I jokingly said during the general election earlier this year that I wasn’t so much in search of excellence (a la Tom Peters) from the parties but in search of competence. An old joke that I stole from a voluntary sector leader giving a speech: but like all the best jokes, it has a big grain of truth in it. I was reminded of this, listening to the HBR podcast the other day. The HBR podcast is a mixed bag: quite often it features management consultants who have invented some new thing about big companies in order to sell themselves to the same big companies, who largely trundle on as they did before (recent examples of this genre include “how to survive being labelled a star” (we’ve all been there) and “reduce organisational drag”, both of which are consistently moments away from disappearing up their own fundament). The title of the last episode caught my eye though: “Basic Competence Can Be A Strategy” (link is to the transcript of the podcast).
It’s an interesting listen/read – largely about management, and how people think they are all above-average, and how many are simply missing the fundamentals. Setting an agenda for meetings, taking actions and following up on them, washing your hands before surgery, taking the time to ensure people understand or know what the plan is…and so on. It reminded me of another book on a similar topic, the Checklist Manifesto (by the wonderful American healthcare writer Atul Gawande) which, as the name would suggest, largely promotes the checklist as a way to ensure things get done: in the right order, and that nothing gets missed. This can apply everywhere – when people call Social Enterprise UK, a list can ensure we don’t miss anything key (do you want to join? Do you want to be signed up to the newsletter? Here are the organisations that can help with x and so forth).
I was also reminded of it by the nonsense that is the NFL GamePass in Europe right now. For the uninitiated, NFL is the organisation that runs American Football in the US; I’m a fan, so I enjoy watching the games. You can do this illegally via streaming, but I have paid for the GamePass app which is (or has been) a great way of watching and moving between games every Sunday. It’s not a cheap product, but it works really well, and so I’ve been happy to pay for it. I’m also such a fan that, along with some other social enterprise types, I’ve been going to the American Football games in London for about a decade.
In their wisdom, ahead of this season, the powers that be at NFL / NFL UK have decided to licence GamePass to a new European developer / promoter (a new joint venture created by Bruin Sports Capital and WPP). Unfortunately, in their wish to, I assume, squeeze more dollars out of the game, they have managed to create a product that a) has fewer features // b) costs the same // c) doesn’t work for many on the platforms they previously used // d) can’t be paid for in instalments. Additionally, just for fun, they’ve thrown in some major errors on payments (some people want to pay and can’t; some have been charged and aren’t being refunded). And for the cherry on top, there has been no communication from the people who made the decisions.
Setting aside personal irritation, (I’m waiting to see if they can sort it out before putting down any £), this is a great example of how basic competence is key to business. None of this is complicated: if you are changing something that works, give yourself enough time to make sure the replacement works; don’t remove payment options (that actually lose you customers); don’t change key useability of things without letting customers know in advance; and don’t be silent in the face of a barrage of emails, social media and fan forum criticism. And yet, it can be missed in the search for the next big thing, or on what other stakeholders (Investors? New business partners?) think is important. We all have our own equivalents of the new app, or the change to existing systems; & our own examples of taking the eye of the ball of the basics.
The lesson isn’t ‘don’t ever change’, obviously – small improvements and big leaps of new strategy are crucial at different times to businesses growing and staying relevant. But changes bring risks: and where they affect your main customers, they are critical. The lesson for all businesses is to plan well, do the basics, tick the things of the list, and constantly communicate with your customers. They are the heart of your business, and neglecting them is, well, incompetent.
[image by the wonderful thisisindexed.com ]
Nick Temple 
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