Call on customers
The first episode of a leadership life is played out in two acts.
Act 1 - Saying, “Yes” to the job title.
Some people never put themselves…
Whether it’s to build something new or do something specific, whether it’s a project team with an end game or if it serves a never-ending need, every team exists for a reason. Internally focused for the benefit of colleagues or aimed externally for partners, suppliers or end users – the reason it exists is to make other people’s lives better.
These people are customers. What the team does, its product.
It’s tempting for teams to believe they know enough about their customers to understand them and know what they want. And that customers want what the team’s doing for them right now.
Do they?
Does your customer want to work the way your product makes them? Do they have to jump through hoops? Could things be better? What if you changed this? Or that?
The only way to know you know, rather than think you know, is to call on customers and ask.
Skippy Strategy: If your customers are internal, get coffee-time with five colleagues. What do they want and think? If external, call them up or buy them lunch. How is your team, your company and your industry viewed? What would make life better?
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Category:
Keeping Promises
In his 2007 book, Better - A Surgeons Notes on Performance, Atul Gawande tells the story of asking simple questions and listening to the answer.
It starts…