Articles on winning and keeping customers abound on the Internet. They generally focus on achieving and maintaining “customer service excellence“. They talk a lot about tactics but miss the strategic aspects of customer satisfaction and retention.

What drives your customer service (aka, customer relationships), anyway? Your company policy, of course. Your mission and vision drive your overall company policy, in which you lay out your overall objectives that guide your strategic plan. From there come your sales and marketing plans, your operational plans, and so forth. You might think of your policy as a juncture of internal and external forces.

So, why do I bring up this subject? An article appeared last week on “Mashable” that makes a very good point about the importance of a strong, well-written company policy to your customer relationships.  This article explains why no one reads privacy policies, and they cite Facebook and others as examples.

Why don’t customers read privacy policies? The article has several answers, including:

• The longest privacy policy of the “top 1,000″ websites takes 45 minutes to read at 244 wpm⁽¹⁾; and
• The average of the privacy policies cited takes about 10 minutes to read.

It’s not just privacy policies, of course — it’s every kind of policy. They’re lengthy, full of confusing verbiage, and put off their audience. They do neither the company nor its customers any good. So, why are wordy, obtuse policies (in “nanofonts”) foisted on customers?

• In the modern business environment, legal departments owe their employers a duty to protect them. Unfortunately, this is often interpreted to mean “let’s cover every contingency we can think of”. Clarity is invariably sacrificed for thorough attention to detail.
• Modern culture seems to have promoted discord, vitriol, and revenge over cooperation, conciliation, and harmony. I don’t know where this warrior mentality worked its way into business but being humble and nice is now a sign of weakness. This line of thinking leads companies to draw in and protect rather than be exposed to danger.
• Companies seem to prefer “customer acquisition” over “cultivating relationships”. They need (or they prefer) the quick payoff rather than the slow-and-sure.

What’s most puzzling is that the last issue persists even though the need for short-term profits is what largely brought about the current global economic recession. When will we learn?

If a company had as one of its stated purposes “to reduce customer goodwill and retention”, they still couldn’t do a better job of driving people to look for alternatives than by writing bad policy. Badly conceived, poorly written company policy is avoidable; well-written policy is a necessity.

“So, what is a well-written policy?”, you ask. It’s a policy that’s:

• Clear;
• Concise;
• Direct;
• Easy to comprehend;
• Not written to its audience but written with that audience foremost in mind; and
• Written with SMART objectives behind it.

What’s your company policy? Does everyone understand it? Does it help your customer relationships? Call or write and let’s talk policy.

As always, thank you for your time.

* * * * * * *

⁽¹⁾Font type and size have something to do with that figure, as do the complex wording and convoluted syntax common to “legalese”. Naturally, we read faster and retain more of some documents than others (Novels v. Contracts, for example). I recommend checking out these sites and others for more information on reading speed:

• TurboRead - http://www.turboread.com/interpretation.htm.
• Speed Reading Center - http://www.speedreadingcenter.com/average-reading-speed/.
• Free Speed Reading - http://www.free-speed-reading.com/articles/what-is-the-average-reading-speed-of-americans.

In October, 2009, we discontinued shipment of the 3-ring-bound version of our policy and procedure manuals. It was a relatively easy decision, as more and more of our customers chose the downloadable version of our manuals over the binder. They were pleased to save on shipping and material costs. It also helped that we simplified the download process, thanks to invaluable customer feedback.

Prior to October, we began publishing most of our policies and procedures manuals in hardbound form, similar to a textbook, and made them available for sale through online retailers. So when we started receiving enquiries about “hard copy” versions of our manuals in recent weeks, we decided to offer the hardbound procedures books as add-ons.

You can now buy (for an additional $100 per) a hardbound procedure book as an add-on to nine of our policies and procedures manuals and the popular management  procedures bundles. The content of each hardbound book is identical to the MS-Word manual you download when you purchase it in electronic form.

