One of my favorite bosses was a wily young up-and-comer. He had his eyes set on the ultimate corner office. In corporate politics, he was superbly articulate and aware of the implications of the words of others and of his own. And like any great corporate game player, he was quite circumspect. But one-on-one or within a small group of managers who worked directly for him he would open up a bit.
During one of these free ranging discussions, he went off on a riff (never a rant) I have always remembered.
“Bob,” he asked, “what organization produces the most transactions with our product?” Even though I had a suspicion, I remained silent, waiting to see where he was headed.
“Walmart,” he answered. He let that sink in for a moment and continued.
“What does this imply? Well, look around you at the managers here, especially the executives. How many spent much, if any time at Walmart? Very few. All the managers here earn way more than average Americans. They shop mainly at specialty stores. Why? Because they can. The problem is that we so easily fall into the trap of believing that our customers are just like us.”
“We should hire a couple of buses and send everyone in the department (Marketing) to Walmart locations around town to spend the day simply observing how people use our product. After all, it’s used there more than anywhere. And then they’d have to report back on what they discovered. If anyone cannot find insights into our customers by observing them at Walmart, they ought to be invited out the door.”
It never happened, of course. But my boss was trying to convey to me that it was our job to help management understand those customers, to stand in their shoes, to feel their emotions, conflicts and problems so that the company could offer them better solutions.
Over the course of the time I worked for him, I observed as he did so. He would relentlessly return the focus of those he worked with to the corporate objectives and mission and then reinforce the need to get inside the heads (and hearts) of customers in ways that trued spoke and related to them.
Part 2 to soon follow.
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