Posts tagged ‘efficiency and effectiveness’

Obstacles to Strategic Thinking come in many different sizes and shapes, yet, they can have negative impact on an organization’s ability to successfully create their future. There are a number of obstacles that are common blocks to successful and effective strategic thinking. As a leader, you must be prepared to recognize these obstacles and make choices to minimize their negative effects.

There are eight primary obstacles that occur in most organizations. It is your job as a leader to recognize these eight and focus upon the real goal of creating a clear pathway to the future. Here are the primary eight obstacles… Continue reading ‘Obstacles to Strategic Thinking’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 21, 2009 at 12:31 am under Strategy.
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Most of the time I watch people telling their story, thinking they are controlling the situation. Wow, what a mistake! What is really happening? Most of the time they are disengaging their audience. The disengagement comes from not being a part of the conversation – unless they want to interrupt the talker.

Control comes in various forms, from the highly effective to the totally ineffective. Lets go through some of the stages of control starting with the totally ineffective:

Out of Control – you are talking to fill air time. No confidence and no knowledge, just opinions without certainty. Here the talker is usually nervous and it shows to everyone listening. Random and spontaneous without a clear agenda or logic. Lost their listeners by talking with no interaction with the listeners.

Ineffective Control -  Most of the time a person in ineffective control is talking without a clear understanding of what they are talking about. They are boring the listener, yet, have no clue about what is really happening. Some information is presented, unfortunately, since the listener is bored, they may have been thinking about something else and missed the point!

Some Control – Actually have a dynamic or unique style and others listen due the presentation rather than the subject. These are the attention gainers, who if they had a great message and a total understanding of their topic could gain total control. Yet, most of the time it is a presentation only format with a total lack of interaction. Thus, while the presentation showed promise, the real learning and understanding is missing in action. Most speakers and sales people are in this category.

Total Control – Be using questions to guide the flow of the conversation, this communicator is both effective and efficient. Because this person knows their subject very well, they know how to ask questions to gain both the attention of the listener and learn how much the listener knows about the topic. Now the real key is the questioner is engaging and using a process that allows for a self-discovery of information and wisdom.

The key for you is to practice your questioning so you can ask questions easily and with a natural flow of curiousness. This natural curiousness allows for you to ask more questions for both clarity and understanding. And, you will control the direction and flow of the conversation. The amazing thing about this process is others will see you as the great communicator as they do all the talking! Start today – ask more questions.

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Posted by Voss Graham on April 7, 2009 at 5:48 am under Effective Communication.
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For several days we have been looking for ways to cut costs. These methods can be used internally by managers looking to improve their productivity or unit performance. Externally, B2B sales people can look for ways their products or services can produce these advantages for their customers. The key is to review the lists and find one that makes sense for you. Then take that one method – launch and measure your results.

Today we look at managing or controlling the costs associated with freight expenses. This is a major line item for many companies and therefore we have an opportunity to manage or control these costs. So we will look at ten ways to reduce or manage your freight expenses:

  1. Continue reading ‘Managing Freight Costs – Business Acumen 101’ »
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Posted by Voss Graham on March 12, 2009 at 5:30 am under Business Acumen and Metrix.
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This appears to be a very simplistic expression and should be well known within the corporate cultures today. To my continued surprise People are not considered by all to be the most important asset a company has rights to. Notice I did not say “owned” since employees are free to leave an organization anytime they want.

So what is so important about People?

First, they are the creators and doers for a company’s current and future success – or failure. Individuals create ideas for creating products, services, processes, and customers. Seldom have customers rushed the walls of a company to purchase their products or services just because they built it. It is the people within the company that have created a winning product, created a winning marketing campaign and a winning solution for the customer.

Second, they are the primary creators of balancing efficiency and effectiveness for an organization. Once this balance is achieved, the organization benefits from improvement in Productivity. For the most part, the source of this balance comes from experience, wisdom and knowledge used by the individuals. I believe that there must be balance within these three factors of experience, wisdom and knowledge to become truly effective. I’ve seen people with years of experience that have not learned anything new after their first year! Likewise, I have seen very educated people show little practicality or application of their knowledge leading to conflict or lack of results. Wisdom is the ability to apply both knowledge and experience for greater returns in performance.

Third, sales people create the majority of sales – which grow the top and hopefully bottom lines. The ability of sales people to develop trusting relationships with other people – customers – lead to success in selling. The internet will create opportunities for sales particularily in the arena of commodities. Yet, the major, key and large account buyers will relate to the sales person to make the commitment to buy.

So why am I talking about these subjects? Because people create the future and add wealth to organizations. The research shows that great people product greater results than land, building and machinery. If this is true, it would seem that every organization would be investing heavily in developing their people to become more valuable and increase their wealth in the marketplace.

We have been very fortunate during our 20 years of working with organizations to develop their people to these new levels of performance. That is our mission and purpose – to get people -you- to the next level. It continues to be our purpose and we look forward to another 20 years of growing people and organizations. Please check us out. We have been solving issues for our clients and we can probably help you.

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Posted by Voss Graham on October 2, 2008 at 5:15 pm under Leadership.
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