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Staff Development for Profit

08 28 2013

How to Improve Employee Development

Effective Performance Evaluations, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

Staff Development (Methodology)

This is where you are, but… THIS is where you WANT to be…
No buy-in and no follow through from participants once they return from a workshop or training. Trainings are ineffective or off-target and result in poor recall on Monday morning when trying to implement the new skills. People deeply understand and buy into the training because they were involved from the beginning. They support that which they helped create. Follow through over time is more consistent. Better information retention; a “learning environment” is created by staff where all continue to train and teach each other.
Workshop training manuals get shelved, forgotten, and collect dust. Participants refer to training manuals and rely on them as valuable resources.
Training or team building is like a doughnut (enjoyable, but with no lasting nutritional value). Consistent innovation moves people to take action and create new habits. A greater return is received on every training investment dollar.
The training is “off the shelf,” one-size-fits-all, or so generic it doesn’t translate well to our particular people and their specific challenges. Trainings are specifically designed for our objectives, our culture, and our people so that individual and organizational growth can be measured and maintained. Participants are taught how to overcome daily challenges and integrate information.
We want to utilize the information, but work and pressing issues dictate our priorities. We just don’t have time right now. Trainers don’t leave after one day. They partner with the organization to ensure long-term learning and return on investment is received. Morale is higher and more consistent. Prioritization is improved.
We don’t know how or don’t take the time to implement staff development because our culture/industry/business is unique. Training is designed specifically for us from A to Z. Implementing the information is part of the training process and our people grow consistently over time as a result.

 

You May Want to Ask Yourself These Questions:

  • How do we establish or reestablish trust? Are you ready to improve the heart of your organization?
  • How do our people communicate? How can we really improve cohesiveness and goal setting between and beyond specific teams, departments and projects?
  • Where are we now and where do we all want to go? How can each member of our organization help to improve our bottom line and why should they?

Profit from the inside out. Kelly Graves The Corporate Therapist specialize’s in designing employee development programs tailored specifically for your staff and you. I provide you with the necessary training and tools to ensure that your staff continues to teach itself, monitor itself, and show improved results long after I have left.

Make no mistake about it: all your closest competitors have good R & D… They have access to financing and resources, and they are training their people. The only resource which separates you from your closest competitors is… YOUR PEOPLE… SO INVEST IN THEM EFFECTIVELY.

All organizational challenges will ultimately be solved by and through your people! Whether your challenges are technical, financial, or in some other domain, these challenges will always hinge on human communications and processes. Understanding and improving communication is hugely important to your organization’s survival and success, because the bottom line is: it’s YOUR people who will ultimately take YOUR organization to the next level.

Important considerations for employee development:

  • Urgency and energy are produced to create a new future.
  • Broad participation quickly identifies performance gaps and their solutions, improving productivity and customer satisfaction.
  • First tackle the larger issues or conflicts that are tying up your organization’s time and effectiveness.
  • Alleviate stress and you emphasize camaraderie.
  • Employee morale will soar higher and stay more consistently positive through employee development; when employee’s morale is high, areas of need will be addressed more quickly and effectively, so problems won’t fester under the surface and get out of control.
  • Encouraging employee feedback on business challenges will help people grasp issues.
  • Employees will become aligned around a common purpose and will create new directions, because they understand both the difficulties and the opportunities of change and growth. In short, employee development creates “ownership.”

When employees realize that they have some semblance of control and are being heard, the company, the leadership, and the employees all benefit. Thus, it is through this improved communication and shared purpose that the value of employee development truly begins to sink in for all stakeholders. This is when your team will take your organization to the next level. Through employee development, you are guaranteed lasting commitment and support of your strategic plan and your company vision!

 

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 1:55 PM

08 28 2013

Hiring Employees: The Four Requirements

Business Management Consulting, Business Success, Corporate Therapy, Effective Performance Evaluations, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

 

Most people look at previous employment history and skill sets to decide on candidate selection. Although past history and skills can be decent indicators of future work, it is far wiser to look at this process through a different set of lenses. Each job actually calls for four major areas to be looked into before a candidate can be considered a good fit. To add value to your organization, be a good return on your investment and for them to be successful so that a long-term professional relationship develops, the four areas to consider are:

1. Company or department culture

2. Behaviors the candidate will need to posses to successfully complete job requirements

3. The actual skill set required to successfully complete the job

4. What does the organization or department need in terms of a team member to help them mature, evolve and be more successful?

Begin with the big picture and look at the culture of the department or organization a candidate will be coming into. The essential elements of culture are invisible, but learning about yours is paramount when making a decision to bring another person into this elusive mix. A brief and over simplified description of culture is: It’s how things are done in your company, the rights and rituals, company climate, reward system, basic values and the shared assumptions that a group has made in learning how to successfully deal with external tasks and cope with internal relationships. Next in line are the behaviors required for this person to be successful.

Behaviors are attributes of a person’s personality, which will increase their probability for success or failure within a certain culture and job. Behaviors cannot be taught; typically people are born with certain behavioral patterns and as one ages they tend to adjust but don’t typically change due to training. For instance, you may want to hire a salesperson. The behaviors that top your list are:

1. Ability to communicate easily with others 2. Make people comfortable 3. Copes easily with rejection, doesn’t take it personally and moves on to the next client 4. Provides information and closes the deal without coming across as “pushy” or “arrogant”

Skills on the other hand, are learned competencies, which can be generally achieved regardless of one’s behavioral set. In other words, keyboard proficiency, understanding computer programs, the ability to learn and explain sales features and benefits are all skills that can be learned through systematic acquisition of information and practice. And last, what type of person does your department need to maximize its strengths?

The last question, and in many ways the most critical and overlooked is, what does the department need, from a human and systemic standpoint, to improve and excel as a unified team? For instance, do you have a department that is mainly full of young get-it-done types who could benefit from a slightly older more methodical type who could add stability to the unit? Or perhaps, there is a group of older people who tend to be set in their ways and need someone with enthusiasm who can jump start your department. Obviously these are extreme examples but you get the idea. What does your team need to grow and expand; someone from the inside, not a manager?

Years ago, I worked on a consulting project with a large multinational corporation. One of the areas that needed guidance was the IT department. The Information Technology department employed eighteen techs that were under the age of thirty-five and two that were fifty-eight to sixty two, but no one who could bridge the gap, including the 48-year-old director of IT. Candidate (1) was around the age of 38, had less technical skill but was worldly, mature, had owned a business and knew what responsibility and internal and external customer service meant. He turned out to be the best fit because he could speak to both the younger set and older techs. In addition, he had a calming effect over the whole department and brought an element of moderation that was lacking. Candidate (2) had a better skill set and looked better on paper, but was more of the same; he wouldn’t have added anything new to the department except another pair of hands. By hiring candidate (1) we received another pair of hands, but more importantly, we hired a person who helped this department expand and grow to the next level of efficiency. So to answer your question, you are looking for someone who can add value to the whole organization, not just fill a spot for the moment so everyone can get back to work ASAP.

As you can see, adding a new person to your organization can be a short sighted quick fix of finding a body to fill a slot or it can be part of a systematized approach to building your company that will separate you from the competition. To recap look at:

  • locating the right person who fits in with your culture
  • has the right mix of personality and behaviors that will help your team stretch and grow
  • has the required skill sets to be successful in the position
  • someone who can help you take your team from where they are to where they need to be by adding something special because of their behaviors, personality and/or unique approach to your business and industry.

Taking the extra time to make the best choice will save you from having increased rates of attrition, high training costs and personality difficulties, which may lead to costly litigation in the future. Good luck and be choosy.

