Stu Kauffman at SFI has suggested that we should "ignore some of the
customers some of the time". Sure, ignore them all and perish.
Equally, listen to them all (in the old fashioned definition -
those Scots again - meaning "to act on what you hear") and perish.
The challenge is in the _making meaning_ and not in the listening -
or the "information" itself. And it is harder to make meaning when
you are listening mainly to existing customers and to all of them to
boot.
> I see the IBM situation as one where they
> were blinded by the success of their big machines and the fact that they
> were the king of the road.
IBM wasn't even listening to its customers. IBM, as an organisation,
was listening to itself. But its customers were not telling it to
change. Its ex-customers were sending signals called cancelled
contracts but they weren't saying much. And most customers want more
and better of what they've already got until offered - shown the
possibility - of something else.
Listen to the marketplace and you will have a much wider net and that
will include your customers.
> They failed to investigate new routs, new
> possibilities, even though the market was screaming those possibilities
> out!
The market was hardly "screaming" at early enough stages. Changes
happen at the fringes and don't become obvious until it's too late
for competitive advantage. They were "screaming" only in hindsight
or in your head. (That's to acknowledge that some see what's coming
early and it seems to be screaming to them ..... but they are usually
equally ineffective in being heard in the marketplace.)
"Screaming" is, I think, a relative term. When you are outside, or
well-connected the new or small, then a signal strength need not be
very large to be loud. When you're large and have rigid or thick
sensory apparatus and are inside, a very large signal is required
even to be heard.
The suggestion, well developed by Arie de Geus and John Seely Brown
in practice and research, is to enable the periphery. This is an
issue of organisational design and management practices. I suggest
this is the approach to operationalise Ivan's statement "we must pay
close attention to what customers tell us". That is, the "we" is an
organisation and not a bunch of individuals.
The challenge,as Ivan points out, is to try to deliver today what is
wanted for tomorrow. That calls a whole new challenge to enabling
the periphery so that action can begin before it is integrated with
the whole.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk