Management Gore
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Admitting Mistakes
https://hbr.org/2015/10/a-simple-formula-for-changing-our-behavior?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=twitter Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. The linked Harvard Business Review article is, in my mind, more about making mistakes than changing behavior. According to the article, the main focus of confronting someone who made a mistake is: Identify the problem State what needs to happen Offer to help This does make sense and the article goes into detail about what to do and what not to do. For me, the more important management issue is to admit when you are wrong early and often. It sets an example. The worst thing you can do is attempt to pass the blame or even worse cover it up. By…
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Customer Service and Profits
“American consumers spend, on average, 13 hours per year in calling queue. According to a 2010 study by Mike Desmarais in the journal Cost Management, …” Customer Service. According to this Harvard Business Review article, many companies provide sub-par customer service knowingly as a way to increase profits. Mostly the article talks about customer service related to receiving some sort of restitution – a rebate, return or other redress. Their logic is that if you present the consumer with more hoops to jump through, they are less likely to make it all the way to the end where they receive satisfaction and you have saved yourself the cost of that redress. My question is,…
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Development without consumer input…
“But they did all this work without the basic proof that this business made sense to consumers.” This very well-stated article in Bolt.io states one of the biggest issues I see in startups today – an idea without a market. It’s a great idea, but no one wants to buy it or certainly not at that price. It’s a supply and demand curve that never swipe right for each other. What Un-CEO features are in play here – mostly I’d say confirmation bias. No one went outside their little group to see if this idea would actually work in the real world. They stayed in their own bubble agreeing with…
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Unroll.me ‘heartbroken’
On April 23, 2017, unroll.me posted a blog with a byline from Jojo Hedya – the CEO and co-founder at Unroll.me. In the blog, Jojo states that “it was heartbreaking to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetize our free service.” Yes, if the service is free, then you (and your information) are probably what is being sold and unroll.me was no exception. How could the tenants of the un-CEO have helped Jojo? Treat your employees with respect and, just as importantly, treat your customers with respect. This is the time for the CEO to come clean with the customers. Actually, the time was well…
