Yesterday, the topic on Oprah Winfrey was "Stripping Down." Her guests were Peter Walsh, an author and organizing expert (formerly from the hit show "Clean Sweep" on TLC), and a family of four who felt 'disconnected' from one another. Walsh worked with the family for one week, helping them re-connect by stripping down everything that was getting in the way -- from fast-food meals to television and cell phones -- and giving them assignments that would foster and promote relationship-building.
What is keeping you from creating and maintaining meaningful and effective business relationships, whether with colleagues, clients or employees? How can you translate Walsh's 'stripped down' approach to your practice? What can you simplify or eliminate?
Here are a few thoughts to get you started:
Email can be a quick and convenient way to communicate when you're on the go, communicating at off-hours, or just need to get a quick message out, but do you rely too much on email to communicate with clients? Is it really necessary to 'reply all' to every message? Are you missing an opportunity to connect with your clients on a deeper level?
My regular readers know that I'm a big fan of procedures and systems to create consistent experiences for clients and to manage employees, but those systems and procedures need to be reviewed from time to time. Are they all still necessary? Can some steps be eliminated? Do your systems help your clients or create more confusion (and more unnecessary hoops for them to jump through)? Do you customize your systems and forms to be personal to your clients, or do they feel robotic and impersonal? Do your systems improve effectiveness or do they create distance?
Are you supporting your employees and giving them what they need to succeed? Do you recognize their individual strengths and weaknesses and give them constructive feedback? Are you allowing them to do the job and giving them additional responsibility for how that job gets done, or are you micromanaging? Has your management style evolved with the experience level of your employees?
Can you simplify your marketing message to eliminate legal jargon? Is your message concise and memorable or is it so long and complicated that your audience glazes over immediately?
Look at your practice with a critical eye. Instead of thinking only about what you can add, think about what you can strip away to improve your business relationships in 2010 - and share your thoughts by leaving a comment.
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