Nearly one year ago I wrote about focus and attitude. Now it‘s time to recap the last 12 months and what I‘ve learned in this time. It started with a lot of new customers and new account manager in my team. We created new roles to close the known gaps of the past as fast as possible. And we used new processes and systems to deliver as good and fast as possible. We used known and new systems for measurement of results and  we celebrated a lot of successes.

To be honest it was a huge change process for all of us - the whole team. What was most important to go with a very good setup - and indeed we are well prepared for the next year - up to the next level?

It‘s the clear view and analysis what we did, what went good and what has to be improved. We were well prepared and tried and created a lot and now we have to adapt the important things. But we will not do this alone. We will change again but with the knowledge of the whole team, which will be an active part of this next adaption process.

And to get this involvement the whole year the most important thing is communication. This sounds easy but isn‘t. Everyone has to be treated in his own way. Everyone has a different way of solving things and everyone sticks to other values. So it‘s the need - no, it‘s the duty - of the leader to find the right words, the right message and the right style, individually for every single person in the team. This can be very easy, if the other person thinks in a quite same way and acts in most cases very similar. This can be very  tricky if the other one has totally different values or solves challenges on a completely different way.
Two metaphers for this communication challenges:

So it is like staring through a window. Some of them are very clean and from both sides it‘s obvious how to communicate and what has to be done. And others are coloured or grey and it‘s different to look through. So you have to find the key for the window or you have to polish it to look through. That costs energy and lasts longer.

An other metapher is taking the elevator. Every person is  on a different floor - not only regarding his technical or sales skills - more likely focusing on his mindset (his values, his communication style, his manners,...). And if you want to be successful you have to take the elevator for perfect communication. More levels to go means more time and more energy. But if you find the right floor everything will be easy again.

Finally it‘s important to create new things to be prepared, you have to change and adapt to get continuous improvement and you have to communicate to get the involvement of the team and the results.

We are well prepared for the next level. Go for it!