Customize or Disappear

Radu Manolescu

Meeting Radu Manolescu

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 Customize or Disappear
Radu Manolescu

I was fortunate to get in touch with the Blue Ocean strategy concept in 2006
when at INSEAD. I was so excited by it as I immersed myself for several weeks
into thinking about how to apply it for ‘internal customer/employee’
engagement, with benefits for both my firm and clients.

I recently read an HBR article about the same idea – customized retention. It

stimulated me to write about another perspective researched by us that is today
a proprietary methodology. We discuss it in detail within the Leadership
Development Program we do for the senior teams of our clients. 

The background of the concept and methodology:

One of the inspiring examples was Cirque du Soleil’s. With the “Four Actions
Framework”  they applied to identify and address what was critical/ important/
less important and not important for their customers.

Once all major competing features were detailed and customers were well
segmented, they took a bold move. A move only the courageous pioneers take
when passionate and faithful in their vision:

They challenged the presence of animals, the star performers, the aisle concession sales and
multiple show arenas as being critical for their customers and… eliminated them.
And together with them, the huge associated costs (logistics, food, etc.).

They understood in due time their business was on the emotional/

entertainment side and not on the functional one. They also knew that there are
several segments of potential clients that circus businesses had not captured.
And they looked into the other emotional /entertainment businesses those “soon
to become customers” were accessing: cinemas, clubs, theaters, etc. Here came
the “simple” magic: they imported many of their features to replace the ones
they removed and thus attract new segments of customers.

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There are many other amazing things they did (refined environment, artistic
music and dance, etc.) and I will not insist on them but rather on the concept
per se:
- identify what is critical for your customers, grow it, innovate around, add more
         value here;
- maintain what is important, 
- decrease the efforts put into less important stuff for your customers and
- eliminate what is not important.

It may sound simple yet very few of us are actually challenging apparently
critical features for customers and remove them for being not important, like
Cirque du Soleil did.

The 2010 experience at Harvard Business School added 2 simple yet key
concepts underlined by Prof. Earl Sasser in his book “The Ownership
Quotient”:

Value for Customers = Results + Quality of the Experience / Total Cost

(Price + Access Costs) 

Value for Employees = Capability to deliver Value for Customers + Quality of

Work Life / 

1/Total Income + Access Cost

Source: “The Ownership Quotient”, James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Joe Wheeler

Self-assessment

Imagine that…

…some if not many of our competitors could produce similar results at similar
prices /packages and at a similar cost of access for the customers/employees
…Many companies could be similarly strong in providing results for their
customers, at similar prices and access costs.

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…Many employers could be similarly strong in their capabilities to deliver value
for their employees, in offering comparable incomes and in having similar access
costs, however few could match/equal in the quality of the experience we
provide. And as the battle for talent is increasing and our growth depends on
quality people, customization is key in retention and engagement.

Long story short, combining these key learnings, we have refined a pretty simple
and straightforward methodology to Customize employee retention and
engagement.

Many studies have shown that the engagement drivers are related to:
- Career development perspectives
- Appreciation /recognition of one’s contribution
- Relationship with the direct superior
- Autonomy
- Purpose
- Power/influence
- Pay and benefits
- Empowerment, utilizing one’s strengths
- Climate and culture
- Intrinsic job satisfaction, etc.

Yet many companies choose to have more or less the same old approach and
differentiate very little in the way they customize it to their key people. These
companies gather insights about reasons why key talents leave mainly during the
exit interviews…

What if the approach is proactive to start understanding what is critical for our
key talents and just focus on/address those things, avoiding the conventional
“mass” approach?

What if in one – to – one discussions with our key talents we identify what is
highly motivating for that person is to have 1 day a week for herself/her
passions/her family rather than a 20% pay raise?

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What if we find out that one of our key talents considers the quality of the
relationship with us to be a poor to average one while this is a key
engagement driver for her? Instead we assumed she is mainly motivated
by challenging objectives and autonomy provided and we ignored
something of such importance. 

Apply it:

Once 3-4-5 key engagement drivers are identified as well as their level of
satisfaction on each (let’s say on a scale from 1 to 5), you can draft an action plan
and follow it through at the moment the satisfaction level on that respective
feature is high enough (a 4 or a 5). Then do the assessment again as new key
engagement drivers may appear and you’ll have to work on them…

Brief conclusion:

In such times where the very good people are rare enough, in which VUCA
requires a different mindset for every one of us, I strongly believe we can only
adapt and thrive if we find the right people with the right values and customize
our approach to them. The ones who don’t understand that will most likely
disappear.

Tags: executive search, executive search consultant, IICPartners, K.M. Trust & Partners,

Managing Partner, Radu, Manolescu, Radu Manolescu 

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