Fighting The Status Quo

Note: This posting is based on my weekly “Thank God It’s Monday” that helps you and your company thrive!

This week’s focus: fighting the status quo

My consulting practice is about accelerating growth through change. Occasionally, it feels like some would prefer my practice be more about “accelerating growth by preserving and maintaining the status quo.”

If you are about preserving and maintaining the status quo, you don’t need me. You can do that on your own.

There are implications of inaction. Have you taken a few moments to consider the implications of your status quo?

If the area you are responsible for is suboptimal in fulfilling its essential value to the company, ask yourself,

• What is my legacy going to be?
• When I am ready to move to a different company or area within my current company, what legacy will people ascribe to me?
• Did I move the needle on the business? Or, did I pretty much support the status quo?
• Did I produce measurable, value-laden, important business outcomes or can I merely report that we worked hard?

As my mentor, Alan Weiss, teaches: “We are here to make waves.” He’s right. Businesses that thrive eschew the status quo.

Thought for the week:

“The faster you build trust, the more likely you are to increase deal velocity.” – Dave Gardner

What do you think? I welcome your blog comments!

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Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting
http://www.gardnerandassoc.com
© 2013 Gardner & Associates Consulting  All Rights Reserved Note:  To receive an email version of “Thank God It’s Monday” to start your week, please subscribe here.  I would very much appreciate your suggesting to others that they subscribe. Privacy Statement:  Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Dave Gardner To Keynote Endeavor Istanbul

I am very excited to announce that I’ve been invited to keynote Endeavor Istanbul on June 6th, 2013.  This event is about entrepreneurship.  I’ll be speaking about Designing Your Future.

If you are attending, I look forward to meeting you in person. If you aren’t attending, you are going to miss an incredible event!

Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting
http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

It’s About The Customer

Note: This posting is based on my weekly “Thank God It’s Monday” that helps you and your company thrive!

This week’s focus: entreprenership

When President Bill Clinton was elected to his first term in the White House, his key political strategist, James Carville, brought laser-like focus to the campaign by coining the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid.” This mantra ensured campaign staff focus for the duration of the campaign.

When I coach entrepreneurs, I encourage them to adopt the mantra “it’s about the customer.” An entrepreneur should be asking how they can:

• address a need in someone’s life differently and better than others before them?
• create engagement such that customers become addicted to their offerings?
• get customers telling other customers about their experience with your product or service?
• have customers sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for “what’s next?”

For Apple and the late Steve Jobs, it was all about the customer. Consider the iPhone. People in major metropolitan areas put up with AT&T’s dreadful cell phone coverage for years just to have an iPhone. Today, 50% of robberies in New York are iPhones stolen from people as they walk down the streets.

It’s not just about your product or service. If you focus on your customer and what they will crave, you will thrive. Conversely, if you aren’t providing a customer experience across all customer touch points, that will undermine your business and create opportunities for competition to steal market share and your customers.

If you want to thrive, make your mantra “it’s about the customer” and then do what’s essential to create an incredible customer experience through everything you do.

Photo Credit: Flickr by Stitch: Istanbul Grand Bazaar

Thought for the week:

“No idea works, until you do.” – Robin Sharma

 

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What do you think? I welcome your blog comments!

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Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting

http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

© 2013 Gardner & Associates Consulting  All Rights Reserved

Note:  To receive an email version of “Thank God It’s Monday” to start your week, please subscribe here.  I would very much appreciate your suggesting to others that they subscribe.

Privacy Statement:  Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Microsoft Admits Windows 8 Failure

In the Financial Times today, there is an interesting article called Microsoft Prepares U-Turn On Windows 8.  It’s not surprising to me. I wrote in this blog last fall a posting called Who Cares That Windows 8 Is Here? where I questioned the viability of the new operating system.

The Financial Times reports:

Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system, marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola’s New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago.

“Key aspects” of how the software is used will be changed when Microsoft releases an updated version of the operating system this year, Tami Reller, head of marketing and finance for the Windows business, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Referring to difficulties many users have had with mastering the software, she added: “The learning curve is definitely real.”

It saddens me that Microsoft–one of the world’s great companies–could not have predicted what I did.

Innovation is never easy. Innovations need to connect with customer need. Windows 8 didn’t. There was great misalignment, misalignment that has impacted an entire industry.

Within days of the Windows 8 launch, the gentleman who led the effort resigned from Microsoft. While that would normally seem strange, in this particular instance my gut said he wanted to disassociate himself from the new offering–he knew it would be deemed a dud. It appears he, too, was right.

Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting
http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

American Airlines Social Media Rocks!

Note: This posting is based on my weekly “Thank God It’s Monday” that helps you and your company thrive!

This week’s focus: social media

I had to fly from Silicon Valley to Austin this past week and decided to:

• Fly American Airlines for the first time in a few years (other airlines currently offer non-stops on this popular route that American pioneered back in the early 1980’s)
• Use American’s mobile app for check-in, boarding passes and getting through security

I was really disappointed in the Android mobile app. I needed to get paper boarding passes for 3 of the 4 flights as I could not retrieve them via the mobile app. I did manage to get through security both times using the mobile app–it could have been a disaster to be sent back to the ticket counter to get a boarding pass!

