By Professor Andre de Waal (HPO Center)
Under the pressure of ever increasing demands of the external environment and stakeholders, organizations are more and more searching for the elements that make up high performance. As it is the task of managers to realize the goals of the organization by achieving outstanding performance in the unit they are responsible for, these managers are under great pressure to deal effectively with current and future trends and developments.
They are forced to adapt faster to growing international competition and to compete simultaneously on the basis of price, quality, flexibility, delivery times, and after-sales support. There is growing consensus that effective approaches to management offers organizations competitive advantage. As a result and in the wake of the landmark book ‘In Search Of Excellence’, ’Built To Last’ and ‘Good to Great’ there has been a strong interest among managers in identifying the characteristics of high performance to help them in their quest for excellence. As consumers we know that finding these characteristics is of paramount importance. After all, everyday we deal with organizations and their interactions more often than not leave a bitter aftertaste. In this day and age of increased importance of tailoring to consumers’ needs, organizations cannot afford these bad interactions. Let me tell you about two experiences my family recently had and what these did to us.
Bad organization, good organization
My mother-in-law is 82 and hearing impaired. Recently she was called by a telephone provider who had a special offer for the hard-of-hearing. Mother did not understand much of the conversation but she recognized one important word, cheaper, and being a frugal person she said yes to the offer. A week later my wife tried to call her mother but she got the engaged tone. This went on all day until she became worried something had happened to mother. She decided to pay her a visit. There she heard the story about the offer and gathered her mother should have probably followed some instructions (of which she had no clue, the woman is in her eighties) so that now the telephone had been cut off. My wife immediately called the provider, explained the situation and asked whether mother could be reconnected. She was told to call another number were she could record her request. She was also told it would take ten days before reconnection was possible, and no, no exceptions were made, not even for the elderly. Ten days later my wife called her mother first thing in the morning. Still she got the engaged tone and after a few hours she directly called the provider, demanding to know why her mother had not been connected again. Midway thought her story the employee of the provider asked her: "When did you record your request mam?" "Ten days ago," the answer was. The employee chuckled and said: "Oh yeah, that was the day the recorder broke. You have to call the same number and rerecord your request. Yes, it will take ten days for your mother to be reconnected. No, no exceptions, we are sorry, if we do that there’ll be no end to what people want from us."...
Read the full article in PDF:
