The Chairman and the Receptionist
(Is it a Presentation Skills Course? Or a Culture Development Tool?)
“The Small Man looks at a small thing and perceives: Insignificance.
The Great Man looks at a small thing and perceives, Potential Greatness.”
—Anonymous
“The Business of Culture Building is an ongoing challenge to combine Lofty and Low, Conceptual and Concrete into the perfect manifestation in an actual company. Then you have to talk about it!
“Success isn’t that the Chairman can tell the story — or not. Or whether the Receptionist has it down — although that’s a deeply indicative plus. But that both of them tell the same story — in a heartfelt and believable way. If it’s not that way at your shop, you’ve got work to do!”
J. R. StJohn
Chairman, The Fusion Group
Flying Apart in All Directions!
Lost in our divisions, “We have people for every application!” Specialists for handling upsets with customers and clients. Analysts exploring the world for the best and most solid investments. Guys in labs coming up with new products! Field Sales Pros out there in the world calling on clients, prospects and consultants to raise awareness and gain market share. They’re burning up laptops, tablets and projectors doing presentations or just hanging out “listening” people into agreements. The Sales Desk is a hive of activity and competition, with rooms full of people in headsets reaching out to individuals one at a time. Then there’s Marketing: attempting to meld all that information into the perfect document, web page, social media post, advertisement or White Paper.
The modern corporation is a great Machine for Communication Reach — but have we forgotten about Frequency? (Repetition?) What about Continuity? Everything we’re doing is great! But if we’re all telling different stories… Well, we’d call that Babble!
One System, Many Applications…
We built “Ready, Set, Go!” as a system for developing presentations structured in such a way that people could easily recall and repeat what they had heard. Then the system found its way into Marketing, as a story development tool; onto the Sales Desk as an Electronic Story Repository; into the Executive Suite as a tool for creating and delivering speeches; and into the Training Department as a foundation for building, delivering and storing training programs composed of complementary modules. New Business Pitch Teams applied the same discipline to Road Shows and Pitches. It now enables an organization to create, store, distribute and deliver its message assets to all points of contact. Oh, and all available on the network and soon, the cloud. We’re all singing, but now; in Harmony.
It’s Alignment, that’s all…
The point isn’t what we think, but what you can do: “Ready, Set, Go!” allows you to align all your communication efforts for the greatest impact, and the greatest availability to all your people and all of your listeners whenever they encounter or need access to a story.
Your best client comes to call, and the Receptionist is “Taking Point.” Maybe there’s a conversation, maybe not. But shouldn’t they be prepared to answer the basic questions, tell the story — and make it appear that to work at your shop is to be part of an articulate, smart and collaborative team — a team which speaks with one voice? All the Chairman has to do is “follow behind” and mop up! Is there a better way to make your point, everywhere?
One Story, Many Voices!®
Getting everyone on the same page requires VISION, time, universal training, sustained executive and management commitment, the political will to shove Field, Phone, Product, Legal, Marketing, Operations and IT people into a conference room (after they’ve been trained on the system) and to keep them there until they arrive at a shared story — to which everyone can swear allegiance — at least until next time. And the ongoing management of the story, literature, web and social media development process up to and through the launch of a new story. Then the fun begins — keeping all the cats telling the same story and bonusing them as they stick to the process until their resolve hardens.
It’s an Army, a Symphony, or a Championship Sports Franchise, requiring a benevolent dictatorial management team with their eye on the long-term prize.
(This is why we hold those who take it all the way in such high esteem!)
We think it’s a Culture Development tool, but it may be just a Presentation Skills Course… It’s up to you!
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