Growth & Leadership Insights

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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Improvements Accelerate Progress

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Building enduring customer relationships mandates that your business consistently creates value for customers. This involves more than introducing new products or delivering exceptional serviceexperiences. Increasingly, this value emerges from your efforts to improve the efficiency, responsiveness and agility of your business.  Continuous improvement accelerates your progress and strengthens the sustainability of your business. In addition to the expected benefits of greater customer loyalty, increased profitability and more revenue, pursuing improvement expands your capacity and enables your people to gain …

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Commitment is More than Consensus

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Achieving strategic goals requires a team commitment. Commitment is more than consensus. Pursuing consensus, or shared agreement, can be alluring because it’s more expedient than the hard work of securing commitment on a goal or critical business issue. It avoids confrontation to preserveharmony, enabling team members to surrender to the majority opinion rather than exposing themselves to the risk of expressing their views. Without the whole team engaging in the healthy, essential discussions about conflicting …

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Customers Value Options

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When your customer comes to believe that you understand their business, and care about its success, then you’re on your way to building an enduring relationship.  Their belief is grounded in your proven delivery of solutions that create value for them, solutions that resolve a short-term need while contributing to the achievement of their longer-term goals. Thisenables your solutions to become investments in their future rather than one-time transactions.  Ensuring that your solutions create value rests on your ability to …

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Agile Leadership

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As technology continues its rapid, incessant evolution, complexity and unpredictability grow in the marketplace, causing your customers to constantly assess and react to shifting market trends. Your ability to remain a valuable partner to them depends on how accurately and consistently you anticipate their changing needs, and then, how quickly, efficiently and profitably you adapt to them.Anticipating change, challenge or opportunity, and then responding with urgency and certainty when they appear, is what defines agility. …

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Rebuilding Culture

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Leaders own culture. As organizations continue to emerge from a disorienting, multi-year disruption, many leaders are discovering that their company culture has eroded, and they need to rebuild it.   Pre-covid work communities are fractured, challenging you to define new working norms and expectations that enable team trust and collaboration to grow in accordance with core values. Teams need some in-person time together, and with you, to share stories and ideas, exchange perspectives and rekindle relationships. A distinctive energy …

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Innovate or Stagnate

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A leader’s pursuit of improvement relies on fostering initiative and innovation. Without them, progress and profitable agility are not possible. It’s either innovate or stagnate.   Innovation doesn’t require you to understand the future; it requires that you understand your customers’ evolving needs and goals, and how your business must operate to fulfill them better than anyone.  These steps nurture initiative and innovation:  1.      Communicate that innovation is a “must-have.” Allocate time for individuals to spend on innovation. Encourage them to challenge widely-held assumptions and discount those that inhibit curiosity and creativity; listen to each …

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3 Vital Tasks for Welcoming a New Leader

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The start of a new year may find you welcoming a new leader to your team. Key to your onboarding effort is emphasizing the need to build relationships that are essential for the leader’s success.  Guiding your new leader to accomplish these 3 tasks will support that objective, and help establish the leader’s effectiveness and credibility:  1. Align current circumstances with expectations. New leaders must quickly gain clarity about the path ahead and your expectations for them. As …

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