Pass Big Data through the filter of Empathy: A possible silver bullet to success?

There’s big learning for large corporations to take away from small businesses. Today, “consumers have come to expect a more personalized experience from the businesses they buy from*”. Whether they’re buying food, a product, a service, or consulting.

Think small businesses, mom and pop shops… personal, intimate. Riding on emotion, joy, empathy.

Now imagine all the power of data and analytics. “Increasingly more technology platforms are putting analytics at the forefront and making it easier for business users to access and make data more actionable*”.

“Both types of analytics (predictive and prescriptive) serve a purpose when it comes to fostering the loyalty of your customers.*”

Now think again… Think small businesses, mom and pop shops… personal, intimate. Riding on emotion, joy, empathy.

Empathy is what customers are increasingly seeking from businesses, whether it’s a small deli they frequent, or a large consulting engagement they’re in. Whether the customer is external or internal.

Imagine you take all the power of analytics from all data you choose to track, deduce intelligences around your customer, then wear the small business hat… small, personalized, intimate. Feeling your customers’ pain, feeling your customers’ joy, feeling what’s success for your customer. And responding in a way a local deli or baker would, when you explained to her you had gluten allergy, so could she bake something for you… Think empathy.

Suddenly something changes. You become your customer’s ally; their trusted advisor. Empathy uses intelligence from big data. Then turns it around into behavior. Empathy is the glue that makes your customer stick.

Empathy is also what leads us to real solutions to real problems. As the practice of design thinking has shown us.

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* Chris Poelma, Analyzing the Science Behind Customer Loyalty (http://entm.ag/27jwNTn)

It’s time corporations took a coffee break.

Look at Christoph Nieman’s cover for the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine. He refers to it as a “Coffee break”. There’s a beautifully crafted commentary drawn on a maze of machines. Machines of all kinds. “The whole idea of a machine is outdated”, Nieman says.

Large corporations are often like that. A maze of a conundrum of machines… systems of all kinds. The ZX81 computer was Nieman’s first. Mid ‘80s. One that could get three lines of code written, and store nothing. That illustration of the ZX81 has memories, stories, dreams. Today, it’s just that. Memories, stories, dreams.

Corporations often forget to move their ZX81s to the memory frames where they belong. As time passes, they often lug along so many of the systems, processes, policies and rulebooks that are at best outdated. They don’t want to let go of them. Just in case.

“I have a romantic attachment to these things—I wanted to anoint them into cartoon heaven.”, says Nieman. Very well said; for that’s what they are. Each system has a time and place. Living beyond its time and place is like a romantic clinging to the past.

It’s time corporations anoint their beautiful, once-upon-a-time-functional systems to corporate heaven, and took a coffee break.

Training as an event VS a continuous process

Very interesting article by Harold Jarche @hjarche : “enough training“.

https://t.co/gSqn0E8GgX?ssr=true

The context: “In a recent CBC News story, a railway conductor lost her job following a derailment. She claimed she was not adequately trained.” forms the starting point for his poignant appeal to training departments to start looking beyond structured, mandated training alone as a performance driver.

It’s a mindset that even the most advanced training organizations suffer from. Training and performance support are literally two key pillars of organizational performance. The fact that the two are NOT mutually exclusive, but rather need to co-exist is a point most L&D departments miss.

It’s really the tick-mark mentality that needs change. It’s also important to recognize that members of the L&D department are themselves victims of rather archaic rewards and recognition systems. Because it is easy to tangibly identify, organizations tend to reward L&D staff for a ‘training successfully completed’. Tickmark. Not employees successfully competent to excel at their jobs.

This, while measurable, is less than markable as an ‘event’. Therein also lies the crux of the problem… Of seeing training as an event, rather than a continuous process.

What are your thoughts on the role of training and performance support? Share them in the comments :).

 

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to. -Richard Branson

Countless business managers, leaders, business owners feel paralysed at the thought of “after training what”. These are not mega corporations, with oceans of people working for them.

…someone once made a courageous decision.

“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”

-Peter F. Drucker

It’s so easy to overlook. You take them for granted. They are like fixtures on our minds.

New entrepreneurs often muse about the success of other entrepreneurs. When faced with roadblocks, one after another, they look at the IBMs and the P&Gs and the Apples, wistfully.

In doing so, you momentarily forget that they too were there. Apple was exactly where you are now. 4 decades back. It’s easy to underestimate the journey that was the four decades. The courageous decisions they made each day of the four decades. For what you see is sheen. What you see is success.

Entrepreneurs, remember, you’re like artists. You’re creating something new. Like Paul Cezanne once famously said: ‘At each touch I risk my life.’