Why Does Toyota Share What They Do With Others?

Comment on LinkedIn post (over the years I have lost trust LinkedIn will honor links into LinkedIn - at times they work often, over the years, they are blocked), so I am not linking to the source.

Why would Toyota allow competitors to see their plants?

"Deep down, they know that the Toyota Production System (TPS) techniques that visitors see on their tours--the kanban cards, andon cords, and quality circles--represent the surface of TPS but not its soul. Toyota isn't worried about giving away any important secrets on a plant tour."

I agree it is true that other companies are not going to copy Toyota's ideas so successfully they would put Toyota at risk.

I think more than that though those that made such decisions early on cared about making the world a better place. Some companies in the USA talk about that but very few care about it. So it is easy to think anyone saying they care about making the world a better place is just making a false claim, likely as a marketing ploy.

When Toyota started doing this the life experience of those making decisions for Toyota very clearly knew the benefits they/Toyota gained from learning from others. Those people and companies helped make Toyota more successful and helping Japan recover from the devastation of World War II. To those that experienced this, it is easy to understand putting helping others above the potential risk of losing some competitiveness by helping competitors.

I do agree those making the decisions of keep sharing what is going on in Toyota now see how little they have to fear based on decades of sharing and seeing how little others have learned and applied what they share - so they have very little to fear.

Toyota has a much bigger risk now of losing focus on what makes them special (respect for people, systems thinking, long term thinking, continual improvement...) than they do from others. By making visible many aspects of how they operate they create a system that reinforces that they continue.

Using a very simple example, it is a lot easier to keep your house clean if you have guests over frequently. If you are going to get lazy it is easier to do if you just don't let others see. If you are letting others see most of us will take care to clean better. 

This is just one tiny aspect but I think there is real benefit if you are an executive concerned about maintaining high standards that you open yourself to others. When people are thinking about just skimping on things some there is extra reason to not do so. Also constantly reinforcing your message by having it repeated to visitors over and over, it keeps those ideas top of mind. Obviously this idea is vastly oversimplifying things. But I do believe there are significant system thinking reasons that Toyota's sharing benefits them and helps keep the company focused (much less important than many other things they do but still a benefit).

Related: The Top 21 Executives at Toyota Getting a Raise to a Combined US$14.9 Million (2015) - Long Term Thinking with Respect for People - The Toyota Way – Two Pillars

The Value of a Management System Accommodating Remote Work

Working remotely creates a significantly different system than working all next to each other. There are big advantages to working right next to each other. There are also really bad office designs (which are very common) which detract from success of working next to each other (distractions etc. that cubical farms, "hoteling" create etc.).

There are challenges to managing a system of work with people not being right next to each other. There are also huge advantages of hiring people that are not within commuting distance of your location. In my opinion organizations that learn to manage a dispersed workforce effectively will have huge competitive advantages long term.

Of course we have decades of evidence of organizations electing to ignore better management practices so I imagine most organizations will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future (if they ever get there at all).

There is some sense in my opinion to focusing on working all next to each other as your organization's management style. But my guess is for all but the richest organizations (that can afford to overpay, pay premiums to those that are willing to commute, willing to tie themselves to one physical location, happen to be in the area...) there are large gains possible by learning and creating a manage system that works effectively with remote workers. When you can't just pay huge salareis to put up with the large shortcomings of your management system it is important to find other ways to compete in the marketplace.

Figuring out how to work effectively remotely provides huge potential advantages for many organizations.

Related: Employees That Telecommute are the Most Loyal (2007) - The Management System is the Key - Shared Principles for Managing People Engaged in Diverse Tasks

Creating an Integrated Life Where Work Adds to Life

 

 Response to: What Does Work/Life Balance Mean to You?

My father did a great job with work/life balance by integrating work with life to an extent that most people do not. Instead of the typical what I do for work requires sacrificing "life" he built a life where what he did for work enhanced life. He was a professor and worked for a year in London a year in Singapore and a year in Nigeria. The life experiences that having work and excelling at work to the extent that he could arrange such options provide a much richer life than if he maximized life by restricting his effort in work. We had experiences that are invaluable and extraordinary.

