1st October 2008
Just back from a great evening of stimulating conversation about the pros and cons of e-mail at a Knowledge Cafe organised by knowledge consultant David Gurteen. Luis Suarez of IBM kicked off the evening by proposing that e-mail was a very poor tool for collaboration and there were more productive ways of communicating. Luis has not used e-mail for around 8 months now and seems all the happier for it. Through talking to a range of interesting people - the Cafe is structured (more…)
Sometimes I think it’s best to leave reviewing a good customer experience for few weeks to see if it stays with you for a period of time. The test of a superior service is that when you think back to the experience you get the same positive emotional reaction that you got the first time. So that – combined with a busy schedule recently – is my excuse for not posting an immediately positive reaction to the Novotel in Ipswich.
SMART objectives – anyone who’s been trained in best practice for personal or project planning knows about them. It’s a convenient shorthand that’s found its way into common usage but is it any use? Sometimes I find a little redefinition is in order.
I have already praised Pret A Manger’s superior customer service but I’m happy to do so again as a little incident in my local branch demonstrated their overall philosophy and how they can wow customers where it matters – on the front line.
Driving down the A1 from a holiday in Yorkshire the other week we were in need of a coffee so pulled in at Grantham North service area. Years of UK driving have lowered my expectations of service stations considerably but Sunday afternoon at Grantham North set the bar even lower. However, this is a superior service post so read on…
Recently I spent an evening at the theatre seeing Yazmina Reza’s new play God of Carnage. It’s got an excellent cast (perhaps the only time you can see DI Rebus, Voldemort and Debbie Archer in the same bill) and only detains you for about 95 minutes. Its central, rather bleak premise sparked thoughts about the conditions under which superior service flourishes.
It seems that British Airways will continue to receive bad publicity over the disastrous opening days of Heathrow Terminal 5 so my own recent example of less-than-superior-service from the World’s Favourite Airline will hardly make much difference. But it does illustrate how difficult it can be to do the simplest things to say that you’re sorry – and to mean it.
It’s not often that you read a management book and think “everyone should have a copy of this” but Jane Northcote – management consultant and occasional contributor to this blog – has written a book that everyone involved in change should read. Making Change Happen is quite simply (more…)
I was in a meeting with one of my clients recently where we were reviewing a document that dealt with how to get the voice of the customer more embedded into their project methodology. Following a battle with Microsoft Word’s spell-checker the document referred to a project mythology. Laughs all round but this got me thinking: methodologies are all well and good but it’s an organisation’s mythology that can make all the difference between successful innovation and unsuccessful stagnation.
Why so? Well, let’s look at myths and what they mean. (more…)
There’s a new post in the business innovation series coming soon but in the meantime here’s a link to an interview I gave to NLP consultant Michael Beale on his website - available as a transcript or podcast. I don’t practice NLP myself for anyone who’s interested in the subject Michael is well worth contacting.
I also wrote an editorial on the relevance of the CharterMark for The Guardian’s Guardian Public magazine. The magazine isn’t available online but I’m happy to share the article with anyone who’s interested - drop me an e-mail at nick@openchord.co.uk.