6 навыков, которые делают предпринимателя особенным / Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs

Эми Вилкинсон

Преподаватель менеджмента в Стэнфордской школе бизнеса, автор книги «Код создателя: 6 необходимых навыков особенных предпринимателей» (The Creator’s Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs)

Пять лет назад Эми была приглашена на вечеринку по поводу празднования дня рождения в Нью-Йорке. Среди приглашенных гостей было нескольких известных предпринимателей, в том числе основатели Google, eBay и Gilt Group. Общение с этими людьми положило начало исследованию, в ходе которого Вилкинсон попыталась выяснить, почему некоторые предприниматели добились столь впечатляющего успеха. Занимаясь этим проектом, она взяла интервью у двухсот известных предпринимателей, включая основателей LinkedIn, Spanx и Airbnb. В результате исследования были выявлены шесть навыков, присущих наиболее успешным предпринимателям. Эми говорит, что предприниматели – это творцы, которые не рождаются с умением строить компании. Зато они умеют кое-что другое:

1. Находить ниши

Стив Элис хотел создать мексиканский ресторан быстрого питания, но вместе с тем это заведение должно было стать полной противоположностью обычного фастфуда: еда должна была готовиться на заказ из высококачественных ингредиентов. В 1993 году Стив основан ресторан Chipotle. Тем самым Элис создал целую нишу – fast casual – что-то среднее между рестораном и фастфудом: еда качественнее и дороже, а атмосфера комфортнее, чем в заведениях быстрого питания. При этом средний чек ниже чем в ресторанах. Первый навык успешного предпринимателя — это способность выявлять неудовлетворенные потребности, которые другие не замечают, и умело находить инновационные решения, чтобы заполнить свободную нишу.

2. Смотреть в будущее

Предприниматель подобен гонщику на трассе: обгоняя своего соперника, он продолжает удерживать взгляд на горизонте. Успешный предприниматель фокусируется на будущем, не заботясь о том, где он сейчас находится по отношению к конкурентам. Хамди Улюкайя, основатель компании по производству йогуртов Chobani, смог превратить завод с нулевым доходом в компанию с оборотом в $1 млрд всего за 5 лет — благодаря тому, что принимал решения с прицелом на будущее. Это включало в себя покупку и переоборудование остановленного предприятия, при том что у Хамди в кармане было всего лишь несколько тысяч долларов. А сегодня доля Chobani на американском рынке приближается к 50%.

3. Быстро ориентироваться и принимать решения

Во времена корейской войны полковник Джон Бойд, пилот-истребитель американских ВВС, разработал схему для быстрого принятия решений: наблюдай, ориентируйся, решай, действуй (observe, orient, decide, act, OODA). Эта схема может быть очень полезной и для предпринимателей, считает Вилкинсон: «Такой подход позволяет постоянно актуализировать свои предположения и быстро двигаться от принятия одного решения к другому». Дэвид Сакс, первый исполнительный директор PayPal рассказал в своем интервью Эми, что команда PayPal внимательно следила за маркетинговыми приемами и новым функционалом конкурирующих сервисов и старалась быстро их скопировать. Например, когда Dotbank.com начал давать бонус в размере $10 тем, кто приведет новых клиентов, PayPal уже через неделю запустил похожую акцию, но удвоил ставки: бонус получал не только рекомендатель, но и новый клиент.

4. Учиться на ошибках

«Среди основателей стартапов распространен культ поклонения успешным предпринимателям, — говорит Вилкинсон, — Однако ни один из успешных предпринимателей не избежал фиаско. Каждый, с кем я встречалась, говорил о своих неудачах».

Успешные предприниматели понимают, что во избежание катастрофических ошибок нужно сделать серию небольших ошибок. Они проверяют идеи в среде с низким уровнем риска, чтобы определить, «выстрелит» ли идея, и что в ней нужно изменить. Некоторые идеи срабатывают, некоторые нет, но в любом случае, создатели стартапов становятся умнее и устойчивее, считает Вилкинсон.

