeah being in the business yeah and i think it's about um stepping back from the fog
and and taking that wider perspective and there's a really um a really posh word it's called
organizational and backs dexterity
mate you get an award for being able to say that i have no idea but all that means is keeping um
one eye on the now that you're doing but also being able to keep one eye on the future
how you keep that eye so you're not um you're keeping that strategic sensitivity to the the changes in the um
environment you're operating basically so that you always um
ready to respond rather than react yeah
that's really great one of the questions that we've got here is um what are the main things that cause friction right and so you talked
about earlier on um diversion creates fiction i mean where people but i'm sort of listening to you talk
and think are there any other areas then that create fiction and part of the part of
my thinking here is um part of my question mike is um
how do you know if your strategy is right and can you get friction in effect
can friction come from having the wrong strategy you're going down the wrong path and how do you recognize that and
know that that's that's a uh that's a
big question there to to think about um and
i i think the first thing is it really isn't a
a right or wrong and it's a course or it's might because i'm not i'm not um
getting money back and i suppose it's you about strat is about taking that time to
look at the choices and think about where to go and i think it's um really you'll get that feedback if it's
starting to not be the right strategy because you will um ideally not not gain
the customers that you wanted that you set out to do you're not getting that um
you're not meeting that need that you identified so that's where you probably realize that that your either your
strategy is wrong or um or you've not quite got the right strategy there or
you haven't got the capability to meet it yeah and you said earlier on didn't you that strategy actually was iterative
and so it's not set in stone this is not like moses putting the ten commandments in stone is it this is
this is actually a five-page document which can adapt and it can move and it's alive and it's i suppose it's responding to what's
going on but at the same time it's also firm and it's it's not immovable but it's it's fairly
stubborn i would have thought strategy yeah again it's it's been very clear on that
first thing isn't it about what once you've identified actually what you're going for um
and it's very clear and that's what you you want and need in your organization
the rest of it is around what you see is the best choice at that time
and things can change in your your environment you you're operating in
so that makes you more adaptable people um and that's what you want to do you
want to adapt to to meet those changing shifts so that you can meet your your intention your aim of what you want to
win at people tie themselves in nuts and make themself um
so um not not adaptable by making it so
rigid in what they're doing they're like no we've got to do this and then this and then this and they just tied himself
up in so much priorities and and
um and to do to-do lists and all sorts that
they lose sight of what they're trying to achieve and i think that's what that's an
element that causes friction is when people lose sight of what they're actually trying to achieve who who
who are actually our customers who are not our customers and they then get themselves down into
this rabbit hole where they're trying to do everything and appease everyone
and you lose um sight um and that's what i love about the
the army taking some of the stuff from the army is our number one principles of war is selection and maintenance of that
aim and it's about understanding that as our aim that is our north star
how we get there will depend on on on the shifts that we encounter
yeah mate listen i feel like we could keep going but i'm aware of time on all of
this uh are there any books that you would recommend people read um around this
whole topic if they want to deep dive um yes i think um a great one
uh to look at top of my head is um playing to win
by strategy so roger martin i think he's
fantastic person he makes um strategy very simple yeah
i often uh people look at me and think you make it sound too simple i just ask these choices and that's it
where's all the the work afterwards but i think uh playing to win is a fantastic book to to to read
um i think looking at um i think this is on my head now um
if it is talk about um um
like scenario planning and stuff like that there's there's always good books i'm just trying i'm looking at my uh
you're looking at your bookshelf now are you trying to get some inspiration yeah yeah um i think if you're looking at anything to
do with teamwork i look at anything by john katzenbach yeah
from him um if you're looking at um or or tat and bombs a good one so
teams that work um tom barm and salas i think you're looking at strategy maybe a
line by jonathan trevor um a really good good good one to look
at as loads i i my girlfriend thinks i've got an obsession with books
do you know what i've discovered recently i've discovered an app i was just checking actually to see if the book was on it there's an app called
