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System Thinking in the Public Sector

 

New Year Resolutions

January 5th, 2009

Have you made your resolutions yet?  If not here are a few ideas for those of you that intend to lead change this year.

January: Create clarity of purpose from the customer’s point of view

February: Determine the extent of failure demand

March: Define your core processes by studying value demand  

April: Establish the capability of your core processes  

May: Map your core processes to define the type and frequency of waste in your system 

June: Show the data to your team and discuss the causes of waste in your processes  July: Create new policies that support what matters to customers  

August: Redesign your processes against your new purpose and value work   September: Establish a new set of measures that show you how well the new system achieves its purpose  

October:  Set up a test area and trail your new system   November: Agree and run a weekly meeting to discuss the main problems associated with the new design  

December: Solve any problems that occur  Here’s the idea: make a commitment to carry out one resolution per month.  If you have any questions drop me a note. 

Posted in Motivation, leadership, Creating Value | No Comments »

Marketing does not build brands

December 17th, 2008

We were in Edinburgh on Saturday so decided to go to Pizza Hut.  The latest advertisement shows a happy family in a pleasant and clean environment enjoying their food (which is pasta not pizza).  That’s the theory.  

We were happy until we walked through the door.  We weren’t allowed to sit at our table of choice because there were only three of us, the table was for four.  There was no garlic bread.  The heating wasn’t working so we had to keep our coats on.  The wallpaper was peeling off the wall (maybe it was cold and decided to leave).  We got different food from what we ordered.  The cappuccino was like dishwater.  There were no teaspoons.  The waitress was rude.  But to top it all, they had run out of pasta.

Having spent millions (I presume) to change their brand, it’s all wasted because what you see on the ad is not what you get.  As consumers, we don’t judge companies on the quality of their advertising, we judge them on what happens at the point of transaction.

So what do I now associate with Pizza, sorry Pasta, Hut?   A cold, dirty, restaurant that has run out of the stuff I want to buy.  If I had to describe Pizza Hut in one word I’d say ‘inauthentic’.

Contrast this with a little restaurant in Morningside that doesn’t even have a sign above their door, so I don’t know what they are called. I went in for a quick dinner before Daniel and I went to the cinema.  I asked the waiter if he was still serving.  He replied by saying yes and that (get this) we could have anything we wanted even if it wasn’t on the menu.  The meal was fantastic, the place was clean, and the coffee was great.   

Though I don’t know the name of the restaurant, in my head they have a brand; one that stands for great service, good food and caring staff.   By the way if you want to go it’s halfway between the Dominion Cinema and the Costa Coffee shop on Morningside Road (that’s the best I can do sorry).

The lesson is simple, you can’t market your way to a great brand.  The only way to build a brand that gets talked about (positively), is to make sure that at every point of transaction there is value created for customers.  And remember for those readers in the public sector this lesson applies as much to you as it does to the private companies, and restaurants.

What about your brand, is it authentic?

Here’s the idea, call up ten customers and ask them to say in one word what they associate with your brand.   If you don’t hear what you want, fire the marketing department and fix the service. 

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment Click here now

Posted in Service Failure | 3 Comments »

A Tale of Two Crashes

December 10th, 2008

I got my new car last Monday and crashed it on Wednesday (I’ve been too depressed to write about it till now).  The accident wasn’t my fault, I blame Orange.  Here’s what happened. 

My Blackberry had given up the ghost and I was on the phone (hands free) to Orange arguing with them about giving me a new one.  The customer service agent told me he couldn’t put me through to the Blackberry team till we had run some pointless checks.  This involved me pulling over into a parking space.  Had I not been in that parking space the Honda Civic would not have hit me.

This is where the story really begins. Now I have to contact my insurer to sort my car, and also I still have a broken Blackberry.   Whilst both systems are trying to achieve the same ends what happens at the point of transaction with the customer is very different.  In order to get and set up my new phone I had to speak to 15 different operators over three days.  Every time I called it was evident that the people at the front line neither had been given the skills, systems or decision making ability to do what mattered to me - give me a new phone.  Eventually after an hour they agreed the phone was broken and I got a new one.

Contrast this with the Cooperative Insurance Services. Whilst they still have an IVR, when I got through to the claims person they had the authority and ability to do everything in the one call.  By the next day my car was in the garage and is currently under repair.  Though not all bits of the Co-op work this well, they are good when it comes to claims.

