Human Talk: Why?

Here’s a surefire way to start talking to your customers like a real human being in 2009. Hold a company “why” day.

Take time out from the daily grind to question everything you do.

• Create a safe, honest and open platform for anyone to bring a question to the table.
• Choreograph the customer experience from start to finish, questioning everything along the way.
• And for everything that you find along the way that you can’t understand or isn’t adding value to the organization, cut it out.
  

This brilliant idea can be credited to Bill Gammell. Here’s how he describes it:

“Business as usual” is a load of crap. It leads to too much floating, too much status quo. Do you see it too?

It’s time we abandon ingrained company assumptions and dismiss company urban legends. Time to shed egos, dismantle best practices and stop blindly towing the company line.

It’s time we questioned all our practices, policies, assumptions, creeds, titles and mission statements.

Back to basics? Sure. But it’s more than that. We need to have a day where everyone in the company from janitor to CEO questions “why” we do the things we do and how we do them. Don’t hold back, question it all.

We need to welcome a day of fresh eyes and fresh ideas.

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This post is part of the Human Talk series. 

If you would like to contribute your good or bad Human Talk examples, Email me. I’ll accept photos, stories, videos, audio, etc. and give credit where credit is due.