Welcome
Welcome to the Foresight Newsletter, a free monthly publication of Prevoyance Group Inc. This newsletter shares tips for high performance projects and observations that we hope will prove informative and enjoyable.
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Contents
CONTENTS
Foresight is published by the Prevoyance Group, and this month contains four sections:
Project: WWYCD?
Life
Heard in the Hallways
Travels with Patrick
Project
I recently came across a “WWJD” bumper sticker. With a little research, I discovered it was short for “What Would Jesus Do?” While applying the standard of any great leader, religious or otherwise, to a business is certainly a noble aspiration, in the project environment you can start by aiming for something a bit more temporal, asking “What Would Your Customer Do?”
This is not referring to the past (and thankfully departed) fad of calling everyone a “customer” in a business setting, and everyone in retail calling their customers “clients.” Rather this is an admonition to focus project activities on what is actually relevant for the end customer buying your goods or services. Too often, projects will focus their efforts on “what we’ve always done,” or the esoteric demands of a particularly “noisy” stakeholder. If your top ten challenges are not directly related to making your company easier to do business with, from an end-customer’s perspective, priorities should be reevaluated. While a customer may not find an improved invoicing process “sexy,” if it is truly more efficient and frees up resources to focus on direct customer interaction, it passes the WWYCD test. If a particular process or system would make your customer excited to buy your products, invest your resources in that activity. If a particular process is completely irrelevant, or would encourage your customer to take their money elsewhere if they knew all the details and efficiencies of the process, abandon it no matter how much an internal stakeholder demands the functionality.
This applies to changing business processes as well. Convoluted rules and processes may have evolved to serve one-off cases, or allow for a sales rep to book a “creative” deal, but are they serving the majority of your customers by making your company nimble and simple to do business with?
If you find your endeavor constantly failing the WWYCD test, consider evaluating your current scope. Focus on those efforts that have direct value to the customer, or those that streamline internal processes and allow your best resources to drive forward momentum, rather than correct errors and fit square pegs into round holes. Ultimately, if you are focusing on processes and systems that have no impact towards making your customers more apt to do business with your company, consider spending your money and resources elsewhere. When your organization is finally able to provide compelling products delivered efficiently and with process excellence, your competitors will be left wondering “What Would Those Guys Do” as they struggle in your wake!
Life
Manage your life as you manage your business. Too often we allow insignificant tasks or persons to take much of our personal time. Time listening and interacting with the family is time well spent; however spending 45 minutes on hold to fight a fifteen-cent overcharge on a bill is foolish. Getting enraged over a perceived slight is also an ineffective use of our limited time away from work. I’m amazed at calm business leaders who spend no more than thirty seconds dwelling on the latest atrocity by the competition or government regulatory bodies, but become raving lunatics when cut off during the drive to work. Treasure your sanity and personal/family time above all else, and do not let the mundane aspects of life and the workplace rob you of either.
Heard in the Hallways
One of life’s many simple lessons that nonetheless carries profound implications is perfecting an ability to listen. As leaders and specialists in our field, we often feel obligated to comment on anything and everything to demonstrate our deep knowledge to those within earshot. Fear of stalled conversations also encourages us to plot our next sentence or interjection rather than focusing on what the other speaker is currently delivering; playing verbal “speed chess” rather than enjoying the dialog and using pauses to contemplate what was said.
Listening allows us to learn and acquire new knowledge, rather than showing off our own, and also heightens the enjoyment of the conversation for the other party. Showing some concern and relating to the other speaker can have powerful effects from a business perspective as well. Many times when I’ve been primarily on the receiving end of a conversation I’ve walked away thinking the other party will see me as weak or uninspiring, due to my lack of direct input. Often, the opposite is true. I was shocked recently when seeing a director several days after I spent an hour muttering only a couple of words: “I really enjoyed our conversation the other day. Your insights really helped clarify my thinking.” All though keeping my mouth shut and ears open!
Travels with Patrick
One of my more “grand” entrances to a foreign city came a couple of years ago when I was on a motorcycle trip to Quebec City with my wife. We had a long and rainy ride, and eventually found what looked like the main thoroughfare through the old city and towards our hotel. Traffic began backing up, and we noticed several signs with various combinations of cars and motorcycles with large red “X’s” over them. When traveling with out of state (or country) tags on my vehicle, I automatically assume a form of “diplomatic immunity” and generally ignore any signs preventing me from going where I need to go. Despite protests from my wife, we pressed forward, our excitement to get off the bike outweighing any concern for the rules of the road.
Searching for street signs, we suddenly realized we were all alone on the road, although there were crowds of people flanking the sides of the street. Rounding a bend, we came upon several hundred men with early period military uniforms, muskets, drums and what appeared to be Swiss flags. Unable to turn around, we pulled behind the marching forces, winding our way the remaining mile to our hotel with a full compliment of armed Swiss troops leading the charge!
We did get some puzzled looks from the crowds, but managed to find our hotel and avoid any armed conflict en route, although we never did find out why the Swiss were invading Quebec to begin with!