|
The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Executive Vice President of Sales, Howard Farfel, is a Finalist in the Worldwide VP of Sales of the Year category of the 3rd annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Services , to be announced February 9 in Las Vegas. The following is taken from their newsletter Ignite! You can view the current issue, past archives, and sign up for a free subscription here.
 In times of uncertainty, people need information, direction, and a clear plan for action. If leaders do not address these issues, people will tend to imagine the worst. Self-preservation and an individual focus will end up replacing the collaboration and cooperation necessary for an organization to survive. The result is a loss of organization-wide focus that inevitably leads to declines in productivity and profitability—the very outcomes that companies are hoping to avoid.
It’s a pattern that Scott Blanchard, Executive Vice President of The Ken Blanchard Companies, has seen repeated many times. To survive and thrive during an uncertain economic environment, Blanchard recommends that leaders adopt three strategies: acknowledge reality, define a direction, and manage people’s energy.
Acknowledge Reality
During difficult times, employees need more information, not less.
Share the realities of the current economic situation with your employees. What does the situation look like from your point of view? Be honest. Now is not the time for sugar-coating. The stakes are too high. You want your people to know that they can trust you, and that begins by sharing information. Even if you do not have the complete answers that you would like to have, it is important to share what you do know. Nor is it the time to take a “wait and see” approach to communicating strategy or to provide information on an “as needed” basis.
Instead, maintain regular communication throughout your organization and insist that other leaders throughout the company—including department heads, mid-level managers, supervisors, and team leaders—do the same. Make sure that everyone makes an effort to increase the amount of communication that they are having with their direct reports.
| 
Octagon Research Solutions, Inc., will be celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Founded by entrepreneurs James Walker and Kirk Gallion in October 1999, Octagon started out as a very small business indeed, in a tiny office above a donut shop. The company name, which could so easily have been donut ring-related, in fact aptly reflects the eight imperatives on which the company is run.
