Things We’ve Learned in 30 Years..
When visiting a customer, we aren’t likely to know everything about how they work, why they do things or what is the “right thing”.
It’s very easy to want to do something when you see it doesn’t match our perception of right.
See it; Fix it.
If we spot something not correct then it needs to be fixed, doesn’t it?
Well, not necessarily.
Whilst we can be enthusiastic about offering advice and recommendations, that doesn’t mean the client wants to change. What, on the face of things, might look like a fault or problem to us, is possibly going to plan and is exactly as intended.
We aren’t going to be party to all of the reasoning behind the actions or activities that we spotted as a “problem”. Some of the purposes behind them have been relatively straightforward:
- It’s done to accommodate a particular member of staff, so whilst it may not be the most efficient, it is consistent.
- We’re seeing a snapshot where what we observe isn’t the normal approach, such as certain equipment is faulty, and this is the fall-back approach.
- The operation is far more dextrous than we assume, so the “problem action” may be out of sequence or a remedial one.
- Factors such as customer requirements aren’t immediately obvious.
In early days, with the enthusiasm of a fresh graduate, we’d be coming up with proposals and solutions that would make no sense to the company.
But we matured – fortunately fairly quickly before anyone became upset. There is often a story or a reasoning behind why a business does things in a particular way, and aside from running the risk of offending the very person who came up with an idea, engaging with the background before making any decisions allows for the Company owner and their staff to revisit those thought processes and maybe validate the original decision or find that there is new information to bring on board which might make a difference to that decision.
Either way, we’ve learned that strengthening a process or action is just as important as rectifying a problem.>
Get in touch today to find out more about how we can not FIX what you have, but help to make it better.
All without horrifying your team!
Peter