To you who taught and continue to teach me

© Konstantin Kharsky, 2019

ISBN 978-5-4496-4534-0

Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero

What is “Value Management”

In the shadow of every action there are values. They are the ones who determine what your employee will do in each specific situation. And if you, as a leader, do not build a value system for your subordinates, then you actually give them a free hand, giving them complete freedom of action. What is “Value Management”?

Firstly, it is the predictability of the actions of your staff.

Think about whether “predictability of behavior” is a value for you? Is it really important? Or do you like surprises? If you are a leader, then I can easily guess what your answer is. Every manager wants his subordinates to act in a certain and completely predictable way. But not everyone knows how to achieve this. Complete freedom of action is acceptable in the only case - if the employees’ work is completely improvised and, more importantly, this very improvisation is useful for business.

What kind of profession could this be... Secretary? No. Driver? No. Forwarder? God forbid! Salesman? Well, no, he can “improvise” such a thing that the company will then get tired of answering for the issued obligations. Perhaps the only option is a freelance artist. But they rarely work with managers, more and more for themselves, and then only with special inspiration.

But in an ordinary team you have to set priorities in the heads of your subordinates, and these priorities must be consistent with the priorities of the department and the company as a whole. Understanding and setting priorities is “Value Management”.

Secondly, “Value Management” is an explicit and specific coordination of efforts within the company. How many of you are aware of priority conflicts within your company? To each.

Conflicts arise not because priorities, due to the inherent contradictions in them, come into conflict. But because the company does not have a single coordinate system. For example, the priorities of the sales department will be doomed to conflict with the priorities of the accounting department if there is no consistent value interface.

A value interface, of course, will not eradicate all conflicts. But this is not required. In a certain sense, conflicts are even useful for business. The main task of the interface is to organize joint coordinated work even among conflicting departments. Ideally, after setting up all value interfaces, the company turns into a Monolith of Like-Minded People (the term is written without a space).

And finally, thirdly, “Value management” is the search and adoption of priorities that will ensure the company achieves its goals.

To understand your company's understanding of priorities and how they relate to business goals, ask yourself these questions:

– What is the purpose of our business?

– What or what priorities are we guided by?

– How do our priorities relate to business goals?

Many companies state that the purpose of their business is to “make a profit.” But at the same time, they don’t even think about saving energy. Why? Because the priority “savings” does not dominate their value system. But a “saved ruble” is a ruble of net profit?! This approach raises some doubts. Perhaps the goal is not to make a profit, but to increase trade turnover? In this case, concern about saving is indeed a non-primary task. Or the goal is still to make a profit, but the priorities are not aligned with the goals of the business. And this is a big problem. Because although employees remember goals, they are still guided by priorities.

Are your employees' priorities working towards achieving business goals?

If you have never thought about it before, the likelihood of an acceptable alignment between business goals and its priorities is extremely low. Although, maybe you are lucky? This happens in our country too. True, I have not observed such luck, but I often encounter situations where business goals are declared, but the choice of priorities is left to the employees themselves in the hope of their experience, common sense, loyalty. I call such cases MCTL (It Seems Better This Way), when everyone is guided by their own value system. Can you imagine a company of 100 people or even 1,000, and there are 100 or even 1,000 views on what should be done and how?! You will be very lucky if these 100 or 1,000 turn out to be lazy and lacking initiative... What if they are active? What if, moreover, they are not loyal to the company?

Value management is a way to link business goals and priorities, guided by which employees will consistently and predictably achieve business goals.

About the book

This book is an updated transcript of the Value Management seminar, which has been held regularly over the past five years. Now it's time to summarize the information and put it in writing. This is due to the appropriate use of the resource. I'm talking about my own time. We have moved further in understanding the priorities of the individual and the company. We want to devote more time not to training, but to corporate projects to implement the principles of “Value Management”. And who will conduct seminars, teach and promote the ideas of “Value Management” to the masses, so to speak?

The purpose of the book is to reveal to the reader all the beauty of understanding and managing one’s own priorities, as well as the beauty and power of understanding and managing the priorities of one’s companies, departments, divisions, departments and subordinates.

At this point, according to the conditions of the genre, I would have to ask you, dear reader, to perform the exercises as if you were not a reader of the seminar transcript, but a participant, but I know how few people follow this request...

