Be Ready for Monday

“Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”

- Peter Drucker

What is the “company culture” of your institution? A positive culture starts from the top, when leaders both represent and promote the core values of the school. To create a more positive, and prevalent culture, every employee should know what the institutional values are and see them represented in the day-to-day activities of the college. Those ideals should be evident in everything an institution does and obvious to both employees and students.

Ideas are Environmental

Culture Comes First

Service with a Smile

Putting Customers First

Delivering Customer Service

A Culture of Unity

Retaining Top Talent

Momentum Matters

Inform Yourself

Get Up and Move

Supporting Your Projects

Optics

When Value Loses Interpretation

A while back, there was news that Elon Musk responded to an idea from a 5th grader that he received via Twitter. In a re-paste of a letter that she wrote to the founder of Tesla, the girl's father shared his daughter's message with the entrepreneur. Musk then responded, noting that his company would take action and make the idea happen.

Ideas are not individual, but they are environmental. Just as we move with a wave in the ocean, we are rocked back and forth by influences that are stronger than our individual mode of function. That which you believe is 100% original is created through thousands of interactions with hundreds of people dozens of times. 

The day we start believing we are the sole provider of creativity is the day we have allowed our egos to surpass prudence. From that day forward we will dismiss the creations of those around us as being nothing but a product of our own, when in reality the reverse is true.

You don’t have to follow this advice to succeed as a leader. Many who have long abandoned caring for the source of creative advancements have indeed succeeded. The pitfall in believing in egocentric self-reliance is the inevitable disintegration of the team that truly delivered collective creativity, as no team can be stable without an understanding of this simple concept:

We are nothing but a part of the creative process and we must not only play our part, but understand the importance of the parts others play.

As mentioned previously, leaders who ignore this fact may indeed succeed, but only temporarily. After the team disintegration takes hold, such leaders tend to find themselves unable to move the business left or right, and often get frustrated with the process. 

As a leader, if you have built a winning team, keep the following simple script in mind:

Being a leader means that you are perfectly poised to do that which others can’t do, and that is to dream. Just as any famous band has a front man without whom they would be playing in a garage, every business has the need for you because you have the capability of moving people and dreaming with balance and purpose. 

The creation process will be accomplished by those on the team that create. As a leader, open space and enjoy the process, while maintaining a full understanding of the collective experience. The creators can push the foundation and practice forward.

After every element of your dream has been realized through the creative process, recognize those who have created alongside you. Please realize that you are not doing this for your team, but it is an exercise to keep you grounded on what is actually happening.

Once you have started winning, your team will be empowered to think beyond the “now,” and you should give it a good listen. They will give you fuel so that you may dream further. 

Like any good framework, repeat the process and start over.

On college campuses, ideas come from everywhere. In our years in higher education, we've seen it firsthand. Conversations with cafeteria workers about long lines during peak meal times resulted in how classes were scheduled to help alleviate stress in the facilities. Landscape crews that noted wear and tear on certain pathways across campus resulted in paving new sidewalks between academic buildings. Observations of student traffic patterns by library staff influenced how common areas and seating were rearranged in order to afford students greater access to the resources needed for their research and foster collaboration.

Ideas can come from anywhere. Institutions just need to be mindful of the collective wisdom and intelligence that makes their institutions great, and welcome ideas as an extension of the campus culture. Place suggestion boxes throughout the campus, and launch an online presence to elicit feedback. When a recommendation is brought forward that presents a solution to a known issue, reward that idea by putting it into action and promote it. 

Ideas are environmental. Create an environment and culture that helps ideas become reality.

Culture Comes First

Employee behavior follows culture, and business outcomes follows employee behavior.

How do you get your institution to consistently deliver on that which is most important to you? To answer that question, let's consider the following scenario. Over the past few years, Hollywood has undergone some of the biggest shake ups of its history as related to the harassment of men and women who work, or who aspire to work, in the movie industry. Dozens of celebrities are joining voices in saying, “We all know the most powerful people in this town use their position to take advantage of those who need to impress them in order to land a role.” 

Imagine if you walked into Hollywood today and opened a production company called Safe Harbor Pictures. Its mission and tagline might be "Great movies, made by brilliant people, who respect each other’s need for a safe workplace. By safe, we mean inclusive, harassment and discrimination free, and vigilant. It is our collective responsibility to make sure what we believe is delivered every day, in every detail of what we do." 

What would be your expectation if you came in contact with Safe Harbor Pictures?

