December 9, 2010

Twenty HUGE Subjects NOT Taught in Business Schools

This Article is a summary of a number of Articles I wrote on this topic over the past few weeks.I thought it might be helpful to summarize my points for you.

In addition, as I write this I a reading Set Godin’s latest book ‘Linchpin’ and the Chapter ‘Indoctrination: How We Got Here’. Seth’s thesis is that schools these days teach ‘Mediocre Compliance’. Learning rules. Applying the formula. Note-taking. Have good handwriting. Don’t challenge authority. All of which is aimed to produce, as he calls them, ‘a replaceable cog in a giant machine’. Terrific insight into a societal problem that I recognize and constantly oppose through my work.

The gap between school teachings and what is REALLY needed for organizations to thrive and survive in the new markets that are unfolding is WIDE and is getting WIDER. Approaching CHASM proportions in fact. And yet, I don’t see much change being done to address the issue. To not be too unkind, however, there are some pockets of positive change occurring - Queens School of Business in Toronoto, Canada for example - but for the most part academics in business are following the same-old, same-old and NOT creating ‘people products’ that will lead our organizations to be Remarkable, compelling, indispensable and DiFFERENT.

In Linchpin, Seth declares in his ‘New World of Work’ Chapter:“You don’t become indispensable merely because you are different. BUT the only way to be indispensable is to be different.”

Taking his cue, then, here are the Twenty BE DiFFERENT Topics that absolutely MUST find their way into business school teachings:

1. EXECUTION
2. EXECUTION
3. EXECUTION
4. EXECUTION
5. EXECUTION - if you’re not shipping stuff, what are you doing?
6. Customer Learning - continuous process of going deep on what your fans are all about. Way beyond ho-hum market research.
7. Customer ‘Secrets’ - not just what they want, but what they covet in their lives.
8. Value-Based Holistic Offers (VBHO) - product focus loses. Easy to copy. Eventually ends up in a price war. VBHO’s package VALUE based on the customer secrets discovered. Makes you DiFFERENT, indispensable and followed.
9. Serving Customers Model - serve them don’t service them. Put your organization in their control. Inject Humanity back into what you do. Makes you amazing and ‘can’t live without’.
10. Vary the Treatment Principle - everyone is different and needs to be treated as such. One-service-policy-for-all won’t satisfy your most precious assets.
11. ‘Right’ solutions rarely exist - the business world is too complex to be ‘formulaized’. Teach flexibility, open-mindedness, Plan ‘B’ thinking.
12. Successful Failing - the more failures with a heathy dose of learning from them = more successes. Punish failure ONLY if you want compliance, policy-pushers and order takers.
13. The ‘Customerized’ Organization - the frontline Rules! Build your hierarchy to serve them. Passionate, turned on frontliner followers will deliver fan loyalists.
14. Screw-ups build customer loyalty - a successful WOW service recovery results in a more loyal customer than if the screw-up never happened. Seems to me that anything that critical should be taught. OOPS. I forgot we teach people to NOT make mistakes…
15. Ignore the competition - focus on what you should be doing to dazzle your customers and prevent them from leaving rather than worry about the bad guys entering.
16. Delivery IS Strategic - if, you can’t ship, how much progress do you really make. Get it out the door!
17. Apologizing IS Strategic - at the heart of a mind-blowing service recovery is THE most strategic phrase ever…. ‘I’m Sorry’.
18. Internal Service Measurement IS Strategic - if you can’t dazzle on the inside, chances are that you won’t be able to do it on the outside.
19. Losing a Sale IS Strategic - its not about the transaction, its about the long term relationship. If you can’t deal with a short term need your client has, suck it up. YOU find the solution elsewhere.
20. Storytelling IS Strategic - storytelling breathes life into a vision or strategy. It appeals to our right brain emotional being which controls the drive to act. Storytelling is an Art. Teach it. Make it a plank in your strategy.

Cheers,
Roy

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Posted 12.9.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 7, 2010

Another Five (More) HUGE. HUGE. HUGE. HUGE Things Not Taught in Business Schools

This is the fourth article on this topic and there is plenty of material to make it a continuing series!

