TWIST

Tesco has a unique program that requires all its front office executives and the managers in departments such as distribution to work more traditional store jobs for a full week every year. The program is dubbed TWIST, for “Tesco Week in Store Together.” From Tesco: “TWIST reinforces our values and aims to improve knowledge-sharing throughout the company…. IT covers all aspects of store operations, from the back door to the shop floor working as a Customer Assistant, including: receiving deliveries, working in the warehouse, filling, working on checkouts and the Customer Service Desk and this year completing a nightshift.”

TWIST is only a part of what helped Tesco grow to become the largest retailer in Europe. However, this is the type of program that brings people at the top of an organization closer to those who get the real work done and, more important, closer to customers. 

Jeffrey A. Krames

Lead with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis. 2014

turning the hierarchy upside down

The traditional hierarchy is good for the visionary aspect of leadership. People look to the leader for vision and direction, and although a leader should involve experienced people in shaping direction, the ultimate responsibility remains with the leader and cannot be delegated to others.

However, the implantation role – living according to the vision – is where most leaders and organizations get into trouble. The traditional hierarchy too often is kept alive and well, leaving the customers neglected at the bottom. All the energy in the organization moves up the hierarchy as workers try to please and be responsive to their bosses. The authoritarian structure too often forces the front-line people, the customer contact people, to say frustrating things like, “It’s our policy,” “I just work here,” or “Do you want to talk to the supervisor?” In this environment, self-serving leaders assume “the sheep are there for the benefit of the shepherd.” All the energy in the organization flows up the hierarchy.

Effective implementation requires turning the hierarchy upside down so the customer contact people are at the top of the organization and are able to respond to customers, while leaders serve the needs of employees, helping them to accomplish the vision and direction of the organization.

Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges

The Servant Leader: Transforming You Heart, Head, Hands & Habits. 2003. J.Countryman.

freshest-looking tulips

Connecticut’s Trader Joe’s Grocery exceeds expectations by making sure the customer gets the best of what he wants. One of the HPO SCORES researchers, Fay Kandarian, had an experience with this when she bought red tulips to the checkout line. The associate checked the tulips before ringing them up and suggested looking for a fresher bunch. Together they went to look at other tulips, and after checking for color preference, the associate picked out the freshest-looking tulips, which were pink and white. After ringing up the new tulips, the associate said, “Since I need to throw away these red tulips, I’ll give them to you to enjoy for the few days they will last.” This is another example of how high performing organizations encourage those who touch the customer to create the best possible customer experience and act on their ideas.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations (Revised and Expanded Edition). FT Press, 2009. p.34,35

people...customers

You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well.

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations (Revised and Expanded Edition). FT Press, 2009. p.6

as little effort as possible

When it becomes obvious that profit, which is a legitimate goal, is the driving reason for being in business, everyone – stockholders, top managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and the community – quickly becomes self-serving. They focus on their own agenda and personal enrichment. Employee loyalty and passion often go out the window as the point of work becomes simply to get as much as you can for as little effort as possible. 

Ken Blanchard

Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations (Revised and Expanded Edition). FT Press, 2009. p.xvii

don't be a slave to focus groups

When Jobs took his original Macintosh team on its first retreat, one member asked whether they should do some market research to see what customers wanted. “No,” Jobs replied, “because customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.” He invoked Henry Ford’s line “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’”

Caring deeply about what customers want is much different from continually asking them what they want; it requires intuition and instinct about desires that have not yet formed. “Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page,” Jobs explained. Instead of relying on market research, he honed his version of empathy—an intimate intuition about the desires of his customers. He developed his appreciation for intuition—feelings that are based on accumulated experiential wisdom—while he was studying Buddhism in India as a college dropout. “The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do; they use their intuition instead,” he recalled. “Intuition is a very powerful thing—more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.”

Sometimes that meant that Jobs used a one-person focus group: himself. He made products that he and his friends wanted. For example, there were many portable music players around in 2000, but Jobs felt they were all lame, and as a music fanatic he wanted a simple device that would allow him to carry a thousand songs in his pocket. “We made the iPod for ourselves,” he said, “and when you’re doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you’re not going to cheese out.”

Walter Isaacson

"The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs." Harvard Business Review the Magazine. April 2012.

socialized to think about success

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw understand the challenges [of Servant Leadership] better than most. The co-founders of Zingerman's Community of Businesses have built their $30 million food, restaurant, and training company on servant leadership principles. In the process, they've wrestled with three paradoxes. First, the higher you rise, the harder you must work for others; no kicking back in the Barcalounger of success allowed. Second, although you hold formal authority over employees, you must treat them like customers and, when reasonable, do their bidding. Third, when your desires and the needs of your organization conflict, your desires draw the low card. "It's a big change from the way we're socialized to think about success," says Weinzweig. "When you've put so much energy into getting to a leadership position, this is hard." 

Leigh Buchanan

In Praise of Selflessness: Why the best leaders are servants. Inc. magazine. May 1, 2007.