Is it me or is it too much?

We’re going to fix the banking system, the economy, the healthcare system, Social Security, the military, global warming, oil dependence, the war in Iraq, and whatever other cataclysmic initiative of the week Washington seems to focus on. Is it me or are we being sold a bill of goods?

Tailoring Service to the Client’s Requirements

Edwards Deming revolutionized the world of quality when he reduced the definition to simply “meeting customer requirements.” Combined with lean thinking, that means we should always be clarifying what the client actually wants (vs. what we offer in our “standard” package) and be willing to tailor our offering to their standards. In some cases that means doing more (and charging accordingly), in some cases differently (customization is part of the game), and in some cases it means doing less (and reducing our fees). None of our brands is a one-size-fits-all and we have to get away from thinking of our SOPs as unchangeable—innovation and service require us to constantly rethink what we do and how we do it while always listening to and aligning with our customer.

Blowing Our Customers Away

I found this on a blogsite recently and wanted to share with more people:

Chip Bell and John Patterson wrote a great book called Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers.  In it, they talk about real examples of companies going beyond high priced value-added situations and creating what the author’s call “value-unique” experiences.  They also talk about the ideas from the book in this recent ABC news video.

Great Post about America’s Heritage

Sick Soldiers

Please pray for Mike W and Perry C who have come back from India quite sick.

National Healthcare in 3 Easy Steps

1. Mandate universal coverage, i.e. require insurance companies to essentially cover anyone who applies and if they can’t afford it, then the states will have to pay it for them. Employers will have to offer insurance to their employees.

2. Nationalize or centralize the now bankrupted health insurance companies (from Step 1) and “bail them out” (take them over like GM) and basically make the government the single payer for all healthcare in the US.

3. Drastically reduce the fees that will be paid for various services (similar to Medicaid and Medicare) so that most doctors and hospitals are utterly dependent on the government for additional funding.

Done! Cook for 25 minutes at 300 degrees and you’ll have a wonderful healthcare omelet that serves everyone but feeds nobody!