“ You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him discover what's within himself ”
– Galileo

Is This You?

It's Understood works with middle managers to build better, saner, more productive workplaces. Folks in the middle make up the largest and most influential management group in organizations. Dealing day-to-day with the people who design, develop and deliver products and services, middle managers determine an organization's success. The CEO may get the credit (or take the fall) but the real action is not at the top. Managers are the folks with both the greatest potential to practise effective communication and the greatest need to learn how. We know because that's where we've spent most of our careers.

Do any of these situations sound familiar?

There's a lot of talk, but nobody's saying anything. People aren't addressing things that are really important. Worse, nobody seems to really know what's going on in your department, including you.

You have to get beyond the bobbing heads. People nod in agreement, but don't always do what you thought they agreed to. Seems you and they had different expectations.

You'd rather have a root canal than meet with your team. Meetings, when you have them, seem to rehash the same old issues. Or there's enthusiasm and what looks like progress, but nothing happens.

You feel like you're juggling glass balls while knitting a sweater. Employees, senior execs, other departments and customers demand your attention, all the time. And they have competing, if not conflicting, priorities. You're not sure what matters most, even to you.

Some days, you want to push the "Escape" key. You didn't sign up for frustration. You know you can't keep patching things up forever. Sooner or later, something's going to fall apart unless you all start working differently.

You know nobody's trying to do a bad job. You know you're a good manager on a good team and you all can succeed if you could just get these people to understand.

How can we help?

The It's Understood approach has been developed over 20 years of formal and informal study of communication at work. We've seen it work in a variety of settings, including one-service departments, cross-functional teams, complex technology projects, call centres and even organizations where the workers are volunteers.

Our learning programs and products work for:

• Department managers
• Project managers
• Business owners
• Team leaders
• Individual contributors who need to influence others to get their work done

Our approach will work for you if you value these things:

• You truly want to have an impact - to make a difference in your organization.
• You want real success for your direct reports, for your colleagues, and for you.
• You're willing to examine (and maybe change) your communication habits.
• You're ready to be accountable and encourage accountability in others.

Now that you have a better idea of the issues and challenges facing our clients and the type of people who are successful using our approach, learn more about How We Work.