Managers think that by functionalising their organisation, putting cheap resource at the front, and using scripts in place of knowledge they will save money. They don’t. Customer service always gets worse because customers can’t get what they want.  Staff get demoralised because they have no power to help the customer, and the cost of providing service always goes up.  Typically the service then gets outsourced making the system even worse. 

Managers fail to see that the higher call volumes are simply failure demand and staff attrition has nothing to do with the ‘wrong fit for the job’.Also they argue that having one person handling all calls can’t be done.  Not so. Over the past four years Velux has moved from having sixteen separate departments in their call centre to just one.  Everyone can handle everything.  Their one stop call handing is now at 98%, their attrition is less than half the call centre average and customer satisfaction is up 44%.  All by doing what sceptics say can’t be done.

Providing great service requires that you think differently.  It means having a clear purpose from the customer’s point of view, measures related to purpose and capability, decision making in the hands of the workers, and managers who see their role as being to act on the system not the people.   Thanks to this type of thinking my car is back to full health; and as for my Blackberry, I believe it’s on a truck somewhere in England.

So here’s the idea.  At your next team meeting ask your staff how often they can resolve issues in full for the customer without having to get permission, ask advice or get authorisation.  Make up a list of all the things that get in the way of a staff member helping a customer and remove them.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment Click here now

Posted in Service Failure, leadership, Creating Value | 1 Comment »

Managing Projects

December 8th, 2008

We ran out of gas yesterday, so I was out at the back of the house changing over the bottles (we live in the country, no pipes out here).  As I was doing the mans stuff I noticed that the back of the house was much dirtier than the front.  It then dawned on me that the painters (believe it or not, my uncle and his friend) had only painted the front of the house.  And just so you know, they also ran late and asked for more money than we agreed.   

Painting a house or houses, fitting a kitchen or lots of them, building roads, designing IT or  building and testing new engines are all examples of project environments.  You will know if you work in a project environment as each job you do typically has a unique outcome.  And this sort of work is typically fraught with the same problems - projects run late, are never completed in full, and go over budget.  Furthermore the problems are exacerbated if you work in a system that has lots of projects going at the same time.  

What’s worse is that all the things we are taught as managers to help us manage projects often make their performance worse.  Starting more projects earlier leads to more multi-tasking and missed due dates.   Setting task deadlines means managers are more interested in individual tasks and can miss key deliverables.  Focusing on percentage of task complete is irrelevant when what you need to know is when the task will actually be done.   

So what can you do differently if you work in a project environment?  First, before you even begin thinking about better management of the project, capture data on the performance of previous projects.  Project capability data is the percentage of projects finished on time, in full and on budget.  Then map the process and remove all non-value adding work.  

Next change your approach to task management.  This means assigning a task manager whose responsibility is to make sure that people are not over loaded, are working on one task at a time, and are able to work on the task till its completion.  Their job also involves getting data on the estimated completion date of the task and providing support if there is a resource conflict.  Also they are less concerned with individual tasks running late than they are with how the task might have an impact on the critical chain.   

A third idea, in a multi-project environment, is to freeze at least a quarter of all projects and have the resource work on the completion of the others.  No projects can then be released until another is complete.  And make sure there is a master list of all projects.  This list should include the date for the release of the project for preparatory work, the actual start date and the finish date.  

Finally use a pert diagram to build your project network.  And use this generic diagram as a basis for building all future projects.  It means that when you are about to start a new project the network can be built fast by simply adding to or subtracting from the generic network.

And don’t get seduced by software. You can do all of the above by using a simple Excel spreadsheet, paper and pen and post it notes.   Oh, and one final golden rule, when you need a project done on time, in full and on budget, never use family or friends as the contractor.

So here’s the idea, review your last 10 projects, find out how many finished on time, in full and on budget.  Draw up a project network using post it notes as your generic template.  On the next project make sure people don’t multi-task.  Assign a task manager whose job it is to remove blockages from those doing tasks. 

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment Click here now

Posted in Project Management | 1 Comment »

Is Your Customer Service Deteriorating?

December 1st, 2008

I believe this is a true story.

A lady rings her local hospital and this conversation follows:

‘Hello I’d like some information on a patient, Mrs Tiptree. She was admitted last week with chest pains and I just want to know if her condition has deteriorated, stabilised or improved?’

‘Do you know which ward she is in?’

‘Yes, ward P, room 2B’

‘I’ll just put you through to the nurse station.’

