Why revalue collective intelligence in business by eliminating incomprehensible dysfunctions and senseless rules? Because “daily assaults on common sense waste time, sap energy, and anger us,” says Martin Lindstrom, founder of the Lindstrom Company, a business transformation company.
The author has made it his mission to eradicate frustrations, obsolete procedures and internal roadblocks that management does not even suspect exist.
In a context where COVID-19 has become a universal justification to explain all the choices of a company, how to escape the risk of being duped by all these false pretexts? The author’s reflection begins the day he asks a waiter why eggs Benedict are no longer on the menu. “Because of COVID-19,” the employee promptly replies, suggesting that he take the scrambled eggs instead. Where’s the common sense in that?
What strikes the author is not the removal of this flagship dish from the menu of his favorite restaurant: it is more the phenomenon of bullshit, which he defines as “a real pandemic that hits the world of ‘business’ and goes against all common sense. We no longer rely on people’s judgment, intelligence and intuition. Before the COVID-19 argument, the reasons given took the form of equally insignificant sentences: “The system forces me to do this”, was often heard.
Entangled in internal bureaucratic affairs, employees lose sight of the fundamental objective of the service rendered. What is obvious to an outside observer is less obvious to an insider, notes the author. According to him, it is worth remembering this golden rule that dates back to 500 years before our era: “Treat others as you would like them to treat you. Or rather, don’t treat others the way you wouldn’t like them to treat you. In other words, we must design and offer products and services in a reasonable, reliable, realistic and pragmatic way, with common sense as a central concern. Empathy, this ability to put oneself in the other person’s shoes, awakens judgement.
To go beyond satisfaction surveys, employees must be able to have the same experience as the customer. They need to see the world – or their service – through the eyes of the customer. This is what the author recommends to get out of “organizational myopia”. Training staff in customer experience allows you to feel the frustration of the customer who receives a thousand and one excuses from employees: “Sorry, I can’t do anything for you”, “It’s not my responsibility” , etc.
Martin Lindstrom reminds us that customers, like employees, are first and foremost “human beings, not numbers in an Excel spreadsheet.” To promote the human-to-human relationship (H2H), he proposes a method that makes it possible to identify the kind of obstacles that are regularly found in business and to initiate a series of small changes (which are all small victories easy) within 90 days. Recruiting change agents and releasing them into the organization: that also helps to encourage common sense!
