How to Stay in Business & Grow with Today’s Economy
A few years ago, British Rail had a real fall-off in business. Looking for marketing answers, they went searching for a new ad agency – one that could deliver an ad campaign that would bring their customers back.When the British Rail executives went to the offices of a prominent London ad agency to discuss their needs, they were met by a very rude receptionist, who insisted that they wait.
Finally, an unkempt person led them to a conference room – a dirty, scruffy room cluttered with plates of stale food. The executives were again, left to wait. A few agency people drifted in and out of the room, basically ignoring the executives who grew impatient by the minute. When the execs tried to ask what was going on, the agency people brushed them off and went about their work.
Eventually, the execs had enough. As they angrily started to get up, completely disgusted with the way they’d been treated, one of the agency people finally showed up.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “your treatment here at our Agency is not typical of how we treat our clients – in fact, we’ve gone out of our way to stage this meeting for you. We’ve behaved this way to point out to you what it’s like to be a customer of British Rail. Your real problem at British Rail isn’t your advertising, it’s your people. We suggest you let us address your employee attitude problem before we attempt to change your advertising.”
The British Rail executives were shocked – but the agency got the account! The agency had the remarkable conviction to point out the problem because it knew exactly what needed to change.
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We have over 50 uniquely qualified facilitators. They are experts in employee attitude problems, corporate modeling, training, behavior, team building, and leadership development. We havebehavioral assessments, partnerships with resorts for your retreats, a custom analysis tool, “PAINS”™, that allows us to identify the source of your problems, and expert program designers to help solve them.
Now is the time to partner with OWLS. We will provide you with a solutions summary proposal. This complementary proposal will clearly outline the benefits of working with our team. Let us show you how we can help your company!
February 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
It’s all about culture isn’t it? How much do employees really care about how they come across to customers? A company’s culture is going to determine how that company recruits and selects; trains and motivates; and ultimately how responsive it is to customers’ needs and wants, driving innovation and performance. It starts with the people at the top. They need to be the change they want to see in their companies; but they don’t know what they don’t know.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:32 am
It is very hard time for every business, small business are fighting for servival and some big businesses are loosing their worth, Companies are firing their staff while it is not the solution, they contributed buisinesses to build but now in the phase of ressesion they are getting bad treatment, all companies need to respect their emplyees.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Change can be hard for all involved. And I will make a bold and unpopular statement, CHANGE STARTS AT THE TOP!
I facilitate and lead culture change at a Fortune 500 company. One requirement of my change program is that everyone be involved in the change, beginning with Leadership.
Leaders have got to learn to walk their talk. Most are good at the “do as I say, not as I do” theory. That will not cut it in our quest to remake our organization. Just because you are in a position to lead others does not indicate you are exempt from the change you need. You see what partners (the doers) need is a Leader that can be trusted.
We are building trust by asking our Leaders to form teams and go through the same steps that shop floor team mates are taking. When we did a report out to Senior V.P.’s about teaming and shared that our Director and here reports were the first team of change formed they were shocked. I think they thought we were kidding. So much so that they had to stop what was going on (later) and clarify. It was an eye opener.
Our teams are rocking from the Director to the Janitor. Everyone is embarking on the same journey of change. All team mates understand the importance of our quest. We have shaped and changed the culture around our organization and others outside our organization are beginning to come and model what we have been so successful at accomplishing.
July 30th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
I totally agree with Franz. The attitude of the people towards clients and customers also depends on how the company trained and motivated them.
If the employees has a very good working relationship with their managers then basically it will reflect on how they interact also with the customers.
Cheers!
October 6th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Team building activities are important to enhance employee working skills as well as their relationship skills. It’s also a good break from all the stress in work. We had a great experience.