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Emotional Intelligence For Customer Experience

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Emotional Intelligence For Customer Experience

Today, customers do not buy products and services only. They buy experiences. According to recent studies, businesses collectively lose billions in revenue per year due to one unfortunate reason: poor customer service, leading to poor customer experience. The revenue figure quoted above has increased by almost 50 percent from just two years back which is pointing to a problem that is only getting worse as time goes on. These days, when customer experience is the veritable Fourth Industrial Revolution it isn’t enough to simply respond quickly to customer inquiries and offer guidance whenever possible. For delivering a memorable customer experience, we need to create a true, emotional connection with people and use customer service as a way to hone and strengthen it. In this continuum, our own customer centricity and ownership plays a major role.

For delivering a unique customer experience, emotional intelligence in terms of customer service comes into play – something that can not only improve our efforts, but also create a new competitive advantage for us in a wide range of ways that are worth exploring.

Why EI matters in customer service

We need to start thinking of customer service as more than just a utility-based interaction. When we think about service just as a client question to be answered, we lose out on multiple potential opportunities.  When we don’t, we are able to leverage those very opportunities. When customers make direct contact with our brand, they do it for a reason. It is this reason which offers us opportunities that we need to use to our advantage; through emotional intelligence.

Let’s look at 4 simple ways in which we can use emotional intelligence to deliver a unique customer experience

Empathy: empathy is the ability and the mindset to get into the customer’s shoes. It is the hall mark of understanding our customers. In many ways, success in this regard begins and ends with our ability and attitude to care about the person we are speaking to and the issue they are having. “Compassion” is a trait that should be a crucial requirement for anyone in the organization who has the potential to make contact with a customer, regardless of whether they’re technically in customer service or not. Furthermore, we incessantly need to look for reasons to care about our customers.

Building trust : In business, customers mean everything. They are the most important revenue drivers and our brand image builders. Ergo, what our customers think about us can affect practically everything. It is owing to this, that building customer trust makes all the difference. It is noteworthy that while relationships between businesses and customers are quite different from interpersonal connections, most of the core foundations are actually quite similar. Trust and respect are cornerstones of customer decision-making and using emotional intelligence to build trust , especially in an age when customers care more than ever about transparency and socially conscious practices is a critical success factor.

Listening: A strongway to leverage emotional intelligence to our advantage in terms of customer service to deliver a memorable customer experience, involves both truly and deeply listening to what our customer is experiencing and our ability to maintain a positive conduct and attitude, throughout. To be emotionally more intelligent while listening, we need to throw out “the script“, the “broken record” and treat every interaction as unique as it actually is. We need to listen empathically and search for the bigger picture – to find out what the customer’s said and unsaid needs are and what we need to do to exceed customer’s expectations by focusing on the solutions.

The key to using emotional intelligence in customer service involves raising our own self- awareness. Hence, we cannot be afraid to check in on how we are feeling. Only when are able to read and label our own emotions, we will be able to read the emotions of our customers. Building our emotional intelligence skills enables us to leverage our emotional intelligence to do more than just answer customer questions or solve customer problems efficiently. We attain a position whereby we can create better outcomes across the board, taking a standard or even negative customer experience and turning it into a positive one. Consequently, this strengthens the emotional connection we have with our customers, thus increasing their brand loyalty.

This blog has been written by Namita Singh, Consultant & Project Manager at GrowthSqapes.

THE R FACTOR OF SALES LEADERSHIP

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Sales Leadership Development: The R-Factor for Success

In the last 100 years, perhaps there has never been a time than the last 18 months, when resilience building for sales organisations and sales leaders became a shriller clarion call. With most organizations and people getting impacted by Covid-19, the R Factor (R for Resilience) mattered the most to ensure leadership effectiveness in the sales domain. However, it must be noted that to ensure continuous leadership effectiveness, resilience cannot be merely event based. It has to be “leadership lifestyle” based.

To be effective and successful, it is imperative that sales leaders do the following on a continuous “leadership lifestyle” basis under each of the 3 components of resilience:

1. Belief systems:

  • Proactively make meaning from the experience of team-mates related to their personal goals in the context of organizational goals and get involved in supporting people to achieve their goals.  This surely is compassion in action.
  • Sales is a domain where success and failure are the two sides of the same coin. Maintain and communicate a positive outlook. Help the sales organisation as a whole, as well as individuals; find hope, and identify and work towards realising new opportunities.
  • Take a leading role in finding transcendence for the organisation and its employees. Provide inspiration, define routes towards transformation, and do whatever is possible to support individuals to achieve growth.

2. Organisational processes:

  • Be a proponent for flexibility for employees, showing an openness to novel ways of working, acknowledging and accepting newer ways of relating and connecting to people.
  • Focus and build connectedness, with individual team members and reporting groups. Give and encourage mutual support, show respect for personal experiences, and recognise the strains and stress of balancing new ways of working with team members’ possibly very stressful family situations from time to time.
  • Help, where possible, to mobilise organisational resources to support team members and their families. Build networks of team members that are able to offer each other mutual support. If needed, and feasible, offer financial security and even direct financial support.

