Knowledge Work & Customer Cultures
Knowledge workers need an environment that supports and sustains their ability to be autonomous and interdependent at the same time. Business leaders must create this environment for their knowledge workers. Vehicles for tasks and results-oriented projects, the availability of decision-making criteria, customer interactions, quality and quantity performance standards, comprehensive reporting for evaluation and learning, and systems or recognition and reward are necessary to ensure that knowledge work will be cost effective. Understanding and balancing customer, employee, and owner needs are essential to building this environment.
Workshop 1: You and Your Enterprise
This workshop focuses on individuals understanding their strengths and the strengths, objectives, and goals of their enterprises. Participants leave the workshop with a new understanding of how they can build synergy between themselves and their enterprises resulting in the growth of both. Areas covered include an analysis of participants’ individual strengths, identification of the enterprise vision, mission, values, and direction and strengths, how these strengths might work together, what business results might be expected, and how to anticipate a return on investment.
Knowledge worker characteristics are defined. Mindmapping techniques help participants identify their strengths and how they might most effectively contribute to their organizations. Concepts of lifelong learning and mentors are introduced.
Workshop 2: Customer Awareness
This workshop focuses on understanding your external customers and their needs, present and future, as they evolve and grow in their business pursuits. Participants develop a deep understanding of their customers, their needs (current and future), and how these customers actually perceive the value that you bring to them. Areas of discussion include understanding customer needs, customer perceptions of value, how to relate to those perceptions of value, how to collect the right data and information to indicate actual and perceived value, and how to validate customer needs with relevant and value-based pricing.
Benchmarking and customer education programs are used to comprehensively explore and analyze the impact that businesses have had on their external customers.
Workshop 3: New Markets, Products/Services, and Customers
This workshop focuses on identifying new products for current customers, new customers for current products, and new products for new customers. Participants learn how to analyze customer interactions and relational value to identify new needs and potential for future products and services. This analysis extends to external industries, markets, and prospects in leveraging the component value of the enterprises’ offerings. Areas of discussion include how to identify new customers for current products, new products/services for current customers, and new products/services for new customers, understanding, branding, and pricing impact.
Systematic innovation, decision-making, and scorecarding techniques are used to identify and prioritize projects for sustainable growth results.
Workshop 4: Identifying Employee Skills and Knowledge
This workshop explores the relevant skills and knowledge that employees and other stakeholders must have to fulfill customer needs, current and new, as they evolve. Innovative approaches to products, services, and customers require a reorientation of employee skills and knowledge. Participants identify new requirements for designing and developing new products/services for new customers and translate them into employee development plans to accommodate evolving needs. Areas of discussion include understanding new customers, products, and services, new requirements for skills and knowledge, identifying employees impacted, and creating new plans to acquire needed skills and knowledge.
Project planning, professional development planning, and communications frameworks are used to empower and enable employees to develop new skills and knowledge needed to facilitate new development.
Workshop 5: Alignment of SME Expertise and Efforts
This workshop addresses the need for workflow analysis to identify touch points and service level agreements that ensure the alignment and efficiency of all enterprise work. Participants evaluate their own activity as it aligns to others’ activity toward common goals. Areas of discussion include defining a workflow for new product/service development, determining touch points and customer/supplier relationships, determining service levels agreements, creating a mentor program, and aligning to predetermined metrics to gauge return on investment.
Workflow synergies, cultural frameworks, and internal customer concepts build an understanding of how to drive business results for the enterprise.
Workshop 6: Reflection, Enterprise Alignment, Reconciliation, and Celebration
This workshop facilitates a comprehensive review and reflection of work completed, in progress, and planned. Participants synthesize the efficiency and effectiveness of all enterprise operations, delivery, and recognition of progress made. Areas of discussion include collecting feedback on gaps, strategizing fulfilling of gaps, aligning performance criteria between groups and teams, reconciling customer expectations, and rewarding progress toward return on investment goals.
Internal impact analysis, return on investment calculation, and shared rewards are all factors used in reconciling all business effort and activity to create a sustainable enterprise.