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Sometimes one has to make compromises without letting others know. Parents often do this for their children or a spouse for their significant other. Such undetected compromises keep the family unit tighter and there is a quiet personal reward for making sacrifices for the betterment of a team. It can be very gratifying.

Often times, however, we make sacrifices for others and don’t ever let them forget about it. That’s keeping score with an expectation of a return someday. I have to say Asian parents are good at this, leveraging guilt to drive their children.

In the work place, a successful leadership team really makes all decisions based on the TEAM GOALS. An effective leader will compromise without expectations because it is the best thing for the team. Such a leader usually is part of a successful and highly functional organization.

In such an environment, those who are not fully aligned with the TEAM GOALS and who obviously has an ego that supersedes those goals is called out and held accountable. It’s a bold group of leaders who are willing to eradicate ”artificial harmony” or “false congeniality” among themselves and strive toward selfless leadership.

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time” quote from Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.

Then, why do so many corporate leaders not focus more on getting a team to collectively row in the same direction? It’s because this is inexplicably more difficult than it sounds. And businesses tend to value tangible “domain expertise” such as engineering, scientific, marketing skills more than true leadership skills.

The most effective people are those who can get others to want to do what they (effective people) had in mind in the first place. They are able organize and motivate others toward a specific vision and goal. These leaders can move organizations to unexpected heights. Work to be one of these highly effective leaders.

 

Last week, I was privileged to be a part of the SDL Innovate conference in Santa Clara. This was a significant event for me as the new CEO of SDL Social Intelligece Division. We got to address key SDL clients, partners and the internal SDL team.

For those who have not been part of an acquisition, what often look like obvious synergies on paper often get stalled at point of execution (change management, integrating sales efforts, ambiguity, blending of different cultures, etc.). So, there is still substantial challenge before us.

At the event, however, no one questioned the rationale behind adding social media intelligence to the SDL suite of offerings. It fits perfectly into the overall vision of offering intimate customer experience in the most relevant way – in the local language, where and when customers want it.

SDL has the language, web, content — and now social and campaign analytics capabilities to out-deliver the competition on this vision.

Encouraging for me was the excitement by the attending customers, partners and SDL people over our social intelligence solutions. We were able to show our flexible platform around SM2 and gave examples of all the great insights that can be mined. We also showed how our platform is leveraging social data and its inherent predictive nature to provide near-real time insights into product launches. The standing room crowd was very engaged in learning about our solution.

In the coming weeks, we will be sending out more information on our solutions with a new clear road-map as we integrate with SDL’s world class language auto translation and web content management systems. The momentum has clearly started. More to come soon.

In the fast pace world of digital marketing, changing with the times may not be enough. The target needs to be well beyond where the market leaders are today, but where the market is going tomorrow. Use the competitor’s investment in addressing today’s standard against them and aim for some target that leapfrog today’s innovations.

Too often, I hear various sales teams who want their product to catch up with the leaders in features and functionalities. The “me too” strategy of playing catch up with competitors is a difficult one unless you have more resources than anyone else.

If you can think ahead of how the market is being viewed today, and invest in strategies that address future demand and value, you can outflank your competitors with modest resources. In the world of social media intelligence, this is truly validating the social data set to give insight and foresight in compelling ways. Social Intelligence is just getting going. The value it can provide is far beyond today’s monitoring and listening platforms.

I’m excited to be sharing my views in this regard at SDL Innovate 2012 next week.

Elephants in Your Life

Why are there so many elephants in your room? How come you are ignoring them when they are taking up so much space? Look around your life. You are being suffocated.

First acknowledge that the elepants are there, that they are affecting you and everyone else around you. Then, get rid of those elephants from your room. The thing is, everyone else sees them in your life as well. The only person you are fooling is yourself.

Stretch, enjoy the space around you. That’s the only way you can grow.

On Monday, the SDL acquisition of Alterian was officially announced. I will remain the head of the Social Intelligence Division for SDL, helping to roll out our solutions globally.

This is an exciting time because of the tremendous assets that SDL has within its family.

At Alterian Social, we’ve evolved our Social Media solutions beyond just social monitoring and listening to encompass analytics and insights. We’ve been on the leading edge of social monitoring and engagement by integrating social insights to answer critical business questions for our customers. We’ve validated the inherent advantages of the social data set – its authenticity, near real-time access, its predictive nature, its scalability and much more.

Now, we can integrate further with SDL’s world-class language translation capabilities with our social media solutions. We can now offer better insights and intelligence globally across cultures and languages. In addition, we will now be able to provide a Social Intelligence Framework that will allow analysis of social, campaign management, email and other data sets in one business intelligence environment. Eventually, I can see that within this environment the opportunity to truly link customer information from these different data sets to offer better customer experience to consumers.

SDL wants  to provide relevant content when and where people want them. Social Intelligence obviously fits well into that.

At new beginnings, we are all allowed to dream. But certain beginnings allow for bigger dreams. My dream is to be a disruptive force in traditional markets (i.e. BI, Market Research), and we’re better armed now than ever to make that a reality.

We’ve all been told to make the most of each day. Many think that this means we have to do something special each and every day. That is not sustainable. Some really “enthusiastic-about-life” people burn out quickly trying to make each day an adrenalin rush.

Most successful and well-adjusted people understand how to progress each day toward one’s overall life goals or “calling” – and they know how to enjoy the journey. This doesn’t mean doing something spectacular each day, but rather being able to appreciate that the small steps are critical parts to making impact on one’s personal life or the workplace.

For example, a Sunday afternoon nap that completely rejuvenates me can be a big step for a productive week ahead. Therefore, that nap should be enjoyed and appreciated, rather than being considered an unproductive guilty pleasure. Playing cards with a grandmother for hours is core to building one’s character and gaining insight on life, and not a waste of time.

You can make the most of each and everyday. It is sustainable with the right perspective and clear overarching goals for your life.

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