My wife recently read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and read me Chapter 50. Dr. Pausch writes about an experience he had at Walt Disney World when he was twelve and his sister was 14. His parents had allowed the two to go off on their own and explore. While they were exploring they got the idea to pool their allowances and purchase a salt and pepper shaker as a thank you for recognizing their maturity. While walking through the park with their purchase, the bag carrying the gift dropped and broke. The two were devastated by the turn of events. A stranger noticed their despair and suggested they take the package back to the shop where they purchased the gift. They followed this suggestion and took the gift back explaining what had happened and admitting their carelessness. The cast member (Disney employee) replaced the shakers and told the two that the store should have packaged it better. Dr. Pausch explains that this small act of kindness was repaid Disney with $100,000 in subsequent visits to Disney World. Decades later in speaking with Disney executives he asked them if workers still would be able to replace the item? He says the executives would squirm and the answer would be probably not.
Command and control thinkers don’t understand value and where it is derived from . . . the customer. Instead they fill the organization with mandates from financial budgets that are penny-wise and dollar foolish. Playing the zero-sum game where there are winners and losers, fighting over the piece of the pie instead of finding innovative ways to make the pie bigger. The customer management process becomes just that a way to manage customers. The story above creates a management paradox to their way of thinking.
The "unknown and unknowable measures" as Dr. Deming would refer to those things that can not be measured, but were important. No one knows the cost of a dissatisfied customer, but command and control thinkers can only understand what comes out on the income statement or balance sheet in the short-term. Business improvement comes from their ability to manage these financials in everyday work by making front-line employees adhere to scripts, mandates, policies, standards, etc. so they can make sure $50 doesn’t go out the door without their knowing. Meanwhile all the complexity and waste they build into the system winds up costing them more and they wind up being the ones that make the big mistakes for their short-sightedness.
Command and control thinkers can be seen by the fruit they don’t bear . . . They know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.
Command and control thinkers don’t understand value and where it is derived from . . . the customer. Instead they fill the organization with mandates from financial budgets that are penny-wise and dollar foolish. Playing the zero-sum game where there are winners and losers, fighting over the piece of the pie instead of finding innovative ways to make the pie bigger. The customer management process becomes just that a way to manage customers. The story above creates a management paradox to their way of thinking.
The "unknown and unknowable measures" as Dr. Deming would refer to those things that can not be measured, but were important. No one knows the cost of a dissatisfied customer, but command and control thinkers can only understand what comes out on the income statement or balance sheet in the short-term. Business improvement comes from their ability to manage these financials in everyday work by making front-line employees adhere to scripts, mandates, policies, standards, etc. so they can make sure $50 doesn’t go out the door without their knowing. Meanwhile all the complexity and waste they build into the system winds up costing them more and they wind up being the ones that make the big mistakes for their short-sightedness.
Command and control thinkers can be seen by the fruit they don’t bear . . . They know the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.
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