I knew this result wasn’t up to American’s standards and wanted to speak to an executive about my experience. I believed that my insights could help them improve a situation I was convinced they weren’t aware of. I won’t bore you with all the details, but, here’s an executive overview:

• I emailed customer relations who put me in touch with the web services team within one hour. Great!
• The web services team told me I needed to speak to the third-party developer of the mobile app and gave me a phone number to call. This wasn’t what I wanted and I find it impossible to believe American would want me to speak with their technology vendor. I called as instructed. When AppleCare answered the phone, we both got a quite a chuckle as I knew Apple hadn’t built the Android mobile app on my Motorola Droid 4 phone.
• I was then told to call the travel desk. I was given the main phone number for American. I tried 3 times and was never able to connect with a human being via their automated call system–hello?
• I sent a Tweet: @AmericanAir I’ve invested nearly an hour to try to reach a human today to provide feedback about your Android mobile app…no success.

The social media team reached out to me within minutes. I provided more detail and my contact information. Within an hour or so, the gentleman responsible for the Android mobile app called me and I was able to give him information about my mobile experience. He learned about issues he was completely unaware of. He was very appreciative for my insights. I am confident my input is going to help them get closure on these issues. I’ll be watching and listening. And, now I know how to follow-up with him should I have issues in the future.

There is good news here. One, I was able to accomplish my mission to help American Airlines learn about usability issues with its Android mobile app and two, American Airlines restored my faith in them via their social media team who really shined! The social media team rapidly connected me to the right person and got that person to call me the same day.

There are lots of lessons in this short piece IF American chooses to go through this blog post carefully. Perhaps the social media team will help by making sure the executive in charge of customer experience sees this. Frankly, it would have been a lot easier for me to just give up on this issue, but, that’s not what I am all about.

For my readers, I ask you to consider do you really know what it’s like to contact your company should a customer have an issue? It is easy? Or, hard? If it’s hard, it will be hard for your company to thrive.

Thought for the week:

“Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.” — Marilyn vos Savant

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What do you think? I welcome your blog comments!

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Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting

http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

© 2013 Gardner & Associates Consulting  All Rights Reserved

Note:  To receive an email version of “Thank God It’s Monday” to start your week, please subscribe here.  I would very much appreciate your suggesting to others that they subscribe.

Privacy Statement:  Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

Big Company Syndrome

Note: This posting is based on my weekly “Thank God It’s Monday” that helps you and your company thrive!

This week’s focus: big company syndrome

You know your company is plagued with big company syndrome when:

1. There is little or no sense of urgency.
2. The smallest unit of time is 1 year.
3. If it can’t be done in a year, allow 2 years or maybe 3.
4. There is always next week, next quarter, next year, next decade.
5. Incrementalism is favored over actions that move the needle for the business.
6. You study, analyze, and ponder for years without solving well-known problems.
7. You invest huge amounts of capital on information technology to solve a problem that no one can articulate well.
8. You are more concerned about getting to a perfect solution than rapidly implementing a solution that might be “good enough.”
9. Decisions can only be made at the highest levels of management.
10. People have little faith that their ideas are valued when senior management consistently overturns the recommendations of people on the front lines.
11. Your people think they are part of a team with well-defined roles, responsibilities and accountabilities for each member when, in reality, they are part of a committee with poorly defined roles, responsibilities and accountabilities. [What if a professional baseball or football team played like a committee rather than a team?]
12. Smaller, more agile competitors are running circles around you but you believe they’ll ever be a threat.
13. Your leadership is internally-focused with a passion for revenues, margins, market share, stock price and continually fixing what is wrong about the business but has no real passion for the business they are in, e.g., the products, the customers, driving innovation, etc.
14. Employees and customers feel as though they are treated with indifference.
15. Employees are risk-averse and cling to the status quo.

I don’t see how a company suffering from big company syndrome can thrive. Do you?

Thought for the week:

 ”There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at the typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway

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What do you think? I welcome your blog comments!

___

Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting

http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

© 2013 Gardner & Associates Consulting  All Rights Reserved

Note:  To receive an email version of “Thank God It’s Monday” to start your week, please subscribe here.  I would very much appreciate your suggesting to others that they subscribe.

Privacy Statement:  Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.

The Power Of Focus

Note: This posting is based on my weekly “Thank God It’s Monday” that helps you and your company thrive!

This week’s focus: the power of focus

Thank God It’s this Monday and not the last.

When people were attacked at the Boston Marathon, it ignited a singular focus to find the perpetrator and bring him or her to justice. At the end of the week,

• we see the result of the focus on one goal
• we see the result of incredible collaboration from thousands of people who have never worked together on a project like this before to produce a powerful outcome in just over 4 days
• we witness the euphoria of a grateful citizenry
• we feel relief

The contrast is stark: In a few days, we’ve felt the horror of the attack and sheer jubilation as a result of the suspects being neutralized.

To all who played a hand in getting us to this point, thank you. To our first responders and good samaritans who jumped into action, thank you very much.

And, finally, to all who have been impacted by the horrific event, know that you are in our thoughts and prayers.

Thought for the week:

“In your quest for the riches, don’t forget to enjoy the richness of what you already have.” - Rajesh Setty

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What do you think? I welcome your blog comments!

___

Dave Gardner, Gardner & Associates Consulting

http://www.gardnerandassoc.com

© 2013 Gardner & Associates Consulting  All Rights Reserved

Note:  To receive an email version of “Thank God It’s Monday” to start your week, please subscribe here.  I would very much appreciate your suggesting to others that they subscribe.

Privacy Statement:  Our subscriber lists are never rented, sold, or loaned to any other parties for any reason.