I realize doing this to the extent he did is very difficult. But growing up with it I learned that the idea that you could design the whole life (including everything) to maximize life.  And that it may well be that extra effort at work rather than detracting from the rest of life enhances it. For me the key is to focus on maximizing the whole and within that realizing sometimes there are tradeoff (essentially a zero sum game) but there may well be times when you can design the system of your life to find win win solutions.

I wrote about this on my blog The Aim Should be the Best Life – Not Work v. Life Balance

 Both my brother and I have applied the lessons we learned from that integration of work and life to our lives in ways that made our lives much more meaningful and rewarding.

Take Risks to Learn and Improve, But Do So Wisely

My edited comments on: The Limits of Learning From Failure

Failure can be a great learning tool, especially if it is planned. Create an environment that supports and learns from failure, but also use the scientific method, coupled with experience, to understand and mitigate the risks.

I agree, I wrote about this on my blog: Accept Taking Risks, Don’t Blithely Accept Failure Though

The goal is to maximize innovation and improvement. To the extent we need to take risks and accept some failures to achieve this we should accept failure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t continually try to improve our management systems to reduce the costs of failure. Even while we take risks we want to do so intelligently.

It is true many organization are so fearful of being blamed for failure that sensible risks are avoided. We do need to create management systems that allow taking sensible risks but we need to learn while still limiting damage from failures. Do experiments on a small scale, iterate quickly and expand the scope as you learn.

Related posts: Learn by Seeking Knowledge, Not Just from Mistakes - Risks Should be Taken Wisely - What is the Explanation Going to be if This Attempt Fails?

Shared Principles for Managing People Engaged in Diverse Tasks

This post expands on my response to Michael Sweeney's (Cloud Infrastructure Engineering for Salesforce) comments on Linked In:

This is a great blog to follow [Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog] if you aren’t aware of it. I agree with John, in general, but in this post I felt the missed one basic thing that I’ve seen in my own career- software is not physical and people who write great software and people who make great physical things MUST think (and therefore be managed) differently. The crossover between Agile and Lean thinking, to me, is the ability to identify non-value added activity (waste) in the Toyota sense, and empower small teams to make decisions and charge forward in the Agile sense. Getting a combination of software and hardware thinking together will be the key to winning the Cloud Wars and moving into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Thanks for your comments. I do agree that the system within which people are operating determines how they must be managed. There are definitely features of software development that are significantly different than manufacturing scalpels or basketballs or tables. As there is a difference between a surgical team in an operating room, road construction, mining, editing books, investment banking, manufacturing industrial robots, researching new drugs, manufacturing drugs, teaching in a university, maintaining plane engines, coaching an athletic team...

I see universal principles of management (respect for people, customer focus, continual improvement...) that cross all different human enterprises. How those principles should be manifest in a particular situations depend on the work being done, the management system that is in place, the individual people involved, the specific focus of the effort right now... The way those principles are manifest will look very different in all the varied types of organizations we create and the different work and processes used within those organizations.

John Hunter, presenting at a Deming management seminar in Hong Kong

It is interesting (on the software v not software divide) to note that 100 years ago what was manufactured didn't contain software elements. And the manufacturing process also didn't involve software. That isn't very often the case today. Think of all the manufactured things you use and a high percentage (measured by the cost of the manufactured goods) have software components (cars, phones, appliances, speakers...) and they are built with a great deal of software involved in the manufacturing process.

In addition, the sales process and other processes involved in the organization doing the manufacturing rely heavily on software. As you say "Getting a combination of software and hardware thinking together" is indeed key today and will be continue to be in the future. While relying on software as part of the manufacturing process (and in the supporting processes) isn't the same as developing software the thought process on how to use software within manufacturing systems and how that software should work, be adjusted... is very different from the work of manufacturing tires 100 years ago.

I also discuss related ideas in: Deming and Software Development.

