The Phone Call I wish I stopped receiving….

More than once the phone goes and it’s an existing or potential (but often known) client/sponsor ringing to ask what I now see as “the dreaded question”… “Al, can you just come and run a one-day workshop for us on [insert as applicable latest likely crisis project of the moment] next Wednesday?” (this often being a Friday afternoon!)

Don’t get me wrong, the answer is almost always Yes, depending on the date!

But how many times in our careers have we been to workshops which may have been the best experience ever (clearly you’ll have been to an Advance workshop then 😊). You leave energised, motivated and probably tired and drained. Then you head back to your desk.. dread opening the inbox, sit there and reflect “So what..?”

Workshops are great but they are only one element of any programme of change or capability development. To quote one of my leadership heroes, Simon Sinek, “You don’t buy a car to put fuel in it, you buy a car to get somewhere” (I’m paraphrasing slightly). Workshops are the fuel of change and transformation that we tend to use, but it doesn’t happen without all the other components too.

So what…?

Shift the conversation from what you think you want to do to what it is you want to achieve. I reach back to one of my previous life experiences as a programme manager working in Defence Acquisition. Requirements Management occupied most of my team’s time as a client-side PM team. We had clarity on what the client was responsible for defining (outcomes) and what the supplier was responsible for defining (solutions). As a potential Sponsor of work with Advance, you will understand what an outcome looks like, but as my colleague Alexander says, “let go of the outcome” and let us challenge and support you as partners through the process.

Yes, at Advance we can and always will help you run that one-day workshop because we believe in the value of effective, independent, facilitation. But, is that what you really need?

When we write proposals we always identify what WE think your Aim and Outcomes are, based on our listening to you (#welisten). We are quite particular about what we expect of our task and programme sponsors, because ultimately it is they who bear the responsibility and accountability for delivering the outcomes when we aren’t around.

As a business we exist to challenge and support you to deliver better outcomes, so understanding the outcomes (ie the change!) that you seek from any work we do is critical.

Those clients and sponsors who have worked with us know that when you engage Advance you bring us into your conversation, we engage and #welisten but also offer our robustly compassionate challenge and support and we will work with you to shape a programme of work that creates the environment for benefit realisation and also embedded learning..

So what’s a better question to ask when you pick up the phone?

“We want to achieve XXX, how can you challenge and support us in achieving that?”

And if you don’t know what XXX is? Still pick up the phone and lets chat, but don’t jump to the answer being a one-day workshop!