Musings about Communication
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Every impression is a first impression
Reading time: 2 min
Almost daily I receive at least one phone call from some agency wanting to sell their website building services, triggered by domain registrar information. I have developed a way to quickly get to the point and waste less than 30 seconds of my or the caller's time. I understand the caller is doing their job, I try to do mine. All is professional and we can both go on with our work.
Just this morning though, I was triggered... As I pick up the phone, I was greeted by "Can I speak to the business owner over there?", in a way that clearly demonstrated disdain for those picking up the phone. I could only respond "Over there?" and annoyed I put the phone down. No opportunity to quickly align on the purpose of the call, share our expectations and go on with our day. No opportunity for the caller to learn and improve. Definitely no opportunity for this company to ever sell any service to us.
First impressions rarely make a relationship, but they can definitely break one.
Relationships are built...
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How business agility improves culture and aids retention
Reading time: 4 min
Business owners tend to underestimate the cost of recruiting and retaining the talent needed to grow. In 2022, it was reported that companies spend an average of over $4,683 and about an eighth of the financial year for recruitment and training per new hire. Recruitment costs can add up, especially if your business has a high turnover rate.
Losing top talent is clearly a cost that businesses have to consider. Perhaps the most immediate impact that losing employees has on an organization is lowering team morale. Employees enjoy having a friend or confidant in the workplace and seeing their colleague leave will weaken their connection to the organization. We saw this in mid-2021 as the “Great Resignation” had millions of employees leaving their jobs in droves.
How business agility improves your customer alignment
Reading time: 5 min
Previously, we’ve talked about how business agility can increase your company’s bottom line by:
lowering costs through improving delivery processes, being more deliberate when choosing projects, as well as reducing churn
increasing revenue through releasing high-quality products, creating feedback loops, and capitalizing opportunities
Today we'll talk about a third benefit: how business agility can increase your company’s bottom line by improving alignment with its customers.
Knowing where you are on your digital transformation journey
Reading time: 7 min
How many of you have been through something labelled as a digital transformation in the past 5 years? Many hands go up, and several people groan. It seems like we are in a constant state of transformation, which is true. Change is the new normal and transformation is the grandiose title given to the work we build around it.
Yet many transformation efforts stall or even fail. We encounter many reasons for this, including market pressure, hierarchy and blame culture. Even gut instinct being the primary way to make decisions comes into play! Core to most digital transformation efforts is aligning technology to business goals, which often creates problems with delivering the desired change due to their different goals.
When technology departments drive the transformation, they often need help explaining the value. Ensuring stability to reduce rework through innovative techniques and tools may not resonate. Still, we do require change through transformation for our businesses to thrive. With...
Applied coaching
Reading time: 2 min
Beyond providing advice in order to help teams thrive, we need to help teams move along in their journey. The better we can do this the more impact we can truly have.
When the rubber hits the road, how do we execute?