Let's continue about the book. The speech of the seminar leader, as a rule, is not highlighted in the text. But, if the logic of presentation requires it, we use the abbreviation “Seminar Leader”. Questions and remarks from participants are preceded by the word “Participant of the seminar.” If several people participated in the discussion, then their initials or numbers are used, for example: “Participant No. 2.”

I strive to run the workshop with energy and fun. That’s why I often use “humor jokes” and “French expressions.” In a book that does not pretend to be artistic, it is not easy to convey the atmosphere. We decided that in those places in the text where it is impossible to clearly understand whether the participants are joking or not, we use the :) icon to indicate a joke. For a pause that has meaning, we use an ellipsis... The same symbol, instead of a music button, emits a signal: “Think!” Usually at a seminar, the presenter becomes silent at this time and allows the listeners to find their own answer to the question or form their own opinion regarding the information just received. Some listeners at this moment write what they will do upon returning to their companies... Perhaps you will also need a sheet of paper for notes when reading the book. :)

Following our own ethical standards, we intentionally carefully distort the names of people, cities and companies so that no one, not even the heroes of the examples themselves, recognize themselves. This is especially important when we talk about values. I hope you will agree with me as you read the book.

All coincidences of names, titles, dates, circumstances are accidental.

The first day

Topic: Personal values

Let's make sure we have the same understanding of what value is. I'll start, and you continue. I will call what I consider value. Maybe it’s my value, maybe it’s not – it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that I consider the spoken word to be valuable. So I start: “Elevator.”

Participants freely began to name one value at a time:

- Health.

- Own business.

- Freedom.

– Ecology.

- Money.

- Oh, great, the money sounded - we can stop. In some groups we have to hint and signal - our people forget about money, and we will find out why.

So we heard different words. I think everyone agrees that there are values ​​behind them, and completely different ones. But how do we know this? What kind of linguistic intuition turns on and tells us: this is a value and that is not?

Seminar participant:

“It seems like everything has value.” Even an elevator. For example, for a person who is now climbing the stairs to the ninth floor. And for the owner of the building, the elevator is also a value, just of a different kind. And for the designer who invented this very elevator, this is a third, very special value.

Well, isn't it great? There are lots of values ​​around us! And it doesn’t matter at all that the elevator may not be valuable to me - I’m going up to the ninth floor right now, as a form of exercise. It is enough for it to be of value to someone at some particular time. Here, a toothpick... well, such a trifle that there’s not even anything to talk about. But under certain circumstances, for some people, a simple toothpick can become a vital asset.

You and I are entering an amazing and magical world - the world of values. It's time to define:

A value is anything that can be subjectively important to someone at any time. All.

We move on with the understanding that there are no absolute trifles in the world. There is simply nothing in the world that would never be important to anyone under any circumstances. If you still have a guess that you have found an absolute piece of cake, share it with me by mail or through the site. It will be very interesting to get to know your misconceptions. :)

There is another term that we will often use as a synonym for the word “value”. This word is “priority”. But it has a slight difference. Priority is not just “also a value,” it is “a value that has its place in the hierarchy of other values.”

A person may say: “Work is important to me.” From this we can draw only one conclusion - work is valuable to him. Another person says: “The speed of service at a gas station is the most important thing to me.” Yeah, there is an indication here of a value - “speed of service”, and that this value is a priority, that is, it has its own place in the hierarchy of other values ​​- “the most important thing for me.”

It must be borne in mind that people are rarely clear about their own value system and therefore, as a rule, are deceived and deceived when they talk about it. But we believe them. We conduct a study, measure the level of satisfaction with the quality of service at gas stations and get the answer “that speed of service is the most important thing” and act as if this is true. And if not? Let's try to check and contact the same gas station customer again.

“Are you saying that speed of service is your first priority? Great! Buy this “customer card” - we guarantee that the refueling time will be as short as possible, but the cost of gasoline for you will be 15% higher.”

The client's further actions will show whether “speed of service is really the most important thing”...

So, priority is a value that has its more or less definite place in the hierarchy of other related values ​​(priorities).

