Share the Vision seeks to provide total-company involvement & improvement. Part III

We recently introduced Concord’s initiative, Share the Vision, which seeks to provide total-company involvement & improvement. This includes the all-important plan to train people for future leadership and communication challenges.

Last week’s post looked at the first three of ten aims of the Share the Vision initiative. This post discusses the fourth through the seventh aims:

Embrace empowerment, promote passionate thinking, celebrate success. To get a group to embrace change, empower it to effect the change by overcoming financial and other objections. Beyond individual departments, empowerment requires managers and executives to show support for empowerment initiatives and “evangelizing” certain processes and protocols. When people aren’t empowered to participate fully, it empowers someone to tell them what to do. Instead, make it collaborative so people can self-motivate and champion their efforts. And, always celebrate successes with acknowledgement and an opportunity for team members to share what they did.

Open all doors to change. Open doors exist throughout an organization, not just within departments. Unlike some IT teams that work within a silo, Concord makes sure the doors are open to the executive team, managers, and everyone else involved in making the company do the best job possible. Open doors bring two outcomes: Informing and directing everyone fully; and promoting the exchange and discussion of ideas in a completely open and non-threatening environment.

Question the status quo. It’s always important to challenge the status quo, because the vacuum created without challenging it is stagnation. Shine a light on everything and brainstorm how to think about things differently, effect change, find a new perspective—and assess whether or not doing something is the right thing. Encourage thinking through an issue thoroughly, and despite pre-existing mindsets, how changes can enhance overall outcomes.

Get LEAN. Concord uses a model called EASS—Eliminate, Automate, Self-Service. It is based on principles of LEAN management to eliminate waste and create the most efficient, cost-effective environment possible. Essentially, it works like this:

• Can something currently in the stream simply be eliminated without adversely impacting solutions? In other words, is it superfluous?
• If it needs to be addressed, can it be automated so that people currently handling these tasks can turn their attentions to other matters?
• If it can’t be automated, make it self-service so that human resources can concentrate elsewhere. Ultimately, this enables workforces to be most productive and highest performing in the areas where people are needed most.

Next week, we’ll discuss the final three aims:

Drill down to full disclosure

Scale up productivity with Total Team Training

Make IT make sense.

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Jon Catlin, Concord Servicing Corporation Chief Information Officer, is a big-picture thinker, strategist, and implementation specialist. His Share the Vision initiative is designed to bring together the collective brainpower, creative insights, and perspectives of all forces within the company to effect positive change, enhance productivity, empower the workforce, and optimize outcomes. Far from being an IT-only focus, Share the Vision is a total company endeavor designed to make Concord all it can be on behalf of clients, employees, partners, and other stakeholders.