It always amazes me that business schools continue to lament the fact that businesses don’t get engaged enough with academia to lend them out expertise. Funny, every time I try to get their attention to allow me to talk to graduating business students my calls are seldom returned. Sounds like they think of themselves as ‘the experts’ and want to keep it that way. What percentage of business school professors do you think actually ran and operated a successful business?

Anyway, here are another five courses that should be taught aspiring business students:
1. Delivery IS Strategic
2. Apologizing IS Strategic
3. Internal Service Measurement IS Strategic
4. Losing a Sale IS Strategic
5. Storytelling IS Strategic

Teaching Points:
> Delivery IS Strategic - Regardless how clever your plan is, if you can’t squeeze results out of it, it’s WORTHLESS. I call it the ‘It-Should-Work-on Paper” syndrome.The strategy has been developed using all the right analytical tools. All the right predictive modelling tools. All the right probability assessment tools. The only thing missing is whether it will capture the hearts, souls and minds of the PEOPLE in the organization who are going to be asked to EXECUTE. EXECUTE. EXECUTE it. OOPS! The assumption is that because the essence of the strategy is pristine it should be implementable. HUGE leap of faith to presume so.
IF NO DELIVERY, then NO STRATEGY! Ergo, DELIVERY IS STRATEGIC!
> Apologizing IS Strategic - Dazzling Service Recovery builds customer loyalty and turns people into raving maniacal fans for your business. In fact a customer is a stronger addict for you AFTER a screw-up which was handled in a dazzling manner than if the screw-up had never been made. Huh! Weird! But TRUE. And what is the first step in the Recovery process? You bet…. “I’m Really Sorry we did this to you”. The Apology sets the right tone for the Recovery. It places the customer at ease. Open. Trusting. Don’t let them down after the Apology.
> Internal Service Measurement IS Strategic - Internal service begets external service. If internal customer-supplier relationships aren’t dazzling in their performance, external customer relationship will fall short. Sales can’t blow customers away of Marketing doesn’t provide them with the appropriate training and brochure-ware in a superlative fashion. Constantly measure internal service. Set aggressive targets and include them in Performance Plans. Include them with bonus pay objectives. If mind-numbing results don’t happen on the inside they sure won’t happen on the outside. Remember: results are delivered across an organization where people have to team with people. Measure team effectiveness!
> Losing a Sale IS Strategic - What if losing a $100 sale in the next moment would build a customer relationship that would deliver your organization $100K over the next 5 years. Would you do it? Would they allow you to do it? Sales is all about relationships. Its not about flogging products. Its about the long term not the next week. Doing the right thing and losing a sale when you don’t have the best-fit solution, when you don’t have the best price-value thing going on and when you can’t deliver the best solution when the customer wants it IS Strategic. It keeps Fans with you for the duration. And that’s what businesses need.
> Storytelling IS Strategic - Again a twist on the EXECUTE. DELIVER theme. If people can’t ‘see’ what success looks like how can they be led by it? They can’t! Storytelling is a fabulous way to describe what needs to be done and the WAY it needs to be done. Check out the Fedex Story Site for stories of their ‘absolutely, positively committment at work. Is Storytelling strategic?

Cheers, Roy

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Related Blog Articles
1st Five Things Business Schools Don’t Teach
2nd Five Things…
3rd Five Things…
I’m Sorry
Storytelling
Lose a Sale

Posted 10.7.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 16, 2010

Five (More) HUGE. HUGE. HUGE. Things Not Taught in Business Schools

Here are five more courses that should be added to all business teachings:
1. ‘Right’ solutions rarely exist
2. Successful Failing
3. The ‘Customerized’ Organization
4. Screw-ups build customer loyalty
5. Ignore the competition

