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The Pitfalls of Change Management 

It’s 11:03 on Tuesday morning and you are meeting with your product and engineering teams explaining the newest changes coming to the organization. You’ve just announced that teams will be reorganized around product areas instead of role. You can see the eye rolls and muted groans flash across your screen. Someone raises a hand…

“Why are we doing this?” 

Thumbs-up icons float upwards as your colleagues revel in the question. They are happy with the current set-up. Of course, there are problems here and there, but they’ve learned to live with those. Those are their problems. They don’t want any new ones. 

Situations like this are common across businesses from retail to software to manufacturing. Leaders see issues as fixable and jump to the next big solution with zeal. Employees struggle to understand. Why do they need to adjust their teams, their processes, or their tools? They’re working well enough as is.

Change is inherently difficult. We can accept that, but it shouldn’t be nearly as painful and confusing as companies make it. Organizations fall into the same traps again and again. Here are the most common ways companies fail when setting out on their change management journey.

Pitfall #1: Failing to provide the reason for changing

This one seems basic but is often the biggest mistake made. Companies identify a problem. It may be as simple as spending $4 million / year on a messaging platform. They can switch to a competitor for half the price over the next decade. The downsides are minimal and the upside is $20 million to invest elsewhere. They decide to make the change. 

They inform the teams via a mass email but leave out that it is a major cost-cutting move. The company is “protecting” its image internally. The email states that they are excited to switch to this new platform with most of the same features. Sometimes they even regretfully note the things they are losing. But why are you doing this?

I have seen this first-hand. Most employees see no benefit to the switch. They just see a wave of email communications, panicked meetings, and a new tool for them to learn. They may suspect it’s a cost-cutting move but assume that the price reduction is miniscule. They may even think that it’s merely something somebody wanted to do. 

Clear communication is crucial to any change.  Employees may not need to agree, but they deserve to know the ‘why’ – cost savings, scalability, removing blockers, etc. 

This leads us to our next major pitfall…

Pitfall #2: Catering to the most resistant employees

The person who asked “Why are we doing this?” in your first meeting may be the first to accept new changes, but they can also be the ones asking “Do I really need to work that way?” a few months down the road. This is common and usually around the time when you need to stop catering to the slowest-moving members of the organization.

I remember when I was moving a QA team to a new process flow that aligned with engineering.  The manager fiercely opposed me over everything they were “losing” with the new system, causing delays and extra work for others. Every day we waited hindered cross-functional collaboration and eroded the confidence of everyone in the switch. 

Eventually, a deadline was set with clear communication on where to make any last requirements when the change happened. They argued. The day came. The change happened. Two weeks later, they had fully adjusted, and overall team efficiency improved. Ultimatums can be dangerous and counter-productive, but there can be a bigger risk in waiting around for the stragglers to catch up. In fact, waiting too long brings our next major pitfall…

Pitfall #3: Dragging out the timeline

“We will be switching to a new organizational model in the next year.” We’ve all received emails like this that announce a shift in tools or a total reorg with a vague promise of information to come. The worry sets in immediately. The change doesn’t.

I find that this mistake comes from a place of good intentions.  You want to keep colleagues informed on what’s to come, the problem lies in creating one more stressor long before it needs to exist. How long do you really need to know before something changes at your job? One week? One month? One year? 

Humans are incredibly resistant and adaptable creatures. We adjusted to remote work over the course of a long weekend in 2020. AI integration is happening faster than we can regulate.  People will figure out almost any new thing you throw at them. Dragging out change for eight months before doing anything is counterproductive. 

Announce the changes when you are ready to act on them, not when you first think of them. Give your people the benefit of the doubt that they can adjust. Of course, you still want your employees to have a chance to succeed which leads us to our last major pitfall…

Pitfall #4: Making the change unnecessarily difficult

Earlier in my career I was tasked with creating a set of functioning scrum teams from a large group of people in different departments who hardly knew each other. I planned the merges diligently, set up parallel schedules, clear touchpoints, idealist processes, and a slew of very important things we would do. I gave up 80% of my ideas after four weeks. It was too much. 

That first month was chaotic and disheartening. Our new Jira boards confused the designers. Our retrospectives annoyed the developers. The team was losing trust in the idea.  

Change need not be perfect, but it should be easy and impactful. The 20% I kept was all that mattered in the short-term. These teams needed regular communication, a coherent backlog, and a plan for the future. Everything else was secondary. 

Recommended Read: Performance Management: Pioneering Precision in Organizational Alignment

Fast forward a few years and I was tasked with replacing a convoluted organizational idea-suggestion process. I could have improved it a thousand ways or required the team to recreate everything. Instead, I made the new process resemble the old one while fixing the obvious issues. I created clear training and documentation that answered every reasonable question. I recreated their dashboards to function fully straightaway. I focused on 100% buy-in over 100% improvement. That could come later.

The day of change arrived. The new idea requests flowed in. A few questions trickled my way. The number one comment I received? “That was easy.”

Next steps

People always talk about how difficult change can be. They seem to relish the painfulness of the process and the distrust that it brews, but change is necessary to drive an organization forward. Finding the right way to go about it is the hard part.  

At Brooks Bell, we’ve helped numerous organizations sift through what is needed for change. We identify those bits that actually matter. We capitalize on the easy transitions and we empower you to make decisive decisions, quickly.

If you’re weighing a big change, or struggling to transform your organization from good to great, we invite you to join our live webinar on Thursday, April 4 at 1:00 pm ET.

Tailored specifically to the needs of marketing and CX leaders, this 45-minute interactive session will explore critical components of leading organizational change, including:

  • Strategies for navigating the adoption curve and gaining change alliances.
  • How to define success and gain organizational excitement around transformation initiatives.
  • Change management techniques to shift mindsets and behaviors across the organization.
  • Recalibrating performance to reinforce new behaviors and activities.

Space is limited – register today!

How to Kill A Silo

In sports, players excel in very specific positions with very specific skill sets. In buildings that surround us, each floor is likely a different company, different specialty, or at the very least, a different function. 

Silos help us make sense of the complexities of the world, breaking them down into manageable tasks that groups of like-minded people are meant to take on and overcome.  

When we think of silos this way, it makes sense to apply the same logic to the organizations we work in. For example, very different skills, tools, and processes are required for Legal and Compliance than Product or eCommerce. Teams require different equipping from their organization based on the ‘job’ they perform and use silos to organize the chaos. From this perspective, silos work — until they don’t.

When you apply silos to a generally autonomous system, it’ll work relatively effectively in keeping that system organized and on track. When you apply silo-mentality to modern organizations that require constant, agile, and transformative change, that system will begin to fall apart. 

Trust between silos erodes as a battle over shared resources, investments, and information ensues. Inefficiencies arise as groups use different processes, systems, and platforms that don’t match or align with other groups, leading to low (or no) visibility into other departmental workings, and a suspicion that this is by design. That “other” departments are black-boxing them, hoarding information or innovation to get ahead.

This is when silos cease to deliver net-positive results to organizations. While it’s tempting to blame the silos that were meant to help organize the company, the silo isn’t solely responsible. The fault lies in how leadership has (or hasn’t) managed and implemented these silos.

Establishing Horizontal Connections

If an executive or management team treats silos as a set-it-and-forget-it organizational system, it’s only a matter of time before the pitfalls of silo mentality begin to present themselves across teams. Vertical silos exist in organizations to give team members identity, accountability, and expertise, but it can’t stop there. Horizontal, connective tissue must be established and managed to help bridge those silos so the organization can act as a holistic entity set to achieve the same, or similar, business outcomes.

In our work with clients, we utilize a handful of methods to build horizontal connections across teams meant to counteract the negative effects silos have on companies. Utilizing a network map activity will allow your teams to understand which connections should be made, and which method might be best to leverage in those connections. Some of our favorites include:

Centers of Excellence (COEs) and/or Governing Bodies:

The establishment of COEs, Governing Bodies, or even Councils, can immediately shift the energy of the silo mentality that comes along with hard-line vertical boundaries. By nature, these teams operate as cross-functional units designed to foster collaboration and innovation. As part of their responsibilities, these groups ensure that team goals, resources, and information are shared and built upon. And that vertical functions are operating in a way to achieve their desired outcomes. They knock teams out of their structured, typical routines, and bring new perspectives and approaches to our normal day-to-day activities.

Recommended Read: Build an Insight Engine with an Insights Center of Excellence (iCOE)

Dotted-line or Matrixed Reporting Structures:

Not all reporting structures and organizational hierarchies are created equally. Especially in complex organizations, there’s a need to force people out of the natural verticals and give them exposure and/or accountability in other areas of the business. For example, let’s say you’re a team member in Functional Area A. Instead of reporting directly to the Manager of Functional Area A, you may be reporting to Functional Area Z. This works particularly well when teams are dependent on each other to reach their goals, Product, and Sales, for instance, or eCommerce and Operations.

Goal & Vision Alignment

Each of the approaches above is meant to better align teams in both day-to-day activities and the objectives they intend to reach as a cross-functional unit. This won’t be effective unless those teams align their overarching goals and vision. In traditional, vertical silos, each group sets their own targets and largely works independently to achieve them. This ignores the realities of business and motivates Area A to succeed despite the setbacks they might cause for Area Z. When teams can align their intended business outcomes, strategic priorities, and measures of progress, everyone participating feels a sense of ownership in achieving mutually beneficial success. 

The Power of Cross-Silo Networks 

These approaches are only the start to mitigating the insular mindsets associated with the silo mentality that’s ingrained in many organizations. Like any significant enterprise change, achieving lasting results requires more than just temporary connections. It demands leadership buy-in, top-down reinforcement, and cultural incentives. This ensures that horizontal connections transcend temporary bridges and become lasting networks that drive sustainable organizational transformation.

