James M Kerr, Founder, Indispensable Consulting, Author
James M. Kerr s the founder of Indispensable Consulting and author of Indispensable: Build and Lead a Company Customers Can’t Live Without, which is his 6th business book.
Podcast
Overview
In the cutthroat competition around, it is paramount for businesses to become indispensable for customers and stakeholders to strive and grow. How does one do that? Clear vision, healthy work culture, open communication, and supporting leaders lead to this growth. However, what do these overused business words mean, and how does one ensure such practices in the organization?
Our today’s guest, Mr. James M Kerr helps the business leaders to do exactly the same. Let’s listen to him about what does it take to become indispensable.
About James M Kerr:
James M Kerr is a management consultant, vision maker, culture designer, and author. He is the founder of Indispensable Consultant, a consultancy firm providing management consulting and coaching to support the leaders of incredible businesses. He has written six amazing books on business and leadership. He specializes in revamping business organizations to make them indispensable for the market.
Discussion:
Mr. Kerr believes in the power of being indispensable as it comes out vividly from his company name “Indispensable Consulting” and the book, “Indispensable: Build and lead a company customers can’t live without.” He helps the businesses to do so by assisting in their vision statement which they try to turn into a compelling story so that the stakeholders and customers can visualize it.
In an interesting example, he narrates how they made a vision magazine of a company instead of another presentation. Such practices foster greater belief in the workforce enabling and motivating them to work towards the business’s mission & vision.
It is often said that a business can only achieve its goals if they have a strong culture.
What does culture mean?
Mr. Kerr rightly compares this often-used word to a country’s culture, i.e., the way people behave. Business culture refers to the way people behave with each other in the organization and with their customers. Talking about the business strategy and aligning company culture, he says:
“If your strategy is to go out and grow your business through impeccable service delivery, we have to make sure that you have got a culture and organizational design that lets your people deliver that impeccable customer service. And that requires sometimes change in the way people behave and that’s where culture change might be a part of a strategy that’s about competing on service.”
On the transfer of this culture to the new recruits, he again compares it with the country’s culture which is passed on from generation one to another through stories and behavior.
How do start-up entrepreneurs build a strong culture in their own company?
With the rise in the start-up culture across the globe, high ethic work culture is paramount for long survival and growth. Mr. Kerr says:
“Start-ups need to be thinking very deliberately about what kind of culture they want to create. Because when they are starting out, it’s going to be default if you don’t do it deliberately.”
As professed by many, Mr. Kerr also emphasizes the importance of open communication and open doors to foster healthy work culture. It is essential for leaders to back up their words with actions.
What is his approach to coaching the clients?
About coaching his clients, he explains he uses the techniques of self-assessment, self-reflection, and people feedback. He narrates one of his experiences where one of his clients believe that both her boss and her team liked her. However, the results revealed that the boss liked her, but her team felt that they were not respected well. And thus, she was coached to be more open to ideas and feedback from her team.
What is the hypothesis of his recent book?
His book’s thesis relies on a simple difference between good and incredible business. His book talks about culture, leadership, vision, people management, change management, which is further fortified with around 50 examples of the growth of businesses embracing such practices.
He ends the discussion with a bit of introspective advice for the youngsters to believe in the power of abundance instead of scarcity.
He ends as he says: “Help people on the way. What you find when you think about the world is about abundance is that you realize all the things that you want for your own life come to you.”
Profile
James M. Kerr is the founder of Indispensable Consulting and author of Indispensable: Build and Lead a Company Customers Can’t Live Without, which is his 6th business book.
He specializes in supporting inspired leaders achieve their vision for the future. He does this by co-creating solutions with them and their team of experts that enables his clients to become the company customers can’t live without.
Jim is an expert in the development and implementation of multi-faceted change initiatives centered on strategic plans, culture redesign and organizational effectiveness. He enjoys forging new ideas and devising practical solutions to client’s broadly relevant business problems, while shape-shifting them into opportunities for their success.
