Differentiate Your Professional Service Practice
December 4, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Photo credit: Wessex Archaeology's photostream (coastal and marine set) on Flickr
I get asked over and over by some people about what kind of coaching and consulting I do. They seem to have a preconceived notion, or perception of it and then attempt to reconcile my explanation to somehow fit their worldview. Sometimes I can’t figure out if they’re curious and trying and wanting to understand, or just not listening.
But now I’m realizing that people are pulled out of their comfort level when they’re in the depths, and the depths is my space.
I work with people at the level of often hidden assumptions, expectations and beliefs. In organizations, its collections of those - the culture. I use metaphysical metaphors to support the change facilitation process. I shouldn’t be surprised that people want to stick their toe in the water many times before they risk getting a touch of the bends.
I’m blogging this because I’m getting a sense that there’s a growing desire, or movement, or response to series of crises, to go deeper: in life, business and self-awareness. I think its a great sign that people and businesses are showing willingness and readiness to move beyond the surface of their experience, and with a leap in faith, take the plunge into what’s deep and unknown…that with which we identify but which contradicts what we want and where we want to go.
I don’t believe that “going deep” is only within the realm of professionals who focus on “people” issues. Accountants, consultants, health professionals, lawyers, technology professionals, etc, can practice recognizing opportunities to serve clients at a deeper level. It starts with allowing more space for conversation and sharing, being present without an agenda, and being willing to think differently about everything we and our clients think we know.
Uncertainty is the new reality for our clients. We can help them make it their pivot point of power from which they can create and direct their change and growth, if we dare to be different.
Social Media and the Medical Device Industry
November 8, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
Social Media - Medical Device Industry
I have a former background in machine-tool, as a controller and later, a partner. A key market was medical device which has continued to grow, 6% annually in the U.S., which manufactures a large percentage of global product.
Despite industry consolidation, approximately 80% of the more than 8,000 U.S. medical device firms employ less than 50 people. What they lack in resources, they can make up in agility and responsiveness to highly specific customer needs and requirements which include R&D partnerships and new market applications for existing products and processes.
Success for the small medical device manufacturer requires continual research, a focus on promotion, internal knowledge sharing and collaborative partnerships. For these reasons, as well as their insistence on getting the biggest (measurable) bang for their media investments, medical device companies can greatly benefit from social media.
Social Networks Part 4: Quantitative ROI
October 6, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Leave a Comment
RedShift Social Media-Network Model for Business
Businesses across all industries are paying more attention to social networks which are predicted to explode worldwide. Although clearly there’s tremendous opportunity and potential it can be overwhelming to grasp the rapid disruption happening and the voluminous information getting pushed out.
Decision makers need help discerning what’s valuable from what’s hype and in taking a direction that makes sense for them. My goal is to help them do that with a unique 4-stage map that is more strategy than tactics and more visual than wordy.
My posts on stages 1-3 are:
- Social Networks Part 1: Community Segmentation
- Social Networks Part 2: Integration
- Social Networks Part 3: Qualitative ROI
The purpose integral to my model is that businesses of all size increase their natural natural influence by using social networks to expand their social capital, brand awareness and sense response skills and abilities.
The quantifiable return in my model is the sum of actionable metrics that follow the qualitative experiential learning of the earlier phase. Its nearly impossible to assign a dollar figure to every social media action. Its more reasonable to present ROI as a story of the benefits of your social media initiative. What’s most important in the very organic world of social networks, is patiently directing the movement, or progression from one stage to the next and not losing commitment to authentic community relationship-building in the quest for ROI.
I developed this model to support a practical approach to social media with recommendations including:
- Determine if and how social networks can help you grow your business and/or improve profitability.
- Accept the disruption resulting from a shift from seller to buyer power.
- Involve people in the decision making process who will challenge assumptions and habitual responses to change and disruption.
- Understand that it will take two years to measure returns on integrating social networks, whether external, internal (behind the firewall), or both.
- Model natural and authentic communications both offline and online and give incentives for participation.
- Don’t wait, over-plan, over-control, micro-manage or over-analyze. Adopt a test and learn approach to social networks.
- Be open-minded and creative about results and metrics you choose to track, knowing that you could get an unexpected equivalent result, or something even better.
- If the above don’t convince you, consider the cost to your business of doing nothing.
