Skip to main content

Meticulous Adjustment

There is a young man standing outside the automatic doors of a market, hands on his waist, leaning forward ever so slightly, examining with utmost concentration, peering with intense focus. He is an employee. Walking back and forth in a triangle, looking like Groucho Marx without a cigar, he triggers the mechanism that opens the doors. Then he reaches up with some eccentric-looking tool, inserts it in the mechanism, and twists the tool a few times.

Triangle, twist. Triangle, twist. Triangle, twist. There are at least three people watching him, curiosity plastered across their faces. He is utterly indifferent. Triangle, twist. Triangle, nod. He disappears inside.

When is the last time anyone at your organization took the time to adjust the automatic doors? That young man took a considerate, prideless action in order to ensure a flawless customer experience. Do you think his manager asked him to do it? Doubtful. It was, most likely, a function of his personality fundamentals. The market benefited from having him as a part of their culture because their culture supported his unique, ingenious effort.

Precisely adjusted doors may not be as remarkable as the $18.69 jar of Himalayan banguberry jam on the top shelf in aisle nine that has a viral internet marketing campaign behind it, but every small detail considered reduces frustration by at least twelve times the effort required to address it in the first place. Does your culture support the creation of a better experience? The better question is, "How does your culture support the creation of a better experience?".


Popular posts from this blog

Recommended Reading

I support literacy (no revelation there, not that many are against it) and would like to share some good books with points of view about the world at large. The first in the series is... Dry by Augusten Burrows. A truly witty, and thus endearingly honest, memoir of an advertising guru's journey into and through sobriety, friendship, and mortality. It seems real enough to pass for autobiographical .

List Of Convenient Excuses To Avoid Change

1. "That will never work." 2. "That said, the labor laws make it difficult for us to do a lot of the suggestions you put out. And we do live in a lawsuit oriented society." 3. "Can you show me some research that demonstrates that this will work?" 4. "Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand." 5. "I don't think our customers will go for that, and without them we'd never be able to afford to try this." 6. "It's fantastic, but the salesforce won't like it." 7. "The salesforce is willing to give it a try, but [insert major retailer/corporation/partner here] won't stock it." 8. "There are government regulations and this won't be permitted." 9. "Well, this might work for other people, but I think we'll stick with what we've got." 10. "Our team doesn't have the technical chops to do this." 11. "Maybe in the next b

The Great Firewall Of China

When considering how important it is to preserve the neutrality of the internet, chew on these observations about what China and Iran are already doing. Communism and capitalism are coming increasingly close together when it comes to regulating content that should otherwise be free and freely accessible. What would it have been like if you had to pay for certain, designated books at the library when you were growing up? Try to imagine Ted Turner in one of Kim Jong-Il's jumpsuits....