Promote a wide-angle view
Nelligan says allowing silos to develop within your company
can choke off the total-company view for many employees,
and along with it, your culture.
The leadership team at IMS Americas combats silos by putting the company’s customers in the spotlight. Nelligan calls it
his “voice of the customer” program, and through it, he shows all
of his employees at IMS Americas how their jobs impact the end
result for their customers.
“Clients and customers see the ultimate output of what you
do, not the pieces,” he says. “So it’s absolutely important that
we always are thinking about the client and processes, what we
do end-to-end, not solely in their frame or silo.”
As part of the program, IMS Americas recently recorded
video of clients talking about their businesses and how IMS
impacts their jobs. The videos were then broadcast during the
IMS Americas satellite webcasts.
“We videotaped a number of our clients talking about what
we do, how we serve them, how important we are to their business, how important it is that we execute for them,” Nelligan
says. “So how do you bring the voice of the customer to every
employee? That’s how you do it. You make sure they understand how important our work is.”
The leaders at IMS Americas also promote a wide-angle view by
building cross-functional teams composed of employees from
different areas of the company. In meetings, the cross-functional
teams bring together different ideas and perspectives on a
broad range of topics that affect the company.
The meetings provide another opportunity for Nelligan and
his staff to refocus employees on maintaining a high-performance and customer-service-oriented culture. An added benefit is
the opportunity to expose employees to other aspects of the
company, which builds greater understanding among people
from different disciplines and might even open some employees
to new career paths.
“Cross-functional activity is critical,” Nelligan says. “It’s
absolutely important that we are always thinking about the
client and processes and what we do end-to-end, but we also
see it as a development opportunity. If we know someone who
has spent time in one business perspective, we see how we can
broaden our knowledge, our experience and give them oppor-
tunities in other areas.”
However you build a wide-angle view, Nelligan says it will
take regular maintenance to keep your employees thinking
that way.
“It’s somewhat human nature that people often gravitate to a
comfort zone or that people are just so focused day to day on
the trees that they forget to look at the forest a little bit,” he
says. “I think that’s natural. But I also think the ability to develop that skill (to take a wide-angle view) is an important part of
leadership and management.
“One’s ability to look broad and dive deep is a critical dimension when it comes to looking at things end-to-end.”