The events that unfolded during the BP oil crisis of 2010 made us, at this fluid world, question what could have happened if an organisation such as BP had a different approach in terms of preparation, positioning and attitude.
Our belief is that a different outcome, in terms of communications and speed in finding a solution, could have been possible. Due to this we spent the summer of 2010 developing an alternative scenario based on a combination of the changing communications world we live in, the thinking, tools and methodologies of this fluid world, and learnings from the BP case.
The document comes in two parts:
Part one: a summary of the main events of the two first months of the BP crisis, with a focus on the communications side, to set the scene for our scenario.
Part two: a scenario presenting an alternative approach that is collaborative, transparent, responsible, open, honest and rapid.
A week ago I was having dinner with a good friend Thera at a restaurant in Place Plumerau, a beautiful square in the centre of Tours. It was a warm evening, we were surrounded by stunning buildings, a jazz band was playing, and a couple of waiters were entertaining the crowds by seeing who could run the fastest around the square with two beers on a tray. Basically all good!
Apparently not for everyone. Our neighbours were a Belgian couple – and for the entire dinner they did not utter a word to each other. She was too busy staring at her split ends (45 minutes) followed by staring at her cuticles (remaining 45 minutes). He was showing such interest in his mobile phone, we were quite sure he would end up kissing it before the end of the dinner.
What does this have to do with businesses and passion? Well, as I was looking at them I started to think about all the people I know, or have met, who are with someone they don’t want to be with, or are somewhere they don’t want to be, or doing something they don’t want to do.
Think about it. How many people do you know involved in business who love what they do (note I said love, not like, not think it’s OKish, but love!)? A few days later, sitting by the lake at Château la Vallière, I asked Thera that precise question. Her answer was “Two, actually no, now that you’re doing this fluid world, three”.
It’s an incredibly low figure, and although many of you will state a higher one, I wonder if it will be significantly higher.
This is a massive problem for the business world because I don’t believe you can be passionate if you don’t do something you love. I don’t believe you can be passionate if you’re somewhere you don’t want to be? And finally, I don’t believe you, and therefore organisations, can excel without passion and therefore I don’t believe companies can thrive without passion (thrive that is, not just get by)! Hence the problem!
Passion does much more than allow people to excel, passion breaks down barriers.
It breaks down the ‘we have no money for this’ barrier. Look at the Wright Brothers. They invented the airplane not because of the support of a large team, or because of unlimited resources (they had none of these). No, they succeeded in designing a plane that could fly because they were passionate about the idea of flying! Passionate enough to work night and day, passionate enough to remortgage their house, passionate enough to finally succeed to fly for 12 seconds, this without caring that no-one was there to see it happen!
It breaks down the ‘lets not collaborate’ barrier. We may be closer to a cure for AIDS today if research in this filed was driven by the passion for saving lives, rather than the quest for being the first team to find a cure, and hence reaping the large economic benefits that come with it (this leading to competition rather than collaboration).
It breaks down the ‘mediocre’ barrier. Let’s face it you can go from OK to good, and from good to excellent… but you can never go from OK to excellent. And it’s unlikely that you will ever be good, or excellent, at something you’re not passionate about. Just ask top athletes (well, excluding certain European football teams), just ask 1st class musicians, just ask extraordinary business people if they have passion for, if they love what they do? And I can guarantee you the answer will be yes, with capital letters!
I challenge you to find any corporate problem that can’t be solved, in one way or another, directly or indirectly through passionate people!
One of the greatest compliments I ever received was given to myself and Jonathan (my business partner in this fluid world) after delivering one of our learning & development programmes. It came from one of the older participants “You have reminded me of why I work in advertising, once upon a time I loved it, and I’m finding that again”.
This should be the role of organisations, to find, encourage, harness and reward passion!
I don’t think there’s an excuse for not being somewhere you love, or not doing something you love (at least for a big chunk of the week). I don’t think there’s an excuse for an organisation not to do everything in their power to create an environment where people want to be, and where they, for at least a significant part of the day, do something they want to do, something they love, something they are passionate about.
So if you rather stare at your phone, your split ends, or your cuticles, I think it’s time for you to seriously question what you do, and where you do it…and well…just stop doing it!
