Core Process for Business
Successful businesses know what they stand for, have a clear purpose and direction and do things their way.
You start by sharing stories of your business at its best. This will help you do more of it and learn what you uniquely stand for.
Find your Business’s Core Process
How do you do this? What’s the effect?
You can start and do this anywhere. It could be a top team, a diagonal slice across the organisation, a group of volunteers or everybody, including suppliers and customers. You simply tell each other your stories about your organisation working at its best. The idea is for the talker and the listener(s) to enjoy the experience. What happened? What did you feel? What made it go so well? What did you do that made it go so well?
When you pay attention to and enquire into good things, you get more of them. This lifts everyone’s spirits. It’s very easy to test this. Simply talking about a happy time makes you happy. You can expand these conversations across the organisation. Merely having them will enliven the whole organisation.
You can ask, what are we doing when we are at our best and distil this down to a simple and memorable phrase. You can use this to guide and inform action. It will bring out the best in you and your people.
The phrase is the unique talent of the business. It’s its Core Process.
This is an application of Appreciative Inquiry and Core Process to a business. See “Sources” at the end of this note for links.
Find your Business’s Purpose
Having a clear and shared purpose helps your people engage with the business. It also helps your customers and suppliers appreciate what you are trying to do.
How do you do this? What’s the effect?
Again, you can start and do this anywhere. You ask each other, “Why do we do what we do when we are working at our best?” It’s best to answer this “in order to ….” rather than “because….”. “In order to…” looks forward. Keep asking “Why” until you come to a word or two that excites you. You will need to listen to each other carefully. A good test is when you all say, “It just is”.
The most compelling purposes are about service, positive change, and making the world a better place. These are holistic rather than simply economic purposes. People need more than just “making more profit than last year.”
When you have this, people will want to work together to achieve it. You will also have a compelling reason for good people to want to work for and with you.
The word(s) are the purpose of your business.
This is an application of Coverdale’s “How/Why Network” and “Core Process 2” to the business sector.
Find the unique way you deliver value.
You then clarify how you do the work. When you are clear and consistent about how you deliver business value, everything will work more effectively.
How do you do this? What’s the effect?
You can start this anywhere, but it may work better in workgroups, which could be the top team. This step is about what you do every day. If you have a committed agreement within a working group, you can easily support and encourage one another. It’s a good place to start.
Ask each other how you deliver your work when you are working at your best. Keep asking how until you get down to specific things you do. What is the idea or theme that unites these actions? This is how you deliver your work when you are working at your best.
When you know this, you have a clear understanding of the day-to-day behaviour that everybody needs to use. It’s a philosophy, a set of values and a guide that people own. You can also capture the essence of this together in a few words.
The words are how you do things when you are working at your best.
This is an application of Coverdale’s “How/Why Network” and “Core Process 2” to the business sector.
Listening to improve cooperation
You can make this process go more smoothly by helping people listen to each other and work together more effectively, and by releasing people’s energy and commitment.
How do you do this? What’s the effect?
Doing any of this work requires you to be open, patient, and listen to each other very well. This is hard because it takes time and skill. You can easily create conditions that are possible. In pairs, people can take turns talking and listening. Follow each half-session with a brief review so the listener learns what works and can do it again or more effectively. The same process will work beautifully in a small group.
The effects of enhanced listening include better and quicker problem-solving, improved relationships, enhanced communication, and increased commitment and energy. You feel more valuable when people listen to you. You even think better.
Listening is the crucial skill you need to do this work well
This calls on ideas from Nancy Kline’s “Time to Think” and the theory and practice of Re-evaluation Counselling.
Review to extract learning and improve.
You would also review what happened and extract learning as you go. This would build up a body of learning and effective practice.
How do you do this? What’s the effect?
Stop at intervals and have everybody discuss what they are learning, what is good about the process, and what, if anything, could be better in the future. These questions help you look at what you are learning and how. They allow you to stay on track and make improvements. They also help everybody take ownership of what is happening, so it becomes theirs rather than something imposed. They model good practice that you can use in other organisational activities.
This helps you learn how to do the whole thing even better next time
This calls on ideas from Coverdale Training and Organisation Development.
Elegant methods for accomplishing all these tasks exist, expanding from the Core Process work with individuals that helps them discover their unique talents and purpose, and how they can deliver this. All the elements are tried and tested. What’s new is putting them all together in a flexible structure.
Please call me to discuss this further.
I want to test this approach, as I think it is very powerful. This could be on a “Pay me what you like” basis if you wish.
Sources: