In our continuing series of blogs about the Nine Habits of The Trusted Executive, we chat to Shirley Shinkfield, Service Development Director for Bush & Co about what ‘Deliver’ means for her, her role and her business.
The Trusted Executive – The skeleton it all hangs off
“The Trusted Executive is a great way to think about your colleagues and other leaders in your business, how they work, what their strengths are and how they approach things differently to you. This is really important, especially when building a team. The Trusted Executive programme gives you the chance to step outside of yourself and recognise different elements that others bring and the value that has for your projects and activities.
I like to think of it as the skeleton that everything that you do for your organisation hangs off. A programme like this makes you mindful of the kind of person you need to be for the organisation for both your own and the business’ success. It’s like a sense check for every decision and action you take, keeping you accountable for your methods, decisions and behaviours – it gives you a standard to match yourself against.
A continuous learning loop
When it comes to the Deliver habit, it’s really about being flexible and adaptable to take on the views of other people, and considering how other industries approach things and bringing these successful things into the mix.
Once you do that you can narrow it down to focus on what you want to achieve from a business perspective and how you could optimise what you’re currently doing and for future development.
It’s part of a continuous learning loop where you are bringing all your experiences in and ensuring it results in the best possible outcome for your business. It’s about being responsive and finding gaps in the market and thinking “What could we do to fulfil that need?”.
Future-proofing the business
For me, Deliver is also about future-proofing the business. A great way to do this is thinking in terms of a PESTLE analysis where you look at the Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal and Environmental influences on an organisation. This develops innovation and helps you to keep half an eye on delivering against future objectives, not just the immediate ones.
We also need to ensure that we can flex and continue to Deliver despite any of these PESTLE impacts or to at least have some mitigation in place. For example, a current Bush & Co Political aspect would be where we need to consider how BREXIT might affect our clients, and managing this by communicating with the NHS to ensure they can still access vital medicines.
It’s all about people
The great thing about The Trusted Executive is that it makes every day a school day! The focus it gives ensures that you become or remain open to other people’s ideas, not just the business leaders but the people doing the day job.
Ensuring they have a forum be heard enables you to naturally access the seeds of the great ideas that can be developed into a plan that will really deliver for your business. As with all things in business, it’s all about people!”
For more information on the Trusted Executive Foundation please refer to this short introductory video. As a first step on the Journey of Trust, individual and organisational trust surveys based on the Nine Habits are available. Please contact The Trusted Executive Foundation for further information
