Can you believe how fast January has flown by? No doubt the press of daily business has consumed you. But it is NOT TOO LATE to take stock of your competitive intelligence goals and operations. By request, here are the complete Intelligence New Years’ Resolutions I posted earlier this month.

PUT WINNING FIRST

Welcome to 2014, another year of challenge, uncertainty and opportunity.  I wish you all a prosperous and exciting time.

As the Old Testament notes, we enjoy an allotment of “three score and ten” to walk the earth (and, luckily, we live in an age where that “use-by” date, more than likely, will be extended by a dozen or more years). But what a privilege to do it as intelligence people. To be in a profession concerned with figuring out what is likely to happen and divining the best course of action to meet change.

Whatever your ambitions or the state of your intelligence organization, let me suggest one critical resolution to help you succeed in 2014. Keep WINNING front and center of all you do.

Too much of the advice we receive in the intelligence game tells us to focus our work farther out into the future: To look at the 5 year, 10 year or even longer time horizons. I strongly suggest you put this advice aside in 2014.

If you work in the private sector, you need to understand these long term looks, while often revealing and certainly interesting, are an indulgent luxury. It is wonderful when an executive team or board of directors invites or encourages these exercises. But make no mistake, an intelligence organization cannot succeed by making them a steady diet.

History is littered with the carcasses of great enterprises that established enormous and profitable franchises, then started to believe in their own invincibility, and lost sight of the basic blocking and tackling that delivered the revenue.

Many, if not all, of these firms invested time and talent in future-oriented or future-themed activities. But sadly, these activities often distracted management from the “hear and now” problems facing the company, or became desperate searches for ways to leap-frog the growing rot in existing revenue streams. Either way, these “future” focused activities rarely deliver salvation.

As intelligence professionals we should always focus first and foremost on today’s business … the existing products, services and revenue streams. The money behind our paycheck (and that of all our colleagues) comes from the company’s success in the current market battle, not from some scenario-planned, game-theoried future state.

This means the majority (not all) of your work needs to concentrate on helping your company WIN! Revenues and profits! Making the numbers! Winning the deals! Banging out some more market share!

Intelligence must serve these goals first.

Once you accept and commit to this, several important benefits accrue.  First, you are putting yourself in a stronger career position because you’re making yourself more accountable for delivering tangible results: “Hey the intel folks really helped us win that contract.”

Second, your engagement in the operating activities of the company – how you make, market and sell products and services – will help you better understand rivals at the behavioral level. This will enhance your ability to predict future moves and reactions, which can only make you more effective at the first point.

Finally, deeper understanding and engagement in today’s game, will increase your ability to discern developing threats and distinguish true game changers. This is a much better source for intelligence topics than asking a CEO what keeps him or her up at night.

Taken together, putting winning first is a more certain path to credibility and impact. It also earns you a legitimate right in talk to leadership about the future.

(Hat tip to Ed Allison at Polycom … see his great IntelCollab presentation on this topic here)

TAKE THE “R” WITH PASSION

From most of the pundits I’ve read in the last couple of weeks, I gather everyone seems to think 2013 was a bad year.

The economic situation is at best opaque. Stock market returns appear disconnected from real economic activity, resulting in widespread altitude sickness. The political situation is a mess (…as it ever has been and perhaps should be?). The world is violent and unstable and not everywhere happy (again, not an exactly new state of affairs).

So the watchword for pundits and prognosticators for 2014 is “uncertainty”.  Well, guess what, no shock Sherlock!

Those of us in the Intelligence game need to steer clear of these siren singers and their verbose observations of the obvious. Whatever work we’re doing, we should not overwork “uncertainty” in the analysis. And we should not let our organizations use “uncertainty” to justify inaction or avoidance of decisions.

Rather, we should build off yesterday’s Intelligence New Year’s resolution of putting winning first and foremost. Our second resolution should be to jump in with both feet!

In all the areas where we can help the organization improve its chances to win, we should demonstrate passion and commitment to the cause. We should not wait to be asked or expected “to support”. We should lead!

Whenever I see intelligence professionals adopt the attitude of dispassionate observer -above the fray, calling their analyses without urgency or the will to act – I see someone who will have to spend more time updating his or her resume’.

You might get away with this attitude in large, bureaucratic organizations … for awhile, at least. But you are likely consigning yourself to only limited impact because your analyses will lack zeal or enthusiasm. And you maybe enabling an adversarial stance with decision makers when you habitually “leave the decision in their hands”. Business success (and life, for that matter) is too short-lived for “a just the facts” approach to intelligence.

An executive, no matter how mean or magnanimous, needs his lieutenants to bring passion and commitment to lead. (You do see yourself as a lieutenant to senior decision makers, don’t you?) It is easier to drive action and align the troops when decisions are taken with passion and zeal. Great organizations adopt the attitude “right or wrong, do it strong” with reason. If right, they win and win big. If wrong, they accept the defeat and get right back into action.

Mealy mouthed intelligence analysts rarely break through in this environment in good times. In tough times, they are rightly cast to the curb.

