Corporate Acupuncture

"The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you."

~ Anthony Robbins

Everywhere there is a "touch-point" there is the possibility of a "pain-point." Touch-points could also be viewed as points of interaction between two unique identities - the interface. Typical interactions include customer & customer service, application A & application B, and etc. Issues between touch-points are typically failures in the communication medium. The goal here is to minimize and eliminate pain-points. Ideally, we turn every touch-point to a "pleasure-point."

Companies need to remember that customers are buying the product / service for what it provides, not for what it is. In its entirety, a product includes ALL touch-points between the customer and the company - including vendors, documentation, advertising, web, customer service, and etc. To better appreciate this concept, consider everything that the company is paying for to obtain a happy, paying, loyal, vocal customer.

To prioritize, companies need to perform a Cost / Benefit analysis - qualify and quantify the soft and hard impacts. There are no pain-points that won't negatively impact the bottom-line.

Some of the common touch-points to consider include the following:

• Customer: Direct (web, phone, face-to-face) or indirect (policies, procedures, manufacturing, after-market repairs) contact with the customer
• IT: Interaction (connectivity, functionality, efficiency) within the IT or other physical infrastructures.
• Financial: Revenue streams (direct, indirect, secondary, etc.), and costs (consider all vertical and horizontal business partners).
• Operational: Infrastructure (operational, organizational, procedural, communication channels and methods, physical and virtual connectivity, and etc.)
• Employees: Employee KSA's (knowledge, skills, and abilities) and company related interactions with the employee (payroll, organization, training, rewards).

In evaluating these touch-points, look at their effectiveness, efficiency, and resources utilized. At each process / step / point, assign a $ figure. While looking at the costs or revenue streams, look for ways to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and resources utilized. One can continue evaluating by performing a SWOT or Porter’s Five Forces analysis and make plans to turn everything into a Strength and Opportunity.

By having this comprehensive vision of the company, division, or team, you can quickly see the areas of opportunity to maximize profits, reduce overhead, perform and provide more effectively and efficiently, and establish realistic ROI projections to justify financial allocations.

~ Jason Saetrum

Stop Enabling Your Infrastructure Gaps

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus. "

~ Alexander Graham Bell

As corporate performance is evaluated, it needs to be accepted that gaps in infrastructure are either costing the company time, money, efficiency, effectiveness, or inhibiting its growth (Infrastructure referring to technology, knowledge, skills, policies, procedures, people, and etc.)

The following steps are used to flush out and eliminate technical gaps by establishing the correct IT infrastructure top-down and not by evolving bottom-up. Technical infrastructure should always be built around the business requirements needed to achieve success and must be scalable for growth.

1. Establish clear, measurable corporate and divisional goals.
2. Associate hard $$$ figures to each goal - this will aid in determining ROI and assist in justifying implementation costs.
3. Identify the specific results that will achieve the goals.
4. Establish the specific a) business practices; b) information; and c) metrics needed to drive the results.
5. Layout the business requirements needed to support these initiatives.
6. Determine and design what IT tools need to be put into place to provide the required information, metrics, and 'hard' policies ('hard' policies are restrictions and requirements build into the functionality or limitations of an IT tool.) Operations will drive 'soft' policies ('soft' policies are requirements and restrictions managed through training and face-to-face interaction.) Policies outline the best practice activities.
7. Implement.

IF existing IT and Operational infrastructures are in place:

1. Complete steps 1 - 6 listed above, then...
2. Separately line-up the existing and the desired IT and Operational infrastructures.
3. Identify gaps between the two. (Note: the desired IT and Operational infrastructures are the solutions. Any intermediate steps used to reach the same results are 'workarounds' and NOT solutions. Items and activities used to quickly bridge/workaround a gap are 'stop-gaps.')
4. Put together a project plan on getting from 'here' to 'there' - technically and operationally. Note all interdependencies.
5. Implement.

This way policies and tools will be built around best practices (used to achieve the goals) vs. the improved support of current practices. (Note: anticipate the need to mitigate the impact of new policies, procedures, and tools on the staff.)

~ Jason Saetrum

Leadership and the Leaf

"The key to change... is overcoming fear."

