Team Management - or management by the team?

Are your customers managed by your business? That's a weird question, you say? Your business IS to manage customers? Well done, you are partially right.

Alright, you know what i am going to talk about (you have read the title). Businesses do not 'manage' customers. Customers manage customers. No, wait that did not come out right.

Let's start again. We have a business, we have paying customers. We need to manage our business to ensure that customers continue to pay us and give us a raison d'etre. Alright so far? Great.

Now, who manages your business? You do? How? By ensuring optimization of resouces, manpower and supervision to get the best results. So you say.

I have been in the boardroom, planning away. I have been in strategy meetings, helping steer the business towards that profit horizon. I have been in business development meetings with clients, telling them how WE will run their business so that they can focus on their core activity. However, after being in mainstream, hands-on operations for a better part of a decade, I can safely say that it doesn't matter what you discuss in the closed room. Your fate is decided by the technician who attends to an issue or by the cleaning staff who 'forget' to clean under the proverbial table. So How will you treat that staff today? they tuly are your most vital asset.