What can I say; I’m with Blackberry on this one ‘Do What You Love, Love What You Do’. I would only add one thing to that, and that is do it TODAY! I know it’s not easy to find IT, or to transition, but I can promise you that at the end of that journey awaits Excellence (spelt with a large E, like Tom Peters likes it)! And if you manage an organisation, or a team make sure you are your people’s IT, as that is the only way you will ever benefit from some of their Excellence!
This week was admin week. Nothing good can come out of admin week. Not only is it not enjoyable, but it usually involves dealing with loads of files, paper and unfortunately….organisations.
The life of a customer is an endless source of frustration, disbelief and rare moments of feeling ecstatic – or seen from another perspective, an endless source of inspiration for someone who likes to observe, and write about business and marketing in action (or should I say inaction!).
I have therefore decided that, as I continue to be a customer, observe customers, speak to customers or read about customers, I will report on my observations via ‘The chronicles of a customer’ (hence why I re-named the original blog ‘The chronicles of a customer: Volume 1’).
So back to my admin week….
I need a new bank. Why? Because in addition to a personal account I also need a business account, both with its own credit card (or at least a debit card). But Citibank refuses to accept that one can be a private banker and the owner of a business, all at the same time. Hence their business processes are structured as if those two worlds were mutually exclusive. I will spare you the statistics of how much small and medium size business’ contribute to a country’s GDP, suffice to say it’s a massive chunk – hence one would think a bank would like to cater for their needs, but when it comes to Citibank apparently not so much.
(Me trying to get information on Citibank Business banking prior to calling them and getting the bad news…)
So I call Lloyds. Not because of their site, or anything in their documentation – as you know these things are never written for a customer and are therefore totally impossible to understand. I chose Lloyds because someone I trust recommended the bank to me (this by the way would make me seriously reconsider how I allocate my marketing spend if I was the Marketing Director of a major bank).
Five phone calls later, with five different departments in numerous cities, I realise this is a pandemic. Banks insist on separating the organisation that takes care of personal banking from the one dealing with business banking, and not only that, no one in personal banking has a clue about who one should call to get a business account set up.
The only solution for me, the customer, is to compromise. I have to stay with both banks, making one my personal and the second my business bank. Not ideal, but then I’m just a customer.
Next. Time to insure the Vespa. I call my insurer Aviva as I want to know what difference it will make to my present insurance if I exclude one of the extra drivers. A few hundred commands, and a significant wait later I’m told that ‘Unfortunately we can’t tell you this without actually taking out the extra driver from the policy’. I’m also informed that if I, at that stage, decide to keep the driver on the insurance I will have to go through the whole registration procedure again. Why? Because that is how the system is designed.
The only solution for me, the customer, is to compromise. And in my case it meant keeping the extra driver on, I just don’t have 20 minutes to spend on the phone with some random insurance company working around ‘their system’. Not ideal, but then I’m just a customer.
I also needed to re-new my travel insurance with Insure and Go. After having answered the security question of when I was born with ‘in 1969’, I was asked during the health questions ‘Are you older than 75?’. Am I older than 75? I don’t know, bearing in mind I just told them I was born in 1969 what do they think? Ah but then the person writing the security check questions is not the same person writing the insurance application questions – who cares if it makes an organisation look a little silly – or forces a customer to answer unnecessary questions!
And finally I spent a ‘glorious’ time at the post office until they finally accepted my Belgian Driving license when I tried to change money. Apparently the UK Post Office is not aware the the UK is in the EU, and therefore by EU law; if they accept a British driving license, they also have to accept all EU licenses (yes even a Belgian one ).
The only solution for me, patiently waiting for the manager followed by some lengthy negotiation. Not ideal, but then I’m just a customer.
It’s Sunday and admin week is over! I say thank God for the Screen on Baker Street. A lovely little cinema, recently re-designed, and yes with the customer in mind!!!! This my friends is how I celebrated the end of the week in the life of a customer (courtesy The Screen on Baker Street’s alcohol license) – cheers to admin!
No one would disagree that Apple is a company that get a lot of things right.
