Tuesday 4 March 2008

Have you added up how much 'not listening' is costing your company?

Brand Killer Robots reveal::
How is it that a company that spends tens of thousands on staff education programmes actually performs less well, than a comparable company that doesn't spend anything on staff education programmes? How is it that a company that is totally automated by systems can perform less well than a comparable company that uses an admixture of spreadsheets and wordprocessors? How is it that a company stuffed with MBA's and degrees can perform less well than a comparable company that (at least on paper), is educationally far inferior?

Could there be something more going on here?

Well the answer is of course a very big "Yes". A review of some 20 comparable companies revealed that the companies that do the best are the companies where the personnel are used to listening whilst they are learning - rather than not listening.

In other words, the best companies are those where the available information coming into the company is absorbed, processed and utilised effectively, as opposed to not being absorbed, processed and utilised effectively. Making the point that a company can have a large volume of quality and well paid for information coming into the company, but if the workforce are ill prepared to absorb it - that information is next to useless.

So to does this relate to the nature of the systems used and the level of education that your staff have. If your workforce is not properly motivated or stressed beyond thinking - no amount of systems and degrees are going to work.

In fact, under the worse circumstances, the more gadgets and refinements you have the more places that your most ineffective staff have to hide.

So we ask, "Have you added up how much 'not listening' is costing your company?"

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