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 10:59 AM

08 23 2013

How to Set Goals & Achieve Them

Business Strategy and Implementation, Business Success, Corporate Therapy, Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

Business Strategy and Implementation, Improvement, Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching, Mergers: How to Manage & Coach People Through Change, Work Place Articles

Many people struggle with achieving goals, not because they aren’t serious, but because they don’t know how and don’t have a map to follow.

Whether learning to lead people, run a department or ski having a proven formula or system to follow will improve your success rate tremendously. Setting goals is commendable but how does one actually implement the process, avoid the obstacles and naysayers, and follow-through to success?

For those of you who want to do this but are fearful, congratulations. If you weren’t ready to take it seriously, then you wouldn’t be feeling fearful or anxious. Take a step toward that fear and you will conquer it.

Remember to have fun as you stretch yourself. The process isn’t always easy. Here are ten steps that will provide you with a higher probability of achieving your goals.

1. Select a Personal or Professional Goal

Examples:

  • Health and exercise. Reduce calories by 38 percent per day, hit the gym three times per week. Do 100 miles a week on your bike.
  • Improve organizational gross revenue by 18 percent in the next 12 months.
  • More quality time to spend with my beloved and children

2. Identify the Benefits to You and/or Your Organization for Making This Change

  • Feeling better, more energy, improved appearance
  • Less stress, happier employees, stronger financial company, improved market share, growth of my business or the department I manage
  • A loving and happier home environment for my children, my beloved and me

3. Identify Strategies for Accomplishing Your Goal

Identifying strategies is a three-part process. First, list ideas for possible strategies to achieve your goals. Next, consider the obstacles that might keep you from reaching your goals. Finally, consider ways to overcome such obstacles:

  • I could get up before work and hit the gym, I could go directly after work.
  • Proactively coach my employees and set clear accountabilities with timelines.

4. Obstacles That Might Get in the Way

  • I hate getting up early, this is a hassle, and I’m tired after work.
  • I don’t have time to coach people.
  • I don’t like setting clear and firm accountabilities because I don’t know what to do if they don’t achieve them?

5. Consider Ways to Overcome Such Obstacles

  • I used to work out after work and it actually gave me more energy.
  • I need to re-prioritize my day and make time to coach. We have a great team; if we did this, the gross revenue targets would be very attainable.

6. Adjust Your Surroundings for Successful Goal Attainment

The people and habits you currently have in place can greatly influence your behavior. By creating supportive surroundings, goal attainment can be a successful and satisfying process. Examine your support system. Family, friends, subordinates and superiors can all help or hurt your goal attainment efforts. Help and teach people how to help you attain your goals.

7. Implement Your Strategy and Record Your Progress

Make a game out of it. Wall charts that measure growth are magic at encouraging consistent behavior modification and improvement.

8. Reward Yourself Along the Way

Rewards are key to human motivation and make the process more enjoyable.

9. Visualize Clear Accomplishments

Our brains work very similar to software programs. In fact, the mind doesn’t know the difference between visualization coupled with feelings of succeeding at an event and actually doing it. This is why you often notice professional athletes visualizing a race course or hitting a golf ball. Coaches call this visualization and psychiatrists call  it self-directed Neuroplasticity. The bottom line is it works and there is much empirical evidence to support it. If you consistently visualize (program) in your mind the exact results you want to achieve this will help your brain duplicate it and look for ways to improve.

10. Make Adjustments as You Progress

If you determine that success is not happening like you hoped, review your goals, barriers, and support systems and make adjustments. Persistence is important, but, if your goal process ends up being all work and no fun and you are beginning to dread the change or feel like quitting, it’s time to adjust your approach. Adjustment is a normal part of your evolutionary change process.

