Department Under Pressure

A department was under pressure from top exececutives to do more.  But staff and resources were not enough to meet these expectations.  The manager needed new ways to increase not only productivity but also the agility of his group.

• He completed the Productivity & Agility Assessment online survey to identify improvement opportunities. 
• To check his views, he asked his management team to complete the assessment also.

Based on these insights it was clear some quick hits would be improve meeting productivity and email communications disciplines. More strategically, key processes needed to be improved.

The manager's team implemented some of the tools in the Productivity & Speed Tool Kit to make initial progress on needed improvements. 

• The Productivity Improvement Strategies guide was used to identify more ways to improve productivity and speed.
  
  
• The Global Team Self-Assessment was used to improve global collaboration and was completed after every meeting to ensure improvements were being made.
  
  
• The Principles of Process Redesign checklist was used to better implement process improvement work.

Within days the management team knew what to focus on and were taking quick actions to meet executive expectations.

Initiative Going Off Track

A department manager was assigned a stretch assignment to take over a cross-functional intiative in trouble.  The manager had no experience doing this so tackling this problem was going to be tough. She needed to quickly know what was going on and why quickly. Here is how she moved ahead.

• She asked the core team members to complete the online Initiative Health Check assessment. This identified several areas that needed immediate attention.
  
  
• She found the Initiative Performance Dashboard which enabled her to efficiently show the team and the executive sponsor the current state and what needs to be done to turn the iniative around.
  
  
• She then viewed short video segments in the Managing A Cross-Functional Team video course. This gave her the knowledge and insights she needed to be more successful in this new role leading the initiative.

Within a few days the core team and sponsor felt confident they knew the right things to do to get the initiative back on track.

Team Not Performing

During the weekend a manager suddenly learns of a derailed project as a result of team performance issues.

• Right away she completed an online Team Effectiveness Assessment to get insights into what to focus on.

• She used Team Effectiveness Model tool to identify the areas to focus on to move the team forward. And she watched a few two-minute segments of the Building High-Performance Teams video to learn to best ways to coach the team.

• On Sunday she sent questions to Neil, an expert in this area, via email and quickly gets a response.

• She then met the same day with Neil via Zoom to practice the conversation and discuss issues in getting the team to perform better.

Now she felt fully ready to hit the ground running Monday morning to begin to get the team back on track.

Moving Into New Role

A senior IT manager was about to move into a new leader role in an organization he was not familiar with. He wanted to be fully successful in this new role quickly and be confident he knew what to do and not do.

• He completed the online New Role Success Assessment survey to identify actions he should focus on to get ready. 

He looked at tools that showed him typical missteps and success factors when moving into a new role. 

• One tool was the First 30 Days Action Plan template that he modified adding dates to quickly create his own plan. 

• Another tool - New Boss Meetings Sequence told him how to get in synch with his boss on preferences and expectations.
  

• He watched some short video segments in the Leading with Emotional Intelligence video course that helped him be more successful in engaging with new people. 

• He had three coaching sessions with Neil to establish goals, check in on progress and create a Next Steps plan for moving ahead. 

Now he felt confident he knew what to do moving into this new role to avoid miss-steps and feel confident with less stress.

Getting A Promotion

A product manager wanted to move his career forward and get a promotion in his company.

• He completed the online Career Success Management assessment which pointed out how to manager his career better. 
  
  
• He looked at the Get Promoted At Your Company Checklist that gave him concrete things he could do that would boost his chances of getting promoted. 
  
  
• He watched some of the short segments in the How to Be Promotable video that gave him more insights and built his confidence in taking action. 
  
  
• He had a coaching session with Neil to practice a career conversation with his boss and think through his career direction.
  

Now he knew what to do and how to do it to get the right visibilty and show he was fully capable to move up.