We have a problem, speaking plainly and simply; this problem is that a truth has been bent to escape responsibility. Tribus (n.d.) was plain and stated:
“WARNING: In presenting the reasons for change, the leader should accept the responsibility for whatever is wrong. Remember Juran’s rule:
WHENEVER THERE IS A PROBLEM 85% OF THE TIME, IT IS IN THE SYSTEM, ONLY 15% OF THE TIME WILL IT BE THE WORKER [emphasis in original].”
Please allow me to note that I have regularly advocated that Juran underestimated and personally have found that 90-95% of the time, the problem is the process, not the workers. This is my opinion, and I am not here to convince you but merely to help clarify Juran’s rule and provide some clarity on the writings of Tribus (n.d.) as well as build foundational understanding.
The Situation
A client company has a problem where managers are not holding their people to productivity standards. Deep diving into the situation, we find several fundamental issues, in no particular order:
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- Human Resources tells operations what production goals can be.
- No production goal can be set where 75% of the workers cannot easily meet the goals set.
- Goals cannot be changed without HR approval, a lengthy research process, and a legal team review.
- No productivity goal is published. Feeder metrics, KPIs, and so forth are not communicated or standardized.
- No standard work crosses from one geographic location to another.
- Facility leaders might receive training in other facilities, but the training is broken and disjointed, and the regional managers charged with holding leaders to a standard lack standards and feeder metrics to hold facility leadership accountable across regional areas.
- Currently, no region or facility is meeting any goal regularly or uses a process that can be replicated.
Interestingly, this situation has existed for more than 15 years, and none in higher management remember a time when this situation was different. But, every manager will quote a version of Juran’s rule to explain why they are hunting for operational processes to review and change.
Conflict vs. Contention
At its most fundamental level, conflict is about helping spur growth and development and bringing about change in an organized and logical manner. However, I cannot stress this enough; conflict is NOT contention. Conflict is not born of pride and a desire to feel better about yourself through violence. Conflict can be observed in a disagreement or difference in opinion, but conflict does not include emotional hyperbole (pride). Conflict should be about mental disturbances spurred by people seeking greater ideas and ideals, personal growth, or team development. Does conflict lead to contention? Yes, but only because pride entered into the disagreement, emotions were injected, and desires to be right at any cost dictated, it is time for violence.
Let me be perfectly frank, contention and conflict are not the same. While the terms are close, they are distinct and tell different sides of the same story. First, contention is an act of striving or an assertion. Contention is a violent effort to obtain or protect something vehemently! There is effort, struggle, and exertion in contention; there are violent efforts, and the core of contention is pride. Pride breeds animosity, animosity breeds struggle, and struggle is contention, where pride demands that violence is acceptable to achieve the desired end goal. When contending, “The ends justify the means.”
Contention is animosity personified into action, effort, and desires become evident as contention unfolds. We cannot forget these facts about contention. Consider the following; I went to work in a hostile atmosphere; due to a contract signed, I could not quit and find a new job, and reassignment was not going to happen. Jealousy and pride entered because I was very good at my job, and violence followed like the sun rising after a moonless night. Contention was born and festered, violence was perpetrated against me, and the violence was acceptable to the organizational leaders as it gave them feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.
The violence was justified because I was “too good” at my job, made “decisions above my paygrade,” and “I needed to be taught humility.” The result was four disastrous years of struggle, incredible stress levels, and mental torture, with physical acts of violence thrown in to spice up the environment. I am not bemoaning my fate nor holding myself up as an example of anything, merely hoping to convey that contention stunted organizational growth in everyone unlucky enough to experience this organization during this period. Contention is pride expressed through violence and justified to fit the individual’s desires.
