Crucial development areas for organizations and how to succeed in them. Leadership Development & Coaching

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1 INNONews Crucial development areas for organizations and how to succeed in them Innotiimi newsletter 2010 Leadership Development & Coaching Change Team Innovation Meaningful Meetings Global Challenges Sustainable development results to achieve a high performance organization!

2 Change Stairway to change! The company was facing a major change challenge. The corporate culture had to be changed from a traditional, functional, production oriented organization to a flexible, customer oriented solution provider even by outsourcing, the faster the better. The management group made a decision to acquire external outlook, experience and bold thinking by after careful selection process creating a partnership agreement with Innotiimi. The rapid change The frame work of our assignment to Innotiimi and expectations of your contribution are: help in planning and executing the transformation support in gaining Balanced Scorecard (BSC) based results, measurable and psychological, quality and commitment to help to make it happen, small steps right away and sustainable positive development After accepting the challenge, Innotiimi, together with its consultants decided to embark on stairways to change, Rapid Change Process, which also took into consideration the highly emotional part of the change process. The open discussion instead of pleasing finding the right way and solutions was the name of the game between management and consultants. Roll out Best M-GROUP management camp focused on careful, comprehensive and new views giving almost day-and-night planning, proactive choices by innovating and commitment was spread by consistent clear information to all employees. To know more adds agony appeared as a fear among employees leaving and surprisingly even staying in the company. On the other hand with the new partner receiving the staff had not yet found a water tight common line and message. The solution to avoid falling and become stuck in these two fatal pitfalls was a series of common workshops. Workshop 1: What, why, how and when? new vision and new partnership (outsourcing process), the concept of process rapid change all (and any from anybody) questions and best answers available by great brains time as a critical resource, first action points covering each and everybody The second workshop was devoted to following the concrete results gained, reflecting results to target measurements, listening to ideas and encourage the new thinking. Results The substantial and amazing change from the old culture to new one had taken huge steps in six months. The positive progress could be measured by BSC and feeling while meeting the employees. The empire always strikes back. That s why the employees should feel themselves genuine drivers, subjects instead of involuntary objects. We do not speak about people we speak with people became reality as well. World CCC Innotiimi has taken a challenge. World CCC, World Class Change Concept is a project heading to create with network consisting of customers, experts, scientists, executives and Innotiimi consultants an ultimate acknowledged change concept. We have thousands of stories on the stairway to change - this was one of them.

3 Innovation Convenient Truth about Innovativeness It is a Skill that Can and Must be Learned! Innovate or disappear! Without innovations no organization will survive in the long run. Innovations related e.g. to business models, marketing concepts, products, services, management practices or work processes are vital in terms of survival and prosperity. The level of innovation culture defines your organization s capacity to create new innovations. We believe that managers (business managers, project managers or any person having a foreman position) are in a critical role determining innovation culture in any unit. They have the responsibility of organizing how work groups are operating and deciding how much emphasis is given to renewal activities. Above all, they are first persons to hear new ideas presented in different parts of the organization. Their behavior either supports or kills ideas. Managers create innovation culture The most efficient way to improve innovativeness is to get managers to work in a different manner in a way which can support renewal in every corner of the organization. Managers should have the right set of innovation skills that can be taken into use when new innovations are needed. Ability to create and support innovation culture is a skill that CAN and MUST be learned. Fuel your innovation culture by training your managers Has your organization lately challenged e.g. existing ways of doing marketing or is it easy to find new promising opportunities for your services and products? If not, our training module Challenging of existing assumptions helps your managers to see things differently, challenge current mental assumptions and see new opportunities to grow your business. Does the atmosphere of different meetings or daily work support creative thinking? If not, our training module Creativity nourishment gives your managers concrete tools to create more innovators into your organization. Does your organization suffer from the inability to develop ideas further or is it difficult to change current ways of doing work? If yes, our training module Innovative refinement of ideas gives your managers practical help to tackle with these challenges and to efficiently develop innovative concepts. Many organizations share the word innovation in their values and strategies with poor practical results. We believe that managers innovation skills that help them to utilize the full potential of their group and a surrounding organization are in critical role in giving real content to the values and strategies of innovation. Inno6pack training program based on 25 years of cumulative experience Inno6pack training program The roots of Innotiimi are in the development of creative problem solving tools and innovative work methods. The company grew around practical knowledge on how innovation culture should be cultivated and how innovations should be developed in organizations. Today, we have collected our wisdom of nourishing innovativeness in organizations and developed a holistic training program to create innovative organizations. We have selected a set of six skills that we believe are the most essential in terms of creating innovative atmosphere. Creativity nourishment Creation of good ideas Challenging of existing assumptions Innovative refinement of ideas Constructive evaluation of ideas Efficient idea selling

4 Case for teams Team Innotiimi has a long tradition of working with teams and team building. Even the company name carries an obligation in that direction. We believe real teams are the most effective way to achieve things together. The team building challenge is to run a development process to help a team to grow from a loose group to a self directed team. The structures and systems in organizations traditionally don t support team work. Both of them are based on individual responsibility areas and in the worst cases might even hinder team building. The organization starting team building should check the present state of both structures and systems. Each team needs an individual development process, run by the manager with the team, to help them grow to the level of self direction. The leader needs both team building tools and leadership tools to succeed. Innotiimi has been helping hundreds of organizations with the above mentioned challenges for almost 20 years and continues to do so in the future. Leadership challenge with team building Leadership has for long been based on giving answers. Managers focus their energy on the issues and problems, solve them and try to get their people to implement their solutions. On many occasion managers won t get people committed using this leadership approach. Case for leadership teams How to get teams to participate? The key is to get the thinking processes started in team members and help the processes along. To acquire that the manager needs another basic tool along with the answer. That tool is the question! We have developed a set of question based leadership tools which also help in team building processes. The tools are based on common sense and are easy to learn and use. First the manager utilizes the tools. Gradually team members learn how to use the tools themselves to achieve even greater self directedness. We have trained these skills for seven years. This kind of processive approach seems to be the effective way. It has always been challenging to organize top management effectively. Traditionally it is done with management groups. They however face a lot of problems. We seldom find a really well functioning management group. It might be a case for a leadership team: to develop the dynamics, processes, skills and co-operation of the group to team level. The Innotiimi development process starts with recognizing the most important success areas of an excellent leadership team. For each of those areas we create a development process, which is also part of the leadership team s team building process. Often even small steps toward a real team give good results in developing the effectiveness of management groups. When leadership teams really operate well, leaders also become more skillful in helping further team building. The whole organization will benefit.

5 Leadership Development & Coaching In the training we got some understanding about how to lead, how to be a good manager. But the real change happened during the coaching process, I connected the ideas to reality. Manager The coaching has supported us in improving performance and reaching our ambitious goals because it has helped us focus on the really important issues. Managing Director Coaching helped me create and clarify a new work role. A fresh Manager Guides toward acting and taking responsibility. Team Leader Coaching has given me tools that I can apply in my work. HRD manager I learned to understand some of my emotions and what brought them up. Management Team member How could coaching help you? Has developed our community and our skills in solving issues together. Team Gave us a chance to reflect over important issues. Team Coaching has helped us in problem solving and brought us some new points of view. Expert During the coaching we realized that we had become slaves of our routines and thus we were able to change our process. Management Team member I found my enthusiasm! An experienced Manager

