Become a PowerPoint Guru by Dave Tracy
Learn the methodologies, frameworks, and tricks used by Management Consultants to create executive presentations in the business world.
Currently viewing the tag: "Team building"
With most Transformation initiatives people gradually revert back to their old habits of doing things. Sustainable Change Management necessitates 4 key processes:
- Chartering—defining the scope, rationale, and team for the change initiative.
- Learning—testing and refining ideas before a full-blown execution of the initiative.
- Mobilizing—using symbols and metaphors to engage people and gain their buy-in for the change program.
- Realigning—redefining the roles and responsibilities and managing performance of the initiative and the people driving it.
These processes are critical to enable an Organizational Culture which encourages execution of lasting change.
In addition to these key processes, for the change to entrench into the organizational fabric, Leadership needs to put in place the environment necessary for the people to embrace and own the new processes, systems, and desired behaviors.
The 4 critical processes aid in creating the enabling conditions necessary for institutionalizing change in the organization. These enabling conditions for sustainable Change take place in 3 settings:
- Structural Context
- Procedural Context
- Emotional Context
The environment for sustainable change must be put in place way before the actual execution of the Transformation initiative. These enabling conditions encompass making changes to the organization’s structure, procedures, and sentiments / behaviors.
Let’s dive deeper into the 3 conditions critical to enable sustainable change in the institution.
Structural Context
The first element of the enabling environment requires the change leadership to work on reshaping the organizational structure. The 4 key processes have a direct bearing on the organization’s structure. Their effect pervades over:
- The organization’s hierarchy and reporting lines.
- Compensations, benefits, and rewards systems.
- Monitoring and control systems.
The Structural Context significantly affects the way employees’ work and expend their time and their interest in certain types of projects.
The structural context is altered during the Realigning process of Transformation in the way new personnel practices are employed. The Learning process informs the redefinition of linkage between the leadership and field staff. The Mobilizing process informs the changes to be made in the roles and responsibilities of the management and front-line people—through storytelling and metaphors. Whereas, the Chartering process helps instill a reformed, team-building culture in the organization. Together, these changes in the structural context cascade down across the organization.
Procedural Context
The Procedural context pertains to a feeling of objectivity and authenticity of new processes and systems. The Procedural environment involves the perception of people that their views are taken seriously and acted upon while designing and implementing a new initiative.
Procedural authenticity is critical in gaining commitment from the employees on initiatives that were not validated by them earlier. It involves belief of the people that the change initiative integrates well with the philosophies of the organization and the way business should be done. It makes the people feel heard, ensures trustworthiness of the change leadership through positive track records and effective decision making abilities, and alignment of the change initiative with the core values of the organization.
Interested in learning more about the other enabling conditions mandatory for institutionalizing change? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Conditions for Sustainable Change here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Did You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
Understanding others has a lot to do with collaboration, performance management, and building effective teams.
Developed by Taibi Kahler in the 1970s, Process Communication Model (PCM) is a prominent psychometric tool for individual and team development. The main utility of the PCM model is in understanding others’ personality types, discovering one’s own personality, and personifying others’ personality types to have better relationships.
PCM allows the executives to understand others’ needs, influence others, find practical solutions to problems, and manage conflict. The model has found its utilization in a number of Fortune 500 organizations. NASA has used PCM for the training and selection of its astronauts for over 20 years.
As per the PCM model, each individual embodies an assortment of behaviors, each with its own set of psychological requirements, strengths, weaknesses, communication style, and motivations. The Process Communication Model describes that each of us exemplify a combination of 6 personality types—each of personality type has its strengths and weaknesses—but one personality dominates the others in an individual. The 6 personality types are:
- Harmonizer
- Rebel
- Thinker
- Persister
- Imaginer
- Promoter
Let’s discuss these personality types in a bit detail.
Harmonizer
Individuals with a dominating Harmonizer personality type are humble, quiet, and naturally gifted at forming relationships with others. The Harmonizers care for their family and friends, are compassionate, and use their feelings to judge the world around them. They treat others cordially, make them feel comfortable, listen to them attentively, and do not shy away from making physical contact.
Recognition of their personality and others’ amiable communication style motivate the Harmonizers. Under difficult circumstances, these individuals tend to become apprehensive, lack firmness, act irrationally, and make grave mistakes / incoherent decisions.