Conflict is a tool; like all tools, it can build, enhance, strengthen, and create when used appropriately. If the tool is improperly used, destruction, damage, and chaos are spawned. Conflict happens; what a person chooses to do with that conflict and how that person considers conflicting occurrences is how the labels “good,” “bad,” “valuable,” “beneficial,” etc., are applied. McShane and Von Gilnow (2004, p. 390) postulated, “conflict as beneficial [when] intergroup conflict improves team dynamics, increase cohesiveness, and task orientation. [C]onditions of moderate conflict, motivates team members to work more efficiently toward goals increasing productivity.” The sentiment regarding conflict as a tool and beneficial is echoed throughout the research of Jehn (1995). Jehn (1995) reflected that the groups researched labeled the conflict as beneficial, good, bad, etc. Based on the group’s dynamics and the conflicts faced and settled, the groups formed an integrated model for organizational conflict. Essentially, how the conflict is approached and used by the team members individually and collectively dictates how beneficial the conflict is for the team and the organization.
Rao (2017) built upon previous researchers’ shoulders, perceiving conflict being a tool, and provided vital strategies for leaders to employ conflict. Rao (2017) provided that conflict builds character, whereas crisis defines character” [p. 93]. Rao (2017) recognized that conflict labels are an individual choice. In organizational conflict, one team could label the conflict as valuable and beneficial, while another department could label that same conflict as damaging and horrible. When the conflict in an organization has disparate labels, understanding why conflict is disparately evaluated remains more important than changing the label. Important to note, conflict is not competition, although occasionally used synonymously, there are important and distinct differences, important enough for a different article.
Thompson (2008) raised significant points regarding conflict, beginning with a real-life example of how conflict spurred organizational change and growth for the H. J. Heinz Co. Thompson (2008) calls those who actively work to avoid conflict as those taking “trips to Abilene;” included in those making trips to Abilene are those who take conflict personally and choose to become offended, as well as those who choose not to see conflict as a method of ignoring conflict. Thomas (1992) again captured how individual choices about the valuation of conflict open or close the door to the productive use of conflict. Ignoring conflict, avoiding conflict, and other strategies of not facing conflict form the most dangerous people to be around, for when conflict grows beyond a point where it can no longer be ignored or avoided, that conflict that can destroy people, places, and things.
Thomas (1992) echoes Jehn (1995), Lencioni (2002), and Thompson (2008) in declaring the distinction between conflict as a process and the structure in which the conflict process occurred is critical to how beneficial the conflict will be for the team, business, or society. Consider, for a moment the structure of the organizational environment. Conflict is the mental thinking, adherence to operating procedures, and individuals working who become the instigating factor, which threatens what is known or done at the current time. Hence, Thomas (1992) provided a keen insight into conflict as a tool, purposeful initiation of a process (conflict) to improve a structure (organizational environment).
When people recognize the power of conflict and purposefully employ conflict, everyone receives the potential to improve through conflict (Lencioni, 2002). Thus, conflict continues to be a tool, nothing more and nothing less. The disparities between organizational conflict labels are critical to understanding the chasm between teams evaluating conflict as the process and business structure. The gap in understanding conflict’s results can create inhibitions to future organizational conflict and create unnecessary additional conflict processes, all while undermining the organizational structure.
Tribus – Changing the Corporate Culture
Juran’s rule is prescient but based on several foundational situations underpinning their understanding; the following applies regardless of whether the organization is building a learning society or merely keeping the money tap flowing.
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- Operations, and by extension, operational goals, productivity standards, and processes for producing a product or service, are the sole domain of operations personnel. Does this preclude Human Resources from having a seat at the operations table; NO! Having HR dictate operational goals to operations is akin to having a bullet tell a shooter how to aim.
- Training is a process. Training requires standards to judge performance as a means to declare training exceeded. However, the quality of training, and the proof of trained personnel, is not an HR function, nor is the trainer the sole person involved in judging the efficacy of producing trained personnel.
- Organizational hierarchies are a process, the business culture is a process, learning is not training, and both learning and training are processes but have two different controlling entities; accountability and responsibility are a cultural extension of the process of organizing people into a functioning business organization.
