Many businesses have goals to be “customer-centric” and follow the classic “customer comes first” mantra.  There is obvious value in such an approach, especially from a customer service approach.  One simple and often overlooked step is to simply setup specific and obvious visual triggers for both employees and customers.  Having a sign on the wall that says specifically what you are trying to do openly tells the customer and reminds the employee.  They will both seek out the mantra simply by being reminded of it. Customers will look for how the employee is doing this, noting it and appreciating it more consciously while the employee will subconsciously think whether they are holding to it as well.  Other obvious ones may include wearing a button or tag and the like.  Change it up from time to time as the trigger will be ignored as time goes on.

Other use of physical space to enhance or influence can be very powerful.  As in this study, voters are more likely to support tax increases for education if they cast their vote at a school!  Think about how your environment promotes what you want your customers to think, feel, desire.

This is just a simple tip to improve your results, buy-in of employees, and success rate of implementation of your mantra or goal, whatever it may be.

Google Wave is a forthcoming service that appears to be quite revolutionary in communication methodology.  It is a combination of email, message boards, and instant messaging mashed together in an intuitive fashion that heightens the efficiency and, ultimately, the productivity of communication.  Watching the video and checking out the post found here at bizzia.com gives you introduction to wave.  It may become a replacement for email, especially internally and beyond as its popularity grows and competitors adopt similar concepts.  I love seeing advancement in technology, more so when it will affect entrepreneurs and you can bet new ventures will pop up utilizing such new services and offering extensions thereof, just as you’ve seen with simple services like twitter.  Cool stuff! Check the vid out below. It’s kind of long but the first 20 min. or so give you the simple idea.

Twitter has been around for some time now and I have had an account for a lot of that time.  I did not begin using it regularly until just a few weeks ago (month or so? eh, a bit now).  I had a small handful of updates and a few followers but honestly, I just could get it.  I could see it for celebrities and others who looked for the cult following but I just couldn’t grasp it for me, my use.  I shot out a snippet here and there but all in all, maybe once a month.  So I did not use it myself nor did I really follow anyone.  I obviously was following some technically, but I never got on and really used it or check updates, feeds, the tweets of others.  I heard guru after guru say how they loved Twitter and are making all this money and getting success from Twitter but I couldn’t grasp it still.

The Turn to Twitter

Finally, one day I am speaking with an associate about Twitter and other technologies when he made the simple comment about utilizing it as an aggregator and the light finally clicked on!  I fairly regularly surf for new articles, content, reviews, etc.  I may as well share the wealth with others!  If you have ever seen my twitter updates, 90% of them are interesting articles, posts, and other tidbits from around the web.  I rarely, practically never, respond to direct messages (dm’s) or other more active forms of twitter use.  I do re-tweet from time to time and now I actually follow others in search of good articles, ideas, etc.  So my use, both in posting and reading, is looking for thought provoking tidbits, articles, and blogs.  Now, I’m not saying the other uses are not valuable, only that I haven’t found them to be for me (at least not yet). Twitter tends to be one of the biggest traps when attempting to regulate the information flow.  It is a matter of balance as well as efficient and effective utility.  At this point it is neither efficient nor effective FOR ME.  I definitely have to emphasize this as me sharing my use.  I am keen to the fact that others have found additional means of value and power to them!

A recent video on TED illuminates a point that a colleague and I have shared on multiple occasions, including a podcast called “My Business World”.  The new model of business productivity, often referred to as ROWE (results oriented work environment).  The concept is, essentially, to  allow employees to do whatever they want, as long as the work gets done.  Studies and experience are showing an increase in productivity and personal morale.  The intrinsic value of getting something done with the opportunity to control one’s schedule and action plans is a bigger motivator than increases in pay, bonuses or other direct reward/punishment models of the past.  It has been explored and compared to Tim Ferriss’ work with 4 hour work week here.  The big motivator appears to be the fact that people can define their “ideal” lifestyle today and not in waiting for the elusive day of retirement, all while working and being productive, contributing to the economy.

Dan (in the video) also speaks of variations of this that I find quite interesting and extremely valuable form an innovation standpoint.  Innovation is typically a matter of “captured chaotic response”, that is, in the course of living/working, we tend to stumble upon ideas, answers, problems, solutions, etc.  The process of capturing this chaos and ordering it for reproduction is innovation. Many companies, particularly in the tech industry, have implemented innovation strategies that offer a percentage of time or a day or week to work on anything you want.  Google is likely the most well known with their 80/20 rule, 20% of time is spent on any ideas outside of normal work.  This 20% has produced 50% or more of Google’s innovations as Dan tells it.  The natural chaos of individual human endeavor and thought creates substantially more innovation than the ordered workings of any company and that is seen in 80/20-like planning.

These are powerful aspects of the new motivating business model.  It is important to understand the trade-off in emphasis.  Instead of heavy focus and discipline regarding time, meetings, and such, a substantial focus and discipline must be placed on the results, and improvement of them (hence results-only work environment).  This is basically the only indicator of proper performance and further reward/punishment may exist around this metric alone.  Obviously if you are not getting the results required, you likely won’t stick around.

As a business or in defining your business, take a look at information regarding these new models and see if you can implement them for enhanced productivity and improved morale.  It may even be a cost saver as monetary reward is less necessary.  Any additional resources on these concepts? successes or failures?