We Do Not Understand the Customer, Part 1

 I thought I understood the customer. I was a Toyota-trained engineer & entrepreneur who immersed in creating Value & eliminating Waste. I’d launched companies, and written books on Strategy execution and Operational Excellence (aka Lean). I travelled the world advising C-suites & Boards.

Framing is everything.

My illusions were shattered in Singapore, where my colleague & Innovation sensei, Laurent Simon, helped me up a steep learning curve. We worked together in the Financial Services & Consumer Goods industries and eventually built an Innovation practice. We even wrote a book about our adventures & ideas.

Framing is everything. Our Toyota senseis taught us that a) Value is what ‘customers are willing to pay for,’ and b) Waste is everything else. Toyota senseis, famously, like to draw a circle on the shop floor, and ask the deshi (student) to closely observe the process. After an hour or more, the students report back on what they’ve seen, with an emphasis on the 3 M’s - Muda, Mura, and Muri (Waste, Unevenness, and Strain).

As a deshi, my Job One was learning how to identify, diagnose & eliminate the ‘Seven + One’ wastes. It’s a skill I practice to this day (to the consternation of my family). When I encounter a process in day-to-day life, I instinctively note bottlenecks, count WIP & calculate cycle times (while my wife rolls her eyes).

In addition to my Toyota training, I was lucky enough to grow up working in our family diner, the Imperial Grill, (which features prominently in the Andy & Me novels). There, wasted motion meant sore feet; delay meant the food arrives cold, defects meant the wrong food arrives, and so on. Waste is something I understand in my core, and OpEx/Lean provides an excellent framing and solid foundation.

But is the OpEx/Lean framing sufficient in a world of exponential technology? Does OpEx/Lean provide the methods & mindset needed to delight customers in the 21^st century and thereby ignite new Growth?

Here’s a different framing, courtesy of the late, great Clayton Christensen: Customers ‘hire’ a product or service to do a job for them. Customers don’t really care what we’re doing in the factory or supply chain, as long as they get cool stuff quick, that does the job at a fair price. To be sure, customers expect us to behave ethically and to do right by our employees, community & environment. But most of all, they want us to solve their problem.

Here's the really tricky part – often customers do not recognize that they have a given problem. In the hurly-burly of 21^st century life, many people are just hanging, trying to get through the day intact, having little time to reflect deeply about their experience. People put up with a great deal of hassle without much thought. But when they’re offered a remedy in a compelling, funny, and/or charming way they react, often very strongly.

And so, we have two different framings: one is the key to protecting the core business. The other shows the way to growth and sustained prosperity. More to come.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis, E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org

In case you missed earlier blogs... please feel free to have another look….

Transformation - the Battles We Have to Win - Ignorance
Transformation - the Battles We Have to Win