5. Использовать нетворкинг

Предпринимательский успех, по словам Вилкинсон, требует решения многогранных проблем, а для этого требуется привлечение абсолютно разных людей. В итоге решения проблем находятся коллективным разумом, путем объединения идей.

6. Бескорыстно помогать

Это может быть что угодно: вы можете переслать резюме, написать несколько строчек кода, высказать объективную критику, и обязательно будете вознаграждены. Вилкинсон утверждает, что предприниматели, которые строят позитивные отношения и используют каждую возможность помочь коллегам и партнерам, в итоге получают огромное преимущество: «Такой позитивный эффект в награду за помощь стал неожиданностью для меня. Эффект многократно усиливается потому, что в наше время информация распространяется молниеносно, в особенности благодаря соцсетям – все, что может повлиять на нашу репутацию, становится общеизвестным».

The six essential skills of extraordinary entrepreneurs

Connectional Intelligence: Which Type of Connector Are You?

I’m excited to interview my wonderful friend Erica Dhawan. Erica is the Founder & CEO of Cotential and the world’s authority on Connectional Intelligence. Named by Thinkers50 as “The Oprah of Management Ideas”, Erica is featured as one of the emerging management thinkers most likely to shape the future of business. She’s also one of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches. In this week’s interview, Erica is going to share with us the three types of Connectors as she defines them in her book, Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence. Below is an excerpt from our interview.

Marshall: I’m here with Erica Dhawan, one of the great thinkers of our time and one of the 50 top leaders of the future in terms of influencing thought around the world. Erica, I love the work you are doing in Connectional Intelligence. You identify three types of Connectional Intelligence, or Connectors, can you explain that?

Erica: Absolutely! Ten years ago, Malcolm Gladwell coined this concept of a connector as one of the three types of people that create the rise of social epidemics. This idea revolutionized teams around the world and how we build this connector skillset at work.

In today’s era, we’re not just connected, though, we’re overconnected. The average amount of time we spend on email and online meetings is growing exponentially. What I’ve found in my research is that in today’s world, it’s not about being a connector. It’s about how we connect intelligently with our resources.

What I’ve found is that there are three types of connectors you need to lead dream teams today.

1. The first type of connector is a thinker. Thinkers are great at connecting around ideas. They know how to bring together different ideas. They have a lot of curiosity and courage to think in new ways.
2. The second type of connector is the enabler. Enablers are the awesome community builders. They know how to bring together all the right people. They are more of your traditional networking types.
3. The third type of connector is the executor. These are the people who are great at mobilizing.

So, think about it: once you have an idea (thinker), you get the right people (enabler), and you mobilize and turn it into action (executor). And, it’s not about being the best at all of these yourself, it’s about designing a team that leverages your style as a leader.

One of my favorite examples of this is from a woman named Jeannie Peeper. When Jeannie was four, she was diagnosed with a very rare disease called FOP. She spent 20 years going from doctor to doctor trying to diagnose this illness. She finally met a doctor who had seen 18 patients with the disease, and she decided not just to be treated by the doctor, but to reach out.

Jeannie is an enabler. She reached out to every single patient and created the first ever knowledge network for patients with the disease. Today, the network is teaching doctors, medical researchers, and university professionals how to diagnose this illness, because Jeannie understood her style and created a network of people with different skills to address FOB.

What I recommend is that everyone better understand their own style and be mindful of tapping into the diversity of their network and skills that are different than theirs as they are building teams to get big things done.

Marshall: I love what you are doing! Let me give you my personal reflection. I see myself as a thinker and enabler, but not much of an executor. I don’t like to manage anything. I have only two problems with management – one is I have not ability, and the second is that I have even less motivation. The key is to find people who are great at what I’m not great at. I love your model because you don’t have to be good at everything, just know what you are good at, what you do like doing, and then find others who compliment your skills.

