Mon Dieu! It’s The Line To the Lord!

Customer friendly organisations are ‘easy to do business with’. Even his Holiness ‘On High’ has apparently taken this message on board!  Just when you thought that call centres had taken over every part of our world, they’ve ‘moved upstairs’!

News comes of The Line To the Lord where you can confess your sins ‘virtually’! Callers are advised “For advice on confessing, press one. To confess, press two. to listen to soome confessions, press three.”

What is interesting however, is that there is a limit. Like all good customer foicused businesses, they focus on a niche market – the service will apparently only help deal with small, everyday sins.

Callers are advised to contact a priest if they wish to confess a ‘mortal sin’!

MD For A Day!

Looking to generate ideas and get a different perspective on your business? Here’s a simple, little  ‘technique’ I like to put forward in my speaking and workshops on leadership and ’maximising people performance’.

It’s called ’MD For A Day’!

Basically, it’s a quick and easy process of asking a question like this to your people:

‘If you were MD for a day here, what would you do, change or introduce?’

Ask lots of people – the seniors, the old hands and especially the newcomers and the juniors. It’s a great way of starting debate and discussion, to identify issues and to see what others see as important.

You never know, they might just point out a couple of things that you’re not aware of!

Warming To The Idea of ‘Personalisation’

Discussing the ‘customer delight’ idea of ‘human bed warmers’ at the Kensington Holiday Inn (see previous blog), a friend who has a Range Rover (although I don’t hold that against him!) explained to me that he can pre-time his in car heating system to warm it up before he gets in! Very nice, especially in all these recent ‘wintery mornings’!

I just thought it was a great, simple example of building in ‘personalisation’ into the core offer. I don’t suppose that many people buy a big luxury car just because you can heat the seats up before you set off, but it’s one of those little things that

a) is ‘dramatically different’

b) (I suspect) relatively ‘cheap’ in the overall costs

c) helps customers ‘tailor’ the product to their needs

In the world of huge choice and ’same as’, ‘personalisation’ is a great way to ‘differentiate’ your business, your products and your services and create ‘delighted’ customers.

Thinking Allowed!

I saw a sign on the wall at a client’s office recently that said ‘Thinking Allowed’!  I love that! In so many businesses it simply isn’t. People are ‘encouraged’ to be ‘busy’, even worse ‘being seen to be busy’. What do you do to allow, even ‘encourage’ ‘thinking’ in your business?

Simple things – is there time ‘allowed’ in meetings? Is it on the agenda? Are individuals ‘allowed’ to spend time not just doing the ‘day to day’? And when I talk about individuals, I don’t just mean your senior managers and leaders. What about your ‘front line’ staff, the people who ‘do’ stuff day after day. Why not give them some short amounts of time to ‘think’? You may be quite amazed at what they come up with!

How about yourself? Do you create time for yourself to ‘think’?

So, go on, ‘think’ about it, and then (and this is the critical bit), DO something about it!

Go Fishing…. In Different Ponds!

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always had”.

Although that sounds like something that David Brent from The Office would say, there’s a lot of truth in it, particularly if you’re talking about improving your competitiveness.

If a key ingredient of competitiveness is innovation which, according to the definition I like is ‘the successful exploitation of new ideas’, then are you guilty of  ’always doing the same things’ particularly when it comes to spotting, generating and developing ideas?

According to CNN, some research by Harvard Business School highlighted 5 ’secrets’ of successful innovators ((I’m always nervous about ’secrets’ – by definition, if you’re reporting them, they aren’t ’secret’ any more, but anyway, here goes!).

They are, apparently:

Associating – It’s about ‘connecting’ stuff (my interpretations are in italics)

Questioning - Asking ‘why?’ ‘what if?’ ‘ how?’ etc

Observing - Watching others do stuff

Experimenting – Trying things out

Networking – Meeting others

So, now the secrets are out, what does this mean for you? Maybe you do some, or all of these things, but do you do them in the same environment all the time? My recommendation is try ‘fishing in different ponds’ – that means doing the things above in environments you’re not so familiar with. The likelihood is that you’ll not ‘get what you always have’.

So, rather than always visiting the same websites that you always do, always listening to the same podcasts you always listen to, always attending the same conferences and trade shows you always do, always visting the same network meetings you always go to, always reading the same books, magazines and trade journals you always do, why not do something different and see how other industries, countries, even ‘cultures’  ’do stuff’?

Go on, it’s relatively easy to do and you never know what you might ‘discover’?

Every now and then when I’m travelling by train, I ‘fish in a different pond’  and make a conscious effort to buy a magazine related to a sector I know absolutely nothing about and see what i can ‘learn’. If you see me reading Hairdressers Monthly next time you see me, that’s why!