6 Natural Tendencies & Sales Frequently Asked Questions? Global Challenges How did Innotiimi come into an idea of this kind of training programme? Innotiimi has been working for more than 25 years on organizational development. In the field of teams, differences between people is a key to success. Our customers often ask us how to use this understanding of personal differences in order to improve their sales processes. Traditional sales programmes tend to concentrate on asking questions. But they forget the human dimension, i.e. people gather information, understand, and make decisions in different ways. By integrating this dimension, sales people increase their results. It s all about people: people buy from people. Who should participate in the programme? The programme is designed for a wide range of sales people, from beginners to experienced. It is for anyone in sales who has asked him or herself at least one of the following question: a. Why is it more difficult to work with some customers than others? b. Why can t I understand the decision-making process of some customers? c. Why do some customers prefer details and others the big picture? d. How can I develop trust and rapport with all my customers? e. How can I handle a meeting with a difficult customer to my advantage? f. How can I fine-tune my sales process to fit the different needs of my customers? g. How can I go further into account planning by taking into consideration the natural tendencies of the decision-makers? How do you assess the participants level of sales skills and individual style so as to maximize their potential? At the beginning of the programme the participants will agree on how to run a Dialogical Sales Skills 360 Interview with colleagues & customers and/or invite colleagues to visit and monitor their sales calls. The 360 interviews are one to one, and each participant selects who is going to be interviewed. Questions are related to individual interests and development areas in the sales process. The results are debriefed in small groups in the course of a group coaching session. While the interviews/visits are taking place, the participants answer an assessment tool designed to develop self awareness. The training program uses the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) framework based on Carl Jung s theory on human behavior. Innotiimi has created a special type indicator based on the MBTI and called «Natural Tendencies and Sales» to determine accurately the sales person s natural type and strengths in sales. It also supports self awareness and allows sales people to use their own talent areas and also understand the individual needs of customers throughout the sales process. What are the customer benefits in the programme why participate? Compared to traditional sales trainings Innotiimi s program has strong benefits. It focuses on areas not covered by normal sales trainings, e.g. how to make sales with people by better understanding and influencing them. Sales is said to be 80% people related work and Innotiimi has 25 years experience of that. The participants benefit from a deep understanding of their own natural strengths and talents, and can build tailor made sales processes, easily and quickly. We use interviews, sales call visits, and small group coaching to assess the participants, create an all important feedback channel and share hints and ideas how to develop their own style. Also, practices and simulations on products, sales processes, and cases from participants create a realistic environment that stimulates learning. Learning new skills is best done by reflecting through one s own experience and insight. This process is strongly linked to everyday life and allows to use the new skills proactively and continuously. Finally, our experienced Innotiimi consultants make sure that the group energy is released during the workshops, as learning by having fun allows to remember and act with pleasure. This kind of program sticks! Since 2007, Innotiimi consultants have acted as trainers in the leadership courses developed and delivered by a consortium of four companies for the European Admistrative School (EAS), a shared training institute for all European Institutions. There are four different leadership programmes altogether from a Team Leader course to a course for very experienced Heads of Unit and we have trainers on three of the four, in both English and French, explains Innotiimi MD Perttu Salovaara who was also responsible for developing the contents and material for Programme 2, a transition course for new Heads of Unit during their first three months as managers.

7 Efficient meetings a source to good economy! Meaningful Meetings We just spent a lot of time and nothing came out of it! Inefficient meetings are probably the number one source of frustration in the work environment! Companies that we meet put quite a lot of effort and energy to analyze and correct the hard core in their business, investments and the structure of the organizations etc. It applies to every part of the business to become more efficient for improving its economy. A big area that is totally missed is to get the meeting culture more efficient. For example established routines, tradition, lack of communication, traditional leadership styles cost a lot. How much does it cost? Innotiimi has looked at many companies to see how much money companies use for their meetings. The model is based on calculating how much time employees use in different meetings every week and how big part of the salary it corresponds to. It is clear that it differs between different positions in the company. Leaders teams and leaders are those who spend most time in meetings, some even up to 80% or their working time. Unfortunately it is these people from whom we receive comments like the title: We just spent a lot of time and nothing came out of it! An example: Company (production, technical equipment) Employees: 100 Average salary per hour: 30 EUR Estimated time in meetings, weekly: 20 %, (8 h) Investments per year: EUR What can you/we do? A first step is to analyze the meeting culture in the company. It s certainly not about to stop meeting but rather to ensure that you have the right type of meeting for different situations, and right people are participating, that information and communication works, the right decision can be made at the right level. Innotiimi, from its start, 25 years ago, placed great focus on developing methods to support meetings. Educating internal meeting leaders, equipping them with the right tools, ensuring that the right type of meeting is used in the right situation is our interest and your step to a good meeting economy. An investment of this size would certainly be examined carefully in the company if it was energy expenditure or materials in production. Our experience is that the meeting culture is rarely faced with the same requirements.

8 Would you like to have tools for better meetings? OPERA is based on the principles of creative problem solving and involving participants in a systematic way. OPERA increases participation and makes your normal meetings more efficient and enjoyable. OPERA enables you to simultaneously develop the best solutions and to earn participants commitment. GroupExpo is a participative working method for involving a large amount of people and simultaneously working with many different questions. GroupExpo makes big meetings more systematic and efficient. It is a tool for implementing strategies and plans, developing work processes and practices, and defining organizational values. Guidebooks and other materials: Innotiimi is an international consulting company with its roots in Finland. For 25 years I nnotiimi has helped its customers to develop in areas such as change management, coaching, innovativeness, leadership, meetings and team building. Innotiimi has developed concrete tools and methods that reportedly bring sustainable results in customer organizations. All Innotiimi methods are highly participative and produce real commitment in participants. Innotiimi today is 50 consultants situated in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Germany, France and Czech Republic. Vapaalantie 2 A FI Vantaa FINLAND tel [email protected]