 

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 5:02 PM

08 21 2013

Executive Coaching & Leadership Development Methodology

Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching, Mergers: How to Manage & Coach People Through Change, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

 

This is where you are, but… THIS is where you WANT to be…
  • As hard as you try to get the executive committee and staff to support the same vision, it seems everyone has different goals that don’t directly support the overall business objectives.
  1. The leader leads by example. Period.
  2. The leader aligns the entire organization around crystal clear objectives with succinct responsibilities.
  3. The executive committee or management team honestly discusses and agrees on strategy and tactics needed to achieve individual goals which directly support organizational objectives.
  4. The leader understands people from their perspective and has the ability to motivate each person to buy into the organizational vision.
  • Our organizational structure is in place, we are lean, and people stay busy, and yet timelines are being missed and objectives still aren’t being met.
  • Work doesn’t translate into profit.
  1. Objectives are measurable and focused on the customer, staff, and your product or service.
  2. Internal busywork is filtered through this simple belief: If the customer doesn’t feel it, it doesn’t exist.
  3. Leaders have ensured that organizational structure and philosophy are fully supported; individual goals support the organizational goals.
  • The leaders of the organization have lost touch with the customer.
  • The leaders of the organization have lost touch with the employees who directly serve customers.
  1. Leaders know the secret to success: Only internal and external customer opinions count.
  2. The leader has his/her fingers on the pulse of the customers and the employees who directly serve customers.
  • Our leadership approach seems to be reactive and defensive rather than proactive and offensive.
  • We focus on solving problems instead of preventing them in the first place.
  1. Foresight and innovation are always the first step; “reactionary” problem solving is a second step, and only as needed.
  2. The leader equips her/himself and those within the organization with fundamentally sound planning skills.
  3. People are educated to think for themselves; all have the freedom to fail now and again. i.e., to make the original mistake and learn from it.
  • We lose good people and then scramble to fill positions.
  1. We have deep “bench strength.”
  2. Leadership develops and invests in key people and provides them with mentoring; talented people are ready to step in to fill key positions, as needed.

Strong leaders understand the critical role they play in creating and communicating strategy. They know how to drive transformation to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Successful leaders use a positive yet realistic approach to overcome the economic and psychological uncertainty of today’s business environment.

Above all, great leaders know how to achieve results.

I strive to awaken the hidden leadership genius within you and your people. Let me help you create a cohesive, common-goal work team that transcends your current abilities. I help you achieve cutting edge transformation, not rely on cookie cutter one-size-fits all coaching and leadership programs.

Through leadership training, you and your executives will see tremendous results and improvements in the following:

  • Your team’s ability to work together more efficiently. Cultivate confidence in each other through honest conversations that develop trust and group commitment.
  • Learn to work through and remove the “unspoken” but volatile topics that everyone knows about but are unable to overcome. You know what I’m talking about….the “taboo” topics, the “Emperor has no clothes” topics that keep you and your team from moving forward.
  • Enhanced employee buy-in and commitment that lead to job satisfaction
  • Better communication, innovation, creativity, and production
  • Improved problem-solving and decision-making capabilities
  • Better foresight and project planning abilities
  • Significantly improved execution and implementation of strategic plans and projects

Programs

You and your organization are unique, so I design a customized leadership development training program that makes sense for you.

I learn the language and culture of your organization so the program I design is a perfect fit for the needs of your people and organization. Through my leadership development training, you and your executives will gain the specific skills needed to evolve and succeed.

My Leadership Training has four straightforward goals:

  1. Help leaders, executives and managers identify their own talents and strengths so these are leveraged and developed into high-performance leadership capabilities
  2. Develop intrinsic and unique attitudes and skills necessary to sustain long-term change
  3. Help each individual executive grow and then weave these individual leaders into a unified team capable of extraordinary results.
  4. And last, help refine micro and macro goals into prioritized objectives so results can be achieved in profitable time units.

Process

I start from the “inside” of your executives personalities and organizational structure and work out to the pre-determined organizational objectives; the end-result which can be measured in any number of ways. I work with client organizations in “real-time” to observe and evaluate the hierarchy that is present in your corporate environment. My goals include tailoring your leadership development program to each specific executive or manager’s personality and that of the executive team and organizational culture.