To buy the hardbound books, simply choose the appropriate option (Download Only vs. Download + Hard Cover Book) when you place the product in your shopping cart.

Our goal is to ensure your satisfaction by providing the delivery option you desire. We won’t be selling the hardbound books as stand-alone products on our website, but they will continue to be available from online retailers like Amazon.com.

Recently, I was looking for a new camera. I was researching various models when I came across a few websites that listed them at unbelievable prices! Excited but skeptical, I dug down more and discovered these websites were shady, at best. That is, something gave me the impression they weren’t entirely trustworthy. I settled on a site with an established reputation — Amazon.com — and purchased the model I liked for what I thought was a fair price.

I’ve been buying online for a number of years. And, regardless of the current state of the economy, more and more people are buying online, too. According to one estimate, 60% of consumers shop online at least once quarterly.

As most of us are becoming more familiar, and comfortable, with purchasing from websites — as our numbers continue to grow — questionable or outright illegal selling practices are also on the rise. How do we know that the websites we’re buying from are legitimate?

Here are a few things you can check for before you make the decision to buy from any website.

1. Detailed Information

One of the most obvious signs of a website’s sincerity and competence is easy availability of information. Unless you have something to hide, there’s no reason to skimp on such things as detailed product descriptions, delivery information, pricing, and even company information — the company’s history, physical location, and a variety of ways (names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc.) of contacting someone at the company.

A somewhat important, but often overlooked, detail is a website’s “whois” domain registration information, on registrar sites like Godaddy or Network Solutions. Most of the shady websites I encountered had their domain owner information masked under private registrations.

Always feel free to email or call the company to get an idea about their business practices or customer service standards. See if you get hold of a “real” person or if you’re just sent to voicemail.

2. Recognized Brand

Most big-name, well-known online retailers like “Amazon.com” or “Buy.com” are safe bets, as are websites recommended by people you know or the ones  you have previously bought from (and didn’t have any complaints about). I say “most” because in rare instances, a third-party crook could be enticing you to visit a make-believe website simply to steal (or “phish”) your information.

Make sure that the address bar of your browser always begins with “http://subdomain.name-of-the-retailer.com”, where “subdomain” is “www”, “store”, or something similar. Avoid shopping from websites that have an IP (internet protocol) address — usually four sets of numbers — following the “http://” in the address bar (e.g., “http://123.456.789.012/”).

3. Encrypted Data – Secure Transaction

When you shop from a website, all information you enter (like your contact and credit card information) are transferred from your computer to their web server. You want this transfer to be encrypted and secure. That’s what the SSL (secured socket layer) certificates do, so that a third-party cannot easily “eavesdrop” on your transaction and steal your personal information.

There are two ways to ensure that a website has SSL certificate installed. First, look for “https://” in the address bar, especially when you’re in the area of the website where you’re asked for sensitive information, like the shopping cart checkout.

Second, look for a padlock icon either on the address bar or towards the bottom right of the webpage. Many sites also use logos of SSL providers. Feel free to click on those logos to verify proper encryption.

4. Clean Record – Assurance is the Key

Other things to look for are the company’s record. Check to see if the company is a member of the local Better Business Bureau. If it is, you can check for any complaints against the company and, if there were, how they handled those situations.

Also look for website reviews online. Keep in mind that sometimes these reviews can be skewed by a small number of dissatisfied customers, or jealous competitors, but look for the reviews themselves to see if they’re consistently good or bad. Consistently poor reviews indicate potential problems or a pattern of misbehavior within the company.

5. Customer Satisfaction Is Our Primary Goal

Safe shopping at Bizmanualz.com

Here at Bizmanualz, we’re mindful of the concerns our customers have about online shopping. We are proud of, and deeply thankful for, the trust thousands of customers have bestowed upon us over the 15-plus years we’ve been in business. We adhere to strict website security standards and take your privacy very seriously. Shoppers recognize this and, as a result, customers from around the world visit our website, view our samples,and buy our products.

