Long time followers know I spend a lot of time advising telcom companies around the world–equipment manufacturers, service providers, others. When I first started working closely with them in the 90’s. quality of service was one of the most critical issues for each one. What attracted and retained customers was the quality of each voice call–the clarity and accuracy of the voices, time lags, stability of the connection, static, all sorts of thins. For data, there were similar concerns about quality of service.
When I started working with them, I wondered about this obsession, thinking, “Is it really that important?” But as I spoke with their customers, I discovered the same obsession. The least little static on a single conversation, calls not going through or being dropped, would cause them to reconsider their suppliers. There was a standard around quality of service that, in fact kept increasing over the years. And the ability to raise expectations and deliver on those expectations became a source of competitive advantage.
As those companies moved into the wireless era, it remained an obsession. Verizon had it’s, “Can you hear me now,” campaign as a cornerstone of its marketing campaigns for years. Other suppliers had similar campaigns. Quality of Service was a much greater differentiator at that time. As I bought mobiles (My first was 1988–though when I remember how big it was it was hardly a mobile.), I would carefully study coverage maps, I would make test calls.
Fast forward to today.
Sticking, for a moment, to the telcom analogy, “Can you hear/see me now,” has become an issue in virtually every mobile/virtual conversation I have–wherever I might be. I’ve often had to go out on the balcony of a hotel room to have a conversation. I’ve had to search for better wifi networks. In my home, I’ve carefully configured a “communication zone” in my office, where I have moderately dependable service. If I go to a third floor bedroom, it may be questionable. And the outer reaches of my back yard, forget about it.. But we all live with and accept this as “Quality of Service.” We adjust our expectations and usage to our current customer experience.
Our expectations/ambitions have plummeted in virtually every aspect of our lives. And we expect this as normal, while constantly prepared to lower our expectations for the future.
It used to be we wanted our employees to stay with us, providing career growth, reasonable comp, challenging jobs and interesting workspaces. We didn’t necessarily expect to keep them with us for their whole careers, but 5-10 years were reasonable expectations.
As employees, we wanted to work with companies that shared our values/purpose, that valued what we could contribute. We sought great jobs where we could learn and grow, good comp, career paths, and managers that cared for us, helping us perform, grow and develop. Places that offered us great challenges, perhaps for 5-10 years.
As both employers and employees, we hoped both to be challenged enough, to be compensated enough and to be ambitious enough, that any side gig other than coaching our children’s soccer teams or being a member of a weekend riding club, satisfied our ambitions and financial goals.
Customers wanted partners and suppliers who understood their problems and challenges. Who were interested in seeing them succeed, because of the solutions the suppliers helped them implement. Customers would bring the suppliers into their planning processes, saying “This is where we are going, how can you help us get there?”
And we and customers sought to build lifetime relationships through serving them, bringing them new products, new ideas, and helping each other grow and succeed.
As a sales executive, I held myself and my team accountable for improving our win rates. We were always over 50% seeking to get into the 60s and 70s. Those individuals that 30% win rates, got lots of extra support, coaching, and training. And if they couldn’t improve, we would help them find new roles.
We designed our goals to be very ambitious expecting 75-80% of the team reach them, hoping 100% might. Falling below that threshold, meant that something was wrong with our strategies. It was never that we had chosen the wrong goal, rather we hadn’t provided the things we needed to hit those goals.
And every year, those goals grew significantly. And while we viciously focused on this quarter’s, this year’s goals, we also looked out several years into the future, making sure we were doing the things today, that would position us to achieve those goals.
And we knew that we had to build organizations to last and to be profitable, so all of these things had to be accomplished within our planned spending and investment levels.
We knew contention, disagreement, and conflict were natural. But we built mechanisms and cultures that recognized these and cared enough about our shared success to resolve, rather than ignore them.
And through all of this we took ownership and pride in that ownership. Our success was based on how we executed. If we failed, we took the time to understand it, learn, change and improve.
And across our industries, markets, communities, and society. We recognized there were great differences. Differences in experience, values, beliefs. We learned to talk to each other to see if we could resolve those differences. Where we couldn’t resolve them we made space for each other to have those differences.
It’s stunning to see the erosion, perhaps plummeting, of our expectations.
It’s stunning, within our organizations, we expect so much less of each other and what we could achieve, than we have in the past.
It’s stunning to see how little tolerance we have and how we create no “space” for those who have different ideas, values, beliefs, or are just different.
One looks at all the technologies, tools, money/funding, scientific and social studies, that we aren’t significantly better than we have been in the past.
Growing up personally, and professionally, I have always had the aspiration to improve and get better. I sought to surround myself with people and experiences that promised the same.
We can, and must be better. We start within our communities, within our organizations and businesses. We are the only things standing in the way of achieving our potential.
“Can you hear me now?”
Excellent thought-provoking material, as always. One of the overlapping themes I sense here is increasing transactionalization, which also overlaps with a shortened timeframe. This is not new; the US in particular has long been plagued with both. Remember IBGYBG? “I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone, do the deal.” AI has added fuel to these fires, but they predate the mobile phone and even the spreadsheet, other key instruments enabling increased transactionalization. For decades “leaders” have advocated licensing of technology rather than continuing development. Entrepreneurs too often care more about cashing out than establishing viable businesses. People no longer live by Goldman Sachs’ old admonition to be “long-term selfish” by being short-term customer focused; too often it’s just short-term selfish. We forget that the best way to SHORT-term results is long-term behavior, not short-term behavior.
Will it swing back to higher expectations? Or will we continue to settle?
In the organizations I work with I see mostly high expectations on all sides. I’m hopeful there are pockets where people still care, have reasonable to high expectations and those are met.
Alice, thanks so much. What gives us hope are there are pockets of people that still do care. And they tend to be leaders in their sectors. I remain hopeful that others will see their example and seek to emulate it.