For organizations striving to open up their full potential, leaders hold the key. Leaders bring the short- and long-term goals of an organization to fruition by inspiring each and every individual to work to his or her personal best. The program I design will support leaders as they strive to meet individual needs, respect personality types and learning styles, and guide the organization to achieve its goals and objectives.

Leadership development is a deliberate process that includes focused conversations and assessments. Through the process, I will guide your team to create environments that support individual growth, purposeful action, and sustained improvement. My program will produce leaders who:

  • Remove barriers that hinder individuals from realizing their full potential
  • Provide skills for gaining valuable insight into crucial situations
  • Identify obstacles that impede an individual’s progress

Contact me today to discuss where you would like your organization to be in 12-24 months. By developing your executive and management teams we can partner on acieveing organizational objectives.

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 2:26 PM

08 19 2013

Customized Executive Assessment Coaching & Pre-Hire Selection Package

Business Management Consulting, Communication Issues, Corporate Therapy, Effective Performance Evaluations, Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching, Rapid Customized Executive Assessment Package, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

 

This is where you are, but… THIS is where you WANT to be…
  • Assessment tools are so generic they produce non-specific and unreliable results.
  • No implementation piece results in rapidly fading benefits.
  1. Customized assessment tools produce results that are highly reliable and customized to your firm.
  2. Results will include specific feedback on individual strengths in key leadership competencies, as well as recommended areas for professional development.
  3. Long-term usability permits cost-effective repeat implementation.
  • There is no connection between assessments and ongoing training or staff development.
  1. A customized assessment tool and process for coaching and developing your executives are solidly in place.
  2. Return on investment can be clearly measured.
  • Assessment results are fun, cute, or random, rather than based on specific competency criteria.
  1. Your organization has clearly defined competency criteria.
  2. Your customized assessment process will assist the organization’s decision makers with predicting and selecting future executives who will be the best match for your departments or divisions.
  • Assessment data do not inform decision makers in ways that support the organizational goals.
  1. Your assessment process creates a road map of information. When used by your organization’s training department or Board of Directors, it will accurately inform decisions about diagnosing, planning, and delivering highly specific and relevant training opportunities needed by your entire executive team.

 

Our customized approach to assessing the developmental needs of your management team is designed to provide you the essential tools for choosing new executives and defining the strengths of your current executives.

Our approach is unique in that we assess executives not just by looking at isolated traits, skills, and interests from a battery of generic assessments, but by analyzing actual behaviors, thoughts and patterns such as the dynamic interplay between the executives he or she will be working with, the culture he or she will be required to become a part of and the organizational setting including behavioral expectations, pace and stress factors. Research has shown that this approach is much more cost effective than having to “terminate” or “live-with-it” later. This has proven to be a vital step in assisting an organization to build its successful executive community.

Benefits to Executives

Our package includes an assessment of your current executive team, your culture and spoken and unspoken values; (on rare occasions depending on the type of organization and people within it; personality tests), face-to-face interviews, observations, and group as well as one-on-one feedback sessions. The specific recommendations that emerge from my assessment reports benefit both the individual being considered, the current executive team and the organization:

  1. Leadership chooses the correct personality for their specific type of executive team, culture and organizational objectives.
  2. The leadership team looks at skills and work history. I observe behaviors and look past the conscious verbal answers into the deeper and more elusive yet honest subconscious. It is here where we will significantly improve our odds of understanding how they work, make decisions, lead and manage people, deal with stress and communicate.
  3. Candidates as well as current executives make immediate positive adjustments to their leadership and management skills and style.
  4. Team leaders use results to achieve their objectives and create a clear, long-term road map to improve overall management skills, collaborative methods, and leadership qualities.

Contact me now so we can discuss your challenges, refine your objectives, and zero-in on your options: Kelly@InternalBusinessSolutions.com

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 7:07 PM

08 19 2013

Profitable & Improved Staff Development

Business Success, Communication Issues, Conflict Resolution, Corporate Therapy, Improvement, Leadership Development/ Executive Coaching, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

This is where you are, but… THIS is where you WANT to be…
  • No buy-in and no follow through from participants once they return from a workshop or training.
  • Trainings are ineffective or off-target and result in poor recall on Monday morning when trying to implement the new skills.
  1. People deeply understand and buy into the training because they were involved from the beginning. They support that which they helped create.
  2. Follow through over time is more consistent.
  3. Better information retention; a “learning environment” is created by staff where all continue to train and teach each other.
  • Workshop training manuals get shelved, forgotten, and collect dust.
  1. Participants refer to training manuals and rely on them as valuable resources.
  • Training or team building is like a doughnut (enjoyable, but with no lasting nutritional value).
  1. Consistent innovation moves people to take action and create new habits.
  2. A greater return is received on every training investment dollar.
  • The training is “off the shelf,” one-size-fits-all, or so generic it doesn’t translate well to our particular people and their specific challenges.
  1. Trainings are specifically designed for our objectives, our culture, and our people so that individual and organizational growth can be measured and maintained.
  2. Participants are taught how to overcome daily challenges and integrate information.
  • We want to utilize the information, but work and pressing issues dictate our priorities.
  • We just don’t have time right now.
  1. Trainers don’t leave after one day. They partner with the organization to ensure long-term learning and return on investment is received.
  2. Morale is higher and more consistent.
  3. Prioritization is improved.
  • We don’t know how or don’t take the time to implement staff development because our culture/industry/business is unique.
  1. Training is designed specifically for us from A to Z. Implementing the information is part of the training process and our people grow consistently over time as a result.

You May Want to Ask Yourself These Questions:

  • How do we establish or reestablish trust? Are you ready to improve and add extra strength to the back-bone of your organization?
  • How do our people communicate? How can we really improve communication, goal setting and execution so our people and departments GET RESULTS and we actually utilize all of our resources, people and departments as a UNIFIED whole toward specific objectives.
  • Where are we now and where do we all want to go? How can each member of our organization help to improve our bottom line and why should they?
  • Is any of this even possible?
  • If someone told me it was, would I believe them?
  • If I did believe them would I take the two  minutes out of my busy day and do anything about it? would I call, text or email?

Profit from the inside out. I specialize’s in designing employee development programs tailored specifically for your staff and you. I provide you with the necessary training and tools to ensure that your staff continues to teach itself, monitor itself, and show improved results long after I have left.

Are you getting the best out of your employees? If not, then take steps to improve your organization by investing in an employee development program.

Make no mistake about it: all your closest competitors have good R & D… They have access to financing and resources, and they are training their people. The only resource which separates you from your closest competitors is… YOUR PEOPLE… SO INVEST IN THEM EFFECTIVELY.

All organizational challenges will ultimately be solved by and through your people! Whether your challenges are technical, financial, or in some other domain, these challenges will always hinge on human communications and processes. Understanding and improving communication is hugely important to your organization’s survival and success, because the bottom line is: it’s YOUR people who will ultimately take YOUR organization to the next level.

Important considerations for employee development:

  • Urgency and energy are produced to create a new future.
  • Broad participation quickly identifies performance gaps and their solutions, improving productivity and customer satisfaction.
  • First tackle the larger issues or conflicts that are tying up your organization’s time and effectiveness.
  • Alleviate stress and you emphasize camaraderie.
  • Employee morale will soar higher and stay more consistently positive through employee development; when employee’s morale is high, areas of need will be addressed more quickly and effectively, so problems won’t fester under the surface and get out of control.
  • Encouraging employee feedback on business challenges will help people grasp issues.
  • Employees will become aligned around a common purpose and will create new directions, because they understand both the difficulties and the opportunities of change and growth. In short, employee development creates “ownership.”
  • Lastly, it is virtually impossible to have satisfied customers and dissatisfied employees. Everyone knows when a clown has makeup on and your customers know it when your employees are faking the smiles. So quit insulting them, because in this competitive age they WILL shop you.

