6 Ways to Keep Things Simple
Six Ways to Keep Things Simple
We can have greater success with our Clients when we make our work processes and agreements simpler and more elegant. This article will give you ideas for making your contracts and commitments, projects and plans, reports and relationships with Clients simpler. Here then, are six suggested ways to make your products and services more elegant.
1. Ask why. When we understand the root cause of the client request we are better able to sort out and find simple elegant solutions. Often complex solutions come from unfocused efforts and expectations. Asking why can help you make your client contracts much more effective ? helping both you and your client. Clients will appreciate the results of you helping them get to the heart of the matter.
2. Understand the Client's real needs. Asking "Why?" helps us get to the client's real needs. We can also get to real needs by discovering the needs of all the relevant groups involved. A little time to build greater understanding will help you build more elegant solutions.
3. Keep the big picture in mind. While you are building your solution, or delivering your service, keeping the big picture in mind will help you keep it simple. When we remember how hard deployment of anything(!) can be, we are reminded to Keep it Simple. Let's say you are building a training module on customer service for new employees, as a part of their orientation. The big picture says that these new people will be inundated with new information, expectations, procedures and more. Your module on Customer Service needs to be simple. It doesn't need to incorporate all the nuances of your 9-step model. It needs to be to the point and easy to access and understand. Do they need all those nuances? Maybe later ? but the big picture helps us reign in our designs and plans.
4. Keep the communication clear. "If you can't write it on the back of an envelope, your idea isn't clear enough yet." So goes the oft quoted advise. We as consultants are often guilty of not getting our ideas clear, or well focused enough (read NOT simple!). When we have clear communication as a real goal, we will keep things simpler.
5. Make it a criterion. Seal all your work with a "KISS" (Keep it Splendidly Simple). Before sending a draft, a report, a template, a recommendation, whatever, to your client, as yourself if it is as simple as it could be. If it isn't simple enough, you (or the client) will have more trouble understanding, communicating and deploying the work product.
6. Apply the Grandma Test. Early in my career, my grandmother asked what I was doing. I tried to explain about improving client performance, teaching useful skills, etc. As a retired schoolteacher, she eventually caught on. "Oh," she said, "you teach adults." Yes Grandma, that is exactly what I do. I am a better consultant when I remember this lesson. Your clients and their employees don't care about your jargon. They care about results. Keep it simple. Tell it like it is. When you do that you'll have better success with current projects, and more referrals in the future.
©2001, Kevin Eikenberry, All Rights Reserved. Kevin is the President of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps their Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. Go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/training/training.asp to learn more about customized training and workshops on consulting services offered or contact Kevin at toll free 888.LEARNER.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Forget The Sandwich Technique
Do you remember being told to use the "sandwich" technique
when you needed to reprimand someone? Let me give you an
example:
ISO 9001 the Process Approach to Quality Assurance
What is the Process Approach to Quality?
Problem Solving the Problem Solving Meeting
We go to meetings to share information, to report on project status, to make decisions, to get the free lunch, and because we were invited. (Sorry that I digressed). This is only a partial list ? there are many other valid reasons for holding meetings.
How to Hire the Right People
One of the biggest challenges any business owner or manager has is hiring the right people. I've recently discovered a simple, inexpensive yet very effective way which will help you get it right. This week I've asked Nathan Chanesman, Managing Director of Myprofile Pty Ltd. to please explain?
ISO 9001, What Next?
The overriding goal of ISO-14000. (History 1995)
Cold Water Comments - What They Are and How to Manage Them!
Cold Water Comments - What They Are and How to Manage Them!
Change or Die! To Change Your Organization, Hire a Business Coach
It is a common business axiom ? change or die. As a small or mid-sized business owner or a manager, there will be times you will need to make changes in your organization but may not be sure how to go about it.
A Management Strategy
I witnessed some interesting behaviour from one of our premier management schools this summer. A behaviour that I have since discovered is not uncommon.
Getting the Most from Appraisals
Does your organisation have one of those annual 'occasions' that few look forward to: the annual appraisal or performance review? How do you look forward to it? I wonder how people talk about it before and after?
Planning Your Recruiting Efforts Can Help You Find Great Employees
Today, companies have an ever-expanding list of options available to them when it comes to sourcing new employees, from advertising in newspapers and trade journals to powerful, cost-effective recruiting options available through the Internet. Unfortunately, the growth in the number of recruiting options available has made the competition for top candidates even more fierce.
Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have a Complete Agenda
Most agendas for a meeting look like this.
Survival of the Fittest: The Road to Human Extinction
I was watching a TV program some months ago about a biologist working in Central America who was dedicated to protecting the panther species from extinction. During the program I heard him make a comment that upon reflection I found had embedded in it seeds of wisdom that not even he was aware of.
Lessons From Innovative Companies
What do the companies 3M, Polaroid, and Walt Disney have in common? All have innovation in their blood. All encourage an innovative spirit at every level of their organization.
Hire People For What They Do Best
I recently flew from Seattle to Atlanta, I realized, just as we began our taxi, that it takes hundreds of support personnel to maintain a flight. I saw the woman at the check-in desk, security, pilots, luggage handlers, flight crews, air controllers, and the various staff physically on the tarmac doing whatever people do on an airport tarmac.
Writing and Revising Your Life Story
Change is not simple. Why do we repeat behavior that doesn't work? Those actions that lead to stifling debt, disappointing careers, or stuck relationships? Then do it harder, yet expect a different result? Why is it not obvious that trying to exit an old story by simply writing a "better ending" only recreates the same story, and ensures that we remain in it? That a thousand better endings to an old story don't create a new story? That the past cannot be changed and is a settled matter? That too often, we see ourselves as the victims of the stories that we author and the feelings we create?
Setting Clearer Performance Expectations
The annual performance review.
Managing Creativity - An Oxymoron! Not
Interrogated on a beach in Barbados by friends insistent that there was little validity to my speciality, I have felt compelled to answer the most common objections in the field of Managing Creativity and Innovation.
Project Management, A Forgotten Perspective
Effective project managers know how to get the job done, and get it done right. Success comes not only from wise selection of the team members and utilization of the best project management software tools; effective managers know how to lead, and how to encourage project team members to do their best. This includes clearly setting and communicating project goals, providing proper training and/or equipment, as well as other necessary items and expertise. Effective project management also requires constant re-evaluation of your performance as the project leader. The most effective form of leadership is by example. If your team members see that you strive to live up to the high standards you require from the project team, they will inevitably be more productive.
Leadership: Stoking The Success Train
Everyone wants to succeed yet everyone has a different perception of what success means and what it will bring into their lives. It is a means of gaining financial freedom for some and for others it means a healthy, happy family life. There are others who define their success by the power that their job title brings and others who feel successful when they believe their leadership skills excel above others.
Humor in Business
With the advancement of computer simulators, anybody can repeat all the business routines before he goes to the field, and have the opportunity of relaxing from the tedious work with numbers. The businessman can concentrate more on the human factors: The Customer Service, the relationships among fellow workers, and self care.
|