Every institution starts its journey to greatness by creating some ground rules of engagement such as the ones listed for Safe Harbor Pictures. These promises are embedded into the forefront of any business, and they become a basic expectation of everyone who works in or with that business. The mission institutionalizes behaviors that would otherwise be hard to achieve. An employee at Paramount may think, “Who am I to raise a flag of concern about my colleague being harassed?” and may be fearful of losing his or her job by disrupting the culture. That same employee at Safe Harbor Pictures would instantly know that raising a flag is expected and that the culture requires them to expose this situation. 

Culture comes first. Employee behavior follows culture, and business outcomes follows employee behavior.

Is your institution seeking better retention? Make it a cultural expectation in your institution. Does your institution want to attract the best faculty, or furnish great facilities, or compete to be the best sports team in the division? Start by making those goals a cultural expectation. That culture will become a staple of the brand that is promoted, and it will end up being repeated over and over again in your materials, headers, and everything else your institution does and those whose lives it ultimately enriches.

New Hanover Regional Medical Center has a reputation for being a great hospital, but it would be a mistake to think that its success was left to chance. Ironically, its reputation in part has nothing to do with the quality of doctors who may perform miracles within its facilities daily. Most hospitals around the country have excellent doctors, but not all enjoy the same status. Proficient medical professionals and a high success rate are essential requirements for a hospital, yet these are not the sole reason for accolade. What makes a hospital like NHRMC special is its culture.

Last week, my young daughter was admitted for outpatient surgery. From the ambassador that greeted our family in the lobby, to the staff who constantly impressed hope in others, to the army of volunteers proud to be a part of the team, and to the nurses who care rather than just provide care: everyone that serves the hospital system is focused on the details.

Now, many in the region have always complimented the hospital and noted it to be an operation that has the details under control. And having details under control means the necessary bandwidth exists to allow staff to focus on priorities, which include the challenging task of gathering and retaining a team of first-class physicians and specialists. Winners, which include the physicians that cared for my daughter, have their pick of where they want to work. Time and time again, these individuals always choose to be part of a winning culture.

After spending the day in a first-class health care facility, I could not help but think about industries that could learn a lesson from those in which culture is at the core of its mission. Many companies miss the point of delivering their services while still considering the happiness that comes along with the satisfaction of doing good business. It didn’t take long to focus on an obvious choice for an industry in need of a cultural overhaul: the air transportation business. The list of complaints that the average traveler can name rivals in length that of a standard CVS receipt. (We’ll shelf that for a different article.)

One could argue that winning cultures are the center of everything. A lot of colleges and universities around the world have recently discovered this secret, and it’s one that many institutions have started trotting out as its admissions center piece.

The reality is, the era of those who believe their service is worth more than the opinion of those who use it is over. The only thing sustaining the existence of these businesses is the lack of a disrupter. What these industries are overlooking, however, is that disruptors seem to come from nowhere.

Consider the sharing economy. Airbnb listings are now challenged by homeowner associations and residential historic districts in cities across America. Despite how much politics is leveraged behind keeping Uber out of communities, there is no suppressing the displeasure that people express with riding in a taxi cab. (One could argue that the only difference between being in the back of a taxi cab in NYC and being arrested is that they let you out after the taxi ride!) Locked in a very confined space, paying someone for a ride while seated behind a bullet proof glass: The licensed controlled cab monopoly allows service license holders to create ever increasing rules and provide ever decreasing quality to riders because the drivers have the ear of the administrators, and the riders don’t. This is the opposite of the culture that the local hospital system embraces.

Are we creating rules in colleges that follow the same pattern? Are we a licensed monopoly subjecting our students to decisions that are better for the business than for them? We’ve seen institutions do exactly that, and we’ve had the pleasure of serving as administrators at one institution that thrived on a customer-centric culture. It is healthy to ask the question poised herein. Changing course is as simple as deciding to work differently.

We should all be inspired to work by the words posted by Sam, the Starbucks barista at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. In her store, where she served me as if I were at the most prestigious Starbucks location in the world, a placard read:

We should continue to work to build each other up, not simply try to keep everyone in line.

There is an adage often attributed to Disney: "We take care of our employees, our employees take care of our customers, and our customers take care of our profits." It's catchy, but more importantly, it has serious merit. For any organization that strives to be relevant today, the importance of placing value on individuals that champion the brand should be at the center of all communications internally. To everyone outside of the organization, each member of your team IS the company and the brand.

