We believe that time spent working can change over life’s seasons. Through CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD, our amazing team continues to share our professional talents with the world.
Thinking Deeper about Communication and Responsiveness
Many of us have had the experience of asking for something specific, and not hearing back – for a “long” time, or sometimes ever! Great leaders, such as Pat Gelsinger of Intel, give advice to leaders, especially in a pandemic, to “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate.” At CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD, we are keenly aware of the frustration and stress that a lack of communication and responsiveness can cause others. Even if we do not know an answer, we aim to respond to customers’ requests in a timely fashion, even if we don’t yet have an answer and are still working on it. After all, the best-intentioned communication, if it comes too late, may illicit responses more negative than mediocre communication that comes timely.
Our value of Communication is much more than just the Responsiveness aspect, however. We are learning every day about how to message information or requests effectively, concisely, and in a way that resonates with our audiences.
Servant Leadership: Is it True, Is it Kind, Is it Necessary?
Servant leadership, as a term, was coined in 1970 by Robert K. Greenleaf, whose essay titled The Servant as Leader described that “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.”
Servant Leadership is one of CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD’s values. We are here to help our clients and each other grow and improve. Everything we do in our consulting delivery practice stems from our desire to help others. It is not about us, and we don’t want it to be. Honestly, it is rather refreshing to not have to worry about us looking good – it’s all about helping the client look good: to their customers, to their stakeholders, and to themselves.
The paradox about not worrying whether we look good, is that we end up feeling even better.
A client told me the other day that our consulting team was “the glue holding (their) team together.” Glue doesn’t always look good – in fact, the most effective glue is not able to be seen at all! That’s exactly how we want to be – helping teams hold things together – and slowly but surely replacing ourselves with the client’s team as they develop new skills and experience the fun of accomplishing something amazing together.
Seeing the Path Sometimes Takes an Accountability Partner
Accountability, according to Merriam-Webster, is “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” In the workplace, Accountability is more than being willing to accept responsibility for one’s actions; it also means someone will successfully perform one’s agreed upon responsibilities.
Successful performance, or Accountability, therefore, carries the following three implications:
First: The person agrees that they should be Accountable.
Whether for a task or responsibility, if the person does not intellectually agree they should be Accountable, the chances of them living up to the expectations of what that Accountability means are slim to none.
Second: The person wants to be Accountable.
Even if someone thinks that they or their role *should* be Accountable for something, if they emotionally do not want to be, the chances of them living up to the expectations of what that Accountability means are again slim to none.
Finally – and this is where CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD can really help teams – The person knows HOW to be Accountable.
In other words, they need to be able to clearly See the Path for how to successfully perform their agreed upon responsibilities.
What Does it Mean to “Focus on Improvement?”
One of CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD’s values is “Focus on Improvement.” This very well could be our most foundational value because we can improve in every area – always. Of course, that’s exactly what we intend.
Here is the excerpt we have in our Company Handbook on this value:
Focus on Improvement – In this value, we practice what we preach.
Process improvement, project execution, change management, organizational development, agile – all of it involves change for the better. We will remain open to improvement, with a critical eye to be sure the change actually does improve things (i.e., we don’t want to change just for the sake of changing). We will strive to use metrics, Key Performance Indicators, and other objective sources of data to prove our improvement value system.
It should be noted that the first step in Improvement is to admit that you have things to improve! This is where the growth mindset comes into play. We are completely sold on the idea that we can continue to grow, learn, and therefore improve throughout our whole lives.
CUSET CONSULTING LTD OOD will continue to play the infinite game and focus on improvement. We hope you will join us, because most games are way more fun with teammates.