3. Communication processes:

  • Be very clear and totally consistent in organisational communications, and clarify ambiguous information quickly, especially where team members are feeling high levels of anxiety about any unclear messages.
  • Be brave and behave with open emotional expressions. Share your own pain, respond empathically to team members’ pain and loss, tolerate differences in the way people respond to loss – and don’t forget to offer respite too, with appropriate humour and expressions of happiness when justified.
  • Reinforce what ought already to be within the mainstream organisational culture of collaborative problem solving. Brainstorm, share decision-making in appropriate ways, emphasise a democratic ethos, agree and focus on goals, and plan together with team members.
  • Make timely and decisive decisions to bring change as organizations that suffer from “decision paralysis” rarely move forward.

Many studies have indicated the importance of resilience as both an individual and leadership trait. Resilience in sales leaders brings about a transformation in the way a sales organisation operates and prepares for the future. It alleviates suffering, builds trust and loyalty, and positions the organisation exceptionally well for facing future challenges. For a sales leader who is trying to be more resilient, an improvement on even a few of the bulleted points above will help.

This blog has been written by Meena Murugappan, Associate Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Mindfulness and Leadership: The Connection

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Mindfulness and Leadership: Building Better Leaders

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
-John Quincy Adams

Universally, leadership is agreed to be a process by which an individual is seen to have the ability to influence and provide a sense of direction to a human group to accomplish a desired outcome. Especially in the business context, it is about managing people, managing process, managing perception and managing profits. 

Leadership is a significant phenomenon in every stratum of human society. In business domain, it is much in focus and is often celebratory. Nonetheless, absurdities exist in the practice of leadership and does not make it salutary more than often. Leaders derail. In fact, “more leaders fail and derail than become successes” (Furnham, 2010).

The reasons of leadership failure are multidimensional and are highlighted by an amalgamation of behavioral, organizational and situational factors that significantly impacts organizations business results. It a product of the internal processes of the leader, the interpersonal processes with the people being led and the situational dynamics under which the leader is operating. The root however, is the repeated behavioral patterns of the leader.

Mindless pursuit of tasks eventually makes the leader blind to many self-level flaws, and they become incapable to manage their emotions to initiate, develop and sustain reasonable interpersonal relationships. These leaders operate ‘mindlessly’. To be ‘mindless’ is to be in an inactive state of mind that is characterized by clinging to the past. Mindless leaders are imprisoned by their own rigid perspective. They remain unresponsive to how meaning shifts with shifts in circumstances. For them, the past continues to rule their opinion. Their behavior – much like automated robots without knowing it – keeps governing instead of any directional guiding to the future. They are characterized by suspension of understanding, being oblivious to surroundings and never think and act differently tuned to times. They become robotic leaders.

The antidote to robotic leadership is ‘Mindful Leadership’. Mindfulness is being aware of self, involved with others and engaged with the surroundings. Mindfulness does not demand hermit-level meditative skill and recluse. It is a humble process of actively noticing and being aware of things that are happing within self and in surroundings. It is not to put a demand on the degree of acuteness of observation and making it performance. It is rather, being present, being sensitive, being open to receive a new context and accept a new perspective. It is not to be slaved by a routine of governance but to be liberated by the guidance of the moment. Being in and being aware of the ‘here and now’. Sounds strange, as most may think – ‘I am very much present’. In reality, the mindlessness is so acute, that they do not even realize that they are “not there” and sadly they do not even know that they are not in the moment. Reasons for mindfulness to be promoted as an effective leader development method.

A research conducted by Institute for Mindful Leadership on the effectiveness of a Mindful Leadership and Wellness interventional workshop reported that:

  • 93% said the training had a positive impact on their ability to create space for innovation
  • 89% said the program enhanced their ability to listen to themselves and others
  • Nearly 70% reported that the training made a positive difference in their ability to think as strategic leaders.

Favorable results showed that mindful leadership training enhances mindfulness, compassion and overall well-being and health.

Here’re 4 Simple Mindfulness Practices for Leaders:

  1. Being in the Present: Be aware of your being. Focus on your presence in a situation. Asking yourself – ‘what is happening to me’? ‘How am I feeling?’. ‘Why am I doing what I am doing’?’
  • The Power of Breath: Feel your breath going through your nostrils. Notice the way your body swells and ebbs. Each time you are being aware as – ‘I breath in, I breath out’. Initially, if the mind wanders, so be it. Eventually, it will settle down and you will begin to be ‘mindful’.
  • Collect yourself – Literally! The scattered self that we often become needs the ‘organizing and ordering’ that you do to a pack of cards. Order removes disorder – of mind body and spirit – and enhances our sense of Being. Closing your eyes and watching your breath is an easy way.
  • Body Scan – Mind, body and spirit are integral to our being in totality. To align them, close your eyes, be aware of your breath. Focus on each part of your body silently. Visualize it, be grateful to it, thank it in silence. Talk to it. Offer a smile.

Mindfulness heightens sensitivity. With enhanced sensitivity and self-awareness leaders expand their thinking horizons. They become sensitive to their people, receptive to newer ideas, develop newer perspectives and do not get entangled in the chains of the past. They evolve as transformational guides for self and others. Mindfulness truly adds to personal and professional growth of leaders and prevents them from derailing.

This blog has been written by Pete Harpum, Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Covid-19 second wave – How is it impacting L&D?

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Covid-19 second wave - How is it impacting L&D?

As you read this, the equilibrium of normalcy in society seems to be in another battle. The battle between vaccine possibility and virus positivity. Both Covishield and Covaxin in India seem to be overcoming the accusations of efficacy, supply, and side-effects from all quarters, at least perceptually.

In a huge nation like ours where faith often rules over logic, perceptual validation competes with clinical validation. Though each substantial leap of the virus is being thwarted by eligibility leaps of a vaccinable population, clearly to us this wave is altered. Fear now seems to be a faulty evaluation of actual reality. No matter how much the authorities force penalties or whack us, there is a fair degree of anti-virus arrogance and disbelief.

‘Walking and talking encyclopedias’ declare herd immunity. Only if they can be convinced by eminent experts like Dr.Guleria, that herd immunity is achieved by protecting people through vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease. 

The factors that are driving the second wave, let’s face it – waning antibodies, not following COVID-19 appropriate behavior, pending vaccinations, and gung-ho festive celebrations are finally affecting business. With many local governments forced to re-introduce stricter measures like night-time curfews and sealing of premises in order to contain the spread, several plans that were coming to tracks of delivery are getting stalled or delayed.

What does this ‘contact-less continuity’ and delayed normalization mean for L&D managers?

Virtual boredom returns like a bad taste. At all levels of society, we were beginning to ‘get real’ , and getting back to virtual again is battling a lot of inertia.

Hope is also a paradoxically bad habit. It drives us in a direction and generates a dilemma. That’s what the L&D community is filled with as the second wave rises. Budgets and plans were made keeping the Hybrid Learning Model in mind, but the heart yearned for the off-line. Covid-19 enforced hybridization of learning.

Hybridization of learning could be defined as intermixing of different pedagogical elements that have the capacity of going beyond the traditional ‘walled educational interaction-­systems’ of facilitator and learner to create a new cyber-organizational entity.

What’s different in the Hybrid Learning Model?

A composition of internet-of-things (IoT) based educational technology and human beings turning learning into a new social hybrid. A new social system of learning, with its own social networks and mediating technology – the mobile apps, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, the changed LMS that talks through them, travels in the car and employee bus to other home-delivered byte-sized content carriers.

While the ‘echo chamber’ utility of a traditional conference room is not discounted, the new cyber-org entity would function as a room of discords and differences. Facilitating in the hybrid model is not smooth as silk. The virtual environment generates new psychodynamic elements in the learner much different from in-class.  

So, project managers and program managers are back on the drawing board. And within the hybrid, the blended will be put to test. All elements of L&D will swivel around these. Is there a better model than the Corona Virus Learning Model? 2021-22 is the Year of the Corona Hybrid Learning Model. It May sound bizarre at the moment but once it passes the test, it would enter the future BCP-DMP manuals.

How can the L&D community cope?

Without judgment and without trying too hard to force-fit, the L&D community needs to accept that theory continues to be put into practice. The conjectures that happened in magazine articles about real growth through virtual methods are now a reality. As a capability building community we must be “paying attention in a particular way: on (our) purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4).

That’s what being mindful is all about. This would give us an inner sense of flexibility to accept, connect, and collaborate. The ‘flexibility to accept’ is a cognitive process and a biological reality that we may not be conscious about that we undergo. So, let’s be thoughtful and mindful of what we cook with our thoughts. That should help us cope. Another point. Resilience is for us too. Learning too is business.

L&D community can no more brush aside technology as the snooty’s show. We got to come out of our technophobia, adopt and adapt to stay in business.

3 ways to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy in capability-building endeavors in the Hybrid Learning Model?

The North Star: Zero-surprises project management is the north star for program managers, project managers, and learning team leaders. The inertia of taste, preferences, and fatigues of Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meets forced by the quirks of  WFH, needs a disciplined approach to help us accomplish more in terms of a learning culture with the hybrid model, so that we do not spin out of control. For efficiency, it is mandatory that the unstructured virtual environment of the hybrid model becomes empirical and project-oriented.

The Visible Impact: “Change in behavior is the only indicator of growth” (Lewin). For capability-building interventions, this translates into a change in behavior that gives a visible needle movement in business. Traditional indicators of effectiveness are no indicators in the current context and methodology of capability building. Program managers and business managers need to identify fresh needles on their dashboards whose movements they will track. That’s where L&D and business have the mandate to co-own, connect, create and collaborate.

Not the Medical Paradigm – What creates fruitful learning and how to measure it? Does a good facilitator always lead to great learning? In other words, can any facilitator, in real or virtual mode, create learning even when participants do not learn well; and can participants learn despite facilitation that is substandard? The observation that surgery was successful, but the patient died anyway is what medicos can afford. As learning community members, our reality lies in the ‘belief that we have on our own capabilities to impact others learning’, as different role holders of the learning organization. On the other hand, each of us in the learning community also has a larger goal – that of generating belief in people that learning would change their world for a little better. ‘Learning is learner’s responsibility’ – true, but that does not absolve ours. 

Satyakki Bhattacharjee
Managing Partner – Growthsqapes

This blog has been written by Satyakki Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner at GrowthSqapes, one of the best corporate training companies in India .

