Beginning the Adventure

The Iraq Museum in Baghdad contains a stone that displays a carved ninth-century BC relief of Assyrian King Shalmaneser III shaking hands with Babylonian King Marduk Zakir Shumi. Shalmaneser ruled Assyria (now Iraq and Turkey) for over thirty-five years. Two features of the relief are worth noting. It is the first picture discovered of two people shaking hands. And each man is carrying a shepherd’s staff, believed to be a mark of royal authority on peaceful occasions.

The handshake has been the symbol for partnership for almost three thousand years. Some historians believe it became a trusted gesture of alliances because the open hands revealed no weapons; the up and down motion was intended to shake out any weapons hidden in a sleeve. It is associated with a pledge or promise.

A partnership is the paramount confederation for creating and nurturing innovation. If you examine the cultural components of organizations famous for innovation, you will see that they are filled with partnership virtues—curiosity, purpose, growth, and trust. Most innovative enterprises have successfully exorcised fear from their workplaces. Most have elevated passion and erased protectionism. Most revere organizational forms that support freedom and creativity over control, rigidity, and judgment.

Organizations today ardently pursue innovation because simply continuously improving their offerings is not sufficient to remain competitive. However, most organizations that are thriving today have already been reorganized, Leaned, and Six Sigmaed to the max. Additionally, successful disruptors are strongly influencing their “go to market” strategy. The dilemma facing most enterprises is illustrated by the following story.

The CEO of a small company was meeting with her direct reports at their weekly gathering. “How can we increase our company’s performance by 10 percent?” she asked the group. The energized audience began brainstorming ways to cut costs, boost sales, reduce waste, and tighten expenses. In the middle of their spirited ideation, she stopped them. “Let me ask a different question. How can we increase it by 100 percent?” The room was silent for a minute. Finally, the COO said, “You can’t get there from here. We would have to completely reinvent how we perform.” Such is the reality of today’s business world.

But there is more to the ninth-century relief than a handshake between kings. There is the symbol of a shepherd’s crook, a long staff used to protect and guide sheep. The shepherd has always been a symbol of courage, one who protected sheep against wild animals. Through the ages, the shepherd has symbolized calm and safety. Shepherding a partnership implies the parties take great care of one another; it also suggests taking great care of the relationship itself. The king of Assyria and the king of Babylonia announced an innovative partnership with that handshake.

Enter a new player on the innovation partnership scene: the customer. This “other king” has been historically treated as a bit player. It can sound like “We know our customers and what is best for them” or “You don’t understand how we do business here” or “Customers in the boardroom? Are you joking? What about insider information and airing our dirty laundry?” Some organizations claim a partnership with customers, but when the relationship is put under a microscope, the “other king” is merely a “member of the court.”

While the customer is the focal point of this book, the definition of “customer” is broad. I define it as the person (or people) who is the target of your offering. That means it could be a vendor at the loading dock. It could be an external supplier or expert advisor. And it could be an employee to whom you provide leadership, coaching, and support. We all have people we serve. This book is also about encounters with customers that rely on a relationship, not just an encounter with a chatbot, robot, or programmed message. It provides the practices and perspectives to help a person, a unit, or an organization serve in ways that deepen relationships, encourage their longevity, and maximize their creative potential.

When organizations attempt to create a product or service they hope the customer will buy or they craft a solution they hope the customer will accept, the creating and crafting are typically done with a factory mentality. That means raw materials, expertise, and ideas are assembled in a protected environment far from the ultimate users and then sold to them in the marketplace. Although market data is gathered (so that we can make what customers will want), the customer is never invited into the “factory” to assist. That mentality can fuel a separateness and an air of superiority. Sure, there are test markets, pilots, and prototypes. But the customer is never the “other king.” And the shepherd’s staff is not a tool to protect the relationship.

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer,” wrote Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.¹ Organizations create a customer by convincing a prospect that the enterprise is uniquely qualified to meet her or his needs and expectations through their offerings. Assuming that offering continues to do its job for the customer, that customer is kept through ongoing positive experiences with the organization.

This truism is based on two assumptions—the customer knows his or her needs, and the organization has offerings in sync with them. It is, therefore, an equation grounded in a certain degree of certainty. But what if the customer’s needs are emerging or vague, or even unknown? What if they start out definite but become imprecise? What if their needs do not closely match the organization’s offerings?

Historically, this vagueness on either side of the equation would trigger a few scenarios. The customer would settle for an offering thought to be not wholly satisfactory but would say, “It was the best I could find.” The customer would not settle for an offering that was slightly off and would continue the search. The organization would try to get the customer to buy something it already had to offer that would only partially meet the customer’s needs. Or the organization would suggest the customer continue the search.

But what would happen if the customer were so loyal to the organization he or she was willing to hang in there at the juncture between need and offering until it all became clearer? What would be the outcome if the organization were so loyal to the customer it was willing to help the customer discover the solution, including one it did not offer? What if customer and organization could meet at that need-offering juncture and together figure out an outcome that was entirely new? Envision what the path would be if the best answer lay inside the imagination of the customer.

The book you are reading is about creating a partnership between “kings with staffs.” Its complexion is one that helps the parties involved source and share the very best of their imaginations. A partnership is a marriage of equals with common goals and mutual values but different talents and resources. That marriage works when both are treated as kings and the shepherding role is assumed by all. In the process, the loyalty of each deepens as their collective achievement increases.

Lake Oconee, Georgia
June 2020