Page 146 - The extraordinary leader

Leaders Must Fit Their Organization • 123

the book, this organization will fit you well. Typically, people in these com-
panies will be given extra time to polish and completely finish assignments.
Getting 80 percent right is not a beneficial approach in these organizations.
If a person craves predictability, this is the ideal company for her.
Disadvantages. The organization is frequently slowed down by bureaucracy
and excessive details and is frequently risk averse. People who like to operate
in a fast and freer model should avoid these companies.

Customer Emphasis

Leaders are totally focused on satisfying customer needs and responding to
their requests. Leaders take pride in knowing customers, working personally
with them, and solving their problems. Customer interests are often placed
before those of the employees or the shareholders. If there is ever a problem
between a customer and an employee, the customer is assumed to be right
and the employee wrong.
One of the authors thought he knew what it meant to be customer-focused,
but then was asked to build an assessment tool for a company that was
obsessed with customers. Some of the items that were created to assess the
intensity of their desire to understand customers included:

1. Continually seeks information about customers’ underlying or future
needs.
2. Can describe the customer’s business from the customer’s viewpoint,
not the company’s point of view.
3. Spends enough time in the marketplace to understand the
underlying, unmet needs of customers.
4. Makes other people get inside the customers’ world.

A major part of leaders’ evaluations were based on the results to these
questions.
Advantages. This company enjoys absolute clarity about what customers
currently want and need. Typically, this organization is successful at generat-
ing a high level of customer loyalty and satisfaction. Many people inside truly
enjoy serving customers. It gives an empowering feeling to the people inside.
In an analysis for an insurance company, it was found that employees who
reported success in being able to resolve customer problems were much less