Teaching Points:
> The ‘Right’ Solution. I have a math degree and came out of university believing that there was a definitive solution to every problem. Imagine my dismay when I went into the business world. Regression analysis yielded forecasts that were flawed. Differential equations had no practical use. In business, the ‘Right’ Solution is the one that can be successfully executed. It may NOT be theoretically pristine. It’s strategic essence may lack a dimension or two of perfection. BUT people are willing and able to bring it to life. So it IS the ‘Right’ solution given the specific circumstances of the organization. What works in business is finding a solution that is just about Right and executing it flawlessly. EXECUTE. EXECUTE. EXECUTE.
> Successful Failing is screwing up BUT learning from it so value can be added to the intellectual property of the organization. In fact one could argue that the objective of Innovation is to Successfully Fail as often as possible thereby increasing ideation and the chances of success. Want to impede progress? Punish failing. Corollary to this teaching, however, is never fail at the same thing twice! It means you didn’t learn anything the first time you failed.
> The Customerzed Organization puts the CEO at the BOTTOM of the organization chart. This is the design criteria of the Serving Leadership type of structure where the underlying culture is to serve people who serve the customer. The frontline employee is at the TOP of the structure with the most critical leadership position, the Frontline Leader, right below them. Management’s role changes from Command and Control to Lead and Serve.
> Screw-ups build Loyalty if an organization has a Dazzling Recovery Strategy. The formula: Fix the problem AND do something the customer DOESN’T expect. Its all about the WOW factor. People expect you to fix a mistake you have made - and remember the ‘I’M SORRY’ entry - but they don’t expect you do go the extra mile while doing so. If you do, they will be blown away, tell others how great you are and stay with you in spite of your screw-up. Ever had a Dazzling Recovery course?
> Ignore the Competition and pay attention to the customer. There is too much emotional energy consumed worrying about the competitive hordes entering your markets to compete with you. Erecting Barriers to Competitive Entry is a part of every Marketing program. Creating Barriers to Customer Exit is not. Crazy. Take your eye off your customer and you give license to your competitor to put their value proposition in front of them. Lavish your customers with love and attention and create the shield that repels the bad guys. Focus on your customer. Observe your competitor. BE DiFFERENT.

Cheers, Roy

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Related Blog Articles
1st Five Things Business Schools Don’t Teach
2nd Five Things…
Customerized Organization Structure
The Apology
Does Your Organization Serve the Customer?
Barriers to Entry or Barriers to Exit?
Planning on the Run
Dazzling Service Recovery

Posted 9.16.10 at 08:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 6, 2010

Five (More) HUGE. HUGE. Things Not Taught in Business Schools

Five more subjects that should get focus in business schools but rarely get the attention they deserve:
1. Customer Learning
2. Customer ‘Secrets’
3. Value-Based Holistic Offers (VBHO)
4. Serving Customers Model
5. Vary the Treatment Principle

Teaching Points:
> Customer Learning (CL) is NOT Market Research. CL is a continuous process of learning as much as you can about the customers you have chosen to SERVE. It is a core competency that never gets outsourced. It gets done by all employees and is the force behind Customerizing your organization.
> A Customer Secret is an innermost deep desire that your customer has, or it can be a trait or characteristic of the person that no one else knows. People find difficulty in sharing their secrets and do so only with people and organizations they have developed a deep relationship with and trust. Secrets power the BE DiFFERENT Offer Creation process. They fuel the ability to personalize VALUE for the individual and enable organizations to get away from looking at the ‘average’ customer.
> A VBHO is a package of VALUE not a product or service. VBHO’s reflect the broad Holistic needs, wants and desires of a person as opposed to a narrow range of features-based needs. VBHO are more expressive of EXPERIENCES and not material goods. They are premium priced not discounted as the Bundling world persists in doing.
> The Serving Customers Model puts the customer in the control position of determining what they want their service experience to look like. It is a fundamental shift from ‘Customer Service’ in which organizations decide the level and ingredients of how customers are served. Customer Service has the company in control. Costs of supplying service are high priority determinants of what the service experience looks like.
> The Vary the Treatment Principle is played out by recognizing that no two people are equal and that if you want to create Dazzling Moments for an individual you need to vary how you treat them. Consistent treatment of everyone will result in variable levels of customer satisfaction. Variable levels of treatment will result in consistently high levels of customer satisfaction. The prime criteria, therefore, in designing a Serve-the-Customer Strategy needs to be the capability to create a Vary the Treatment relationship with each customer you choose to SERVE.

Cheers, Roy

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Related Blog Articles
1st Five things Business Schools Don’t Teach
Customer Learning
Serving Customer Model
Customer Service or Serving Customers?
Customer Secrets
Holistic Offers
Bundles are NOT Holistic Offers

Posted 9.6.10 at 08:00 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)