Erica: Exactly. Knowing how to find the answer, how to find the resources, is more important than having them yourself. And, that’s really the quotient in today’s world. It’s being that dot connector instead of thinking we’re going to be knowledgeable about everything.

Marshall: Wonderful! Thank you!

Personal Accountability to Change within a Team

One problem I have with team building assessments is that most of the data gathering and evaluation questions are very passive. It seems as if team building is something that happens to people. As opposed to people being active players in their work life.

Working with a Managing Partner in a law firm he shared his frustration like this, “We work hard to make this place somewhere people can do their best work, and be happy. And, I keep getting shit from my board about my employee engagement feedback. Many of the questions are not appropriate to lawyers. The question “I have a best friend at work” these are lawyers and they score low because they do not have time and many do not want best friends at work… Where is the way to determine their effort to be friendly, set goals, be motivated?” 

I thought that was a good question and I went to work on looking for an active process of team coaching and consulting. That brought me to Marshall Goldsmith’s Wheel of Change.

The useful thing about the wheel of change is that you can accept the organizational system you are a part of, the passive stuff that you cannot control; while making an active choice to make a change, the active stuff that you can control.

“When we bluntly challenge ourselves to figure out what we can change and what we can’t, what to lose and what to keep, we often surprise ourselves with the bold simplicity of our answers and can thus take significant, real steps towards becoming the person we want to be.” – Marshall Goldsmith

Sharing the wheel of change model, following a 360-Leadership Feedback, with a team or individual you can quickly identify:

• … a behavior I choose to create or add is _____
• … a behavior I choose to preserve or enhance is _____
• … a behavior I choose to eliminate is _____
• … a behavior I choose to accept is_____

Working with many teams and individuals, we quickly saw that this concept as useful.

Using the Wheel of Change with a Team

Facilitating this with a team is similar to working with one person who is receiving leadership coaching.

1. Share the wheel of change
2. Explain – Create, Preserve, Eliminate, Accept
3. Ask the team to share ideas for each area. I recommend you start with Create, then go through Preserve, Eliminate, Accept
4. Ask the team to review each response in the wheel of change and ensure that each statement has personal accountability that is within their control, and they have the authority to act upon.
5. Translate each statement into “Did I do my best to …” See below for examples.
6. At the end of every day have each team member score their effort on each statement from 1 = low effort to 10 = high effort
7. Repeat #6 every day for 18 months …

Example of Personal Accountability to change within a team questions

1. Did I do my best to follow the billing & project process?
2. Did I do my best to hold others accountable for following the billing & project process?
3. Did I do my best to set project deadlines?
4. Did I do my best to achieve project deadlines?
5. Did I do my best to hold myself accountable to work deadlines?
6. Did I do my best to see ‘our company’ as a thriving company?
7. Did I do my best to preserve my quality of work?
8. Did I do my best to be innovative?
9. Did I do my best to achieve & uphold quality standards?
10. Did I do my best to preserve a high trust, empowering office environment?
11. Did I do my best to support my teammates?
12. Did I do my best to accept that others hold me accountable?
13. Did I do my best to accept that others have different quality standards?
14. Did I do my best to accept that others have different goals & priorities?
15. Did I do my best to see conflict/ resolution as a point of progress?
16. Did I do my best to accept others feedback/ critique of my work?
17. Did I do my best to eliminate the belief that others feedback + challenges are all about me?
18. Did I do my best to eliminate ‘our company’ being a scrappy, struggling company?
19. Did I do my best to stop trying to be everything to everyone?

https://bit.ly/2UR85sH

The Secret to Becoming the Person You Want to Be

by Marshall Goldsmith

For many of us, change is impossible because we are so optimistic (and delusional) that we try to change everything at once. We quickly overwhelm ourselves with becoming the “new Me”, and when it doesn’t happen as quickly as we’d like, people don’t notice that we’ve made a change, or some obstacle presents itself, we give up.

