Friday, January 21, 2011

Closer

There is no doubt that we are all being asked to get closer to all sorts of people than ever before. But it's not easy.

The first group of people we need to get closer to are our colleagues. We have to discuss, maybe debate but finally sign off the Bull's Eye because that is what determines who we are, what we want to be and how we are to conduct the journey. To do this we all have to be open and honest with each other.

Secondly we need to get closer than ever before to our staff and stakeholders because these people are fundamental to enhancing the performance of our business. We have to lead, inspire and motivate and we do that by our behaviour, day in day out, week in week out.

When we have started to do the work with the first three groups of people we are ready to get closer to customers. But not before. I meet very many business leaders that are keen to get the customer / client bit right, but are not prepared to put the time and energy into their relationships with colleagues, staff and stakeholders first. It doesn’t work that way.

So make sure you realize this is both a sequential and a cyclical process. It always starts with colleagues. Staff and stakeholders are next and then you are ready to develop great relationships with customers.

But all this comes with a health warning because some people just don't want to play. And in all fairness why should a perfectly normal law abiding citizen suddenly want to get closer to a bunch of human beings they just used to work with?

Good question and I don't know the answer. What I do know is that emotional and interpersonal intelligence will be a large part of what differentiates us in the market places of the future. Effective contemporary communication is one of the last remaining opportunities for all of us to develop and sustain competitive advantage.

So we had better get used to it.

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home