Customer & Leadership: Is There a Formula / Recipe for Success?

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I wish to acknowledge members of the ‘methodology police’, whom I met recently, for being the source of this conversation. Please note that for the purposes of this conversation I will use the terms formula, recipe, method, script and template interchangeably.

Is Success Reducible To A Formula/Recipe?

Is communicating with another reducible to a formula? Is relating and cultivating relationships with colleagues, clients, family and friends, reducible to a recipe? Does the co-creation of a ‘good’ customer experience yield to a predefined template? Does the successful implementation of a new CRM systems and the associated way of showing up and operating in the organisation yield to a specific method? Is great customer service reducible to a recipe? What about leadership: is the exercise of leading and leadership reducible to a formula?

YES. If I look at how it is that we show up and travel then it occurs to me that we operate on the basis that the answer is an unequivocal YES. Everything is reducible to a recipe: EVERYTHING. Which means that if the outcomes that we wish for are not showing up then the cause of the problem must be in one of the following domains:

·         we are making it up as we go along as opposed to following a ‘proven’ formula;

·         we are not following the formula/method and as such we need to be manipulated (training, rewards, punishment) into following the one ‘proven’ formula; and

·         there is something wrong with the recipe, it is not ‘tight’ enough, or it is out of date.

Hence, our obsession in organisational worlds with the likes of processes and procedures, methodologies and methods, scripts, judgment-evaluation of people, criticism, praise, reward and punishment. With this deep rooted obsession we create a wide open clearing for all kind of charlatans to show up and sell their unique ‘secret recipes’ for success – in just any and every domain including the domains of Customer and Leadership.

What Constitutes The Deepest Lack Of Intelligence?

Is there a deeper lack of intelligence (stupidity) than seeking formulas/recipes for the major challenges of business, of education, of living and life? I say yes. What is the deeper stupidity? I say it is keeping our faith in the god like being of formula/recipe intact even when we have followed the formula/recipe and it has not generated the promised-desired outcome/s. Why do we do this? We do this because we grant, individually and collectively, divine status to formulas/recipes. Therefore, it makes sense to conclude that our understanding and/or application of the formula was at fault.

Words Of Wisdom 

I invite you to listen to the speaking of one that shows up for me as speaking wisdom:

Once, several years ago, some friends and I enrolled in a cooking class taught by an Armenian matriarch and her aged servant. Since they spoke no English and we no Armenian, communication was not easy. She taught by demonstration; we watched (and diligently tried to quantify her recipes) as she prepared an array of marvelous eggplant and lamb dishes. But our recipes were imperfect; and try as hard as we could, we could not duplicate her dishes.

“What was it,” I wondered, “that gave her cooking that special touch?” The answer eluded me until one day, when I was keeping a particularly keen watch on the kitchen proceeding, I saw our teacher, with great dignity and deliberation, prepare a dish. She handed it to her servant who wordlessly carried it into the kitchen, to the oven and, without breaking a stride, threw in handful after handful of assorted spices and condiments. I am convinced that those surreptitious “throw-ins” made all the difference….

But what are these “throw-ins”, these elusive, “off the record” extras? They exist outside of formal theory, they are not written about, they are not explicitly taught. Therapists are often unaware of them ……. The critical ingredients are hard to describe, even harder to define. Indeed, is it possible to define and teach such qualities as compassion, “presence”, caring, extending oneself, touching the patient at a profound level, or – that most elusive one of all – wisdom?

– Irvin D. Yalom, Existential Pyschotherapy

Concluding Thoughts For Your Consideration

I invite you to consider:

That the guru does not even have to be a charlatan for charlatanry to show up. How so? In this example, the matriarch, was not aware of the “throw-ins” that were being added to her recipe by her assistant.

Where human beings are intrinsic to the game being played, the access to effectiveness (generating the desired outcomes) lies in a sensitivity-attunement to the context in which the game is being played.

Sensitivity-attunement to the context allows you to figure out and put into the game the “throw-ins” that make the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary.

It is our addiction to slavishly following formulas/recipes that is the biggest obstacle to being attuned and responsive to the context and throwing in the most appropriate “throw-ins” for that particular context in that moment;

Insisting on and slavishly following formulas/recipes (including processes, procedures, scripts, methods etc) is the most significant barrier to effectiveness in the human realm. And that includes the dimensions of Customer (customer service, CRM, customer experience) and of Leadership.

You may disagree. If that is the case then I look forward to hearing what you say.

Image via flickr

Original Post: http://thecustomerblog.co.uk/2014/10/26/customer-leadership-is-there-a-formula-recipe-for-success/