At Disney, the culture that is instilled from the beginning in each member of the organization promotes its value and messaging. There is a magic that exists when each employee is focused on making its customers feel the same enjoyment that they feel when representing that brand.

For anyone that has visited one of Disney's theme parks, it’s pretty clear that customer service is at the forefront of every interaction. Disney has made customer service a priority for the entire company and empowered its employees to act in good faith on behalf of the rest of the business. This is not by accident, but rather by requiring each employee to take part in an internal leadership program that reinforces the culture that has been established over time. This reinforces the psychological contract and encourages each person to champion the values of the organization as their own.

As institutions whose mission is to educate and empower future generations, why shouldn't we begin with empowering our employees? There are too many tales of students receiving the runaround on campus when trying to obtain an answer or help to a specific issue. Whether it's a student trying to obtain a new student ID, purchase a meal plan, obtain a transcript, register for a class, or get help with their laptop, these pain points are real and negatively impact the student experience.

Higher education should strive to do whatever it takes to be "easy to do business with." We need to be better at understanding and responding to students' expectations and encourage problem solving on the front lines. Institutions should celebrate great service by promoting the stories of exceptional delivery throughout the organization. 

From a student and parent perspective, each member of the institution IS the institution. As leaders in higher education, we have an opportunity to create meaningful cultures that encourage our teams to own the students' experience. If we fail to meet those expectations, however, someone else at another institution will.

What are the pillars of superb customer service? Although it doesn't necessarily matter what industry you're in, it does matter how the focus on the customer is shared as a key strategy across an organization. The more customer-centric you are, the longer it takes your competition to figure out your game. 

My state credit union sends me a newsletter each month along with my account statements. The publication contains helpful, timely tidbits about banking, personal finance and savings strategies, along with the current list of rates.

This morning, I realized that on the rear of the bottom side of the mailing was a section requesting feedback on customer experience. Feedback was divided between the following four categories:

• Promptness

• Courtesy

• Knowledge

• Level of Service

I have been a member of the State Employees' Credit Union since taking my first job out of college. In what now seems like eons ago, one of my first professional experiences was teaching seventh grade resource in a middle school. Believe it or not, I remember receiving my first paycheck and realizing that as a state employee, I was eligible to join the credit union. I drove straight to the local branch and opened an account, and I've been a proud member ever since. That was 16 years ago. Since then, I have held checking and money market accounts, vehicle loans, a mortgage and savings accounts for each of my children. 

Although I had never realized it before, it is now obvious that a quality customer service focus is employed by every employee in each of the branches that I've ever visited. Yet, until recently, I failed to connect the countless positive experiences that I have had with the simple focus on feedback that the newsletter included: "How might SECU serve you better?"

Recently, FundFive listed ways to create basic spreadsheets to help lay out your institution's income structure in a way to help organize thoughts related to increasing revenue over expenses. We continue the conversation on the same topic, but by looking at it from a different perspective: How to increase the topline. 

Increasing the topline means increasing your student headcount without increasing your discount rate. Furthermore, if you really want the truth, it also includes not diminishing your institution’s competitiveness, which usually translates into Freshman average SAT/ACT scores. Administration knows that not only is this very difficult to do, but ultimately that it is the aim of almost every admissions office around the country: find the magical recipe for increasing the topline. 

Speaking from experience, we've been part of building such a recipe, and it is called “unity."

The admissions office is not responsible for losing the enrollment of a student who can’t understand a list of requirements. Likewise, the admissions office is not responsible for losing a student on the first day of class because the residence hall is dirty, or if the student can’t make a payment, or if the student simply got cold feet. All of those things happen because institutions of higher education have a hard time working as a unit. For example, if the counseling office succeeds in diminishing student wait time for services, it will consider that accomplishment to be significant. Our question is, "What is the impact on the functions of the registrar’s office? Huge? Or none?" The answers to that question, most of the time, is that the registrar’s office is not connected to that issue. However, if a student has a great experience in the counseling office and a poor experience at the registrar’s office, s/he will judge your institution by its lowest quality of service. After all, that is what we naturally do as consumers if and when we have an unpleasant experience at a local business or restaurant. 

The answer to this issue is not to find out how to resolve the transactional issues between all offices, but to have a general conversation about how to improve institutional services, in tandem, as part of a mass initiative across campus. Most institutions offer superior instruction in the classroom, and students are being educated by some of the brightest minds in our society. However, the differentiation between institutions will not necessarily always come from the caliber of their faculty or the quality of the education that students receive, but rather from how your students feel about how your institution treats them every day. Their experiences translate into retention, and ultimately, an increase in headcount. 

