Sample

This week’s Learning Link™ (07/08)

Create a Sense of Urgency by ASKing

In these challenging times, the most important message to your people might well be “We need a sense of urgency!” That can understandably be your “leadership message.”

One way to create a sense of urgency (using the P2P ALT Skills) is to ASK: Why do you think expressing empathy may be important to our customers? Why would that be important to our business?  An additional question could be: What do you think will happen if you don’t learn to express genuine caring and empathy when talking with customers?  Then when the Associate responds to these questions, you can repeat them back for emphasis: So you’re saying that it’s important to our customers because… and that if we don’t all improve in this area, we may create dissatisfaction that can really hurt our business results and our image in the marketplace? When Associates confirm this, they are beginning to get the sense of urgency. Empathy is not just a “nice to have,” – it’s essential to our success.

Paraphrasing their responses emphasizes the importance and urgency of this new way of doing things. Ending each conversation by ASKing for action steps and a timetable conveys a strong sense of urgency.

Urgency is about movement and about time. Movement means the Associate needs to do something – usually something different, or doing it in a different way. And it needs to happen quickly.

Communicating urgency often involves making someone uncomfortable. Remember, there is a healthy level of discomfort in all successful businesses. That’s what generates action to get something done. It’s your job to confront respectfully, to get Associates to recognize that their behavior – or lack of it – has consequences – to the customers, to the business, to the team, and to themselves.

A few years ago, when NationsBank was undergoing massive change through its mergers with Bank of America and others, CEO and Chairman Hugh McColl made a memorable speech to all employees. According to reports, he said: “I want to be clear: The train is leaving the station, with or without you. I want you on board. I want you to join me on this exciting and difficult journey. But the train is leaving the station.”  That’s urgency.

Your company cannot be successful and competitive if leaders and associates are content with less than optimum performance.  So urgency is about:

§           commitment to high standards,

§           creating a healthy level of discomfort with status quo

§           framing every crucial conversation in terms of impact on customers and on the business

§           getting people to commit to the improvements that will make the business successful.

After every crucial conversation, ask yourself:

§           Did I ask the impact questions?

§           Did I make it clear why this is important?

§           Do they understand the consequences of their performance?

§           Is my Associate crystal clear on what to do differently?

§           Does my Associate know that he/she has my support, but I’m not going to “take the monkey” for them?

What’s your reaction to this approach? Comment on our blog or learn more about using this approach.