Agents for Performance Improvement
and Organizational Learning

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What Keeps You Awake at Night?

AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER, every organization faces an uncertain environment, financial constraints, and increased competition. In response to these challenges, we are all exhorted to be better, faster, and more flexible. To survive in today’s demanding markets, we must adopt innovative approaches to management and operations.

But how should you approach the development of crucial new competencies? Where will you begin? Perhaps you’ve already launched a ‘change’ program or two, but find enthusiasm waning and progress stalled. It’s not easy to design, implement, and sustain broad-based performance improvements and these problems occur in many organizations:

• Current deadlines and expectations prompt the question: Are we doing things right? But how often do we ask: Are we doing the right things? Scant attention is paid to measuring and evaluating the outcomes of our efforts, and to creating the internal capability to act on future opportunities.

• A carefully crafted mission statement has failed to inspire commitment. Framed copies of the statement hang on office walls, yet its meaning and implications are not universally understood. The related ‘service vision’ has not been translated into a consistent action plan or necessary shifts in behavior.

• A succession of unconnected, even incompatible, new programs have been rolled out and later abandoned. They have led to nothing more than mass inoculation against future initiatives.

Scenarios such as these are familiar to most managers today. Yet organizations can, and do, achieve significant improvements in their processes, service delivery, and culture, with high-yielding results. Ensuring that your systems drive quality, productivity, and value is a goal within your reach.

For more information, please contact Tom Gardner or Gerry Shaw by e-mail or by phone at 781-453-6903.

Special thanks to William Prince and Eric Windyka from Dean College. They spent time working as interns updating this site for us. Thanks, also, to Lisa Keohane and Mike Polakoff, I/S faculty at Dean College for their assistance.

This month's featured resource:

Clued In: How To Keep Customers Coming Back Again And Again

Lewis P. Carbone

Prentice Hall, 2004

Over the years, the topic of Customer Service has been covered in these summaries in different ways. A few years ago, we sent you The Experience Economy (you can still see the summary on our Archive page) and you told us you thought it was very interesting and made you think about the experiences you provide. This month, we are following up this idea with a book by Lou Carbone that deals with the science of knowing what your customers want and developing the experiences to provide this. 

To read the Summary of  Clued In: How To Keep Customers Coming Back Again And Again, please click on the Resource tab on the menu bar. Enjoy!

In the meantime, if you have any questions, or if we can help you in any way, please do not hesitate to call us at 781-453-6903. We are currently booking workshops for the Fall and Winter. 

As always, please send us your comments and/or suggestions for future summaries.