Nourish Relationships - Business mentoring
We asked previously when the last time was that you talked to your customers. How about your staff? When was the last time they talked to your customers? Do they even understand what the business they are trying to support does? Do your customers even know what your team looks like? Early in my career, a Chief Operations Officer (COO) told me it was crucial for IT staff to be known by their users and by his executive team. He pointed out that by knowing someone’s name, their history and family, they became less of a number and more human, and that if he had a choice between letting go a number or a person, the number would always go first. So think about establishing business mentors for your team. It will provide them invaluable insight into the business, help you foster relationships across departments and allow your team to network in a safe, familiar environment. It can also provide crucial lifelines. One of my business mentor’s departments was involved in a cross-departmental screw-up that left an office without internet connectivity for eighteen hours. When I suggested that we should move our next mentor lunch to that office location and cater in lunch for those six colleagues, she loved the idea. Not only that, she agreed to split the cost with IT; she trumpeted it as successful cross-team collaboration, and turned an incident into a small win for both teams. So think about getting your people in front of their colleagues; sponsor a lunch between them once a month and let the relationships develop. When your team interacts with the business, the journey from users to customers becomes a much easier road.
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