I’m back in the startup world. We’re building a software solution and an associated consultancy. It’s early days for both, however we’ve been consulting for years (well, decades) before this so that’s not new to us, but the alignment and focus is new. We’re helping organisations of any size or sector achieve better alignment. There…
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I mentioned in a previous short article about how companies can misinterpret what their clients want and in another about industry reactions to issues. In this article, I want to explore how companies can force their issues onto the customers. Background I was reading up on electric cars (EVs) and in the last year the…
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Also known as “Take care of the customer in front of you, not their future selves.” I’m minded of this, specifically regarding how organisations can manipulate the perceived balance of power between them and their customers when applying refunds. Mistreatment I’ve noticed that it’s not necessarily specific companies, but the industry sectors they operate in.…
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If you create an appropriate framework, people can understand what to do when you haven’t told them the details. All too often, organisations define rules that do not need defining. They may choose to set criteria for approvals, or host panels in order to evaluate submissions. A better approach in many cases is to create…
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I’m writing a new book, this will be my second*. I’d written a couple of chapters last week, one of which focussed on how organisations leave problems for the customers to resolve, but that they don’t think of it that way. In one chapter, I used the example of “Warning. Hot Water.” signs, stipulating that…
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After a late evening fixing a plumbing emergency at home, I’m reminded of the concept of contingency and how it can’t be practically be used as a buffer for all non-planned events. So with my current main client, I start out early in the morning, long before must people (or birds) have risen. My…
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I’m divided in this, but lean towards only brief training, just enough to inform them, rather than enough to practice. On one hand, it pays to understand why change in general is necessary and specifically, why the change that you’re about to implement is necessary. Often I see professionals who spend time with the…
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Some organisations have a different approach to how they handle the status of a document. The approach belies a more fundamental culture of how work is commissioned and reviewed and how staff are viewed. Background One of my clients exhibited odd behaviour regarding commissioning work and approving it. Due to the nature of the engagement,…
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A number of years ago, I was transforming a city’s social care directorate and, as part of that transformation, we aimed to reduce the time it took to do anything when interacting with the service. The transformation was based on a more fundamental need to free up workers to be able to do the work…
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How long does it take you to do what your customers want? Not just the first part, but the whole of it? 1. The Pattern I see this pattern commonly replicated across service industries. It involves a very short spike of activity (e.g. 5-20 minutes) followed by a lengthy delay where something is sent to…
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