An illusion of clarity
What do you see?
When we ask this question, many people comment on the Greek revival building and the city in the background. Others see the businessmen in suits. Some can’t see the businessmen at all even after we point them out.;
This is exactly what happens when people look at your organization. Our natural tendency is to assume that others see the same things we do. We think people care about the same things we do … or at least they should. Read more
Leading from the middle
I had lunch recently with an executive who left a very successful company after helping them grow both the top and bottom line. I asked him why he left and he said, “It’s so hard to lead from the middle.” He went on to explain that though he liked the president of the company as a person, the lack of direction was more than he could tolerate.
This story illustrates why great people often leave companies who need them. I’ve heard the same idea described in different ways. For instance, another senior person who left a great company said “I just didn’t see a future I could get excited about.” Read more
What is the ROI of Sync?
I was meeting with a CEO earlier this week, and he emphasized several times during our conversation that when CEOs consider getting outside help to promote sync they ask, “What’s the ROI?”
This raises an important question: How does one measure the ROI of getting in sync? It’s intuitively obvious that being in sync is helpful. Having an organization in which everyone is working to move you in the same direction is more cost effective than the alternative. And having a customer promise that is in sync with the value you actually deliver will certainly get you better financial results. But where’s the quantitative data? Read more
Resetting your business
I had lunch recently with a business leader who believes that because the economy has been reset, organizations need to reset themselves. He suggested that if you’re “trying to hold on and wait for this to pass, someone is going to clean your clock.”
He continued to say that organizations need to have a new strategy and structure with a corresponding culture in order to be appropriately repositioned. In addition, he suggested that you have to innovate to figure out how you will change. Read more
What is Sync?
As many of you know Dialect is focused on promoting sync. We’ve published a book, Uncommon Sense, that illustrates principles of sync through a fictional story of a CEO and his leadership team.
But what is sync? Simply put, in organizational terms, it is departments and people using their strengths and understanding their roles, effectively working toward shared goals.
