Organizational agility – Innovative Management Tools

INNOVATE – Product Analysis Activity

Patrick — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:59:53 +0000

Companies need to stay current, fresh, and relevant. Most people would agree with that when talking about their products and services. While companies know this, 71.4% of surveyed companies say that this is a challenge for them. To be more precise, this is the scenario that resonates most with them and is most challenging:

“There are complaints about current products or services and a product revisit, review, upgrade, update, or analysis is needed.”

Revising products or services does not mean that the company must throw everything out and create something brand new. There are many different aspects that can be factors in a product/service upgrade project. There are 20 aspects, to be exact. Pricing to Packaging. Policies to After Sales Support. Design to Distribution. Positioning to Quality. These only scratch the service of how a company make internal and external adjustments and tweaks to refresh and renew a product or service. While some are traditional or “obvious”, other factors are less “front-and-center” but can have a significant impact on the market.

This is where the Conversation Framework INNOVATE – Product Analysis Activity comes in. INNOVATE provides prompts and ideas in the 20 different areas to help spark ideas and collaboration around how a product or service could get a makeover. Including people from the various areas of the company enriches the session even more. More diverse perspectives give a broader set of possible ideas. A broader set of ideas opens the door to ideas outside the traditional lower price or significant overhaul.

INNOVATE can help participants to generate enough ideas to build out a multi-phase roadmap for a product or service.

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REORGANIZE – Internal Restructuring Activity

Patrick — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:53:53 +0000

In recent years there was a reset within companies around the world. Everything as we knew it was put into question and scrutiny. Employees started moving around more, leaving companies for a different position, challenge, work environment, or lifestyle. Some companies downsized; some closed their doors. Some company owners decided to hand over the reins to the next generation.

The reality is that the people movements of the last few years and tendency for people to move more and more presents challenges for companies. No company is immune from people movement at some point.

81.0% of surveyed companies about common and recurring challenges identify with two scenarios that impact a company’s org chart and structure:

“There is new senior management or owners. The time is right to review the structure for possible changes to the org chart.”

“Some departments have shrunk in headcount, and it might be time to consolidate people and departments.”

When faced with the need or even curiosity to entertain the idea of considering a restructuring of the org chart, that activity should be done intentionally and with an open mind, thinking about the how, why, and who. Org chart redesigns can be super stressful to employees and when done poorly, impact the company negatively in many ways.

This is where the Conversation Framework REORGANIZE – Internal Restructuring Activity can assist. This framework guides a group through the org chart redesign in a structured, organized, and collaborative manner. It helps the group step back and look at the company’s org chart from different perspectives with the goal of designing an org chart that meets the needs of today and also ensures that it will make sense to the employees.

This collaborative, facilitator-led activity allows the group to step back and see things at a different level, through different lenses. Redesigning an org chart can become more successful to all parties involved when the conversation and activity is placed in a structured and organized environment where everybody works toward the same objective and goal – company structure clarity and performance improvement.

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HOSPITALITY – Customer Service Analysis Activity

Patrick — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 15:26:12 +0000

Without customers, there is no company. Customer service should always be top-of-mind. The Customer Experience is much more than just the product or service when being used. It is everything from the first to the last touch point in the process, spanning many departments from sales, implementation, delivery, customer service, finance, and a myriad of other departments. Let’s throw on top of that the website experience, the automatic messages and billing, and other ways to make OUR life easier.

But what’s the customer’s perspective? Do you have high customer churn or cancellation? Do you have more complaints than you want? Have some areas been targeted and criticized for having a poor service level?

83% of the companies that we have surveyed find that they are facing Customer Service Challenges. The most recurring challenge is the following:

“There is an inconsistent customer journey experience during the customer journey that management wants to make more consistent.”

Followed closely by: “The company has received poor customer satisfaction survey results and/or customer complaints.”

This is where the Conversation Framework, HOSPITALITY – Customer Service Analysis Activity comes in. This facilitated, small group activity focuses on the customer journey across the various touchpoints with the company to better understand the experience from the customer’s perspective. Is the experience consistent? Are there more positive or negative moments? How can you turn negatives into positives?

This video walks you through the high-level steps of HOSPITALITY. If your company is facing these challenges, reach out to me and let’s talk.

Additionally, if you are interested in assessing your company at various levels to know what your most frequent challenges are, contact me to discuss. Within two weeks your organization could have insights into the challenges that are impacting performance, morale, and productivity.

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BRIDGES – Communications Analysis Activity

Patrick — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:50:41 +0000

Communication, communication, communication. It is at the heart of everything we do. Before the pandemic we thought we had an ample amount of communication tools. That was shadowed by the tools that emerged a couple years ago.

