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    My Strategic View
    My Strategic View
    My Strategic View
    Ebook176 pages2 hours

    My Strategic View

    By Mary Mahoney

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    About this ebook

    My Strategic View offers insights into establishing a business vision, strategic plan, and how to execute that plan effectively. Through success stories, Mary Mahoney explains how to develop a clear vision and strategy--essential elements to business success and profitability.

    100% of book sale income will be donated to the Orlando Health Fund to help women and their families in central Florida.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMary Mahoney
    Release dateJun 18, 2013
    ISBN9781301715664
    My Strategic View
    Author

    Mary Mahoney

    Mary Mahoney is a dynamic, results-oriented executive, recognized as one of the most respected, innovative leaders across multiple industries. With over twenty years of senior executive experience, her career achievements are hallmarked by building strong corporate and executive board relationships, delivering consistent, high quality services and products, improving customer services and retention rates, and building a team of professionals dedicated to delivering measurable results. She has demonstrated visionary and effective leadership, resulting in increased profitability, quality growth and operational excellence.Prior business management experience includes: President, CEO and General Manager, of RCI North America- Wyndham Worldwide; Executive Vice President of Hospitality and Resort Operations – Wyndham Worldwide; and President and CEO - Howard Johnson International.Mary is the Principal and Managing Partner at J. Robinson Group, a business consulting firm that specializes in leading businesses from vision and strategy, through the execution of complex business challenges including brand management, image enhancement, marketing, product development, pricing, and market research.

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      Book preview

      My Strategic View - Mary Mahoney

      Preface

      This book would not have been possible without the help and advice from some wonderful people I know.

      I must thank my dear friend and colleague, Susan Beversluis, who provided the inspiration for writing this book. Susan and I spent countless hours together writing proposals, developing market research studies and talking about girl-power and brand, brand, brand. I will always treasure our friendship.

      It's been a pleasure to work with my writing partner, Rich Roberts and his talented team of writers. From developing story ideas and blogs to creative design and presentations, Rich has always been there for me. I appreciate him so much.

      I thank many of my clients for sharing their deepest fears and concerns about business, leadership, competition, marketing and innovation. Those stories were what compelled me to finish this book and share it with all of you.

      Finally, this book is dedicated to my dear husband, John Robinson. This journey would never have been possible without his humor, love and support. May we always love each other until the end.

      *****

      Introduction

      My firm, J. Robinson Group, was formed to help businesses grow, prosper and develop more meaningful relationships within their local communities. We prove our abilities every day to our clients. However, I know there are many other companies that could benefit from our philosophies and methodologies.

      That’s the motivation for this book, which is the collection of my online blog posts from 2010 to 2013. When I began the blogs, my goal was to provide another voice for J. Robinson Group and bring our philosophies and methodologies to a larger audience on a regular basis. I call the blog My Strategic View because I strongly believe that a clear vision and strategy are essential elements to business success – and profitability!

      Client relationships are founded on trust and confidence. I would like to share with you my background, just as I would with any client.

      I founded J. Robinson Group in 2007 after two decades with a Fortune 100 corporation, Wyndham Worldwide (NYSE: WYN). The company’s portfolio included hospitality brands Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Worldmark by Wyndham, Wingate by Wyndham, Ramada Worldwide, Days Inn, Howard Johnson, Super 8 and Travelodge. My last corporate position was president and CEO of RCI North America, a Wyndham Worldwide business unit.

      Earlier in my career with Wyndham Worldwide and its predecessor, Cendant Corporation, I was executive vice president of Hospitality and Resort Operations for Wyndham Vacation Ownership, president and CEO of Howard Johnson International, director of market development and director of marketing & international Sales for Days Inns of America.

      During those years I was honored as one of The Top 75 Executives in Hospitality by Lodging magazine, One of the Most Powerful Women in Travel by Travel Agent magazine and one of the Next Generation of Hot New Marketers by Brandweek magazine.

      My career also afforded me the opportunity to engage in corporate philanthropy, notably America’s Promise, an initiative championed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell. I was invited to the White House to be recognized by President George H.W. Bush for Howard Johnson’s youth mentoring programs in support of America’s Promise.

      If I were to sum up my accomplishments, I would say that I succeeded in building strong corporate and executive board relationships, delivering consistent, high-quality services and products, improving customer services and retention rates and building a team of professionals who achieved profitability, growth and operational excellence.

      Now that you know something about me, let me tell you more about J. Robinson Group. As specialists in management, marketing and social media, we focus on our clients’ brands, operating culture and capacity to change. Before we provide any advice, we work to gain a thorough understanding of our clients and their business challenges.

      Our methodology leads to honest, actionable and straightforward recommendations that are designed to help take our clients from where they are today to where they can be tomorrow. Our unique portfolio of clients includes health-care organizations, nonprofits, small businesses, start-ups, hospitality providers, travel specialists and educators.

      In this book, I share success stories and explain the importance of establishing a business vision, strategic plan and executing that plan effectively. If you like what you read, I hope that you recommend this book to your friends, coworkers and industry colleagues, both directly and through the social media.

      Please visit our website at www.jrobinsongroup.com to learn more about us.

      *****

      Chapter 1: Who Needs a Vision?

