A mini crisis had erupted!!! Well, that's how I got called in to a situation: a very successful organization which enjoyed a positive image was growing its services very well. They attracted many sponsors and donors and were really doing extremely well. So, what had gone wrong then?
Alarmed by the cry of the Chief Executive, a well-wisher arranged for me to meet the Management Team and to tour their premises to get an overview of their operations. WOW! Impressive! That was my opinion of their projects and their people too. Then it was time to meet the bosses, who wanted to build their Brand and take it to the next level. Their records were detailed and they had good resources in place too. Looked good but ................ hmmmmmm. Some questions, probing, suggestions, then BINGO!
True, all there sources and evidence of results were there, so why was the Chief Executive unable to cope? You know, some things are difficult for an insider to spot from being too close to the operations - sound familiar? It might take an objective eye to spot what's missing. In this case, they weren't joining the dots - their Brand Alignment was ummm misaligned, and so their message and deliverables were fragmented, leading to frequent brushes with chaos. In fact their resources were not being utilized well and so operations were lop-sided. Now, this can be quite dangerous to an organization and might cause it to collapse if not addressed in time. How so? In this case, the resource (mis)mangement was draining profitability instead of adding to it. What could also happen is that job functions might not be accomplished if there is much overlapping.
So, I drew them an outline of a message strategy which would collate their resources properly, with room for cross-functions too. That meant no one needed to be in a position of being unable to cope.
Do you know of someone who has what it takes to fun their business but is somehow finding that things aren't quite coming together as anticipated? Tell them I could give them a quick assessment of how they could be more profitable by streamlining their operations, and invite them to contact me? They could phone 6-03-21697704 or email evelyn@atheneumgroup.net.
BRING ME THE BRAND AND I'LL INCREASE ITS PROFITS!
