If everyone in your organisation isn’t pulling together, just how far do you expect to get?

Two things most of us hate about sales people

17 August 2009

What do customers and prospects say are the two most common mistakes made by sales people?

A long long time ago in a place far far away – someone taught me that you are always selling whether you like to consider your self a sales-person or not. Because whether you are attempting to win control back over the remote control for the TV from your eight year old, convincing an employee to raise his performance, trying to get your mechanic to fix your clutch a day earlier or for a more reasonable price... you, me and everybody are “influencing others” = we are all, at times, selling...

Now if we are going to have an impact on an “audience” it makes some sense to find out something about that audience so as I wanted to improve my own selling skills I decided to do some research on generic “customers and prospects” to help improve my own approach.

I asked a team of people to ring 600 companies in the South West of the UK and then ask two questions

1. What are the main criteria that you would judge a potential new supplier, knowing you'd want to work with them for some time..?
2. What traits or behaviours do you like least in sales people who visit or call you..?

In today's blog we will cover the 2nd question...

What did this research show?  

The two most common “mistakes” ~ if I can call them that ~ were

a. Talking too much
b. Not asking sufficient or any questions

Be careful before you cast judgement... remember we are “all” sales people at different times in our busy daily lives whether you have that word “sales” in your job title or not.  This means each and everyone of us are in danger of falling into one or more of those poor habits.

When in “influencing” mode (code for selling) there is a strong in built temptation to slip into “tell mode” ~ to develop and expound an interesting story, describing the various facts, features, advantages and benefits of our ideas and proposition. Unfortunately.... this can easily mean we

1. Start with our self interest – from our point of view, so easily “disconnected” from that of our audience and...
2. Keep going – talking, explaining, enthusing, highlighting, so easily “irrelevant” to your audience.

Check out any guru on influencing skills

• Covey ~ Seek to understand before seeking to be understood
• Svennberg ~ Let your listeners speak
• Caldini ~ People have an inherent desire to return favours, first them and then you.
• Fisher & Ury ~ Rather than listening attentively to the other person, parties may instead be planning their own response, or listening to their own constituency.

And the Grand-Father of them all Mr. Dale (How-To-Win-Friends & Influence People) Carnegie

• Become genuinely interested in other people.
• Be a good listener.  Encourage others to talk about themselves.
• Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
• Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
• Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.

When we listen well to another person, by that very same action we give the three massively important things which we all crave and have done ever since our birth.

• Attention
• Acceptance
• Approval

Attention

If we are listening that of course means the other person is doing the talking and whoever is doing the bulk of the talking has very high levels of mental attention, the talker has high levels of awareness of themselves and what they are saying, they are far more involved and engaged than the listener. And with all this involvement and engagement something happens at a psychological and relationship level inside the talker; the “talkers” trust in the “listener” goes up...

Acceptance

Of course while the other person is listening, they are listening to the ideas and views and opinions of the “talker” ~ the “talker” gains the feeling that they are being heard and as the “listener” is doing just that... “listening” it seems their ideas are being given respect, as there is no argument or indication of rejection, it seems to the talker that their ideas are being accepted.

Approval

A good active listener would probe and ask supplementary questions based on what the “talker” had said. This demonstrate
better than many things an appreciation of their point of view and if the talker senses that the listener can see things from the talker's self interest, sense the listener is on their side, trust grows...

Now of course ~ if you needed to influence someone else there is no value in... 

• gaining the other person's trust
• seeing the other person's self-interest
• making the other person feel accept
• keeping the other person fully involved and engaged

...or is there..?

If you want to sell to another person, or influence another person ~ get them talking, explaining their interests, their point of view, their needs and problems, their preferences and decision making criteria ~ oh yes and of course their trust in you grows... Not only do you know how they are wired so you can present your ideas in alignment with their values, drives and needs – they are far more likely to trust what you say.

So when you want to sell or influence another person – get the other person talking and listen as if everything depends on it – because it does...

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To retain talent or not? Is that the question?

6 August 2009

There is a lot written and said about “talent management” & “talent retention.” If we sign up to the concept that some of our people are blessed with a certain especially valuable talent…

...there are at least two questions to consider are;

1. How do we retain their services rather than loose them to competitors or to a “start-up”?
2. How do we ensure they apply their talent to the maximum whilst they are with us?

For me the answers are simple ~ not necessarily easy ~ but definitely simple.

