Gulp! Let Employees Set The Rules

So getting back to my Human Sigma discussion in this entry. There is quite a bit I am skipping over generally because I have discussed many of the concepts before in other entries. For example, the idea that customers can develop an emotional investment with a company based on how different factors align with how a person identifies themselves. The surroundings and other customers conform to their idea of cool and upscale and so they develop an attachment with it.

One thing authors Fleming and Asplund mention that evoked an “ah-ha!” connection for me was the importance of having design empower customers. People want to feel competent in their relationship with your organization and design contributes to that. This is why many chain stores have standardized layouts. Nothing erodes the confidence of a do-it-yourselfer like not being able to find what they seek in a big box hardware store by yourself.

This made me think of the need to have easy to navigate websites and voice mail systems, but most importantly for the arts—an easy to navigate season brochure. How many season brochures have you picked up and couldn’t figure out how to buy single tickets much less fully subscribe to a season? The fact that people aren’t subscribing much any more may be a partial blessing for organizations’ relationships because negotiation of many a brochure has been the bane of arts patrons.

One study finding I alluded to in earlier entries is that Human Sigma isn’t just about getting customers highly invested in the company. According to their research, even within the same company, the branches that were most profitable had high emotional investment by both customers and employees. Having one group actualized but not the other is good, but having both improves success exponentially.

Now you may be thinking this is great and your organization is about halfway there because arts people almost by definition are highly emotionally invested in what they do. But they aren’t necessarily invested in promoting and interacting with patrons. If you recall the list of quotes in yesterday’s entry, at least one artist wondered why he/she needed extra training to be an arts educator given all they had received in their discipline.

Employee-Customer interactions contain the most terrifying suggestions in Human Sigma because Fleming and Asplund urge instructing employees about the end goal but leaving it to them to achieve it. Because a standard script of responses can’t cover all eventualities, the authors essentially propose using one as a FAQ document rather than as part of a set procedure. This is pretty scary because it requires giving up a lot of control. Though I should note, it doesn’t mean relaxing standards, just re-evaluating how those standards are measured.

Instead they suggest creating a series of strategies employees can use to improve their interactions with customers. Rather than rewarding people on the basis of how many people they can process in an hour, the focus is on engaging in conversations to assess their needs. “The uncomfortable truth here is left on their own, employees will develop their own strategies for interacting with their customers and their fellow employees, whether you play a constructive part in that process or not.” They posit that you are better off involving yourself at the start to keep it constructive.

The process is more than I can explain here so you will have to read the book if you are interested. In summary though, they say that the best environment to help people develop new strategies for customer interaction is one where they are held accountable for their mistakes and high quality feedback is provided. What they aren’t suggesting is that each person does their own thing, but rather that employees be allowed to develop new approaches by group consensus.

One of the things that popped out as I read the book was the concept of decision making silos. These silos emerge when decision making is compartmentalized rather than shared throughout the organization. The example they use was an airline whose advertising arm promised much better service than the front line service personnel had the resources to deliver. In fact, each had been provided with contradictory guidance. Advertising was tasked to improve market share, the front line was instructed to ruthlessly control costs. Neither consulted the other to discuss how to resolve an essentially mutually exclusive set of expectations.

I have talked about how marketing isn’t just the job of that department before. The authors go a step further by suggesting the position of a Chief Human Sigma Officer who will watch out for such conflicts and has the authority to move an organization toward more interactive decision making. They suggest consolidating all marketing and human resource responsibility into this executive position. (Though acknowledge other configurations are possible.) I don’t know how this might manifest in many art organizations. Though given that disciplines like theatre are merging artistic and management executives into one position, maybe merging marketing and human resources isn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

I am nearly done with my discussion of the book. Next entry- Assessment and Reward

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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