The 3 Most Basic YAHOO Leadership Learnings from Last Week

Last week's Yahoo announcement might end up to become their biggest self fulfilling prophecy ever. Announcing to close down a service might lead to people fleeing that service - and the mother services, too.

Last week's announcement was just the last management mistake in a long history. It is about time to end that by ex/changing the whole management team.

The 3 most basic leadership learnings from that are:

Understand Your Own Product Offering!

Delicious does not fit into Yahoo's longterm strategy? A bookmarking service does not fit into a search, mail, photo sharing services portfolio? Come on!

What is the value proposition of Yahoo anyway?
- What Difference does Yahoo make?
- Does Yahoo create Value?
- Would anyone miss Yahoo?

These are the most basic questions every leadership should be able to answer on the spot. It seems the Yahoo management never truly understood Yahoo's offering.

Understand Your Customers!

Just after announcing the delicious close down the Yahoo management learned about their customer's affection for delicious? Come on!

To understand the value of a service you must understand your (potential) consumers! You need to know about human's new individuality, independence, and impatience - and how to anticipate it!

If the management proves it does not know what is happening out there - and due to that does not understand what consumers think about the company's own services - you cannot trust the management anymore (and it does not matter about which of their products you are thinking at the moment).

I myself think about leaving Yahoo mail because nobody knows what will happen to mail, or search, tomorrow. I do not want to risk all my mails and connections on that bet.

But you bet there are uncounted outside thinking about the same as I do now. Why add any link to delicious, why upload any picture to flickr, write any mail via Yahoo mail?

Have a (clear) Vision!

As Yahoo does not have a clear idea about future itself, a vision about its own future development, product offering and value creation, why stay there?

A vision in its most basic definition is: to know what I want to do or achieve. Yahoo does not know. Every company without a vision does not know what to do or - even worse - why to do something!

A communicated and clearly put vision is something like a proposal, an engagement, an approach to common sense that this company, this vision, or value proposition might succeed.

Without a vision there is no meaning, no goal, no path to that (non-existing) goal. No common agreement to reach that (non-existing) goal or vision ...

Without a clear vision consumer's and employee's trust, the brand itself, the future and wealth of a company will fall apart. And that must not be obvious to everybody. Might happen in silence - until it is way to late. Until last week for Yahoo. Until next week for your company or brand?

Start creating value for the individual, adding value to the corporation now!