In 2011, my wife and I went on a vacation of a lifetime. We went to the island of Maui, and we were fortunate to stay in the Ritz Carlton hotel. The trip was a wedding gift from a very generous family member. Had it not been for the gift, my wife and I would have not been able to take such an extravagant vacation.
Staying at the Ritz, surrounded by the beautiful blue ocean and breathtaking Maui views, was an experience we will never forget. Yet, when I look back upon the experience staying at the Ritz, there’s something else that I am reminded of. It wasn’t only the radiant sunshine and palm trees that delighted us. The customer service provided by Ritz Carlton employees was fantastic!
By far, the customer service at the Ritz was the highest quality we had ever experienced. Whether checking in, asking for advice, or saying hello, the staff treated us as though we were royalty. They did this for good reason. They understood that an underlying principle for successful business is to delight clients.
In 1954, in his book The Practice of Management, Peter Drucker said that the purpose of a business is to create a customer. Well, times have changed. While Drucker may have been right that creating a customer was the purpose for business in the 20th century, it’s not good enough today. Increased competition and the advance of technology and globalization have demanded a new way of doing business. The marketplace has changed. Today, businesses need to not only create a customer, they need to delight them.
In Stephen Denning’s book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century, he emphasizes the importance of delighting customers. He puts forth principles aimed at moving away from Fredrick Taylor’s outdated command and control style of management. Setting a goal to delight clients is Denning’s number one principle. “The purpose of work is to delight clients, not merely to produce goods or services or make money for shareholders”, writes Denning.
By having client delight be the company goal, it achieves several things. First, clients will promote a product or service if they are delighted by it. Dr. W. Edwards Deming used to harp on this. Dr. Deming said that a happy customer will generate new customers through word of mouth. This effect poses a dilemma for management because it’s hard to put figures around it. It’s hard to measure. Dr. Deming said: “The most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable”.
Second, delighting clients will inspire continuous innovation. Employees don’t get inspired to produce goods or to increase shareholder value. Employees get inspired to improve people’s lives. Starbucks gets this. Their mission is not about coffee, it’s about inspiring and nurturing the human spirit.
Third, delighting clients fosters a company culture that enriches job satisfaction. Companies that put client satisfaction first, use self-organizing teams. If you haven’t experienced working within a self-organizing team, where you are free to innovate, be yourself and have fun, you are missing out.
The Agile software delivery movement has been leading the way for a new customer focused style of management. Regardless if your business creates software or not, there is much to learn from the Agile movement. It’s the modern way of doing business, with focus not on systems and things, but on people. In Scrum, self-organized and empowered teams build products in short iterations. After each iteration, the product goes to the client for immediate feedback. Shorter feedback loops increase both the product quality and client satisfaction.
The market place today demands a new way of doing work. Our workplace is now made up of knowledge workers, and we must inspire and empower them. Fredrick Taylor’s model of management is not suitable anymore.
Going back to the 2011 vacation my wife and I took in Maui. The experience we had staying at the Ritz Carlton will forever be ingrained in our minds. We learned what it is like to be delighted as customers. For me, I want to emulate that feeling into the clients I serve. At the end of the day, business is about people, not about numbers. If we make client delight the top priority, shareholder value and profits will follow.
About the Author: Mike MacIsaac is the owner and principal consultant for MacIsaac Consulting. Mike provides leadership as an Agile Delivery Consultant and IT Project/Program Manager. Follow Mike on Twitter@MikeMacIsaac or subscribe to Mike’s blog.