Only a person’s actions clearly demonstrate his true values. But the words are not. It’s hard to lie “in practice” or in action. But history also knows such talents: Stirlitz had to lie with his actions so as not to be exposed. That is, he had to be guided not by his own priorities, but by the priorities of a fascist officer. And here there is a huge danger of getting carried away and forgetting which priorities are yours and which belong to the role you are playing. Why do you think actors sometimes get married after playing in love on stage? They, praise Stanislavsky, enter into the role and act convincingly (on stage), guided not by their own priorities, but by the requirements of the director and the priorities written in the role itself. And only then the lights went out, the audience dispersed, and only the actors were still in their roles... how can we do without the Mendelssohn march in honor of the new pair of lovers. :)

We will return to the question more than once: “how to find out the values ​​and priorities of a person, group, company or brand?” Now it is important to fix one single thought - only actions reflect the true value system, and even then there is an exception, which we discussed above. A person's words, as well as the declarations of a brand or company, must be proven by actions. Otherwise, everything will result in a banal lie or self-deception.

How can we study values? Our consciousness needs boundaries, patterns, criteria in order to distinguish and manage. This is how, for example, a child explores what water is? He sees the border: “here is the water,” and “here it is no longer here.” What is the difference? The fact is that when you enter the “water” boundary, your clothes become wet... Yeah... I see... The boundary allowed the child to understand something and decide something for himself. What does a child know about air? Nothing. Until some fifth grade at school, he knows nothing about air, because in his world, perceived by the senses, there is no boundary: “air” - “not air.”

We, purely for educational purposes, need boundaries. We will create them now, and then, when we learn to work with values, we will remove them.

Someone is walking in complete darkness. Here, take a look...

I can not see anything. Many people are built this way: if you can’t see anything, then there’s nothing. They believe only in what they clearly perceive with their senses. Some add their own imagination to the number of sources worthy of trust. Then, imagining that a crocodile is hiding in the dark, a person will react to the danger as if it were quite real and tangible.

Notice how dramatically the world will change if a flashlight appears in a person’s hands...

The appearance of the flashlight produces a revolutionary change: a boundary appears. Now the world is divided into visible and invisible. What comes into view now has an impact. And what is hidden in darkness still does not exist for him. Values, like a flashlight, divide the world around us in two. What is at least somewhat important for a person falls into the beam of the “value flashlight” and is noticed even under unfavorable conditions. Something that is unimportant for a person is as if it has an “invisibility cap”.

We will call the sum of the values ​​of a person or company, taking into account their hierarchy and interaction: “Value System”.

First value function (F1)

The first function of values ​​– “Dividing the world in two” – is so important that we will return to it more than once. The main consequence is this: how you see the world around you depends on your value system. In the future, when we need to refer to the first value function, we will use the abbreviation "F1" or say "first (value) function."

Now, remembering that the value system allows us to see only part of the world, we will discuss several conclusions from the first function.

F1.1. The first function of values ​​and the birth of the world

Allow me a little metaphor first.

Imagine that this morning a relative came to visit you from some very wild places, where there is and never has been either electricity or other benefits of civilization. You have to go to work, for some reason you cannot put your relative outside and decide to leave him alone in your apartment. Showing concern, you turn on the TV so that he doesn’t get bored, show him the refrigerator and toilet, and leave with anxiety in your heart. In the evening, returning home, you find a relative in the same chair, watching the same channel. Surprised by his “wildness,” you take the remote control in your hand and begin to switch channels, asking what he is interested in... Your relative looks at you as if you were a wizard. How else?! After all, you have a magic wand in your hands that changes the picture on this box...

This morning he knew nothing about television. Now you are turning his world upside down, he has already become related to the heroes of “House 22”, he even knows who belongs to whom and who. And then it turned out that “House 22” is not all of television, but only its small and, perhaps, not the most attractive part.

Who are you in this story? Protagonist or wild relative? I am a wild relative...

Our parents and educators, people who had influence, taught us to look at the world through a certain set of values, we were taught to notice one thing and not notice another... We were taught to overestimate the importance of one, and, on the contrary, to underestimate the other. Our, in a broad sense, educators, having certain feelings towards us (hopefully mostly positive), put a TV in front of us and said: “Look!”

They didn't give us a remote control! They didn't give me the remote control!

