Tips for Conducting Effective Town Hall Meetings How to transform a common communication vehicle One of the most commonly used communication vehicles used by senior leaders is the town hall meeting. Typically, this is where an executive stands up in front of a large group of people and discusses a business-critical strategic initiative. The good news about town hall meetings is that they enable employees to hear the same message at the same time. The bad news is that town hall meetings don’t generate the degree of two-way communication that is essential for managing resistance to change and accelerating implementation, because people are reluctant to ask their burning questions in this public arena. [FULL STORY]   Building a Change-Adept Organization Four Key Capabilities Your Organization Needs to Have Organizations that are looking to survive and even thrive in a volatile economic environment recognize that being “change-adept” is more critical than ever. Practically speaking, however, we need to clarify how to get from “here to there.” As a first step, it’s helpful to identify four distinct organization capabilities that are requirements for a change-adept organization. Combined together, these capabilities provide the skill and structure required to identify problems and improvement opportunities, technically implement solutions in a cost-effective and efficient manner, manage all aspects of the implementation including the human and cultural elements, and provide the organizational support needed for implementation success. [FULL STORY]

Many clients come to us asking our advice and counsel on how to create Sponsorship for AIM in their organization. Simply put, you have to use AIM to implement AIM. With that in mind, whenever possible we recommend an Executive Briefing as a first step.

The Executive Briefing brings a senior consultant together with your organization’s leaders to review your organization’s own implementation history data. This data provides leaders with a data-based view, in their own Frame of Reference, of the themes and patterns of past implementations, along with specific recommendations for improvement.

Since we know that these patterns are likely to be repeated barring any intervening action, leaders begin to see how their own behavior as Sponsors of change can have a significant impact on implementation success.

In 2-4 hours, leaders gain immediately applicable insights into what they must do to alter past patterns. This is a critically important step for building Sponsorship for AIM and for accelerating implementation success.

For more information on Executive Briefings, contact Paula Alsher, VP, Client Solutions at paula.alsher@imaworldwide.com or at 800-752-9254 or 770-618-7495.

March 2009