How to have a healthy threesome                                                                                                                   Scenes from the Olympic Park, London 2012:

• the wisdom of crowds: the magnificence of the 80,000 spectators’ support for Paralympians, particularly those not performing well


• the shuffling crowds: hearing a 9 year old to his friend that as his father won’t take him to McDonalds ‘we’ll make a fuss so he takes us to the Olympic shop (souvenirs etc)’ and the father pointing at the queue -a bulging, yawning, 10 rows deep, winding snake, which with Olympic dedication is taking hours to slither into the shop


• the Olympic mirage crowds: eagerly expected and desperately sought by London’s retail-havens hoping they could help shoppers’ credit cards perform a ‘personal best’ but such crowds never appeared the West End or any other part of London                                                                                          However, away from the Olympics, here are two recent initial shopping encounters which  tell us about much their business as a whole:   

Saying no in JB sports: No, sorry we don’t have that said the staff member in a respectful, apologetic way. Staff are just doing their job, what they’re told, resulting in a disconnection between staff, customer and organisational purpose. The effect: serving the customer becomes a sort of ‘my part of the ship is afloat’, an isolated staff activity which virtually ensures they won’t come back. 

Saying yes in Starbucks: (I’m not a great fan but…) initially, staff ask ‘Can I put your name on the coffee mug’ which seems a nice gesture, a fleeting familiarity in a globalised world. However, something else is going on. The use of your name is a form of engagement; the early eliciting of a (most likely) ‘yes’ designed to lead to more ‘yeses’; and even if you say no, staff are already thinking of ways to create a positive customer experience. These connect the customer, staff and company purpose (or mission), integrating them, staff working ‘in a healthy threesome’. They are how Starbucks manage effort, value and thinking. As their mission says: ‘To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time’ – however tacky it might sound. Spelt out these 3 are:

• The organisation management model is based on the choices made about how effort is organised –the how of business, where staff continually ask How can I manage better?


• The organisation business model is based on choices made about how value is created, delivered and captured the what and why of business, where staff continually ask How can I create (greater) value for all stakeholders?


• The organisation learning model is based on choices made about how organisational thinking is mobilised -the what best next, where staff continually ask How can I/we learn to improve better?                                                                                                                                                                        The effect: engaged staff (in relatively unskilled work) seek challenges. It was this which generated the ‘what’s your name’ initiative. Here (and where these models are used) staff are trusted and are free to self-manage. Thus fewer managers, more challenging work, more satisfied customers –even in globalised Starbucks!  

These 3 Models are explored in my new book: Managing Value in Organisations: New Learning, Management and Business Models giving evidence that (depending on their current development) to reach their next stage faster, organisations need to reinvent their 3 Models together, with the Learning Model as the midwife for any change.  

https://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=10800&edition_id=11131 

This applied business research invites readers on a risky narrative, testing 1 idea in 5 organisations, over 1 year through 2 journeys, that of the organisations and writer.  A different business book, it seeks to capture the ‘poetry and plumbing’ excitement of management innovation.  Practicing managers at every level, coaches, consultants, business scholars, researchers, anyone seeking sustainable improvement, or who thinks the impossible can’t be reached will find something here.    

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