Featured Product
This Week in Quality Digest Live
Customer Care Features
Bryan Christiansen
And when to hire one
Etienne Nichols
What medical device manufacturers need to know
Kate Zabriskie
Don’t get distracted by dazzle
Trupti Dhere
Technology helps doctors make more informed decisions, minimize adverse events, improve patient care
Greg Kihlström
First, ask the right questions

More Features

Customer Care News
Yotrio and SunVilla to provide interactive, 3D-enabled assembly via BILT app
Algorithms protect data created and transmitted by IoT and other small electronics
Customers can place orders in a self-service configurator
Application now supports 14 leading industrial robot manufacturers
New digital service supports all Fastems systems
Key Technology’s system boosts quality, throughput
Driving advances across the electronics ecosystem
Weighing supply and customer satisfaction
Showcasing tech, solutions, and services at Gulfood Manufacturing 2022

More News

Jesse Lyn Stoner

Customer Care

What Business Are You Really In?

But first answer this: Who is your customer?

Published: Monday, September 10, 2018 - 12:01

Mary Parker Follett, a pioneering business consultant, was asked to help a troubled window shade company. The company’s thinking was narrow and limited. When asked to define their business, they said, “We produce window shades.”

She asked them “What business are you really in from your customer’s point of view?” In other words, why do people buy window shades?

They realized they were really in the light control and privacy business. They turned their business around by developing creative ways to control light and create privacy for windows.

I asked the same question at Stanley Magic Door, a manufacturer of automatic doors. When they considered what business they were really in from their customer’s point of view, they realized they were in the business of “facilitating and controlling the access of people and objects through buildings.” As a result they identified new business opportunities, new directions, and changed the name of their company to Access Technologies.

The same lesson applies to teams

A few years ago the accounting department of a Fortune 1000 company told me their biggest problem was lack of cooperation from other departments—they did not receive the information they needed to create their reports in a timely manner and often had to go hunt it down.

They believed their job was to collect and organize financial information and that it was everyone else’s job to provide the information they requested.

Interestingly, when I spoke with people in the other departments, they didn’t see it the same way. They referred to the accounting department asthe numbers police”constantly requesting information and providing them with nothing to help them do their own job. No wonder they were slow to supply the requested information, receipts, and records.

At a team meeting the accounting department considered how they were viewed by other departments and the question “What business are you really in?” They realized their purpose was to provide accurate, timely information and advice to guide leaders in wise financial decision making and to protect the company by ensuring compliance with legal requirements.

It’s a big shift to stop defining your work from the perspective of your activities to define it from the perspective of the users of your services.

As a result of making that shift, the accounting department stopped demanding information in order to complete activities. They started talking with leaders to find out what information they needed, when, and in what format.  Magically their credibility increased tenfold, and they became seen as real business partners.

What business is your team really in?

While most people will agree that a clearly understood purpose is an essential component for a team, many people define their team’s purpose from the perspective of the services or products they provide. And they become like “the numbers police,” frustrated by the lack of cooperation and credibility.

Effective leaders define their team’s purpose from the viewpoint of those who benefit from their services and products, and help their team understand what business they’re really in.

First published on Jesse Lyn Stoner’s blog. © 2018 Jesse Stoner

Discuss

About The Author

Jesse Lyn Stoner’s picture

Jesse Lyn Stoner

Jesse Lyn Stoner, founder of consultancy Seapoint Center, has worked with hundreds of leaders using collaborative processes to engage the entire workforce in creating their desired future. Stoner has authored several books including Full Steam Ahead! Unleash the Power of Vision (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2nd rev. ed. 2011), co-authored with Ken Blanchard. Stoner is recognized by the American Management Association as one of the Top Leaders to Watch in 2015 and by INC Magazine as one of the Top 100 Leadership Experts. Stoner has advanced degrees in psychology and family system, and a doctorate in organizational development.

Comments

Defining Your Business/Product for QA/QC

I keep a quote by Theodore Levitt over my desk, "People don't want a quarter inch drill; they want a quarter inch hole."  In QA/QC our job is not to show management how to make a better product.  Our job is to show managers how a better product or process will earn the firm more money. 

To management, innovation and improvement always sound like expenses without guaranteed returns on investment.  As QA/QC professionals we have to demonstrate actual positive ROI when bring ideas forward.  This is the language that gets management's attention.