~Rosanne Cash

By default people are adverse to change. People will continue in a given path, or paradigm, until their current paradigm becomes too painful to stay in - when their pain overcomes their fear (what a miserable way to grow and develop).


Leading a team to a successful solution often requires change. It may be a minor course correction or the equivalent of turning an aircraft-carrier. Most of the time the definition of success does not come from the team members, but comes from customers, clients, or the management team. The first step is taking the time to make sure that everyone involved understands how success is defined, and that each of them are responsible for making it a reality. 


One common obstacle are team members so ingrained in doing their job/function a certain way that they go through "shock" and see the change as a complete redraft of their "identity." At times they may feel that they are seen as failures because the goal has changed, and that perhaps their efforts weren't good enough. Some employees may take it to the next level of seeing the leaders as personal threats.


Leaders need to continually keep the definition of success in front of the teams' eyes. There needs to be metrics and measurements, reporting of progress,  genuine and specific feedback and compliments. Leaders need to stay confident and focused.

An excellent example is from Disney's movie "A Bug's Life." In this scene, ants are working on gathering food for the winter and a leaf falls into their path. So used to the normal way of doing things, this obstacle becomes insurmountable for the working ants. Following is the dialogue between the ants:

• FIRST ANT IN LINE:  I’m lost!!! Where’s the line?! What do we do?!
• ANOTHER ANT:  We’ll be stuck here forever!
• MR. SOIL:  Do not panic! Do not panic! We are trained professionals. Now, stay calm. We are going around the leaf.
• FIRST ANT:  Around the leaf? I don’t think we can do that.
• MR. SOIL:  Oh, nonsense! This is nothing compared to the “Twig of ‘93”. (He begins to guide them around the fallen leaf.) That’s it…that’s it…good! There you go, there you go!  Watch my eyes; don’t look away. And here’s the line again!
• FIRST ANT:  Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Soil!
• MR. SOIL:  Good job, everybody!

One key to overcoming fear is to look to someone that has already overcome it themselves. Leaders will sacrifice their fear for success. The most common fear is not just of the unknown, but that the consequences of facing the unknown will embarrass or threaten the pride of the individuals.


Real life:
Once I was faced with changing the mind-set of a team of customer service technicians who were dedicated to, and took pride in, troubleshooting computer components to the "nth" degree. Faced with the rising costs of support and the falling margins in product sales, the client reset the definition of success - resulting in a "hard" time limit on how long a product could be troubleshot.
Upon delivering these new guidelines and reaffirming the requirement for high resolution rates and high quality of customer service, the technicians began throwing their hands up in the air and asking how this could be done, etc., etc.


A brief snapshot of "going around the leaf..."

• I re-clarified how the client defined success, answered questions until we were all in complete understanding, and established how success was to be measured. Made sure that everyone understood that they were responsible and accountable for making success happen.
  
• I setup charts, whiteboards, and other reporting components to keep status and the goal front and center, and to keep the team informed. It lets the team know that we are all in this together and that we are keeping an eye on it. Assign the updating of the boards, and etc. to different team members (at times giving it to the lower performer) to reinforce the ownership of the performance.
  
• Take the time to give everyone one-on-one feedback, identify top performers, and set personal goals with the lower performers (when setting goals with team members / subordinates, always include what you as a leader can do to assist them) and never fail to follow-up (and never call public attention to the low performer). Ideally, you get the client or executive team involved in recognizing the individual and team performance.
• Continually remind the team members what their responsibilities are, how success is defined and measured, keep them informed, hold them accountable, and stay positive (!)... Rally the troops!

~ Jason Saetrum

Orient Your Compass

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."

~ Helen Keller

It is essential to have leadership that is visionary and solution-oriented. A leader needs to look beyond the current paradigm, perceive existing and potential threats, and envision success in its multiple levels and final attainment.

To be "goal-oriented" is not enough. "Solution-oriented" will always lead to the higher ideal and requires sacrifice of even one's self. Goals will lead to achievements whether they be productive or not, while successful solutions will lead to systems of worthy achievements.   "Solution-oriented" ultimately assumes that there are things in life worth more than one's life. 

The key to business and life is to be solution-oriented, and then surround yourself with leaders that imbue that same attribute.

~ Jason Saetrum