Posts Tagged ‘change’

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The Prevailing Point of View

By Jim Whitt A friend sent me an article entitled In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers* in which the authors write about provocation-based selling. Being a professional provoker, I found the principles described in provocation-based selling to be congruent with my approach as a consultant and speaker. One of the things I really like about the provocation-based selling approach is that it challenges the prevailing point of view as opposed to aligning with the prevailing point of view. You can sell a lot of stuff to people using the prevailing point of view because it’s familiar to them. But you’re… Read More

June 30th, 2010 at 8:21pm

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The Cold Light of Day

By Jim Whitt Three years ago Nouriel Roubini played the role of a modern-day John the Baptist — a voice crying in the economic wilderness. He prophesied the world-wide financial crisis, the U.S. housing market crash and the partial collapse of the banking sector. He not only was ignored but derided by other economists who played the role of modern-day Caesars who fiddled while Rome was burning. “People asked me why I saw there was a bubble and my question was why others didn’t,” Roubini said in an interview. But then he answered his own question, “During the bubble everybody… Read More

June 1st, 2010 at 8:38pm

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Stop Planning and Start Pioneering

By Jim Whitt Before you invest time and money in traditional strategic planning consider this — only 5-10% of strategic plans are ever implemented. The reason most organizations engage in strategic planning is to reduce anxiety. It’s like taking a couple of aspirin for a headache. In this case the headache is the future. The aspirin is a couple of days locked in a room putting checkmarks in the appropriate boxes. Mission statement (yada, yada, yada): check; SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats): check; long range goals (3-5 years): check. Ah, that feels better. And like the aspirin bottle, the… Read More

April 28th, 2010 at 7:15pm

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The Hand That Feeds You

By Jim Whitt In The Treasure of Sierra Madre, Humphrey Bogart plays the role of Fred C. Dobbs, a down-on-his-luck American in Mexico during the 1920s. Times are so tough that Dobbs is reduced to panhandling for food. In the opening scenes he hits up a well-dressed American played by John Huston, “Say mister, will you stake a fellow American to a meal?” Dobbs doesn’t look at the well-to-do American’s face but instead stares at the peso he plops into his hand. With his head down Dobbs continues to ask for money on the streets. He encounters Huston again and… Read More

April 21st, 2010 at 8:58pm

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The Positive Power of Rejection

By Jim Whitt I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal about some famous people who were rejected when they applied for acceptance to prestigious universities. The list included people like Warren Buffet and Ted Turner.   I was so far down the intellectual food chain that I would have never dreamed of applying to Harvard or Princeton. I sat out a semester after high school and then attended three semesters as an art major in junior college. Not wanting to add my name to the burgeoning rolls of starving artists, I dropped out and cowboyed in a… Read More

March 31st, 2010 at 9:40pm

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Are You Ready for Your Big Break?

By Jim Whitt A local company received a letter from a prospective customer: “Sirs…Could you please send me a catalogue and price list of your products, namely concrete tools and saws. Thank you for your time…Signed: Joe Bob Smith.” The letter found its way into my hands via a friend who showed me the envelope it arrived in after I had read the letter. It was stamped: “THIS LETTER HAS BEEN MAILED FROM THE WISCONSIN PRISON SYSTEM.” Do you remember how the old Dragnet series always ended? “The story you have just seen is true. The names were changed to… Read More

March 18th, 2010 at 7:39am

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Professional Provoking…Online

By Jim Whitt  Monty Teeter was one of my first consulting clients when I started my business a couple of decades ago. I apparently struck a nerve during a conversation with Monty one day. He wanted to know what my official title was. I told him I was a management consultant. “No you’re not,” he responded. “You’re a professional provoker!” He went on to tell me — in no uncertain terms — that I was constantly provoking him. I’ve learned to embrace the title of professional provoker because it’s an accurate description of what I do. There’s a method to… Read More

March 10th, 2010 at 9:53pm

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Is Your Job Recreational?

By Jim Whitt Fred entered the room carrying a picture of John Wayne. Along with the other people in the room, Fred had been given the assignment of reading Riding for the Brand: The Power of Purposeful Leadership. The first thing on the meeting agenda was to discuss what they had read and how the principles in the book applied to their organization. I asked Fred why he was carrying a picture of John Wayne. “Because,” he said, “John Wayne is all about Riding for the Brand.” To help you connect the dots, I wrote the book as a template… Read More

March 3rd, 2010 at 9:12pm

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As Time Goes By

By Jim Whitt It’s 4:58 PM, Tulsa time. I’m staring at the screen on my laptop surveying what will be my new website. I sent the latest changes for the site to Damon, my technology guru earlier today in a Word document. Suddenly, the changes start to appear miraculously on the screen much like the proverbial hand writing on the wall as described in the book of Daniel. I blinked a couple of times. I’ve been working too hard, I thought and called Damon, “Are you messing with me? I see the changes I sent to you appearing magically on… Read More

February 25th, 2010 at 8:09am

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Road Signs For Success

By Sondra Whitt “Life is an unfailing boomerang,” says Denis Waitley. “What we throw out will come back full circle.” He’s just describing the laws of “sowing and reaping” or “cause and effect” that tell us that we get out of life what we put into it. So, it’s up to us to make sure the efforts we send out are going to return to us the results we want. Some good questions to ask ourselves are, “What results do I really want?  Why? What results am I getting now? Why? What do I need to change to get different… Read More

August 5th, 2009 at 10:05pm

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