BUSINESS HIT

Many businesses limit innovative activities to particular individuals or particular departments in the organization. However, this approach may miss many valuable innovations that could strengthen the business.

A better approach is to involve people throughout the organization and start building a culture of innovation. Think of your business as an “innovation team”. People from different parts of the company and with different job functions can work together as a team for purposes of generating innovations. Everyone has creative ideas, so everyone should be involved in the process of generating innovations. By involving people in different parts of the company, you benefit from the different perspectives and experiences each individual brings to the creative process.

Probably the most valuable thing you can do for your agents, your customers, your fellow workers, and yourself is to learn to be a good listener. It is an uncommon and valuable skill in any situation, but the ability and willingness to be a good listener are extraordinarily valuable for anyone in a management position. Determining how to listen actively and carefully can radically influence your relationships, your efficiency, and your effectiveness as a leader.

Following are some suggestions for helping you to become a better listener.

Focus your attention on the person who is talking to you.

When another person is talking to you, either face-to-face or on the phone, focus your attention on what they are saying. Don’t do other activities at the same time, look elsewhere, or answer another call. If you are speaking face-to-face, look the person in the eye, make sure your body is turned forward, and keep a calm but attentive countenance. By giving the other person your full attention, you’ll not only absorb the message more fully, but you’ll also increase the other person’s confidence that you are listening attentively.

Ask any technologist what comes first in building quality systems and the answer will be technical skills, process and (maybe) business relationship. After interviewing several CIOs and Business Applications Executives, they will tell you the same thing. They were successful because they used the latest technical skills while following a process to deliver the system.

Delving deeper into the specifics of these successful projects, I uncovered a similar pattern. Yes, the individual’s technical skills and the process they followed were important. However, some of the projects didn’t follow a defined process but were still successful. Some of the projects didn’t use the latest and greatest technology and were still successful. What these projects had in common with those that did was the relationship the technologists had with the business (user) community.