A CTION P L ANNER Lesson 3: Use Customers to Teach Employees Purpose Clarity of purpose enables employees to see what is expected of them. It falls to the leader to deliver clarity by helping employees understand what customers expect. · · · · · · · A colleague of mine was telling me about an assignment he was doing for one of his clients. It involved a series of in-depth phone interviews with the client's customers on business issues and challenges. I asked him how much involvement his client had in the phone calls. ``They listen, but don't say anything,'' my friend replied. That's not good, I thought. Although my colleague is adept at interviews and is doing great work, he really should not be doing this job. His client should be conducting the interviews as well as listening. Performing customer surveys and staffing customer call centers via outsourcing may be fine, but when it comes to having meaningful interviews, or dialogues, with customers, the clients need to play a central role. It is only by actively engaging these customers in conver- sation that you learn what a customer really wants or, more impor- tant, expects and maybe even aspires to. Getting to know your customer is a leadership priority because fulfilling customer needs is what you are in business to do. Value can be a product, a service, or a better way of doing things. For this reason, client dialogues are essential. Entrepreneurs know this well; they live and breathe the same air as their customers; but when organizations grow and develop, frequently distance from the customers grows, too. --149-- American Managememt Association · www.amanet.org