In 2011 over half of their revenue will come from products that did not exist four years ago. We can safely say that ticks the innovation box.
Any company about whom people tweet the following ‘Glad I helped Steve Jobs reach sales targets this month. Feeling quite proud’ has definitely ticked ‘the army of fanatics supporting them’ box!
An organisation that successfully launches a new product (iPad) and an upgrade to a core product (iPhone 4) within months of each other gets a tick next to the commercial box.
And as for differentiation, there are more ticks than I can mention here!
So why was I feeling uneasy as I left the Mac store on Regent Street this Saturday? My experience there raised some key questions to which I don’t have an answer, but that does make me wonder if there is a crack starting to show in that shiny little Mac Apple?!
Let me tell you what I mean.
Saturday 2 AM my computer dies and at 9 AM I’m at the Mac store on Regent Street only to be told that the next appointment in the Genius bar for technical support is on Friday at 18.00.
One week to get technical support! ‘This is wrong on so many levels, and it also shows some structural problems. Below are my top line observations.
If you’re a life style brand, promoting a way for people to live their lives, then you can’t at the same time turn around and say that it’s OK to be without you for one week.
This is even more the case if your product provides some form of utility. I run this fluid world with my business partner and i can safely tell you none of our clients would be happy with me being out of action for a week.
Customer service that offers technical support one week later is just not good enough for a premium priced product – it’s not actually good enough for any priced product in this category!
Not one member of staff I spoke to disagreed with me, a one week wait is just unreasonable. If your own staff can’t support your customer service level, then as an organisation you do have a problem!
It’s clear when you’re in the store that Apple is an organisation that prioritises sales and marketing. The look and feel of the store as you know is great, there are more sales people walking around than I have ever seen anywhere else, and they are happy letting people be on facebook all day long because ‘we’re nurturing future customers’. The problem is that ONLY a handful of people working in the Genius bar, and a sales force that can’t handle even basic trouble shooting, does nothing to nurture your present customers with a pressing problem!
And finally, when your staff speaks less than gloriously about you as an organisation to customers, in this case I had to listen to comments like ‘we’re becoming an IBM’, then you really should sit up and listen! Not to mention that the staff also seems totally unaware of the risk taken when speaking so honestly to a stranger (I mean really have they never heard of journalists, bloggers, facebook fans twitterers?!)
I did end up getting help though. One of the young men I spoke to squeezed me in. I had to wait three hours for it all to be sorted out, but it did get sorted (these chairs are really not that comfortable by the way)!
The issue is that the reason my trip to the Apple store was a success had nothing to do with Apple as an organisation, and everything to do with one person breaking a rule. Not a sustainable solution to what I think could be a major problem – a focus on product development and launches on the possible expense of customer service and staff motivation.
I propose Steve Jobs takes a trip down to one of his Mac stores, accompanied by a broken computer and a pressing dead line. I think it would do him some good, but then I suspect they would make an even bigger exception for him than for me
My last blog ‘Do we need strategists? Hell yeah!’ mentions hiring ‘heads of what’s in vogue’, and I would like to discuss this topic a bit further.
When I say ‘head of what’s in vogue’, yes I do mean Head of Digital, Mobile and now Social Media (in addition to the next thing that will come along).
Do not get me wrong, every new channel, discipline and/or opportunity should be acknowledged and recognised for their potential importance, and the possibilities they may bring.
I’m also all for recruiting necessary skills, and for assigning roles and responsibilities (the buck has to stop somewhere), and finally I have no problem with those roles and responsibilities coming with a title.
What I do have an issue with is agencies and organisations reasons for assigning a head of Digital/Mobile/Social Media. From my experience when such an appointment is made it’s for one of the following reasons:
Everyone else is, so it must be important, hence we should hire someone too
We’re not sure we buy into it, but we do need to be seen as doing so (by the trade press and our clients)
We don’t really have time to think about it so we’ll hire someone to delegate the responsibility to
Hey, maybe it will lead to a new revenue stream
Hiring someone is as good as a change, no? (and yes a lot easier!)
What seems to only rarely be on the agenda is hiring someone to do what is desperately needed, manage the necessary mind-shift to affect real change, rather than just contribute to a campaign, or meet with senior clients (pixie dust).
