This is the third part of this post. To read the first two go here for one and here for two
As this is posted on Christmas eve, just before we are going to have Christmas dinner - all suited up is the tradition in our family - I wish you a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate) or otherwise a wonderful holiday period.
Co-delivery and
coordination of “organizational why” and “customer value”
What is it?
When two organizations are cooperating to deliver a product,
the more aligned the “Why’s of the organizations” and the “Customer value” is,
the better the quality of the product. Think of any situation where you have
two companies or similar influencing the delivery of your product. Individually
they might be providing great customer value and alignment to their “why” but
together they might not match. An example I can think of is airports. So f. ex.
Airline companies usually have quite different customer values and “why’s” than
the shops in the airport or the airport itself. The airport itself has an
interest in you being there and basically shopping, meaning that they would not
have any interest in designing a security check where you could pinpointedly
estimate when exactly to be there, so you could walk through and walk straight
to the plane. The airline company, on the other hand, is usually trying to
provide you an on time service as fast and pleasant as possible. The more
disaligned these two are – the worse the quality of the product – Paris CDG
airport (for those who know it), is probably the world champion at this.
An example from my
life (read this, as this is a more complex learning and more examples might
help)
In the security alarm company, the guys who were installing
and maintaining the alarms on the ground were independent contractors, who
through some (surely complex) model of payment that I never was explained of
course, would be paid the installation fee and a portion of the service fee per
month (this is very the real money was, of course, as any subscription based
service will tell you). On the other hand, the contractor was himself
responsible for maintaining and servicing his clients specifically on behalf of
the whole brand. The customer would know only one company, and when calling the
customer service centre, where I sat, would speak to us as one. I would take a
complaint or request, feed it into the system, and the installer/contractor in
the end was responsible for delivery. The problem, of course is that sometimes
these incentives can be dis-aligned, depending on customer behaviour, and the
why of different parts
F. ex. If an
installer saw his “why” as providing a technical installation, that is quite
different than “providing the feeling of safety”. If the customer value was the
“price of a smoke alarm hooked up to an alarm centre” as opposed to “having an
maintenance guy that knows me and will listen to my concerns”, that is
different too. Now – compare that to the why of the head office itself or the
customer value that I believe I am providing on the phone. Imagine if on the
phone I am delivering what in theory is a good product – “providing the feeling
of safety with a local guy you know and trust”, and the installer believes he
is delivering “a good technical installation at a good price”. Both can be
quality products. But co-delivered, the result, if disaligned, will lead to a
quality complaint.
Why it matters?
It matters for two reasons. Firstly because a strong belief
in the why of the organization, internally and externally, gives the
organization its strength to grow as well as strength to overcome difficulty.
If this why is aligned that builds trust and opportunities for co-delivering
growth and value. As for the coordination of the customer value this lies at
the heart of putting the customer first. Alignment will lead to better quality,
stronger and more promoters, and simply – growth.
AIESEC context (skip
this if you aren’t so interested in those specifics):
In AIESEC, every Exchange experience is co-delivered. That
means that automatically there is an organizational “Why” of the sending
entity, and an organizational “Why” of the incoming entity. If a Turkish IT
Engineering student is coming to Hungary to an IT startup – is they why of this
experience co-delivered and aligned? Are we on the same page of what kind of
leadership we are trying to develop through the experience, and why that is
relevant to Hungary, Turkey – or both? At the same time, is the customer value
for the Turkish student corresponding to the customer value of the Hungarian
company? These are 4 circles. And when they are aligned, we deliver powerful
leadership development experiences and our customers are happy. When they are
not – we don’t – simple as that. Practically, it actually means (what we
already know) that “matching“ is not only a question of skills or competencies,
but of experiences.
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