Important Operational Catalyst Information
Course Preparation
- The following books are provided for pre-course reading: Praxis Framework, Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More, Practical People Engagement
Operational Catalyst Training Outline
Creating a Customer Services Excellence Culture
Communicating without alienating
- Encouraging your customer to talk by listening persuasively
- Limiting use of jargon and speak to your listener’s concerns
- Creating awareness about what and how you communicate, guarding against conflicting messages
The Expectations Challenge
- Using the ‘That’s not it’ strategy to help a customer describe their needs
- Challenging your assumptions about customer needs and be an information-gathering skeptic
- Studying problems from your customers’ context
Perception is reality
- Clarifying customers’ perceptions of a service and their resulting expectations
- Ensuring customers know what to expect
- Assessing customer requests where it is appropriate and learning to say ‘no’ so it sounds like ‘yes’
Project and Implementation Fundamentals
Knowing your stakeholders
- Diagnosing your stakeholders’ interests and attitudes to a planned change
- Classifying the key influencer with the most power
- Determining your stakeholders’ resistance and how to engage them
Shaping your engagement strategy
- Targeting where you want your stakeholders to be
- Developing a user story and connecting your proposition with an explicit beneficial outcome
- Ascertaining the deposits and withdrawals you need to make in a stakeholders’ “relational bank account”
Planning your engagement
- Pinpointing your Gatekeeper(s) and scheduling communication to maintain engagement
- Creating compelling, sticky, memorable messages
- Classifying your signal-to-noise ratio to make your messages clear and heard
Dealing With Urgency and Escalations
Controlling the scope
- Documenting the results of change control and maintaining the validity of the configuration
- Specifying effective requirement(s) – unique, current, consistent, understandable, verifiable, traceable and prioritised
- Capturing and assessing the impact of any change on the constraints including: time, cost, scope, change, risk resource
Being clear on your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement)
- Focusing on their “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM) and optimising the benefits for both parties
- Earning the right to be heard by listening first
- Describing the non-negotiable aspects of your own position
- Being clear about your own fallback position before negotiating
Action is everything
- Practising intentional conversations using open questions
- Ensuring people see that you are responding to their concerns
- Checking you are not procrastinating on the uncomfortable business of contacting someone difficult
Operational Catalyst Training FAQs
Can I learn Operational Catalyst Training online?
Yes! We know your busy work schedule may prevent you from getting to one of our classrooms which is why we offer convenient online training to meet your needs wherever you want, including online training.