Working on the wrong problem | Steve Dennis’ Blog on WordPress.com

When we see a brand struggling–or we find ourselves working within a flailing or failing organization–the first order of business should be clear. We need to understand the root causes. Once we’ve become keenly aware of what’s driving our problem–and accepted the reality of the situation–we are then ready to move into developing and launching a course of action.

So if the path is clear and obvious, why do so many retailers–and scores of other types of organizations, for that matter–get it so very wrong, so very often?

We regularly see retail brands hyper-focused on cost reductions when by far the bigger issue is lack of revenue growth (I’m looking at you Sears).

We see brands falling prey to the store closing delusion when often it turns out that closing stores en masse only makes matters worse.

We see brands blindly chasing the holy grail of all things omni-channel when, in most cases, they are merely spending millions of dollars to transfer sales from one pocket to the other–often at a lower margin.

We brands engaging in price wars they can never possibly win or without regard to the possibility that their customers aren’t even interested in the lowest price.

We see brands chasing average, the lowest common denominator, the one-size-fits-all solution because it seems safe. Yet it is precisely the most risky thing they could do.

Far too often we fail to pierce the veil of denial.

Far too often we fall victim to conventional wisdom, what we’ve always done or what we think Wall Street wants.

Far too often we ascribe wisdom to shrewd salespeople or charismatic and clever charlatans.

Far too often we fail to do the work, to ask for help, to dig deep to understand what’s really going on.

We can work really hard. We can focus our energies and those of our teams we great alacrity and intensity. We can pile on the data, build persuasive arguments and rock a really slick PowerPoint presentation. We can tell ourselves a story that convinces us we must be right.

But if we aren’t working on the right problem that’s all a colossal waste of time.

Originally published at stevenpdennis.com on February 14, 2017.