Operations

As companies keep pushing to iterate faster and speed up innovation, the steps it takes to get there can put a lot of strain on an operations team.

This is the group that keeps things working efficiently today. Whether it means trucks running, planes flying or data processing, this group knows every step of a company’s activities. They manage workflow and process. And that means any change, no matter how innovative or effective, is always disruptive to the operations group.

Even positive change can impact how operations teams communicate. Results for this group are bottom-line focused, and sound bites cover today’s reality not tomorrow’s potential and opportunity. In fact, an operations manager can sound defensive and a little resistant to change if it puts their team in flux. It’s hard to be strategic when you’re in charge of staying rooted in the day-to-day.

Content: Aligning daily tasks to a broader vision and company direction is an artform. It’s a blind spot for many operations teams as they think about providing current updates and details of current problems. We remove the blind spot by helping operations teams consider the other perspective as they craft messaging and recommend choices that can balance current reality with long-term goals.

Style: As communicators, operations managers and leaders are expected to be tight on measurements and results. And they can lose the ability to engage people when they’re pushing out facts and not pulling in listeners. We focus on understanding how to engage listeners and create open discussion and buy-in through communication style.

Situational: An operations manager is effective by paying attention to detail. An operations leader has to learn to shift from managing details to connecting all the components. And that’s not an easy transition. Almost overnight, an operations leader learns that their confidence and trust was based on seeing the details. And as they step up to manage a more complex team or group of teams, they can’t build confidence and trust in the same way. Our Manager to Leader toolkit was designed to help that transition occur a little more intentionally.

For teams, these three steps are the start of a Tailored Program.

For individuals, a combination of Open Programs helps you build your own toolkit.