short form uh which i i have on my phone and um
it's it's a bit like blinkist it gives you an overview of a book um like a one-page overview and then it goes into
a much more detailed summary of the book like several pages of detail and i read
that before i decide if i'm now gonna get the book because like you i've got thousands of them and i tend to buy
books sometimes and there's books on my shelf i'm sure i've never actually read that i was full of good intentions when
i bought it but i've not actually read it now but no it's good to read mike listen thanks for
your book recommendations and thanks for being on the show um really honestly fascinating conversation very different
to the conversation we normally have on the e-commerce podcast but i absolutely enjoyed it how do um people
get a hold of you how do they connect with you if they want to know more if they want to reach out i think which i can get me on um email
so mike lbiconsulting.com or get me on linkedin i'm um
i try to be very active on linkedin um i love to put my ramblings on there so
please come along and leave you like my rambling so if you search for mike jones and that's
quite a common name so maybe mike h jones you'll see me um on there you'll
see my picture which is the same as the one that you showed in your deduction so if you see something with desperate
down jaw line um um
yeah or you follow my company page on linkedin so i'm mainly on linkedin um
which is lbi consulting you find us on there fantastic we will of course put all the
links to uh mike's linkedin profile is desperate down jawline
and um and all of that good stuff in the show notes which you can get uh you can get
the show notes the transcript to download uh on the website as well so we'll put all of that in there mike listen
as i said thoroughly enjoyed this i feel like i'm just starting to scratch the surface of some quite fascinating stuff
i love to talk about leadership i love to talk about strategy it's you can never in my head talk about it
enough uh and so really appreciate you coming on to talk to us about it and genuinely really appreciate your service
in the army as well but really really thanks thank you that's been a pleasure ma i've
enjoyed the conversation awesome absolute legend thanks for being on the show uh i'm gonna
sort out my mouth sorry about that uh but thank you well we definitely will get you back soon uh but in the meantime
uh stay safe appreciate it but thank you take care
wasn't mike great now i i genuinely love talking to people that
served in the military because they have such an insight um we were talking earlier on before we came live about
leadership and we got into a whole separate conversation about leadership and why for example the army is so good
at leadership but other public organizations maybe like the nhs aren't and today invest in
leadership as much as the army doing why don't they and the differences in understanding there because mike's work with both organizations absolutely
fascinating so i kind of get the feeling mike will be back on the show as we carry on talking about this i love
talking about it i appreciate if you're just starting out in business you may be thinking about what's all this talk about leadership what's all this talk
about strategy i'm just starting out listen the principles still work uh and when you start out
you you know you've got to start somewhere everyone starts at the beginning don't they and you you kind of you've got to work your way up the
ladder as it were and these principles help and they work so do uh do connect with mike do get in
touch with him i'm sure he'll be happy to answer any questions that you've got go and enjoy his ramblings on linkedin
such top guy and one that served our country for years so really
appreciate that now as i said all of the notes all of the trend the transcript from today's show
the notes the links all of those kind of things you'll be able to get from our website ecommercepodcast.net forward slash
and you'll be able to download those totally free of charge you don't need to put any email in or any of that kind of job or nonsense
you can just enjoy those for free now if you enjoyed today's show why
don't you share it out why don't you just uh comment why don't you uh let us know how you get on really appreciate
your thoughts and ideas uh it just helps us connect with more folks around the world uh so i think that's it that's it
for me thanks for listening to the show make sure you come back next week next week actually uh i'm the live stream or the live
recording of this show is going out on monday because i couldn't do it last week so the next live stream is actually
on thursday uh in a few days time so we've got another great guest on to coming on to the show so make sure you
connect with us so you can find out what's going on subscribe to the podcast all the usual call to action stuff that
i'm supposed to tell you at the end of these podcasts i'm sure you know it all by heart i'm sure you've heard it all a
thousand times already but you know what to do that's all from me thanks for being part of the show i will see you again next
time bye for now
you've been listening to the ecommerce podcast with matt edmondson join us next time for more interviews
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