The Claritee Approach takes us to the Core, which is a deeper place of understanding and belief about the business and its purpose. It reorients the business compass to north and allows a new strategy to flow naturally and powerfully.
Step One – Core Beliefs: Cultivating a deep understanding of the organization’s purpose and the beliefs that will support the transformation.
The first step is exploration with leadership and stakeholders where we uncover the core beliefs. We take a good look at the brand by examining the history of the company, how it came to be and where it is now. We ask, How is the world different because of this brand? What makes it unique? How does it compare to others? How can it be a force in the market? Who do we have to be to our clients/team/shareholders? What does our future look like? The goal is to anchor hearts and minds and for everything the brand does to be mission driven. That shift is profound.
Step Two – Leadership: Developing leaders’ readiness both individually and collectively to spearhead transformation.
In the second step we assess the capabilities of the leaders to operate in a Claritee environment. We develop an in-depth understanding of individuals and teams and work with both to ensure we have just the right formula. We do this in several ways, including lifeline exercises, leadership biographies and sciences of people, followed by in depth debriefs, role benchmarking and individual/group coaching.
Step Three – Agility: Arming the team with the competencies to innovate and accelerate change.
For the third step we seriously boost innovation/reengineering abilities through the Innovation Boot Camp where we equip leaders with tools for expansive thinking and agility. This step is all about abandoning routines and old ways of thinking and replacing them with better ways to serve core beliefs. Simplicity > Complexity. Focus > Chaos.
Step Four – Reengineer: Zero basing the strategy to develop a new agile approach to the business model, strategy and structure.
The fourth step requires starting fresh with no assumptions and no infrastructure because whatever existed before has no relevance to this moment. We surrender the “what is” to “what could be”. We start with the core beliefs as the foundation. We ask, What strategy will support who we are to the world, the market, our clients and our teams.? Complexity and chaos no longer have a hold and simplicity becomes our guide in every aspect of the business. Some companies are ready for an immediate and radical shift and others will adopt a transition plan with gentle stages.
Step Five – Integrate: Essentialist plan for moving the organization from the now to the desired future state.
In the fifth step we examine how we can manifest what we want both internally and externally. We may launch new marketing campaigns integrating the core beliefs and focus on emotional engagement through stories, rap session sand town halls. The goal is to power the changes we wish to see. Look anywhere in the organization and the core beliefs will be front and centre, engaging people and motivating them to contribute. From here, the conversation will spread externally as the organisation’s brand story.
Step Six – Transition: Capturing the hearts and minds of the team and aligning their talent to the new structure.
The sixth step is all about the nuts and bolts of helping people enroll and contribute in the new environment, both as individuals and groups. Often their roles might have changed once we challenged the old beliefs. Sometimes the purpose of a whole team shifts. Communications, marketing and public relations teams may now ensure message of core beliefs is omnipresent internally as well as externally. A traditional sales approach may be re-purposed to manage the entire customer journey rather than managing products. We define the responsibilities along with performance standards using the sciences of people to ensure each person/position is truly a good fit. It is essential to understand what individuals value, find motivating and how they will behave in a given role at this stage.
Step Seven – Enhance: Supporting, measuring and adjusting the evolutionary milestones during the transformation.
Our seventh step poses the question, How can we build up the core beliefs and what has been accomplished? By this point, most of the organization has experienced Claritee training, team connectivity has permeated the organisation, we’ve built competence and done surveys to monitor adoption and acceptance. We are on the right trajectory. With transformation underway, it may be a good idea for a leadership retreat to delve into what’s working and what’s not. Momentum needs to be refreshed and refined. It’s a time to reflect, reinforce and celebrate!
Step Eight – Evolve: Anticipating the future as the transformation takes hold.
Lastly, we hold annual strategy boot camps in which we continue to reaffirm and adjust the core beliefs and their impact on the organization. We conduct quarterly leader inspiration sessions to make sure complexity isn’t creeping back in and may choose one core competency to focus on for the year. We connect the leadership with resources to tap into for leading industry knowledge to help them continue to revisit and enhance their approach.