We were not told that the remote control existed! They didn't tell me that the remote control existed!

We were not told that the value system can be changed (switch channels)!

Probably because our kindergarten teachers also didn’t know about the existence of the remote control. Our teachers didn’t know he existed...

A person can learn to switch channels and rebuild dominant values ​​depending on the current situation and roles performed. It is very good to be able to rearrange your priorities. The fact that we didn’t do this yesterday does not force us not to do it in the future.

Dominating which priorities right now would be most beneficial for you?

Answers from group members and remarks from the presenter:

- Listen attentively.

- Yes, it is important. More…

- Remember everything.

- Well, I don’t know, buy a voice recorder. :)

- Draw conclusions.

– Drawing conclusions is important, but how can this priority be differently formulated so that it looks more like something that can be guided? Let me help you with a question: “Why should you draw conclusions?”

– To benefit from this seminar, the priority is “Get benefit!”

– Great priority, what should you do to maximize the benefit?

– Try to “try on” the proposed ideas.

– Great, I’m glad you said that, I’ll just add that you should, literally have to, ask questions if something is unclear to you. Let me say the same point in other words: So, we decided that a useful priority for workshop participants was “applicability to practice.” What does it mean to be guided by this priority? This means that as soon as you hear the thesis, you should ask yourself, “How can this apply to my personal life or work?”

Look out this window. Enough. What did you see there?

Participants:

- Parking.

- The street lighting was turned off.

– The traffic light at the intersection does not work.

- Gloomy autumn.

Host: Can you imagine how different we are? It is a miracle that we are in principle able to understand each other. Our flashlights highlight different parts of reality. Sometimes we are amazed by people who see and notice what eludes us every day. You now know that their flashlight is very different from yours or is simply pointed in a different direction... Sometimes you meet a like-minded person, you perceive the world in the same way... you like the same things, you are interested in the same events... your flashlights are the main reason for this ...

Think about your subordinates, which of them needs to change their flashlight so that they begin to understand you... :)

Let's continue.

F1.2. The first function of values ​​and education

I didn’t have to look long for an example of how the “flashlight” manifests itself in education. On LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) a participant wrote (grammar and punctuation preserved):

“The situation is this: my daughter is 16, very emotional and looks at the world through rose-colored glasses) I would like to show her the other side of the coin, so that later it would not be a discovery that there are bad uncles and aunts... I couldn’t think of anything better than letting her read about it. I’ll say right away that she doesn’t really like to read; she’s been reading her favorite “Chronicles of Amber” for three years now. I gave her “A Clockwork Orange” to read the other day and she was interested, she says that the book is tough and cruel for her, but today she took it with her to school... and this is an indicator. Can you recommend what else I can give her to read?

This mother prefers that books shape her daughter’s value system, because “I couldn’t think of anything better than letting her read about it.” When her daughter grows up, she will give her child comics and video games to form a value system...

Seminar participant: Maybe the girl will grow up and become different from her mother?

Seminar leader: Yes, changes are possible. Actually, this is what we will talk about: how to understand and how to change your priorities, the priorities of the department, the company, the brand.

Run from this store Run from this store Anzhelika Tikhonova 2018-08-01 http://site/upload/iblock/f7d/f7dd8918189ae35c5b2d574e373abe6e.JPG

Konstantin Kharsky, an expert in the field of value management and customer focus, spoke with MarketMedia about sellers who do not use their brains, and explained why it does not matter if an oligarch vomits from sausage.

Konstantin has finally returned to St. Petersburg after a series of numerous moves from city to city for clients whom he helps set up business. We meet with him in a cafe on Nevsky overlooking the Kazan Cathedral. After the greeting, he squints and looks out the window: “The glass here is cloudy. But many people come here for this view.”

Konstantin, you noticed the glass. And there are a lot of clients like you, who know a lot and are therefore picky. Is a picky client a scourge or a business dream?
- Scourge, of course. But also a dream. Because if a company learns to work with a fastidious client, then it is guaranteed to win the competition. The one who dealt with the picky client takes the market, and everyone else nervously smokes on the sidelines. So for those companies that such a client knocked out of the market, destroyed, closed and bankrupted, this is a scourge. But most companies don't consciously think about this. This usually happens like this: if a company perceives working with modern, sophisticated, smart, sophisticated clients as a challenge, then the company leader prepares both the team and his products for this. He is the first to show concern that, for example, the noodles are not cooked well enough or, conversely, too well cooked. And this stimulates the leader to improve business processes, products, etc. Such an owner can not only adapt to a picky client, but also create such a client for his own benefit.

