Grolistic

Welcoming Requests For More Communication

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Leaders are often challenged with requests for more communication.  These appeals may simply reflect a need for more information about the condition of the business, or the status of a strategy, new policy, or change initiative.  But often, they signal a deeper yearning to share feedback with you, feedback you should welcome and encourage from those stakeholders most impacted by planned or implemented strategies or change initiatives.  As you consider your response to these requests, …

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Solving, Not Selling

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To grow your business, you can add new customers, raise your average unit price, or increase your orders from existing customers.  The third strategy has proven to be the most productive method for generating sustainable growth; successfully implement one of the other two as well, and growth can be exponential. Key to increasing your business with current customers is proving that you’re focused on solving, not selling – that you’re not seeking one-time transactions, but …

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The Nexus of Purpose and Time

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The nexus of purpose and time is progress – the prime directive for every leader. Time is currency, and in the end, it’s the only currency that matters.  There’s only so much of it, and it’s unrecoverable. While reacting to your daily barrage of issues, many of them urgent, it’s easy to lose track of how much valuable time is being consumed in reaction mode.  And then there are the unexpected distractions, the changing priorities, …

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Strengthening Your Power of Perspective

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Perspective is one of a leader’s most powerful tools.  Acknowledging and respecting the perspectives of others enables the relationship building that is foundational for achieving goals, developing others, and delivering sustained improvements. The power of perspective is an intentional discipline, requiring time and commitment to develop.  By learning how to see situations through the lenses of others, as well as their own, leaders open the aperture of their own lens, broadening and deepening their understanding …

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Leveraging Competitive Advantage

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You’ve invested much to create and strengthen your competitive advantage; it’s a combination of your offerings and your culture.  Leveraging it to productively drive your growth, in an increasingly dynamic market, compels you to consider how best to invest your precious time and resources going forward. Your customers, your competitors, and you are simultaneously experiencing the same evolving market trends, so what is valued, and what creates value, is changing more rapidly. Staying abreast of …

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Self-Interest to Shared Commitment

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Before there can be accountability, there must be commitment. Commitment is taking ownership of a challenge, being responsible for resolving it, in alignment with your company’s goals and values.  It reflects an obligation, by leader and team, to improve something that makes a difference.  And because it requires the assumption of risk, commitment is much more than consensus. Commitment requires that your team grasps why a goal, strategy or action is necessary, and is willing …

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Sustaining a Strategic Focus

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The leadership mandate is: The leadership challenge is to develop an operating style that fulfills this mandate while effectively managing persistent, short-term, changing priorities that demand attention.  If your team’s time is consumed with resolving urgent issues, then the vital, longer-term improvement work goes undone; you’re always reacting, not leading. Key to sustaining a productive balance between short and long-term priorities is consistently integrating strategy into team discussions.  Certainly, there are times when leaders must …

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It’s Better In-Person

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The most productive scenario for effective communication is a one-on-one discussion or small team meeting; it provides the best opportunity to ensure that the message being heard is the same as the message being spoken, making the message actionable.  Every other communication method is a compromise, driven by circumstance or preference.  According to communication experts, less than 10% of our spoken words are heard and understood; about 40% of message comprehension is due to how …

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Thinking Cross-Functionally

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When considering how to improve their business performance, leaders typically discover that doing so requires an assessment of policies and activities outside their direct authority, the inputs and outputs which enable the functional work that is their responsibility. The most productive and enduring improvement initiatives are those that solve persistent business problems impacting multiple, connected functional departments. Soliciting their peers to join them in the diagnostic and remedial journeys of these collaborative, cross-functional improvement efforts requires that …

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Inspiring Is Not Cheerleading

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The prime directive for leaders is to improve things – results, SOPs, team performance, policies, etc. It’s why leaders are hired. It’s what differentiates leaders from managers; management competency is the stepping stone towards leadership. To motivate action by their teams in response to this directive, leaders employ two skills more than any others – they influence and they inspire. Influencing involves leaders leveraging their knowledge and experience, and engaging openly and transparently with their …

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