We’d love to hear from you about your online shopping experiences, both negative and positive. Also, if you have any questions or comments about our own online security standards, please feel free to call us at 314-863-5079, contact us online, or leave a comment.

Thank you, and happy holidays!

What are procedures? Procedures are documents that describe business processes. Procedures are one tool we can use to train new and current employees how our processes work, and sometimes we show them how processes interact. Procedures can also help ensure a high degree of consistency in how processes operate and in the results they yield.

From "We Want Our Mummy", Columbia Pictures (1938)

Procedures are also a pain for many companies to write and maintain. Many organizations write procedures with one goal in mind — compliance. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Either there’s a compelling business reason for you to comply, like a larger organization that says they won’t do business with you unless you comply with a certain standard, such as ISO 9001. Or, there are laws with which you have to comply simply to stay in business (for instance, worker safety and food safety regulations).

Strangely, when compliance is the most important — or the only — goal, companies often forget about their procedures once they’ve implement them. Instead of monitoring and measuring, reviewing, and adjusting their performance — gradually and continually improving the process — they put the Almighty Book of Policies and Procedures in a hallowed place on the shelf and ignore it.

From "vodex.co.uk" site

Why is that? Well, here’s what some companies say about procedures:

• “Writing procedures isn’t our business”
• “It’s a cost center, not a moneymaker”
• “It takes time and money to maintain procedures”

Writing Procedures Isn’t Our Business

It’s true — your customers aren’t buying your internal procedures. What ARE they buying? Yes, they’re purchasing a product…but is it just the product or service they’re buying? Of course not.

Besides paying for goods or services, your customers are paying for the quality of your product, your ability to produce a consistently good product, and/or your ability to act on problems quickly and efficiently. They like the fact that you don’t make excuses — you just fix problems. And how do you do that without implementing effective policies and procedures, like “how to conduct an internal audit” or “how to take corrective action“? You might, if you’re lucky, but luck doesn’t guarantee your customers consistently high-quality results.

Procedure Writing Is a Cost Center

True, it costs you time and money to develop, implement, and maintain procedures. The fact that you have to research, write, review, and approve procedures can appear expensive and time consuming.

But what does it cost you NOT to have procedures? Like we said earlier, effective internal procedures are what help you gain and keep customers. Without the high quality and consistency that procedures help ensure, you risk losing your hard-earned reputation — and your hard-won customers. It’s much easier to keep a satisfied customer than it is to obtain a new one and it’s infinitely easier to keep them than it is to win them back once you’ve disappointed them.

It Takes Time and Money to Maintain Procedures

“Besides”, many companies insist, “our people know what they have to do. They don’t need procedures once they have the proper experience ‘under their belts’.” But how did your employees get that knowledge in the first place? Were they given in-depth training? Was the training consistent? Are they able to build on that knowledge?

Besides, business circumstances change (look at the recession we still seem to be going through). Customers’ needs change over time. Regulations are added all the time — some don’t affect you but others have a great impact on your business. Are you accounting for these types of change in your procedures?

In short, maintaining your procedures will cost you something but not maintaining them will cost your company a great deal more. You run the risk of falling behind your competition, falling to the back end of the technology curve, or falling out of compliance if you’re not looking at your procedures as “living documents”. If you’re not continually looking to improve the way you do things, you run the risk of stunting your company’s growth.

To sum up, you really should develop, implement, and maintain business procedures because it’s just plain good business and not just because somebody’s making you.

What do you think? Can an organization’s growth be held back because of poor or nonexistent procedures?

* * * * * * *

If you find your company is having trouble developing effective, meaningful procedures, check out our full line of business policies and procedures. They’ll make your policies-and-procedures journey easier to start and make it easier for you to stay on the right path.

Policies and procedures provide the framework and direction for addressing many common business problems your organization might face.  Let’s look at the top ten business problems solved by Policies and Procedures.