What do you have in mind?
- I’ll give you an example that is still waiting for its solver. As I personally think, bankers disagree with me, the fundamental mistake of banks is that as soon as the client gives them money and signs for it, the bankers begin to consider the money received as their own. And dispose of it, accordingly, as if it were your own. Actually, this is the client’s money, it was and remains his. Banks can present him with conditions under which they will return the money, but considering it theirs is the worst of mistakes. This may seem like just a play on words to some, but this is the foundation on which the entire banking business is built. The banker who will be the first to overcome this curse of the entire industry will understand that the client’s money was and remains the client’s money; he will perhaps create a bank that is an order of magnitude more client-oriented (in products, in interfaces, in communications) than all existing ones, which means will be able to crush the entire financial services market. All banks, except one, today are incredibly arrogant towards the client, although with the thesis that “the money is in the client’s bank,” there can be no place for arrogance when communicating with the client. Why go far, today I spoke with a representative of a typical bank. He offered me a cash loan, I replied that I was not interested, but he continued to speak his prepared speech, and I doubted that a person was talking to me, and asked if I was talking to a machine, to which the bank employee was offended.

The problem with salespeople like this is that they don't ask questions, as I call it. They don’t think, they act according to scripts, that is, according to templates specially written for them.

By the way, what’s wrong with sellers today?
- There are professions to which you need to swear allegiance, and the profession of a seller is one of them. Take an oath so that things can start to work out. If you swear allegiance to a profession, you resign yourself to the level of income that the profession gives you, because it is your choice, your mission. Most sellers not only don’t take the oath, they don’t even allow it. When a salesperson is committed to sales, the client sees it immediately. I know a bookseller who has a missionary attitude towards his work and admits that the books he has read sell many times better. I believe that he has a large circle of acquaintances who consult with him on what else to buy. This leads to the fact that the seller is interested in everything, which means he knows all the nuances of what he is selling. Without this knowledge, the seller is no different from, for example, a cashier. If you go to buy a laptop and when you ask which one you recommend, the seller reads out a sign to you that you can read yourself, then run away from this store. This seller is not interested in you as a buyer.

The problem with salespeople like this is that they don't ask questions, as I call it. They don’t think, they act according to scripts, that is, according to templates specially written for them, like that bank employee who was offended by the fact that they asked him if he was a robot. They don’t use their brains, that is, they don’t ask the right questions and aren’t interested in what they’re selling. Well, you've come to buy a laptop. A good salesperson will ask what tasks you need it for. “Yes, for my high school son,” you answer. If you don't want him to play on it all the time, the seller will offer you one that won't run any decent games, but you won't have to constantly yell at your son to stop playing. All that will start here is Tetris, but you can play it yourself. It is clear that this is a hypothetical situation.

Making the buyer an expert is a technique that goes unnoticed. You are simply taught to distinguish good from bad, what you need to pay attention to when buying a product.

But this is precisely why the seller must use his brains, and not act according to a template, intending to sell; his intentions are to solve your problem with the purchase. In short, salespeople must start thinking and must take pride in their work. Because a salesperson who is proud of his work works many times better than one who is ashamed of what he does.

Without this conditional oath, you will not receive that level of professionalism and that level of meaningfulness in life; you will always feel that you are not living your life. But I know many people who don't ask these questions. In connection with this, the only question that arises for me is whether these people are immortal, because they live as if someday later, and not now, they will have the opportunity to become rich, successful, etc. Someday later, everything there will be, but for now they live at random. And this is one of the consequences of the lack of an oath. If you haven’t found yourself, if you’re living someone else’s life, as if you’ll figure it out later, someday. Not a single book, not a single training will make you a seller, only your decision to be a seller.

