The Committed Communication System™

Systems And Tools For Creating High-Performance Accountability Cultures

The Committed Communication System (CCS) is a 3-day workshop developed by Robert Lauridsen, Ph.D., in conjunction with numerous client companies, which provides a unique opportunity for developing leaders and contributors while generating high performance, accountability cultures. For over eighteen years, and with hundreds of participants, Dr. Lauridsen and his staff have tested and refined methods for bringing about systematic and lasting change. As the core offering and flagship product series, CCS delivers a perspective and set of tools that vitalizes managers, strengthens teams, and energizes individual contributors. More specifically, the system is designed to help leaders close the gap between strategy and execution while inculcating a culture of accountability.

The model for creating strategy-focused, high performance cultures, and developing powerful leadership is based on the three elements we call:

  • The Framework
  • Conversational Competence
  • Emotional Intelligence.

The Framework:
Setting a framework or context for building an accountability culture with the three cornerstones of alignment, integration, and accountability is critical. Accountability can only flourish when key organizational goals have been cascaded with linked agreements and promises. Everyone in the organization is then working in a “strategy-focused execution” mode necessary to provide unified and coherent results.

While we know that setting a solid framework is a necessary element, we have found it is not sufficient for developing a high-performance culture. The piece that has been missing is what we call “Conversational Competence”.

Conversational Competence: The Engine
Complex projects requiring numerous interdependencies are typical of today’s work environment. The lifeblood of an organization is interaction—people working together to get things done by making offers, requests, and promises to one another. By bringing awareness to this critical element of interaction and by shining a light on a largely invisible, yet key process, people dramatically increase their competence to get things done through others, thereby closing the gap between results promised and results delivered.

Emotional Intelligence
This element is the glue for blending the conversational competence skills with the framework. High-performance cultures need leaders who leverage their self-awareness, understand their leadership style, and value the power of strong relationships. They are fully aware that sustained effort and results are a function of interaction and dependencies. They know that work relationships are the key to sustained success.

COURSE TOPICS

DAY ONE
The Framework: Setting a Context for High Performance

  • The Three Cornerstones
    • Alignment
    • Integration
    • Accountability
  • The Unit of Work: How work really gets done
  • Developing a high performance culture
    • A note about discipline and building an accountability culture
  • Gaining a competitive advantage

Conversational Competence:

  • Overview of the Seven Conversational Tools for High Performance Managerial Leadership
    • Coordination of Action Cycle
    • Collaboration Tool
    • Tracking Tool
    • Coaching for Support Tool
    • Performance Coaching Tool
    • The Identity Tool
    • Operating Guidelines Tool
  • Exercise: Establishing a baseline of participant knowledge of the basic conversational tools. Video Clips of Managerial interactions.

The Conversational Tools:

  • Coordination of Action Tool
    • Work as a network of Commitments/ The Work Unit
    • Managing commitments versus managing tasks
    • The Four Phases of the Action Cycle:
    • Commitment and its payoff
  • Collaboration and Listening Tool
    • Just what is collaboration and where does it come into play?
    • Barriers to collaboration and increasing collaboration
    • Why manage collaborative conversations?
    • The power of listening
  • Tracking/Metrics Tool
    • How do you know what your people are doing?
    • About Tracking
    • About Metrics
  • Review and Close of Day One

DAY TWO

Coaching to Support Tool

  • Actively supporting your people
  • Overview of the Four Circles Tool
  • The Tool in Action
  • Handling Complaints and the Sport Complainer

Performance Coaching Tool

  • Steps for effectively addressing your peoples’ performance
  • Assessing commitment and competence of your people
  • The importance of assessments, facts and factoids
  • About Trust
  • Trust as the Glue
  • The Trust Tool
  • Using the Trust Tool with Breakdowns

Operating Guidelines Tool

  • Why do you need operating guidelines for high-performance?
  • Developing Operating Guidelines
  • The Operating Guideline Worksheet

DAY THREE

Identity: Defender and Learner Tool

  • What can block high-performance
  • Taking care of your people’s dignity
  • Automatic Mode: The Defender
  • Design Mode: The Learner

Putting It All Together: Using the Tools as a System for Developing Accountability

  • How managers can empower themselves

Emotional Intelligence

  • Leveraging self-awareness
  • Effective mood management, empathy and adeptness in relationships
  • Leading with Style
  • Fostering interpersonal success regardless of external circumstances
  • Relationship Building
  • The Anatomy of Conflict
  • Guidelines for Discussing Emotions
  • Building trust and confidence in leadership decisions.
  • Exercise: Post course assessment of learning using Video Clips of managerial interactions.
  • Completion of the Course: The Power of Acknowledgment
  • Reinforcement of Learning: About using the CCS Expert Help System

The Expert Help System is provided to reinforce concepts learned in the CCS training by acting as a “just-in-time” reference source. It allows training participants to immediately access the entire Committed Communication process by providing immediate expert help. The handy system helps turn new practices into productive habits that can be cascaded down through the company. Having concepts and tools immediately available to each manager makes learning easy.

Other services offered include on-site consulting, speaking, customized course development, and team-building.

 

…This program was delivered to a Fortune 100 company’s world wide leadership training staff.

“You have integrated the key concepts of alignment, communication, commitment, coordination of action and collaboration into your consulting and training. You have synthesized these important concepts into a practical management framework we have learned and applied with great success.”
--Jim Peterson, V.P., Frame Maker Engineering
Adobe Systems, Inc.

"Need to truly delegate tasks? Need to keep your team coordinated? Wish you were better at holding team members accountable? This work isn't about fancy strategy or fanciful theory. This system provides powerful applicable tools to effect what Lauridsen calls the Committed Communication System; a better way to get work done through your team by managing their commitments to you. The tools, descriptions and examples are straightforward, easy to get started with, and the tools work. Highly recommended!"
--Tom Hayse, CEO, ETM

“No modern company can be successful unless it knows how to execute well and how to constantly improve its products and processes. This requires effective systems, teamwork and collaboration built upon clear communication and mutual trust throughout the organization. That’s a tall order, but this valuable system shows how a leader can improve his or her skills in building collaborative relationships that deliver exceptional performance. You owe it to yourself to study this system and apply its lessons. You’ll not only become more effective as a manager, but you’ll have less stress on the job and will make yourself ready for the next step in your career.”
--Burt Nanus, Professor Emeritus of Management, University of Southern California and author of Visionary Leadership and Leaders Who Make A Difference

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