Vertical structures serve a purpose: they concentrate expertise, provide a sense of identity, and set clear accountability. So perhaps the true call to action isn’t to kill the silo but to spark transformation by bridging and evolving them. It’s about creating permanent pathways where information, resources, problem-solving power, and customer insights flow freely between groups. This level of synergy will undoubtedly lead to unparalleled business success.

What is an insight?

Is your company data-driven or insight-driven?

To many, these concepts might feel one in the same. After all, both describe organizations that want to use their available data to uncover patterns, overcome uncertainty, and drive better decision-making across the board.

But in traditional data-driven organizations, data tends to be stored in separate silos. Insights may be generated, but the extent of their utility lives and dies within the department in which they were generated.

In addition, in data-driven environments, insights are rarely shared across the organization. In fact, marketing, CX, and product teams at these organizations regularly report feeling that they are drowning in data, and yet starved for insights.

Insight-driven organizations (IDOs) break free from this siloed approach to unlock an insight-driven advantage. Through cultivating insight ecosystems across the organization, they are more effectively able to transform volumes of data into measurable value. This positions IDOs to be fundamentally more customer-centric, agile, and efficient.

So, how do you go from being data-driven to insight-driven? Achieving this multidimensional transformation can be grueling work – particularly in complex enterprises, but often we find the best first step is to align around some basic definitions.

What is an insight?

At Brooks Bell, we define an insight as a learning from data that is either new, non-intuitive, and/or transferrable to other products, services, and departments. An insight should explain how or why something is, is measurable, and enable an action of positive value for the business.

Insights are critical to powering true customer-centricity. They are a shared language and rigor around how your company maintains and understands customer behavior. They offer a unifying force for alignment—from marketing to finance to customer service. They eliminate competing priorities and redundancies, and improve the speed and quality of decisions while ensuring every action is focused on what truly matters: the customer and their experience with your brand.

Finding your insight generators

To cultivate an insight ecosystem, you need to first identify where insights come from and how they should be validated. Insights can be generated from both qualitative and quantitative sources across your organization.

Recommended Read: Creating a Culture of Experimentation

This means CX, Product, Marketing, Analytics, Tech, Customer Service, Retail – all these departments have valuable insights to offer. By consolidating these, looking for patterns, trends, anomalies, and correlations that go beyond simply summarizing the data, and asking why and how questions, you can begin to uncover deeper insights.

Establishing insight confidence through validation

Validation is an important step. In many organizations, this is often done through a combination of user research, experimentation and/or analytics work but we recommend that organizations establish a dedicated center of excellence to serve this purpose. Finally, to ensure insights are actually put to work, these insights should be shared in a centralized repository that allows all teams to readily access and leverage. Insight confidence is established and built after teams test applying insights to their own initiatives, and contribute their findings back to the repository.

This additional validation across departments enhances the accuracy of your insights, and can be a telling indicator when insights are no longer relevant or true. The insights repository should be managed singularly but owned cross-functionally, with stakeholders representing all departments from which the original data was sourced. 

Want to learn more?

Download our latest report, From Fortune 500 to Obsolete: How Insight-Driven Organizations Avoid Failure to explore the 6 pillars of an insight-driven organization, learn how to articulate the ROI of being insight-driven, and benchmark your organization’s insight-driven journey.

Dynamic Research Integration: Unleashing the True Power of Insights

In a world increasingly driven by data and insights, the ability to harness and effectively utilize research is paramount. Yet, the proliferation of fragmented research chunks often stymies the optimization potential of many businesses. The Brooks Bell team is delighted to introduce our groundbreaking Dynamic Research Integration service, designed to transform how businesses perceive, process, and prioritize their research data.

Often, valuable insights lurk in organizational silos, disconnected and underutilized. Our service strives to connect these dots, elevating research from mere information to actionable intelligence. We don’t just address the what – we magnify the why, translating research insights into tangible business value.

Our adept team embarks on a comprehensive journey through your organization’s research landscape. We meticulously identify existing research repositories, pinpointing gaps and overlaps. With this enriched understanding, our approach becomes bespoke, knitting together a tapestry of insights that inform, inspire, and instigate change.

But our endeavor isn’t just about collation; it’s about effective integration. With Dynamic Research Integration, we provide a roadmap that marries research insights with actionable strategies. By optimizing your existing ecosystem, we ensure that every piece of research is leveraged, driving informed decision-making and innovation.

With Dynamic Research Integration in their arsenal, businesses don’t just gather insights; they unlock a powerhouse of informed strategy, ensuring a robust return on their research investments. By weaving together scattered insights into a cohesive strategy, businesses elevate their decision-making prowess, positioning themselves at the forefront of their industries.

Diving Deeper into Dynamic Research Integration

Dynamic Research Integration isn’t merely about collecting data—it’s about creating a symphony where each note, each insight, adds value. Central to our service are:

Research Synthesis: We seamlessly merge disparate research bits, ensuring that insights from diverse sources coalesce into a cohesive strategy.

