GMJ Talks with John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, authors of Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter

Posted by: meikah | 18 February 2008 | 9:56 pm

Jennifer Robison of Gallup Management Journal (GMJ) talked with John H. Fleming and Jim Asplund, the authors of Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter.

The premise of the study, which led to the book, is: the equation of “engaged employees + engaged customers” produced results far exceeding what the researchers expected.
Here are some of the insights from the talk:

• Fleming: HumanSigma was developed as a response to the lack of effectiveness of Six Sigma methodology to increase productivity from people.
• Asplund: …because people — employees and customers — are much more unpredictable than machines, they can’t be managed or directed in prescribed ways.
• On the importance of humanity in business - Asplund says: A company can’t control people’s emotional reactions… he reason a company must understand the essential humanity of its customers and employees is because they are people first and customers and employees second. They’re living, breathing, real people. Before a business can manage them effectively, it must understand how customers and employees think and how they react; it must understand their psychology and their emotional infrastructure.
• On standard is better than variation - Fleming says: No, it just creates mediocrity. There’s a paradox here that is important to recognize. What we’re suggesting is that companies that have concentrated on creating consistency of execution have failed to create consistency in the outcomes that execution is intended to produce. Most are trying to control the process through which employees are delivering service by mandating the steps.

Read the whole interview.

If you want more insights from the book, you may want to check out the live forum on Human Sigma on February 21, 2008, 1:00 pm, at Hotel Intercontinental Manila.

Source:
iSixSigma Featured Link

Book Cover credit

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