• Trust-worthy authentic Leadership ~ their boss confirms their talent, invest time and effort with them and isn’t afraid to tell them what they need to hear rather than just what they want to hear. The authentic leader counsels, guides and corrects as well as affirms, rewards and supports.

• The “right” congruent situation ~ the company from it’s brand values, it’s culture, the future ambitions to it’s products and services enable the person with talent to apply that talent and know it is having a positive impact.

It is easy to lose our way in a company because we can’t find the role to apply our gifting or we don’t get sufficient feedback that our work is making a difference.

What are your thoughts on “talent retention..?”

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Does communication travel?

4 August 2009

Multinationals have to communicate across the globe with dispersed team and smaller operations including many
consultancies work in alliances and partnerships across different markets. Victoria Secrets from the USA or Marks & Spencer from the UK have manufacturing arrangements with Sri Lanka; financial operations in Western Europe are increasingly moving call centres to India and Pakistan.

Not only will the ~ not invented here syndrome ~ come into to play alongside language but so too will the cultural differences, so slight and subtle that having a qualification in a second language may not actually help too much. To get key communications right on target
the deep grasp of idiosyncrasies is often only appreciated by a native person living in that country at that time.

There are plenty of examples of the wide gulf of understanding between America and the UK, even though in theory we both speak the same langauge, and there are the classic and expensive errors of not allowing for multiple languages in one location, like the Vauxhall Nova car; No Va meaning No Go to Latin speakers.

But it is often the cultural differences that cause the problem rather than the language itself.

• Whether it is possible to give open feedback to colleagues, or
• Permissible to ask a senior people a question,
• The length of time required for social preliminaries before starting the main conversation.

These are often the critical areas that require special thought to ensure your communication can travel, let alone whether the space require for German or Mandarin text is different from English…

How do you achieve consistency in the face of all this diversity?

I would appreciate if you could consider the factors listed below and add some thoughts of your own...

Some key factors to consider with international communication

• Time zones ~ do everyone is at the best at the same time
• Language ~ 1st or 2nd language does make a difference to the exchange of meaning
• Cultural practices ~ it is not what you do it is the way that you do it, each culture views things slightly differently
• Courtesy ~ Respect is important to almost every culture and is shown in different ways
• Pleasantries ~ At least make the effort to learn the basics greetings and use them
• Humour ~ does NOT travel well, avoid as best you can
• Tone ~ Voice tone and intonation changes meaning, use locals whenever possible

Let me know your experiences…

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How do you engage talent?

30 July 2009

• Advancement
• Autonomy
• Being challenged
• Being trusted
• Civilised treatment
• Employer commitment
• Exposure to senior people
• Praise or regocnition when appropriate
• Support is available
• Working environment
• Working for a ethical and reliable organisation
• Working on useful assignments for the client, the organisation and themselves
• Work/life balance is respected

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Everything new replaces something

28 July 2009

Scenario:

The top management has just finished the meeting, the decision has been taken: A new set of core values shall from this moment permeate the whole organisation...

Here is the real challenge:

How do all employees get to know, understand and live our new core values in their daily life at work? To think and live and conduct themselves according to the values, in every meeting with the customers or with colleagues, enabling us in a few years time to measure if our customers’ picture of the company is exactly like the one we want them to have – and most importantly is our image genuine?

Everything new replaces something old

It is rare to find a vacuum. To implement the chosen core values means that the old ones will have to be removed, be these formal or informal. Environmental policy, ethical rules, customer policy, leadership behaviours, organisational culture and strategic goals, are all part of the daily life at work even if they are not formally formulated.

In large organisations you will often find "hostility” between departments, sometimes openly; departments within organisations who have their own set of values in parallel or even instead of the official ones. Nearly all types of implementation projects are a form of change management. To replace entrenched mindsets, ingrained behaviours and long established ways of conducting business, all require a change in the way people think and invite them to dare to see things in new ways; this is the big challenge in implementing a key message.

One important topic to consider is ~ Simplicity...

Is the message simple enough, or is the ambition too high? All too often there is a tendency to want to include too much in the message that is supposed to be embraced by everyone in the organisation. The disadvantage with this, among other things, is that the receivers of the message get less of a chance to internalise the message by considering their own point of view and this in turn easily makes people feel less involved. As a consequence people use a range of different defence mechanisms to protect themselves and not get involved in the change at all.

A simple, clear message that gives the receiver a chance to gather information in order to fully understand and accept the message increases the chances for success.

When considering your next internal communication initiative consider;

• Is your message simple enough? 

• Does your message have walls?

