A Rave Against Miserable Customer Service, Lousy Leaders and Protectionist Policies

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

One of my favorite, provocative business thinkers, Gary Hamel, says what we’ve all been thinking about in his Wall Street Journal blog post, “Too Many Industries Suffering from Detroititis.”

While the term “Detroititis” is not yet in common use, it isn’t hard to intuit the meaning.  A mix of myopic thinking, short-term management approaches and a damn the consumer mentality, all jump to my mind.

Hamel appropriately skewers the U.S. airline industry for suffering from a chronic case of this newly named malady. He also chastises the U.S. government for propping up this industry with a “blatantly protectionist policy” that bars foreign ownership of U.S. air carriers.

Note from Art: this protectionist policy and the adverse implications for consumers and for society speak to the heart of my post: If Ayn Rand Could See Us Now.

The U.S. airlines are easy and deserving targets.  It is nearly impossible to find any customer satisfaction, much less enjoyment flying with these broken-down flying bus companies.  (Apologies to any bus companies that I’ve insulted.)

More often than not, you deal with ridiculous lines, grumpy attendants and flight personnel that visibly hate their jobs.  Most of the customer service practices recently put into place are shortsighted and designed with the carrier in mind, not the customer.

In the vernacular of one of my favorite recent books, Tuned-In, the carriers truly do create remarkable customer experiences.  Unfortunately, they missed the memo on making these experiences positive ones.

The contrast between the customer experience on a U.S. Air Carrier and an overseas carrier is stark.  Fly Singapore Airlines or JAL and you’ll spend most of your trip in shock over how nice the experience can be.  Something will feel very different and out of place.  The poor treatment is gone, replaced by great service provided by people that seem to enjoy creating nice experiences for customers.

Other than the cathartic exercise of criticizing the U.S. carriers (of which I have over 1 million miles on), there are a few reminders for all of us in our businesses as we work to immunize our thinking against the deadly disease of “Detroititis.”

  • Keep the government out of the business of artificially protecting under performing industries and companies.  Hamel is right.  If Singapore Airlines wants to compete for routes in the U.S., they should have that option.
  • Evaluate what your customers truly think about their experience with your firm and DO SOMETHING to improve the experience.  The airlines employ legions of marketing people to fly around the globe and evaluating customer experiences…but nothing seems to come out from this effort other than dumb policies and new fees.
  • Fight for the customer like you livelihood depends upon it.  It does.
  • As a leader, work unceasingly to instill a sense of pride and commitment to customers in your workplace. If your business is a high-contact customer business, every person that touches a customer must strive to create a positive experience.  Working a ticket counter at terminal B at O’Hare may involve dealing with thousands of people per day who are stressed and frustrated.  Take away a little of their stress and frustration, treat them like humans and show them that you care!  Send thousands of people home everyday with an improved experience, and maybe your business will improve.  Go figure.
  • No one ever wants to talk to someone that they cannot understand and that they cannot hear on the telephone.  Stop subjecting us to these horrendous phone experiences.  If you are in charge of this area of your customer experience, what the blank are you thinking?

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The people that I don’t get are the managers and leaders responsible for managing and leading the customer service representatives in organizations that clearly have lousy customer service.  Fire yourself, please.

The customer experience at Gate C14 starts at the top of the organization. The same goes for your firm. Unfortunately, we can all learn a lot about what not to do from the auto companies and air carriers in the U.S.

Now quit reading and find something that you can do to improve the experience for your customers!

Filed Under: Leadership, Performance, Surviving Lousy Leaders Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcasts, Hamel, Dickens, Time Off and a Holiday Week of Reading

December 21, 2008 By 1 Comment

For many, this week takes on a significant spiritual and family focused importance.  Given the mid-week timing of the Christmas and New Year holidays, many of you may combine remaining vacation days and gain a bit of an early winter break.  The current economic turmoil may disrupt this plan for some of you, but hopefully not all.

I’m busy working on my plans to launch The Management Excellence podcast series early in 2009 and of course this involves a whole new learning curve for me.  I’ve wanted to create a podcast series for quite some time, and instead of thinking about it, I am taking my own advice and turning ideas into actions.  The podcast format will offer some great opportunities to involve other professionals via interviews and guest episodes as well as a new format for me to share ideas and insights on management excellence. Stay tuned.

For those of you seeking seasonal reading or looking for some cutting-edge thinking, I’ve got two very different suggestions for you.

