Category Archives: Strategic Thinking

Do you want to fix the toaster or keep scraping the burnt part off the toast? It seems like a simple question, but hear me out. If we believe the premise that we get what we accept, the notion that we would continue to accept an unacceptable outcome rather than addressing the core problem is almost laughable. Now, let’s take that experience into our corporate hallways.

Cost containment has become the mantra over the last several years for almost everyone.  People have been accepting the thought, sometimes reluctantly, that they need to do what it takes to survive the downturn.  So far, so good.

But have you asked yourself where examples of non-productive behavior have started to creep in as people battle the problems caused by the way you’re doing business now? How are past decisions to defer preventive maintenance starting to show their impact? Where are people in your organization falling further and further behind serving customers, making shipments, or completing their work because staff was reduced without corresponding process improvements being put in place to compensate?

Here is another simple question. Where are you asking people to roll bowling balls uphill every day just to get things done?  Are other leaders in your organization even noticing this has become commonplace? Are they stopping to wonder why their people are burning out and don’t seem as committed as they once were?

These questions may seem ridiculous and obvious at first blush. But many people get so caught up in the day-to-day that they don’t look at the impact their decisions are having on those who are simply trying to make a living and feed their families.

I compare it to driving a speedboat across a lake. Someone can be so focused on quickly getting to the other side that they don’t notice their wake is flooding all the properties along the shoreline.

If your organization put process improvement initiatives on hold during the downturn, it’s time to take a fresh look at opportunities. While looking for areas to explore, here is a suggestion. Take a look at how your senior executives are running the business.

How seamlessly does your organization really operate? I am prompting you to go much deeper in your thinking process than whether or not you have an up-to-date org chart. You and your top team need to examine whether or not your organization is really coalescing around the best ways to get things done.

Looking at how things are actually getting done in a department or division versus how they are supposed to be done can be quite enlightening. While some people may smile and say, “Great job innovating, team. This
is an example of employee engagement at its best,” others will be shocked to learn that many of the checks and balances they thought were in place are being ignored for the sake of expediency.

Where do you expect your firm to be on that continuum of discovery when you take the time to examine it? Are your teams operating like a well-oiled kanban system or more like TV’s F Troop?

If the answer is not what you had hoped for, take a look at how easy it is for someone at any level to get things done. Examine your processes for efficiency and effectiveness both vertically (relationships with people above or below in the hierarchy) and horizontally (across functional disciplines).

Are you going to fix the toaster, or do you want your people to keep scraping off the toast?

This article originally appeared in American Executive Magazine

As someone who has been heavily involved in facilitating strategic planning processes with organizations during the last 20 years, I often find humor in the way people answer the questions I pose.

For example, when I ask executives, “What is your unique differentiation in the marketplace?” or “What does your organization really excel at?” they often reply, “It has to be our customer service.”

Lake Wobegone syndrome

Almost no one will admit to being lousy in customer service, anymore than they will talk about living in an average town with average kids. It’s the Lake Wobegone syndrome. As fans of the radio show know, in Lake Wobegone, “All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

As I get to know a company, I sometimes ask, “If I hauled you into a court of law and accused you of being a world-class customer service provider, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Many times, unfortunately, their answer is, “Probably not.”

So here’s the question. If so many executives think customer service and improving customer loyalty numbers are critical to the execution of their organization’s strategic plan, why aren’t those indicators monitored with
the same intensity as the company’s financials? After all, financials are usually a lagging indicator while customer satisfaction and loyalty may be leading indicators of the future condition.

In 1960, Harvard B-School Professor Emeritus Theodore Levitt wrote a groundbreaking article called “Marketing Myopia.” To paraphrase, he concluded that the purpose of all business is to attract and maintain customers while generating adequate profitability today and improved profitability in the future. That balancing act still holds true.

Organizations that still don’t see customer loyalty as a point of strategic differentiation may be looking at their business through the lens of short-term focus. Knowing and communicating the lifetime value of a typical
customer to the staff can provide them a framework for maintaining customer relationships, rather than looking at them from a transactional basis.

Take the time to discover why customers buy from your company, determine expectations for their customer experience, and ensure you have processes and people in place to grow loyal customers.

We recommend that organizations take ownership of the entire customer experience and have a process in place for service recovery, if needed. Too many companies today are sliding toward the it’s-probably-good-enough operating model regarding their processes, technology, and staff.

Exasperation!

Here’s an example. I had a car, still under factory warranty, that broke down about 25 miles from my home. While it was being loaded onto a flat-bed truck to go back to my dealer, the towing company damaged another part of the car.

The dealer was willing to go ahead and fix the damage, but the towing company wanted the damage they caused handled by their own insurance carrier. They had a local agent connected to an insurance company in Arizona. The problem was that the local agent did not have the necessary claim number or phone number for the insurance company agent handling the claim in Arizona.

Therefore, the dealer, who was willing and able to fix the car, didn’t have the information it needed to work with the towing company.  As a result, repairs that could have been completed in 48 hours took almost six weeks.

The problem was that no one owned my entire customer experience—each company only owned a piece of it. Any time there was an opportunity for a hand-off where something could go wrong, the companies relied on me (with no technical knowledge of the situation) to handle the details.

This felt like lunacy to me. Where could that type of frustration be happening with your organization’s customers or in your supply chain?