To make a lasting positive change starts with wanting to make change happen in the first place. Change is very interesting and challenging because when you think about it, it often makes people have to vote for or against something or someone. This can be incredibly hard to do.
The insights we need to make strategic decisions often come from other people other than ourselves, from our peers, our mentors, or our customers who help guide us to a new strategic path.
Rethinking existing decisions and defying conventional wisdom is the most difficult of all because we might have authored the current course we’re on!
Over many years of consulting and coaching clients, I have found myself being enriched by the insights and circumstances I was helping clients through. This learning has provided me with the context to formulate my coaching. These are the concepts of:
- the SmartPlan360™ Platform
- the Knowledge and Strategic Charting
- the Four P’s of Branding
- the Start/Stop/Continue Workshop
- the Rethinking For A Change Workshops
- the SmartGuides
- the SmartCard
Now, I would like to explore the basis of the Rethinking For A Change Workshops.
The Rethinking Workshops grew out of my first book, RETHINK that defines the Four Drivers to Growth Model™ of alignment, integration, awareness, and relevance. These four drivers need to be calibrated to one another and work in a continuous improvement loop.
Thinking through a strategy is one thing, rethinking that strategy and developing a new one is quite another. I turned a simple Q&A session into a rigorous but enjoyable time to question everything that provides a safe platform to let all ideas be heard.
I have observed during Rethinking For A Change Workshops people bring a tight focus and positive collaborative spirit of communicating and learning. I believe that all decisions should begin with the customer in mind. “Is this something our clients truly want or is it just something we enjoy?” When answering these types of self-discovery questions it is far easier to cut through to what is truly important and discard what is not.
For larger companies, quite often the folks planning next year’s strategy will never meet the majority of their current customers let alone its future customers. This is why it’s so critical to honestly rethink a strategy through the customer’s lens.
During the turn of this century our economy transitioned from a relational to a transactional process. Of course, an easy-to-use transaction is important, but it does not replace the value of customer relations. The “customer” in most circumstances is a complex relationship that has to be delicately and expertly served. This fact hit me hard when I was designing the Rethinking For A Change Workshops. It struck me that leaders needed a basis to focus in on their customers’ top needs and formulate a strategic solution to meet them.
This approach needs to be new and fresh and move beyond a simple financial calculation.
When you are able to accomplish this you will create a workplace and resulting relationship with your customers that is far more meaningful and helpful to them.
This is the type of organization that people promote without being asked to because they enjoy it so much. And these are the organizations that thrive, not just survive.