Let's return to the question of how to create a fastidious client.
- There is such a sales technique - a client-expert, it was described by me in the book “Professional Sales”, which was published back in 2004. The name of the technique is unfortunate, but the technique is good. Its essence is this. The client meets with the seller, and he may not even know that there is a seller in front of him, and in a seemingly ordinary conversation, the seller tells how good sour cream differs from bad. He told me, got up and left. The client may have forgotten about this seller, but he is unlikely to have forgotten the signs of good sour cream. After this, he sees six varieties of sour cream in the store, but only two of them fit these criteria. He chooses from two because he has a feeling of choice, but in fact he chose, guided by the criteria that the seller put in his head. Making the buyer an expert is a technique that goes unnoticed. You are simply taught to distinguish good from bad, what you need to pay attention to when buying a product. At the same time, we must agree that we are not talking about deliberate lies, deception and other nasty things, because any technology can be used to the detriment of the buyer, but this does not make the technology itself unethical.

Fastidiousness is formed by two vectors. The buyer is rich and informed. If we cannot influence the buyer’s well-being, we can influence his awareness. The buyer needs to be taught to distinguish a good car, sour cream, or a trip from a bad one. For example, the hotel chain I work with has conditioned its customers to a level of service that all other hotels compare themselves to. Some people don’t reach them, and some are higher, but it doesn’t matter, because they are the starting point.

What is the critical mass of customers that can influence a business to change?
- About the cloudy glass through which you and I are trying to see Kazansky, either 100 ordinary visitors will write, and the management of the cafe will understand that something is wrong and will order to clean the window, or some conditionally important Vladimir Vladimirovich will tell them to change the glass, and critical mass will be reached much faster.

What about the notorious phrase “the customer is always right”? And by the way, how does this relate to your statement that “your business is your rules”?
- You only told me the first half of the sentence about the client being right. There is a version that this was the case. The owner of the Ritz hotel chain gathered his employees, pointed to the back of the departing guest and said: “Have you seen this guest? He paid cash for a year's penthouse stay. This client is always right, no matter what he says.” And this, you see, has a slightly different meaning. Although even the first part has some truth, it is now important to understand which client is right and how often. To do this, you first need to define what customer focus is.

Your business - you determine for whom you work, whose assessments you pay attention to first of all, whose opinions you are confused by. This means that you don’t care about the opinions of everyone else.

There are two definitions. One illuminates the side of light, the other symbolizes the side of darkness. I'll start with the last one, because 99% of consultants working in the field of service are located here. They believe that customer centricity is the ability of a company to gain additional profit through better knowledge of the customer. It would seem that such desirable words for business are “profit”, “better knowledge of the client”. But this is terrible! Here's a story for you. As a teenager, I visited my grandparents in the Caucasus. There was a stud farm nearby, where every year in the summer they held an auction for the sale of horses. Buyers from capitalist countries came there, trade was carried out for a lot of money. At one of the auctions for a stallion, as they say, two buyers clashed. I don’t remember the numbers, but I remember that one buyer raised his card, the auctioneer began to motivate the second to raise the price, but he didn’t pay any price. And then the auctioneer says: “Monsieur, your lady will look simply amazing on this stallion.” I remember how this capitalist lowered his head, raised his card and looked at his companion in such a way that she probably realized that she was finished with her, because because of her he spent a colossal amount of money. Yes, a couple of steps ago, he himself wanted to spend this money, but in this case she became the reason for this spending. Do you think this is customer focus? I think it's terrible. What 1% of consultants believe, including me. Customer focus is the assessment by clients of the visible part of the business, it is not what the business does, it is how clients assessed what it did. A thousand customers come to this cafe where we are sitting, and of them only I paid attention to the window, which was cloudy from the film that had been pasted on. Does the cafe management need to disrupt itself and improve its appearance? The question is who they consider the key client. If we assume that in this view cafe the key client is considered to be city guests who want to drink coffee and watch the Kazan Cathedral, then the situation needs to be changed right now, because the assessment of these clients will be unsatisfactory. But if people came here just to drink coffee, then it doesn’t matter, then you don’t have to bother. Whether the customer is right or wrong is up to the company to decide. She says: our client is a demanding person who has paid and is ready to pay for this level of service. And another may say: we make almost sausage, from almost meat and sell it for little money. Our clients are people who want to get this level of protein without wondering what its origin is, so all they are interested in is the weight of the sausage per unit of ruble. And if one of the oligarchs buys this sausage, he will vomit and say that the sausage is bad, his assessment does not change anything, it was not made for him.

