All
businesses that outperform their competitors have two key
characteristics in common: a highly-energized workforce, plus
hordes of delighted customers that keep coming back. Two nice
things to have - but of course everyone knows the reason so few
businesses enjoy a clear competitive advantage is precisely
because these two things are so difficult to achieve. But wait. If
it’s really as difficult as all that, shouldn’t those few
businesses that manage to pull it off be absolutely exhausted by
the effort? When you take a close look (as I have) at those rare
businesses that consistently achieve both objectives - flashpoint
businesses, as I refer to them - what you invariably see is just
the opposite. Employees at all levels seem perpetually fired up,
as if every day they’re engaged in some kind of fun group
activity. Is there some big secret about "energized workers" and
"delighted customers" that these flashpoint businesses understand,
and everyone else seems to have somehow missed?
There most certainly is. And it has to do
with what most people consider the basic difference between "work"
and "play". The first step on a shortcut to competitive advantage
is to understand the specific elements that make play so much more
satisfying than work.
Play Element 1: Challenge
Achieving better bowling scores would be so much easier if the
bowling pins were closer. On the other hand, who would pay to go
to a bowling alley where anyone could knock down all the pins
every time with ease? Knocking them all down over and over again
would quickly begin to feel like the kind of repetitive, pointless
activity most bowlers experience at their jobs, and go bowling
precisely to get away from. To be fun, it has to be a real
challenge—that’s key.
In most workplaces, there is no one single
well-defined “mission” that takes precedence over everything else.
Instead, there are all kinds of tasks and objectives and deadlines
that often make workers feel they’re being pulled in a dozen
directions at once. For many, the only real challenge on the job
is resisting the temptation to quit.
Contrast this with flashpoint businesses,
where the one crystal-clear overriding mission is to draw business
away from competitors by attempting to delight every customer
every time. In these businesses, the reason it looks like workers
are having fun is because in many ways their work feels like a
game with a single, challenging, shared objective.
Shortcut to Competitive Advantage, Part
One: Challenge everyone in your business to think of
-outperforming the competition through superior customer care” as
the primary objective that overrides all others at all times.
Play Element 2: Rules
Every play activity has it own elaborate set of rules. In a new
game, even before play begins, all the rules are carefully spelled
out. These rules add to the challenge, and keep the game fair for
all.
In the work setting, the rules are often
vague and unclear. They may even seem to shift and change from
time to time, based on different situations as they arise. Workers
often feel reluctant to take initiatives, unsure if doing so will
later earn them praise (for “thinking outside the box”) or rebukes
(for “breaking the rules”). They tend to adopt a play-it-safe
approach.
By comparison, most flashpoint businesses
spell out their values and their priorities—the rules—over and
over again. “Your goal is to delight the customer, but not by
doing anything that harms the organization in any way.” “We want
to pull business away from our competitors, but never in an
unlawful or underhanded way.”
Shortcut to Competitive Advantage, Part
Two: Ensure that your workers understand how the game is to be
played—how, for example, you will be giving them opportunities to
come up with their own ideas for enhancing the customer
experience. Clarify what constitutes a “foul” or a violation of
the rules.
Play Element 3: Scoring
In play activities of every kind, there exists some sort of
scoring mechanism that lets the players know immediately how well
they’re doing. This immediacy is critical. How popular would
bowling be if the pins were in the dark, and players never found
out how well they played until their scores arrived in the mail
weeks later?
This is what it feels like for most
workers on the job. They don’t find out how well they’re doing
until the “quarterly reports” come out, or until their annual
performance evaluation meeting.
Things are different in flashpoint
businesses. There, spontaneous positive feedback from happy
customers becomes the number-one scoring mechanism. At the same
time it also serves as the number-one employee motivator, the
basis for endless internal celebration and recognition.
Shortcut to Competitive Advantage, Part
Three: Harvest immediate positive customer feedback by every means
at your disposal, (especially informal face-to-face conversation),
and direct as much of this feedback as possible to your workers.
Play Element 4: Satisfaction
Bowlers know before every game that they won’t succeed in knocking
down every pin every time. Players in every kind of game know
they’ll never achieve a perfect score—but this does nothing to
diminish their attempts to do so. And when their score tells them
their performance has moved closer to the unachievable goal, their
feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment is profound. There’s
shouting and high-fiveing and every kind of exuberant victory
dance imaginable.
Flashpoint businesses also know they won’t
succeed in delighting every customer every time. But when the
feedback indicates they’ve moved closer to that unattainable
objective, the same kind of cheering and celebration erupts. It’s
something that’s almost never experienced in the majority of
workplaces, and it’s something that’s almost routine in flashpoint
businesses. They’ve once gain beat the opposing team, and once
again the dance of victory unites all of them in their shared
accomplishment—and in their shared determination to play the game
again, and strive together to win another round.
Shortcut to Competitive Advantage, Part
Four: Create a culture of celebration that maximizes workers’
sense of accomplishment with every “rave review” from delighted
customers. This is the motivational fuel that quickly gains the
most powerful competitive edge in any business—and helps sustain
it over the long term.
Customer-focus consultant Paul Levesque’s
latest book is Customer Service From The Inside Out Made Easy
(Entrepreneur Press, 2006).
Copyright Paul Levesque.
Paul Levesque has studied what he
describes as "flashpoint businesses" - the kind in which motivated
workers drive up customer satisfaction, and positive feedback from
happy customers drives up employee motivation.
Book keynote speaker Paul Levesque to speak at your next
meeting
www.keynoteresource.com/PaulLevesque.html
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