O T A V A L A

Read below for featured articles by the consultants and collegues of Otavala:

Internal struggles lead to external catastrophes

by Ryan H Simmons, Consultant

What happens on the inside matters. Conflicts and stressors in the workplace have a way of reaching out the customer. Soon the small squabble about the copy machine turns into a late shipment from the supplier, which affects the customer on the other end. It is a textbook case of how our actions have consequences. This becomes an even larger issue when the business is a service industry. The service is the product. So, if the service is not up to par, the customers are likely to leave.

Education has become a service industry in the last couple of decades. At the college-level, students can be accepted to many schools, but the real draw is the prestige and services provided. Some students want a great on-campus experience, while others prefer to have an amazing Student Activity Center. Are the labs free when I need them? Is the football team any good? This was most illustrated by a university that gave away Apple IPods to the new incoming class of students. What if you don’t have these things to give to students? All across the country student enrollment is down. It is difficult to afford college these days. (Some of us have the student loan debt to prove it.) When you don’t have money to spend on services, how do you fix the problem? Well, in the case of some universities in the U.S., you cut back on full-time and tenured faculty. Only the really dedicated students notice the difference in education. But your popular college sport is doing well, right? Well, as long as the team is doing well… who cares about the actual academic standings?

Medicine is another industry that is another service industry that is doing well right now. It also seems pretty straight-forward. The patient is sick. The doctor comes in to see the patient and gives treatment. If the patient gets better, the doctor did their job. If the patient doesn’t get better, the doctor didn’t do their job.  It sounds like the job of a physician or clinical psychologist is that easy, but it is far more difficult. The illness is usually not as obvious as you might think and beyond that two or more treatments could be used to resolve the illness. Unfortunately, only one will work but only 30% of the time. As for administration they are going to want you to get consent on everything to prevent a lawsuit. You also have co-worker issues. In the same hospital trying to work on different aspects of health you have: techs for the laboratory, techs for specialized equipment, all different kinds of doctors, nurses, and janitorial staff. If you think patients don’t notice when the floors are not clean or when the nurses and doctors conflict with each other: you’re obviously lying to yourself. The lack of service, or quality service, has a big impact on the hospital when it comes to actual business. (Surgeries, Endography, Cancer treatment) I’ve heard of people that will pass-up the nearest hospital to get service at a better hospital.

So, the moral of the story is that what happens internally will have consequences externally. Your problems will filter out to your customers unless you can find a way to solve or resolve any issues within your business. Services are the easiest targets because you cannot blame a late shipment on poor service. When human to human contact is your business, you can’t point the finger at anyone but yourself. Taking action to prevent customer disillusion is your best option; either handling it yourself or by outsourcing it to a professional service. Do you have the time to put-off your work to mediate a conflict? How much experience/knowledge do you have mediating conflicts? How difficult might this conflict be when sorting it out? Before your internal problems cause external failures, you may want to know if you can handle the problem before it is out of your control.

Consultants of Otavala are active in their professional community and academia. They frequently speak in events and conferences, and publish in professional journals.