Leadership Sessions
Fred Wiersema facilitates executive working sessions and offsite retreats of senior teams to help them refine, navigate and internalize their customer agenda.
The case for action.
Astute leaders view the pursuit of stronger, enduring connections with customers as a company-wide priority. They recognize that success in the marketplace rests squarely on how well a firm deploys the innate power of its culture, and on how deeply its organization engages with its key customers. These twin differentiators demand the attention of the full leadership team -- not just marketing and sales. When culture trumps strategy, the imperative to shape a winning culture is evident. And with regard to engagement practices, most firms are nowhere as good as they want to be. (See footnote.)
My approach.
Getting a firm to embrace a focused customer agenda and build customer intimacy is not a routine task. Nor is it easy for many of us to step back and assess how well we are leveraging our organizational culture with customers, or to size up our firm-wide customer engagement practices. To move such tasks along, my leadership sessions are designed to develop greater directional clarity and team aligment. By facilitating rich and candid discussions around their firm's customer agenda, I help business leaders to calibrate their points of view, create a shared mindset, and decide what pertinent actions to champion.
Each leadership session is tailored for a specific purpose. Some examples:
Preparation.
Facilitating working sessions with senior teams presents its own challenges. Beyond the dynamics of dealing with high achievers, there are issues like time-pressured agendas, a desire for concrete insights, as well as executives' varying priorities and degrees of customer savvy. To deal with these realities, my modus operandi is to work closely with the lead executive or organizer-in-charge to plan the agenda and select the vital theme(s) around which to build the discussions. Further context comes from interviewing a cross-section of participants and reviewing pertinent info, including customer input.
Note:
A 2007 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that only 13% of executives believed that their customers were very committed to their companies' products. The great majority of respondends viewed building strong connections with customers as a primary strategic challenge, and engagement as exceptionally important to their business.
A 2010 BMA survey conducted by SPSS/IBM looked at customer engagement practices in B-to-B and found that the majority of executives saw engagement as a top priority of their entire firm (not just their marketing and sales people). Yet, only 9% felt that their company deserved an A for their performance. Most companies gave themselves a C grade.
Fred Wiersema facilitates executive working sessions and offsite retreats of senior teams to help them refine, navigate and internalize their customer agenda.
The case for action.
Astute leaders view the pursuit of stronger, enduring connections with customers as a company-wide priority. They recognize that success in the marketplace rests squarely on how well a firm deploys the innate power of its culture, and on how deeply its organization engages with its key customers. These twin differentiators demand the attention of the full leadership team -- not just marketing and sales. When culture trumps strategy, the imperative to shape a winning culture is evident. And with regard to engagement practices, most firms are nowhere as good as they want to be. (See footnote.)
My approach.
Getting a firm to embrace a focused customer agenda and build customer intimacy is not a routine task. Nor is it easy for many of us to step back and assess how well we are leveraging our organizational culture with customers, or to size up our firm-wide customer engagement practices. To move such tasks along, my leadership sessions are designed to develop greater directional clarity and team aligment. By facilitating rich and candid discussions around their firm's customer agenda, I help business leaders to calibrate their points of view, create a shared mindset, and decide what pertinent actions to champion.
Each leadership session is tailored for a specific purpose. Some examples:
- Most generally, to deepen the management team's appreciation of what it takes to win with customers and buttress sales/marketing's efforts.
- To reshape the culture of internally focused, technology- or cost-driven firms, by scoping out a pathway to customer intimacy.
- When a sound strategy is in place but execution and results fall short, to diagnose the situation and explore what can be done to build traction.
- To examine firm-wide engagement practices and explore how to better manage customer churn, deal with margin pressures, or spur innovation.
Preparation.
Facilitating working sessions with senior teams presents its own challenges. Beyond the dynamics of dealing with high achievers, there are issues like time-pressured agendas, a desire for concrete insights, as well as executives' varying priorities and degrees of customer savvy. To deal with these realities, my modus operandi is to work closely with the lead executive or organizer-in-charge to plan the agenda and select the vital theme(s) around which to build the discussions. Further context comes from interviewing a cross-section of participants and reviewing pertinent info, including customer input.
Note:
A 2007 survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that only 13% of executives believed that their customers were very committed to their companies' products. The great majority of respondends viewed building strong connections with customers as a primary strategic challenge, and engagement as exceptionally important to their business.
A 2010 BMA survey conducted by SPSS/IBM looked at customer engagement practices in B-to-B and found that the majority of executives saw engagement as a top priority of their entire firm (not just their marketing and sales people). Yet, only 9% felt that their company deserved an A for their performance. Most companies gave themselves a C grade.
"It's uncanny to see how well you read our situation, and how strongly you resonate with the group.
"...most productive sessions we've had in a long time.
"You really got through to our team. Now we need to get the message across to the rest of the company."
"You have been so terrific...
I don't know how we would pull this off without you."
"PS, your terminology and stories have already become embedded in our language."
"...most productive sessions we've had in a long time.
"You really got through to our team. Now we need to get the message across to the rest of the company."
- Exec team members;
business solutions provider
"Your support in getting us on the right track has been tremendous."business solutions provider
- Sr. exec;
global IT corporation
"Splendid how you got us to look at ourselves in the mirror.global IT corporation
"You have been so terrific...
I don't know how we would pull this off without you."
- Leadership development
exec at consumer
electronics firm
"We've made great progress with [stretch customers] in the past months. Thanks again for your inspiration.exec at consumer
electronics firm
"PS, your terminology and stories have already become embedded in our language."
- EVP, US operations;
global capital goods corp.
global capital goods corp.
© 2011 Fred Wiersema
WORKING WITH FRED
- Leadership sessions
- Keynote presentations
- Customer intimacy workshops
WORKING WITH FRED
FRED WIERSEMA
customer strategist • change agent • best-selling author
customer strategist • change agent • best-selling author