Do you have ideas waiting to explode out of the starting blocks?
At StrategyWorks we work with individuals and teams who want to get moving
Sometimes our clients are not sure what to do next but most of the time they just need help to align their team around a plan of action.
Teams sometimes feel stumped even when they know the way forward. Often this is because their communication breaks down when they try to put their ideas together to develop a plan. The team response is therefore tentative or reluctant when the situation calls for enthusiastic and decisive action.
Conversation can release incredible energy
Moving from helplessness, alienation and confusion to choice, clarity and engagement requires a team to:
- Collect and collate information
- Hold a robust conversation on the issues
- Agree and implement a plan of action
Our purpose at StrategyWorks is to facilitate this conversation. Agreeing on an effective process for developing ideas can build trust within a team. And when they trust that their own ineffective dynamics in conversation will be managed, teams begin to relax and listen to each other. As they share ideas teams are able to agree on co-ordinated plans of action. Cooperation creates enormous energy for implementation, so things get done.
We have found that facilitation allows teams to build four powerful values of decisiveness* into their dynamic:
- Openness: The honest search for alternatives and an outcome that is not predetermined
- Candour: When team members express their real opinions, being willing to speak the unspeakable, exposing unfulfilled commitments, and the silent lies and pocket vetoes allowing members to agree to things which they have no intention of actioning
- Informality: Which reduces defensiveness and encourages spontaneity and honesty
- Closure: The self-imposed discipline of accountability through which members are assigned tasks and deadlines in an open forum
We assist organisations through a process of one-on-one coaching and workshop facilitation.
*(These four values were described in the paper: "Conquering a culture of indecision"; by Ram Charan, published in Harvard Business Review. January 2006.)