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In this issue: Carpe 2K5 |
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Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. Don’t let 2005 be a year of doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. If you’re planning a significant acquisition, this is the year to expect a higher level of speed and performance from the transaction.
Use Communication to Increase Action
By effectively communicating new information to the organization, the decisions made by the front line will more quickly be carried out by the troops.
Seize the Leadership Advantage
Leaders believe in teamwork, trust, and empowerment— they create situations where people are given the authority, information, and skills to act on those words. Leaders set the example.
Carpe 2005
Strategic planning, acquisitions, revenue targets – the year stretches ahead with plans and more plans. As in previous years, all these plans represent change. New people, new divisions, new processes, new systems all mean doing things differently. How well has your organization dealt with changing to achieve in the past? Are plans made but it’s then just business as usual? When your business faces pivotal decisions about its future, the most common response internally is a flurry of activity with diminishing results. Meetings are held to discuss the situation and what should be done, and people shuffle and reshuffle their tasks while they try to understand what is expected and needed.What you need is a crisis! 2005 may have given you enough crises for a lifetime but times of crisis and chaos engender massive change. Whether the change is ultimately good for the bottom line is a function of the leadership and discipline of the management team. The organization’s energy can be easily and effectively channeled into those areas most critical to success:
- Seize the leadership advantage
Capitalize on the strength of your leaders
Evangelize the organization
- Focus on the customer base
Boldly assess your organization’s ability and willingness to compete for business
Paint a vision you and your customers can fall in love with
- Capitalize on existing major projects
Unearth what the organization is really thinking and creating
Provide proving grounds for emerging talent
- Reduce cost
Protect the true value in intellectual and emotional capital
Protect the true value in financial and operational capital
- Increase the value of key producers
Answer the need for speed
Prime yourself for innovation
- Manage productivity and output
Guarantee solid opening moves and seize quick wins
Speed up output and problem solving by maximizing the value of interpersonal relationships
- Increase effectiveness and speed of decisions
Give people an understanding of what’s going on so they can engage themselves in the process
Connect people to the vision through vivid storytelling
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Use Communication to Increase Action
Give everyone a reason to get hooked!Try your hand at speaking in word pictures
Communication is key to making a change event successful. By effectively communicating new information to the organization, the decisions made by the front line will more quickly be carried out by the troops.
Informative communication gets as much fact as possible out in the open, preparing people to come to grips with the change issues as well as their own personal issues quickly. When people are having difficulty making sense of what they are hearing or are distracted—and when they are unsure of how to interpret their environment—they don’t always hear messages accurately the first time.
These two components enhance informative communication:
Supportive communication that seeks to preserve a positive relationship while still addressing the problem at hand
Visionary communication that allows people to envision how they are linked to, and contribute to, the achievement of the organization goals; how their commitment makes a difference.
Studies confirm the most effective way to articulate a vision in a clear and energizing way is to create word pictures, stories, metaphors, and real-life examples. People are more likely to understand and be moved by a vision if it has both right brain (intuitive, pictorial, story-based) as well as left brain (logical, reasonable, performance based) elements.
For example, in describing a move to different office space, you might say, “I know that it’s going to be challenging to leave our office. We’ve worked here together and have created familiar routines. But, the fact is that we simply need more space in order to work together effectively. Our new space will be like waking up to the expansive ocean: peaceful, roomy, and relaxing. In the mornings we’ll enter a bright, open lobby, our new logo splashed upon the wall. Rather than packing into these dark, cramped conference rooms we have here, we’ll have open, flexible areas where project groups can meet.”
By communicating effectively, employees buy-in to decisions more quickly, and are more in line with the goals. Coaching you through decision-making and effective communication is one of the many ways MergerCoach makes your merger work!
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Seize the Leadership Advantage
Leaders are at their personal best when they are able to:- Challenge the process
- Inspire a shared vision
- Enable others to act
- Model the way
- And encourage the heart
Leaders seek challenges to overcome.
When there is a change from the status quo they innovate, experiment, and take risks. They have dreams of what could be and, more importantly, a personal belief that it can be. Leaders use the language of their organization to communicate a vision that inspires people to rally behind.
Leaders ignite passion in others.
But dreams don’t become reality without the skill to enlist the support of others in that dream. Leaders are creative and aggressive in finding ways to involve those who will be most impacted by change. They make it possible for people to invest themselves in a worthwhile cause that they can be proud of. Leaders believe in teamwork, trust, and empowerment— they create situations where people are given the authority, information, and skills to act on those words. Leaders set the example.
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