Translated...We Try Harder.
I first heard this proclamation in my high school German class. It was the slogan of the car rental company, Avis. This was quite paradoxical since I was taking the class precisely because I wouldn't need to work harder (it was an easy way for me to get an A since I was already fluent in the language). But, lost in the translation was the profound nature of the point they were making. They didn't promise to be the best car rental company, have the best selection, the lowest prices or even the friendliest service. They simply stated they would try harder, implying they would give more effort. The focus was on trying, on approaching the work with more vigor...not the outcome. In this example, the extended effort directly benefited the customer. This implies a focus on the soft skills (real skills). I'm not sure how they measured this effort. I didn't care enough at the time to look into it...couldn't be bothered.
It's challenging to measure the results of trying harder, especially when it comes to non technical skills. How can we tell if more smiles translate into more sales? How do we know if being more approachable and caring for another person's feelings is serving our goals? The key is to first define our purpose and what success looks like. How do we know when we tried harder? Does the recipient smile, tell us so, tell other people so, hug us, laugh and do a dance? The more specific we can be here, the more we can point to it and clearly say, people here try harder so we can make this happen. Of course, we need other guideposts to keep us pointed in the right direction. We need reminders like the one I saw at Zappos so many years ago. They had one number posted on the wall in the call center, how long it took for a human to answer the phone. They knew this was key to making the caller happy...which is ultimately what they cared most about. This was their "try harder" measurement for that group of employees. And, it was the only one. I found no others...and I asked. Zappos generated nine billion dollars in annual sales at that time.
Too often we get caught up in the measurements of the things easiest to measure, like profit and productivity. The harder work is to find ways to measure the levers which actually accomplish the change we seek to make.
