Putting Things into Perspective -- Using the Listener's Experiences

I have been asked to give my talk on "Highly Effective Companies and You" to a group of eighth grade students.  This talk was originally created for new hires at Procter & Gamble in the International Division.  The purpose of the P & G talk was to give the new hires a model for personal growth within the company.  The basis of the talk is the analogy between the operating system of an effective company and the day-to-day activities of an employee.  Basically how might the concept of production, quality control, process development, products research, marketing, advertising, sales, accounting, etc., be used as a model for the individual?  The overall concept is the process of viewing the individual as a company within ones self.

I felt that attempting to move the mind of an eighth grade student from the class room to a company in one jump was perhaps too much.  As a result of this concern, I added another intermediate analogy.  I focused their attention on a local high school football team.  A team that everyone in the class knew.  This team through the 1990s won seven state championships in ten years.  Yet this school is one of the smallest in the state, less than 1,000 students in K through 12.  It has not had any outstanding players, only one player has reached a division 1-A team and that was the quarterback who ended up as the punter on the 1-A team.  And that was four years ago.

The point of the talk is to show that it is not necessarily the individual talents that make a success but how those talents are utilized within the team.  It's all about the process of delivery from start to finish that determines success or failure.

Come to think of it, is that not what determines the success of a brand or service?  Is it not how the product, positioning, packaging, promotion and price all work together for the success of the brand?  It goes even further.  We can take each of the Ps, peel away the layers and look at the components to see how they work together.  For instance, if we are working on a heavy duty laundry detergent that has extraordinary cleaning ability, we are not going to have it smell like a French Perfume House and we would definitely not give it a pink color.  All the elements of a brand should work together just like the football team.

Isn't it funny how things that make a company successful in other areas of life?  That reminds me of a talk I gave at a Boston AMA Meeting on the utilization of the components of Customer Satisfaction Research to improve family life.  But that is another analogy for another Views.

SORENSEN ASSOCIATES THIRD ANNUAL FIELD CONFERENCE

My wife and I were privileged to be invited to attend this function.  Ms. Kathy Redwing did a fabulous job in organizing this conference.  The conference included Sorensen Employees, Supervisors from eight of the most frequently used interviewing teams, and two people from a data collection technology company.  The four-day conference included presentations ranging from quality in research to technology in hardware and software as well as client/field relationships.

Of particular interest to me were the breakout sessions among the different groups and discussing recruiting and interviewing methods as well as questionnaire/interview design.  Also discussed was the Sorensen interview training and accreditation program.  Sorensen Associates is one of a very few companies that require accreditation of their interviewers before they can participate in one of their studies.