Strategic Roadmaps: By connecting the dots between research findings and business goals, we provide a clear path forward, underpinned by solid insights.

Optimized Ecosystems: We evaluate and mature your existing research landscape, maximizing transferability and minimizing redundancy.

Tailored Strategies: Understanding that every organization is unique, our solutions are customized, aligning closely with your business objectives and industry nuances.

Why Your Organization Needs Dynamic Research Integration:

Holistic Vision: Move beyond fragmented insights and embrace a comprehensive understanding of your business landscape.

Maximized ROI: Ensure that every research dollar spent translates into actionable, value-driven insights.

Strategic Agility: Equip your teams with a clear, research-backed roadmap, empowering them to act swiftly and decisively.

Unified Decision-making: With cohesive insights at their fingertips, your teams can make decisions that are in sync with overarching business objectives.

Our mission is to ensure that research isn’t just a passive repository of information but a dynamic tool that drives growth and innovation. This commitment sets us apart, positioning us as your trusted ally in unlocking the true potential of your insights.

Keen to explore the transformative power of Dynamic Research Integration for your business? Let’s touch base! I’m excited to dive deep into a conversation or introduce you to our stellar team, poised to steer you toward research-driven excellence.

Originally posted on LinkedIn

Demystifying Complexity: Workshop Facilitation for Organizational Growth and Alignment

In an era where organizational challenges are increasingly multifaceted and the big picture often gets clouded by overwhelming details, companies must adopt a strategy that not only identifies these complexities but also breaks them down into manageable, actionable steps. At Brooks Bell, our key service offerings are crafted precisely with this need for clarity and direction in mind. As experts in the digital transformation and insights space, we’re excited to explain our bespoke workshop facilitation services, crafted for Organizational Challenge Navigation and Strategic Alignment, a service committed to steering your organization through the maze of internal challenges toward coherent, comprehensive growth strategies.

Our approach is unique; we don’t just surface the challenges, we delve deep into their anatomy. Our team of seasoned professionals is adept at vetting intricate organizational issues, aligning diverse leadership perspectives, and prioritizing challenges that require immediate attention. Our process involves a thorough dissection of contributing factors to understand the root causes of the issues that are holding your organization back.

Our workshop facilitation service hinges on four key pillars:

  1. Vetting, Alignment, and Prioritization of Challenges: We understand that challenges can arise from various corners of an organization. Our team is trained to dissect these challenges, understand their root causes, and prioritize them based on their impact on your goals.
  2. Uncover the Details for a Comprehensive Overview: Many issues stem from a lack of clarity about the bigger picture. We dive deep into the intricate details of your operations, ensuring you have a panoramic view of where you stand and where you need to go.
  3. Establish and Prioritize Next-Step Actions: Clarity without action is futile. Once we’ve assessed the terrain, we collaborate with your leadership to establish clear, actionable steps that align with your business’s priorities and objectives.
  4. Detailed Problem Dissection: By diving deep into the root causes of your challenges, we ensure a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to your issues. This thorough analysis paves the way for effective solutions tailored to your organization.

The journey from recognizing the problem areas to visualizing the big picture is a critical phase of our service. We engage with all levels of your organization to unearth the details that construct the larger narrative. This practice not only ensures alignment across teams but also fosters a unified approach to common goals, driving strategic consensus among leadership and stakeholders. What sets us apart is not just the identification of next-step actions, but the establishment of a prioritized roadmap for these actions. Our workshops are engineered to transition from theoretical problem spaces to concrete, actionable plans. The result? A clear path forward with consensus-built priority actions, designed to tackle the most pressing challenges and leverage the most promising opportunities.

But our engagement doesn’t end there. Post-workshop, we provide a distilled summary of the session, enriched with key recommendations and strategic roadmaps, all tailored to your organization’s specific context and needs. This comprehensive follow-up ensures sustained momentum and clarity as your team embarks on its journey toward resolution and growth.

With Brooks Bell’s workshop facilitation service, your company doesn’t just prepare for the future; it strides confidently toward it. Armed with alignment, detailed insights, and a clear plan of action, your organization will be well-positioned not only to face its internal complexities but to thrive despite them. Our dedication to demystifying complexity and charting out clear, actionable strategies is what distinguishes us. Let’s embark on this journey of strategic growth and problem-solving together!

Curious to explore how our services can transform your organization’s approach to challenges? Reach out for an explorative discussion, or to connect with our experts who are always ready to assist.

Originally published on LinkedIn

Why EX is Just as Important as CX: A Focus on Employee Experience

At Brooks Bell, we partner with our clients to build insight-driven organizations. We know that understanding customers and making decisions with their best interest at hand makes organizations stronger, more successful, and more resilient. We take a similar approach internally, working to ensure that our business operations are relevant to the needs of our team and that we are creating an environment with healthy feedback loops so information is frequently being surfaced and considered.