‘Hello, ward P, how can I help?’

‘I would just like some information on a patient, Mrs Tiptree, I was wondering if her condition had deteriorated, stabilised or improved?’

‘I’ll just check her notes. I’m pleased to say that Mrs Tiptree’s condition has improved. She has regained her appetite, her temperature has steadied and after some routine checks tonight, she should be well enough to go home tomorrow.’

‘Oh that’s wonderful news, I’m so happy, thank you ever so much!’

‘You seem very relieved, are you a close friend or relative?’

‘No, I’m Mrs Tiptree in room 2b. Nobody tells you anything in here…’

This story is both funny and sad at the same time, let’s hope it’s not really true. Stories like this reflect the appalling nature of service in our country today. What’s worse is that all the clues needed by management to fix the problem are right under their nose.

Studying demand would show that it falls into two types: Value, demand related to the organisation’s purpose; and failure
demand caused by a failure of the organisation to do the right thing for the customer. The above is obviously failure.

Failure demand is symptomatic of bad service, and a cause of stress high costs. And ironically as costs go up managers try to counteract the trend by sending calls abroad, using IVR, and setting productivity targets. All of which will actually exacerbate the problem and so a vicious cycle ensues.

And what make this story funny is that fixing the problem is simply common sense. Take the highest type of failure demand by volume, investigate why it’s happening, take action to remove the demand and then repeat with the next type. Imagine the innovation, enthusiasm, cost saving, remarkable service, and fun that could be had if managers committed to removing just one type of failure demand per week.

But some see this type of work as too operational, or non-sexy, and for some its simply too much hard work compared to simply having meetings. They lose and you win, because those that do make the effort to make things better every day get to tell their story about how much value they have added that day.

And the customers get to share their story about what a great experience they had, and maybe that’s the story that sticks and becomes that urban myth. It always starts like this, “a lady rings your organisation…” How it ends depends on you.

The idea’s above, what are you waiting on.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment Click here now

Posted in Service Failure | 1 Comment »

Decisions Decisions

November 24th, 2008

I have the seven month itch. This is about the amount of time I keep a car (I have no other vices, honest). Last night I slipped into the conversation that the squeak coming from the offside door was driving me mad. Denise knew what this really meant. Here’s how the conversation went:

D “Will the new car you fancy give you better fuel consumption”?

S “I’m not sure”

D “Can I get a bale of hay in the back?”

S “I don’t think so”

D “Better accessories”

S “Well, there’s a built in socket for my Ipod” (Who’s with me?)

As you will have no doubt gleaned from the above, the only reason for the change is because it feels like a good thing to do! This might be a good enough reason for changing your car, but its not great basis for making decisions at work.

Unfortunately in my experience, and for our economy, it is often the method used by leaders to make decisions. And whilst on some occasions there is a lack of data with which to aid the decision making process, all too often rudimentary analysis is overlooked and ignored.

Over the past 10 years the Government has encouraged local authorities to spend millions on CRM systems. There was no evidence that prior to the costly implementations there would have been an improvement for the customers, staff or a reduction in operating expense.

Ten years later there is still no evidence that CRM made anything any better, other than the profits for the suppliers. The same mistakes have been made with the purchase of workflow systems, costly changes to structure, and needless spend on consultants that have made things worse.

So if you are a leader and you have some decisions to make is there a better way to do it. Well surely the basis of a good decision is that it makes things better for the customer, it improves the design of the work for staff, there is better throughput, or a reduction in operating expense. So the next time someone comes to you with a brilliant idea here are some questions to ask and possible responses

You: “What’s the problem you are trying to solve”?

Them: “I’m not sure

You: “Do you have data to explain the extent of the problem”?

Them: “I don’t think so”

You: “Will it improve service, morale, throughput or cut costs”?

Them: “Well it does come with a built in socket for my Ipod”

So remember the only time you should do something without knowledge and data about the extent of the problem and a working hypothesis about the potential for improvement is when you have had your car for more than seven months.

So here’s the idea: Review your last three decisions and ask, did those decisions improve service, improve morale, improve throughput or reduce costs? If not then its time to review your last three decisions.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment Click here now

Posted in leadership | No Comments »

No wedding and a tribunal

November 17th, 2008

Once upon a time I tried to get married.  It was no fairytale.  Things started to go wrong at the rehearsal the night before.  The minister asked if we had the wedding bands. We didn’t. They’d got lost in process between the registrars and the church.   

