A few months ago a firm I know well lost one of its biggest clients – a multi-million dollar earner. Despite it having been appointed to a panel which was to operate for several more years, the client (an ASX Top 50 company) made the call to cut the lowest performing firm so it could extract better value for money from its other panel providers.

The decision was effective more or less immediately. The firm claimed to be blindsided by the announcement. But was it? And if it was, how could that have happened?

The firm appoints a Relationship Partner to manage each of its key accounts. For large, national clients it appoints Lead Partners in each major market.

There was a team of client-approved personnel in place to do the work….

There is no successful business around today that does not rely heavily on effective business communication – whether it is internally with staff, externally with clients or customers or, as in most instances, a combination of both.

However, it is not a natural skill for organisations, or individuals and it can fail very easily, as evidenced by the current breakdown in talks around the RET in Parliament House for example..

We are not born talking. It is a learned skill and most of us have our basic linguistic skills under control by the time we are about two or three. Similarly, listening is a learned skill but unfortunately many of us take considerably more time to acquire the skill of effective listening. Some, I’ve discovered never acquire it.

This is one of the greatest barriers to productive and harmonious practices at home and in the workplace….