Winning Behavior: What the Smartest, Most Successful Companies Do Differently
Terry R. Bacon and David G. Pugh
“In an age where even the best products are quickly imitated, businesses must constantly find new ways to outpace competitors. Successful companies differentiate themselves not just with superior products, but also by how they behave toward their customers at every touchpoint: service, product development, marketing, branding, bids and proposals, presentations, negotiations, and more. Behavioral Differentiation is emerging as the “”final frontier”” in competitive strategy, and Winning Behavior shows how leading companies use it to exceed expectations and outperform competitors. This eye-opening book offers case histories and examples from companies like GE, Volvo, EMC, Ritz-Carlton, Wal-Mart, and Harley-Davidson, plus interviews with executives like George Zimmer (Men’s Wearhouse), Colleen Barrett (Southwest Airlines), and Gerry Roche (Heidrick & Struggles). In today’s ultracompetitive business landscape, product quality and competitive pricing are prerequisites for staying afloat. Winning Behavior reveals the secrets the best companies use — and any business can use — to stay at the pinnacle of success in their industry.”
Terry R. Bacon and David G. Pugh collaborated on several books of advice for business leaders seeking a competitive edge. They also worked together at Lore International Institute, a professional training and coaching firm that Bacon founded and is now part of one of the world’s largest talent acquisition companies.
Their premise in Winning Behavior is that market leaders are businesses that uniquely distinguish themselves from their competition—and the most effective differentiator is employee behavior.
The authors assert that:
“Business development in the new age is increasingly a chemistry test, and the chemistry between the buyer and the seller is shaped by the seller’s behaviors. Culture forms the basis for how most people in an organization behave most of the time.”
Bacon and Pugh are quick to point out that behaviors alone are not substitutes for product quality or competitive pricing. But these are things that every good company has already addressed.
They contend that consistent and superior staff behavior is the only thing that allows customers to tell a company apart from its rivals with similar technical capacities, prices, and quality.
The book, published in 2003, explains that positive behavioral differentiation is hard to imitate when integrated throughout an organization. That’s because competitors are either unwilling or unable to replicate it. “Knowing what to do is not the same as doing it.”
Bacon and Pugh studied a wide swath of companies that successfully integrated behavioral differentiation. They discovered that the formula to make this change was remarkably similar across multiple fields. Included in the book are numerous case studies with observations about positive and negative behaviors that change the way customers view a business.
Readers are provided with an insider’s view of how companies like Men’s Wearhouse, SAS, Volvo, and Nordstrom utilized behavioral differentiation. The section of the book devoted to Southwest Airlines notes that entire books have been written about how that company’s leaders found a way to not only stand out in a highly competitive field—but stay there.
The authors go on to explain that developing differentiating behaviors is only part of a winning game plan. The harder challenge is to maintain them, and they offer several strategies to sustain this critical market advantage.
Take-Away
The basis of Winning Behavior is that while there may be an abundance of capability in the market, deeply rooted behavioral differentiation is the thing that draws and retains customers. The book offers a fascinating glimpse into the market titans who have embraced this concept. And it includes practical steps that business leaders can take to understand customers’ behavioral expectations.