Don’t be these guys! Lead, bring passion, be prepared to argue a case for action. Don’t try to stand above. Instead, jump in with all the brashness of one who believes “if it’s gonna be, it’s up to me.” You’ll be a lot better at your job if you do.

TAKE IT TO THE STREET

While the New Year is still fresh and we are still ruminating on how we grow our skills and make a greater impact, I have another resolution for you. It follows logically from a focus on winning and a commitment to lead with passion. It is about getting off the bench and getting into the game.

One of the best pieces of feedback -really push back- I’ve gotten in my career came from a general manager during a war game many years ago. Typical of these events, once the group got to the “problem solving” stage, the juices started to flow. Great ideas …or at least I thought they were great… started to fill the flip-charts. I thought we were going great. Then the boss dropped the bomb!

“This is all very easy for you to say, except I have no way to take these ideas to customers. We can’t just wave a wand and have them do what we want, even if we spend a lot more money.”

Ugh! Talk about a wet blanket.

In reality, this manager was making a plea for help.  Specifically, he wanted insights and ideas that he could use to negotiate the market battle as it was being fought that very day. Big, earth-altering ideas were of little help in getting his new item on the shelf next quarter or winning the next contract cycle.

Too often this is the problem with intelligence analysis and facilitated events. Too many good ideas with little or no practicability:  You can’t fix selling windows; You can’t change industry driven trade terms; You can’t radically alter supply chains; You can’t change the reach of chosen marketing vehicles; etc., etc.

In the real world, moving heaven and earth does prove to be a lot more difficult than just saying so.

So here’s the challenge and resolution. In 2014, concentrate on how to take your ideas and insights directly to the enemy!

This means putting your recommendations and ideas through a much tighter filter. They must pass this test:  How can the business take them to the street?

Stop lamenting or blaming others for the intractability of reality. Instead, spend time down at the level of action. Work to understand the degree of maneuverability and flexibility that exists at the transaction level of your business:

How and when would customers consider breaking existing contracts? What rules govern supply-chain changeovers? How can promotional windows be altered? What flexibility exists in trade terms? Who are potential allies and enemies among distributors, agents, suppliers or other important third parties? What product or service benefits are going unheralded or unrecognized by key customers? Etc., etc.

The questions are endless and unique to different businesses. But this is where the game moves. If you can outsmart competitors at this level, then intelligence can truly move the needle on revenue and market share.

So, spend more time at ground level in 2014 and take it to the street!

THINK FINANCIALLY

When executives in your business talk about the “street’s” expectations, do you tune in or tune out? When the subject of “high finance” enters the intelligence realm, can you talk the language? Do you understand the concepts, the issues, the implications? How well do you factor them into your analyses?

I was recently presenting at a SCIP event and was a bit shocked by the lack of Finance IQ among meeting participants. In my talk I was reviewing the tension caused by high stock price multiples and DCF (Discounted Cash Flow) implied growth rates that various players in a given industry would have to achieve to keep investors happy.

Eyes glazed over. Folks needed me to clarify the definitions of stock multiples and DCF. Then there was some push-back. “Wall Street expectations are so short term.” “That stuff is so unrealistic.” “We need to focus on real game-changers, not ignorant analyst opinions.”

WOW … this is a problem!

While I certainly share some of these opinions and frustrations with the fickle nature of the financial world, Intelligence leaders CANNOT be so cavalier in dismissing them.  The fact is we can never rise above the power and pull of the financial world … even in privately held companies.

The reasons are simple. The financial world and, in particular, stock investors and their analyst community proxies, represent the “voice of the investor”. We must remember that most of our firms run at the pleasure of the investor.

Whether we like it or not, it is their money that builds our plants and offices, funds our inventories, and pays for the big marketing campaigns. Stock prices, despite their apparent fickleness and volatility, represent the market value of our firm’s prospects for success.

This impacts private companies as well. Borrowing costs are impacted by Wall Street’s opinion of the prospects for the publicly traded firms in the space. The availability of capital to expand markets and capacity, both up-stream and down-stream of a particular business, can impact a private company’s goals and results.

And, of course, while we may dislike it intensely, Wall Street’s expectations are the foremost report card for senior executives. Their compensation, reputation, and future prospects are tied directly to the stock price. And SO ARE OUR COMPETITORS TO THEIR STOCK PRICES!  (And so too are our suppliers and customers!)

This means much short term -and long term- behavior is driven by Wall Street.

So, rather than fight this reality, our final Intelligence Resolution for 2014 needs to be to learn to think financially … and talk financially!

We need to understand financial markets explicitly and implicitly. We need to factor financial market expectations into our analyses (both backward and forward looking). We need to determine the weight of financial market pressure on direct rivals, as well as other key market players.

And instead of dismissing Wall Street’s “short-termism”, let’s use our knowledge of Wall Street’s ways to help our teams make better short AND long term decisions.

Besides, winning and satisfying fickle investors are the best ways I know to gain the time and space needed to chart successful long range moves.