FTM Development

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First Time Manager Development for Leadership Success

Making tomorrow’s leaders, today.

As we reflect upon the heading, our mind may be wanting to first understand what leadership is.  Simply put, leadership is a set of behaviors that leaders manifest to influence organizational growth via people management. Leadership capability and bench strength are crucial determinators of an organization’s success.

In the context of above, the First Time Managers (FTM) form the crucial base of the leadership pyramid. In terms of pure statistics, FTM is almost 70% of the total leadership pool and supervises around 80% of the workforce. However recent research shows that a large majority (up to 87%) of FTM wish they were given the chance to learn and progress when they first assumed their role, and nearly half (48%) felt they were grossly undertrained for their new role. This builds the case of a clear need for sustained FTM development, more so in the wake and the aftermath of the Pandemic.

Our experience and understanding arising out of working in the area of FTM development, in both domestic and international markets, reveals 2 paradigms. They being

  1.  The struggles and challenges faced by an individual transitioning into the FTM role and those faced by a tenured FTM are different.
  2. The sustainability of the FTM’s learning is very crucial to their success.

Hence, GrowthSqapes believes only singular and a differentiated approach for both paradigms above would make leaders out of the FTM and pave the path of building tomorrow’s leaders today.

Let’s look at the two approaches of developing FTM.

Approach 1: Develop those FTM who are transitioning into the new role.

In this case, the need is to assist and prepare the new managers for the transitioning process – for both leadership skills and emotions. Hence the focus of development is on:

  1. Understanding oneself – awareness of one’s strength and development areas to build confidence to take on a managerial role.
  2.  Understanding of the new role– the expectations, responsibilities attached, and the measures of performance. 

Approach 2: Develop the tenured FTM (already spent 12-18 months in the role)

In this case, the need is to develop the managers with a focus on skill development pertaining to:

  1. People Management – effectively managing people and driving team performance
  2. Leadership style– adopting situational leadership styles to coach and motivate the team to achieve the team deliverables.

The success of any FTM development journey depends on 3 levers:

  1. Establishing relevance: “What is in it for me?” for the participant.
  2. Personalization at scale: Providing personalized inputs to each participant.
  3. Seamless experience: Providing a seamless & engaging experience across modules and creating a continuous connection throughout the learning journey.

GrowthSqapes has been working with large MNCs as well as traditional Indian organizations in the area of FTM development. Our observation has been that; based on the organizational priorities of FTM development, the focus on key skills varies. However, most organizations choose to undergo a 3-6 month blended learning journey so that they are able to create learning sustenance and ensure sustainable development of the FTMs. The organizational benefits for these learning journeys, both for the participants and the organization are being acknowledged and the business impact is being felt.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

The Leader As a Coach

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Leader as a Coach: Driving Growth Through Coaching

The Evolution of Coaching

As the corporate world grapples with job losses, anxiety, and related issues resulting from “Work From Home” in the current pandemic and tries to make sense of the “new normal“, the challenge being faced by the corporate leaders is; how to develop the intangible and yet extremely important competencies of being a coach to the team to help them in keeping their heads above water as they navigate through the troubled waters of these times.

The word “leader” and “coach” now has greater importance and significance than ever before. Earlier, the leader needed to command, control and direct the team. That’s not what today is. Owing to rapid, constant, and disruptive changes, the leader today needs to give more of support and guidance rather than instructions to unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment in the team.

Additionally, today, with the senior leaders having to don the new role of a sounding board, allowing people to leverage their strengths and looking at areas in their lives which were never spoken of and yet seem to have the potential to compliment their existing strengths, the role of the leader has transformed.

In short, the new role of the leader is to become a coach.

The basic philosophy on which coaching functions is that “we human beings are extremely capable of change and transformation at any point of our lives and becoming the best version of ourselves”. Provided the change is for our betterment, is based on trust and is done in a safe and non threatening environment, it has the potential to make us better than we are.

The coaching we’re talking about—the kind that creates a true learning organization—is ongoing and executed by those inside the organization. Data of the last about one decade shows that evolved and progressive organizations moving away from the command and control culture and managers/leaders are shifting paradigms from being just managers and becoming more of coaches to their peers and colleagues.

The Case for Coaching

Athletes, musicians, and people from different professions have always given a lot of credit to their coach for their success. Roger Federer and Serena Williams, two cases in point, have won the maximum number of Grand Slams between them and they give a lot of credit to their coaches time and again for their success.

The leader as a coach does not play the sport for the team member, but he will stretch you, encourage you, show you the mirror, will almost certainly create insights which would lead to immense learning for the team member about themselves and would hold the team member accountable for their performance for the future. Great leaders who are great coaches listen well, which is the hallmark of any great coach.

While every leader at the helm of affairs may bring in their own strengths, at the same time” listening”, empathy and understanding of things not being said and still being understood is an art that is becoming more and more important as organizations develop leaders for different levels.

But, for leaders who are accustomed to tackling performance problems by telling people what to do, a coaching approach often feels too “soft.” What’s more, it can make them psychologically uncomfortable, because it deprives them of their most familiar management tool: asserting their authority, a trait which a lot of leaders acquire from their predecessors.