Related posts: How to Manage What You Can’t Measure - Create a System That Lets People Take Pride in Their Work - Good Process Improvement Practices - The Importance of Management Improvement - Thinking Required, No Simple Management Recipe to Follow -Unpacking the Components of Hard Work to Design Better Work Conditions - Do We Need to Find Management Ideas from Our Industry? (No) - Avoiding Difficult Problems

Understanding and Using Data: Waffle House Example

Comments on, Why FEMA is Monitoring Waffle House this Weekend

look outside your organization for risk indicators that might help you make better (and faster) decisions, particularly when those risks are activated. Second, that you should explore crowdsourced risk data as a source of up-to-date information.

I agree. Also, just look at data close to where the action is (internal or external).

And don't just look at aggregated data but dig into what individual data points tell you. Aggregated data is very useful but it also can mask meaningful insights available when data is looked at more closely. It isn't a perfect match to Waffle House data but I think the principle is visible in the Waffle House example.

The Waffle House closure data is based on actually closing based existing conditions while warnings and evacuation recommendations are based on predictions about the weather and the impacts those will have on locations. The warnings are necessarily predictions (to be useful for the whole community they need lead times to take action) where the Waffle House has more flexibility and the organization has managed their system to be more capable of adapting to harsh conditions. There is a real similarity with designing a agile software development process that is able to be more flexible and react quicker than old "waterfall" style organizations that have to predict far in advance and adapt slowly as conditions change.

Waffle House closures are a useful data point for conditions on the ground that FEMA can use with other data to make decisions on how to react.

Related: Bad Weather is Part of the Transportation System - Leadership: Taking Action When Others Are Unsure - Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature - All Data is Wrong, Some is Useful

People and Robots Together

Comments on: The Coming Auto Industry Battle: Toyota’s People vs. Tesla’s Robots?

Toyota's method is the best and will continue to be.

However, I believe we have reached a turning point where the effectiveness of industrial robots has greatly improved. For several decades it was pretty easy to predict wholesale adoption of the robots will save us mantra would be followed by failure. I still strongly believe Toyota's method (thoughtful use of robotics to enhance people is the best strategy). But the ease of using robots to succeed in the long term is much enhanced these days.

Robot first strategies are going to be succeeding quite a bit going forward. Yes those efforts might not be good enough when competing only with companies using the best strategy well (but that will be rare).

I wrote some about this in a recent blog post: Technological innovation brings great opportunity for improving results and our quality of life. But transforming potential benefits into real results comes with many challenges...

Essentially I see people today too dismissive of the usefulness of industrial robots. And they have past examples to point to in showing how a large commitment to robot first failed. It isn't that today robot first is the best strategy but I do believe the real world conditions have improved to make the blanket assumption that such efforts will fail as unwise.

A big part of this is that while we can simplify the argument to "robot first" or "robots helping people" it really isn't that simple. There are many reasons why today the conditions are different than they have been. Technological and software improvements are a big part of that. But also there is more thoughtful consideration of the advantages Toyota's management philosophy brings. Sadly not enough, but still companies are better today at thinking and acting as if their employees have brains than they were 30 years ago. Granted there is still a long way to go, but still progress has been made it seems to me at the macro level.

Related: GMs huge investment in robotics in the 1980s ($billions) has been an example of how pinning hopes on technology often doesn’t produce the desired results. - Toyota Develops Thought-controlled Wheelchair - Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity.

Using Money to Motivate Creates More Problems Than Benefits

Comments on: Employee Motivation and Lean Implementation – Part 2: Money

Well said. Nearly all "motivation" efforts such as bonuses create far more problems than benefits. Paying people fairly is important, if they don't have enough to live they will be distracted and seeking new options.

And if they are substantially underpaid compared to the market (even if they have enough to live comfortably) they will be prone to seek new alternatives and be disgruntled because they feel they are being treated unfairly.

The best "motivation" managers can provide is to eliminate the de-motivation created by poor practices in the management system.

Sadly these are often common and managers can keep themselves very busy just doing this. If not, they are likely very lucky and probably have no motivation problems to worry about.

Related: Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails - The Defect Black Market - Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation - Extrinsic Incentives Kill Creativity - A "Demotivated" Workforce is a Symptom of the Culture of the Organization - The Potential Benefits, Risks and Folly of Stretch Goals

A Sign of Decline at Apple

Comments on: This Apple Store Sign Seems to be a Sign of Apple’s Broader Troubles

I agree that sign is more important than many people might think. For a company like Apple that spends likely hundreds of millions of dollars a year on design and conveying a message through that design (in Apple stores, with products, with presentations, with ads...) it is not acceptable. They have held themselves to high standards. When that starts to slip if they are not proactive it slips quickly.

For a normal business they would be at the mercy of the management company to fix the door and the manager of the store would pass the buck to them. I can say if I were the manager of that store for Apple, if it wasn't fixed immediately I would have it fixed myself (and then bill the management company). If it couldn't be fixed immediately I would have a decent sign put there and it would make sure it got fixed very quickly. That isn't the same action I would take if it were some small shop I was responsible for where I knew we could only afford a cheap place and things like broken doors take a while to be fixed. For an Apple store that is unacceptable.

My main complaint with Apple is the poor software quality over the last 5 to 10 years. Software quality started to slip and kept slipping and no-one at Apple that had the authority dealt with the decline. The Apple Maps fiasco was a symptom of this long term failure by Apple. Tim Cook responded to that symptom but I don't see Apple giving software quality nearly the attention it deserves. My MacBook Pro has had numerous software issues for years. I have looked at other hardware and it is very difficult to find hardware of the quality of Mac laptops. My next computer would likely be an Ubuntu laptop if I can find good enough hardware. Another option is installing Ubuntu on the MacBook and just using that most of the time (there are some reasons Mac software can be useful so having it as a fallback is a benefit). But it is sad that Apple has let software quality slide for so long.

Related: Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple - Aligning Marketing Vision and Management - Human Proof Design - Vision can be a Powerful Driver but Most Often It is Just a Few Pretty Words

Transforming a Management Culture

Thoughts on: Where Lean Went Wrong – A Historical Perspective

I believe that companies that say they are attempting to become lean fail to do so in the most important ways. I do believe most efforts result in improvement but usually are fairly limited by the existing management system and refusal to really change much.

More than "lean failing" I would say transforming to a different management culture fails. Saying lean fails makes it seem to me that what a lean management system was in use and failed which is not really the case it doesn't seem to me.

I wrote about these ideas on my blog: Why Use Lean if So Many Fail To Do So Effectively

and discussed them in this podcast on Building Organizational Capability.

Related: Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods? - Transforming a Management System – A Case Study From the Madison Wisconsin Police Department - Culture Change Requires That Leaders Change Their Behavior - Change Management: Create a Culture Seeking Continual Improvement or Use Band-Aids?

Intrinsic Motivation and the Danger of Overgeneralization

Comments on Motivation by Kurt Häusler

> You have to pay enough to keep the issue of money off the table

I agree with that sentiment. And I agree we do tend to overgeneralize and discuss management practices without enough attention to local conditions (at the country level, and even smaller geographic level and even very big differences between organizations).

But I strongly disagree with "so intrinsic motivation is of limited utility."

Creating and maintaining workplaces that let people take pride in their job is hugely important. We spend a huge amount of our time and energy at work. Even if we are paid less than we should be it is still important to have work we can be proud of doing. Yes, the issue of low pay also has to be addressed but it isn't an either-or choice.

In fact, by creating systems that let people take pride in their work we take advantage of more of their potential and thus create more value which can make it easier to pay more money. If we instead, decide to reduce the importance of intrinsic motivation in our management systems that is likely to be a mistake. Granted in some places the importance of intrinsic motivation may be so well understood and incorporated that focus should go elsewhere but I question how often organizations are really doing so well on that front they need to reduce that focus in order to focus elsewhere.

Related: Motivation, Rewards, Performance Appraisals and Your Career - Motivate or Eliminate De-Motivation - Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity

Don't Claim Your Customer's Suffering from Your Management System Results are a "Learning Opportunity"

From, Microsoft finally admits that its malware-style Get Windows 10 upgrade campaign went too far":

It’s all well and good for a corporation to promise that its learning from mistakes, but it’s awful hard to believe such promises when the mistakes in question violate basic principles of software design and customer service

They are exactly right. This is one of the huge problems with the "learning from mistakes" excuse. Some mistakes are a sign of an extremely bad management system.

If you force the consequences of mistakes on your customers making up excuses about how this failure is a learning experience for you is only ok if you actually spell out how you are changing to assure you don't fail your customers due to this same management system failure again.

You need to design your systems to minimize consequences to customers when something goes wrong.

Acting as though a problem is due to some specific issue only with the exact circumstances that created the consequences is exactly the message you expect from businesses that have no respect for customers. It is exactly he cover your butt mentality of organizations you definitely do not want to be a customer of.

We need to stop accepting transparent excuses that indicate no acceptance of responsibility for mistreating customers. This wasn't a mistake about updating software. This was a mistake of a management system that allowed colossally customer hostile action to be taken and then continued and accepted meaningless excuses as if they were relevant. Microsoft manages to fail even the extremely low expectations we have for them over and over again.

I was foolish enough to continue to use Skype after Microsoft bought them. I added money to my account so that I would have access to Skype on my trip to China. 3 minutes into my first phone call they disconnected me. They then put up the most customer hostile form I have ever seen. I literally have over 30 questions that were required to be answered (things like what month and year did you sign up). I can't remember them all but at least 15 were insane to expect any customer to know. Needless to say they provided no way to contact them outside the ludicrous form. You can't have such repeated massive failures of basis common courtesy for decades without a horrible management system being in place.

It is so frustrating that such customer hostility is allowed to continue. Microsoft has a massive, decades long problem with treating customers horribly and making excuses for decades. This is just one more example of that pattern. Supposedly they are less horrible today than 20 years ago. Maybe that is true but they give me no reason to want to test out if that is true with their well publicized continuing of their customer hostile patterns.

Sure Apple's very poor software quality over the last 5+ years makes me frustrated with them. But Microsoft is much much worse so I have no desire to make from Macbook to any Microsoft software. Google has issues but if they would target users that don't have (or want to rely on) great internet connections to use their computer I would consider them. Ubuntu is the leading solution Apple has pushed me into strongly considering. The biggest issue I have not is the hardware for Ubuntu just isn't nearly as good as MacBooks. Granted the latest MacBook hardware choices Apple made are somewhat lame, but still it is much better hardware than others offer. Sadly it is stuck with their bad software and combine that with the sky high prices (the old MacBooks were expensive but well worth it) I just don't think I will buy another. While less than great I think one of the Dell laptops is in the lead for my next laptop.

You can't allow your business to treat customers horribly if you don't have a monopoly (or monopolistic position). Sadly for those stuck with Microsoft, they have close to that monopolistic position and rely on that. They have an extremely long way to go just to stop treating customers horribly. And treating an inexcusable failure as something they are learning from is yet another indication they are not learning at all.

Related: Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple - Making Life Difficult for Customers - Incredibly Bad Customer Service from Discover Card

The Psychology of Change is Often the Trickiest Part of Process Improvement

Comments on, The Time I Volunteered at a Distillery and Couldn’t Help Doing Kaizen

It’s “Kaizen” because it made my work easier. It improved quality and consistency. I did it because I WANTED to. This is really repetitive work and not particularly skilled work. But I discovered there was a “knack” to it. Doing repetitive work allowed me to exercise my brain to do problem solving and come up with a better way.

So Then What?

I’m an individual worker, but there are others doing the same work.

An interesting thing happened... I tried sharing my discovery with other volunteers.

“Hey, can I show you something I learned about doing this?”

The general response was, “Nah, I’m doing fine… thanks, though.”

I have had a similar experience when volunteering. In my case it was primarily compiling a packet of information - very repetitive. It didn't take me long to figure out ways to improve the process. Getting people to accept changes to the process is tricky when people are unfamiliar with each other (I have found). I was tried to get my group to change but they didn't want to, but another group did so I showed them (they had overheard bits of it). At the end I think 4 of 6 groups switched (one of those that didn't was my original group).