At High Point University we were part of a team of men and women who decided to create a culture of unity and to improve university services as a whole. The result was explosive growth with diminishing discount rates and increasing average SAT/ACT scores. We've worked in an environment in which we could deliver a student from our operation to another with absolute confidence they would get first class service, and we knew other services expected the same from our team.

If you are looking for a strategy that really pays off, make it a priority to focus on cultural change and institutional unity.

A few years ago, I started reading articles that discussed how companies were hunkering down during the recession and shedding unnecessary expenses in order to make it through without necessarily introducing layoffs. The author went on to note that these businesses were focused on hoarding cash and attempting to build liquid assets (rather than invest too much in infrastructure, etc.), and in doing so would be in a better position to grow quickly once signs of a recovery started to appear.

When I look at colleagues and friends in the past year, a number have been presented with new opportunities, almost all of which stemmed from their ability to deliver consistent value to their present organizations. 

In part, I am certain why each was offered a new opportunity and given the chance to forge a new career path as a result of years of hard work.

For those that were recruited away to join other businesses, it’s worthy to note that each approached their job as a team player, and none took a “me first” attitude. These new opportunities came from companies that are now capitalizing on attracting top talent as a result of their recent strategies to cling to cash and wait for the market to return. According to conversations that I have had with friends and colleagues, even individuals that weren't happy in their position tended to wait out the state of the job market before attempting to look elsewhere for employment.

Competition for talent has been increasing, and in certain sectors of industry, it’s almost become a job hunter’s market (especially among those that possess sought-after skills and the longevity on their resumes to demonstrate commitment). On the flip side, those employees that approached their positions only as an opportunity to gain promotion via job hopping are actually at a disadvantage when standing up against comparable candidates. (One of the main things that I would note when screening resumes was longevity in employment. I also took note whether or not the candidate was presently employed or not.)

Introducing the Social Job Hunt

Back in the days following the burst of the Dot-Com bubble, the place online to look for jobs was Monster.com. (Industry-specific sites also crept up, like computerjobs.com and dice.com.) Now, with the rise of social media platforms and massive adoption, the job hunt has evolved. In fact, LinkedIn has become the standard, natural way to build online professional references and highlight credentials through existing (mostly business) relationships. Just like Amazon and eBay introduced the world to peer-reviewed products and consumer experiences, LinkedIn enables both employers and employees the advantages of ratifying one’s work ethic and acumen to getting the job done.

This trend will not subside, and in fact is predicted to grow significantly over time. Use it to your advantage.

Marketing One’s Personal Brand

As more information becomes publicly available (the majority of which is now self-published on social media sites), it is imperative that employees and job hunters maintain an online presence that is representative of their professional appearance and goals. To that extent, here are a few pieces of advice that I can offer:

• Cultivate the persona that highlights the attributes demonstrating the job that you seek not the lifestyle you live. (This is an extension of the saying that, “You dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”)

• Maintain your online presence and do represent yourself, but stray from expressing polarizing viewpoints or discussing topics that employers might find unbecoming or questionable.

• Avoid any photography that you wouldn't want displayed for the general public to see.

• Don’t post anything online that you wouldn't write on the back of a postcard.

• Deactivate old accounts. If you’re not using a social network or website anymore (think MySpace), delete the account.

This final point is important. Be sure to maintain the information that you've posted online. It’s common for potential employers to Google you to see what is returned, and one of the last things you want to appear is your profile from a website that you no longer frequent. I had an applicant last year that was very professional on paper and in person, and her resume touted her knowledge and savvy with current technology; however, a quick search on the web (using her email and her name) brought back a slew of results, including a MySpace page that had not been updated in over three years.

Before you apply for that next position, take into account how your personal brand might represent you. Be sure to Google yourself, and take note of what is returned.

Your control of your own productivity is only partially determined by your current determination to “get something done”. To a large extent, your capability to deliver with speed and quality depends on your momentum. If you have built momentum in the direction of being 'unproductive,' your week will drag on, and you will accomplish nothing. Conversely, if you have built momentum in the direction of action and a disciplined delivery, nothing will stop you. Don’t ever attribute that flow to chance. If you want to excel, then you must have the discipline to start building momentum towards productivity now.

Wouldn’t it be great to have enough foresight to identify, anticipate, plan, and prevent the next emergency from landing in your lap? Whether it’s the simple act of communicating change before it happens and ensuring everyone is aware of what’s coming next (i.e. training on a new software implementation, outage alerts, or upcoming events on campus) or reacting to a large unforeseeable event that has the potential to bring an institution to its knees, leadership is constantly challenged to make critical decisions about who to inform and when. 

