Make Waves: Don't Settle for Ripples! Subscribe to Marcia Zidle's e-newsletter with tips and tools on leading better, faster, smarter.
 
Do your leaders have the edge? Executive coaching is for high impact, high potential managers and professionals to turn them into effective leaders.Coaching 4 Results
Planning 4 ChangePlanning 4 Change
Turn on the light bulbs at your next training, meeting or retreat. Marcia speaks on leading smart, ringing customer's bells and making teamwork work.Speaking 4 Impact
 
Winning Ways of Working leadership tools to create powerful leaders and powerful organizations. W. W. O. W.
Products
 
5 minute power bytes. Best practices in effective leadership, teamwork, customer service and career management.Free Articles
Marcia Zidle gives interviews, quotes, or knowledge nuggets - short solid bursts of practical wisdom - on leadership.Media Corner
Leaders At All Levels and Marcia ZidleAbout Us
Contact Us - Leaders at All Levels and Marcia ZidleContact Us
WABC - The Worldwide Association of Business Coaches - Click here to open their site in a new window

 

  

Shake the Idea Tree

Great ideas are like apples; to get them you have to shake the tree and search for the best ones. In times of rapid change and heightened competition, organizations need their front line and support staff workers to find those great ideas, or quick easy wins, to solve service problems before they grow into monster customer satisfaction headaches.

Here are three strategies to shake the idea tree and help your people think "out of the box" about finding ways to better serve the customers.

1. Get The Juices Flowing.
When a group meets to come up with new ideas, it is helpful to begin with a fun activity that starts the participants thinking in new directions and generating innovative solutions.

Example: Challenge your group to redesign panty hose for male consumers. Yes, you read it correctly. Distribute samples of conventional panty hose and ask such questions as, "Who is our target market?", "How the new product should be packaged?" and "What shall we call it?"

2. Turn Problems Inside Out.
A good way to come up with solutions to problems is to look at them from a perspective that you never considered before.

Example: A community bank wanted to increase its market share. At a staff meeting, the president asked, "What can we do to make our customers angry?" Someone suggested closing down credit lines without informing customers, causing checks to bounce. What they realized is that one of the bank's greatest assets is the perception of total reliability. They then focused on ways to ensure that reliability in every customer transaction.

3. Act Like A Visitor Not A Native.
Visitors are natural sightseers who look at things with open eyes and ask many questions. Tap that curiosity to observe operational bottlenecks and missed opportunities to satisfy your customers.

Example: 25 managers of a skiing resort were divided into 6 teams. Once a week for a month, each team would spend half day in different areas of resort operations. They were told to act like a visitor not a native. They were to observe everything and ask as many dumb questions as possible about things they didn't understand For example, why do you arrange supplies in that order or why do you put that yellow garnish on a dish? In a follow-up meeting, hundred of naive questions resulted in dozens of new ideas. One idea, a change in ticket sales procedures, saved thousand of dollars. Other ideas lead to improved guest services.

To find those great ideas to solve service problems before they grow into monster customer satisfaction headaches, service champions need to get their juices flowing, turn problems inside out and act like a visitor not a native.

Are you winning the team game? Here are additional resources drive teamwork up, down and all AROUND: Team Power Articles, Trade Secrets Presentations, Working Smarter Team Building and Coaching 4 Results. 

Make sure you sign up for Make Waves!, our free e-newsletter on how to lead better, faster and smarter. Bonus: 35 page ebook 101 Bite Size Leadership Tips with a BIG Impact!

Copyright 2006-2008, Marcia Zidle. Will you have a bright future? Are you ready to make your organization stand out in the crowd in competing for customers, clients, funders or community awareness? Contact us and let us show you how to make that happen. 

Would you like to reprint this article in your trade journal, newspaper, website, company newsletter or e-zine? See Note to Editors.