For that to happen the new Head should spend his time:
Figuring out the role of, for example digital, mobile and social media, in the communications and marketing mix
Identifying its best use in achieving business objectives and marketing goals, this per category, stage in product life cycle and per campaign
Ensuring awareness and REAL understanding of the topic within the agency/company
Making sure everyone in the agency/company understand its role, value, and knows how to use it and what to expect from it
What is needed is to ensure that the right measures are taken to make what is new part of business as usual, so that it becomes EVERYONE’s responsibility.
Because without this happening we will never have what is truly needed and that is great marketing and communications practitioners that can adapt to any change and capitalise on any opportunity (be it a channel, platform or disciple) that comes their way!
So if you hire anyone hire a ‘Head of figuring things out’, a ‘Head of understanding people’, a ‘Head of getting stuff done’ – or alternatively hire smart generalists with deep knowledge and experience for a day, a week a month (we love those in this fluid world so if you’re one, or looking for one, get in touch)
Hire them and let them loose in your organisation with a simple brief, ‘to find answers, to find solutions, to achieve great marketing and communications that is channel, platform or disciple agnostic’ – hire them to achieve companie’s business and marketing objectives (this would be a strategy rather than sprinkling pixie dust).
I’m afraid this will not happen if we keep hiring Head… after Head… after Head of ‘whatever is in vogue’!
This is a continuation of my most recent blog ‘A bad piece of meat will always be a bad piece of meat!’ where I discussed how choosing suppliers based on image, price, or size can often lead to less than satisfactory results… In my case a very bad piece of meat from Tesco’s.
You could argue that if I could not see how bad the meat was through the packaging, then how could Tesco’s have seen it? You could then also argue that it’s therefore not their fault!
Wrong! Why? Because I don’t care who actually packaged the meet, I don’t care if Tesco’s was conned by their supplier, I just care about who sold me the product, because it’s with that organisation I have a relationship, and it’s that organisation I’m looking to trust!
Whoever is responsible for ‘the last mile’ – lets call it the royal mile (the bit just before the product or service touches me), whoever’s brand is on the packaging is the ONLY company I will blame when something goes wrong!
So when I buy a pair of Nike shoes I expect them to have been manufactured somewhere where working conditions are good, and wages are descent. I don’t care that Nike sells millions of shoes and pieces of clothing each year, I don’t care that Nike does not produce any of these products themselves, I don’t care that they have contracts with manufacturing facilities located throughout the world, and I don’t care that these contractors subcontract to companies hiring nearly 800,000 people working in factories throughout Asia.
When Unilever buys palm-oil from the Indonesian company Duta Palma who has a practice of clearing protected rainforest to make way for plantations – I don’t care who ultimately did what, and I therefore end up blaming Unilever, not Duta Palma.
All I care about is that I get the quality I pay for. All I care about is that my shoe supplier, and the company responsible for my beauty care, in their quest to get me the quality I pay for behave in the right way! All I care about is that the brands I have a relationship with, and I trust, do the right thing – because when they act, they also act on my behalf, they act on the behalf of all their customers – so what they do is not just their decision, what they do does not just affect their brand, it affects all our personal brands!
In this collaborative world we have to accept that our suppliers are our responsibility. In this collaborative world we have to make sure the right systems are in place to ensure customers buy what they believe they buy. In this collaborative world we have to make sure that not only we, but our suppliers do the right thing!
Hard? I’m sure it is, but think of all the times you have bought products without any quality problems. Think of all the multinationals that have never been caught out like Unilever and Nike – we can reasonable assume that many of them have not been caught because they have done nothing wrong.
So although it’s hard to control your entire value chain – it’s clearly not impossible!
Oh yeah, and doing the less of two evils is just well, not good enough!
Sounds a bit stressful? Well I argue that you already do!
The question “who do you work for” is usually answered by a company name, and in the top five answers to “what motivates you at work” you tend to find money, and being respected by colleagues (the latter measured by how often you’re promoted).
These answers are no surprise in a business world where hierarchy is part of the control and reward mechanism. However, this has one big downside and that is that employees feel they work for management, or for the CEO.
