FranklinCovey is a global company specializing in performance improvement. We help organizations achieve results that require a change in human behavior. So how easy is it to change behavior? Just think about how difficult it can be to change your own attitudes and behavior, let alone changing the behavior of someone else, or lots of someone elses!
In authoring Get Better: 15 Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work, Todd Davis makes the compelling case that the key to improving our effectiveness, relationships, and results is to begin getting better ourselves by focusing first on improving our own paradigms and behaviors. As we do, we increase our ability to influence those around us for good, starting with the important relationships in our personal and professional lives.
Why put a priority on strengthening our effectiveness in building our key relationships? Because the strength of our relationships is the foundation for the culture we establish in both our work and in our personal lives. This culture, in turn, drives everything else. Everything gets better, becomes more effective, and is more meaningful when our key relationships, both at work and in our private lives, are rich and effective.
Think about it. Without excellent customer relationships, what happens to your business? Everything slows down or stops. Without excellent employee relationships, what happens? Battles break out and productivity implodes. Without excellent personal relationships, what happens? Your entire life is less happy and fulfilling.
Most organizations state, “People are our greatest asset.” While he believes firmly that people are indeed any organization’s most important asset, Todd takes us beyond this discussion when he suggests that “it’s not only people, but the nature of relationships between and among people that truly establishes our competitive advantage.”
It’s true. Over the past decade, Franklin Covey has studied the outcomes achieved by the tens of thousands of operating units in thousands of companies. One study revealed that the factors which accounted for the biggest differences between the results achieved by the highest-performing units and those achieved by their lesser-performing counterparts was fundamentally the quality of their relationships with both customers and employees. Those units having the best and most effective relationships with their customers and employees, as measured by customer loyalty and employee-engagement levels, significantly outperformed those units with just average customer-employee relationships.
FranklinCovey was founded decades ago on the premise that great organizations are built on the foundation of great relationships with all key stakeholders. Beginning with the publication of the award-winning The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and continuing with the best-selling The Speed of Trust, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, and The 5 Choices to Extraordinary Productivity, the company has focused on unleashing human potential through world-class content, insights, and training. You will find FranklinCovey’s works on the bookshelves of corporate leaders in every country on every continent.
Todd Davis has a deep well of wisdom on the topic of relationships. As the longtime chief people officer at FranklinCovey, a company that specializes in achieving lasting behavioral change, he’s a unique guide to have on the subjects of relationships and continuous improvement. He is a vital spokesman on the topic of those universal principles of human and organizational effectiveness we stand for; beyond that, he is a living, breathing example of how to practice those principles.
In this book, Todd describes some of the most common stumbling blocks over which many of us trip at one time or another: blaming others for our problems, focusing on the urgent but not important things, jumping to a solution before we even understand the problem, and so forth. In his wisdom, he also provides simple but practical ways to avoid those relationship stumbling blocks and get better at whatever we do.
In so many ways, Todd has demonstrated that the strength of our relationships is our most important asset, and that our relationships with each other are not only the means to our success but also the most enduring reward for our success.
One of FranklinCovey’s most important objectives and values is to become the workplace of choice for achievers with heart. As CEO, I have depended on Todd’s wisdom and experience to attract and retain the best talent to be found. I have marveled at his sensitivity as a counselor and coach to our thousands of employees.
Listening to—and now reading—Todd’s wisdom has been of inestimable value and joy to me. I’m confident it will be to you as well.