When ambition isn’t enough

Have you ever had a problem that everyone saw, but no one acted?
That’s exactly what happened to my client.

A couple of years ago a client of mine faced a difficult situation when customer complaints were on the rise due to quality issues.

The worst part of the problem was that it wasn’t a single issue, such as a design mistake, that could easily be fixed. Over the years, many smaller issues were overlooked, slowly piling up, until they became one major problem:

Outdated protocols, incomplete processes, quick fixes, …

The sort of issues that an experienced, well-coordinated team would simply work around, but as time passed and team members left, knowledge had faded and errors increased.

As soon as the leadership team saw the big picture, they immediately launched an initiative to solve the problem:

Reduce customer complaints by half over the next 12 months!

They designed fancy slogans and posters, announcing the initiative. There was a town hall and the employees resonated well with the launch. Everyone agreed that this was very important.

The only problem?
Well, nothing changed!

Everyone agreed on the importance of the initiative.
They believed in the goal.
But no one actually acted on it.

That’s when my phone rang.

The leadership team wanted to understand what went wrong.

When we looked at the words they used, it became clear that it wasn’t so much a strategy as a goal. The goal was clear: Reduce complaints by half. But the actions weren’t.

What was supposed of the workers down the line? The project managers? The supervisors?

Leadership had hoped for signals and ideas from those closest to the production to spot weaknesses. But they had left the actual ask abstract and vague.

So we designed a new campaign. This time, it wasn’t about goals but about actions.

In fact, we took the few ideas that had been brought up and amplified them. For example, Sarah spotted a glitch that had led to increased error rates, Martin suggested an improvement that meant that errors would be spotted earlier, etc.

We put their faces on the posters, accompanied by their ideas.

The difference?

The people who heard these stories thought: “That could be me! In fact, I have a similar idea. I’m going to suggest it to my boss.”

Essentially, we turned the team members into heroes. It was the posters they looked at, but it was themselves who they saw.

Previously, they had agreed to the goal, but had considered it leadership’s job to come up with ideas.

Now, they took it on themselves. They embraced the initiative because the company’s goal was aligned with their personal goals. They took action.

Ultimately, the new campaign made the team feel seen and heard. They saw how their contribution makes a difference.

Within a year, problem after problem was fixed and customer complaints were cut to a third. More importantly, improvements were made in other areas, too. The initiative sparked a ripple effect.

That’s the difference your choice of words makes. Powerful indeed.

PS: If you want to read how other teams made a difference, take a look at my new book “The PATH to Strategic Impact”.