Discouraged by our failure, overwhelmed and disheartened, it’s hard to commit to change again. So, we become geniuses at coming up with reasons to avoid change. We make excuses. We rationalize. We harbor beliefs that trigger all manner of denial and resistance—and we end up changing nothing. Ever. We fail to become the person we want to be.

So, seeing our frailties in the face of behavioral change what do we do?

THE WHEEL OF CHANGE

For many years now, I’ve been using “The Wheel of Change” to help clients decide what to change and where to put their efforts. I’ve taken teams, organizations, friends, and peers through this process, and I’ve even use it myself. It is one of the most helpful tools for behavioral change that I’ve ever found.

The Wheel of Change illustrates the interchange of two dimensions that we need to sort out before we can become the person we want to be.

The positive to negative axis tracks the elements that either help us or hold us back. The change to keep axis tracks the elements that we determine to change or keep in the future. Thus, in pursuing any behavioral change we have four options: change or keep the positive elements, change or keep the negative.

Here’s a brief description of each of these options.

1. Creating represents the positive elements that we want to create in our future. Creating is the glamorous poster child of behavioral change. When we imagine ourselves behaving better, we think of it as an exciting process of self-invention. We’re creating a “new me.” It’s appealing and seductive. We can be anyone we choose to be. The challenge is to do it by choice, not as a bystander. Are we creating ourselves, or wasting the opportunity and being created by external forces instead?

2. Preserving represents the positive elements that we want to keep in the future. Preserving sounds passive and mundane, but it’s a real choice. It requires soul-searching to figure out what serves us well, and discipline to refrain from abandoning it for something new and shiny and not necessarily better. We don’t practice preserving enough.

3. Eliminating represents the negative elements that we want to eliminate in the future. Eliminating is our most liberating, therapeutic action—but we make it reluctantly. Like cleaning out an attic or garage, we never know if we’ll regret jettisoning a part of us. Maybe we’ll need it in the future. Maybe it’s the secret of our success. Maybe we like it too much.

4. Accepting represents the negative elements that we need to accept in the future. Most of us tend to commit to the other three four elements in the wheel of change with greater enthusiasm—creating is innovating and exciting, preserving makes sense as we focus on not losing sight of the good things about ourselves, eliminating appeals to the “do-or-die” element of our natures as we commit to stop doing things that no longer serve us, but accepting is a more difficult pill to swallow. Acceptance is an odd player in the process of change—it feels like admitting defeat, it’s equated by many to acquiescence. Acceptance is incredibly valuable when we are powerless to make a difference. Yet our ineffectuality is precisely the condition that we are most loath to accept. This truth triggers our finest moments of counterproductive behavior.

These are the choices. Some are more dynamic, glamorous, and fun than others, but they’re equal in importance. And three of them are more labor-intensive than we imagine.

And, that’s the simple beauty of the wheel. When we bluntly challenge ourselves to figure out what we can change and what we can’t, what to lose and what to keep, we often surprise ourselves with the bold simplicity of our answers and can thus take significant, real steps towards becoming the person we really want to be.

Cynefin framework

Domains of the Cynefin framework; the dark domain in the centre is disorder.

The Cynefin framework is a conceptual framework used to aid decision-making.^[1] Created in 1999 by Dave Snowden when he worked for IBM Global Services, it has been described as a "sense-making device".^[2][3] Cynefin is a Welsh word for habitat.^[4]

Cynefin offers five decision-making contexts or "domains"—obvious (known until 2014 as simple),^[5] complicated, complex, chaotic, and disorder—that help managers to identify how they perceive situations and make sense of their own and other people's behaviour.^[a] The framework draws on research into systems theory, complexity theory, network theory and learning theories.^[6]