I know what you’re thinking…but we do don’t we?
In practise yes… but I would argue that in principle we work for the customer. Why you may ask? Because they’re the ones paying your salary, they’re the ones that will fire you if they’re not happy, they won’t hire you without extensive research or without checking your references, and you’re more likely to be hired if others recommend you! In summary, what social media has done is created a world where employees receive a 360-degree performance review by their customers, in public, on mass, and on a minute-by-minute basis.
Which makes me think they should be the centre of any company’s universe, and at the top of the management pyramid.
So if I was the CEO of an organisation I would not only create an army of fanatics in my customers (to quote Jonathan MacDonald – Happy Birthday by the way!) but I would also create a workforce with one boss, the customer!
The implication of this on how a company is managed would be radical…We would live in a world where the most powerful person in an organisation is the Head of Customer Care, who of course sits on the board. It’s a world where decentralised structures are systematically favoured, because being responsible to customers in a centralised system is seen as impossible. In this world, customers are regularly part of the recruitment process.
I could go on but I agree that this may come across as a little too much like customer utopia, and not so realistic…but I still argue that a fundamental cultural shift in who companies think they are ultimately responsible to is needed…(and this would require organisations, and therefore everyone working in them, to reconsider who they think they work for)…
… oh by the way I mean a real cultural shift, in both thinking and action – not just paying lip service…
But until then, I’ll keep praying that one day a miracle will happen and I will finally understand my mobile bill, my service provider will call me back when my e-mail is down, and my bank will decide that Sweden is a country, that Swedish Kroners is a currency, and therefore allow me to transfer money there using my on-line banking service.
Success in business has always been a case of survival of the fittest, fastest, and strongest…and never has this been more true than in today’s evolutionary market.
However, we are observing a concerning trend in solution driven strategy. This is resulting in the creation of, for example, an application or a Facebook campaign as a false substitute for a communications strategy. Or alternatively, a purchase of new technology as a feasible business strategy. These are a few of many examples – you probably know several too!
In reality, what matters today is what has always mattered. Factors such as, the attitude you have to business and risk taking, the corporate culture you foster amongst your team, department and organisation, the way you communicate with citizens, who you work with and what you value.
We discuss this a lot amongst ourselves (and with our clients at this fluid world), and we regularly observe these challenges. However, we rarely see the realisation, let alone the action in these areas, which would ensure a healthy prosperous future for an organisation.
We felt it valuable to create a white paper which contains ten do’s and don’ts that could act as a survival guide in today’s business and communications world.
Our hope is that this document will inspire people to get the basics right, because it’s only upon these foundations that excellent business can be created and nurtured.
A few days ago I had lunch with the very lovely and smart Mike Nutley, Editor-in-chief of New Media Age. Taking a break from his pasta, Mike made a very true statement.
“Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure’.”
I hate to say this… but can you blame them? ‘I’m not sure’ and ‘I don’t know’ is not very helpful when you try to forecast, resource, be profitable, monitor competition and keep The City happy… and it’s really not helpful when you try to write a three, five, seven or ten year plan!
This fragmented and confusing world is even more frightening for anyone running an advertising or media agency. They’ve had it relatively easy for quite some time. If you think about it, any agency that figured out how to do a descent TV ad when TV moved into our living rooms has been able to dine out on that learning for almost half a century! Listening to many of these agencies today it’s clear that they are hoping for a repeat of that performance by taking one giant (digital) leap into the future, and subsequently reap the benefits of that one-off learning and understanding of digital for some time to come.
And again, can you blame them? It sure would make working life easier for a lot of people if that was a possibility!
The truth however is that a company can no longer be in the business of forecasting, of committing to certain results, of ensuring specific ROI’s, monitoring competition or of recycling solutions, and it can most definitely no longer be in the business of creating three, five, seven or ten year plans (or 30 second ads).
Why? Because the world just does not look like that anymore, and it never will again! Also, there is no one giant leap into the future, there are only a series of continuous steps.
“Then what business should we be in?” I hear you say.
Obviously you should be in the business of delivering on your core product/service, and obviously some of the activities mentioned above will continue to be part of your life for some time to come.
