Connectivity: Our Ultimate Corporate Strategy
Challenges in business are part of the entrepreneurial journey. And as a business owner, I have learned that some of the best experiences and lessons come from meeting a challenge head on and blazing a path forward.
Today, our company is fortunate to be in a high growth mode with lots of exciting change happening. But for some team members, change is scary, and it seems better to resist change rather than accept it.
For months I brainstormed ways to energize my team and help them embrace the growth and change of our company. One afternoon, while playing with my young sons, an old toy gave me the insight I had been seeking into how to make the change more acceptable.
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This day, all of my four children were playing together and having fun with an expanding and contracting sphere modeled after a Hoberman sphere. As I watched the kids play with the toy, I began to ponder our organizational challenges, and I finally realized that connectivity was the answer I had been seeking. Connectivity would allow my team to expand, contract and be flexible to any situation at hand. If I could deepen our connection points and show the team that we were growing and changing in a way that would expand their horizons, while supporting them with connective tissue, I was positive I could get complete buy in.
The days and weeks that followed were eye opening as we initiated the “connectivity plan.” I enlisted my executive team to implement a communication and connection plan across the company, and the results were startling.
Our team began to share and connect in new ways, through internal meetings, in client meetings and in newly-instituted monthly fun connect gatherings. Before this initiative, the leadership team believed the staff had a clear vision of our growth plans, but we quickly learned that was not the case. We needed to be more proactive in seeking out questions and providing opportunities for our team to process the issues they saw. The accounting team suggested that they wanted to learn more about the connections the business development team was making with clients at site visits and at our annual conference so that they could deepen their own connection to our client base. A client service mentality was permeating the organization. I began to see the Hoberman sphere in action.
The light bulbs didn’t stop there. We felt that this newfound connectivity needed to extend beyond our walls to our clients. How could we better connect with them and help them grow? This idea led to the birth of our newest initiative, Hamilton University. When launched, Hamilton University will bring our team together with our clients to share knowledge, experiences and ways in which we can all connect more deeply to strengthen our spheres of activity.
With all the time I devoted to mapping out a strategy for our company, our team and our clients to grow and adapt to the opportunities and challenges before us, who knew that all I needed was an afternoon in the playroom and a flexible sphere. Simply letting all our internal constituencies know that we had their backs and stood ready to connect when needed has made all the difference in adapting to the changes that our organization needed. And perhaps the most rewarding result has been the flood of messages and comments from our team members – they are finally energized, curious and ready for more connection!
Peter J. Strauss is an attorney, captive manager, speaker and author of The Business Owner’s Definitive Guide to Captive Insurance Companies with ForbesBooks. Learn more at peterjstrauss.com.