1. Accounts Receivable procedures to reduce accounts receivable (A/R) aging and ensure even cash flow.  Every company needs Strategies for Writing Accounts Receivable Procedures.  Your accounts receivable process is the heart of your cash cycle.  Salespeople can find plenty of customers but without cash-paying customers, you can’t pay your bills, which is part of your Strategies for Writing Accounts Payable Procedures.

2. Sales procedures to standardize sales pipeline management and ensure a consistent sales pipeline.  Sales procedures allow you to take control of the sales and marketing cycle.  Developing measurements, sales assignments, and target markets are all important elements of your sales process.

3. Disaster Recovery procedures will assist in an orderly and timely response to emergencies your company may face, as well as control the inevitable chaos that occurs.  Every company needs to effectively respond to disasters or emergencies in a timely manner; if not, they could be out of business.  In recent months, we’ve had ample opportunity to learn the lessons of the Gulf oil disaster, such as “having a disaster recovery plan before the need arises”.

4. Human Resources procedures ensure non-discriminatory practices; specifically, well-defined employee hiring and termination practices will help you avoid costly litigation.  Human resources procedures address diverse topics such as recruiting, hiring, training, retention, termination, and — most importantly –complying with local, state, Federal, and even international employment laws.

5. Quality procedures (nonconformance, corrective action, and auditing) improve product and process quality.  The ISO 9001 quality standard addresses quality control, quality assurance, and quality management practices.  Learning how to meet quality standards with ISO 9001 will help your organization reduce costly rework and overtime, thereby improving quality, satisfying customers, and contributing to your competitive advantages.

6. Customer communications procedures, like collecting data from customer feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.  ”Poor customer communication” is the root cause of much customer dissatisfaction.  If you know what your target customer wants, your business has all the information it needs to satisfy the customer. Implementing communication procedures will help you act on your customers’ wants, improving sales.

7. Shipping and receiving procedures are needed to track materials purchased and sold.  Most of shipping and receiving revolves around inventory or assets, which requires processes for handling, inventory management, asset acquisition, and asset disposition.  Specific supplier requirements — and the policies and procedures that flow from them — ensure that you receive what you want, when you want it, in the quantity you want, and with quality built in.

8. Management procedures can improve poor meetings, poor internal communications, and poor reporting.  Management is really about communication — that’s why improving internal communication benefits the whole company.  One of the best ways to improve communications is to develop, document, implement, and monitor a procedure for communications.

Also, it’s important that management shows its commitment to the highest standards, whether those standards have to do with internal processes or processes that directly involve your customers.

9. You also need compliance procedures to ensure your company conforms to the requirements of various regulations, statutes, and standards.  This is where policies and procedures can help your organization.  Compliance is one of the primary problems solved with policies and procedures.

10. Accounting procedures ensure that you fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.  Accounting is a process to track transactions of items, cash, and information.  Accounting procedures help to ensure consistency, reliability, and accuracy of those transactions, which (in turn) helps to build trust in your financial statements.  What Are the Top Ten Accounting Policies and Procedures?

Prewritten policies and procedures from Bizmanualz help solve many of these common business problems.  The Top Ten Core Business Policies and Procedures you will need can be found in the Bizmanualz CEO Company Policies Procedures Manuals bundle.

Top 10 Business Problems Solved by Policies and Procedures

1. Accounts Receivable procedures, to reduce A/R aging and ensure even cash flow.
2. Sales procedures, to standardize sales pipeline management to ensure consistent sales.
3. Disaster Recovery procedures, to control the response to chaos in an emergency.
4. Human Resources procedures, to ensure non-discriminatory employee hiring and termination.
5. Quality procedures, to improve quality.
6. Customer communications procedures, to collect data from feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.
7. Shipping and receiving procedures, to track materials purchased and sold.
8. Management procedures to improve poor meetings, communications, and reporting.
9. Compliance procedures to conform to regulations, standards, and laws.
10. Accounting procedures, to fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.