Consider the fibers of an interwoven rope. Each fiber is twisted with other fibers, then these twists of fibers are turned into more twists, repeated until eventually building a finished rope. The same goes for these preceding foundational aspects. Operational principles make, like many fibers twist, into a rope that can secure a multiple hundred-ton ship to a pier. How the ropes are used is an operational process, but the core of the ropes are these essential aspects.
Some have argued, to their demise, that too many companies with this mindset are suffering from silo-mentality; when the obverse is true. Each department of a functioning business organization relies upon processes similar to these foundational fibers. Operations managers should not go into another business unit and expect to use the same tools from successful operations in those different business units.
For example, while I have been a successful operations manager, the tools I use in leading software teams are decidedly not the same tools I would employ on a production floor, even though both business units are expected to produce a product. The people are different, their approaches to problems are different, and the environments conducive to product delivery are dynamically opposed. Similarly, the tools HR would use to solve production issues are not opposed but definitely not employed similarly to those used in troubleshooting a problem in legal or accounting.
Juran understood these foundational situations, Tribus understood these foundational situations, and the best corporate leaders understand these foundational situations. However, Tribus made clear something dynamic, leadership is not management, and management never achieves anything. The dichotomies between leadership and management could not be more explicit in today’s business operations.
Tribus (n.d.) calls upon the words of Homer Sarasohn, stating [emphasis in original]:
“THE LEADER MUST, HIMSELF, BE AN EXAMPLE OF THE CHARACTERISTICS HE WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN HIS FOLLOWERS.”
“Managers must practice what they preach.”
“DON’T SAY, “FOLLOW ME; I’M BEHIND YOU ALL THE WAY”
(IT MAKES EVERYONE GO IN CIRCLES).”
Application
What do we find in my client; managers who first do not know the work their operational employees do. Managers who are disconnected by good jobs to the point they never engage in the better and best jobs their positions of trust demand. The managers are not led but are managed and never were trained for their current positions. These three items are why the client company is a dumpster fire of potential (blue money), where the bottom line evaporates, and nobody can explain why. However, like in the Shakespearian play, “Much Ado About Nothing,” a lot of noise is made but goes nowhere fast!
Unfortunately, the much ado about nothing is worsened, not improved, by Kaizen, Six Sigma, Agile, and Lean efforts at process improvement. The core problems are considered “untouchable,” “too dynamic,” or “too extensive” ever to be improved upon, and the new manager settles to change an operational process instead of core problems. Essentially proclaiming, “Follow me, I’m behind you all the way,” the operational employees keep circling the drain.
What is the solution?
Solution generation for my client company begins with understanding the compelling evidence there is a problem. Right now, the client thinks, “We are big enough to absorb these insignificant issues in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” This is where every business begins its failure; no business can long survive dumpster fires of potential (blue money). People leave, and this has a high replacement cost. People work slowly or below their potential, which is a tremendous cost in green (cash) money and potential (blue money). Operational costs increase, increasing customer costs and the loss of customers is a dynamic cost to the business.
After admitting a problem, the next step is envisioning an end state. Since I began to lead men and women, I have advocated a lesson I learned as a teenager, “Never take your body where your brain has not already traveled.” If you cannot envision the result, do not start trying to make changes until you have envisioned an end state. I sliced my fingers badly with a knife while cutting onions. Why did I slice my fingers and not the onion? I did not understand the end state and assumed I could start cutting and reach an acceptable end state (diced onion). I should never have started cutting; between the loss of the onion and the damage to my fingers, the lesson was not “Never cut onions again,” but “never begin something without a clear end state (goal) in mind.”
The third preparatory step to building a solution is START! The client has this problem of always wanting clear instructions, plans, and supplies on hand before beginning. The speed of business requires action, not plans and instructions. Take the first logical step and begin! Tribus (n.d.) makes this clear with the assurance, “There is a sensible first step,” take that step! I will reiterate a point Tribus (n.d.) makes, employees work IN a system of processes, and the manager should work ON the system of processes, with the employee’s help. A manager should be analogous to a mentor, who, like a leader, after understanding the vision, looks sideways and builds people to meet their level before taking that next logical step into the darkness.