Even once it was obvious the new way was much quicker (over twice as quick) the group that decided "no" to switching stuck with their original decision. My guess is this relates to psychology and I bet experiments would show a group that decided "no" would be among the most stubborn at sticking with the old method because they would have to accept they were reversing their original decision.

I knew it could be tricky to get people to change and I tried to present the case for change in a way that had a good chance to success originally. Even so it failed. The psychology of such efforts is usually much trickier than the process improvement. This point is actually one of the reasons creating a continual improvement culture that has respect for people at the core. When you create such a culture the psychology of change piece becomes much much easier which and as you continually improve processes the most obvious process improvements are made. If you don't create the right culture continuing the continual improvement process gets more and more difficult but if you do create the right culture it gets easier.

Related: Businesses Need to Capture Potential Information and Use the Creativity of Employees - The Importance of a Work Culture That Values and Supports Critical Thinking - Change Management: Create a Culture Seeking Continual Improvement or Use Band-Aids? - Communicating Change

The Absence of Defects Does Not Necessarily Build Business

Comment on: Saving Money vs Making Money

by saving money, we make more money – simple (and easy); anyone should be able to see that! And while this may be true for the short term, it doesn’t support any longer term growth.
...
So, what do you want to do? Do you want to save money or make money?

Let me know your thoughts!

How about Deming's thoughts :-)

"No defects, no jobs. Absence of defects does not necessarily build business… Something more is required." W. Edwards Deming

Waste can be equated to defects and the sentiment is the same. I share more of my thoughts on the topic in a 2006 post: Quality and Innovation.

Related: Zero Defects Isn't the Right Goal - Customer Focus by Everyone

Ikea Business Model; and Growth and Society

comments on: Peak Stuff and the Hierarchy of Useless Things

"stock analysts" don't exist for Ikea. They have no stock holders. They are completely owned by a "charity."

But all you have to do is look at all the extremely highly paid executives in USA charities to see that charities often take on the form of corporations being run 1st to make executives happy and 2nd for other reasons (charitable in the instance of charities, education in the instance of large universities, profits of shareholders and all the other stakeholders in the instance of companies).

Another similar model you can view is tax evasion trusts set up by the rich which subvert the social contract. They have bought laws and regulation that allow them to set up trusts to benefit them, and/or their kids, and/or their grandkids and have those trusts treated beneficially for the rich, at the expense of society. Some argue Ikea has the same model, pretend it is a charity and use the funds primarily to benefit those creating the charity ("What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous"). In Ikea's case some amount does go for the "charitable purpose of Ikea": interior design.

The growth mindset certainly permeates Ikea, as it does public USA companies and "wall street."

> "not as much in the quality of customer experience"

This is so true. As a consumer, I find the customer experience painful much more often that it is good. Basically, the best it gets in the USA (for 95% of the companies) is when you don't have to interface with them at all. Then things are good. And I do think companies have made strides in removing the need to call to get things fixed... But oh my, when you do need them to actually get a hold of them the extremely bad experience is pitiful and truly far beyond pitiful most of the time. They setup extremely insulting processes that completely disrespect your time and humanity.

The horrible experiences when needing to deal with large USA companies is by far my biggest frustration of being back in the USA. As long as you don't have to contact them things are usually decent but I dread any time I need to contact one of them.

My father really liked Small is Beautiful by EF Schumacher which I think takes issue with the growth focus that permeates society (it has been decades since I read it) and instead wishes to focus on better lives not lives with more things.

Related: Kleptocrat CEOs and Their Apologists - Pretending to Listen to Customers Rather Than Actually Doing So - Why Pay Taxes or be Honest - Corrupt Looters at AIG

Don't Use Targets as a Management Tool

comments on: Deconstructing Deming XI B – Eliminate numerical goals for management


I agree with the comments that targets are unwise. There is one sense in which I think the idea of (but not actual) targets can be useful and that is in setting the scope.

If we want to find an improvement that is immense (versus small continual improvement) that can set the expectation of how we approach improvement, including an understanding that we are going to have to really make big changes in how things are done.

