Are you (still) doing the right things?

Are you doing the right things?  Are you still doing the right things?  This is one of the questions that a good CRM system can help you come to grips with.  Customers don’t know what’s “right” or “wrong” in your organization, so they ask, “Why don’t you do this...”.  When they ask questions like that, try to be sure you are giving a correct, current answer.

There's story of a research experiment involving chimpanzees, bananas, and a garden hose.

The chimpanzees are put in a room with a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling.  The room also has a stepladder in it; it doesn’t take long for a chimp to move the ladder to under the bananas and start to climb.  But as soon as the monkey gets near the bananas, the researcher sprays him down with cold water from the garden hose, and sprays the rest of the chimps in the room as well.  It doesn’t take very many repetitions for the chimps to all learn not to try to get the bananas.

Now a chimp is removed and a new one replaces him.  The new chimp moves the ladder and tries to get the bananas.  Of course all the other chimps in the room tackle him - they don’t want to get sprayed with cold water.  So the new chimp quickly learns the same lesson, don’t try to get the bananas!

One at a time, all the original chimps are replaced - there are now none there that were ever sprayed with cold water.  Yet when a new chimp comes in and tries for the bananas, the rest still tackle him - but if they could talk, none could tell you why, just that it was bad, not done.

Is that your organization?  Are you still doing (or not doing) things a certain way “because that’s the way we do them here”? 

And what is it costing you?