Conclusion
The simple truth is that Juran’s rule has been used as an excuse to dodge responsibility in too many operations, businesses, and organizations. Like my client, the good news is that change is possible with the people you have right now. My client is not a bad company; your company is not inherently bad. People are intrinsically good, and when we better understand the fibers that help tie Juran’s rule to reality, we can employ reframing to shut down the noise and move from much ado about nothing to effective management and leadership. How do we reframe:
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- Establish legitimacy and shift from passive to active.
- Bring outsiders into the discussion, but do not shift responsibility for developing the solution or owning the goals.
- Get the stakeholder’s definitions in writing – Common words, AREN’T. Common understanding; is a goal to strive towards.
- Ask what is missing
- Consider multiple categories, seek out those subject matter experts, and add them to the discussion as equals
- Analyze positive and negative data equally without bias
- Question the objectives, focus on the future and keep moving forward.
As we, the leaders of call centers, strive to change our understanding, realize our roles, and build people, we will build people, not processes, to meet the future. The first step is committing to the decision framed in the question, “Is your company a money tap or a service to the greater good of society?”
References:
The references are included if you want to further research conflict as beneficial.
Amason, A. C. (1996). Distinguishing the effects of functional and dysfunctional conflict on strategic decision making: Resolving a paradox for top management teams. Academy of Management Journal, 39(1), 123-148. doi:http://dx.doi.org.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/10.2307/256633
Baron, R. A. (1991). Positive Effects of Conflict: A Cognitive Perspective. Employee Responsibilities & Rights Journal, 4(1), 25-36.
Brazzel, M. (2003). Chapter XIII: Diversity conflict and diversity conflict management. In D. L. Plummer (Ed.), Handbook of diversity management: Beyond awareness to competency based learning (pp. 363-406). Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.
Du, F., Erkens, D. H., & Xu, K. (2018). How trust in subordinates affects service quality: Evidence from a large property management firm. Business.Illinois.edu. Retrieved from https://business.illinois.edu/accountancy/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2018/03/Managerial-Symposium-2018-Session-IV-Du-Erkens-and-Xu.pdf
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multi-method exanimation of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 256-282.
Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons.
Lumineau, F., Eckerd, S., & Handley, S. (2015). Inter-organizational conflicts. Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation, 1(1), 42-64. doi:10.1177/2055563614568493
McShane, S. L., & Von Gilnow, M. A. (2004). Organizational Behavior, Third Edition. Boston: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Moeller, C., & Kwantes, C. T. (2015). Too Much of a Good Thing? Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Conflict Behaviors. Journal of Social Psychology, 155(4), 314-324. doi:10.1080/00224545.2015.1007029
Rao, M. (2017). Tools and techniques to resolve organizational conflicts amicably. Industrial and Commercial Training, 49(2), 93-97. doi:10.1108/ict-05-2016-0030
Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflections and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265-274.
Thompson, L. L. (2008). Chapter 8: Conflict in teams – Leveraging differences to create opportunity. In Making the team: A guide for managers (3rd ed., pp. 201-220). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images. Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.
It is no secret; I am a doctoral candidate. On Facebook, I advertised my dissertation to find participants to engage in my dissertation data collection. My dissertation is all about the role of the trainer in call center training. I am looking to answer some specific questions about what a trainer does, their role in training, and flush out details about the role of the call center trainer in establishing genetic memory. My first ad on Facebook, believe it or not, received more direct respondents than my second or third attempts. That the respondents accused me of being fake, a troll, and committing several bodily functions on their timelines bothered me greatly.
If you are sending a survey out, you need to address the survey results. Publicly with your agents, transparently with your shareholders and investors, and clearly and openly with your customers. By refusing to do these things, the leadership failures in demanding customer resources to complete surveys are wasted, compounded, and the customer is listening! Worse, the customer is sharing this information with other customers and is openly looking for options to replace you and your company! By publicly claiming “customer-obsession,” “customer-centricity,” and “customer-first” propaganda (e.g., marketing promises), you are making a commitment. Failure to honor that commitment delivers a “Used Car Sales” pitch, and lawyers and politicians become more trustworthy than you and your company. Customers are tired of “Lemons” when paying for cherries; is this clear enough?