Last week while grocery shopping at the local Harris Teeter, there was a cashier ringing up a customer at the front of the line. The cashier looked surprised when she finished ringing up the order, and commented on the ‘buy one, get one’ bacon deal. The cashier even commented on how the price of bacon had soared in recent months. 

Had the cashier not been told what the specials were for the week? There is a stack of flyers that sits at the front of the store in the weekly circular stand. The store also sends an email out each week to its mailing list highlighting noteworthy deals. So how is it that an employee on the front line is unaware of the pricing of its products clearly marked on sale? In this instance, the cashier didn’t take the time to educate herself on the specials. Yet as a consumer, she was very pleased to learn of the discount. 

The bigger concern is that the business didn’t ensure that all employees were on the same page, and so the customer educated her. To prevent this from happening more often, the business should take the opportunity to inform its entire team, perhaps by adding all employees to the same newsletter that is sent out to all customers on Wednesday with the week’s circular, or posting a stand of weekly circulars within the break room.

Internal communication breakdowns are not uncommon. We’ve worked with customers in the past that have told us things that others in our own organizations failed to communicate. Sometimes the information is minor in nature, but other times, the nature of the information can have major ripple effects elsewhere on a dependent project.

As an example, a client recently mentioned on a project call that they were working on an integration that needed to be delivered before the project (a system migration), could complete. The project team running the system migration had not been informed of the dependency, nor was any documentation shared about the requirements. Instead, the customer informed the business that there was an additional work stream running independent of the migration with the same vendor. 

Communication styles can differ depending on who sits in the corner office, but the planning around how and what to communicate should be an institution-wide decision. Before your staff comes to you with the next emergency, take the time to educate those around you with the important messages that should be over communicated to the customers.

Don’t let the customer educate the company. Be informed, and carry that message outward.

With the advent of wearable technology, a number of organizations have introduced fitness challenges, leveraging the personal activity trackers worn by employees. For a period of a few weeks, a challenge is issued to the members of the organization, and participants that register link their device to a company portal that is dedicated to tracking performance. Statistics are aggregated and rankings within the organization are then calculated in near-real time. The intent is to encourage competition among employees in a goal to be the most active. This naturally has the added benefit of promoting an awareness of making healthier choices during the workday.  

Now imagine if the challenge lasted more than just a few weeks.  What impact might that have on the culture and the overall business environment?

Why shouldn't organizations encourage more movement within the organization during the work week? For those that do move about, the opportunities for greater collaboration are just a few steps away. A number of Silicon Valley companies have created campuses with spaces designed intentionally as collision points between different divisions, fostering interactions and connections between staff that might not naturally work together. Pixar's campus features an atrium that specifically encourages unplanned collaborations between employees from across the organization.

As leaders, we should encourage a culture of movement and connections, reward autonomy, and allow our teams the flexibility in their schedules that match the way that best suits their peak times of productivity. In return, and if mentored, they will reward the business with laser focus and help create a balance in their availability and attention to customers and a commitment to important projects and tasks.

As campus administrators, we had a practice in our office of assigning one member of the team a list of places on campus to visit and the technologies to check. The assignment rotated weekly. Given the size of our department, each individual might receive the task three or four times a year at most. The punch list included checking printers and computer labs, televisions in high-profile locations, registers in the dining halls, wireless connections in academic spaces, and any space that featured technology generally found along a typical campus tour route. Basically, anything that was managed by IT was placed on the list. It was our approach to management by walking around.

The stereotype that most technologists in Information Technology have is one of an introverted hermit, crouched behind a desk in a low lit back office watching reruns of Battlestar Galactica. We broke that stereotype, and in return, we took a proactive approach to integrating our services across the institution. What our team learned in the process was that the more they moved about, the more integrated they became with the culture on campus. Staff members that had received assistance in the past would stop to say, "Thank you." Often, our team would return with ideas from conversations that they'd had with peers around campus, as well as requests for additional services. By being out on the front lines and listening to our users, our team was able to offer better customer service than had ever been delivered in the past.  

Higher education institutions have a chance to do what others in business have already figured out. Management by walking about is just one way to influence a change in culture. Other opportunities may arise when considering the redesign of a space on campus or a new construction project. Imagine bringing forward a design that abandons discipline-centricity and encourages collisions between the faculty in, say, the marketing department, with students taking digital design courses. Shouldn't mathematicians be afforded an opportunity to interact with academics from the physics department?