I have written more about this, here:

Deming on Targets

Basically I don't see that scoping "target" as really a target but it is similar so if you want to see it that way, then in that sense I can see a "target" as useful.

Related: Innovation at Toyota - Targets Distorting the System - Righter Incentivization

Quality Digest: How to Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Quality Digest published my article: How to Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Related: Change and the Management System - John Hunter online - Lowering Expectations Isn't Showing Respect

How Badly Are Companies Treating You?

Comment on: How well does your organization treat clients or customers?

Our reader poll today asks: How well does your organization treat clients or customers?

– Extremely well — we take great care of them: 35.17%
– Very well — we treat them better than most other companies: 34.88%
– Well — we do a decent job but could improve a bit: 25%
– Not well — we could treat them much better: 3.49%
– Poorly — I’m surprised we even still have customers: 1.45%
...
Do you agree

No I don't agree; maybe I just have the lousy sample of companies I interact with. Truthfully I don't deal with companies that treat me poorly unless I don't have a choice - but that is not uncommon at at (ISP, airlines, electric company, mortgage company...).

The survey results don't surprise me, given how out of touch executives and managers are about what their customers must put up with.

I intentionally pick companies that are good, but for example with a mortgage it is then sold and I am forced to deal with a bad company...

I am thrilled when a company treats me well (because my expectations have been so beaten down that just not being treated as a huge bother is a rare), but it is rare. Trader Joe's does consistently. My credit union does. In general restaurants do.

What I have found is that if the executives are paid more than $1,000,000 the company probably treats me very poorly. I don't think is a cause, but I do think it is correlated. The executives seem to always have room to pay themselves huge salaries but are loath to provide the customers someone that answers the phone or email without wasting tons of the customers time.

Upon my return to the USA after 4 years overseas the biggest annoyance has been dealing with these companies I am forced to deal with that treat me with complete distain. They see no problem wasting my time or forcing me to follow some idiotic processes that make life easy for them.

Related: Customers Get Dissed and Tell (2008) - Is Poor Service the Industry Standard (HP in 2006)? - Don’t Ignore Customer Complaints (2014) - Customer Service is Important (2006)

Spend More Time Doing What You Do Well

Comment on: Is it Better to Work on Strengths or Weaknesses?

As you say to the extent your weaknesses are things you have to do spending time improving them usually makes sense. I think often the most productive thing is to spend time working on the system to maximize the use of people's strengths and minimize the use of their weaknesses. This often has a big impact without much effort.

And when you do that it is often the magnitude of strengths that makes a big difference. So you can avoid dealing with much of the weaknesses in the team and focus most effort on the strengths. And when you do that my getting even better at x allows the improvement not to just be x * 1.1 but (x * 1.1) + (y * 1.3) + (z * 1.4) - (if say I am now 30% "better" than y at the task and 40% better than z. Obviously it doesn't work so cleanly in the real world but that concept that you can get way more improvement normally by adjusting the way work is done than just by having everyone get less bad at the stuff they really should avoid doing most of the time.

You do also have to pay attention to the long term, so if someone wants to move into supervision but has some weaknesses they need to address and strengths to improve working on that makes sense.

Related: Take Advantage of the Strengths Each Person Brings to Work - Helping Employees Improve
- Many Good Employees Want to Continue to Do Their Current Job Well - Lessons for Managers from Wisconsin and Duke Basketball

Businesses Need to Capture Potential Information and Use the Creativity of Employees

Comments on: Asking the Employees

The problem I see is that management systems can't be seen as independent from the specific tactic in some area (for example getting employees to share ideas). So the effectiveness of soliciting ideas from employees varies mostly by the overall management system unrelated to the specific tactics of the attempt to get ideas from employees. The specific tactics matter but less than the management system (which is often a mess and something no one wants to address).

My father wrote an article a long time ago on how to use ~"two resources, largely untapped in American organizations: potential information and employee creativity."

I think it provides worthwhile ideas.

Related: Trust Your Staff to Make Decisions - Leading Improvement and Enjoying the Rewards - Do What You Say You Will