Over-Communicate the Mission

Nearly every Mission: Impossible episode began Phelps briefing them on their mission.  Why was it important to do this?  Jim Phelps cared deeply about his people and knew that the best way to have then be successful in the mission was for them all to know and understand the mission…the whole mission, not just their little sliver of it.  He never knew when he or any one of the other team members might be hurt or arrested during the mission and everyone needed to know and understand the specific missions of everyone else in the team so that they could pick up the slack should one person stumble or fall.

He took the time to go over every detail so that each person was comfortable with what the goal was, how their actions helped ensure victory, what was going on around them and what contingency plans had been made. He answered their questions and stayed with them until everyone was comfortable with their understanding of the larger task at hand.  Hearing this level of planned detail helped assure each Team member that the plan was sound.  It wasn’t enough that Phelps knew the mission… the entire Team needed to see the big picture to ensure success.

At your utility, it’s not enough for you to be the grand puppet master and the only one to know the whole picture.  If you want your entire team to be successful in the long run, they need to understand how their part of the mission supports every other part of the mission.  They must see where they fit into the bigger picture.  How the mission of your utility is NOT to have a maintenance department…or a pump operation.  It’s to serve customers in such a way that they see and deeply appreciate your value over the long haul. 

It is important that your people understand the mechanics of the big picture.  For instance, if they want a pay raise, it is important to know that customers fund this with their bill.  Unhappy customers can raise enough objections to stop a rate increase dead in its tracks and can, therefore, stop the funding mechanism of a pay raise.  This is why remarkable customer service is so important to even the most junior field worker at your utility.  Don’t they deserve to know this important fact?  Have you taken the time to explain this to them or are you just assuming that they know?

If you truly care about your people and truly care about winning, you will take the time to over-communicate the mission in detail with YOUR team.   

ACTION:  Use every opportunity to communicate the big picture to your people.  Ensure that they understand their role in your overall success.

Pew! It's Time To Change The Baby!

I recently took my family out to eat following my son’s high school graduation. It would have been a perfect day…except for the screaming baby in the booth right behind us. The parents hardly seemed to notice their baby, however. They ate and talked while their baby screamed and threw food all around him. (From the smell, I am fairly certain it needed to be changed, too!) How could these people not notice how smelly and disturbing their baby was being to everyone in that restaurant?

The truth is that they cannot see, hear or smell the baby because it is THEIR baby. They see it every day. They smell it every day. They have seen it throw much worse tantrums in the past. They are so close to the baby that what it is doing right now doesn’t even seem that bad to them. The baby has become “invisible”.

The same thing can happen in our businesses. We work in the same building every day so we do not see the carpet getting dirtier over time. We eat lunch in the same break room every day and so we don’t even notice that the counters are getting stained and stickier each day. We ride in the same trucks every day and so we do not see the drink cans and candy wrappers that accumulate in them. In the course of our jobs, we have all experienced a major crisis or two in the past and worked in some pretty horrible conditions to fix a problem. As a public utility, we’ve seen things that were vile and smelled things that would make you gag…so a small sewer spill in someone’s yard doesn’t seem to be anything important. We are so close to what we do every day that much of it, like that baby in the restaurant, has become invisible to us.

To be great at what we do, we cannot allow our “baby” to become invisible. We must force ourselves to open our eyes fresh and new every day. We must look at our facilities, trucks, uniforms and worksites the same way a customer does when they see them for the first time. To run the kind of business we must be, we need to remember that the “baby” is ours. It smells worse than we think it does. It’s louder and more obnoxious than we think it is. If we try to ignore it, it’s only going to get worse. Our “baby”…our company… needs to be changed… for the better. It’s OUR job to change OUR baby.

When was the last time you checked on your “baby”?

Eliminate the Competition

One of the hardest problems to tackle in business is what to do when you sell products you can’t change in any way. It’s a difficult problem, yes…but it has a simple, highly effective and low cost solution.

You see this all the time.  You prefer eating at one certain Burger King over others even though the Whopper must be served identically at every franchise.  There are two different pharmacies across the street from one another yet you find you shop only at one of them…even though your insurance coverage makes the price the same at either one.  You stop at the same gas station every week even though the other three stations on the corner sell gas at the same price.

Why?   Most likely, it’s because the managers of these stores have changed the one part of their product that they absolutely can affect:  the customer’s service.

We all have competition, even in public sector agencies such as city  government or utility companies. Rising prices in typical household expenses (insurance, food, fuel, etc.) compete with us for each dollar we charge our customers for our services.  To maintain your fiscal health, every company must eventually raise their prices in response to various pressures such as inflation, regulatory requirements, etc.   We must constantly communicate our value to the customer to prove that we have earned this additional funding.   

Regardless of your business, you can “eliminate the competition” by making every interaction with your customer a remarkable one!  In this light, outstanding customer service is the best investment you can possibly make.  Think about it this way, a water utility company could spend a million dollars improving water quality and there is a very good chance that not a single customer would even notice.  Teaching your employees to smile at customers and treat them with personal care and concern doesn’t have to cost you a dime! 

Remember:  The product you sell is more than just the product.  It’s also interaction between your staff and the customer.  Create bright lines of distinction between yourselves and your competition by delivering superior customer service every day!  It’s highly effective and the price (free) is right for the times!