The Outer World Clienting and Total Quality Management

In 1993, a German author wrote a book with the provocative title: "The only thing that disturbs us is the client". Isn't that true for many of our organizations, particularly those which call themselves 'service providers'?

Clients have expectations, both realised and unrealised.. Service and product providers attempt to satisfy the known expectations with outcomes that provide satisfaction for the client with "push strategies" for alignment, others seek specialised niche markets that are complementary to their service and product strengths while others present innovative solutions to the client that form the frameworks for undertaking activities in entirely new ways. This is about strategic alignment of numerous variables that constitute the system in which the organization or service provider and the client interact. However even with the best intentions a nexus between the client expectations and the product and services to be offered does not always eventuate.

Why does this occur? In most cases it does not eventuate because there has been a misalignment between the expectations of the client and the solutions that is being proposed. This communication breakdown generally occurs because the provider assumes or interprets the client's needs without clarifying the context and underlying causes of the need. This superficial cause and effect model is symptomatic of why major intervention programs, tangible products or services fail when juxtaposed over an existing situation rather than integrated into it. People are predisposed to make decisions within the inherent cultural and social setting. While our solutions may offer significant advantages from our perspective they are generally ordained to fail unless they recognise and are integrated into the very fabric of the client setting and acknowledge all of the cultural and social norms that dictate the decision making model that is used by such clients. Unless we enter into this conscious and unconscious model of the client then despite the advantages that may be offered by our products or services there will be little acceptance of such advantages or a slow uptake over time of these proposed outcomes.

As consumers we have all suffered at the end of unexplained and interminable delays and ineffective outcomes after what can be considered a carefully explicated sets of needs - The interminable "on hold" of the telephone response, the late arrival of critical documents, the ineffective repair or service, the service that promises much but delivers little, the bargain priced service that offers much but delivers little - can drive us to distraction and cause us to wonder why we chose such a service and a predisposition to never use that provider again in the future.

As an example of the inherent misunderstanding in action that occurs with clients in different cultural and social settings and the government officials that are supposedly there to support such people I conducted workshops in Thailand, for improvement of animal health services. When I asked for the causes of the bad productivity of the livestock, the usual answer was: 'The farmers do no adopt our recommendations.' I insisted and continued asking (For systemic questions, you should see the exercise The Five Why's). My next question was: 'Why do the farmers not adopt the recommendations?' The reply of the officers was: 'Because they are stupid, uneducated and conservative.' Can you imagine, how the adoption rate would change, if everybody in the service would adopt an approach of asking 'What are the needs of the farmers? What would I expect of being a farmer?'

The goal of this section is to introduce instruments and tool sets for quality management. The use of such instruments and tool sets will optimise the decision making model so that informed decisions can be made to address both the provider of the service or product while seeking the highest degree of integration, acceptance and utilisation by the consumer or client. The underpinning principles of this discussion , that finally only quality and customer orientation will survive (=effectiveness). An inclusive model of providing the highest quality with economic thinking (=efficiency), will ensure a situation that enhances the outcomes for all stakeholders. The following tools can be used to gather the underpinning knowledge to make inclusive and informed decisions that accommodate the needs of the client and the provider of the service or product.

Table 1: Organizations: Survival of the Fittest

The Toolbook offers a series of exercises which help you to analyze and visualize the relation to your client:

Benchmarking- Striving for the Better:
More a glimpse or short introduction into the subject of how to improve your quality by comparing your organization with others: Benchmarking; used wisely, can be a powerful Change Management tool.

Communication Strategy:
Whatever you have to offer – in most cases your clients won’t knock your doors down. Of course it depends on the product or service. But most organizations, whether profit or non-profit have to tell their stakeholders what they can expect. This tool helps you to develop a communication strategy for your product, service or message. It is particularly applicable for programmes that want their stakeholders to do something (Protect the environment! Vote for our candidate!).

Stakeholder Analysis:
Do you really know who the stakeholders of your project are? How do you know? How do you know that you know? There is a wealth of knowledge on stakeholder analysis, which is summarized in this text.

Expectation Matrix:
Once you have your stakeholders at your table you might like to ask them what they expect from you. And you might like to tell them what you can give them and what you expect from them. This is a true Change Management tool which helps you to reveal the various agendas groups and individuals have who join your planning meeting.

Red and Blue Ocean Strategy:

The Red Ocean versus Blue Ocean conceptualization intends to describe the difference between existing / highly-competitive and the non-existing/highly profitable markets and how to exploit the latter through lateral thinking

Stakeholder Involvement in Change:
This tool describes different stakes of involvement of staff and other stakeholders in a change project, depending on te management culture of an organization.