RAB Members Are The Best

Last week, we had a sales tip about the Harvard Business Report article identifying a company’s willingness to adapt and change. In the article, they suggested asking the question:

What’s stupid around here?

We encouraged you to ask the question and share the results. Michelle did just that, and here is her feedback:

I want to share something our local team did. We all met virtually and went into breakout sessions of three or four people in each “room.” We had 15 minutes to outline everything that’s not working or holding us back, “what’s stupid,” what we feel needs attention and what could be better. It was 100% open-ended. No wrong answer. We had a team lead log the responses in writing.

We then all came back as a whole team and each breakout group shared their list and pasted it into the chat. Once everything was on the table, we broke out again and prioritized the list and were tasked with adding why (the change) and the benefit (it would bring).

When we came back, each team shared their top three. Of course, there were both trends and outliers. The management team took their top three takeaway items from this and built a task force to improve the situation.

Since then, we’ve hired focused support staff and changed a few processes. We also got to take some weight off our shoulders and appreciated the “no judgment zone” and getting the chance to vent.

Great exercise.

Congrats to Michelle and her company for having the courage to identify obstacles to great customer service, operational inefficiencies and other things they may have found. It all starts with the seemingly harsh question: What’s stupid around here?

Jeff Schmidt is the SVP of Professional Development. You can reach him at Jeff.Schmidt@RAB.com. You can also connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.