Read this example. In one study, when asked about their intent to develop their reportees, nine out of 10 leaders decided they wanted to help their direct reports do better. But when they were asked to role-play a coaching conversation with the same reportee, they demonstrated much room for improvement. While they know what they’re supposed to do: “ask and listen,” and not “tell and sell”, that behavior doesn’t come naturally in the leaders, because deep down they’ve already made up their minds about the right way forward, usually before they even begin talking to the reporter.

So their efforts to coach typically consist of just trying to get agreement on what they’ve already decided. That’s not real coaching—and not surprisingly, it doesn’t play out well.

Therefore, coaching as a developmental approach requires a paradigm shift in thinking and behaviour in which encouraging exploration of possibilities plays the most crucial role. And, while coaching is something which can be learnt and there are models which can be helpful, leaders must allow the coachee to formulate their own thought and ideas…and support them along the way.

For leaders, it may be quite an uphill journey initially as it requires an effort in letting go of their inherent managerial style. However, the development of coaching ability is a great skill to help the leader meander upwards in their leadership journey.

GrowthSqapes has robust solutions and strong capability in developing leaders as coaches.

This blog has been written by Rupender Khaira, Associate Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Social Network Selling Vs Digital Marketing

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Social Network Selling Vs Digital Marketing

Circa: 2000: A business headline: “Seven out of ten executives believe that technology will replace human interaction with customers in the next decade.”

Circa 2019: A business headline: “78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media.”

Sales is a dynamic domain and in the VUCA world, it has become more vibrant as an art and a science. This dynamism is attributed to the ever-changing relevance or importance of the various “cogs in the sales wheel”, customarily known as the sales process, over a veritable time-lapse of the last 20 years.

Hence, a component of the sales process which was appropriate at a particular point of time in the past may not be relevant today or in the future. The most significant contributing factor to this dynamism is the advent of technology and the infiltration of the social network in our lives.

What is Social Network Selling?

Social network selling is the art of leveraging and capitalizing on your social networks to find the right prospects, build trusted relationships with existing customers, and ultimately, help you achieve your sales goals by engaging with both prospects and customers at a personal level.

The concept is very akin to that of inbound marketing with the goal being: overall improvement of sales and marketing efficiency by building more deeper relationships with target audiences. The social selling process is characterized via engagement through the use of social media tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

The cogs in the Social Network Selling wheel

Observations and studies show this is how social network selling works

  • Instead of spending time on cold, outbound prospecting, the sales team members focus on generating conversations and engagement throughout the sales process.
  • The sales team members participate in social media, share a mix of interesting branded and non-branded content so that they are perceived as expert curators, and build relationships organically over a period of time.
  • Over time, the visibility that the sales team members bring via the content that they have been collectively sharing starts trickling back to the organization as a whole, thereby strengthening the value of the brand and influencing the customer’s purchase decision positively.

Is Social Network Selling, Digital Marketing?

An answer to the above pertinent question is that by definition, social selling isn’t conventional selling. It sits at the intersection of sales and marketing of the online and offline worlds. While, unlike social marketing, social network selling is aimed at cultivating one-on-one relationships versus a broadcast to many, it draws similarity from the fact that sales have the relationships and the expertise in “selling” but marketing is often on the frontlines of the brand value proposition and the story that is needed to optimize those “selling” interactions.

With the help of industry-validated content, GrowthSqapes’ social network selling solution brings to you the expertise to up-skill your sales team members to develop and sustain the art of leveraging social media for sales outcomes.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

Managing vintage people during Organizational Transformation, The Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©®

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Managing People During Organizational Transformation

The Existential Question

Particularly those organizations which have existed for many years, a time comes when it faces an existential question that must be answered. “The conventional (read traditional) model of our operations, should we continue with that? Will it be potent enough to help us enter the new age economy?” Is what the board room deeply contemplates. For the courageous ones, this often leads to a deterministic enterprise-wide planned changed intervention – the organizational transformation.

The Role OD plays

Whereas there are agile transformation experts who lay down the cognitive process of transformation, it is the Organization Development (OD) experts who hold the hands of the organization to enter a new world of work in terms of value creation, innovation, process integration, and collaboration. The organization faces fundamental dilemmas akin to balancing Hobson’s choice – what to do with vintage employees? Vintage is characteristic of high quality.

Nonetheless, vintage is also characteristic of not being in tune with modern times though being a solid citizen. In the context of organizations, the ‘high quality’ of people is time relevant. When the organization wants to shift from a traditional model of operation to a more contemporary model to adapt to the shifting waves of the new age economy, how it deals with the vintage employees is a direct reflection of any gap existing between its espoused values and enacted values about its workforce.

The Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©®

Our Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©® is a logical yet sensitive application that offers to facilitate astrategic plan and decision-making in this area. When viewed through the lens of ‘fit for future’, the human capital can be seen through the two axes of Vintage and Agility. The resultant four zones clearly offer the strategic necessities that are merited.

When Applied as an Intervention

Our experience of running this intervention for an European beer major has resulted in painless management of “people matters” during an organizational transformation endeavor – a rather sensitive issue otherwise. This brewery organization was traditionally a family business for generations which is traveling the cycles of times since 1870, high on passion and innovation and wanted to shift gears to match the speed and character of the new-age business dynamics.

