The “Body” Politic In Your Company
Posted by mike - 02/03/09 at 08:02 pmChances are, you are one of four people listed below in your company. In fact, you might be all four. Whether you are or aren’t though you definitely know these other 4 as they most assuredly exist within and throughout your organization. In isolation they each may not do any, or much, harm to the company, without suggesting that they don’t. However, it is clear that the interrelationship between them across the organization could turn out to be quite harmful indeed. Upon reflection after reading the parable of the 4 people, ask yourself who has to stay, and who has to go, and oh yeah - best to start with yourself. By the way, the last name of each of these people is Attitude. Put differently, then, which Attitude has to go?
This is a story about 4 people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
I know that between us the instances of our observations over our careers are too numerous to recount this scenario as it plays itself out everyday everywhere. From the customer perspective, and from years of observing anecdotal evidence of the existence of these 4 people within companies, including those that I have been a part of in addition to those that I have worked with, two huge groups within companies exhibiting these conditions readily come to mind. They are the field-level frontline people and the corporate headquarters personnel. Why? Even though these two groups intersect at the point of the customer, and especially where customer frustration or anger occurs, they exonerate themselves and either implicitly or explicitly blemish the other. Notwithstanding handicapped or detrimental policies and procedures that do exist within companies, the position must be taken that to the customer it doesn’t matter.
The harshest judges of all are the customers. In fact, harsh is probably an understatement. A more apt description could be brutal, and without remorse. The customer cares nothing about your internal assignments and responsibilities. To them, you are the entire company, and to them it is your job to satisfy them. For arguments sake, let’s recognize that some customers are unreasonable and therefore inconsolable. Dismissing them there still exists huge numbers of customer interactions that take place where legitimate complaints or requests are presented, often to be obliterated by both individual and corporate attitudes that are defensive in nature rather than offensive.
What is at stake here, apart from revenue and profit opportunities, is clearly the corporate reputation - which of course profoundly affects revenue and profit. Case in point? Well, how about the now well-documented case of Circuit City. Within less than a year’s timeframe they went from being a longstanding going-concern to liquidation bankruptcy. They announced that they were eliminating all of their successful salespeople because they were making too much money. The remaining employees were surely and certainly demoralized throughout the organization. If success meant abandonment and dismissal, why then strive to excel and please the customer at the store level? The market of course read about this fiasco as well as experienced a stark contrast in customer service attitudes that permeated the stores. Who could blame them though with the corporate attitude fully revealed and imposed on these remaining “failed” salespeople replacements as they were devalued and commoditized? Customers felt this, word spread; they rebelled and were brutal in their convictions of not wanting to buy from Circuit City ever again. The entire corporate responsibility of serving and pleasing the customer was carelessly dismissed by eliminating its front line of successful (i.e., “knowledgeable and helpful”) salespeople. We all know the end of this story - by March of ‘09 Circuit City will be no more.
Somebody in that company should have done long ago what Everybody probably would have liked to have seen done toward strengthening, rather than destroying, a longstanding and once vibrant organization. Anybody probably wasn’t allowed to though, I’ll bet because of entrenched (executive corporate headquarter) attitudes that the rest of the organization were Nobodies.
