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

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Posted 10.7.10 at 07:00 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment