Leadership

Nothing improves unless something changes. This is a fact but also a challenge. How does one bring about change in a company’s culture? How does one create a high-performance culture within the company? According to research done by Best Practices, LLC, a research, consulting and publishing firm and world-leader in the field of best practice benchmarking, the top drivers for successful change are:

1. Executive sponsorship
   
2. Understanding of the need for change
   
3. Multilevel management support
   
4. Consistent communications
   
5. Compelling need for change

Successful change means it is implemented and sustained and these top five factors all relate to leadership. Too often senior managers decide something must change - they introduce the need; then delegate or even dictate the change requirements and move on to other issues. Cultural change cannot be delegated or dictated. It must be led. To create a culture that is more customer oriented, Lean, innovative, committed to drive out waste, safe, green or does effective problem solving takes senior managers that are willing to lead the change and change themselves. Doctor Deming always made the point that change is not necessary – survival (for a company) is not guaranteed. As we move into the middle of this year, what changes need to be made in your company to be a high-performing contractor? Who is leading the change? What are you willing to change?

Customer Focused

Two situations I observed recently regarding customer service:

One friend writes, “So far, my experience in Orlando is exactly the opposite: People who stand to profit from a simple follow-up email or phone call just fail to do it. I am just appalled at the lack of commitment and follow-through here... No one seems to even care... Sounds like an opportunity, but in the culture here, it's "just the way we do things." I don't understand how they even survive!”

Another friend reported that he went into a bike shop ready to buy a new bicycle. He spent 10 minutes looking and waiting for someone to come help. There were two sales people in the back of the showroom talking to each other. They never approached or even seem to acknowledge his presence. After a long enough wait he left feeling very frustrated. He went to another store to purchase the bicycle.



What is the tie for both of these all too common stories? It is poor customer services. It’s everywhere. Unfortunately, we all experience poor customer service too often. I doubt the bicycle shop owner wants his employees to give poor service. The same could be said for the owners of companies in Orlando. No owner or top manager ever said, “Let’s be the leader in poor customer service.” So why is something so undesirable so common? I feel there are several possible reasons:

Senior management has no clue how to achieve good customer service. They just want it and hope it somehow happens. HOPE is not a plan. And good service never happens by default, only be design. Employees often don’t give great service because they don’t know what it is. They have rarely experienced it themselves. They need coaching and training.

Managers have no or very poor systems for dealing with customer complaints, and for turning the complaints into service improvement opportunities. Most managers and supervisors think complaints are bad and do all they can to discourage them. Good managers want to hear all complaints to learn more how to give improved service. Complaints help us to understand what customers expect. The worst situation is when the customers have quit talking to you! That means they are looking to take their business elsewhere.

Employees will never treat customers better than they are treated. If you want good customer service, start with good employee relations. I am not talking about giving six weeks of paid vacation a year or free lunches every day. I am talking about:

Giving the employees the tools and equipment they need when they need it.

Giving employees clear instructions and the “why” behind the instructions.

Asking employees for their ideas and then actually listening to their answers.

Taking quick action to eliminate problems that keep employees from giving good service.

Changing policies that often get in the way of good service because they don’t address every situation, to guidelines that allow employees to be empowered to resolve customer issues on the spot.

Teaching principles and values, and helping the employees make the right decisions.

Investing in employees by training them.

Improving customer service means work. The main reason companies don’t provide excellent customer service is that they do not invest the effort to create it. It doesn’t happen by accident. How’s your company’s customer service?

Process Management - The real cost of poor quality

“Four billion working hours are wasted on mistakes each year in the UK. Only 22 percent of employees believe that their organizations deliver what customers want every time. 38 per cent of employees think their organizations do not measure the cost of mistakes. These are some of the findings of a YouGov survey undertaken jointly by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) and the British Quality Foundation (BQF). (Source: IRCA INform | April 05, 2009)



“Both the CQI and the BQF are of the view that organizations are missing a massive opportunity to improve their business processes, eliminate waste and improve customer service. The purpose of the survey, which sampled more than 2,500 employees from a range of sectors, was to explore and quantify the opportunity.



“Joe Goasdoué, BQF CEO, says of the results: ‘The current economic climate is putting pressure on every company to streamline costs and procedures. What this survey shows is that companies are failing to help themselves in these difficult times by not having systems in place to measure, tackle and repair the costs of errors in their business.



‘Business improvement should be a priority whatever the economic climate and UK businesses clearly need to do more to ensure that they are operating as efficiently as possible.’



“Simon Feary, CEO of the CQI agrees, adding: ‘Many UK businesses are missing a trick – the first place to look for cost savings is in eliminating waste and increasing efficiency. Cutting investment in people, advertising and so on must surely come afterwards. However, with the speed of the downturn I am concerned that those organisations that do not already have quality systems in place will be those least ready to react and therefore most at risk of going under.’



“Key results of the survey include that more than half of the employees spoken to believe they waste up to ten percent of their day correcting mistakes and redoing work. This equates to up to 3.98 billion hours each year that UK workers are wasting on rectifying errors. Less rework was reported among those with a performance measurement and improvement system.



“However, two in five employees said their organization did not have, or they were unaware of, a system in place to measure and improve how efficiently they were performing at work. Those with a performance measurement and improvement system were significantly more likely to feel that their employer’s business processes are joined up and constantly improved.”



That’s in the UK and includes more than construction, but let’s consider the cost of poor quality in construction. A study by the North American Technicians Excellence organization found that 33% of new HVAC installations have one or more callbacks to get the job done right. (Contracting Business, Feb 2007, page 88) What does it cost to do a call back? What does it save to do it right the first time? It’s not that technicians or managers want to be called back to fix a problem, but they haven’t put in place systems to ensure they do it right the first time.



How much time is wasted on your jobs sites, in the office or in the shop? How do you know? What systems do you have to make sure you are doing work right the first time?

Learning Opportunities

You may be interested in attending one of these public training seminars by Dennis Sowards:

• Sept. 17, 2009 - Customer Loyalty by Design, – Phoenix, AZ – Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy
• Oct. 6, 2009 - Lean Works in Construction – Milwaukee, WI – Sponsor: Plumbing Mechanical Sheet Metal Contractors Alliance, Contact: Dajen Bohacek at 414/543-7622. Must be a SMACNA member company, associate or sponsored by one to participate.
  
• Oct. 15. 2009 - Introduction to Lean in Service, – Phoenix, AZ – Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy
  
• Contact Dennis Sowards if you want a customized workshop exclusively for your company.

Thought for the day

How to deal with customer complaints:

Listen to the story

Listen to the whole story

Listen to the whole story first.

- Anonymous

This e-newsletter is dedicated to supporting High-Performing Contractors and all contractors working to become one. Written by Dennis Sowards. For more information about the High-Performing Contractor assessment process contact Dennis Sowards at 480-835-1185

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