The first one comes from author and consultant Gary Hamel (The Future of Management) and according to surveys, one of the world’s most influential business thinkers.  Hamel offers up his criteria for books he views as “worth reading” in his post at the WSJ, entitled: “What Business Advice is Worth Taking?” His criteria emphasize issues like, “Does it challenge management dogma?” and “Does it dig deep and look at root causes,” just to name a few.  The books that he believes meet these criteria merit serious consideration  if you happen to find yourself newly armed with a gift card from your favorite bookseller.

My second suggestion is one of that is timely from both a seasonal perspective as well as for many struggling with employment issues, a profoundly personal perspective.  In a book review at the WSJ entitled: “How Charles Dickens Rescued His Career and Remade Christmas,” the new book, The Man Who Invented Christmas, by Les Standiford, offers some fascinating perspectives on Dickens and the impact that he had on this holiday.

Deeply in debt and with his Christmas ghost story rejected by every major publisher, Dickens was forced to borrow and self-publish.  In the process, he redefined his career and along with it the modern celebration of Christmas.  As a Dicken’s devotee, this book has moved to the top of my wish list!

Enjoy your reading, and if your focus this week is spiritual and/or family focused, may you find peace and enjoyment in the process.  And if reading is on the to-do list, Hamel and Dickens are both worthy subjects.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

The Pain and Promise of Collaborative Management on Display at Cisco

December 9, 2008 By 1 Comment

Author and consultant Gary Hamel writes in the preface to his latest book, The Future of Management, that, “Management is out of date.  Like the combustion engine, it’s a technology that has largely stopped evolving and that’s not good.”

Hamel challenges leaders and managers to eliminate the toxic effects of legacy management practices and innovate in ways that create “organizations that are capable of spontaneous renewal” and “companies that actually deserve the passion and creativity of the folks who work there, and naturally elicit the very best that people have to give.”

Noble thoughts that I agree with and that I espouse at every available opportunity.  Unfortunately, many firms and many top leaders are still stuck in the Managers Manager and Workers Work era that Frederick Taylor ushered in over 100 years ago.   The number of teams and ideas that I see held hostage to adjudication by these out-of-date, out-of-touch and hopefully, out-of-time command and control leaders is shocking.  Please, set your people free.

One organization and leader that has gained a great deal of coverage for ushering in new approaches to managing is Cisco Systems and its CEO, John Chambers.  The interview with Chambers, “Cisco Sees the Future” in the November, 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review is must-read material for anyone interested in the cutting edge of management innovation as well as some profound thoughts on identifying and exploiting market transitions and disruptions.

Cisco has effectively flattened its organization and now operates with a small executive team and manages its priorities by cross-functional, collaborative councils and boards. Chambers indicates that the impact is: “This companywide council-based leadership model has allowed us to move from taking only one or two cross-functional priorities a year in the past to addressing 22 this year.” He goes on to add, “We think this is what organizations of the future will look like and that this 21st century leadership style will be a major competitive advantage for us over the next decade.”

At this point, I’ll stop quoting the article…it’s worth taking a look at on your own.  However, what I found most interesting aside from the insights into the structure, management and results of the many cross functional teams, was the fortitude that Cisco and Chambers showed in adopting this new management model.  You get the impression that the gains did not come without considerable pain.  Over 20% of the executives washed out of the new collaborative model, and in essence, the entire culture had to change. Chambers even confesses to the challenges that he had in changing his own style from one of command and control, provide the answers and direct the troops to one of letting teams solve problems and then execute.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Seven years in the making, the results of this new management model at Cisco are encouraging.  Of course, time will tell if Cisco has truly changed, as well as defined and implemented what can truly be called a management innovation.

I suspect that Chambers and Cisco are closer to right than wrong on their approach.  It’s an exciting time to be leading as the pendulum seems to be swinging away from a style of leading and working that minimized the value of the individual to one that emphasizes empowerment, creativity and the freedom for groups and individuals to think and act.   It’s hard to imagine a future where this formula does not produce winners.  Of course, the proof as they say is in the pudding.

Filed Under: Decision-Making, Leadership, Leading Change, Management Innovation, Project Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Towards an Independent Product Management Organization

March 5, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Product Management’s position in the organization is a topic that invites vigorous debate, usually around whether marketing or development should own the function. (Follow the posts, links and comment threads starting at On Product Management for some other perspectives.) While any debate about optimal organization structure can sound a lot like the radio and television sports shows where people argue fiercely over the greatest running back or quarterback of all time (there is no one right answer!), the PM issue merits some consideration.  Of course, the right answer may be, "It depends."

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Filed Under: Product Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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