Building a Rapid Response Team - Part 3

Building a Rapid Response Team – Part 3

What Everyone Must Know & Embrace

Whether you have a large team or a small team, a Rapid Response Team begins with clearly answering the 9 Essential Questions:

Who are you (as an organization)? This is about identity.

What do you do (as an organization)? This is about purpose.

Why you do it? This is about rationale or motivation.

Who do you do it for? This defines the client.

How you do it? This explores the processes & methods you use to do it.

Who is involved in doing it? This identifies the people in your organization that create the outcome (all of them). Everyone is part of the outcome.

What is everyone’s role? This identifies everyone’s role and how the different roles fit together to achieve outcomes that creates loyal customers.

How does each part of the team impact the outcome of what you do? This question is about the connection between the difference parts of the organization and how they impact each other.

What are the contingencies everyone must plan for? Things rarely go according to play. Do you have clear backup plans when problems happen that enable you to still achieve the goals and create happy, loyal customers?

If everyone in your organization cannot clearly answer these 9 essential questions, you have work to do immediately. If people do not know they answers to these questions and see their role in helping to achieve them, they will not be emotionally invested in creating the success you want for your team. Here are more questions to explore with your team to ensure that everyone is emotionally invested in creating success.

Answer these essential questions about your business:

• What are the deliverables that your business provides and how are these deliverables different than what your competitors provide?
• What differentiates you from the dozens of other businesses doing basically the same thing you do?
• Do you know for sure that these things really set you apart from your competitors?
• How do you market your business and how does your marketing separate you from the competition?
• What you want your business to do for you, your clients, your team members, and your community?
• What are the core processes for the organization-teams-individuals?
  • Are the organizational core processes defined and mapped so that everyone understands how they impact the larger organizational goals and objectives?
• What do you do that your competition does not do that gives you a competitive advantage?
  • Is this really something that you do that they do not do? If others do it, it is not unique to you and it is not a competitive advantage.
  • The answers to this question must be very tactical, observable, and measurable to be a true difference maker.

Here are action you can take to turn information into transformation within your organization. None of these are mind blowing strategies, but many organizations still don’t do them consistently.

1. Pick one question from the list above. Have different leaders to meet with individuals throughout the organization and ask the question. Pay attention to their answers. Identify what is clear and not clear. Create a strategy to get everyone on the same page.
2. Create small groups to identify and solve problems connected to the answers above.
3. Focus on one question a week throughout the year. Create listening sessions with individuals and teams. Just listen and ask probing questions. Take the information and create cross-departmental teams of people to make improvements.
4. Focus on one part of your mission, vision, values, etc a week throughout the year. Create a promotional plan to engage people in living the key point that week. Have senior leaders spend time using informal short “stand-up” meetings with individuals and teams to see if everyone know the focus for the week, what it means, and what we can do to improve it. Have simple rewards that people can earn by knowing the answers to the weekly focus.

One final note. If you ask people questions you must do something with the information they give you. And, you need to get back with them quickly to let them know what you did. Otherwise, people are demoted rather than motivated.