dispatches from the new world of work

100 Ways to Succeed #85:

R.O.C(I): "They" All Work For Me!

Suppose I work in a 201-person unit.
Suppose I'm in sales. (Everybody is—but that's another story.)

Key #1 to success: C(I) >> C(E)

Translation: My Internal Customers/C(I) are more important, perhaps far more important, especially in the long term, than my External Customers/C(E) to whom I am officially making the sale.

Goal: I want all 200 of my mates—in every discipline—working for me! Starting with my CEO!

Secret to Key #1?

Obvious!
Investment!
Big time investment!

Screw the "traditional silos"—I plan to make love to everybody in every department in the Unit. I want 200 folks desperate to make me successful with my External Client-Customer.

I am desperate in turn to get rid of my external customer. I want "my" External Customer to become not "mine," but the customer of my mates/C(I). I want them, my C(I), to reap the pleasure and rewards of the relationship with "my" (now their!) External Customer.

(FYI: This applies to every project. The customer is not the customer. The customer is my mates throughout the enterprise who will surpass me in their effort to satisfy-WOW my "official" end user-customer for that IT project.)

So? Are you investing like a ... deranged maniac ... in your C(I)? Do all 7, 17, 170 folks in your unit work for you—and love it?

Return On Investment in Internal Customers/C(I)—nothing more important. Oh, by the way, have you ... MEASURED ... the "customer satisfaction" of your internal customers?

Tom Peters posted this on 03/05/07.

Comments

Absolutely, the job of every functional business unit is to help their internal customer perform their job better, so that the ultimate customer wins. It's a win-win-win-win-win (all key stakeholders). Reminds me of another philosophical conversation in which I recently engaged: What would happen if individuals were hard-wired with the same software/brain chip that makes everyone's intellectual capacity equal, we can manipulate people's DNA to the point where everyone is beautiful, healthy and fit. With the help of science "We", the individual, became identical. Essentially all competitive barriers would disappear. We would be forced to collaborate, right? Isn't that the case in business today. We have to align to succeed.

Posted by Darci at March 5, 2007 1:17 PM

Tom

Serve your internal customers first and foremost - this is a key ingredient in why and how you might come to do a JetBlue and leave your external customers on an aircraft on the tarmac at JFK for 11 hours.... That is a rule or a recipe for disaster not excellence...

People at work as in life need a purpose they can believe in - like they do at SouthWest where I see (for the past 30 plus years) the purpose is clear and simple but not simplistic as they want to be THE low-fare airline... With such clarity of purpose people (employees and customers) understand the choices that are being made and cooperate to provide the best possible outcome from all those decisions...

Richard.

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at March 5, 2007 5:40 PM

Customers are customers are customers - there is no such thing as 'external' and 'internal' customers - there are just CUSTOMERS. It is a mindset thing - you either see your job as helping or hindering people. Sorry but I donâ€™t see it as any more complicated than that. You either do or donâ€™t want to help someone.

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 5, 2007 6:08 PM

I can't help but feel there's something missing about your objectives here, even if it's because it's a short and snappy post. BUT... I don't see any mention of you really, really wanting to let the other 200 people be your CEO on their projects. Or of your being prepared to bust a gut for someone else's project or being happy to see someone else succeed, knowing you had a small part in it.

Maybe I'm being a bit churlish here but it's one thing to want to rally everyone around you etc. But it's a fine line between rampant egotism and careerism (where this will lead to if not channeled properly) and being aware of when to be a customer (i) and when to be a supplier (i).

Posted by Mark JF at March 6, 2007 2:11 PM