Just as businesses work to improve customer experience (CX) to acquire and retain customers,  they should work to improve the employee experience (EX) to acquire and retain talent. With labor costs likely your biggest line item, it is too important to take a “set it and forget it” approach. You need to safeguard and cultivate your teams just as you do your CX. In this article, I will walk you through 5 examples of our quest to improve our EX.

Some advice before we embark: it’s a journey. Sometimes, you’ll get it right, sometimes wrong, and what you think you know will change.  The key is having systems in place to evaluate what’s working and what isn’t so that change is quick when it’s needed.

Employee Performance Reviews

Employee performance reviews are designed to be a point of alignment to ensure the work is fulfilling to both the employee and the company. Adjustments can be made to help resolve misalignment, and the frequency ensures no unmet needs linger too long. These can be tricky to get right for a number of reasons: format, scope, frequency, depth, etc, not to mention the emotional capital that may be needed..

Whether or not the process stays consistent year after year, it’s paramount that there is a feedback loop in place to validate that the process is truly serving its purpose for the team. Over time, our review process has undergone quite an evolution.  Five years ago, we had annual reviews using a standard format. We felt like there was nuance missing, and in 2020, we changed to annual 360 reviews in pursuit of diversifying feedback for our managers. However, with time, we found them to be incredibly admin-heavy and time-consuming.  They were missing the mark. This year, we changed our review process to quarterly, with a less formal peer feedback component. With the change was also the mindset shift from an annual review of performance to a quarterly review of progress.  Performance is still a focus, but the root is in coaching, which promotes co-collaboration rather than a one-sided evaluation. Will this be the right fit for us? We feel like it is the best one yet, and we’ll continue to solicit feedback to help us determine the next evolution.

Professional Development

We are proud to have a team comprised of the best of the best, with diverse and extensive expertise. And we want continued opportunities for learning after someone comes on board. As a result, professional development is an important focus.

Learning and development has multiple avenues within Brooks Bell. Over the years, we have partnered with Bell Leadership Institute for individual leadership training.  We’ve partnered with Dr. Margaret Brunson of Illumined Leadership Solutions for individual and group leadership coaching. And even our CEO, Greg Ng, works with executive coach, Melissa Rose, because he, too, understands there is always more to learn. In these examples, gaining feedback and insight from someone outside of the organization can offer a unique perspective on solving challenges and creating solutions. But what happens if an opportunity arises outside of the cycle of the more formalized training calendar? To answer that, we created a form that anyone can fill out when requesting specific training, conference attendance, certifications, etc. Most recently, we have piloted an internal mentorship program, creating opportunities for individuals to hone their coaching skills and foster relationships with team members they may not work with on a regular basis.  In each of these scenarios, the goal is to provide a wide variety of opportunities based on where an individual is in their career. We might not have every scenario covered yet, but the team knows that we’re committed to supporting their professional development and that they have the ability to influence what’s next.

Listening Tours

Fostering relationships is the most important part of my role as CoS, and as remote work became the norm in varying degrees over the past few years, it has become more challenging to keep a pulse on the rhythm of the team. In Q2 of this year, I piloted what I call a listening tour.  I met with everyone in the company over the course of the quarter and asked two questions: What is one thing that would make your job better? And what are you loving about your job right now? Aside from these questions, the agenda is open and informal. The feedback was positive, and I’m repeating it again right now in Q4.  Ultimately, the value here is creating yet another feedback loop across each team member that can inform business and culture decisions. This is a newer tool in the toolbox, so I will be evaluating feedback and keeping an eye out for the next iteration.

All-Company In-Person Events

We believe there is value in bringing our entire team under one roof from time to time, and we carve out the time to do so. We call these events All Team Week and started having them quarterly in 2021.  We fly in our remote employees and spend the week in person, working, collaborating, and connecting. The structure has changed over the years, but there is always a mix of company-wide workshops, team events, dinners/drinks, and a good amount of walking meetings. We have experimented with the frequency, agenda, and locations with each All Team Week. The first one was too much in-person connection (on the heels of the pandemic), the next was perhaps not enough connection, the third was the best of both worlds but was missing a certain something, and you get the picture. We’ve made adjustments based on feedback following each event, and they’re better each time. We are committed to facilitating this opportunity to be together and will continue to ensure the team gets as much value from it as possible.

Remote Work Policy

Prior to the pandemic, Brooks Bell primarily operated from our headquarters in Raleigh, NC. With the exception of a handful of remote employees, you’d find our office parking lot packed each workday. Our remote work policy underwent a massive overhaul in response to the pandemic and has remained unchanged since we rolled out that update in 2020.  The team has the flexibility to choose where they would like to work week to week and day to day. When we reopened our office, the message was the same. More recently, we found an office space to better suit our hybrid approach, and still, the message is the same. In each of these transitions, we solicited feedback from the team on what they needed to do their best work in their ideal environment and used it to form our decisions and policies.