Terminology

The idea of the Cynefin framework is that it offers decision-makers a "sense of place" from which to view their perceptions.^[7] Cynefin is a Welsh word meaning habitat, haunt, acquainted, familiar. Snowden uses the term to refer to the idea that we all have connections, such as tribal, religious and geographical, of which we may not be aware.^[8][4] It has been compared to the Maori word turangawaewae, meaning a place to stand.^[9]

History

Snowden, then of IBM Global Services, began work on a Cynefin model in 1999 to help manage intellectual capital within the company.^[2][b][c] He continued developing it as European director of IBM's Institute of Knowledge Management,^[13] and later as founder and director of the IBM Cynefin Centre for Organizational Complexity, established in 2002.^[14]Snowden and Cynthia Kurtz, an IBM researcher, described the framework in detail the following year in a paper, "The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world", published in IBM Systems Journal.^[3][15][16]

The Cynefin Centre—a network of members and partners from industry, government and academia—began operating independently of IBM in 2004.^[17] In 2007 Snowden and Mary E. Boone described the Cynefin framework in the Harvard Business Review.^[1] Their paper, "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making", won them an "Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in OB" award from the Academy of Management's Organizational Behavior division.^[18]

Overview

Cynefin offers four decision-making contexts or "domains": simple, complicated, complex, chaotic, and a centre of disorder.^[d] The domain names have changed over the years. Kurtz and Snowden (2003) called them known, knowable, complex, and chaotic.^[3] Snowden and Boone (2007) changed known and knowable to simple and complicated.^[a] Since 2014 Snowden has used obvious in place of simple.^[5]

The domains offer a "sense of place" from which to analyse behaviour and make decisions.^[7] The domains on the right, simple/obvious and complicated, are "ordered": cause and effect are known or can be discovered. The domains on the left, complex and chaotic, are "unordered": cause and effect can be deduced only with hindsight or not at all.^[19]

Since 2014 Snowden has called the simple domain obvious.^[5]

Simple / Obvious

This means that there are rules in place (or best practice), the situation is stable, and the relationship between cause and effect is clear: if you do X, expect Y. The advice in such a situation is to "sense–categorize–respond": establish the facts ("sense"), categorize, then respond by following the rule or applying best practice. Snowden and Boone (2007) offer the example of loan-payment processing. An employee identifies the problem (for example, a borrower has paid less than required), categorizes it (reviews the loan documents), and responds (follows the terms of the loan).^[1] According to Thomas A. Stewart,

This is the domain of legal structures, standard operating procedures, practices that are proven to work. Never draw to an inside straight. Never lend to a client whose monthly payments exceed 35 percent of gross income. Never end the meeting without asking for the sale. Here, decision-making lies squarely in the realm of reason: Find the proper rule and apply it.^[20]

Snowden and Boone write that managers should beware of forcing situations into this domain by over-simplifying, by "entrained thinking" (being blind to new ways of thinking), or by becoming complacent. When success breeds complacency ("best practice is, by definition, past practice"), there can be a catastrophic clockwise shift into the chaotic domain. They recommend that leaders provide a communication channel, if necessary an anonymous one, so that dissenters (for example, within a workforce) can warn about complacency.^[1]

Complicated

The complicated domain consists of the "known unknowns". The relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or expertise; there are a range of right answers. The framework recommends "sense–analyze–respond": assess the facts, analyze, and apply the appropriate good operating practice.^[1] According to Stewart: "Here it is possible to work rationally toward a decision, but doing so requires refined judgment and expertise. ... This is the province of engineers, surgeons, intelligence analysts, lawyers, and other experts. Artificial intelligence copes well here: Deep Blue plays chess as if it were a complicated problem, looking at every possible sequence of moves."^[20]

