Thursday, June 12, 2008

Complaints and Upsets - a possibility for breakthrough

In our work with clients, we make the assertion that stakeholder complaints, upsets, disappointments, frustrations, and so on, are a function of unmet or thwarted expectations. And, expectations that they relate to as if an implicit promise had been made to them, and broken.

When working with executives we coach them to get to know what the explicit expectations are of their employees, customers, shareholders and so on are, and meet them - that's a non-negotiable. If you say you will deliver X in Y time - less than that outcome will result in a disappointed stakeholder.

However, that is not enough. It is as important to discern, "what are the "implicit" expectations?" and minimally meet, preferably exceed, those too.

Given we are all consumers on the one hand, and have a particular world-view and operating model on the other hand, implicit expectations can be a minefield.

I have been "spoiled" by amazon, which means every time I order anything on line I "expect" I will get it the next day. When I don't get that service my experience of the new supplier is diminished - even though they broke no promise, and they may even have exceeded their own performance standards.

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