Do you possess this CRITICAL skill? Perhaps NO

Today, Saturday, so my blog is about personal matters.

“Communication starts and prevents wars nowadays.” French political consultant, Jacques Seguela

Ajit Pawar, ex-Minister in Govt of Maharashtra, in his recent meeting with party workers, advised them to speak cautiously as he accepted that he has lost everything because of his bad communication.

During the recent Mathura incidence, the way MP of Mathura, Hema Malini responded initially to a journalist was just short of pathetic. Continue reading...

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ?

Leadership is EXTREMELY important. World is facing huge leadership crisis at all level. Corrupt leader is one problem but incompetent leadership is what I am discussing today.  

There are discussions all around about difference between leaders and managers.  That difference is startling and critical when managers are given leadership role. 

Managers are Cook and leaders are Chef. 

Leaders don't require instructions while managers do. Leaders don't need map to follow but they create their own road map, while managers cant do anything without map. Leadership is scarce and very precious as leaders defines & execute the destiny of the organisation or country they leads.  

There may be 5 to 7 founders of Infosys but among them who can lead? Hardly one or two. Being a part of the team if very different than being a leader of the team. It requires vision, fairness, anticipation, inspiring goal setting , executing , reasonableness , patience , firmness , perseverance , fearlessness & pressure handling capability and many such qualities. 

Richard Branson inspires dream and innovation, Narayan Murthy inspires fairness and consistency,  Vinod Rai , Ex CAG inspires fearlessness , Gandhiji inspires truthfulness , patience and walk the talk qualities , Indira Gandhi & Sardar Patel inspires firmness , Our BCCI Chief Srinivasan inspires pressure handling capability & Narendra Modi inspires vision, firmness, execution, fearlessness & pressure handling capability. They all are competent in their roles and predominantly displays qualities and leadership styles they have used in their role as leader. 

Look at leaders around you and find out what he or she inspires ? If the reply is NOTHING then these are leaders occupying leadership role without being competent for the role. 

To share my experience I suggest all leaders wherever they are leading to just find their replacement from the people they are leading.  I am sure you will not find many faces who can aptly replaces you considering the role you are playing as a leader.  Its a rare commodity & therefore valuable like brands. 

For top leaders of every organisation and institution , one of the very critical roles is to identify  , train and make next generation of leaders ready to take charge. Howsoever robust the organisation is today with its brands , technology and customer loyalty , incompetent leader can spoil the game and every sustainable competitive advantages an organisation enjoys.    

Who is the next leader competent to replace you ? If you don't have the answer or clue - leave everything else and find the answer. 

Leadership Vs Front-facing Candidates & Managers

Leaders can inspire but it is the local leader at  the voters touch points who can drives votes. Only leaders without right followers cant win elections. Mass leader with right candidate is the killer mix. 

Right Candidate (non corrupt , performing perception & great people skill)	Likely Win	Mostly Wins
Wrong Candidate (corrupt , non performing perception )	Mostly Loses	Likely Lose
Election Matrix (Qualities of candidates and leaders are in relation to its opponent)	Uninspiring  leader at the top ( Incapable, uninspiring, corrupt & ineffective & non inclusive image)	Inspiring Leader at the top ( Inspiring { thought leader , communicator} , capable, non corrupt, effective, executor, inclusive image  )

The above matrix is not only applicable to political parties  but also to all businesses. Howsoever strong leadership you may have at the top if your ground level customer focus managers are failing company will be in trouble.

People will become customers if they see Richard Bronson at the top but soon they will disappear if the touch point manager/staff is uninspiring.  Only dependency on right and inspiring leadership is not going to yield the desired result. 

The First Question

The First Question

Customer Experience Management is the mother of all enterprise level initiatives like lean, six sigma, tqm, process engineering, business strategy, human resource etc all are in a way is impacting customer experience. Now if we consider Customer Experience as sustainable competitive advantage then all our initiatives should commence by keeping CE perspective at the center.

After the company decides about the products and services it is planning to offer to the market and geography it decides to operate in THE FIRST QUESTION to be asked is what kind of customer experience company wants to create for its customers.

There are nine leakage points which dilutes scintillating customer experience. Therefore unless customer experience statement is defined lens of the management will miss these leaky points.   In the process to answer the first question company will define customer experience statement.

Having defined the statement every action and initiatives will be aimed to achieve & maintain this statement. Budget for any initiatives will be viewed in terms of its impact on customer experience.

Every initiatives mentioned above will be to fix leakage in customer experience happening through leakage points;

• a) Leadership & Culture ( Culture & Governance Policies )
• b) Customer Strategy ( CE Statement & whether every other function align to this strategy? )  
• c) Customer Expectations ( tqm, lean, costing, innovation  )
• d) People ( HR )
• e) Process ( BPR, Lean, Six Sigma )
• f)  Marketing & Branding ( Marketing , Social Media, Advertising , PR )
• g) System ( IT, Technology, Mfg or Service Set up )
• h) Measurement ( right measurement matrix )
• i)  Distribution Channel ( distribution policy, training and hand holding )

When the above nine points are focused upon on a regular basis by keeping lens of customer experience on , company will then hardly needs any other area to focus upon ( ofcourse except taxation ).

Time has come for every organisation to ask the first question and realign to answer the first question.