Boxed In? Defining the Purpose for Effectiveness

By G.A. Bivens

Wolfgang Riebe is credited with the quote “Everyone is gifted – but some people never open their package.” Can the same be said of an organization? In what sense might this be possible?

To explore this, let’s look to the world of packaging. The package, or the “box”, has a purpose. Two primary definitions are:

• A container for permanent use as storage, such as a jewelry box
• A receptacle for temporary use in the transport of contents, such as a corrugated box

For Permanent Use?

A demonstrable example of the container for permanent use is a jewelry box. The box houses something valuable to the possessor and may itself possess some value. However, the primary purpose of the box is the storage or transport of something of value. There is a thriving hobby of collecting jewelry boxes. The container, or box, itself becomes the thing of value.

How often is this the case in the business world? The way of work is often referred to as the box. The way should be a means to deliver value. The value generated can be a process, product or service, among other things. Yet in many organizations the box (the way) becomes more coveted than the actual product or service designed to generate value.

When the box is the object of desire, the actual source of value, the product or service, becomes less important. This scenario is played out in the many organizations, which launch new initiatives, which become constrained by the organizational inertia. The aspiration must be scaled back in order to conform to the dimensions of the box.

Imagine a new customer initiative, which creates new ways to connect with the customer, bringing with it the potential to significantly grow the bottom line. In order for the initiative to take root, there will need to be some changes to the CRM as well as the customer support process. The organization is poised to capitalize on this opportunity for growth. This is where the challenges begin. The team responsible for the multi-year, multi-dollar project to deploy the current tailored CRM system begin to chafe at the idea of tinkering with the world class CRM implementation. The new initiative will have to conform to the workflow the organization has in place. “It was constructed with the future in mind so it will handle any requirements of the new program”. But will it? The customer support team will need to incorporate some new processes in order to accommodate the additional services. Again, there is hesitation. “The processes we have in place have served the organization well up until now…this is no different”. But isn’t it different?

The current trends in customer engagement further emphasize the idea of giving the customer a premier experience. There are higher expectations from the customer on the how they see their interactions with a company.The move toward multi-channel engagement and the effortless experience are driving even higher expectations from the customer on the quality of the interaction. Will the old “box” adequately adorn the new offer?

A risk to many organizations is they become so enamored with the box they forget the box is only a delivery mechanism. The business becomes a hostage to its “packaging”. The box becomes an inhibiting storage vessel for the benefits the company should be delivering to the customer. The permanence of process imposed by the defenders of the status quo can jeopardize the future of a business in transition.

A Receptacle for Temporary Use?

The objective of an organization should be to deliver value to their customer with a resulting benefit to itself. The operative word in the forgoing statement is deliver. Focus should be on the delivery of the value, not singularly on the mechanism.

When a long anticipated online purchase arrives at your door, do you revel in the intricacy of the packaging? How the corners are folded? How the flaps are taped? This is not the typical response, is it? The interest is on what is in the package. The time spent on the package is purely for the purpose of getting to that thing of value the box has delivered. And what becomes of the box after the item in the box has been retrieved? Is the placed in a place of prominence like the item that it delivered? Not likely. The receptacle is discarded. This could be by means of incineration or, on some occasion, recycling.

An organization’s processes should be regarded in the same way. They should be regarded as a receptacle for temporary use in the transport of value. The way itself should not be preserved like an antique. The things, which do not work, should be discarded as quickly as possible, incinerated even. There is no value in maintaining something, which is no longer relevant to the business just because it worked at some time in the past.

There are some occurrences where the box can be recycled instead of incinerated. There is occasionally justification to repurpose (or recycle) certain aspects of a process. There may be aspects of the existing process that can be easily adapted to a new situation. However, this should not happen without an objective evaluation of the requirements and the current set of circumstances.

Organizations must resist the tendency to fail to open the package. A substantial amount of value can be generated if there is a deliberate effort to constantly re-think how things are done. It is in this space where evolutionary innovations can be born. The fluidity this practice produces is the birthplace of disruptive innovation.

Miyamoto Musashi said in The Way of Self Reliance, “ Do not carry antiques handed down from generation to generation”. The carrying of and clinging to those antiquities can blind an organization to new approaches and trends that will generate the assets that can fuel its future growth. Recognizing the nature of the box and the influence it exerts over your organization can be the first step in the future that you envision.