In essence, when employees realize that they have some semblance of control and are being heard, the company, the leadership, and the employees all benefit. Thus, it is through this improved communication and shared purpose that the value of employee development truly begins to sink in for all stakeholders. This is when your team will take your organization to the next level. Through employee development, you are guaranteed lasting commitment and support of your strategic plan and your company vision! Kelly@InternalBusinessSolutions.com

 

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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Posted by at 6:22 PM

08 19 2013

How to Improve Employees’ Functionality by Improving Internal Customer Service

Barriers to Effective Communication, Business Management Consulting, Communication Issues, Conflict Resolution, Corporate Therapy, Improvement, Mergers: How to Manage & Coach People Through Change, Project Implementation: How to Create Ownership, Staff Development for Profit

August 2013

Moving our bodies from point A to point B requires the use of our two legs working together to achieve this simple task. If one or the other of the two legs does not fully support the body, or if one does not make a full and even stride, then the act can be diminished by varying degrees.

The metaphor holds true for your organization and its internal customers as well. Internal customers are those people who make up the other departments that work with you inside your business. For example, accounts-receivable, sales, production, finance and marketing are each other’s customers. For your organization to function smoothly, people among departments must communicate clearly, organize tasks and timelines, and implement or take “action” on these tasks.

The more effective people are at serving each other, the smoother their processes will be, and they will achieve better results (i.e., production, efficiencies, and profits). Likewise, the more efficient a person is with “leg movements,” the better they will be at walking, jogging, and even running. If they take this act seriously and become expert in this area, they may even end up running faster than others, which is, of course the objective in business — outpacing the competition.

Here are suggestions on how to provide stellar internal customer service:

1. Be aware of what you think about yourself and others. Behavior follows thought. Are your thoughts helping you and building you up, or are your thoughts hurting you and making circumstances more difficult? Practice self-respectful thoughts.

2. Communicate clearly and often. Ask for clarification when you are unsure of what is conveyed through verbal and non-verbal means.

3. Talk face-to-face or by phone to others instead of using e-mail. The benefits of this process far outweigh the time saved by using e-mail. Too much e-mail can be a “crutch” and seriously impact the fluidity of a group of people working to achieve common goals.

4. Conduct department-to-department staff meetings so that people can ask each other for information, clarification and process refinement, etc. It’s like “speed dating” for departments. For instance, gather staff from each department and give those people 10-15 minutes to ask people from another department for what they need or could provide to make their processes or organization function more smoothly. In other words, this is what we need from you. What do you need from us to make your jobs easier, more effective and fun?

Prioritize these ideas, assign who will do what by when, and then monitor in thirty days to determine results and make adjustments. In fewer than 60 minutes, the people in both departments will have gathered tons of precise information and a new outlook on their colleagues.

5. Talk about the white elephant in the corner that everyone knows about and talks about in their “cliques” but doesn’t address directly or in formal meetings.

These “TABOO” topics are the “real problems” that keep departments and companies from running faster than they currently do and could if they learned to overcome them.

Everyone knows about these white elephant topics and the professional “manipulators”, so the quicker these topics are brought to the table the quicker the organization can find solutions to them and move forward. I am not saying this process is going to be fun. All I’m saying is that I’ve done this HUNDREDS of times and in every case 99% of the people are much more productive and happier. and as a result, the organization can dump the anchors and start moving swiftly again. (the one percent that aren’t happy are the manipulators that either have to change their game to get along or are forced out).

This part of the process is often very difficult to decide on and implement. But like surgery, everyone is much healthier after the fact and the business and people within it will fly once this ball and chain topic or person isn’t keeping it grounded.

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@CorporateTherapist.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

Kelly Graves, CEO
The Corporate Therapist
Email: Kelly@ProfitWithIBS.com
Cell: 1.530.321.5309
Toll-Free: 1.800.704.3785
Office: 1.530.321.5309
Internal Business Solutions, Inc.™

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