Vital Lies

We have all experienced situations that strongly suggest we take a different direction or course of action than we have been. For some, it might be as personal and dramatic as a car accident after driving more than a little beyond the speed limit. For others, it could be seeing a competitor do to us before we could do to them. When confronted with the possibility that some change is needed, we may give a variety of reasons why the alternatives won't really work: If we don't drive faster than the speed limit we'll be late or we'll hold up those behind us; we will soon beat the competitor because of our superior strategy, technology or people (that we just haven't fully deployed yet). We call these things vital lies: All the justification, often unsupported or inappropriate, we give as excuses for continuing current practices.

Vital Lies Limiting assumptions or beliefs. They are used as justification (unfounded or inappropriate) for current practices. Vital lies offer excuses for not changing. They can prevent pursuit of the possible. There are discrete steps you can take to combat and eliminate vital lies, including these: Get them stated aloud. A verbalized assumption is one that can be examined in the light of critical analysis. Empower and encourage everyone hearing a vital lie to name it as such. This is like encouraging the emperor's subjects to proclaim he is wearing no clothes. Provide evidence and illustrations that demonstrate why the vital lie is unsupported by fact. Recognize and reward the truth-tellers. Promote the new finding wherever possible to supplant the old vital lie. Wear a button listed in products. Have a vital lie you've heard and want to share? We'd love to hear from you.

-- Common Vital Lies --

1. "Satisfaction will occur if dissatisfaction declines."
   This is a bit like saying customers will feel good when they stop tripping over our poor practices. We may stop inflicting pain on them but that hardly qualifies as making them feel good.
2. "We are on the leading edge in our industry."
   This belief can inspire arrogance and dampen critical thinking. Producing the biggest and best phone directory does not guarantee us a position in the internet search business.
3. "Growth in customer demand or market share means customers are satisfied."
   Growth in market share may have nothing to do with customer satisfaction. Being the biggest software operating system supplier is not necessarily a sign of customer affection.
4. "We know what business we are in."
   The popularity and growth of Southwest Airlines is often attributed to low prices. It could be argued they have excelled at entertaining customers in unexpected ways. Are they an airline or an entertainment enterprise?
5. "We know who our customers are."
   We often confuse the people who buy with those who use the product or service. Customers are usually a significantly more diverse group than we realize. The ones we are furthest from are the ones we know least well. But those end-users are most important to satisfy in the long term.
6. "The most important customers have priority."
   Users are more numerous than brokers but generally have least power to influence product design. Do tax forms best satisfy ease of use demands of tax payers or business development interests for tax preparation consultants?
7. "Customers don’t know what they want."
   This belief permits us to (a) not bother asking and (b) tell them what they want.
8. "We know what customers want"
   This may have been true yesterday. A safer bet is to assume we don’t know, until we check again.
9. "What customers say they expect is actually what they do want."
   This belief has caused untold frustration. For example, a dental customer may expect pain but not want it. This is simply a particularly dramatic illustration of the difference between expectations and wants. Should our aim be to satisfy their expectations…or their wants? We can easily shoot for the former and discover that our success does not result in their satisfaction. In addition, customers may not give us an answer to every question we ask. This may be due to their inability to understand our question or their perceived irrelevance of the question. And we may not ask every question we should have. In general, customers more readily tell us the improvements they want in a product they are already familiar with. Unless we ask, they may not tell us the outcome they are trying to achieve. Improving the product without improving the outcome inevitably leads to customers telling us they didn’t get what they wanted.
10. "Our performance measures confirm our excellence."
    An organization can meet or exceed all industry standards, have no product returns, see no customer defections nor receive any law suits filed against it. This does not mean customers love it. A water utility can meet all government regulations but still provide water consumers hate to drink. The danger is interpreting customer capture with loyalty. Our measures of success can lead to faulty conclusions. As author Gregg Easterbrook has said, “If you torture numbers long enough, they’ll confess to anything.” An organization that believes it is already is at the top of its game may see no reason to change a thing. See #3, above.
11. "We can’t control that."
    This belief gives us permission not to seek change. The destructive beauty of such a self-fulfilling prophecy is that we can prove it true by inaction. This vital lie is often invoked in regard to an outcome customers may want from an organization: a good night’s rest (hotel), health (healthcare provider), wealth (financial institution), a great career (university). While it is true that meteorologists don’t prevent hurricanes, an accurate and timely forecast can prevent loss of life. Let’s start with the assumption we CAN control the outcome to some degree. The challenge then is to identify the product we need to create or improve.
12. "Redundancy ensures we have checks and balances."
    The assumption here is that checks and balances are appropriate. The research evidence indicates that, surprisingly, the number of reviews can be inversely related to the final accuracy achieved. For example, if you know that eight others are going to review your work, you might think that someone will surely catch any errors you make or miss. This vital lie can actually result in dependency, inefficiency and extended cycle time.
13. "That's a secret."
    This assumption comes in handy to avoid providing decision criteria to those who need it. There is a very thinly veiled communication that the person stating this vital lie has more power than others, and likes it that way. For an example of the bad result this can cause, see the case starting on page 106 of the book, Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation and Speed, available on this site under Products.
14. "It's just a fluke."
    Fluke, in this case, does not refer to fish or fins. It attributes an outcome as accidental, chance or otherwise not part of a recurring pattern.
    
    This is a highly versatile belief. It can mean that some outstanding result achieved by an innovator or leader was successful merely by chance. If that were so, one can easily dismiss the success as something unlikely to occur again. It therefore offers no potential to learn whatever lessons might be there.
    
    The "just a fluke" assumption can also be used to explain away some bad result. Again, if it is merely chance that this undesired outcome occurred, why worry?