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Leadership Card 24 – The Curse of Knowledge

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Ease Of Use & Lean CX Leadership Card 24 – The Curse of Knowledge

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Have you ever been speaking with someone, and when you’ve finished you realize you didn’t understand a word they just said?

It probably wasn’t your fault.  There’s a very common personal bias that affects us all, and it’s called the curse of knowledge.  It happens when a person has learned something or been doing something for a long period of time, and it becomes very hard for them to imagine other people not knowing it as well.

You may have experienced jargon or acronyms where people speak in a seemingly secret language without realizing that other people may not know those same acronyms or jargon.

One recent example I had was a large financial company adding a push button menu to their telephone system, so when a customer called through they would have to push a button depending on which department they wanted to go to.  The only trouble was, they used the internal names of their departments, like “operational support” instead of things that a customer could relate to, like “changing their bank account”.  This resulted in customers pressing any button just to speak with someone, and almost every call going through to the default department!  Needless to say, they were then overwhelmed with calls and very disengaged in their work, before we problem solved and found out what was going on.

The curse of knowledge means you have to have empathy for the person you are speaking with, not just speaking with yourself in mind.  That means giving your message in lay-person’s terms for your customers, or for your team, so everyone is clear and fewer mistakes are made.

And what are the benefits of this?

If everyone is clear on what is required, it’s been shown that engagement within your teams is higher, and productivity and profit are higher as a result.  There are studies on engagement, studies on happiness, and business studies from Stanford and they all point to the same thing.

There are fewer mistakes, so less rework in performing the same task over and over, and all of this has an effect on your profit and bottom line.

I encourage you to have that empathy, think of the other person’s point of view, and explain things without the jargon or industry specific terminology if you can.  You’ll be amazed at the results.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 7 – The Benefits Of Clear Outcomes

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Design Your Work For Ease of Use with Lean CX – Leadership Card 7

Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card - 35pc gap in what was achieved

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Having Something To Aim For Makes A Difference

Have you ever tried crumpling up a piece of paper, taking aim at the nearest waste basket, doing your favorite basketballer impression and shooting a three pointer while an imaginary crown goes wild?

Well, maybe your version wasn’t that elaborate (or maybe it was), but being able to see the waste paper basket – knowing it is there and having something to aim for makes a big difference in whether you get it in or have to take another try.

Can you imagine walking, blindfolded, into a room while holding the same crumpled up piece of paper, and throwing it in any random direction with the hope that it somehow makes it into a waste paper basket?

Well that’s exactly what the majority of businesses, startups, and teams within those businesses are doing today.  They’re going into business without a clear idea of what to aim for.  They’re delving into their work without clear outcomes.

Clear outcomes mean you have a clear objective – a goal, an aim, a target – and have taken the time to outline clear steps to get there.  Are the steps going to be right every time?  Of course not.  Despite what some people will tell you, no one can see the future.  But having something to start with and get you on your way certainly helps.

Now a few business disciplines have been misinterpreted and been taken completely the other way.  Agile, iterative planning, continuous development, the Lean Startup and Minimum Viable Products can (and have) been used as an excuse by lazy managers not to do any planning or set any clear outcomes at all.  Those managers say they will test and learn, and they don’t know what they don’t know.  And those managers are missing the point.  “Iterating” towards something still means you have to have a clear objective to iterate towards in the first place.  And having clear steps to start with is like having a flight plan that you can take off with, and adjust it as you go.

Apart from all that, the research actually backs up the approach of setting clear outcomes in a big way.  Teams and companies who set clear outcomes outperformed those who didn’t by 35% in their results, according to this Stanford University study, and found no less by the man who invented SWOT analysis (an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, well known by your typical MBA graduate).

So set clear outcomes with your team, do it collaboratively, and you will see a big improvement in your results.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

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#5 Lean CX Comic – Make It Simple (Or They Will Leave You)

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News Flash: People Aren’t Buying Your Complicated Products

It’s official.  People prefer doing things that are easy.  You’ve been in that situation, haven’t you?  Something has been too hard, taken too long, been passed along too may times, so you left.

If it’s hard to use, fewer people will use it.  Sure, there might be a small percentage who put in the time and work through it – maybe they really like you or your company, or maybe there is another benefit like status or money involved.  But keep it complicated for too long, and they won’t stick around forever.

What Does “A Complicated Product” mean?

Saying something is complicated is all very well, but what does it actually mean?

In the book “The Lean CX Score“, David McLachlan outlines five scenarios for complicated products, called the Lean CX Wastes.

Lean Customer Experience means exactly that – the customer experience is streamlined and not full of wasteful things or experiences.  Things such as having to redo something over and over, having to perform too many steps to get what a customer wanted, or being handed off between too many people or departments.  If you’ve ever had to do any of those you will know what I mean – the experience can be frustrating and every wasteful step you are forced to perform grates on your patience just a little bit more, until finally you leave.

It Works Everywhere

Recent research into online shopping carts by the Baymard Institute found that the average online shopping cart experience had 14 fields, when they really only needed 7 for an ideal checkout flow.  They also found that 35% of abandoned online orders were recoverable solely through a better checkout flow and design.  The research is there, and it happens everywhere.  Online checkouts are one thing we can simplify, but what about the work your teammates or employees do when delivering a product or service?

All the way through the value chain your business is making things more complicated than they have to be, which increases cost, increases the likelihood a customer will leave and reduces your profit as a result.

After all, in chasing the latest gimmick or management fad it is tempting to forget about the lifeblood of any business – your customers – and the money they bring by buying your product or service.

Reducing complexity in your product prompts more people to buy, and reducing complexity in the value chain that delivers your product lowers the cost of delivering it.

The Lean CX Score Is The Step-By-Step Framework For Making Things Simple

If complex products or services are the enemy of good customer experience, then it makes sense to use the Lean CX Score framework as a step-by-step guide to making things simple.

One of the Lean CX steps is called “One Step Flow”, where a customer can get what they want in one step, instead of many different steps over many different people.

You will absolutely love the Lean CX book, because it gives many different real-life examples of One Step Flow – from signing up to watch Game of Thrones in one step, getting the best Energy deal in one step, a hospital getting cancer scans and diagnoses in one step, posting a job ad in one step, and much, much more.

That is just one part of the Lean CX Score – imagine what you could do with the rest of it too?

If you want to improve your business, team, or job prospects, I highly recommend you read it today.

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