In summary, consider your EX in the same way you consider CX. Be open to feedback, iterations, experimentation, and a culture of curiosity. Like your customers, your team will know when you’re genuinely invested in them and are working to make your time together a good experience.

Originally posted on LinkedIn

Performance Management: Pioneering Precision in Organizational Alignment 

In an era where agility and adaptability are the cornerstones of success, the significance of coherent organizational objectives can’t be overstressed. Navigating through the labyrinth of modern business requires not just vision but precision in execution. That’s why the Brooks Bell team is thrilled to spotlight our transformative Performance Management Service and its game-changing impact on businesses seeking to elevate their operational clarity.

Misaligned goals, ambiguous objectives, and a lack of actionable metrics can become the Achilles’ heel of even the most promising organizations. Recognizing this, our service zeroes in on these critical aspects, offering a holistic solution to the maze of goal-setting and performance tracking.

Our specialized team delves deep into the very essence of your organization. We meticulously diagnose areas of misalignment, from broad business aspirations down to individual tasks. With a refined understanding of the challenges at hand, we tailor our approach, ensuring that every tier of your organization operates in harmony, united by coherent goals and measurable KPIs.

Our dedication doesn’t end with insight; it blossoms into actionable strategy. Under the umbrella of our Performance Management Service, we craft bespoke plans that embed clear objectives, effective dashboards, and a systematic approach to monitor and recalibrate goals, ensuring your organization remains agile and adaptive.

With our Performance Management Service at the helm, businesses are not just setting goals; they’re igniting a culture of clarity, coherence, and collaboration. By streamlining objectives and establishing transparent metrics, they position themselves as leaders in their industry, armed with the acumen to steer their organization toward sustained success confidently.

Understanding the Crux of Performance Management Services

Performance Management isn’t just about setting targets—it’s about ensuring that every cog in your organizational machinery moves synchronously toward a unified goal. Our service is anchored on:

  1. Strategic Alignment: We bridge the gap between overarching business goals and individual contributions, ensuring that each team and member is clear about their role in achieving organizational success.
  2. Clear KPIs and Metrics: By establishing quantifiable markers, we help businesses track their progress, assess their performance, and recalibrate strategies for maximum impact.
  3. Dashboards and Systems: Stay updated, informed, and agile with systematic methods to monitor and update performance metrics in real-time.
  4. Annual Review Facilitation: Our service is instrumental for managers and directors in leading an insightful annual review process, underpinned by data-driven insights and a holistic view of performance dynamics.

Reasons Your Organization Should Opt for Performance Management Services:

  1. Unified Direction: Remove the fog of ambiguity and conflicting objectives. Our service ensures that each team and member understands and aligns with the bigger picture.
  2. Effective Time Utilization: With clarity on priorities, teams can channel their energy and time towards activities that truly matter, enhancing productivity and value delivery.
  3. Quantifiable Success: Transition from vague notions of success to concrete, measurable outcomes with well-defined KPIs.
  4. Performance at a Glance: Our performance dashboards ensure that you always have a pulse on where your organization stands and where it’s headed.

Our passion lies in empowering organizations to harness their true potential, ensuring every effort is channeled toward tangible results. This unwavering commitment distinguishes us, making us partners in your journey to excellence.

Curious to see how our Performance Management Service can recalibrate your organizational compass? Let’s connect! We’re eager to discuss or introduce you to our team of experts, ready to guide you toward organizational precision and alignment.

Originally published on LinkedIn

Building Insight-Driven Organizations with Industry Trend Forecasting & Emerging Practices

Relying on outdated practices is no longer an option. At Brooks Bell, we are committed to helping organizations become insight-driven and stay ahead of the curve. As the VP of Solutions at Brooks Bell, I am excited to shed light on our unique Industry Trend Forecasting and emerging Practices service and how it can propel your organization toward success. Our Industry Trend Forecasting and Emerging Practices services represent how we empower our clients to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Our team of experts specializes in conducting in-depth evaluation and comparison studies to benchmark organizations within their industry. Through rigorous analysis, we uncover the latest trends and opportunities shaping the industry’s future. By gaining valuable insights into the competitive landscape, and mapping organizations’ journeys towards maturity, we help to identify areas of growth potential, maturity milestones, and areas for investment to help you make informed strategic decisions.

We go beyond providing insights; we translate our findings into actionable strategies. Our Industry Trend Forecasting and Emerging Practices services are designed to help organizations take action for growth and chart their short and long-term growth path. We work closely with our clients to develop tailored plans that leverage the identified trends and opportunities. We believe in the power of execution, and our recommended next steps empower organizations to embrace change, adapt to new practices, and achieve impactful breakthroughs.

With our Industry Trend Forecasting & Emerging Practices service, our clients gain a competitive edge and position themselves as industry leaders. They have the knowledge and insights to navigate the ever-changing business landscape confidently and can learn from others who may be ahead in areas such as personalization or AI integration. By embracing emerging trends, seizing new opportunities, and driving innovation, they pave the way for future success.