The minister told us that we would not be able to get married.  I asked him to call his boss (and I kid you not) he looked up to the heavens and said “I don’t think he will be able to help on this one.” (He was trying to lighten the situation I think).  Anyway, we got hold of the chief registrar for the area who said his hands were tied.  The minister said he would make some calls and not to worry he would work something out.  

Things then got worse.  I went back to the hotel only to find that the lock in my door had broken.  The hotel staff couldn’t help.  We called a 24hr lock-smith (the only one in the area) who was in the pub and unable to speak never mind drive and unlock the door.  

That night I slept on the sofa in my friend’s room.   I thought things couldn’t get worse, but they did.  The next morning the minister called to say we would have to go through a pretend ceremony.  Members of family still comment on white I looked on the wedding video and how my wife was constantly in tears (they still don’t know the truth).   And you will not believe it but, when we got to our honeymoon the hotel was overbooked and on return the airline lost our luggage so I had to get married in the registrars in my brother in-law’s clothes (I thought it was the bride that’s supposed to borrow something) that were to big for me.    For years I moaned about the inefficiency of all the people I had to deal with during the experience, but as I reflect back I remember that everyone was polite and tried to do their best but were constrained by broken processes and a bad system (except for the lock-smith, he was definitely an idiot).  

Though most leaders still operate on the premise that if we fix the people we can fix the business, there are some that are changing their thinking. And for some front line-staff things are about to get much better.   

Vanguard Scotland has just started work at the mental health tribunal, an organisation doing important work arranging the hearings to determine how best to help people with or who have had a mental illness.  What struck me was how much the front line people have passion for their job and really want to help the service users, families and stakeholders in the system.  Often they are constrained by policies, processes and a legal system that is in need of an update.   

Thankfully they have a fantastic chief executive, Patricia Lewis.  Patricia is spending four weeks with the team to understand how the system works and then will use this knowledge to fix it.  Patricia’s staff are the lucky ones. Not only will they move to a system that will start to work well, when things go wrong there will be an understanding that it’s the system not the people that needs fixing.  More importantly there will be a method in place for catching problems early and making sure that they don’t happen again.  

As I think back to my wedding day I wonder how many couples are still having the same experience because there is no formal system in place for understanding and improving the system.   What about your staff, do they know they are not to blame when things go wrong, is there a culture which makes it ok to raise problems, and is there an agreed method in place for their resolution?  Are they in love with their work or simply dying for a divorce?  

So here’s the idea.  Pick a piece of customer demand, stick with it until it has gone right through the flow of work.  Make a note of the type and frequency of things that go wrong.  Fix them.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by posting your comments

Posted in Service Failure, leadership, Creating Value | No Comments »

How to be a remarkable leader

November 10th, 2008

To be a good leader do the following:  

  • Get consensus from middle managers before making big decisions 
  • Run staff surveys to see if your people are happy  
  • Use mystery shoppers to test your service  
  • Spend your time doing strategy  
  • Pay attention to advice from Government and Inspectors 
  • Try hard to hit the KPIs set by Government and Regulators  
  • Set targets and use incentives to motivate your staff  
  • Make sure all policy decisions are made by managers  
  • Divide the work into functions and measure people on activity
  • Do lots of 1:1s  
  • Spend lots of time getting the badge for investors in people  
  • Go offsite regularly to do team building and motivate the troops  
  • Spend money marketing your brand  
  • Move your call centres to India (it’s cheaper isn’t it?)
  • Offshore all processing of work  
  • Keep the really expensive people away from the customers  

How to be a remarkable leader:           

Read above.  Do opposite.  

Here’s the idea. Invest one hour of your time. Go to the start of a customer facing process.  Ask each person in the process what problems they have when doing work and how often these problems occur.  Solve a problem and repeat. 

Soon your staff will be calling you a remarkable leader, and you will have respect beyond your wildest dreams. 

To leave your comments and experiences click here

Posted in leadership | 2 Comments »

Are you a turnip or a pumpkin

October 30th, 2008

Turnip or PumpkinHave you noticed that pumpkins have replaced turnips?  Why?  I pondered this question last night (it was a light news day) as I made a lantern for Matthew my 2 year old son.   

I remember my dad making lanterns for me out of turnips.  Every year it used to take him ages, especially the scooping out bit and the lantern was always quite small. 

In other words functionally though the lantern worked but it was difficult to set up, and in terms of form it wasn’t a great result for all the effort.  But at least it was cheap and you always knew what you were getting into.    

Ryanair, could be described as a turnip. It promises very little in terms of form – the planes are not the cleanest and the food on board is at best basic.  Also the function is quite poor, you don’t get a seat booked and you end up miles from your actual destination.   But it’s cheap. You know what you are getting and so it can dominate the market.  

Contrast this with the pumpkin.   It looks great, the colour is fabulous, and is big, great form.  And scooping out the middle bit is really easy, excellent function.  Sure it’s more expensive but it would seem that for this product a large percentage of the population are willing to spend the extra money to get both form and function.   

My favourite pumpkin is the apple shop in New York.  From the outside it looks fantastic, a large glass building leading to an underground shop, it promises a great experience.  And when you get inside you are not disappointed, lots of products to test and try and lots of people on hand for when you get stuck or want to buy something.  It delivers.  Turnips and Pumpkins are both totally authentic. There is a clear promise. You know exactly what you are going to get, you get it, and it is priced accordingly.   Being either a pumpkin or turnip is a good business strategy and allows you dominate a market.    The problem comes when you are a mix of the two, what I’d call a Purnip.  A purnip is something that looks great but when you try to get it or use it you find that it’s just not worth the hassle.   

Sky TV, is a purnip, big promises but the engineers rarely turn up when they say they will (that’s my experience). When you have to call the contact centres you get passed from pillar to post (bad design and target orientated culture). And god forbid that you want to cancel six months later. They will still be chasing for thirty pounds that you wouldn’t have incurred if they’d cancelled when you’d asked.   

As a result it makes entry into the market easy for others because there is nothing to differentiate them from their competitors and customers are only too willing to vote with their feet.  What are you a pumpkin, the promise of a great experience that delivers, or a turnip low expectations but at a cheap price?  Being at the edges of a market is good.  But a Purnip, promising one thing and delivering another, forget ghosts and witches, that’s a scary thought.   So here’s the idea:  For half an hour today be your own customer.  Look at your product or service offering and try to order, or build, or use, or navigate, or interrogate your own product.   And ask the question, what am I?  Also have some fun with this concept this week and see how many companies you can classify as a turnip, pumpkin or purnip.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment

Posted in Creating Value | 2 Comments »

Please listen

October 28th, 2008

Laurence Barrett from Velux writes:  

Recently I was flying on a low budget airline the inevitable happened, we were delayed, whilst sitting in the plane waiting for permission to taxi. Whilst waiting we were all bombarded with music that was interspersed with advertising about their routes and holiday destinations every 30 seconds or so. Even worse when I telephoned the companies head office to complain about this intrusion, to my horror their telephone system was just the same. Whilst waiting patiently in a queue to be answered I was again bombarded with advertising about their “wonderful” service and the destinations they fly to, not surprisingly I hung up!What makes companies believe that this type of non permission marketing works? Laurence makes an important point: when your advertising is not congruent with what you do, you fail, either through a loss of customers or the high cost of needless transactions resulting from failure demand (a demand caused by a failure of the system to do the right thing for the customer).  And as I read Laurence’s comments I wondered if there was anything worse than doing one thing and saying another. 

I believe there is: not listening.

  • Not listening is manifest when organisations put a message on the front of the phone system before you even ask them a question.  It’s like saying to a friend I know you have got something important to say, but before you do wait till you hear what I have to tell you
  • Not listening happens when companies put an IVR machine at the front of their phone system that bears no relation to the nature of customer demand (they are all like this) then blames the customer for not pressing the right buttons
  • Not listening occurs when you phone an IT help desk and they are intent on you re-booting your machine before they have even understood your problem

Not listening has nothing to do with front line staff. It has to do with the design of the system that causes people to act in a certain way because of targets, standardised responses and the belief that machines reduce costs. 

Not listening is designed in by the architects of the system, the leaders. 

But if they change how they think about the design and management of work, they would:

  • Remove all the disrespectful messages at the front of phone systems and have the front line staff delight the customer and then suggest an additional product
  • Strip out IVR machines and design against demand
  • Remove the activity targets that cause staff to get customers to try silly fixes rather than a proper diagnosis of their problem
  • Have the system absorb variety rather than churn out standard responses.

In fact the only thing that gets in the way of organisations being remarkable is our ability to change how we think about the design and management of work.