What is your top tip for the principles or concepts that help shape great internal comms..?

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A fuzzy nicety or an organisation's life blood

23 July 2009

For many, internal communication falls into the fuzzy realm of Marketing, Advertising or PR which are generally addressing an external audience.

Over the last 10 years or so however, it has become commonly accepted that Internal Communication is as important as External Communication. After all, if your own employees don’t believe what is written or said about your organisation then why should your customers?

FEIEA (the Federation of Business Communicator Associations in Europe) has announced the headline results of its latest survey among nearly 5,000 practising workplace communicators. Internal communication was reported as a key success factor for 79% of the organisations.

When Deloitte and Touche Human Capital conducted a survey among American CEOs who were asked which HR issues are very important to the success of the organisation, 95 percent of them said “effective internal communication.” Simultaneously, only 22 percent agreed that they thought it was being delivered effectively…

Internal communication isn't some warm and fuzzy optional nicety it is the lifeblood of any organisation. If blood of the right quality doesn’t circulate at just the right pressure and speed to all parts of the human body, those parts slow down and could stop working altogether. The body could then become sick and die…

An organisation where communication doesn't flow freely is no different.

Internal communication isn’t limited to vision and mission statements from the top; its not just news releases publicising financial results or new product announcements; it is not just internal or client newsletters, annual reports or video streamed messages to the troops. These are all important, but they form just a fraction of the communication and miscommunication that takes place every day in the workplace.

Internal communication is written, spoken and non-verbal interaction among people in the organisation that get things done, for instance;

• It takes co-operation to create a product or a new service.
• It takes collaboration to open up a new market.
• It takes teamwork to implement a strategy.

It takes effective internal communication to oil and run the machinery of any organisation. And when that machinery breaks down, as it often will, a great deal of profit can be lost.

What is the impact of poor internal communication?

How much would poor communication cost an organisation over a twelve months period? Most organisations would have no idea, and it is highly likely that it would be more than they can afford.

Financial statements from an organisation at the years end or even monthly budget versus actual departmental reports rarely indicate such things as;

• Lost productivity due to poorly run meetings,
• Missed business opportunities through poor cross functional understanding, or
• 35% employee turn over because we say one thing and do another

Do the arithmetic on poorly run meetings

Regardless of its purpose, a meeting is an exercise in communication: you speak, you listen, and you interact. It is rare to find anyone in business who has not complained about meetings at some time: too many, too long, and too boring. You could add to that: too expensive.

Consider meetings that are supposed to last an hour but somehow expand to use up most of the afternoon. Calculate the hourly cost of total participant time and multiply by the length of the meeting. Keep in mind that the more senior the participants the more expensive the time. The result may not sound too alarming, until you consider how many of those meetings take place in your organisation every day, every week, every year. Work it out for yourself.

What is the cost of unproductive meeting time across your organisation?

Consider the cost of correspondence

Letters, reports, memos, and now the wonder of e-mail: Written communication is an integral part of doing business and the volume of communication is increasing, most people tell us.

Unfortunately, studies demonstrate that employees spend too much time writing it, and do not write clearly and concisely, so that those on the receiving end spend too much time reading it…

If an employee spends just two hours a day reading, writing and managing e-mail, that equates to a cost of 20 to 25% of their total remuneration. What is your total wages bill?

What is the cost of creating and reading poor communication across your organisation?

Let’s take recruitment as an example

The actual cost of recruiting and training a single new hire can be between three to seven times salary when you factor in the cost of recruitment, induction, training and the lost productivity from having a new member of the team. The higher the staff turnover the more this also de-stabilizes the corporate culture.

Effective internal communication plays a valuable role in both retention and professional development.

Some research suggests money comes second as a reason why employees opt to be part of an organisation. A high percentage of the time the primary reason was found to be a sense of direction clearly communicated by the top management. Explanatory comments suggested this was because of a desire to belong to the team and a felling of responsibility for the future of the company.

Successful organisations build this loyalty through effective internal communication

What about the cost of lost opportunities?

Day after day in the workplace, millions of people go through the motions of talking with their colleagues in person and on the phone, constantly connected through technology, and yet never truly communicating with one another. Every one of them is an opportunity for your organisation to learn, to improve and to generate profit.

Study after study tells us that respect and trust are more important than authority in getting things done, and one of the best ways to show people they are valued is to listen to them. The sages from the ages from Socrates through Carnegie to Steven Covey have said “Listen first you’ll understand better and increase you chances of being understood” Sadly, listening is probably the most underused of all the communication skills.

Typcial impact of poor internal communication

Long-term impact

• Spread of misinformation.
• Misinformed employees can make wrong decisions.
• Erosion of employee trust and confidence.
• Conflicts between employees and management.
• Internal brand image suffers.

Short-term impact

• Lack of coherent and shared vision.
• Low employee morale results in lower productivity.Dissatisfaction among employees leads to higher attrition.
• Impact on company share price.
• External brand value suffers.

What are the benefits of effective internal communication?

Whether an organisation has two or 200,000 employees, its ability to achieve its business objectives depends on how well it engages, aligns, and motivates its employees.

Depending what research you buy in to, somewhere between 30% and 80% of all corporate change initiatives fail to achieve their objectives. Whatever body of research you read one of the principal reasons will be poor communication within the team and or the enterprise at large.

Effective internal communication helps the organisation to meet its objectives. It is the vital link that encourages everyone to deliver on their responsibilities.

Communication is not just the language; it involves trust, relationships, control and delegation. It can be used to create transparency within the organisation and through this help in raising the morale and motivation of employees which tends to increases productivity. Internal communication also helps stimulate much-needed feedback from employees to top management. Some benefits could be listed as;

• It provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organisation’s short-term and long-term goals and objectives.
• It ensures that these initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level.
• It ensures that knowledge sharing and communication processes are part of the daily workflow across all functions of the business.
• It helps drive ownership and shared engagement.

The ability of a company to carry on an effective dialogue with its employees directly affects the bottom line performance, driving such objectives as productivity, quality, safety, customer loyalty, and employee retention.

Most experts on organisations, management and leadership, assert that effective internal communications is a key factor in the effectiveness of any type of organisation.

Most CEO, HR professionals and consultants agree. How about you?

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Consultancy is purely holding a mirror

21 July 2009

Consultancy is purely about holding a mirror

I came across this view of consultancy and wonder what you think about it.

"You can't change organisations. You can only reveal them to themselves. And they either like what they see. Or not..."

If they choose to follow the "Or not" path, you can offer suggestions as to the alternatives that fit for them, and for what they believe.

If they haven't evolved to the point of knowing what they believe, you start there and the rest reveals itself...

It is really that simple. The rest consists of removing the dead skin from the years of self-deception."

I do find myself challenged by this suggestion and certainly do not want to discount it completely but there are times when I've made a stand for what I think, even though it put the relationship at risk, in an attempt to act as a catalyst for change.

What are your thoughts?

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Logistics or Semiotics?

17 July 2009

• Process ~ Show me the Road
• Semiotics ~ Reading the Signs
  

• The methods and systems you wish to communicate through and
• The meaning you and others might make of the signals you send.
  

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Test your message against reality

15 July 2009

An effective implementation gets everyone aboard; lets the organisation develop harmony, reduce friction, enhance respect and improve understanding through better communication and the demonstration of sustainable strong commitment. This leads to improved employee engagement and this in turns leads to more satisfied customers and better profit for the organisation.

So lets test that in an example case study...

Scenario:

The top management has just finished the meeting, the decision has been taken: as we need to demonstrate we have a Corporate Social Responsibility Policy to win the large contracts we desire… Everyone will now have additional responsibilities to the environment (that might save us some money) & the community (that might help us recruit). A new initiative shall from this moment permeate the whole organisation...

Here is the real challenge:

How do all employees get to know, understand and live out this new initiative in their daily life at work?

To think and live and conduct themselves according to the new objectives and change the way they think and operate, in every meeting with the customers or with colleagues, enabling us in a years time to measure an improvement in our “Carbon Footprint” and our “Community Fund Raising” score?

Test the Message with Reality:

People working in one reality have formulated the message but the receivers of the message could be living in several different realities.

Success lies in the ability to formulate and deliver the message in a way that enables the recipients to accept it based on their own reality. Sure, it is the same organisation but irrespective if one works in the Warehouse, in the Reception, in the IT Department or Management one needs to accept the message based on one’s own reality.

Perception is projection.


My cynical comments in brackets earlier on are a simple version of that. If the foundations of the project are flawed or the origins of the project are suspect you already have the resistance army in full swing. Add in silo mindsets and cultural differences into the global corporate melting pot and you are really up the creek without a paddle..?


We might know where we want people to end up in there thinking and behaviour, it is just a shame we have to start from where they currently are…

How are you taking the many realities in your organisation into consideration?

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Does internal communication support change

9 July 2009

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