People who were high on vintage, low on agility, and were in the zone of obsolescence were “to be dealt with”. The brewery family first wanted to push these people to the zone of capacitive potentiality to explore areas on which it was possible for them “to be developed”. They were imparted new technology, a new work attitude, and new skills development training to reduce the gap between what they were earlier good at and what their new roles demanded to become performers today.

Being a historical family business, they had a humanistic approach and believed in the Y-theory way of managing their human capital base that the theory-X way. Putting anyone in the zone of obsolescence was the ultimate step that was used when it was thoroughly falsified that these people can be developed. It was validated in many ways before being conclusive that they have reached such high levels of obsolescence attitudinally as well as by skills, that they cannot be developed.

The Effect

The efforts made with these people were recognized by the people themselves. They, therefore in many cases volunteered a good-humored separation. The brewery family management ‘took care’ of them for lengthy periods of the rest of their lives socially, emotionally, and economically. The identity of belonging to the organization was reinforced in many different even after the separation. One family director shared the spirit rightly – “the marriage is called off, but the human relationship remains”. sense of identity that the people derived by ‘working for the brand’ was changed but never robbed off.

The Lessons Learnt

The above success story has many lessons to learn.

  • Potential agitations in organizational transformational endeavors are indeed made smooth and harmonious by effective OD intervention.
  • The Change Engine moves in a pair of tracks – the mechanical process reengineering, and the humanistic people process management.
  • OD interventions prevent derailment of the change engine.
  • Not all organizations need to be financially as generous as the brewery company, but emotional generosity and inclusion are possible without expending a penny.
  • Employment ceases, ambassadorship continues.
  • Organizational Identity and identification are significant constructs that are often ignored in transformation exercises with huge long-term ramifications.
  • Holistic approach to organizational transformation through the diagnosis of conscious as well as unconscious processes yields better results and business impact than the Reductionist quick-fix approach.

(Disclaimer: Names of client system are withheld under a non-disclosure agreement.)

GrowthSqapes does extensive work in the area of OD. Feel free to reach out to us.

This blog has been written by Pete Harpum, Partner at GrowthSqapes, one of the best corporate training companies in India.

Re-imaging Sales in a Virtual World: 4 Success Mantras

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Virtual Selling Success: 4 Mantras for Sales Growth

In the early 2000s one of the leading business newspapers in India published a report which said that 70% of senior executives believed that technology would replace human interaction with customers in the next couple of decades. Data of last year shows that in the B2B sales domain, approx 75% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media to engage with their customers. In the current “Covid Crisis” context the latter figure is only going to move northwards.

As the shock settles in, sales professionals are thinking (as they must) of ways to respond to the several questions that are coming in their mind pertaining to their business sustainability and of ways to be prepped for the actions they’ll need to take with their customers to lead their business in the “new normal”.

As an inference from the second data point above, it is interestingly conclusive to note that the rate adoption of digital technologies by customers also has been very high. Therefore, metaphorically speaking, B2B sales professionals just need to cater to the already existing appetite. Let’s look at 4 ways in which sales professionals can respond to the demands of the market, situation and their customers.

Connect with existing customers immediately:

A helping hand in crisis is remembered for long. Hence sales professionals and sales leaders must deeply analyze and understand the main customer challenges and identify the actions they can take for them immediately. One way of doing this is to gather data from the field and other related indicators to create a scenario-based forecast that draws a realistic view of demand and supply. This being done, they must deploy an agile but phased approach to ensure quick and targeted responses to each customer.

Start regimented “Social Selling”:

Social selling is about leveraging and capitalizing one’s social networks to find the right prospects, to build trusted relationships with existing customers and ultimately to help the sales person achieve his sales goals. The social selling process is characterised via engagement through the use of social networking tools like LinkedIn, Facebook , Twitter and the like.

In a digital world, the sales person needs to have a well-defined personal strategy, that is aligned to the organisation strategy, to reach and engage with the right target segment. Since, in the digital world, social selling is a cost-effective digital way of generating leads, it is also crucial to build discipline into this approach and measure the activity metrics in a regimented manner.

Develop “Virtual Executive Presence”:

In the interest of the company’s image and the personal brand of the sales person, it is crucial for the sales professional to cultivate a strong virtual executive presence.

Some ways in which this can be done is by progressively building a digital persona, positioning one-self as a domain expert, engaging with customers on several socially and economically relevant topics, sharing one’s thought leadership and networking with industry leaders as much as possible. Concurrently, sales persons also need to sharpen their knowledge and skills to operate digital /virtual meeting platforms and make virtual presentations to communicate, interact and sell in a digitally professional manner.

Digitalize the customer experience:

In a digital world, a unique and improved digitalized sales experience offered to the customer truly leads to a differentiated customer experience. Towards this, the sales person would necessarily have to leverage digital technologies to make product presentations and demos, use new age digital technologies like Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality or 3D Computer Vision or Extended Reality to create an impact and activate the customers’ buying motivators.

GrowthSqapes’ several Sales Capability Development Solutions empowers you to train and develop both the skillset and mindset to be able to sell in a digital world.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

Leading a strategic organizational transformation

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Leading a strategic organizational transformation

What and why needed?