But at the core you should be in the business of two things, and that is:
1) creating value – as in extreme value!
and
2) evolving – as in continuously!
If you put that at the centre of everything you do, and if you put your heart and mind into doing it brilliantly, then I believe the rest will follow. You won’t need to run after competition; you’ll be creating the path everyone will want to follow, you won’t need five year plans as grabbing opportunities when they come your way will be part of your competitive advantage, you won’t need to worry about who you should hire a year in advance (and for what role) as you will have a flexible employee network at your disposal…you won’t be… sorry I won’t go on (as I frequently do when I’m passionate about something), as this is a conversation better had over a coffee.
But suffice to say that I believe this so much I existed the agency world to start this fluid world (with Jonathan MacDonald), a company who helps organisations do just this. Whether we work on creating the ideal corporate culture, building people capabilities, designing new business models and revenue streams, advising on organisational structure or on creating new products and services, our focus is always on those two things; unlocking extreme value and building in flexibility, or should I say fluidity, in all our solutions.
Take a look at our site (click on pic) it will give you an idea of how we think and also of some of the work we have done.
I know “Most MD’s don’t want to hear that the world is in flux, they don’t want to plan around ‘not knowing’, or around ‘not being sure.’”…but I can’t help but believe that it’s by doing just that that they will become more competitive, and it’s by doing just that that they will develop better (and therefore more profitable) business models!
What can I say, I definitely believe this unpredictable future is bright, I really believe it’s orange!
Go ahead pick it!
…or maybe it’s blue, yellow, red, green … who knows, but I’m looking forward to figuring it out … as we go along!
Who are the lowest class citizens in business? That’s an easy one, CUSTOMERS!!!
The minute you commit to a company, the second you say “I do” and sign on the dotted line you are on a downward spiral!!!
A few weeks in my life as a customer looked as follows.
“Hi Vodafone I got my phone stolen”. “OK you have to pay 25 pounds for a replacement (despite having paid insurance for three years)”. “For what”? No answer. “Where in my insurance contract does it say that I have to pay 25 pounds?” “Nowhere” I’m told. “Are you aware that I’m not contractually bound to pay the 25 pounds as it’s not mentioned in the insurance contract I signed?’. “Ok”, they say, “but we will not send you a replacement phone if you don’t”. Ahhhh I’m not just a second-class citizen, I’m a hostage!
“Hi Citibank, I want to open a second account”. “Sure no problem, we do have a really good interest rate available right now but you can’t have it because you’re already a customer” (I promise you this is a direct quote!). Great, treating me as a second-class citizen behind my back is not enough, you have to rub my face in it!
The good news is I know how you can be promoted to ‘persona grata’ and be treated with respect by organisations who are very happy to take your money! The bad news is it will require you to move once a year in order to change service provider, or alternatively to renew your contracts on a yearly basis.
Why is that? Because doing this will move you from the retention box, to customer Nirvana…the acquisition box!!!
You don’t believe me? I left a message on the Virgin answering machine one Sunday evening telling them I was moving and was looking for a broadband package. At 8.30 the next morning my mobile rang and a very pleasant Paul from Virgin said “Hello Miss Acquisition, how can I help you today!?”.
On the opposite spectrum I rang Sky to let them know I was no longer receiving e-mails and Beth announced “No problem Miss Retention, you can expect a call within 48 hours at which point we will see what we can do”. No promise of any solution any time soon. And even if they manage to solve the problem 48 hours later when they eventually do call, well we all know that 48 hours in no e-mail land is a lifetime!
If you are reading this and you’re a company, you will have seen all the stats telling you how much cheaper it is to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. They have been around since I graduated. So how about accepting that the grass may not be greener on the other side and start taking care of what you have? Trust me the ROI makes sense.
And if you are reading this and you’re ‘just a customer’, I don’t know about you but I think dealing with estate agents, packing boxes, lifting heavy items up and down stairs, and paying whatever it costs to move to a new place is a cheap price to pay to avoid being a second class citizen!
My lease is coming to an end in a few weeks so that’s me off flat hunting, feel free to join me!
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