      "Who needs a vision statement? That’s for big companies with time and money to waste. I don’t need one."

      I hear that all the time, especially from smaller companies and entrepreneurs who would rather just keep cranking. The problem is, it’s impossible to develop a meaningful business plan – even for the short term – without a vision. It would be like embarking on a road trip without first picking a destination.

      An accurate, meaningful vision statement is the foundation upon which a company’s mission statement and strategic plan are built. Those elements keep everyone in an organization focused on their common purpose. Conversely, failure to develop a vision, mission and plan is a frequent reason why businesses fail.

      My thinking on this topic is inspired by the teachings of Peter F. Drucker (The Man Who Invented Management) and David P. Norton and Robert S. Kaplan, authors of The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action.

      Drucker helped industries think differently and position themselves for the future based on his vision of shifting technologies, the digital information revolution and man’s need to improve his habitat.

      Simply put, vision is an understanding of who you are and where you want to go. A vision statement helps define and communicate a company’s direction and future.

      It has been said that management is doing things right and leadership is doing the right things. In that context, a vision statement defines the right things for a company to spend its time doing.

      Before I discuss key elements for a company vision, I’d like to share a personal story that illustrates how I developed a vision for becoming a consultant and creating my own company, J. Robinson Group.

      When I left corporate America four years ago, I took a yearlong sabbatical to reorient myself before making my next career move. I spent a lot of time reflecting on who I am, what I have to offer and where I want to go in life. It was a very rewarding journey, one that I was privileged to take thanks to my husband’s patience and support.

      As I looked back on my professional life, I considered those roles and responsibilities that enabled me to make the most impact, engendered the most appreciation, tapped my passions and ignited a fire in the belly feeling that I always found so rewarding and satisfying.

      Distilling all those experiences, I realized that I was happiest and most fulfilled when I could freely apply my business knowledge and creativity to solve complex problems, particularly those related to strategy and brand management. This is the essence of why I became a consultant and established my own company.

      The process of reflection also helped me formulate the following vision statement for my company:

      J. Robinson Group will become the resource of choice for companies that need help directing their efforts to capitalize on future growth and prosperity. We will be known for our unique ability to focus deeply on a company’s brand, operating culture and capacity for change to generate desired results.

      As a business consultant, I now help other people and their companies go through this process of reflection and create a vision statement as the first step in developing their strategic business plans. Here are key points that I keep in mind when writing a vision statement. A company vision should:

      1. Be aspirational and inspire high performance by employees.

      2. Paint a picture of the future and the role that the organization and its people will play.

      3. Set the organization in motion.

      4. Define mid- to long-term goals.

      5. Describe how an organization wants to be perceived by the world.

      6. Help customers, shareholders and employees understand what the company is all about and what it intends to achieve.

      7. Represent a view for what the company can become.

      When defining your vision, stay away from quantifiable statements and focus more on developing statements that are engaging and meaningful in totality.

      As I said, establishing a vision statement is the first step to creating a strategic business plan. Vision alone is too vague to guide day-to-day operations and resource allocations. That’s when strategy and tactics come into play. A vision can only become operational when the company defines a strategy for how the vision will be achieved.

      *****

      Chapter 2: Mission Statements Don’t Get No Respect

      To borrow the words of the late Rodney Dangerfield, mission statements don’t get no respect. It seems that even the very people who once advocated them now love to despise them.

      Listen to what business guru Tom Peters now says about mission statements:

      "Like all good things, the idea has been attenuated beyond recognition. A Tepid Top Team goes ‘offsite’ to somewhere warm in February, produces six insipid statements that differentiate them/the company from no one.

      They have no clue as to what it really means to live up to these statements, assuming they were serious in the first place and not just following the herd. Then they return home, have their gin-soaked ‘gem’ immortalized in plastic and hand it out ceremoniously to 20,000 of the Unwashed as Holy Writ.

      A little harsh? Maybe, but his contemporary Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, shares the wrath:

      "Many companies have dreary mission statements that are nothing more than a bland description of the company’s operations – a boring stream of words that evokes the response, ‘True, but who cares?’

      The statements smack of corporate doublespeak and are incapable of tapping people’s spirit.

      He cites the following example of a dead fish mission statement:

      The corporation is committed to providing innovative engineering solutions to specialized problems where technology and close attention to customer service can differentiate it from job-shop or commodity of production operations.

      How is it that something so vitally important to any size business, so integral to the development of a strategic business plan is handled so poorly by so many companies?

      Stephen Covey, in his very first book, First Things First, offers an explanation. He believes that mission statements often are not taken seriously in organizations because they are developed by top executives who never bother to get the buy-in of their employees.

      So, it’s not that these experts hate the idea of mission statements; they just hate the way this good idea has been executed – poorly – and they love to chide the pompous, self-important executives who have hijacked a good business concept as window-dressing.

      The fact is, mission statements are as fundamental to a strategic business plan as a concrete block foundation is to the integrity of any structure. They serve to define the organization’s purpose. Without a purpose, companies – like people – get lost.

      Collins describes an effective mission statement as a clear and compelling goal that focuses people’s efforts. It is tangible, specific, crisp, clear and engaging. It reaches out and grabs people in the gut.

      As an example, he cites President John F.

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