means to an end
Commerce today is day to day. Who has time to worry about strategic goal setting and best laid plans? Too busy keeping clients, customers and your boss satisfied today?
Maybe once in a while, two hours after everyone else has gone home for the day, you put your feet up on the desk and wonder about the future, about meeting goals, about just getting things done as you had planned and hoped for.
It is said that one hour of good planning is worth ten hours of execution. At hicomm consulting we believe planning and execution are both dramatically improved by the quality of the conversation that creates the planning and the execution. We categorize these organizational conversations into The Five Daily Conversations that provide a map for getting real results:
Conversation by Design™
1. Connection
2. Opportunity
3. Decision
4. Optimization
5. Delivery
Take a moment to consider your own experience:
* When was the last time your expectations were met or exceeded?
* Who continually surprises you with their outstanding performance? Who disappoints?
* How does it feel when work has to be repeated to get it right?
* In all honesty, when was the last time you gave it your full effort to deliver on someone else’s
expectation?
* When were you last recognized or acknowledged for “job well done”?
These are some of the ghosts of inadequate conversations. We’re not talking about water-cooler chat or Monday morning quarterbacking. We’re talking about the conversations aimed at getting things done in organizations.
“Teams, not individuals, will be the basic work unit of the future. This
is because there is too much information relevant to any (significant
organizational) endeavor for any one person to be able to hold and
manage.”
--Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, 1991
If teams are the basic work unit today, then team conversations and cross-organization, collaborative efforts are the glue for getting things done and achieving extraordinary results. We call this the beneficiary/benefactor relationship built on a process of taking
needs to a plan à
plan to actions à
actions to delivery à
delivery to results à
results to success.
The single most important ingredient to this process is the building of trust and the glue is the conversations that drive the process.
Whether it is
* a lunch conversation with a customer
* the biggest contract in your company’s history
* the most recent request from your boss
* an email inquiry from your connection in service delivery, engineering,
finance, sales or the plant floor
success depends on the quality of the conversations between benefactor and beneficiary that define mutual
agreement and benefit, expressed by a benefactor’s commitment to deliver and a beneficiary’s expectation
of satisfaction.
hicomm consulting is here to help you better understand that relationship and apply the conversations
that leverage the power to receive and deliver Real Results. What do we mean by Real Results? On time,
within budget, as requested and exceeding expectations.
Want to do more of that in your organization ?
Conversation by Design™, The Five Daily Conversations to Get Things Done in Organizations, applies in
the real world processes and methods you and your organization regularly engage three ways:
1. STRATEGIC attention to clarifying vision, mission, goals and direction
2. OPERATIONAL getting things done efficiently, making continuous improvements, delivering excellence
3. DEVELOPMENTAL applying lessons learned, finding new approaches to new challenges
In each of these initiatives we:
establish clear expected outcomes
partner with appropriate parties in your organization
ensure alignment at every step
apply the best resources available
protect confidentialities and proprietary assets
to maximize your satisfaction and exceed your expectations.
If your organization’s efforts in one or more of these could be improved, hicomm consulting may be
the right resource to start.