Rebel
The individuals possessing a Rebel personality are generally creative, fun loving, and radiate positive energy for others. These individuals respond promptly, reciprocate righteousness with virtue, and enjoy the present. The Rebels are valued for their extemporaneous humor, interest in others, energy, and problem-solving ability. They are a bit impulsive and judge the world around them through their likes and dislikes.
Others upbeat communication style and stimulation through playful contact motivate the Rebels. Under stress, the Rebels tend to get confused, whine, irritate others, leave complex situations, and bounce responsibility to others.
Thinker
Individuals with a dominating Thinker personality believe in data, logic, and perfectionism. They take on a methodical approach to doing things, ask too many queries, and only attend meetings when there is a formal agenda set in advance. The Thinker personality likes to evaluate detailed information before drawing any conclusions. These people are valued for their planning and organization ability, dependability, structuring ideas logically, and clear expression.
Recognition of their thoughts and accomplishments motivates the Thinkers. Under stress, they reverse delegate tasks and start doing those themselves, try to gather as much detail as possible to understand the situation, and may start arguments or even attack others. These people need time and assurance of their abilities to return to their organized selves.
Interested in learning more about PCM and its other personality profiles? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on Process Communication Model: Personality Types here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
Virtual Work has become a norm nowadays. To enable Virtual Work, organizations should strive to develop an Organizational Culture of writing things down. Documenting everything—from meeting notes to quarterly objectives—facilitates in developing stronger, informed, and more credible teams.
Organizations need to pay attention to and make good use of these 9 communication tactics to establish effective communication mechanisms among their remote teams:
- Daily Documentation
- Text-based Communication
- Low-context Communication
- Value-guided Communication
- Asynchronous Communication
- Good Habits
- Meetings
- Informal Communication
- Foster Relationships
Virtual communication tactics are essential for inspiring collaboration required for developing a more connected team.
Now, let’s talk about some of these tactics in Corporate Communications in further detail.
Daily Documentation
To have more collaborative work place and to have fruitful online meetings, virtual organizations need to follow these guidelines:
- Share formal agenda and discussion items well in advance of the actual meetings.
- Diligently document key ideas, points, and decisions for geographically dispersed team members to know their responsibilities, action items, and rationale for decisions.
- Virtual teams should be encouraged and rewarded by the leadership on their thorough documentation, just as achievement of sales targets are rewarded. This is particularly necessary since people tend to leave documentation when they have other urgent tasks at hand.
- Encourage teams to document a solution as soon as it is discovered, since our ability to remember and recall is limited. Prompt documentation of solutions also ensures readiness of answers to other team members’ queries in future.
Text-based Communication
For most people from an in-office environment, text-based messages are pretty awkward and cumbersome. They are used to one-to-one or in-person meetings and communication, instead of text-based communication. Making these people adopt text-based communique and use it to their advantage demands quite an effort and behavioral change. However, mastering the art of textual communication affords a number of benefits for teams, projects, and organizations alike, including:
- Text-based communication is vital for Virtual Work where team members are dispersed in different geographies. It is a medium which is inclusive, respectful, and emphasizes a documentation Culture.
- Documentation is a real competitive edge. A Culture without mandatory documentation gives rise to inefficiencies, knowledge leaks and repetition.
- Text-based communication seems a liability but helps avoid unnecessary meetings with the sole purpose of “filling someone in.”
- Cultivating a habit of communicating answers to problems through text makes documentation simpler, assists in asynchronous work, and provides information to all at the same time.
- It frees up individual’s time for contemplation and idea generation.
When communication stakes are high in the game, there are some key considerations to follow in text-based communication:
- Consider evaluating your conservation through an external party’s perspective before sharing.
- Be mindful of the differences in various Cultures and communication styles.
- There can be lags in obtaining input from the other team members due to difference in geographies and time zones.
- Keep in mind that there can be minimum to none non-verbal communication.
- There is emotional lag in communication.
- Analyzing the mindset and frame of mind of the audience is a bit tough.
- Management should assist team members in communicating effectively and getting the best out of Virtual Work.
Interested in learning more about the other communication tactics and guidelines for virtual work setting? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on Virtual Work: Communication Tactics here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
“Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”
– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SF