What do you think? How quickly could your most urgent problems be solved by implementing effective policies and procedures?

Remember when Ford’s tagline was “Quality Is Job 1″? No? Well, maybe this will jog your memory.

Back in the 1980′s, Ford, GM, Chrysler, and AMC¹ were quickly losing ground to Japanese automakers². Rumors that U.S. auto workers were deliberately sabotaging cars on assembly lines gained traction; these rumors were alleged to have been started to divert attention from the obvious and growing inequities between American and Japanese vehicles.

Fact is, American car buyers were turning away from domestic cars simply because their Asiatic counterparts were cheaper to buy and much cheaper to operate. The bad reputation American cars were saddled with then — a consumer perception of poor quality — persists to this day, even though Toyota — which leapfrogged all American automakers in 2007 to become the world’s #1 vehicle producer precisely because of its reputation for quality — has turned out to be the modern-day emperor with no clothes.  It looks as though quality took a back seat to profits.

Then there’s BP, whose failed wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico “will live in infamy”³, mainly because it appears the company would not spend a little on safety because that might eat into profits. This story has been thoroughly covered in the news, on blogs (including ours), and in company emails.

Now add the computer maker Dell to the list. Dell is now in court for allegedly selling millions of defective computers from 2003-2005 — computers that it supposedly knew were defective — hurting companies that relied on its reputation for quality manufacturing and customer service.

What’s the common thread running through all of these cases? Corporate hubris? Maybe.  A message running throughout these companies that “quality be damned — just get it out fast and make a big profit”? Quite possibly. Is their profit more important to you — the consumer – than a quality product and your satisfaction?

When do we, as consumers, demand that quality be placed before price? It catches up with the producer — eventually — but why wait for the inevitable? Why chase the elusive promise of “newer and better”? (Look at what Apple’s going through with the iPhone 4.)^{4, 5} Also, when do we, as corporate citizens, begin to see that our responsibility to give our customers quality isn’t incompatible with healthy profits?

It’s often said that we get what we deserve. If you think you deserve better, demand — and hold out for — quality.

Notes:

¹ Yes, they were still around, though not for long. AMC was put down for good in 1988.

² Except for body rust; that problem plagued Japanese auto makers for decades. My first two new vehicles were Japanese-made and I logged 18 years and several hundred thousand miles between them. If not for the severe case of “car cancer” they both caught, I believe they would’ve given me 20 or more years, combined.

³ My apologies to the late Franklin D. Roosevelt only.

⁴ http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/apple-iphone-hit-class-action-suit/story?id=11066239.

⁵ http://news.cnet.com/8301-30677_3-20008919-244.html.

Further Reading/Viewing:

1. Enderle, Rob, “Dell and the Cost of Cover-Ups“, IT Business Edge post, 30 Jun 2010.
2. Evans, Joel, “Is Apple Covering Up the Real Problem with Its iPhone?“, ZDNet blog post, 4 July 2010.
3. “Product Recalls“, Back in Black, The Daily Show, 6 July 2010.

One way to be sure to eliminate a problem for good is to identify the root cause and eliminate it. In the world of quality, we have this easy to use tool for getting to the root cause of a problem.

The “Five Whys”, simply put, means you state the problem and keep asking why until you’ve identified the root cause. However, using the Five Whys means the problem has occurred. Isn’t it better to prevent the problem from happening than correct it after the fact? Preventive action is infinitely preferable to corrective action.

I’ll give you a “for instance”. Someone I know recently left a wireless provider she’d been with for several years. What upset her most was that when she canceled, the customer service rep (CSR) didn’t ask why she was leaving. She might have reacted positively if the CSR had offered her an incentive to stay but he didn’t, and she’d pretty much made up her mind by then that they weren’t worthy.

