Creating better results

Customers and staff keep coming when they love what they get. Whether in government, business or NGOs, this means that leaders and owners succeed too.
 
Everyone gets better results when staff collaborate. Staff collaborate when their culture and strategy are well-developed and aligned. With a positive culture, staff want to work together to create great results. With consensus on a clear strategy, they know what to do to achieve them.
 
As a leader, you create opportunities for staff to develop a positive culture with each other. You maintain a strategy that everyone involved can implement with confidence.
 
I help leaders assess and develop positive working relationships and consensus on a clear strategy, especially in a digital context.
 

Positive working relationships

People will only implement a strategy if they have a positive culture. That means they have mutually positive relationships relevant to implementing the strategy together.
 
People can only develop those relationships themselves. Everyone in the organisation creates opportunities to develop relationships. As a leader, you have the most influence on those opportunities, and the most responsibility to create them.
 
I help you create opportunities for people to develop positive working relationships, using an iterative, participant-centred process:
  • Assess the current culture, the culture needed to implement the strategy, and the next achievable step towards that culture.
  • Design accurately targeted interventions where participants take that next step in building work-relevant relationships.
Participants use their new relationships to work together in ways that create better results for their customers and for themselves.
 
See my work and blog.

Consensus on a clear strategy

People will only implement a strategy if they have confidence in it. People can have confidence in a strategy if it is clear and they have consensus on it. 
 
For consensus, all the participants in the strategy need evidence that the strategy benefits them. Specific actions must support and inform broad plans. Strategy must be maintained to reflect new evidence about what works or is changing. This requires a shared understanding of what the strategy actually is.
 
I help you clarify your strategy so that you and the other participants in the strategy can build consensus on it, maintain it and implement it with confidence.
 
The approach I offer describes:
  • How actions lead to consequences, and how others use those consequences to get benefits.
  • Where evidence is needed to improve things.
  • The current and desired future states, and the steps to get there.
  • The exact linkages between broad medium-term and specific short-term plans. 

See my work and blog.

Love

"You bring a logical, systematic approach that is fully engaged with people’s emotions.

You helped us get our strategy clear and explicit, which made it sharable. You got us feeling and standing together on things, which changed the vibe. The strategy stuff worked better because of your work with the culture. Not many people can do both.

You are very present in the work that you do. Once one has adjusted to that, it’s really helpful. I get a broader set of insights than I expect. We go into the essence, not abstract structures." Jordan Carter Chief Executive, Internet New Zealand

“Dan has a unique ability to make sense of disparate ideas. He can get a room full of people to surface their ideas, issues and concerns. Then he clarifies and summarises the conversation, communicating it succinctly so that other people can access it.” Rochelle Stewart-Allen Senior Advisor, Open Government Data Programme, Land Information New ZealandStatsNZ.

You allowed us to achieve a lot more from the time we had than we would have otherwise done. Even though there there were many light moments, we made them work hard.” Andrew Watkins General Manager Information and Technology, NIWA.

"I learned things that were immediately useful… Straight away, I saw an upswing in performance, with staff members going the extra mile without being asked." Karen Clarke, Karen Clarke Consulting.

"Dan was instrumental in designing the interactive aspect of the day that helped to deliver a key outcome and make the overall day a success. Dan's wrangling was invaluable and he was, as always, a delight to work with." Jason Ryan, Strategy and Relations Manager, Catalyst IT.

More love…

Blog

Bring out powerful stories with jumpstart storytelling

Shared stories lift people’s enthusiasm, motivation and capability for their shared purpose. Jumpstart storytelling is a simple but effective way to bring out the most powerful stories in a group. I have used jumpstart storytelling in groups focused on improving the public service, exploring Internet issues and to review learnings from other sessions. I will explain […]

A fun and inclusive team-forming process for hackathons

I recently facilitated the team-forming process for GovHack 2017 in Wellington. I have facilitated team-forming for three GovHack events and for other hackathons such as Open Data Day and Datarama. Over these events, I have developed a process that you may find valuable for opening hackathons. I’ll describe my process and some of my thinking […]

Creating constructive relationships between cultural subgroups

Innovation thrives on creative tension, but conflict can equally destroy productivity and make life miserable. The different perspectives that people bring to a problem often stem from a culture long-established in their organisation or specialist community. Tensions can arise across different ways of seeing the World. Here are some practical ideas for maintaining constructive relationships between groups […]

More blog posts…

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Image of Dan Randow

Wellington, New Zealand

+64 27 431 4928

dan@randow.nz

@danrandow

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