We often need to look at familiar things in new ways in order to create a paradigm shift in our thinking. In the photo above, the two people fishing are in water up to their knees. The photo was taken from a sailboat that draws six feet (two meters). The shift is knowing that there is a channel dredged out of the shallows that made it safe for our sailboat to pass.
In order to move a business to new levels a shift in focus is often required. Some real life examples of businesses that shifted the way they think about their business.
Zappos: Zappos is a leading online retailer of shoes who are passionate about their customer experience. In order to attract passionate people who truly care about customers, Zappos offers $1,000 for every new hire to leave after their first week’s training. To see how this works, see Kevin Lawrence’s blog posting Make Sure New People Fit and Bribe the Rest to Quit.
Provident Security: At Provident Security, founder Mike Jagger knew that the security industry had a dirty little secret. Nothing really happened when an alarm went off a customer site. Mike was determined to shift to the brand promise “We will be at the customer’s door within five minutes of an alarm going off — guaranteed.” You can learn more about Provident achieved this in How to Turn an Industry on Its Head Become Masters of Delivering On Big Promises.
Victorian Epicure: High quality spice blends and gourmet food products supplier Victorian Epicure had a big challenge. They were not shipping orders at time during the Christmas rush. They created the theme “In and Out in 72” (all orders into and out of the company within 72 hours). This was a complete shift for the company which pushed them to deliver to their customers the right products on time. How they achieved this is documented in How to Engage Your Entire Organization in Driving Business Results.
Creating sustainable business advantage requires business leaders to find a new way of looking at their business to create a paradigm shift. What will shift your view?
Zappos might be passionate about their customers but that is US customers NOT Canadian customers they stopped shipping here in April 2011.
Interesting obersvation Michael. Perhaps they chose to only ship to the US, because that is where they can deliver the customer experience they want to. At the least it is an interesting strategic question why they dropped the Canadian market.