Want to know a secret? When the leader first walks two miles with the employee, that leader never has to ask anyone to “go the extra mile,” EVER! Your best leaders, your followers, are the people who, instead of looking forward first, make it a priority to look sideways. These leaders are experts at lifting the talent needed to look forward to a higher level. Looking sideways includes value-added training programs, professional paths to progression, recognizing and praising efforts honestly and frequently, delegating assignments and tasks, and being actively engaged in delivering “customer-centricity” to the employees. As a supervisor, team lead, director, etc., your first customer is those who follow you; what have you done lately to prove customer obsession to them?
Afghanistan and the fraudulent President Biden have had me thinking about the Walmart effect over the last three days or so, and I cannot help but think there are some lessons to be discussed. More to the point, the lines of congruence between the Walmart effect and the current political situation possess the potential for correcting course and saving America. Not just America, but representative governments worldwide. The Walmart effect is a global pandemic more powerful and pernicious than COVID ever will be, and we need to at least recognize this truth.
Walmart has always competed on price. As if there was nothing else to compete upon. Lowest prices, regardless of the junk sold, price mattered more. Hammer the price to nothing in every aspect of the supply chain. Hammer the costs of doing business to lower costs to consumers. Cheapen and eliminate packaging, “helping the environment,” and reduce costs. Force suppliers and vendors to absorb traditional costs stores assumed, lowers costs, and increase profit margins. Everything in the Walmart model is about lowering consumer costs, and Walmart has been very successful at twisting arms and breaking heads to reduce costs.
Second, quality and service have disappeared in competition. Safeway, as a grocery store, has excellent service; but they cannot compete on service and quality because the Walmart effect has changed these two adjectives to be synonymous with higher consumer costs. Believe it or not, the grocery store model has not changed in the last 200 years. Walmart changed society to believe everything was about competing on consumer costs, and the rest of the competition has played along. Want to know a secret, you as a consumer are being deceived into believing that Walmart has the best prices, but when quality is added to the picture, Walmart is selling you junk.
On the third point in the Walmart effect, politicians spend enormous amounts of effort to use marketing science to play upon emotions to get and keep an audience. The same marketing science employed to keep you in a retailer making purchases keeps you “connected” to your political party. Worse, because there are familial traditions in being one political party or another, there remain tighter ties to a political party. These strings are played to the fullest to bind you ever tighter, so you do not use conscious thinking when voting the party line.
Therein lay the other answer to the Walmart effect, recognizing that we must join together, or fall individually, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle since we are all interconnected. Service and joining together are the only paths forward. We must not allow divisive political agendas, carefully crafted scientifically marketed political pogroms, and slick groomed politicians to sway us from the important points of freedom, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness. We cannot afford the governments that have ballooned and festered over the last 60-years. We cannot afford the Walmart effect; the cost is just too great!
24 September 2021 UPDATE: For the record, the doctor’s appointment forming the central element of this article was with Advanced Neurology Epilepsy & Sleep Center (
Commit to customer relations, find solutions. Commit to saying YES! You will be surprised how fast people become customers and want to remain customers when employees representing your business are committed to finding solutions first and excuses NEVER! End the abuse of customers; I know which doctor I will be ending my relationship with as soon as humanly possible, and I will leave online customer service reports. Abuse me as a customer, and I will go out of my way to make sure other customers and potential customers know.
I have several titles, want my business, know and use my titles. Pick one, and use it! How can a company claim they “know their customers” when that company cannot use the customer’s preferred name or title in addressing that customer? I have worked hard to earn a Ph.D.; I do not expect everyone to call me “Dr.,” but it sure as anything beats being called “mister” all the bloody time. Worse, I still hold several ranks and positions that come with titles. I could be addressed using them, but even with a preferred name on many company customer profiles, I get that lazy customer service representative that calls me Mr. Salisbury! Guess what company I am going to ditch at the first opportunity?
