Prototype Is The Missing Piece

By John Munce, Deployment Executive, The Tatham Group

The bank manager looked at me across the table and said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”  Bob is an experienced guy who has run several mergers in the past.  However, this one was B-I-G.  He’s talking to me because he knows I’ve been through it all before.  He is looking to buy my experience, scars, stumbles, and mistakes from having been through an enormous painful merger.  But he didn’t ask outright for help.  He just said he didn’t know what he didn’t know.  That set me to thinking.

How do you learn what you need to know when you don’t even know you’re ignorant?

What Does Customer Focus Really Mean?

By Michael Blackman, The Tatham Group

Virtually all business leaders now agree that customer focus is essential in 21^st century commerce.  The problem is that customer focus means very different things to different people, with the key difference falling along emotional vs. intellectual/systematic lines. 

 For those front-line associates and especially leaders who let emotions guide their definition of customer focus, one might expect to find comments and actions like:

• We love our customers
• We will do anything for our customers
• The customer is always right
• If the customer asks for something we will do it

The Future Is Friendly

By Michael Tatham Jr, President, The Tatham Group

Are the members of Generation Y lazy or just searching for an environment to thrive in?

 The late 1990’s introduced an environment that expected more of Generation Y, the group that falls into the approximate birth timeline of 1980-1999.  This was a time when technology and more specifically the Dot Com phenomenon began. According to Wikipedia: “They needed to be faster and more efficient (with the advent of better technology), smarter (increase in college enrollment), and available (40-60 hour work weeks) than Boomers and Gen X. Therefore some of the defining characteristics of Gen Y are tech-savviness, family-centric, achievement-oriented, team-oriented and attention-craving”.