Fundamental changes needed in business conversations

Fundamental changes needed in business conversations: must have courage to change way we converse and do business.

Extracts from VCO Global Website – John Niland and Kate Daly:

Everyone’s marketplace is changing.  This creates an obvious need for fresh thinking and agile processes.  We all need new routes to market, innovative use of technology, collaboration and real results.

Every day we hear about the importance of building relationships: it’s constantly mentioned and tweeted.  But are we having the right conversations?  Are we engaging and connecting with people or just continuing to broadcast dull messages through an exciting technology-driven medium?  It’s no longer good enough to be a good communicator or techno-savvy.  Courage is fundamental to success.  Without the courage to make requests and ask vital questions, good ideas remain the world’s best kept secrets.

But what about your dialogue skills?  Is your conversation keeping pace?  Or are your meetings spent in longwinded exchanges of information, slogging through over-engineered agendas, hasty box-ticking exercises… or just plain boring?

Here are just a few of the conversations that VCO Global Clients suggest are no longer working:

1. Solution Selling: buyers are no longer willing to grant briefing time / info that they see to be in the seller’s interest

2. Annual Reviews: formulaic exercises, peppered with superficial assessments, often dreaded by both parties

3. Target/Goal Setting: used to extract more for less, devoid of real understanding, robbing jobs of meaning, etc.

Better conversations take courage and skill.  Here are some examples of the vital skills needed in the new economy:

1. Reframing Requirements – why it’s no longer sufficient to understand requirements, how we need to reframe and hence set the agenda;

2. Influencing your Annual Review – a few simple steps that make a real difference to this vital discussion;

3. The Courage to Ask – one of the recurring challenges in the current climate is that of asking for what we need… and keep asking;

4. Developing Opportunity in the Current Climate – developing an opportunity-mindset.

These are just examples. The clients with whom VCO Global works are already articulate in defining their own specific needs: in sales, management, or supporting key people who are vital for the future of the enterprise.

In the recently published book, “The Courage To Ask“, John Niland and Kate Daly from VCO Global outline some fundamental changes to business conversations and invites us to test how courageous we are in changing the way we converse and do business.  Using five characters, John and Kate illustrate how we can build courage through the seven gateways of Connection, Purpose, Influential Communications, Awareness, Discipline, Curiosity and Stamina.  The book combines psychological insight with identifiable, warm characters and provides a sharp and insightful view of the changing world in business.

Courage should be the foundation for all your activities: without it you’re unlikely to be able to implement suggestions offered elsewhere.  If connecting, influencing and communicating is the lifeblood of your business and the work you do, then  “The Courage To Ask” will be the most  important book you read this year.

More … http://www.vco-global.com/