Complex

The complex domain represents the "unknown unknowns". Cause and effect can only be deduced in retrospect, and there are no right answers. "Instructive patterns ... can emerge," write Snowden and Boone, "if the leader conducts experiments that are safe to fail." Cynefin calls this process "probe–sense–respond".^[1] Hard insurance cases are one example. "Hard cases ... need human underwriters," Stewart writes, "and the best all do the same thing: Dump the file and spread out the contents." Stewart identifies battlefields, markets, ecosystems and corporate cultures as complex systems that are "impervious to a reductionist, take-it-apart-and-see-how-it-works approach, because your very actions change the situation in unpredictable ways."^[20]

Chaotic

In the chaotic domain, cause and effect are unclear.^[e] Events in this domain are "too confusing to wait for a knowledge-based response", writes Patrick Lambe. "Action—any action—is the first and only way to respond appropriately."^[22] In this context, managers "act–sense–respond": act to establish order; sense where stability lies; respond to turn the chaotic into the complex.^[1] Snowden and Boone write:

In the chaotic domain, a leader’s immediate job is not to discover patterns but to staunch the bleeding. A leader must first act to establish order, then sense where stability is present and from where it is absent, and then respond by working to transform the situation from chaos to complexity, where the identification of emerging patterns can both help prevent future crises and discern new opportunities. Communication of the most direct top-down or broadcast kind is imperative; there’s simply no time to ask for input.^[1]

The September 11 attacks were an example of the chaotic category.^[1] Stewart offers others: "the firefighter whose gut makes him turn left or the trader who instinctively sells when the news about the stock seems too good to be true." One crisis executive said of the collapse of Enron: "People were afraid. ... Decision-making was paralyzed. ... You've got to be quick and decisive—make little steps you know will succeed, so you can begin to tell a story that makes sense."^[20]

Snowden and Boone give the example of the 1993 Brown's Chicken massacre in Palatine, Illinois—when robbers murdered seven employees in Brown's Chicken and Pasta restaurant—as a situation in which local police faced all the domains. Deputy Police Chief Walt Gasior had to act immediately to stem the early panic (chaotic), while keeping the department running (simple), calling in experts (complicated), and maintaining community confidence in the following weeks (complex).^[1]

Disorder / Confusion

The dark disorder domain in the centre represents situations where there is no clarity about which of the other domains apply. By definition it is hard to see when this domain applies. "Here, multiple perspectives jostle for prominence, factional leaders argue with one another, and cacophony rules", write Snowden and Boone. "The way out of this realm is to break down the situation into constituent parts and assign each to one of the other four realms. Leaders can then make decisions and intervene in contextually appropriate ways."^[1]

Moving through domains[edit]

As knowledge increases, there is a "clockwise drift" from chaotic through complex and complicated to simple. Similarly, a "buildup of biases", complacency or lack of maintenance can cause a "catastrophic failure": a clockwise movement from simple to chaotic, represented by the "fold" between those domains. There can be counter-clockwise movement as people die and knowledge is forgotten, or as new generations question the rules; and a counter-clockwise push from chaotic to simple can occur when a lack of order causes rules to be imposed suddenly.^[3][1]

Using the Cynefin framework to analyse policing of the Occupy movement in the United States^[23]

Notes

1. a a,b Snowden and Boone (2007): "The framework sorts the issues facing leaders into five contexts defined by the nature of the relationship between cause and effect. Four of these—simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic—require leaders to diagnose situations and to act in contextually appropriate ways. The fifth—disorder—applies when it is unclear which of the other four contexts is predominant."^[1]
2. b ^ Snowden (2000): "An early form of the Cynefin model using different labels for the dimension extremes and quadrant spaces was developed as a means of understanding the reality of intellectual capital management within IBM Global Services (Snowden 1999a)."^[10][11]
3.  c Snowden, Pauleen, and Jansen van Vuuren (2011): "The framework was initially used in Snowden's early work in knowledge management, but now extends to aspects of leadership, strategy, cultural change, customer relationship management and more (Kurtz and Snowden 2003; Snowden and Boone 2007). The framework is particularly effective in helping decision-makers to make sense of complex problems, providing new ways of approaching intractable problems and allowing the emergence of shared understandings from collective groups."^[12]

2. d  Williams and Hummelbrunner (2010): " ... Cynefin identifies four behaviors a situation can display: simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic. This terminology is not new; the systems literature has used it for decades. However, in Cynefin the behaviors and the properties that underpin these four states are not entirely drawn from systems theories or even theories of chaos and complexity. Cynefin draws heavily on network theory, learning theories, and third-generation knowledgement management.
3. "Crucially, compared with many network and company approaches, Cynefin also takes an epistemological as well as an ontological stance. Similar to the Soft Systems and Critical Systems traditions ... Cynefin explores how people perceive and learn from situations."[15]
4.  e Cynefin uses chaotic in the ordinary sense, rather than in the sense used in chaos theory.[21]

References

 1. Snowden, David J.; Boone, Mary E. (November 2007). "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making". Harvard Business Review, 69–76. PMID 18159787

 2. Snowden, David (1999). "Liberating Knowledge", in Liberating Knowledge. CBI Business Guide. London: Caspian Publishing.

 3. Kurtz, Cynthia F.; Snowden, David J. (2003). "The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world" (PDF). IBM Systems Journal. 42 (3): 462–483. doi:10.1147/sj.423.0462. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 September 2006.

 4. Berger, Jennifer Harvey; Johnston, Keith (2015). Simple Habits for Complex Times. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 236–237, n. 5.

"Cynefin". Welsh-English / English-Welsh On-line Dictionary. University of Wales. Retrieved 24 November 2016.

5. Berger & Johnston (2015), 237, n. 7.

6. Williams, Bob; Hummelbrunner, Richard (2010). Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. pp. 10, 163–164.

7. Browning, Larry; Latoza, Roderick (31 December 2005). "The use of narrative to understand and respond to complexity: A comparative analysis of the Cynefin and Weickian models", Emergence: Complexity and Organization, 7(3–4): 32–39 (last modified: 23 November 2016).

8. "Honorary Professorship for David J Snowden". Bangor University School of Psychology. 15 April 2015.

 9. Berger & Johnston (2015), 236–237, n. 5.

10. Snowden, Dave (2000). "The Social Ecology of Knowledge Management". In Despres, Charles; Chauvel, Daniele. Knowledge Horizons. Boston: Butterworth–Heinemann. 239.

11. Also see Snowden, Dave. "Cynefin, A Sense of Time and Place: an Ecological Approach to Sense Making and Learning in Formal and Informal Communities". citeseerx.ist.psu.edu.

12. Snowden, Dave; Pauleen, David J.; Jansen van Vuuren, Sally (2016). "Knowledge Management and the Individual: It's Nothing Personal", in David J. Pauleen and Gorman, G. E. (eds.). Personal Knowledge Management. Abingdon: Routledge 2011, 116.

13. Snowden 2000, 237–266; Snowden, Dave (May 2002). "Complex Acts of Knowing: Paradox and Descriptive Self Awareness", Journal of Knowledge Management, 6(2), 100–111. doi:10.1108/13673270210424639

14. Kurtz and Snowden (2003), 483; "The Cynefin Centre for Organisational Complexity", IBM, archived 14 June 2002; "Membership", IBM, archived 10 August 2002.

15. Williams & Hummelbrunner 2010, 10, 163–164.

16. Quiggin, Thomas (2007). "Interview with Mr. Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge", Seeing the Invisible: National Security Intelligence in an Uncertain Age. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 212.

17. "The Cynefin Centre: Life after IBM", KM World, 14(7), July/August 2005.

18. "Outstanding Practitioner-Oriented Publication in OB", obweb.org.

19. Koskela, Lauri; Kagioglou, Mike (2006). "On the Metaphysics of Production" Archived 23 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine.. Proceedings of the 13th Annual Conference on Lean Construction, Sydney, Australia, July 2005 (37–45), 42–43.

20. Stewart, Thomas A. (November 2002). "How to Think With Your Gut". Business 2.0. pp. 4–5. Archived from the original on 5 November 2002.

21. Berger & Johnston (2015), 237, n. 11.

22. Lambe, Patrick (2007). Organising Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness. Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 136.

23. Geron, Stephen Max (March 2014). "21st Century strategies for policing protest" (pdf), Naval Postgraduate School.

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28. Bellavita, Christopher (October 2006). "Shape Patterns, Not Programs", Homeland Security Affairs, II(3), 1–21.

29. Pelrine, Joseph (March 2011). "On Understanding Software Agility: A Social Complexity Point Of View" (PDF). Emergence: Complexity & Organization. 13 (1/2): 26.

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33. Cox, Kate; Strang, Lucy; Sondergaard, Susan; and Monsalve, Cristina Gonzalez (2017). "Understanding how organisations ensure that their decision making is fair". Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

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35. Williams & Hummelbrunner 2010, 182.

What is the customer lifecycle?

As an ecommerce business owner, you've likely heard a lot about managing customer relationships. Consumer appeal is probably a large aspect of your success in retail, so it's important to dedicate ample time and resources to ensure you're equipped with the right knowledge and technological arsenal to meet fluid demand.

It's often said that successful businesses have the most loyal customers. But for your business to create brand allegiance among your clientele, you must first understand your customers and the journey they took to get to your website.

What is the customer lifecycle?

In terms of customer relationship management, the customer lifecycle describes the various stages a consumer goes through before, during and after they complete a transaction. Simply put, it's the Point A to Point B journey a customer takes until they make the final purchase.

The phases a customer passes through during the course of an ongoing relationship with a brand vary on a case-by-case basis, but here are five basic stages of a customer lifecycle:

• Reach: Your marketing material and content needs to be in places where consumers will find it. Reach is the first step in the lifecycle because it develops awareness right away.
• Acquire: Ecommerce acquisition is very important. Reaching potential customers won't mean much if you can't offer relevant content or messaging. Understanding your brand, the products you offer and what type of person will buy them will help with acquisition. Contacting them directly with personalized communication improves the odds of a future conversion.
• Develop/nurture: Once that first purchase is made, your business needs to keep in contact with the customer. This is where you develop a relationship with the buyer, ensuring they're fully satisfied with their initial transaction. You can also use back-end analytics to predict what else they may like based on what they bought the first time around. Asking for feedback also helps develop the relationship; customers like that their opinion is valued.
• Retention: If you're able to continually send relevant and meaningful messaging to a customer, the chances that they return and make another purchase are higher. Retention begins with satisfying a consumer's needs, caring for them and cultivating the relationship. If you can take a customer's feedback and use it to improve a product or service, you make them feel as if they were a part of the process. Performing a customer feedback analysis is key in finding actionable insights that can lead to a stronger customer relationship. This type of trust is valuable to customer retention.
• Advocacy: Once the retention stage of the lifecycle is reached, you want these customers to become a brand advocate for your business. If they are truly satisfied, they likely won't have issues recommending your products or services to friends and family. Spreading awareness amongst social circles is easy to do once a customer is loyal to a brand, and if they continually spread positive recommendations, their extended network is more likely to convert as well.

The beauty of the customer lifecycle lies in the fact that it's nonlinear, meaning it follows a cyclical pattern at the end. Customer retention is the end goal in developing strong brand loyalty, but your business needs to continually offer relevant and timely messaging to prior customers, otherwise your top-of-mind awareness will quickly fade.

The customer lifecycle can help your business maximize the revenue potential for each client who makes a purchase on your website. Once a customer has become a brand advocate, the potential for upselling increases as a result. New product features, releases or exclusive offers are also a great way to progress consumers through the lifecycle. As long as your messaging is consistent, relevant and is in tune with their needs, you can turn one-time buyers into loyal customers quickly.

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