If you can’t give somebody a reason to stay all along, your problems aren’t going to be magically solved by root cause analysis or any other corrective action tools. A root cause analysis may help you solve your problem, but why let the problem happen in the first place? Why not head off the problem? Take an active interest in your customers, rather than sit back and wait for things to happen.

Most customers will walk away from you without complaining. They don’t announce that they’re taking their business elsewhere: they just do it. They don’t give you a chance to explain yourself because they feel like they’ve been let down all along.

Dissatisfaction isn’t the result of a one-time occurrence. It happens over a period of time.  If, from the outset, communication is poor or nonexistent, the foundation for customer dissatisfaction is being laid. If you don’t continue to make your customer feel valued and welcome, the relationship that might have been never is.

Next, I’ll be looking for an answer to the question, “Why don’t customers complain?”, and I’m asking for your help. Are you more likely to complain to your vendors, or do you keep quiet and look for an alternative right away? What if you don’t have an alternative? What do you do then?

Thanks for your insights, and best wishes.

It was nearly a year ago that the Bizmanualz Quality Management System (QMS) was certified to the ISO 9001:2008 standard by Platinum Registration.

Nearly a year has passed since that ISO certification audit and, as required, Platinum returned last week to conduct a surveillance audit of our QMS. That is, they reviewed our quality documentation and records to verify that we were in compliance with ISO 9001 and our QMS is healthy.

I’m happy to say we passed the ISO 9001 surveillance audit. We didn’t get through the audit completely blemish-free, but that’s to be expected. (In fact, I’d be rather suspicious of an auditor if he/she didn’t identify something that needed improvement.)

Your registrar should find opportunities for improvement. Your QMS isn’t expected to be perfect. No matter how long you’re in business, you will never do things perfectly. That’s why continual improvement (clause 8.5) is in the international quality standard.

“Don’t worry about perfection. You’ll never achieve it.”
(Salvador Dali, 1904-1989)

Our ISO auditor did identify a few “issues”. If her concerns had been serious enough – if, for example, we didn’t have a quality manual, as clause 4.2.1(b) requires — she would be correct in writing major or minor findings. We’d be required to address those concerns…those findings…in a timely manner or risk losing our certification.

However, our ISO auditor identified several “statements of fact” (also called “observations”), which aren’t nearly as serious. We could ignore observations, which are a way of saying “you’re in compliance, so you don’t have to do anything.” Instead, we’ll use the auditor’s statements of fact to improve our QMS further.

You see, merely passing an audit isn’t good enough. Posting “ISO 9001 Certified” on your office wall, your stationery, and your product means nothing if you don’t back that term with action. If you don’t, your customers will see right through you.

That’s why customer satisfaction (clause 8.2.1) is a key requirement of the quality standard. In fact, you could argue customer satisfaction is the KEY requirement, and few would differ with you.

In the coming days, we’ll use the auditor’s statements to improve our system. And throughout the coming year, we’ll be doing a number of other things to continually improve our QMS. We have another surveillance audit in about a year from now and a recertification audit in 2012. We also have customers to take care of.

The Moral of the Story: Always practice the quality you preach and you’ll be ready for anything at any time. Right? Do you disagree?

We had a customer ask us this week about obtaining “ASO certification”. Here, in a nutshell, is what we said in reply:

“We’re unfamiliar with ‘ASO’ certification (one of my cohorts “googled” the acronym and didn’t think any of the results fit, so we assumed they meant “ISO” – if we’re wrong, we’ll hear about it). However, if a company wants to obtain ‘ISO’ certification, it has to do the following:

1. Develop a quality management system (QMS);
2. Implement the QMS and collect data;
3. Review the data collected and use it to drive improvement;
4. After several cycles of the QMS, you should have an indication of whether it’s working. When you’re sure it is…
5. Apply for a certification audit.  Your country’s ISO member body should have information on certifying bodies, registrars, etc.;
6. A few weeks after you’ve been through the audit, the certication auditor will tell you if you passed (or if you didn’t, where you were weak and need improvement). If you passed, ring the bell! Have a party! Tell all your friends (Facebook and real), family, and business associates! Your Quality Management System is now ISO certified! And…
7. In the event you didn’t pass, make the necessary changes (at the bare minimum) and reapply for a certification audit.

