"We found a great company that has a software we believe will work perfectly for the program that we need.  We just need you to oversee it."

"I don't understand why this is taking more time and costing us you more money. I thought we agreed that this project would cost $2 million.  So why are you over budget?"

These are some of the many comments that IT professionals we work with hear on a daily basis.  The frustrations that they talk to us about involve:

¨Being able to work with the business units early on

¨Being given a budget and a project scope without being able to give input but still being held accountable for the results

¨Being told that you're responsible for the enterprise architect but then having your decisions reversed by senior management to support the business unit

¨Business units treating you like you are a disease to be kept out of the meeting as long as possible.  This causes them to bring you in after crucial decisions are made when what you really need is to be brought in as early as possible in the discussion.

¨Finance asking you to continually justify cost expenditures on a project when you weren’t even the one to set the budget for the project.

So what's it take to truly eliminate these frustrations?

In order to eliminate these frustrations you have to be able to candidly look at the differences between the business unit and IT as well as how to unify the outcome for each group. Often what the IT group is asked to do is directly opposed to what the business unit is reviewed and rewarded on.

This means in IT what you really need is a comprehensive solution that allows you to complete the cycle with the business unit, finance and management so you can be brought in early, challenge appropriately, and provide the best solution without a lot of people sticking their nose in what you're doing.

The bottom line is you have to build trust, respect, and accountability with each and every group.

The Outcome Focus™ Approach will show you how to think, listen and speak so you communicate with others transformationally rather than transactionally.  This comprehensive approach shows your people how to take all facets of communication from how they present, how they lead, how they negotiate, and how they write so they break down barriers and move people to action.

What is lasting about this approach is it is not designed like typical training to focus on behaviors.  Training that focuses on behaviors has a tendency never to stick long-term because your beliefs never changed. Your behavior is naturally aligned with your beliefs.  Therefore, any time there is any incongruence you will naturally revert back to what you believe and your behavior will naturally follow.

Our goal is to make sure that your character and integrity shines through at all times and that you are able to talk about the elephant in the room without being abrasive or judgmental.  This way of communication allows you to raise the candor and creativity in the room, and strengthen partnerships.

Think about profound shifts you've made in your life.  Not one of them happened because someone just told you to behave in a different manner.  They happen because of something you experienced that changed what you believed and your behavior automatically changed as well.

IT units that we work with find that they are able to reduce the amount of time they spend preparing for presentations by over 25%, that they are brought in earlier on projects which allows them to participate in the budget creation, and that they save over 20% of their time by not having to chase e-mails, go to inappropriate meetings, or justify why they did what they did.

One team, after going through our training, walked out and had a meeting the next day with a senior management team.  At stake was a project that was going to cost $5 million to be done properly and senior management wanted it done for $3 million.  In previous discussions conversation to gotten very heated and the feeling was that IT was "padding" the cost.  At the next meeting, the IT team focused on what the business unit was trying to accomplish and how the $3 million dollar project would leave them vulnerable but the $5 million dollar project would succeed long-term. By speaking from the Senior Management team’s perspective they were able to walk out of the meeting with the $5 million signed off and a strong partnership. 

When one conversation can determine millions of dollars for a project, don't you want to know what your communication is costing you?