New facilities, improved processes, product innovations and marketplace initiatives are all important, but these alone rarely provide sustained competitive advantage, because other businesses can just follow suit or offer "me-too" products and services that piggy-back off your progress.

But there's one asset that is very difficult to match: your people. Who your people are and their exceptional skills can offer you an advantage that is nearly impossible to copy. Talented, passionate workers are the key to unlocking your company's unique potential to stand out in a chaotic market.

This book shows you how to capitalize on your greatest resource and rise to the top of your industry. FranklinCovey, who has worked with businesses throughout the world to dramatically improve the effectiveness of individuals and organisations, shows you how everyone in your organisation can function as a genuine leader.

Take, for example, Western Digital, a company in Thailand that happened to have already started to implement the FranklinCovey bible 'The 7 habits of highly effective people'.

In 2011, the rainy season in Thailand was the heaviest in 50 years. By October, the flood had driven hundreds of thousands of workers out of the massive high-tech manufacturing park north of Bangkok. Western Digital's hard-disk manufacturing facility went under nearly six feet of water, devastating an operation that requires a zero-dust environment because a single speck of dust can destroy a product. It was a calamity.

The experts estimated it would cost a billion dollars and at least seven months of clean-up to get even part of the factory back on line, while much of the high-end equipment would require years to replace. Some even predicted the end of the company and 35,000 workers losing their job. Besides, other companies around the world ground to a halt without the key components the factory would deliver.

But Western Digital's leaders did not wait years to get back to work. They took things into their own hands. They immediately announced there would be no layoffs - they were a team and were going to get on their feet together.

The safety of the people came first - crews were organised to help the most stricken employees and their homes. Then on day two, they hired Thai navy crews to salvage irreplaceable equipment and get it to dry land for refurbishing.

Meanwhile other big plants nearby laid off their workers, the factories lay rusting and drowning in mud. Six months after the flood, 284 factories remained closed and nearly 165,000 people were still out of work.

But at Western Digital, the work went on nonstop. Tens of thousands, many still trying to cope with the crisis at their homes, showed up to revive their plant. Some travelled miles each day from refugee centres, often in small boats or on water oxen for hours a day, determined to show up for work.

Many found themselves doing jobs they had never done before - hard, muddy manual labour. Company leaders rolled up their sleeves and laboured alongside office workers used to the comfort of a desk job. Workers who had never met before formed teams and solved problems on the spot.

On 30 November, only 46 days from its closing, only 15 days after the waters receded, Western Digital reopened the plant and within a year reclaimed the number one position on the market.

The firm remained profitable through everything and even managed to acquire one of its top competitors. Observers were astonished that it hadn't taken billions of dollars and many years to recover. All it took was a superb team willing to wade through mud for each other.

A firm can have a unique brand, but if people don't do the things needed to leverage it, sustain it and live up to it, it will evaporate. A firm can have an enviable cost structure but if your people couldn't care less about maintaining it, the whole thing is a house of cards. The behaviour of your people is the ultimate source of your competitive advantage.

If they are as engaged as the people of Western Digital, they will pull the company out of the mud. But if they are unexcited about the company, uncaring, indifferent, even alienated from it - your competitive advantage will disappear. If they are not giving their best efforts to your strategy, you can forget about differentiating yourself in the marketplace.

 

 

Authors: Shawn D. Moon and Sue Dathe-Douglass

FranklinCovey 2013. 214pp