‘Asking’ to Lead Frontline Operations  by George Reavis  

A User-Centered Practice for Long-Term Customer Focus, Learning, and Commitments

Over the past few years a much greater emphasis has been placed on customer-centered or focused enterprises.  There is a new importance for growing, acknowledging, and managing customer relationships.  All initiatives, like CRM for example, must begin with senior management and be implemented through programs throughout the organization.  For long-term success, however, there needs to be follow-through involving those on the frontlines providing services and products on a daily basis.  Relationships must be not only managed but also led here with customers as well as fellow team members and partnering teams – both internal and external to the enterprise.  To accomplish this, leadership is needed, just as with other managerial programs, from senior managers as well as front-line managers.  Introducing a “best practice” and missing link to provide managers on the frontlines an activity for simultaneously developing all three relationships to create focus, learning, and commitments toward customers and complement existing managerial programs.

The big idea? 

Bring ‘asking’, as a leadership process, back to the frontlines of operations on a daily basis!  Creating a user-centered practice, which develops leadership by working backwards from the points of service/product delivery.  As the practice is not a program or system, it is important not to change a single thing you are currently doing operationally which makes the practice ideal for a single team trial.

“If you give a team member customer feedback, you focus them for a day.  If you teach a team member how-to ask for customer feedback, you focus them for a lifetime!”

Where did ‘asking’ go? 

As an activity for building relationships, it was removed from the frontlines to the top of enterprises, as they grew vertical in the early 1900’s.  Over the past few decades feedback has been shared and assessed with frontline teams but, for the most part, they do not participate in a continuous ‘asking’ process.  

Why is it important?

Back-to-basics, simple, and part of the human experience -- ‘asking’ is a foundation for growing both relationships and leadership.  It is an activity whose primary cost is time and attention and can be developed just as any other skill.  As a practice, it becomes a valuable tool for managers of daily operations to simultaneously manage what the enterprise needs done and lead their team members in how to get it done.

“If you ask the question, then you own the answer”

Leading Relationships?

   To maintain a customer-centric or customer-led organization over the long-term it is inevitable that those on the frontlines of operations who take care of customers on a daily basis must be involved and participate.  No argument there, I hope?  But managers often feel like there is something missing, especially in creating the follow-through of programs to build relationships.

The closer you get to the frontlines of an organization the greater the need for Managers to simultaneously manage and lead on a daily basis!  

   What is usually missing are the activities for frontline managers to lead daily operations while managing the programs of the enterprise.  They have a special need to lead the ‘soft stuff’, areas such as relationships, recognition, appreciation, attention, experiences, and intentions.  Teaching, as in the exerpt from Good Business, a critical and most often missing feedback for associates--that from their own daily activities.  A learned skill which is present in virtually every "star performer", regardless of industry. 

   Enterprises currently manage their relationships.  The same programs, systems, and procedures, which manage the ‘hard stuff’ and provide structure, are also the instruments used to manage the same soft areas.  Communicating the “what” needs to be done to manage daily operations but leaving a leadership void for the “how” to follow-through and keep it done.  

   So, for example, it is common to manage relationships such as customer focus with training programs, establishing what to do in daily operations, but the manager of those operations may find frustration in leading relationships to maintain the focus on customers.  Often feeling caught-in-the-middle, operational managers must not only manage the ‘hard stuff’ but also simultaneously lead three types of relationships on a daily basis:

1.     Between team members themselves (teamwork),

2.     Between team members and customers (customer service), and

3.     Between team members and other teams both internal and external to the enterprise (partners).

A side note:

This example also demonstrates a very common paradox in daily operations and highlights another need to work backwards with frontline leadership activities.  The “ends” from an enterprise perspective often becomes the “means” by which managers on the frontlines must address the long-term.  In this case long-term customer focus is a very worthwhile “end” for the enterprise to strive to create. While the “means” by which managers of daily operations can be successful long-term is to first create the focus and then aim it towards customers.

“The Practice”

   The missing link, a secondary asking process, maybe the ‘holy grail’ of leading relationships as it brings true alignment!  Mostly non-verbal activities, ‘asking’ then sharing and assessing feedback, as a continuous practice for frontline teams.  Simply, allowing those providing services and products to customer’s everyday to become involved and participate in asking, “How are we doing?” and then sharing and assessing (opinions)

   Here we view asking as a process extending beyond a verbal exercise (communication), to also encompass - thought (wonder), questioning (recognition), writing (feedback), attention (focus), experience (learning), interest (intentions), action (cooperate), share (participate), and challenge (involve).

   What is the secret of ‘asking’?  It is a significant part of the human experience as well as learning!  In fact, while feedback supports learning it is asking/inquiry that both initiates and continues learning.  This is why it is a foundation for leading soft skills that build relationships.  From the time we were all infants we have shaped our worlds through a continual process of asking in all of these ways.  Can you afford, as a manager or an enterprise, to miss out on all that ‘asking’ as a process encompasses for those who take care of customers? 

   With this “best practice”, front-line managers and their teams use, with support, senior management’s feedback to ask customers “How are we doing?”  The purpose of this secondary feedback is not for ‘what’ needs to be done, which is already established, but to determine ‘how’ to get it done.  In other words, with the practice it becomes more important with what you do with the feedback - share and assess with everyone - than the feedback itself.   

   The feedback with this practice is an ongoing work in progress, which changes to maximize participation, involvement, and ownership by all those taking care of customers.  The practice is a journey that can start today but one you will never finish!  It is designed to create attention, experiences, and appreciation for those delivering services and products, which in turn fosters focus, learning, and commitment.  

Not a new idea

   ‘Asking’ as an ongoing process for keeping those providing services and products to customers focused, learning, and committed is not new.  In fact it is quite old.  It is rooted in the entrepreneurial spirit of having a product/service and a customer and keeping a dialog going to find out real-time “How are we doing?”  It is part of a survival instinct where operations are a day at a time and nothing is taken for granted.  Some noted entrepreneurs who were able to bridge this spirit into customer-centric enterprises were Sam Walton, Walt Disney, Ray Kroc, and Ray Danner.

   When organizations grew vertical to manage production and capital the process of asking moved away from the frontlines.  It became the purview of senior management as a tool to help determine what needed to be done in the future.  Later, feedback from asking was shared and assessed with those delivering services and products to customers but they seldom were able to participate in asking, “How are we doing?”  That was, however, until global competition necessitated TQM (Total Quality Management) in areas of production to develop ownership from those who were delivering products to customers.  Front-line managers were given the tools to be able to determine for themselves, in essence asking, “How are we doing?”  For example, a shop foreman rather than being told to cut hours due to excessive labor costs now had the skills and tools to lead associates in asking "How are we doing?" by not only measuring labor costs but proactively forecasting sales, scheduling, cross-training, as well as monitoring quality.  TQM remained largely associated with production.  Now it is time for TQL (Total Quality Leadership) for services.

“Attention is the currency of Leadership” - Ronald Heifetz 

Getting Started

   The following represents four action points and some characteristics for creating your own process for asking.  With a team trial, the purpose, whether or not you develop a secondary feedback, is to lead the opportunity for asking, “How are we doing?” and let everyone be drawn to it through human experience rather than by procedure.  Share, assess, and maintain the characteristics to allow everyone the opportunity to get involved and become voluntary participants in the process and belong to the team. Assessments, even more so than measurements, develop dialog between customers, associates, and partners.

   Keep it simple! Have fun! And DO NOT change a single THING you are doing now procedurally or operationally.  Remember, programs/procedures are for managing the “what” needs to be done on a daily basis and you want to compliment those things by leading actions for “how” to get them done by everyone on your team.

   First, ask your supervisor’s support by identifying a few key items that you can ask customers, in writing, “How are we doing?”  Ask for help with who to ‘ask’ as well as how to ‘ask’ to make sure you demonstrate your intentions - to make customers your team’s partner. 

   Secondly, share (bulletin) the feedback and assess (form collective opinion) on how to be better.  The purpose is for continual improvement and not to find fault. 

   Thirdly, make resultant decisions in daily operations that reflect the keys and generate for everyone attention to create focus, experiences that foster learning, and appreciation that gains commitment.

   Finally, thank the customers and repeat the cycle asking, “How are we doing?”  Ensure the process maintains all of the following characteristics for feedback: frequent, consistent, real-time, valid, shared to involve everyone, proactive, and simple.

 

“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated” – William James

About the Author

George Reavis is a Practitioner.  He has spent over thirty years as a team member, manager, supervisor, entrepreneur, supplier, and customer-focus advocate.  Taught this “best practice” by a mentor who used it as a tool/skill to lead an enterprise from one to almost two thousand operating units over a span of forty years. 

George is founder of http://ThankingCustomers.com , a website dedicated to helping lead relationships for those delivering services and products in daily operations.  His viewpoint is from a front-line manager/supervisor’s perspective - addressing their needs and helping with user-centered approaches for the enterprise.  He may be reached by email at george@thankingcustomers.com