One of our clients has been focused on ensuring its regional management team spends time on understanding the impact they are having on the business, their customers and their people as well as the sales they are making.
In a world of achieving great results and making a difference to customers, sales results and customer retention can often be the only measures that receive focus.
However for this client, “how” you achieve those results is just as important – understanding the impact you have on others and continually working to build more effective relationships, will not only set you apart as a leader and manager but also have an impact on the bottom line.
Each of the management team participates in a process of receiving feedback on how they are going as well as receiving “feedforward” – a process of giving someone else suggestions for how they can improve into the future.
Marshall Goldsmith “coined” this phrase as he worked on improving leadership performance and our client has embraced this approach. What they have noticed as it has been implemented is a real change in the way their managers have conversations about their own performance. Whilst managers identified that it was an unusual approach to not only ask “how am I going?” but to follow it with “and what suggestions do you have to improve what I am doing?”, they agreed that it has made a difference.
Performance discussions have become part of a conversation rather than reserved for a special meeting. Team members appear more confident in making suggestions about what their leader can do as they are being asked on a regular basis. Managers are seeking feedback and feedforward more regularly and acting on what they have heard. And the results are being seen in increased sales and customer retention.
A great example of ensuring that “how” you do something is as important as “what” you are doing.
