"The driving force behind the success of a company are ideas and feelings, true technology is the crystallization of a philosophy", Soichiro Honda.
Introduction
An executive has decided to close an important business deal by giving a dinner, for this he chooses a restaurant that he has never been to but that has nevertheless captivated his eyes, on the outside it seems beautiful and elegant and on the inside it is all neatness and luxury. Now the time has come for dinner, the moment of truth has come for the executive… but also for the restaurant, the "front line" that Carlzon talks about has come into action.
At the end of dinner if someone asks the executive what his experience was, He will not talk about the chairs, or the tables, or the decoration, he will talk about the way he was received, the treatment given by the waiters and the speed and effectiveness in which their requests were attended, on this depends the success or failure, the acquisition of a new client or the loss of many.
During the time that I have been working in the Buro labor company, I have realized the importance of making decisions on the first line.
If a senior official of a company calls my extension for Personalized attention, the impression that he can take about the entire organization will depend only on me, what would he think of me if he asks me a very simple question and I cannot answer him? Or if for each of your questions I have to turn to someone else, wasting valuable time?
This is what Jan Carlzon talks about in his book “the moment of truth”. The way in which the way of running a company began to change, how it turned the traditional system upside down and created new theories that are applied by most successful companies today.
And this is also what this essay talks about, the way in which Carlzon's theory of the moment of truth has reached our days, and how it has evolved and revolutionized the structure of companies, the differences between organizations traditional and contemporary and how the way of making decisions influences their production, analyze, as the title of the essay says, its importance and influence today.
All companies have or should have an organization chart, a pyramid of officials from the base to the top, it is true that it is identical to a chessboard, there are the pawns (front line employees) the special pieces such as the knight, the rook and the bishop (executive positions) and the main ones the king and queen (management, owners, presidents) and thus also as the chessboard, belittling the first line pieces can lead us to a crass error and the loss of the departure.
Traditional companies play in this way: the queen takes all the responsibilities and tries to attack from all sides since she is the only one with the ability to carry out the battle but she is wrong, she does not delegate responsibilities, she does not trust others, she does not support herself. in them and very soon it will end up surrounded by rivals and without the possibility of returning to its starting point, when trying to ask for help from its companions, it will find that they do not know what to do because they were never allowed or ordered to face a situation of that type, total defeat will be inevitable.
Contemporary organizations act and play differently in the art of business chess. True, they act from the leader, but each one knows perfectly what their role is, towards where, how and when to move forward, they have learned to make decisions and responsibilities for themselves, they work individually but at the same time as a team since they are connected.
In 1974, a young Jan Carlzon began to revolutionize the business world with his proposals based on the fact that the president of the company did not assume all the responsibilities, but rather made his employees feel that he needed them to efficiently carry out their work.
Carlzon's theory of a customer-driven business consisted of one of the boldest strategies ever seen: creating a customer-minded “humanistic” company and then receiving the material results. These 2 strategies, making employees feel that they count, that the company needs them and that all their ideas and suggestions are widely taken into account and making customers feel that there is no place where they can be better served or with higher quality but thinking only of your well-being, produces a chain reaction, let's see an example:
A counter clerk in a store that sells lottery tickets, every time a customer comes to buy the employee in addition to offering the service will try to convince him through actions that there is no better store to go to buy than that, instead of just attending will try to have a box full of gifts that will be given to the customer with each purchase (sweets, flowers, etc.). It will also make your workplace pleasant to the senses (with a good appearance, a pleasant smell, music). Very soon this store will become your favorite.
But let's talk fully about contemporary companies, what change in them since the appearance of Carlzon? Today, companies take into account that what bothers the average person is not the work itself, but the physical and mental wear and tear that it normally causes. They have learned that a tired and depressed individual can become not only a bad element but a point of discouragement for all their peers.
That the worker will commit to the objectives and goals of his company if he is proportionally paid, that is, a punctual worker will want his punctuality to be rewarded, if he realizes that it does not matter if he is punctual or not, first he will stop being punctual and then start breaking other company rules.
That a worker will put his ideas and his initiative to work if he is encouraged by a stimulus, that worker who proposes applicable beneficial changes and within the scope of the company will feel motivated if he is recognized by his colleagues or if he receives a bonus, in addition to This will serve as an example for the entire company that when they see what they can achieve they will join it for the benefit of the company.
Carlzon's ideas also influenced other authors to develop their own theories, Douglas Mcgregor's theories X and Y for example, theory x refers to the old organizations in which it was believed that employees would work better if forced to do so. limit without rest while the theory and speaks to us of the contemporaries and that the companies must find a way to release the best skills of the workers for their benefit.
Chris Argyris' maturity-immaturity model tells us that organizations have understood that they require mature individuals to get ahead, and that maturity will be achieved to the extent that they are assigned responsibilities and the confidence that they will be able to solve problems. themselves, which will make them grow not only as workers but as human beings.
But these measures, as I mentioned at the beginning, require not a boss but a leader who knows how to apply them, what qualities should a leader have? He must be creative and infect others with his vitality, he must be dynamic in what he does and not repeat work models that do not make sense, he must be authentic and adapt to changes in the situations that arise.
What is the crucial moment in a leader's career? What moment will it be that will define forever whether it is a person with leadership or simply a boss? When there are situations of tension or stress within a group, it is necessary for someone to take the reins to challenge the stressful situation and above all to help others also acquire the ability to face said situation, it is at that moment when the vision of the company, hand in hand with the leader, will become a mission
conclusion
There is a phrase that says "I slept and dreamed that life was joy, I woke up and saw that life was service, I served and discovered that in service is joy."
What can we understand from this phrase? Today's companies understand it and live it, they live to serve, in just these 4 lines it is possible to summarize the influence that the moment of truth had on the new organizations, it was a chain reaction that, by showing favorable results, was modified, transforming itself for the better and reaching the hands of the leaders who knew how to start it.
The new times demand new strategies of efficiency, they demand an interest in the human aspect precisely so that the human can render the company in all its fullness. The current times full of pressure and stress require the use of tactics so that at the moment of crossing the door of the company the worker enters free of pressure.
The moment of truth for each company is every day, it is repeated hundreds of times a week, it is so frequent that it becomes a double-edged sword, it becomes so routine that over time it ceases to be important and the company ignores it again.
Organizations, companies, companies, more than brick blocks, stationery, chairs, offices, or computers, with emotions, human relations, today workers do not want to work only to deliver a product or service and no longer They only want to obtain an economic income that allows them to live well, but they also want to achieve pleasant experiences and human growth.
All this was not taken into account in 1974 when the evolution and revolution of Carlzon began and that in the ways in which we have already spoken it has been able to reach our days. What will the organizations of the future look like?
Bibliography
"The moment of truth" Jan Carlzon editions Díaz de Santos (1991)
"The human side of organizations" Mc Gregor, D. (1960).. USA: Mc Graw-Hill.
"Personality and Organization" Chris Argyris Harper & Row, (1957) & Schon, D.
“Leadership in organizations” Bibiana Rubio Saavedra (2006) international cultural editions.
