August Turak, a business owner, entrepreneur, consultant and writer, describes a similar experience in his four-part article, Business Secrets of the Trappists, recently published in Forbes magazine:
“Sooner or later every manager realizes that 99% of the people he depends on for his success don’t report to him. Real leadership is built on persuasion, and persuasion is built on trust.
I was once brought in to turn around sales for a large company. The company was running at a loss, and this had led to the most vicious interdepartmental infighting I’ve ever seen. Everyone reporting to me from executive to assistant expected me to take up cudgels and champion sales, but instead I bought some time with some diplomatic comments, closed my door and did some hard thinking.
I knew I had to do something fast, but what? I felt overwhelmed, until I finally asked myself what a service-and-selflessness response to my predicament might be. Then I picked up the phone and asked each of the other executives for an appointment, carefully making it clear that the meeting would take place in their offices, on their turf.
When I arrived with my pencil and notebook, I was greeted universally with folded arms and barely concealed hostility. Taking a seat, I leaned forward and gently said, “I’m here to find out what sales can do to make your life easier.”
It took a while for the shock to fade from their faces, but eventually they were rattling off suggestions as I scribbled them down. When we finished, I thanked them for their time and left without mentioning my own problems.
Then I gathered my department and said my immediate priority was convincing the company that our only interest was in serving the overall mission. I told them we would have to prove it by getting our own house in order first. This, of course, was not what they wanted to hear, and for a few moments everyone just sat there shell-shocked. I then made a personal appeal for their trust, and they agreed to go along.
It took a week or so, but when the other departments saw that I was implementing their suggestions and asking for nothing in return, one by one they stopped by and asked me how they could reciprocate. Little by little, mutual trust was established, and I went from feeling powerless to feeling that I had more than enough influence to accomplish my goals.”
Socializing market research results is a delicate matter. In the examples above, both that of my former boss and of August Turak, both men applied their marketing knowledge and experience directly to their situations. In essence, they both conducted their own qualitative market research studies of their markets.
Rather than announcing the research results and drawing out the implications in ways that glorified only themselves, they allowed the greater good of moving the corporation forward by asking for the input, thoughts and suggestions of those that would ultimately be responsible for implementing the market research conclusions. And then by incorporating this input into the public presentations of the results, they were aware of the level of buy-in, the areas of agreement and disagreement, and the pitfalls they might face.
Food for thought as market researchers work to optimize the results of our work inside our companies.
Until next time, Dr. Bob
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Thanks for posting about this, I would like to read more about this topic.
Does anybody have any experience with this market research firm?
My organization has had the pleasure of working with Customer Insights Research on several projects over the past 5+ years. We have found them to be extermely responsive to our needs, consistently on-time and on-budget, and ever so patient in assisting us in communicating the results of the market research findings to our clients.