Tenacity Podcast

Tenacity’s Founding Partner, John Gamble, is probably the most creative – out of the box – thinker I know. Who else would tune in to the Discovery Channel to watch a documentary on a gigantic and morbidly frightening spider, dwelling deep in the jungles of some hopelessly remote country (I hope never to visit), weaving a web as large as my house and think “Wow! – What a great metaphor for the way we should be thinking about our business relationships!” Only John.

It’s interesting (to me at least) that when I have a set schedule -- when I’m expected to write this podcast -- I find myself becoming much more observant about things, people and events. Oftentimes, these observations are ‘podcast-worthy’. (Should be a word.)

It’s a bit like pastors. More than once I’ve heard a pastor, upon hearing an interesting or inspiring story, say “That’ll preach!”

Here are a couple of random observations on relationships and interpersonal dynamics:

I think some of the great television commercials are true works of art. Those that spring to mind are Volkswagen’s (How Does The Guy Who Drives The Snowplow Drive To The Snowplow?), Coca-Cola’s (I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing) and Bob Uecker for Miller Lite (“I Must Be In The Front Row!”). My personal favorite though is every Budweiser commercial that features the Clydesdales at Christmas. A little searching on YouTube can readily stoke some very worthwhile nostalgia from these classics.

You know, it sounds so simple. Clients really want only two things from you. 1) solve the problems you were hired to solve and 2) bring some innovation to the management of the service.

Okay. So how do we know what problems are important to solve that simple we've asked them in the context of the meetings. We've held around their expectations. In fact, not only have they told us what problems are important to solve. They've told us what order to solve them in remember because we've insisted they prioritize the list.

Sometimes the very best ideas are birthed on the backs of napkins or envelopes. An observation or idea becomes a picture in the mind’s eye and begs to be captured at the exact moment it crystallizes, no matter where you may be at the time. That’s the very nature of a revelation and that is what occurred when our founding partner (John) first sketched out the graphical depiction of the typical lifecycle of a service management relationship, a concept we’ve come to know as “Revelation X”.

One of the most dangerous occurrences in any relationship, including a B2B outsourcing services contract, is when the parties have fundamental differences in the way they see the same situation. Given adequate understanding, discernment and communication, that doesn’t have to happen. But in the world of business, it too often does.

Let’s sketch this out as we go deeper into the service lifecycle. In the diagram that follows, first sketched on the back of a napkin in 1998, the X-axis represents “Time” while the Y-axis is High and Low.

Picking up from out last podcast, not only does this really happen, it will happen to every single account you have if you do one thing.  And, that one thing?  That’s if you do your job well!

As with many things, there is more than one way to look at this graph.  When viewed from the service provider side, this is a great outcome.  We’ve successfully solved / reduced the clients problems and we are returning increasing revenues and profits to our firm.  This is great performance and exactly what we are trying to achieve.It looks different, however, from the client’s vantage point.  Once the lines have crossed, clients see a smoothly functioning / low problem operation that they are paying a great deal to maintain.  As time passes, we’re farther and farther from the hard work and massive value we created at the opening.  It’s natural for clients, who are always looking to trim costs, to begin to wonder, “What have they done for me lately?”

For those of us not quite old enough to remember the late great Karl Malden commercials for American Express, again, I refer you to YouTube. Search for "Karl" (with a "K") Malden American Express commercials.

“What WILL you do?” Great stuff!

I think back to those commercials when I consider the dilemma of Revelation X™. Here, we’ve been doing a great job for our client – working hard and solving the problems they hired us to solve. At the same time, we’re doing an equally great job for our company – bringing operating efficiencies and fee increases that enhance our income and margins. We’re blissfully anticipating “Manager of the Year” awards while our client is struggling to remember just what they’re paying for and exactly what we’ve done for them lately. The “Value Gap” is staring us squarely in the face and we don’t even see it. But our contract is now at risk. “What will you do?”

Sometimes when you think the news can’t get worse, it does. As we’ve seen over the last three podcasts, we’ve done our job exceedingly well – solved the client’s problems and increased our margins. Still, due to the inevitable passage of time, fewer problems become the “new normal” and the client perceives a widening “Value Gap”. We’re looking at the world through a very different lens from our client and, if we fail to see things from their perspective, we’re vulnerable.

You may remember he Polar Vortex has the attention of all of us during the winter of 2013. We were seeing record low temperatures, broken pipes, robust natural gas futures and arctic icebreakers frozen in place. The climate is definitely changing, but we’re beginning to wonder in which direction!

If you recall from the immediately preceding podcast, the business big chill occurs when we experience a client contact change near the point where the Revelation X lines have crossed and the “Value Gap” is emerging.