The objective is not only to satisfy customers but also to ‘wow’ them throughout their experience with a product or service. Xerox research in the early 1990s discovered that if customer satisfaction is ranked on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 being completely dissatisfied to 5 being completely satisfied, then 4’s, while satisfied with the …
“You guys pair up in groups of three, then line up in a circle.” Football coach “Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject.” Basketball coach recounting what he told a player who received four F’s and one D “You guys line up alphabetically by height.” Football coach “I told …
Geeks were once marginalized. Now, Brand U geeks seem to run the world. Commercials, ads, rock bands, books, TV soaps, and TV sit-coms are making techno-geeks cool. Look at the number of TV stories that have a stereotypical geek landing the big-job, working killer hours and making billions on an IPO, or running off into …
The traditional organization consists of a hierarchy of a general, colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, and troops. The business equivalent consists of a president, vice-presidents, directors, managers, supervisors, and employees. Work is organized by functional area that is headed by a department manager. Department managers direct areas such as Quality, Engineering, Manufacturing, Accounting, or Sales. In …
Structure is not organization. Robert Waterman, Writer Organizations are often described in terms of mechanical systems or a Newtonian universe. In this model, work consists of highly structured, linear processes and projects. Everything runs like a Swiss watch. Action begets reaction. Customers generate sales, income, and employment. People are interchangeable. Organizations are structured in terms …
There is much effort to determine the role of ‘human capital’ on a company’s stock market value. A company found that worker’s attitudes about their treatment by bosses and their workloads had a measurable impact on customer satisfaction and revenue. The business world where a lone wolf can design a killer product or a transforming …
People matter and happy people matter most. Duh… This seems like common sense but sometimes it takes exhaustive studies to validate conventional wisdom. The Gallup opinion organization polled 100,000 employees at 24 large companies over 25 years. Bottom line: happy workers made successful companies. Brand U leaders also matter because they create a culture of …
The workplace is galloping towards self-managed Brand U work teams. Chances are you may be in one or several. Self managed teams are also composed of self directed, Brand U individuals who accept responsibility for developing schedules, managing quality, controlling costs, upgrading worker skills, assigning work, improving process performance, focusing on results, and ensuring stakeholders …
In the old command-and-control days, the supervisor and middle manager knew what to do. Roles were defined and expectations were understood. Now, fewer managers are asked to do much more with less. Brand U roles are more fluid. Expectations are higher and often less understood. Some Brand U managers and support specialists are on call …
Someone one said that democracy in action isn’t pretty, but it’s better than the alternatives. That’s pretty much the same with flat organizations. The greatest benefit of the flat organization is that a company can react more quickly to customer and technological changes. Speed, one of the 7 critical Brand U practices, is a critical …