Enough with the paperwork. Bloated bureaucracies stifle creativity, suppress ingenuity, slow down responsiveness, and crush aspirations. In organizations that are heavily bureaucratic, procedures are designed to meet internal requirements rather than the needs of the customer; politics—who said what to whom, who is gaining power, and who gets the credit, who the blame—overshadows everything, from… [Read More]
Archives for February 2012
The Costs of Poor Management
What are the costs of poor management? Plantation managers––now as in the days of the Old South––view people as disposable objects. To the plantation manager, there is nothing wrong with stealing talented people from well-managed companies rather than investing, nurturing, and training the company’s own employees. According to an article in Manage, it is not… [Read More]
Simplicity Wins. It’s That Simple.
Simplicity matters. It’s that simple. Measuring ideas by their complexity rather than their merit is inefficient and wastes time and money. According to Jim Harrington, author of Business Process Improvement, the virtue of clear and simple communication is evident in the complexity of the following documents: The Lord’s Prayer 57 words Ten Commandments 71 words… [Read More]
Company Politics Hurt More Than You’d Expect
How much time and effort is wasted due to company politics? How much time is frittered away grandstanding during meetings? How many e-mails do people write to cover their behinds? How much time is wasted trying to look busy? How much time is spent justifying yesterday’s actions rather than making today’s decisions? How much time… [Read More]
Manage the Small Details
There’s no way to overemphasize the point that every impression is an important one. In Customers for Life, Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown point out that customers look at everything in your organization as a sign of its quality. They ask themselves, “If that’s how they take care of their restrooms, how’ll they take… [Read More]
Reputation: You Can’t Run from Your Shadow
In a world where time is a precious resource, we often draw conclusions without examining all the information that’s available to us. We rely on shortcuts, such as someone’s reputation, to simplify the process. Did the job applicant have a good reference? What did my neighbor say about the contractor? How was the restaurant review?… [Read More]
Creating a Culture That Promotes Customer Satisfaction
If organizations want customer satisfaction, employees must learn the value of long-term customer relationships and understand the consequences of not properly servicing customers. They must abandon the view that customers represent immediate sales transactions and a quick buck. Instead, they must view customers as long-term relationships, keeping in mind the potential business that these relationships… [Read More]
Trust Me . . . Trust Me Not
Trust is the fabric that binds us together, creating an orderly, civilized society from chaos and anarchy. If we can’t trust our husband or our wife, if we can’t trust our children, if we can’t trust our boss or our colleagues, if we can’t trust our preacher or our senator, then we have nothing on… [Read More]