Are you listening? So here’s the idea, if you have an IVR machine find out how many people predictably end up in the wrong place, if you have a message on the front of your phone system do a straw poll tomorrow, ask “would you like us to keep or remove the message” let the community know what you find by posting your results.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment

Posted in Service Failure | 3 Comments »

I’m OK at sex

October 27th, 2008

I think I’m ok at sex, but I don’t know because I’m a guy and we just don’t know, ok. I just assume that until Denise buys a single bed I’m fine.  But others clearly don’t think so because I get at least 5-10 e mails per week offering me, well let’s just call them performance enhancing solutions. Maybe Denise writes to them on my behalf .   

This kind of non permission marketing is big downside of the web but I can live with it as a necessary evil and simply hit the delete button.  But every so often something catches my attention and on impulse I decide to buy.   

This happened recently when I picked up a brochure for the ‘The Great Little Trading Company’, a company that sells childrens’ furniture.  Matthew was at the point where he was too big for his cot so we looked at the brochure and saw the perfect JCB digger bed. 

I immediately went on line to buy it.  The first problem was that the search facility didn’t take me to the bed.  But I persevered and eventually found it.  So far the process had taken ten minutes.  Then ordered and tried to pay.  I say attempted because after six attempts I finally gave up.    After the effort of spending money on getting my attention, getting me to go to their website, and getting out my debit card, their process failed.  I wasn’t able to spend my money. I’ve since written to them and they say they’ve fixed the site. Years ago Vanguard studied mercury telecommunications (you may remember Harry Enfield did the ad).  We found that out of 100 prospective customers that said ‘I want to buy’ the process was so broken that only 22 stuck with it till the end. 

Mercury went bust; partly I suspect from high operating and marketing costs and partly from a poor reputation in the market place.   

Its 2008 and there’s simply no excuse for this kind of thinking anymore, trying to get our attention by disreputable means is bad enough but then making it difficult to spend our money is simply a crime.   

As I write this Denise is looking at another brochure, I hope it’s not for single beds, I’d better try to retrieve some of those deleted e-mails.  On second thoughts I don’t think I’ll bother, by the time I manage to buy something she’ll be asleep.  

So here’s an idea go to your website and find out the point at which people dropped out of the process and the frequency with which it occurred, then fix it.  In-fact don’t just apply this idea to your website, apply it to any of your sales processes.

Let me know your thoughts on this post by leaving your comments at our blog. Click here now

Posted in Service Failure | 1 Comment »

What is in it for me, is the wrong question

October 22nd, 2008

Last week I was discussing the performance of a local authority service with the manager of the area. Suffice to say customers were getting little in the way of value for their council tax in this service.

During a heated discussion I asked the manager what the consequences were for him personally if nothing was done to improve the system.His reply was disheartening, “There’s no incentive for me to improve the service and no consequences, I leave it as it is”.

His view was that local authority managers, unless they commit gross misconduct, are simply untouchable. I think the landscape is changing. Especially if leaders like Andrea Mchugh have anything to do with it.

Andrea is head of service for roads at Edinburgh City Council and has already got stuck into removing the bureaucracy and status quo thinking so commonly associated with local authorities. 

In her short time as head of service she has studied the performance associated with reactive repairs for roads, street lighting, gullies, temporary traffic orders, the roads mail system and the Clarence contact centre.

She has implemented a new system for running the potholes repairs service, changed the way the mail is handled, and about to go live with a new process for reacting to cleaning gullies and repairing street lights. And like the other manager you could argue that there is no incentive for doing what she has done, and no consequences for having done nothing.

Unless you consider making a decision to turn a failing service into something remarkable as an incentive, or letting down the public for whom she gets paid to serve as a consequence.

The public sector needs more leaders like Andrea. And the irony is that the better she serves the public the better she will fair in terms of reputation, career prospects earnings, and most importantly respect.

So if you know someone who’s first question when they come to work in the morning is what’s in it for me tell them to watch out for Andrea, her and leaders like her are shaking things up.

So here’s an idea, ask: ‘what’s the purpose of my service from the customers’ point of view’? Purpose is made up of what customers want e.g. fix the pothole and how they want it done, e.g. right first time and fast (Potholes matter, just wait till you wreck your alloy wheel on one). Then find out how well you are achieving your purpose.

If the answer to this question isn’t incentive enough to get us out of bed in the morning, its time to move on.

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