Book Summary: Human Sigma: Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter by John Fleming and Jim Asplund

Gallup President Jim Clifton wrote a great book called The War of the Jobs to Come. In the book, he describes that one thing moves a society forward and that is the willingness of people to work and the creation of jobs. There are currently 7 billion people in the world and the economy is global. This is a great competitive stage. I am an entrepreneur at heart and my job is to start and grow companies that create jobs. I really want to understand and take advantage of human performance.

One thing that makes companies grow is the commitment of employees and customers. Human Sigma talks about this interaction specifically.

Why is this important to me?

I am not doing this summary to waste your time. My vision is to provide concise action steps that you can take right now to improve your life. According to Gallup, 9% of employees are ENGAGED, 71% are UNHITCHED, and 20% are ACTIVELY UNHITCHED. To put this in perspective, let’s do some simple math. Let’s say your business makes $ 50 million in revenue per year and there are 5 million impressions. Impressions are calls, emails, website visits, or anything where your people touch a customer, prospect, or prospect. Each impression in this example is worth $ 10. Remember that 20% of your people are ACTIVELY disconnected, which means that the impressions will be negative. The lost business potential of 20% negative impressions is $ 10 million in lost revenue per year. The math looks like this: 5 million impressions x 20% negative x $ 10.

As you can see, there is a real need to improve these statistics and smart companies are doing it. If you want to laugh a little, watch the movie Office Space. The movie is funny in a painful way because a lot of the actions actually take place in the corporate world.

Human Sigma is divided into more than 15 chapters and is packed with detailed information. With so much information and limited time, I’d like to describe the what, why, and how to improve customer and employee engagement based on the research in this book.

1. What – Terminator Management – What’s the problem? Human Sigma talks about Terminator School of Management. If you consider the industrial revolution, you will understand the problem that transcends repetitive tasks in the left hemisphere and creative work in the right hemisphere. Henry Ford dominates mass production. He needed physical work. At the time, this required strict management control and reduced freedom for workers. I can attest to this because I worked on a car factor for 4 months and it is NOT an easy job. The shift starts at 6 am; you have two 10 minute breaks and a lunch. This work is very repetitive and cerebral in nature.

2. Six Sigma: this is a process to improve processes. This has magically worked in manufacturing because it comes down to machines, tolerances, and supply chain. The improvements made in the last 25 years have been amazing, but this does not work for human engineering.

3. Right Brain: Information Age work is creative by nature. According to Gallup, 89% of the value of the Fortune 500 consists of intangible assets. This means things like talented people, intellectual property, goodwill, and customers. These things cannot be managed the old-fashioned way. Have you ever wondered why Van Halen or Guns and Roses had problems? Managing creative talent with old-school management tactics doesn’t work.

Let’s dive into the Why and look at four impacts.

1. Why – Now let’s dive into more detail and why this needs to change and why customer-employee engagement is crucial to gaining a competitive advantage. An important factor is the fact that companies with more committed team members grow 2.6 times faster than their counterparts. This advantage increases overtime with amazing results. Every organization needs to master this if it wants to be alive in the future.

2. Why: It is impossible to legislate genuine human interaction. Have you ever called a company to get an answer from a representative abroad? They proceed to tell you that his name is John, which you know is not true. This simple act puts the customer in a mistrust mode from the start. How about being stuck in voicemail hell for the first 10 minutes of your call not counting wait time? Once you find an agent to help you, you are so guided that the help doesn’t leave you feeling good about the company.

3. Why: cost centers. I never understood why companies that generate billions of dollars would view front-line team members as a necessary evil. These people interact with customers. Customer service call centers are still notoriously bad after all these years. They must be given tools, autonomy and directional freedom.

4. Why: financial impact. As stated above, improving and focusing on employee and customer engagement together is positively correlated to impact bottom line results. Increase engagement and organizations grow faster and be more profitable.

Let’s examine four things you can do right now.

1. How: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Customers and employees have the same hierarchy of needs. Companies that take advantage of this can transform engagement. Human beings have a need for self-realization. Achieving this from a business perspective is doable once the front line has the freedoms and training to do so.

2. How: do it with others. Treat customers and employees the way you want them to treat you. Here is a simple test that you can use to amplify the problems. It’s called the grandmother’s test. Compare these two statements: “Sorry, but that’s our policy, no refunds after 10 days” with “I’m sorry, but this is our policy, no refunds after 10 days, Grandma.” Using grandma at the end of your company’s policies sheds light on how stupid they really are.

3. How: Customers want relationships. Customer satisfaction is not enough. To build true engagement, you need customer loyalty and for that you must build relationships. People don’t want relationships with employees who aren’t actively involved, so you need to empower your people to engage.

4. How – Contract correctly. This is really the basic move for any organization. If you are hiring for customer-facing people, then you need to find jovial, friendly, personable, and smart people. If you take the time to recruit properly, then the how becomes more of an organization change rather than trying to change people.

Human Sigma is a great book that really sheds light on the customer-employee engagement model. This should be a must read for organizations looking to scale and grow.

I hope this short summary has been helpful to you. The key to any new idea is to incorporate it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in just 21 days. One thing you can take away from this book is that performance is tied to commitment. Focus on employee and customer engagement and make it your mission to improve it. If you do this, money, growth, and business success will follow. You’ll see results like more customer advocates, less employee turnover, and more referral businesses.