We are passionate about unlocking the full potential of organizations. Our commitment to providing the highest level of industry trend analysis and strategic guidance sets us apart. We are dedicated to empowering our clients to thrive in the face of uncertainty and achieve their growth objectives.

Reach out to learn more about our Industry Trend Forecasting & Emerging Practices services. I am happy to brainstorm or connect you with one of the experts on our team to help you.

Originally posted on LinkedIn

Unlock Efficiency with Process Design: Here’s Why Your Organization Needs It

As Director of Solutions here at Brooks Bell, I’m excited to spotlight our meticulous Process Design service, a beacon guiding businesses to eradicate inefficiencies and foster a culture of insight, consistency, and clarity.

Understanding the Critical Role of Process Design Services 

A well-defined process is the cornerstone of any strategic initiative, whether a single experiment, an evergreen marketing campaign, or an overarching organizational design activity. Our Process Design service hinges on our team’s ability to gain a comprehensive understanding of how a process works, who participates, what role(s) they play, what technologies and/or artifacts enable the process, and what the business impact and outcomes are for each step along the way.  

As we gain a more complete picture of how this system works (or doesn’t), we aim to build on and evolve current successes while also easing points of friction and eliminating major bottlenecks opening up avenues of opportunity for enhancements and, thus, facilitating teams to function seamlessly and create a substantial impact.

Breaking Down Process Design

Whether it’s rolling out a marketing campaign or implementing a software test, the backbone of these initiatives is the underlying process. Our service delves deep:

  • Holistic Analysis: By mapping each point of the process, we get a 360-degree view, identifying potential bottlenecks, redundant steps, or overlooked opportunities. 
  • Role Optimization: Understanding the stakeholders involved allows for reassigning roles where necessary, ensuring that every team member plays to their strengths, resulting in smoother, more efficient project completion. 
  • Time Allocation and Prioritization: The timing of each process phase is crucial. By analyzing the duration and sequencing, we can optimize timelines, ensuring tasks are executed in the most logical and efficient order. 
  • Technology & Artifact Evaluation: We scrutinize available support documentation, tools, and resources. This ensures teams have what they need when they need it, and that these tools are fit for purpose.
  • Comprehensive Documentation: Think of this as crafting a detailed playbook for your team. Comprehensive documentation breaks down intricate processes into digestible steps, providing clarity and support. It acts as both a training tool for newcomers and a reference guide for seasoned team members, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
  • Opportunities for Enhanced Collaboration: As organizations become more and more successful, they often believe that they have to become more siloed in order to maintain the efficiency and outcomes they’re looking for. This myth leads to stymied organizational innovation, communication, and knowledge sharing. In understanding how a process works within a larger system, we also uncover opportunities to accelerate business outcomes by introducing key moments of collaboration and convergent thinking.

Reasons Your Organization Should Opt for Process Design Services 

Our Process Design isn’t just a service; it’s a strategic imperative. Here’s why your organization needs it:

  • Role Assignments: Confusion around process steps and role responsibilities can lead to inefficiencies. Our services meticulously detail every step and clearly assign responsibilities, removing ambiguity and fostering a clear pathway to project completion.  
  • Standardization of Processes: Inconsistencies in process execution often lead to wasted time and resources. We help bring uniformity to your processes while still empowering teams to flex where needed, thereby ensuring a standardized approach that breeds success and eliminates wasteful variations.  
  • Robust Documentation for Effective Process Support: A well-documented process stands as a backbone for successful project completion. We assist in creating comprehensive documentation as well as ensuring the process is implemented within the team’s day-to-day activities through program management integration, central learning hubs, and/or individual team coaching and support.  
  • Identifying and Removing Process Roadblocks: Roadblocks not only delay processes but can also dampen team spirit. Our service is designed to identify and eliminate these hindrances, enabling a smooth, frustration-free workflow conducive to creativity and growth.  
  • Clear Delineation of Roles and Responsibilities: Understanding who is responsible for what is pivotal in avoiding overlaps and ensuring accountability. Our service helps in clearly defining roles and mapping responsibilities, thus preventing conflicts and promoting harmonious workflow.

Embrace the Process Design Advantage 

When you partner with Brooks Bell, your organization receives more than a service; it gains a partnership built on the commitment to forge processes that are clear, efficient, iterative, and aligned with your objectives. With our Process Design services, your organization is equipped with a strategic blueprint, ensuring tasks are executed with precision, maximizing both time and resources. Reach out to explore the transformative potential of our Process Design services. We are eager to connect and brainstorm strategies or facilitate a meeting with our expert team dedicated to steering your business toward a path of operational excellence.

Originally published on LinkedIn

A clerk exceeding customer expectations bolstering her loyalty through automated personalization.

