The other day we held a series of offsite meetings to discuss sales tactics and techniques as well as reinforcing our corporate messaging and corporate sales cycle.  As it turned out, in addition to a training exercise for staff about the best ways to sell, close, and introduce new business opportunities, we had a great thing happen in the company.  We changed the way we talked about sales opoprtunities and we got everyone speaking the same language.

While it sounds simplistic, what I have found since that meeting is a tremendous change in the culture of the organization, a bonding of sorts, and a share thinking that is critical to an organization.  For us, it is about talking about “features” versus “benefits” and “different tactics for close” and “the sales pyramid versus the sales funnel”.  For other companies, the language of choice might be different.  You might have your own language you want everyone speaking, I am not negating that at all here.  Instead, I am suggesting that it is imperative for every CEO to instill a language in the organization that he / she leads and to make sure that language is shared and believed by all people in the organization.

We had that for a long time but recently fell into the trap of thinking that we needed to allow people to speak in their own language and to have their own unique way of doing things.  What it led to was a sense of different factions, groups, and a clear disconnect in the conversations that people were having.  Instead of a Shared Mindset we had a Team of Individuals.  In some businesses a team of individuals might be the preferred model, but I suggest that every organization think long and hard about this and consider instead instilling a shared mindset and a same language phenomenon.  For me, there is no question that the benefits of this shared thinking and language are clear and measurable.

I found myself twice in management meetings have similar conversations about problem solving as it relates to organizational structure.  I should start by admitting that I am notorious for over-estimating the amount of work that can be accomplished and underestimating what it will take to accomplish this work.  But – that having been said – what I often find is that it is hard for managers to break what appears to be a large and overwhelming issue into a series of manageable chunks and then attacking each chunk independently.  I think – maybe because of my background focus on math and analytics – that for me everything seems to form itself in the form of manageable chunks.  But all too often it is hard to see those chunks because the group of problems appears to be so large in comparison.

Think for a minute about the following analogy.  I am not a chef and cannot even begin to think that I can put together a great meal.  However, I have found myself watching and mystified as I see people who can put together the most amazing meal – piece by piece.  They do not come into it looking at the overwhelming challenge of creating and over the top meal.  Instead, they approach each part of what needs to be made independently – while acknowledging and understanding how they fit together.  Think about it – they make the salad, the soup, the dinner, the side, the sauce, and the dessert.  Each of these pieces in and of itself it a lot of work and needs to be looked at and completed by itself.  And independently, it is not much.  But when put together and combined together, it solves the larger dsire of creating a great meal – one piece at a time – cooking in manageable chunks.

Is there a better analogy?  Probably.  But the bigger question is – as a business leader – are you helping your manager to see the manageable chunks?