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My Brand of Insanity, a blog to change thinking. |
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Dear Systems Thinker,
June was a month of new alliances. Many were formed including IQPC (customermanagementIQ.com and sixsigmaIQ.com) where I serve on the advisory board and the article Death by Call Center was featured and an article written by my Vanguard partners Rethinking Lean Service is available for download from these respective websites. Additionally, we joined the ATA (American Teleservices Association) and did a presentation explaining the basics of systems thinking. The call centers are going to be a key battleground to winning and keeping new and existing customers. |
| My Brand of Insanity |
Each newsletter, I will share some random thoughts on current events, service (good and bad) and other sometimes closely attached and sometimes detached thoughts. Having been a proponent of W. Edwards Deming's thinking for more than two decades it is not hard to imagine why the title for this section. Here are a few announcements, thoughts and observations:
- I learned this weekend of the loss of Peter Scholtes. I first met Peter in Indianapolis at a Deming User's Group conference. Entertaining speaker and primary author of The Team Handbook and the Leader's Handbook. Peter passed away on July 11th.
- We will be having our first seminar early this fall to introduce systems thinking in the US to private and public sectors and the service side of manufacturing. I am leaning towards a two-day seminar or possibly two and a half days: one day of the thinking behind Deming and Ohno and the second day on systems thinking application (mapping and analysis). While I am formulating this please send me your thoughts and ideas to tripp@newsystemsthinking.com.
- The pace of my blog posts will begin slowing as other activities take precedence. Check them out at blog.newsystemsthinking.com.
- Thank you for the inquiries especially those asking about commitment level and impact to the business. Obviously, systems thinking works better with executives that are engaged as new thinking requires an unlearning and relearning of a better way. The impact is large to any business. As thinking changes so does structure, measures, work design, culture, changes in management roles, etc. The change is deep and profound. The good news is the change comes rapidly for service organizations, so if you are in your 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Xth year of a change management program and see little improvement (as I have seen in service industry) or improvement, but costs are increasing . . . it may be time to try something different.
For comments or to share your experiences with service (good or bad) contact me at tripp@newsystemsthinking.com. |
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The Customer Experience |
The hot topic has been around customer experience. Why are service companies now (finally) paying attention to the customer experience . . . the economy in a tailspin has something to do with it. The pie just got smaller and everyone is fighting for the piece they had or someone else's piece.
The subject has been and is being bantered about all over the internet. I have heard the good and bad of it. Marketing professionals coming to grips with the change they didn't see coming. Interesting "shifts" that have been seen where the customer is saying trust is important, but has not been high on service industry's "to-do" list. Ironically, I was at a regional bank doing a two-day seminar a couple years ago and cited trust as being important to the banking industry . . . how prophetic and sad that those words were all too true.
So what will it take to gain the trust of the customer? In any industry (after all a few bad apples have spoiled the whole bushel). We can't rely on our best and brightest any more . . . all those folks making the big money manipulating our investments in the financial world have ruined it for all. Or have they? Maybe this is just what we need to set a better and more ethical course.
The targets and incentives became the defacto purpose of organizations. Anything goes as long as we hit the target and get the reward. We worked back from the quarterly dividend and top-down with the target mandates for each function. We hoped against hope that all would work in the end. It did not, GM and Chrysler in bankruptcy, Ponzi schemes, bailouts and other eyebrow raising activities have dug a deep hole for all of us in the US.
The customer experience is now in vogue. My company designs systems against customer demand making the customer relevant again. Trust is ensured because we have learned that designing a system around customer demand not only makes for a happy and trusting customer, but also lowers costs . . . yes really. The beauty of systems thinking is it has many counter-intuitive, "a-ha" moments. It's time service organizations joined the revolution . . . your customers are waiting. |
| The Bridge to Nowhere |
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Service organizations are still being shown technology that is entrapping or adds to the waste. BPM, CRM, IVR, BI, and Business Analytics are all items we see organizations looking at for future automation. We have seen all of these in action and none turn out well. Part of the reason is how they are sold as some are sold as sub-optimizing solutions, or to automate things best left "un-automated" or even to meet the quarterly dividend or target (let's be honest).
We recently reviewed a plan by a government contractor (well-known Fortune 500). The plan was full of action items to fix this or automate that . . . no improvement. Lots of sub-optimization . . . no improvement. No focus on the customer . . . and no improvement. We shook our heads throughout our review when we realized that if the vendor hit each action item the government agency would be no closer to getting out of hot water. But the vendor could check each item off the list as "completed" and the agency would be left holding the bag. Can we really tolerate this stupidity to continue in our government? Can vendors really think this is good for their long-term health?
The private sector is not immune. We have had several conversations with concerned executives about BPM and BI. We tell them the same thing, if you don't optimize your system first treating technology as a constraint or turning it off, then you are destined for hard times. Don't plan on the technology company bailing you out. We can only hope they take our advice or at least be curious enough to look at the broader system. You can start by reading "Understanding Your Organization as a System" it is available for free and may wind up saving your company millions . . . just by taking a look at your problem from a different perspective.
Are you ready to change your thinking?
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That's it for this newsletter. Best wishes with improving your system.
Sincerely,
Tripp Babbitt
Bryce Harrison, Inc. |
© 2009. Bryce Harrison, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Phone: (317) 849-8670 Email: info@newsystemsthinking.com
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