Can we escape the Dead-end of Process? – How process obscures Customer Success and reduces the quality of our work lives

I

Very often, in large institutions, we start out with a goal of customer success, and articulate this vision in various ways.

Over a period of time, we find out that it is hard to actually deliver customer success on a scalable and replicable basis.

II

To overcome this situation, we start inventing processes, which can be used to achieve customer success.

Over the years, the processes get more and more defined and rigid to include everyone on a ‘bell curve’.

We try to design a process that will take care of the worst fellow and not just the average person.

III

As a result, over a period of time, processes become more and more well defined and leave little or no scope for creativity.

After sometime, processes start occupying the center stage. People prefer to talk about process success rather than customer success.

IV

Slowly people altogether forget the reason why the process came into existence in the first place.

They only remember the process.

Thereafter, strengthening processes and making them more rigid becomes a sign of efficiency and managerial competence.

V

By now, the process has become so gigantic and powerful that it begins consuming the minds and hearts of managers and superiors. They ASSUME that the purpose of their work is process implementation, rather than customer success.

VI

Any new process introduced also shares the same fate of all previous processes. This is because all have learnt to pay so much importance to processes in general that when a new process comes, all accept it blindly and the new process becomes the next dogma.

VII

The process centric approach leads to two effects

VIII

What is the consequence when:

The quality of our work, the quality of our engagement, the quality of our very existence starts diminishing.

Customers become unhappy, they lose their respect for us, and we lose our respect for ourselves.

The organization becomes more dead than alive.

Our brand suffers.

And of course, we are left with more process and less money.

IX

But,the end can be different.

There are many great organizations who were born with a great purpose and who grew because they lived for customer success.

Some of these great organizations begin rediscovering their genius by reawakening to their own inner ideals.

Organizations can stop themselves from being swarmed by processes, by making “contribution to customer-purpose” as the touch-stone for all decision-making across functions.