One thing we didn’t tell the customer initially is, “Don’t have unrealistic expectations.” Developing and utilizing the QMS — as well as the subsequent audit — are going to take time and effort.

If you’re doing it purely for marketing’s sake, if you think you can knock out a QMS and pass a certification audit in a matter of months…you’re in for a load of grief. You’ll never get a solid QMS under you AND you’ll never make deadlines, because they’re unrealistic.

If you build a QMS because you want to provide your customers with the best everything — if customers are the reason for everything you do, including the QMS – you’ll take the time you need to get it right, you won’t set unrealistic goals and deadlines, and you won’t drive yourself crazy trying to figure out why you never meet expectations.

OK, so they’re not really easy steps…but the concept itself isn’t at all complicated. Each of the steps above is broken down into successively smaller pieces (things, activities, people, etc.) but if you start with the “big picture” and keep the big picture handy, you’ll do fine. Refer to it continually as you build. That’s where a lot of companies go wrong — they focus on just one part of the whole story as if that were the whole story, like the blind men and the elephant.

Keep your perspective. Remember — you’re in it for the long haul.  Best of luck in your QMS journey, and let us know if you’d like our help.

Let’s face facts. Most companies are never going to be innovators, and that’s fine. Most would rather lead their respective categories, anyway, and they lead by doing most of the important things — all coming under the heading of “customer needs and wants” — consistently better than their competitors.

What are the important things? Give your customers what they want (which varies from one customer to the next but can be lumped into one category, “value”). Give it to them when they want it and don’t make excuses.

Value translates to “quality”, which you can give a customer from the outset if you’re lucky. Anyone can get it right at least once but what most of us call “quality” comes about only through establishing consistency in a process. And consistency can only be determined over time.

So, how do you ensure consistency? Keep working at the process. Keep refining it. Implement “best practices”.  This will, at best, let you “keep up with the Joneses” (and Toyodas and Fords, etc.).

What if keeping up isn’t good enough? Yes, the silver medal is nice but wouldn’t gold…or platinum…be even better? How do you get ahead of the pack? How do you differentiate yourself in a way that really matters?

Well, what’s the difference between a company that successfully meets or exceeds most stated customer requirements — again, not a bad place to be — and companies that go beyond the known and measurable? The difference is marked by a willingness not to be defined — or confined — by conventional thinking. Innovators don’t think a subject to death: they act decisively.

Of course, they get it wrong a lot of the time but they don’t fret about their mistakes. They learn from them, and they keep moving.

Sure, “mistake-proofing” has its rewards. Mistake-proofed organizations are more certain, they’re more measurable, and they’re often profitable. Innovative companies aren’t afraid of mistakes, because they know that’s how we learn best, as companies and as individuals.

In fact, it’s when we get into a “rut” of consistency that we often lose our gift for innovating. Consistency is not necessarily better than creativity, and vice versa. Consistency and creativity need not be mutually exclusive, either…so we’d like to think. After all, innovation and change can go hand in hand. What do you think?

Can innovation and “best practices” coexist?

* * * * * * *

For More On This Subject…

• “How to Kill Innovation: Keep Asking Questions”, by Scott Anthony, HBR Blog Network (25 Feb 2010) – http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2010/02/want_to_kill_innovation_keep_a.html
• “Does Repeat Collaboration Really Kill Creativity?”, by Andrew O’Connell, HBR Blog Network (1 Mar 2010) – http://blogs.hbr.org/research/2010/03/if-repeat-collaboration-kills.html