SURVEYS: THE RUBIK'S CUBE CHALLENGE
by Mike Manes
This is the latest in a series of articles on organizational management and leadership by Mike Manes. The first article created a Management “Jambalaya” using various ingredients: “Leftover” ideas that still apply in the world of people and work. This article tells you why effective surveys are critical.
The ideas that follow are driven by my scar tissue, not my brain tissue. This is to your advantage because my scar tissue is far better developed.
In my opinion, brain tissue is about your head, academic study, and sitting on your butt and being taught, while scar tissue is about one's heart and soul, experience, falling on your butt and learning a lesson, and most important of all — getting back up after you fall. I believe that scar tissue is more important because it's about living life — not learning about life. Life is the toughest teacher; first you're given the test and then you get the lesson.
I was once speaking with a group of bankers about the cultural differences between banks and insurance agencies. I explained that my experience came from failing to bridge this cultural gap in one organization.
One of the bankers asked, “Why should we listen to you — you've admitted you failed once?” For a second I froze and then, as He so often does, God gave me an answer. I asked simply, “How much would you pay someone to get cancer for you?” The banker became quiet and listened carefully. We learn more from failure than from success; and “piggybacking” on someone else's failures (scar tissue) can save you from having so many of your own.
If you want science and guarantees, don't read this article. Go find a marketing textbook. If you want some provocation from a seasoned veteran of the marketplace, read on!
DESIGNING EFFECTIVE SURVEYS
Do you remember the Rubik's Cube? If memory serves me correctly, it flooded the marketplace at Christmas about 45 years ago. It was the “cool gift” of the year.
If you've never seen one, or if you've seen one and didn't know what it was called, I'll attempt to describe the cube. It was a simple cube with nine squares on each of its six sides. When you first picked up the cube, each of the squares on each side was the same color. Each side was a different color. What happened next was the challenge. When you rotated the cube in any direction the colors mixed. The challenge then became to “straighten” it out: To return to six sides, each with the same color.
For a few mechanically gifted souls, this was doable. For the rest of us mortals, the task was impossible. The more you twisted the cube, the more diverse the mix of colors. During the months after the introduction of this simple puzzle, the nation lost millions of hours in time and dollars in productivity, as people tried to figure it out.
In utter frustration, a friend once lifted off the 54 individual color tabs and reapplied them to solve the puzzle. Although he could never do this the correct way, it was satisfying for him to show us his “accomplishment.”
If you're familiar with the cube, you'll understand his frustration. If you've never seen or played with this toy, you'll never appreciate the challenge. So what does this game have to do with designing effective surveys? Nothing — or perhaps everything.
In the past, businesses served “mass markets.” Although the individual members of these groups differed in age, economics, gender, and race there was no expectation for “tailor made” products. The only possible exception was for the wealthiest members of the “mass” — and even they had limited expectations for customization.
Although manufacturers would occasionally narrow the mass into market segments by age, economics, etc., this was just dividing the “herd” into smaller “pens.”
Because of this there were only a few competitors, all of whom shared success and profits by selling similar products to the public. Consumers had limited access to information, most of which was controlled by or filtered through manufacturers, distributors, or providers.
Today, the game has changed. We've joined a global market that's the most competitive in history. The Internet has given every consumer convenient access to full information on any product or service, creating a new “sophisticated” consumer who can shop from an unlimited number of sources in a global economy. This is a significant power shift .
Yesterday, manufacturers, distributors, and providers were in charge. Today consumers have the power. Yesterday, we were happy being part of a mass market. Today we're individuals who demand “mass customization.” We as individuals are now a niche of one.
Yesterday it was only necessary to know about the mass. Today you must know about the individual. Remember the Rubik's Cube and its 54 squares? Well, the new marketplace has more than 280 million individuals. This is the challenge.
To compete in tomorrow's world every manufacturer needs to know the individuals they serve, rather than the faceless groups to which these individuals belong.
This doesn't mean just knowing about the customer; it means knowing the customer. Hence, the importance of surveys and their redesign. You need better and more intimate information: Intelligence, rather than raw data.
The next article in this series will offer guidelines for creating surveys that can do the job.
Michael G. Manes can be reached at Square One Consulting, 543 Pebblebrook Dr., Baton Rouge, LA 70815, (225) 273-2243, (225) 939-5944 (Cell), e-mail [email protected], or visit www.squareoneconsulting.com.