But isn’t it ironic, funny, or maybe even a little sad that despite all of the communication tools we have at our disposal today, 94.44% of our on-going Organizational Challenges Survey respondents cite that they have challenges with “Communication”? It ranks #3 in the challenges list.

Want to know what the most cited challenge is? Something that seems so simple but is impacting employees, our businesses, and their productivity over and over. Ready? Here it is:

“Employees complain that information needed to do work arrives late, or not at all, impacting their performance and productivity.”

Seems so simple to fix, but something is getting in the way. That is where the Conversation Framework BRIDGES – Communications Analysis Activity comes in. BRIDGES tackles the sticky topic of working with those who voice their complaints about lack of communication to get their job done and works with them to resolve the problem. It helps open up the communication BRIDGES (yes, pun intended) to improve things. Sometimes a little communication about the communication problem is the solution.

The second most cited communication challenge is the following:

“There is a general perception or evidence that there is poor or inadequate communication in the company and a task force or team has been assembled to look for ways to improve.”

While task forces or teams can be effective at identifying where some issues lie, the question comes back to HOW to correct the problem. Again, those identified people fit nicely into the BRIDGES activity.

I invite you to watch this short video about BRIDGES – Communication Analysis Activity and reach out if you feel that it could help tackle issues in your organization.

Interested in assessing your company at various levels to know what your most frequent challenges are? Contact me to discuss. Within two weeks your organization could have insights into the challenges that are impacting performance, morale, and productivity.

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SYNCHRONIZE – Directional Efficiency Activity

Patrick — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 14:58:05 +0000

Your leadership team knows the value of being aligned and in many areas they might be. However, there may be ways to improve that alignment and get everybody even more synchronized.

The Conversation Framework SYNCHRONIZE helps the leadership team consider areas that might not have been previously considered as important or critical alignment topics. Doing a comprehensive alignment assessment as part of a continuous improvement and leadership development program is easy with SYNCHRONIZE.

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HURDLES – Barrier Analysis Activity

Patrick — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:23:42 +0000

87% of survey respondents to the common and recurring organizational challenges survey, called DIAGNOSE – Organizational Challenges Survey, say that “there are complaints from employees that they can’t get the work done because there are roadblocks, speed bumps, or obstacles in their way.”

Does your org or do your clients fall into the 87% or the lucky 13%?

The Conversation Framework HURDLES – Barrier Elimination Activity is designed to help you overcome the barriers and get from Point A to Point B with structure and organization.

Overcome obstacles and barriers proactively without waiting for them to become problems.

Conversation Frameworks – Guiding the Power and Ideas from Within.

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HAND-OFF – Delegation Enabler Activity

Patrick — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 00:32:20 +0000

In recent surveys from organizations of all sizes, delegation has shown up in 100% of the surveys as a challenge they face.

New supervisors and managers need to delegate tasks from their individual contributor days so they can dedicate the necessary time to their new role. They are told to delegate, but very often they don’t know how to do it effectively.

For seasoned managers, they may have “delegated” in the past, while the recipient feels like they were “dumped on.”

The Conversation Framework HAND-OFF is here to help all supervisors and managers learn the process of effective delegation so that it becomes an intentional, proactive development tool for those being delegated to, not a reactive, quick solution just to clear the supervisor’s or manager’s plate for more supervisor time.

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NAVIGATE – Planning and Preparation Activity

Patrick — Sun, 10 Sep 2023 17:17:18 +0000

Lack of planning is one of the three root causes of business problems.

How many projects have you been involved in where the group or team rushed into action without upfront planning and with the idea that you would figure out the details along the way? Then, the project hit that infamous moment when things weren’t going as well as has been hoped and the team needed to “regroup”?

The Conversation Framework NAVIGATE is designed to help that project team do a short 4-hour planning session prior to jumping into action. Avoid or minimize regrouping costs, time losses, and frustrations by proactively planning instead of reactively regrouping.

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QUADRANTS Thinking Styles Introduction Video

Patrick — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 21:05:10 +0000

This video provides an introduction to Thinking Styles and sets the stage for receiving your QUADRANTS Thinking Styles Assessment results. We encourage you to watch this 18-minute video prior to your results reveal so that your reveal is more valuable and relevant. During your results reveal, you can clarify any topics from this video.

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DEADLINES – Time Management Activity

Patrick — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 14:19:09 +0000

Time management challenges can plague employees’ productivity, morale, and the performance of the people they serve. While it seems easy to simply tell somebody, “You need to manage your time better” that doesn’t work. If it did, nobody would have the challenge of time management.

This Conversation Framework, DEADLINES, takes the topic of Time Management improvement and turns it into a self-reflection, self-analysis, and coaching moment with the person faced with the challenges. It helps the person to step back and see the patterns and trends that are impacting their productivity and opens the door to making positive changes. Stop saying the “what” to do and start focusing on the “how” to do it with DEADLINES.

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