me d ia b i t e s

Business reconsidered
Changing people and growth strategies
By Robert Colman and Patrick Buckley, CMA

Blue Ocean Strategy

Competition is fierce in most industries right now. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to By W. Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne. Published by Harvard Business School Press. For create uncontested market space and make more information visit www.HBSPress.org. the competition irrelevant , a new book from Harvard Business School Press, suggests that, instead of competing for a Behavioural profiling is a useful aid for share in a shrinking profit pool of overdescribing kinds of people as shown in crowded industries, strategically agile popular books like Roberta Cavas companies have to create blue oceans Dealing With Difficult People . Art Horn of uncontested market space through what the authors call defines behavioural profiles of six types of value innovation. business people who have hidden fears in Through the book, the authors explain that innovation must his book Face It: Recognizing and conquer expand a company beyond the current confines of its industry. ing the hidden fear that drives all conflict at Rather than fighting for market share, companies have to crew o r k . These personality types are worrier, ate new market space. For instance, Cirque du Soleil redefined controller, fake, attention-seeker, victim, the concept of the circus as a combination of circus and theatre. and prisoner. This book includes examInstead of competing with standard circuses head-on, it created ples of individuals of each business type who the author helped a completely new market instead. break out of endless loops of behaviour that were driven by Although such a move, performed once, can create a valuable anxiety and fear and were causing unnecessary conflict. The examples are excerpts from case studies that the author recorded in his work as an executive coach in Toronto. The single quality that leaders universally Horns method of coaching includes helping people trace their fears back to their childhood origins and experiencing these identify as critical to their success is their fears again. Though not all would agree that such therapy is necability to work with people. In his newest essary, there is a valid argument that suggests business people can book, Winning With People: Discover the be inhibited by hidden fears. Face Itrecommends actions for people principles that work for you every overcoming such problems. For example, a victim makes up too time, John C. Maxwell translates his many many excuses for calamities rather than working on preventing years of business experience into 25 people them. Horn recommends that victims choose to completely own principles every leader needs. These their present challenges. The worrier experiences fear when proprinciples grow from five key questions: jecting current problems into the future. Horn recommends that G Readiness: Are we prepared for relationships? worriers focus on issues that they can address. G Connection: Are we willing to focus on others? The author integrates his methods for overcoming fears into G Trust: Can we build mutual trust? a transcendent model of personality management that recogG Investment: Are we willing to invest in others? nizes two levels of thinking: the object-level thoughts about G Synergy: Can we create a win-win relationship? the facts of the world; and the meta-level opinions about the The author believes that some people are born with these object level. A primary objective of transcendent coaching is great relationship skills, but most need help to develop them to learning to control the meta-level by finding an individuals their fullest. trigger-response patterns to hidden fears.

niche for awhile, that market space, too, will be invaded, so a blue ocean strategy requires that a company continually search for new ways to break away from the crowd.

Face It

Winning With People

By John C. Maxwell. Published by Nelson Business. For more information visit www.thomasnelson.com.

By Art Horn. Published by AMACOM. For more information visit www.amanet.org/books/. Face IT reviewed by Patrick Buckley, CMA, PhD. Patrick is a systems analyst based in Ottawa.

C M A MA NA G E ME NT

March 2005