Organizational transformation is the process of transforming and changing the existing organization structure, corporate culture and employee behavior to reap certain strategic business results. It is affected by visible action taken by organizational leaders to move from the present to the future in order to achieve a specific outcome or benefit or to respond to the changes in the VUCA world that may be adversely impacting the organization. This blog underlines the steps that can be taken to cause a successful transformation; written in the context of a real-life case pertaining to NWO, which is predominantly an upstream operator and asset owner, exploring and producing in the North Sea, Africa, and the Middle East.

When the price of a barrel of oil plunged by more than 80% the market dynamics had already changed. Nord-West Oelleitung GmbH (NWO) met the challenges of these new market conditions by implementing an extensive organisational restructuring and behavioural change programme. Implemented in a matter of months, this programme led to a new more agile organisation ready to react to industry changes and embrace new opportunities as they arise. NWO, puts the success of the programme down to one simple reason, “We had a plan and we stuck to it”. It might sound like a simplistic approach, but with over 700 employees affected and the business-critical implementation carried out in a matter of months, this simple tactic proved its worth.

Onboarding the right people:

To help them execute the plan, NWO brought in transformation consultants. The tight timeframe and extent of the changes led to the transformation team taking a bold approach to strategic change management. In addition to carefully planning and documenting a series of initiatives, including workshops and training sessions, they decided to use a pull model to allow time for support on an ad-hoc basis. Transformation Leader Dr Pete Harpum explains, “We started this programme with a very clear idea of the key processes and behaviours that the business needed. But we also knew that we couldn’t just take a training manual approach to a transformation of this size. We needed to incorporate flexibility to deal with the unpredictable issues we knew would emerge as the programme unfolded.”

This combination of a clear strategic plan plus scheduled and ad hoc support meant the strategic transformation programme was completed in a matter of months with visible benefits from the start. Furthermore, its success was underlined by the fact it was carried out with minimal impact on production and zero incidents.

Meticulous planning:

Planning the organisational transformation started and putting success measures in place is crucial to the success of the initiative. At NWO an internal team looked at the restructuring needed to achieve greater agility in delivering business critical projects while reducing operating costs. The resulting design of the new organisation was created around a strong matrix structure that aligned the new teams with a clearer focus on the business instead of being organised around functions. To handle the organisational change, NWO established a cross-functional Transformation Management Office (TMO) comprising of a secretariat, HR and the transformation consultants. Part of the TMO, Jane Smith was involved in the scoping of the strategic transformation and describes the changes as “incredibly sensitive” as they affected around 700 employees. “Some people were promoted, some demoted, people got new managers, new areas to work in. So it was all about finding the right operating processes and rhythm for the company,” she says.

Mapping the right skill:

Ensuring that the right job is mapped to the person who has the appropriate skill set is important to ensure the success of any change initiative .Although they were brought in as external consultants, the transformation team worked as an integrated part of the TMO, located on site, and were able to complement the NWO team with their unique skills.“We used the skills of the transformation consultants but the process was still very much internally driven. This was definitely part of its success. No-one could say that we’d used consultants who didn’t understand our business. We knew which processes were necessary but not how people would react. This was where transformation specialists could help,” said Jane Smith. “Each consultant in the transformation team had a different profile and area of business expertise. It was a good opportunity for us to learn from them and take advantage of their key skills,” says Fred Brown, Head of HR at NWO.

Agility in management:

The VUCA world demands that the change is implemented before it becomes necessary to change again. Therefore to avoid the insecurity and inefficiency that any transformation programme breeds, the process was fast and intense – lasting just a few months. All employees were presented with the case for change in their teams and then held individual meetings with their old, and in some cases new, managers to discuss questions, concerns and plans.

Once the transformation was underway, the benefits of the flexible approach to the change process taken by the consultants were clear. Any issues were spotted and managed in a timely manner before they escalated or became negative office gossip that could heighten insecurity. In many ways, this approach also pre-empted the resistance that is encountered when external consultants are involved in creating new organisational structures.

Managing stakeholders:

 Transformation is driven by the key stakeholders, hence keeping them in one’s good books definitely helps. “The managers at NWO are highly professional dedicated individuals who have been hired because they can deliver. Therefore, they’re not the sort of people who think they need help. Our approach and presence on site as part of the team meant we could provide the coaching and role modelling they needed without putting it into a formal structure,” says Pete Harpum. It might sound like an unusual approach but this fluidity meant the transformation team could react as needed in a more dynamic way.“It probably appeared coincidental when we showed up at the coffee machine to talk to the individuals about what was going on. But for us, this was carefully thought about. Working closely with the TMO, we had already identified peoples’ specific sensitivities and had anticipated their needs,” explains Pete Harpum.“By having the transformation consultants on-site, we could get change management support immediately and therefore we could adjust to what the organization needed,” says Fred Brown, Head of HR at NWO.

