Next gap to be found in many businesses:

“Most employees do not know who are or how they satisfy customers”

Most businesses/organisations use different processes, people, suppliers and technologies to satisfy customers. Even a simple product like bread uses many complex processes in four different businesses (farming, milling, baking and retailing) to satisfy customers.

Each of these processes is subject to variations. These variations have to be contained within certain limits. These limits are specified to safeguard the end result, which is to satisfy the customer. Customers mean all customers internal and external. Most processes have multi- dimensional limits. When the variations within the process move outside these limits, the process becomes a risk to the end result

How many employees (or indeed, yourselves) could readily answer the following questions?

• Who are you customers and how do you satisfy them (or enable someone else to satisfy them)?
• How well should you do this (what are the limits and where are the risks)?

Most employees cannot answer these questions.

Here’s the next gap we see in many organisations:

“Excess wealth is not normally shared by the owners/directors and employees. This limits economic growth”

Employees at every level of an organisation are a lot more savvy than we may credit them to be: they know full well that, if they put extra effort into their job and achieve above-expectation results, any excess profit generated will disappear into the pockets of someone else – bosses, shareholders or parent companies. Consequently, they often do not see any point in trying harder than the bare minimum.

If excess wealth is created, would it not be wise to take a portion of the money and distribute it to the people actually generating the results?

Ask us about our experiences with petrol stations to get a real-life example of how employee incentivisation can work to drive performance.