I will be instructing "Exercising Leadership to Facilitate Adaptive Change" from the National Fire Administration's Executive Skills Series, in Georgia and Colorado in May.
A key element of the course is that change happens to us all of the time, whether we like it or not, but Adaptive Change happens when people believe in and support the change (maybe for the betterment of their organization or community).
Adaptive Change is hard to accomplish because there is usually no standard or known way to implement it, it requires good leadership techniques to work with others to be a part of the change process. Once a leader and team agree on why and how the change is needed, it takes vision and the ability to communicate it clearly and specifically to implement Adaptive Change -- a leader who can see the forest from the trees and helps others to do so.
This is a good idea for every-day use -- when we are struggling with small issues, stop and take a big picture perspective on your situation, look at it from a different angle, and you might help yourself and your team work through the issue and move forward!
In preparation to teach "Customer Service Excellence: How to Win and Keep Customers" for the American Management Association (AMA) in Chicago next week, I am reading a Harvard Business Review (HBR) September-2013 article that will be handed out in the class, "The Truth About Customer Experience: Touchpoints matter, but it's the full journey that really counts." by Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan and Conor Jones.
Customer touchpoints are moments when customers interact with your organization. Some organizations focus on successful interactions, but would benefit exponentially by working toward a productive customer journey, including all of the customers' touchpoints and the organization's processes for those events. Organizations that successfully manage the entire customer experience benefit with: greater customer satisfaction, reduced customer attrition, increased revenue and higher employee satisfaction. An organizational benefit of a proactive customer service process is more-effective collaboration among functions and levels within the organization.
How do you identify your customer's journey? Begin with working sessions with executives and key managers to identify the prominent customer journey(s) and their problem points (e.g. discrepancies in sales promises and actual product/service delivered), including judgement and actual data. Then involve the entire organization to verify touchpoints and design customer service practices to meet and exceed customer needs. Organizational buy-in and a cross-functional approach ensures that a successful customer journey is the responsibility all of your organization's employees. A siloed organization cannot achieve a maximized customer journey, as open communication and team problem-solving are the keys to building a successful road map on which to continuously test and modify.
As with any organizational process, new or established, constant testing with customers and data analysis is key to keeping customers and remaining competitive. Front-line ownership with the power to change the process and the organization to be more productive, is vital to organizational growth through maximized customer journey.
Consultants, such as myself, can help you gain an unbiased view of your organization and your customer service, through meeting facilitation and data analysis to help guide you through this discovery and process development. Contact us with questions.
I just read October 2016's Harvard Business Review article "Why Leadership Training Fails--and What to Do About It" by Michael Beer, Magnus Finnstrom and Derek Schrader.
This article peaked my interest because I have often been asked in my career, to facilitate meetings that help organizations move forward with a project. The individuals requesting my assistance have taken many leadership courses throughout their careers, but cannot lead their teams to communicate and accomplish their goals. The problem is not their leadership training, but a lack of an organizational infrastructure that enables them to communicate openly and effectively as a team with the freedom to implement change in their organizations as the team identifies.
When I consult with teams to help them be more productive in their teamwork, I commonly have to start the meeting with a frank discussion--allowing all members to speak openly and honestly about the project, then once everyone is aligned with a strategy, I lead their conversation on how they want to accomplish defined goals, producing written and actionable tasks, which may change in future meetings--based on what they discover by working together. Why don't senior leaders create this culture in their organizations? Change is hard to implement, especially when it is an organizational culture to do it the way that it has always been done.
The HBR article stated that the solution to this problem is to first create an organizational system where new behaviors, not old behaviors, are the norm, thereby enabling learning that improves organizational effectiveness and performance. Once this is accomplished, then train individuals to lead and work effectively as a team. Leading in a faulty system is a recipe for stagnation and potential failure. I have seen numerous organizations, for-profit and non-profit, diminish significantly because of unchanging negative culture.
Contact me for a discussion if this affects your organization, I'd like to help your team work well together by changing your organizational culture to be positive and productive.