Business processes matter; honoring your word matters, displaying trust, integrity, and fulfilling a promise made all matters in the customer relationship long before the product or service is discussed. Yet, how often are these issues on shaky ground, before the ink is dry on the service contract or the receipt for goods? I have a cell phone provider I detest; I long for the day I can finally walk free of this provider and never look back. Because their customer attention is deplorable, I feel used and abused every time I interact with this company. I have the same problem with my current Internet provider. When your customer service is so deplorable, you have to climb to become terrible; there is a problem that colors, signage, marketing, and gimmicks cannot fix!
Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasian began work on the Coliseum of Rome in 69 AD. Upon completion of the Coliseum, his son Emperor Titus held 100-days and nights of festival in the Coliseum. Ostensibly to calm the masses after the civil unrest following the death of Emperor Nero, the Coliseum acted precisely as it was planned, distract the masses, while the emperor consolidated his power, undermined the Roman Senate, and set the stage for the end of the Roman Empire. Roman laws were built, originally, upon the consent of the governed until the emperors broke the law. The people rebelled, and before the squabbling senators could take control, the Roman government was subjugated to empirical rule. All historical facts, reflecting the power of the consent of the governed and a lesson upon which we can plot the future if we are brave enough to take action.
The consent of the governed is built upon the intermingled trust between people as a body electing government officers and people representing those elected as government officers. The problems have arisen because many in public office have refused to accept the government of those who elected them and have served only themselves and the monied interests buying their time. Thus, trust propensity in government has dropped to disastrous levels. Adding to the problem are the accumulated actions of previously elected officials who have set a pattern for personal wealth by tax and spend, supporting political cronies, and gerrymandering system to protect them from negative election results. The trust between people of shared values has been broken by those elected, who never shared values, who refuse to live in their home districts, and whose time and the highest bidder can purchase interests. Thus, is it any wonder that people no longer believe the lies of government are restless and agitated?
In researching the history of professional training, the model employed has not changed since a master taught journeyman who led novice instruction. Yet, with technology, global populations, cultures, language, and globe-spanning organizations, the role of the trainer seems to continue to take a back seat. Yet, if a corporate trainer profoundly influenced you professionally, would you not want that experience for another person?
Important to note, your name and business will never be mentioned in my dissertation! I am not collecting any personal data beyond education and years of experience. Any direct quotes employed will carry no connecting data, and no one will see your details.
While some may add or subtract to this list of agent abuses, I prefer simplicity. Thus, I repeat, only for emphasis, if the behavior is not tolerated in front of a police officer, that is customer agent abuse, and should not be accepted. Is speaking loudly customer agent abuse; probably not. However, the situationality of defining customer agent abuse is such that professionals will need clear and specific directions. Let us clarify a few topics.
A business owner once told me that this method of thinking was as valuable as arguing about what came first, the chicken or the egg. Yet, before you can grow into a small business, you must provide a service or good for purchase. Hence the most essential customer is your fellow employees, and failing to understand this simple fact, breeds an Us vs. Them mentality in employee and customer relations. Worse, this aggressive attitude only grows as the business grows and is heard by your customers in every transaction!
What is driving business leaders to excuse irrational and detestably unprofessional behavior by customers? Honest question, if we would not tolerate behavior in person, why is it allowed over the phone? Why is the customer agent taking the brunt of the abuse when we all know the problem originates much higher than the agent you are talking to. Customer service, customer appreciation, customer attentiveness, customer relations, customer retention, etc., all circle around the customer culture bred into the business from its days as a small business. Worse, the leader’s approach to customer service is felt and observed by agents all over the company and soon will imitate that leader’s attitude and behaviors.
Some of what I am proposing will be anathema to your organization; I realize this. I understand that some of what I propose will be hard to implement, face tremendous pushback, and might cause some organizational design changes. All of what I am about to suggest is achievable through leadership and customer service.
DNC-Consulting 