An O/S For Change
February 9, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Getting clients to write, or in some other way ground, objectify and embody their change experience is like pulling teeth. We’re in the habit of thinking mostly about what we don’t want, and then talking about how we’re justified in having these negative beliefs, thus further locking them in.
Think of your belief system as your internal operating system that drives your life experience but has never been re-booted or de-bugged. Before you can clean out the bad code and replace it with an updated version, you need to dig into it to understand how it drives, or blocks, your fulfillment. Getting your beliefs down in writing, or in a recording, or in a visual are how you get them out of your head, where they spin and spin but nothing really changes.
If you avoid the step of objectifying your change process, and I’ve seen this so many times with clients, it takes much longer to understand your complex system of beliefs that direct, or counter-direct, your personal, professional and organizational responses to change. When you don’t know what you don’t know, you’ll continue to feel powerless as you’re buffeted by the changes impacting your life, your business and your organization.
One caveat about creatively examining your individual or organizational belief system: don’t make it difficult by trying to make it perfect. If writing about your shift feels hard and stressful, then you can be sure that there’s an unwanted belief blocking your progress.
A lot of new-age and mass-market personal improvement material is unconcerned with doing the work that results in a deep level of self-knowledge. It appeals to the desire for a quick fix for being stuck, or getting the fulfillment that eludes. Its understandable why we’re seduced by simplistic positive thinking and creative visualization self-improvement models. But all too often, they just add more layers of “code” on top of an already buggy personal belief system. Improvements are fleeting, action plans are abandoned, and results are often disappointment and frustration. The reason is that hidden beliefs in what is not wanted continue to drive, even if they are hidden and ignored. Until recognized, examined, accepted and released, they will without fail, block quick fix attempts to get to something better, more meaningful and lasting.
The process is the same for collective beliefs as it is for individuals and its critical to leading and facilitating an organizational culture shift. Organizational cultures are collections of beliefs that largely determine the likelihood of success of any change initiative. To ignore, or not examine cultural beliefs is, like with individuals, a path to failure and frustration.
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self-awareness, leadership, organizational culture, self-knowledge
Feng Shui Your Professional Service Firm (PSF)
February 7, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I get wonderful support, collaboration and inspiration from my allies who are service practitioners in industries seemingly unrelated to mine. I differentiate my business from others in the management consulting industry.
My friend and ally Joan is a corporate escapee and now a natural living, health and wellness educator who is sought out for her Feng Shui programs. I joked that what she does with her Feng ShuI is the “space optimization” version of my “content optimization”.
Joan responded that space optimization is exactly what her business clients are requesting! That sparked a lively conversation through which we discovered that our desired results for clients of our optimization programs are the same: alignment with the ideal and to improve the quality of experience for ourselves, our clients, our clients’ customers and beyond.
Later, I read this HBS newsletter about authors of a new book, When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance. It was just an excerpt, but to me it painted a grim picture of the professional services field from both a manager and employee point of view. The activity and execution-based proposed new PSF framework is largely about setting direction and avoiding counter-direction.
Reading it, I thought: PSFs hunger for it, so where is the creativity..and the Feng Shui? Its not there, and that’s sad. We’re fortunate that as solo’s, we have unlimited opportunities to create and align. Its so important to not waste them.
The dilemma, says HBS professor Thomas J. DeLong, is that the entire PSF landscape is in upheaval. Associates are harder to recruit and keep; competition for clients is increasing from boutiques below and global firms above; the clients themselves are more demanding; and management time is focused on short-term issues rather than long-term strategy.
As DeLong puts it, “In the past, the work of PSFs was a gentleman’s game—and now it’s blood sport.”
Thomas J. DeLong: Professionals in professional service firms are reporting greater frustration, unmet needs, lack of shared purpose, poor morale, etc.
PSFs promise one thing [to clients] and deliver another; clients are asking for more for less. The firms are becoming more global and more complex to lead. The professionals entering these organizations have higher expectations and more suspicion that leaders will treat them like cogs in the wheel.
Technorati Tags:
optimization, solo professional service firm
RedShift eBook - The Seven Virtues of Change Leadership
January 2, 2008 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
How Executives Will Fill the Leadership Chasm and Transform Their Organizations
This is my first eBook and a labor of love created during the dead of winter 2008. My goal is simply to create a spark in people who are leading change initiatives, perhaps for the first time.
You can either download the pdf version or view the single page web version.
Download pdf file (1.1 mb)
Web version (no download)