Pop Quiz: How much time & money does your team/company budget for “client relationship development”? On a 1-5 scale, how would you rate your company’s relationship strategy?
The most common answers to both these questions is: zero. And a blank stare. Can you remember the last time you lost a client or colleague or friendship, and you didn’t know why?
How about budgeting one day a year for the team/group to ask itself & discuss:
• How do we want to be together? (values)
• How do we want to define “success”? (goals, processes, feedback)
• How do we want to handle difficult topics & conversations? (accountability)
The Designed Alliance is our workshop for the team to co-design a conscious & intentional relationship for themselves. Its a radical idea: to suggest that we might ask ourselves and each other — How do We want this relationship to feel and work? Rather than only: What do I want here?
Pre-workshop, we also conduct an online quantitative team self-assessment, which measures 7 Productivity and 7 Positivity skills or factors for the combined client/agency team.
Productivity factors are things like knowing what our goals are, clear decision-making, adequate resources. Positivity factors include trust, respect, and optimism; essentially Emotional Intelligence for teams.
Revisited annually, your team can track change in its own productivity and satisfaction. Ad agencies can track a client team over time, and benchmark across agency, team to team.
The Designed Alliance also works for new parents, business startups, rock bands & stage hands, even amongst siblings. We’d replace the quant survey with a self-assessment wheel, and start with the few simple questions noted above.
If you have a small in-house team or performing group that would like to test drive The Designed Alliance, we offer an intro mini-workshop for free, plus travel. Write or call for more info.
Tags: LinkedIn
Hey Denzil,
Love what you doing.
Wish I had you around when I was working
with my last guitarist.
Simone & I probally should take up your free offer.
Then at least we’d get to see you.
and of course commuicate better.