Unlock Brand Loyalty’s Secret Weapon: Automated Personalization

In today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, the brands that consistently deliver tailored experiences to their users stand out and command unwavering loyalty. The digital age has revolutionized the customer-brand relationship. In this new paradigm, personalization isn’t just a perk—it’s an expectation. But how do we deliver experiences that feel tailor-made for every individual, every time? Herein lies the art and science of modern personalization, woven with the threads of manual and automated strategies.

While brands can employ multiple personalization strategies, automated personalization has become the gold standard. Here’s a closer look at this innovative approach and its unparalleled power in solidifying brand loyalty.

The two tactics for Personalization

Targeted Personalization:

  • Definition: Directly targets a specific user segment, leveraging data insights to establish a hypothesis. The subsequent experiment either validates or refutes the set hypothesis.
  • Real-World Application: The explicit messaging throughout the conversion funnel urging unauthenticated users to recognize the perks of registering or signing up.

Black Box Personalization:

  • Definition: This technique is all about experimentation. It’s akin to casting a wide net, gathering data, and then refining a hypothesis based on outcomes.
  • Real-World Application: Netflix’s recommendation algorithm offers a splendid illustration. By understanding user behaviors and preferences, it curates a personalized list of shows and movies.

Manual vs. Automated Diving Deeper

Manual Personalization:

  • Overview: Manual personalization revolves around hypothesis-driven experiments, where targeting is rooted in prior knowledge and insights about customer segments. This method, being more hands-on, allows for an acute specificity in reaching the right audience with the right message.
  • Functionality: The journey begins with defining a pivotal Key Performance Indicator (KPI), often focusing on conversions. From there, hypotheses are formulated about the targeted segments, informed by existing data and research. The design process leans on conditional logic— for instance, “if a user exhibits behavior X, display content A.” This provides a tailored experience for each user type. Once the design is rolled out, the subsequent step is observing outcomes, validating results against the hypothesis, and then refining strategies based on the insights gleaned, ensuring continuous improvement and relevance.

Automated Personalization:

  • Overview: Automated personalization moves beyond traditional segmentation, creating various content variants without predefining the target audience. It harnesses the power of machine learning (ML) to intuitively determine which segments will respond best to each variant, making the process dynamic and responsive.
  • Functionality: Initiating with the specification of a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), such as clicks on a given space, the system then progresses into the ‘learning phase.’ During this phase, machine learning algorithms delve into understanding audience interactions with the content variants, picking up patterns and preferences. This is followed by the ‘test phase,’ where ML critically assesses if the personalized content versions have superior performance compared to their randomized counterparts. The beauty of this approach lies in its ability to evolve and refine without manual intervention, ensuring the content remains fresh, relevant, and engaging.

Strengthening the Loyalty Chain through Mastery of Customer Data

To truly harness the potency of automated personalization in cultivating brand loyalty, an in-depth and meticulous understanding of customer data is paramount.

  • Crafting Comprehensive Profiles: With accurate identity resolution, brands can curate exhaustive prospect and customer profiles. This, in turn, assists in targeting non-members effectively, propelling both engagement and acquisition.
  • Unearthing Crucial Insights: A robust Customer 360 perspective, grounded in dependable customer identity, brings to light invaluable insights. Such insights and predictions shape enrollment strategies and foster increased program adoption.
  • Facilitating Omnichannel Loyalty Experiences: An omnichannel approach ensures customers encounter relevant touchpoints, campaigns, and journeys across platforms. Such cohesive experiences amplify the uptake of loyalty rewards and offers.

Why Automated Personalization is a Loyalty Game Changer

In the age of information overload, consumers yearn for experiences tailored to their unique preferences, and automated personalization is the beacon lighting the way. Moving beyond the confines of traditional segmentation, it offers a dynamic approach, delivering deeply customized interactions at every touchpoint. Let’s delve into the transformative powers of automated personalization:

  • Fluid and Evolving Experiences: Traditional methods often operate on fixed strategies which, over time, can become obsolete and fail to resonate. Automated personalization, on the other hand, functions like a living entity—constantly learning, evolving, and reshaping based on real-time user behaviors and preferences. This ensures that users always encounter fresh and relevant content.
  • Heightened Engagement and Conversion: The beauty of automation lies in its precision. With algorithms curating content that mirrors users’ interests, engagement levels skyrocket. It’s simple—when users see what aligns with their interests, they’re more inclined to interact, leading to higher conversion rates.
  • Fostering Genuine Trust: The path to brand loyalty is paved with trust. Automated personalization is not just about serving tailored content; it’s about demonstrating a brand’s genuine effort to understand and cater to its audience. When customers sense this level of attention to their needs, their trust in the brand solidifies, nurturing a bond that goes beyond transactional interactions and blooms into unwavering loyalty.

In Conclusion

Brand loyalty is no longer just about quality products or top-tier services. In this age, it’s about how well a brand understands and caters to its users. Automated personalization, when executed with a fine understanding of customer data, can work wonders in not just attracting but retaining loyal customers. Embracing this strategy, brands can set themselves on a trajectory of sustained growth and unparalleled customer fidelity.

Originally Published on LinkedIn