So, go on, get fishing …….in different ponds!

(And while we’re at this, please do share any ‘ponds’ you think are worth fishing in!)

Wise Words On Innovation

Just preparing for a workshop I’m delivering next week for entrepreneurs in the North East called ‘Creating A Revolutionary Business’. It’s all about ‘Innovation’, and crucially, making innovation work. I came across these quotes that seem to hit the ‘right notes’:

‘”A company can’t outgrow its competitors unless it can out-innovate them” – Gary Hamel and Gary Getz

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all” – Edward de Bono

but, as ever, Seth ‘nails it’:

“What’s missing isn’t the ideas…. it’s the will to execute them” – Seth Godin

Wise words…. what do they mean to you, and crucially, what do you need to do as a result?

Happy Birthday Homer!!

The Simpsons are 20 years old this week! I think they’re a great example of 3D!

What can we learn from Homer and his family? Well, rather than hold them up as great role models, I’d like to focus on the shows themselves. In the early days, the shows completely ‘broke the pattern’  – there had literally been nothing like them. The great thing is that they’ve continually built on this over time and proactively evolved with time.  Here’s producer and writer David Mirkin on that evolution.

The shows have maintained their ‘relevance’ and reflect the changes in the ‘marketplace’ – you might even argue that they don’t just ‘reflect’ it, but actually ‘influence’ it?

The key is that they lead it through innovation, creativity and the result is that America’s longest running sitcom is a ‘benchmark’ to compare others by.

I know that not everyone likes them, but that’s another characteristic of Dramatically and Demonstably Different businesses – they create ‘raving fans’, but are not necessarily to everyone’s taste.  The challenge is to create ’sufficient’ raving fans – Bart, Lisa, Homer, Marge, Maddie (oops ‘Maggie’ – sorry!) (and of course ‘Santa’s Little Helper!) have done that brilliantly over the last 20 years.

Here’s to 20 more!

Free ebook – (Re)Thinking in 3D…..

I’ve written a new book! It’s all about Thinking in 3D – That means creating a business that’s 

‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different‘! 

Basically, it’s a short set of ’rants’, raves and ideas aimed at engaging, stimulating and challenging you. 

If you enjoy the blog, I’d like to think that you’ll enjoy this too. The main reason being that there will be a few bits and bobs you’ve read before here on the site – see it as ‘going back to the gym’ – you still need to work those muscles!

I’ve called it:

(re)thinking in ‘3D‘….. and the best bit is it’s FREE!

 

If you like it please send it on to others….. and let me know what you think about it too please!

You can

download it here!

Hope You Have a ’Delightful’ Christmas!

A Sporting Spectacular!

I was privileged to be at the BBC Sports Personality Of The Year Awards in Sheffield last night. Along with 11,000 others we were all cheering Sheffield’s own Jessica Ennis on, and was pleased to see her come third – well done Ryan Giggs! Although a surprise to some, I think he deserved it – a great role model to others.

Key point to this post is my observations of seeing the whole thing working so well under real scrutiny and the pressure of putting something like this on. It was magical to watch, and the combination of  ’celebrity’, creativity, technical excellence, mutual support, and clearly, real hard work combined to produce a truly ’spectacular’ experience.

The keys to this? From, what I could see, it seemed clear that:

• Everyone understood their role, whether that was Gary Lineker and Sue Barker to the guys moving ’stuff around’
• Co-ordination was really proactive and the ‘holistic’ view drove the whole thing (it was obviously for TV)
• A brilliant combination of ‘imagination’ and systems and processes worked well
• Ongoing communication – they didn’t stop talking to each other all night!
• The ‘outstanding’ teamwork involved was obvious
• ‘Emotion’ is an integral element of any great experience, and they maximised this
• There was an ‘end in mind’ – again obviously, a live TV show watched by millions

The result? A fantastic, professional operation that made a real impression and created a ‘memorable’ customer experience for me, and, I’m sure many, many others.

Does your business run like that?

What Will They Think Of Next?

 Here’s a great new game for all the (younger members) of the family!! Talk about ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different’!

Not sure it’s real, but hope it is! (I found it courtesy of quinkyart)

Whether it’s real or not, it certainly got me thinking about other ’similar’ games for Christmas:

‘Poodo’ (“It was Professor Plum in the conservatory”),  ‘Crappy Families’,  Sub’poo’teo (flick to …..) and of course, The Nintendo ‘Wee’!

I know, I know, it’s not in the best of taste, but my point is that one idea sparks another, and then another…. and hey, maybe even another.

What do you do in your business to ’spark’ ideas?

And as it’s getting near Christmas, let’s have a laugh – If you’ve got any other ‘ideas’ for games along similar lines, do let me know – please keep it ‘relatively’ clean!

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