The Value of Doing

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The prime directive for leaders is to improve results. One way they accomplish this by nurturing a culture which understands what has produced success, challenges the status quo, and cultivates ashared commitment for embracing productive change that creates value for their customers and their business.  A key component of building this culture is recognizing their responsibility to develop those they lead. Their experience has taught that the most beneficial learning is accomplished by ‘doing,’ so these leaders …

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3 Steps for Resolving Differences

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Securing a team’s commitment to a direction, decision or action, typically requires the resolving of differences within the team to identify and agree on the best way forward. These 3 steps can help: 1. Employ empathy. As the discussion begins, listen empathetically to the differing perspectives, asking questions to clarify or confirm. If the dialogue stalls, use expressions of consideration and tolerance to remove any sense of threat so the sharing of ideas may continue. A typical comment would be: …

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Energy of the People

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It’s during the challenging moments that your people make the biggest difference. Each person in your organization is a source of energy, with a unique set of gifts to contribute, and the potential to leverage these together with their distinctive insight and experience, to convert products and services into strategic value for your customers. This energy is focused like a laser when employees share commitment to a common purpose and culture. And unlike other forms of energy, …

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Driving Change Amidst Turmoil

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Supply chain challenges and rampant inflation continue to disrupt businesses of all sizes, causing them to revise strategies and priorities as they adapt to new realities. Having navigated Covid shutdowns, and the subsequent transitions back to work, leaders are now compelled to control rapidly escalating costs that are crushing margins and constraining the achievement of revenue goals.   It’s one thing for leaders to drive proactive, productive change when the business is growing; it’s another when strategy and structure revisions are required in …

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Competition

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Competition is fierce and growing. The dynamic market and internet access to abundant information ensures that no technical advantage is sustained for long.   To keep pace with the market, competing companies react to one another by offering comparable solutions while struggling to differentiate themselves. Often this results in declining prices and margins. Monitoring your competitors is essential, but it tends to make a business more reactive than proactive, which can complicate goal achievement and cause you …

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Selling or Solving

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Rising inflation is driving a greater emphasis on price over value creation in negotiations. It’s not just the dramatic, unpredictable cost increases that are impacting your customers’ decisions, but also the sense of higher risk related to uncertainty, that cause the short-term, price-first perspective to prevail over the longer, strategic view in your customers’ buying process.  Focusing on price as the primary decision factor has the advantage of being clear, direct and easy to evaluate. Everything is …

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Finding Talent

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Businesses are struggling to find and hire talented people. Job postings cite requirements and experience levels, which translates to expertise. Companies hire for expertise.  But not all expertise is equal. Attracting and retaining the most talented people, those with the highest level of expertise, is expensive and time-consuming; and it can be risky if the person hired ultimately isn’t the right fit for the business. So, most companies design jobs that can be done reasonably well by a person …

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Cultivating Dialogue

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It’s understood that communication is an essential ingredient of effective leadership. What is less often realized is that two-way interaction, dialogue, is the most impactful method of communication for influencing those you seek to lead. The word ‘dialogue’ is actually a contraction from the Greek words for “through” and “words” which suggests a focus on discovering meaning. The ancient Greeks learned that people reasoning together, rather than as individuals, are more likely to uncover the …

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Navigating Disruption

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Today’s tech driven world appeals to our search for predictability. We have instant access to an abundance of information, perhaps too much of it. We’ve come to expect consistency from the brands on which we rely; Starbuck’s coffee is the same worldwide, and Amazon will deliver your package as close as possible to tomorrow.  But working against this predictability, and undermining its expected outcomes, is the persistent disruption of routine, perpetual change that challenges us to repeatedly …

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Customer Experience Value

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Relentless disruption during the past couple of years has elevated the value of excellent customer service. Those who thrive in delivering exceptional customer experiences have increased satisfaction by ensuring that the benefits of their offerings go beyond resolving the customer’s immediate need, to creating value that accelerates that customer’s progress.  Such experiences build enduring relationships which subsequently provide insights about trends, changing customer demands, feedback on strategy, and innovation opportunities – all valuable inputs for …

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