The C4 is committed to its customer base. Without them, we are unemployed. They are our bread and butter. Because of this, it's mission-critical for us to remain customer-centric. Just because one may feel they are only the tail on the dog, does not mean one can't pull the trigger on thinking outside the box in order to fast track a solution implementation which can bring to fruition things that are thought of as pipe dreams or pie in the sky. There are a number of things we can do to make the strategic fit into the job jar:
• Be able to prioritize tasks in order to determine what's boiler-plate material and what requires service at ground zero.
• Keep one another in the loop. This means touching base, picking each other's brains, brainstorming, thought-showers, engaging each other, consistently pinging each other, and keeping a viable knowledge base in order to facilitate knowledge transfer. Shooting messages and firing off emails are an easy way of accomplishing this. It may be necessary to take certain conversations offline, however.
• Create synergy. For all intents and purposes, it is what it is. We can be the first past the post if we apply critical thinking going forward.
• Although it may not always be on your radar, fine tuning your skill set is beneficial to you as well as your counterparts.
• Maintain an open door policy to facilitate face time. We are a team after all. Working together, we can divide and conquer any house of cards in order to get all of our ducks in a row. If you open the kimono on something and feel you can't wrap your head around it, consult a knowledge base, engage others. You never know. You may find your ace in the hole while running something up a flagpole.
• Try to maintain a helicopter view of the swine's ear. You don't want to lose focus while putting out fires and juggling hot potatos while you're fighting in the trenches. By repurposing our assets, we can turn that ear into a silk purse moving forward.
• At times, you may be asked to parachute in on something post-mortem. Avoid moving the goal posts and finagling things to merely give the impression of seamless integration. We don't want to just throw things against the wall and see what sticks. We need to be on the same page about this. Sometimes an off the shelf solution works best, other times not.
• When the rubber hits the road, we need to push the envelope. To avoid winding up dead in the water, we need to triage issues as they pop up, instead of just tabling them. There may be times when you'll need to fall on your sword in order to leverage a new game plan. However, it's important to keep ourselves in the ball park at all times.
• When we are asked to pass the baton, we shouldn't simply think that the ball's in their court now. It's important to leave an audit trail and maintain knowledge transfer. It works out to be a win-win and people aren't left doing head scratches.
• Don't over-extend yourselves by doing a long slide on a short base. It can cause additional issues which can sometimes be transparent. Also important is the delegation of duties. If not careful, we could have a fox guarding the hen house.
• One more temperance I would like to add is about our pride. Though it may be second nature to 3M-itize things as they come up, it's important to know that we have many dependencies outside. We don't want to say we have more indians than others.
Let's put a bow on this and stick it under the tree. After all, we have our cake already. We just need to frost that sucker.
Regards,
C4 Leadership
. Some of the corporate types I've met couldn't address an envelope!