Building cohesive teams:

In addition to this ad-hoc individual support, the transformation team also facilitated a series of over fifty customised workshops. By focusing sessions on actual needs, the teams involved were able to create vision statements for their teams, clarify roles and responsibilities, identify team ground rules, establish efficient and value adding activities, and improve the effectiveness of team meetings as well as identify opportunities in terms of strategic feasibility and cost reduction.“Again, we knew what we had to achieve and by not scripting each session down to a fine level of detail we could maintain our focus on the people and teams affected by the change and their actual needs. And it paid off. During one session, a team in the Sub Surface Function found savings of £80 million in one hour. This kind of initiative wouldn’t have happened had we had not let the workshop be led by the people involved,” says Pete Harpum.

Measuring success:

No transformation initiative can be called a success unless the success measures are achieved. Nine months down the line and the new organisational matrix structure was in place. 200 people switched jobs, managers and teams and the organisation had the agility required to face future challenges. Looking back, Jane Smith is pleased with the way people have embraced the new structure. The overall process was a success from a business perspective. The change was never easy but it has been well managed and during the process, NWO has managed to maintain stable production and reduce the number of incidents. The transformation project has been vital to the company. It was well executed as could be seen in the fact that production indicators actually increased, which had never happened in previous change management programmes.

Growthsqapes offers multiple solutions in leading and managing change from diagnosis to implementation.

This blog has been authored by Pete Harpum – Partner at Growthsqapes.

Building Customer Centricity In A Crisis

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Building Customer Centricity in a Crisis for Growth

It’s been more than four months since the current COVID 19 crisis caught us off guard and sent almost the entire world in a lockdown. A direct fallout of the lockdown has been a grinding halt to the world economy with a severe erosion of business and consumer confidence. As governments learn to deal with the crisis in several ways, businesses are realizing that getting new customers would be extremely challenging.

While we see governments taking steps and measures to ease lockdown and restart business activity , the corporate world is learning and embracing the fact that COVID 19 crisis is here to stay here for the near and medium term. However, as they prepare for the long haul, what is also brewing as a thought in the mind of organisations is –under a pandemic situation, which has created a new normal, how do organisations remain customer centric and continue to command customer loyalty?

Let’s look at 4 actions that organisations can take to remain centric to their customers’ needs in the new normal.

Reach out

In times of crisis, a helping hand is remembered for long. Reaching out to customers will be the first step towards delivering a message of customer centricity.

Anything that can alleviate the customer’s pain is a crucial one. Also, creative and novel ways of engagement are critical success factors. How organisations rationalise cost and reward loyal customers would be an important consideration to be made.

For example, introducing loyalty programs for existing and new customers is one natural way to go. Other ways can be loyalty points transfers, incentivising customers who have been with the company for a long time, deferring installment payments, a longer credit cycle or multiple ways of accepting payments.

Create and offer a digital experience

As more and more consumers spend more time online it is but obvious that they search for digital equivalents for in-person activities. Hence, organisations that would want to succeed must move quickly to accommodate the massive shift to digital channels to offer a digital experience. It’s highly likely that consumers will prefer to use many of these digital offerings even after the crisis hence slowly combining a in- person and digital experience (PHYGITAL) would be most effective. Many companies, from mobile carriers to food-delivery services, have made targeted investments to build or augment their digital capabilities. Several themes have emerged. Successful companies have used an agile, iterative approach and design thinking to identify new digital opportunities beyond their comfort zone.

Let’s take the example of Tesla, a brand known for raising the bar of customer experience. Tesla’s sustained commitment to reinventing the car-buying process using digital has proved especially prescient. Its state-of-the-art digital showroom and virtual user guide offer customers an immersive online experience, and the contactless car delivery is tailor-made for the current environment.To broaden its online reach in China, the carmaker partnered with Alibaba on a T-Mall online store. From December 2019 to March 2020, Tesla saw its sales in China double while other carmakers experienced a 50 percent drop over the same period.

Focus on health and safety

The Covid 19 pandemic’s massive health implications have made health and safety the most important concern for consumers. Therefore companies must keep these issues front of their minds as they plan their transitions to the next normal. Companies that are able to create a “contactless customer centric experience” will be able to pacify the customer’s concerns more effectively.

Take an example of India. Many companies in India have started transforming into a contactless safe delivery model. Walmart-owned Flipkart is in the process of hiring 4,000 people, Reliance Retail and Arvind Fashions are building processes for a surge in e-commerce and phone orders, and training manpower for safe contactless operations.

Process feedback fast

The increase in digital penetration also means that companies will have more dynamic feedback data at their fingertips pertaining to customer sentiment, experience and value. Companies that are more proactive and responsive in a real time basis to the feedback of customers will be able to harness their loyalties. At the same time, companies which will invest in technology and systems required to harness data and analytics tools to deliver exceptional customer experiences will command customer loyalty.

Let’s look at what an airline did. They developed a data-driven system using machine learning to predict and act on customer satisfaction and revenue performance. By taking actions based on predicted customer sentiment and outcomes, the airline was able to more effectively focus its effort on customers that were most at risk of defecting and achieved an 800 percent rise in customer satisfaction and a nearly 60 percent decrease in intent to churn.

Under the new normal, the customer experience landscape is evolving with each passing week. Companies which build capabilities to become more customer centric at this time will definitely stand out.

This blog has been written by Rupender Singh Khaira, Associate Partner at GrowthSqapes.

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