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Ronnie was furious. She to
never get the information she needed from her staff. How was she go before the
board on Friday and add value without a plan. The company's falling stock
prices and the low morale were key issues. What could she contribute? Her team
knew she was stressed. How could you miss it, her temper flew at everyone for
weeks.
Ronnie's creative juices were as dry as the four 185+ page reports from
each of her line Sales and Marketing Managers that sat on her desk. She
knew that she needed to read them, but her motivation just wasn't there. She
felt frustrated and stuck. She would begin to read these documents in detail
and a heaviness would come over her.
While she scanned the documents several times and was impressed with the
detail, she couldn't get the essence without reading them in full. As Director
of Sales & Marketing for 4 lines, she was used to writing these kinds of
reports for her boss when she was a sales manager. However, with so many
current and near-term trend and economic changes in the market, reading the
tomes didn't seem to be the answer to uncovering what was happening in the
marketplace. It was actually too much detail that required significant thought
and time to decipher. What she really needed was a synergistic solution... and
soon.
During a call to her coach, Ronnie reached a clear realization, an
"ah-ha". She decided to bring her team together to enable synergy to
emerge. So, together they could build off of each others knowledge and
perspectives. First, she needed some clear background tow work from. She
explained to her team the current situation, why she needed the focused report
and how it would be used. She then asked for a 2 - 3 page executive summary
from each Sales Manager covering a few main points: their status, projected
sales, customer pulse, risks, possible impacts on other departments,
appropriate trends and conclusions--thoughts on what could breathe fresh life
and excitement into their product line.
With this information in-hand, she developed an agenda for the meeting
with her team. Ronnie was able to form the questions that allowed them to come
together to brainstorm and define the current scenario. They created their
strategy from a dual corporate/customer perspective and refined it to fit the
individual product lines to excel in these new circumstances.
At the same time, they also developed some concepts for new products and
product modifications to incorporate renewable energy to submit to R & D and
proposed meeting with Production & Engineering to address some product
enhancements. The meeting lasted only two hours. The productivity level
was high and each person left feeling that they contributed and walked away
with clarity.
What happened to the tomes? Ronnie's sales managers found that their
reports were very valuable. They needed and were interested in these details to
work with their team. When they held their respective team meetings, they
shared the reports along with the executive summaries of their peers to give
their teams a greater understanding of the whole organization and a deeper
understanding of their line.
Ronnie learned that by being clear about why she needed these reports
and how they would be used, her staff was not only able to meet her needs by go
beyond reporting to develop exceptional results and ideas. Together they
accomplished far more than she could do alone. She was much more productive and
was able to bring out a creative energy and commitment to move forward in her
department that was infecting other departments as well. Her frustration
disappeared, while at the same, her trust and joy in working with her team
increased exponentially.
Reporting is an interesting topic, when, what and how to report has to
do with many factors. Most importantly, how will it be used -- what value does
the report have to the intended reader? There are so many factors to consider:
Who is the report going to? What information do they need to make decisions?
How will they use information in the report? Will they include information in
this report in their own reporting upward, outward or down into the
organization? What type of structure and content presentation best fits their
personalities, learning styles and time frames? How will the information you
are reporting fit together with other reports? Are their critical issues the
reader(s) need to be aware of now? How much time does the reader have? What
learning style supports their gaining what they need?
More significantly using reports can be a wonderfully creative and
energizing process... any tomes sitting around that you might want to bring to
life? What would you like to gain from them? What can you do that would best
enable this?
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