You might recall how I like to say, "None of us are as clever as all of us." Recently I decided that I would like to leverage the power behind that phrase. So, we asked you, our readers to submit your thoughts, ideas, reactions, lists, or whatever else you have to offer, that we can then discuss. Sound fun? Then, click here to learn more and submit.
Since my request, we were lucky enough to have a new one from Justin Stafford ([email protected]), founder of Customer Smarts, based in Sydney, Australia, and podcast host of “Customer Smart.” Justin shared how sports can teach us a lot about how to improve your Customer Experience. Here’s what he has to say:
First, I am grateful that Justin took the time to share this with us. I thought this analogy was really good, brilliant in fact. Moreover, Justin could make a go of it as a sports commentator if he was so inclined. Plus, even if you're not familiar with Australian rules football, the sports metaphors work well. Analogies are a great way of communicating.
There is No “I” in Team
We had a podcast recently where we discussed the role of finance in the customer experience. There, we also discussed the supply chain. In many ways, an improved Customer Experience is a supply chain.
Here is one of the ways that Justin’s metaphor works well. For many sports, not every position on the field is equally likely to score. However, for the team to work well (i.e., score), everyone needs to be working together harmoniously.
The same is true of many organizations. Many times, sales are the people in the flashiest position in the company. Since they close the deals, they accumulate power and have more influence in the organization than some of the other positions.
However, in sports, it’s clear that even the flashy players, like the quarterback in American Football, depend on their offensive line to get their job done. If they ignore them, or ignore the defense they are facing, they will not get the yards they need to hold onto the ball.
Therefore, Justin’s sports metaphor works well in that regard. Sales is often closing the deal, but finance and IT and operations, need to be on board with the idea sales is selling. Particularly, all departments need to be on board with increasing customer value.
I'm a season ticket holder at Luton Town Football Club. I am excited to say that Luton Town has been promoted to the Premiership in the English League, playing other teams you might be familiar with like, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, and Man City. I see many of the same things happening in football that Justin describes from the AFL.
In football, the forwards tend to get paid more than the other positions, like say the left back. The left back position is a bit of boring job spent defending. It’s not glamorous. However, the center forwards are, often getting double the amount of money than any other player on the team.
In sales, it’s a bit similar isn’t it? The salespeople tend to make more money than the other employees, maybe even double some salaries, depending on the position you compare and the compensation system of the sales team. Therefore, it isn’t unusual for people to be a bit jealous of the sales people.
However, those sales people couldn’t do what they do unless the other positions do what they do. It’s essential that these accounts the salespeople bring in get service from the customer service team, and clear invoices from the accounting team, and excellent accuracy from the shipping team, and so on. Therefore, you can see that sales isn’t more important, even if they do make more than their operational counterparts. Salespeople are dependent upon those teams working toward that goal alongside—just like that highly-compensated forward needs the left back to defend against the opposition.
In other words, sports teams are not champions because of an individual, and neither are businesses. Success comes from buying into a cohesive system. For business, that system should be providing the customer value.
A Sign of Dysfunction in an Organization
One sign of dysfunction I have observed in organizations is an internal focus for grabbing power. Another way to describe it is defending one’s turf. The idea is that an individual or a department wants to increase their reach or shift blame away from themselves.
However, when you think about a sports team, they function well when everyone knows their role. They are clear that in this part of the field or on the court, their job is to do this thing. Many companies would be wise to adopt a similar strategy in their organizations.
Many companies could be better at defining these roles, particularly when a department is reaching outside of their area of expertise. If leadership could define the various responsibilities and how they feed into the larger process, departments could see the bigger picture.