These unscripted interactions could ultimately bring about important changes to academic fields and the paths that faculty and students may choose to follow in the future. But first, we must take the opportunity to be intentional with how the organization perceives movement.

As we see campus projects underway everywhere, we are inspired by the energy that each brings to the community and their institution. We are of the opinion that there should always be a shovel on the ground, not only to fill the need for a renewed structure, but also to clearly communicate a vision of progress and energy. Some may think we subscribe to the "tail wagging the dog," in the sense that a "need" should drive projects, rather than projects driving institutional culture and success. From our experience, both actually go hand and hand.

We also understand that some colleges are not able to initiate projects because of headcount declines, which then causes budget declines, making projects harder to get started and/or completed. Indeed, this is prudent thinking, and although we do not know the extent of your current position, the spiral that results when students don't come and our grounds get old, or academic projects are shut down or abandoned, has to stop somewhere.

The best way to avoid stagnation is to simply move forward. Can't get funding? Get a grant. Start today. As a matter of fact, here is the first place grant writers look: www.grants.gov. Take a look and see what is available. Examine state resources, such as the ones provided through the North Carolina Rural Communities. 

Can't get a grant? Get donations. Can't get donations? Get the students and parents of the students involved. Can't get constituents involved? Rally the community. 

If you push forward tirelessly, you WILL move forward and create an upwards spiral of success.

Optics are important.  Even decisions made with hearts and intentions decidedly in the right place can convey the wrong message. It’s important for leaders to follow their own rules if they expect others to abide by them. Nothing creates a stir like perceived favoritism or unequal treatment. 

We’ve all been there.  A known policy is on the books, but for some, it’s not enforced.  Navigating that type of situation is sticky at best, but left uncorrected, it can create issues of mistrust within an organization.

Leaders in higher education are tasked with writing procedures and policies that help the institutions they serve function efficiently.  After painstaking revision and review, policies are presented for board approval and then, ideally, put into practice and followed by everyone. This process can work well, but leaders who make a habit of bending the rules they worked so hard to establish can create optics problems, internally and outwardly. 

In order for any organization to move forward, it’s important to have a standard set of operating procedures that employees at all levels should adhere to and respect. When rules are skirted to accommodate some, but strictly enforced for others, what may seem like a simple favor could damage an entire department.  Leaders should especially be aware of how their actions might create an unwanted ripple effect.

If colleges want to be respected and admired for transparent and efficient operation, then their leaders should be expected to follow the established rules.  Avoid damaging optics by sticking to the established policies and expecting others to do the same.

Value does not exist by itself; value exists in the connections made between things. As a growing software and services company, this simple notion is one that drives us to build elegant solutions and deliver value in the nooks and crannies of the traditional business processes that are prominent and commonplace in Higher Education.

Many institutions are ripe for innovation, and administrators often speak to us about how a process might be improved or made more efficient. With the proper attention and focus to improving a process, campus leaders have the power to make positive change.

Something occurred to us a few weeks ago regarding the very notion of value interpretation. It’s one thing to deliver a solution that fits a business need and helps eliminate a customer pain point or friction within a process. But it's another to deliver a solution that works so well, people simply forget not only about all that went into designing, building, testing, and deploying it, but that the problem ever existed before. Despite needing a more efficient process or a better tool, once the solution is in place, it’s only natural for humans to adapt to the new way of functioning and overlook past struggles.

We believe value requires interpretation. Sometimes the value doesn't come in the form of a delivered solution, but rather later, when one creates a report or illustrates with data the impact that a solution has had on an operation (and perhaps on its bottom line).

When was the last time you stopped to consider how much effort went into relying solely on a landline telephone (or pay phone) to get in touch with a family member or a loved one? Do you remember how difficult it used to be to locate a specific program to watch on television, or worse, having to wait an entire week or more until the time came for the program to air?

Over time, when value loses its interpretation, people forget how things used to be prior to the arrival of a better product or service. Cell phones eliminated most people’s needs to maintain a landline in the home. The advent of the DVR technology (and subsequently streaming content) disrupted the VHS market. Consider that a lot of children today don't even know what a commercial is...

It’s only when we make the time to draw comparisons to previous experiences or illustrate the pain points of a process since being replaced does one realize how better a technology has become. Without translating a solution's value in contrast with what existed before, we miss the opportunity to showcase positive change and bring those more reluctant to change or skeptical along.