This really infuriates me, but should the company care about my opinion if I'm not their client? No.

And now we have come to the opportunity to understand the phrase “your business - your rules.” Your business - you determine for whom you work, whose assessments you pay attention to first of all, whose opinions you are confused by. This means that you don’t care about the opinions of everyone else. And then clients from your category are always right, because their ratings are important to you, you want them to be with you, and the ratings of others are indifferent to you: if you don’t like it, get up and leave. If you made a taxi with a very low tariff, and the client got in in the hope that the driver would make small talk with him about the opera premiere, then it was the client who made a mistake, not you. This is a taxi for those who, for some reason, do not want to travel by public transport, but want to take a taxi, and they do not need to talk about high matters; it is important to get to the place safe and sound. Personally, there are a lot of things I don't like. For example, it is written in my rider that I do not fly on Pobeda planes. I had a forced flight experience with them, I had a row with the crew, told the flight attendants what they needed to do, and wrote a post on social networks. The next day they called the office to find out what flight I was on. That was the end of it. This really infuriates me, but should the company care about my opinion if I'm not their client? No. When they make an airline for people like me and I'm still mad at their service, then they'll close. But Pobeda will not close because it has its own clients who are satisfied with their tariffs, service and requirements.

Speaking of requirements. You profess the principle of “keep it simple” when it comes to the requirements that companies place on their clients. Like, this way they will be closer to the people. How can we understand that the demands are unnecessary, and that they were not made out of harm?
- Of course, out of spite. Here is the sugar bowl in front of us. What demands does the owner of this cafe make of us, putting it before us? Well, first of all, be careful, because the sugar is poured in a heap. Secondly, we can only put a large piece in the coffee; we won’t be able to break it, there’s nothing with it. This means that we will either over-sweet the coffee or under-sweet it. Thirdly, we can only sweeten coffee with white sugar. And we are forced to take only with tweezers, they say, we are in the cultural capital, there is nothing to grab with our hands, but the tweezers, as you can see, are dirty. For a company that wants to be customer-oriented, there is a wide field of activity here. What to do? Analyze the requirements, know them; when you don’t know them, there’s nothing to work with. And something needs to be canceled all the time. You had 12 demands, we looked at them and one was cancelled. After a while we looked again, it turned out that there were already 14 of them, because we realized that we were making unnecessary demands on our clients that we had not realized before. We must strive for the limit that is formulated by TRIZ: the function is performed, but there is no performer. When the coffee is sweet enough and there is no need to add sugar. When the hotel room is cleaned, and when and by whom, the guest does not know. That is, the function must be hidden from the user.

True VIP service, as you know, is when no demands are made on you.

Well, here’s another example: you use online banking, you receive an SMS with a one-time password, usually on the screen you see a phrase about not telling anyone about the password, etc., and you can see the numbers themselves only when you open the SMS. But this is inconvenient, because you usually use online banking on the same phone. The Tochka bank, with which I work, sends an SMS in which you immediately see the code and can immediately enter it without switching from the banking application to SMS. What is the requirement of all banks for clients? Go ahead and read the entire message. The advice “change your phone and see more lines” is bad. This is another requirement that is being imposed on me.

How to understand that the requirements are unnecessary?
- They are all superfluous. The requirements that must remain are those formulated by the legislator. For example, the service must be paid in national currency. There's nothing you can do about it. The rest is superfluous. True VIP service, as you know, is when no demands are made on you.

You mentioned actions based on scripts as one of the pressing problems in sales, but for many companies this can be included in KPIs.
- Yes, sellers do not follow instructions of their own free will. I’ll start from afar about KPIs. When the Lord divided humanity into nations, he, apparently, assigned a cross to each nation so that people would have something to do. For the Slavs, it seems, there was nothing worthwhile left at the time of distribution. Therefore, we have a cross to bear - searching for workarounds. If the glass in the cafe is cloudy, then we’d better paste a picture of the Kazan Cathedral here. The cathedral is there, the glass does not need to be changed. Remember when red turn signals were banned? What did the Slavs do? Have you replaced the turn signals with the correct ones? No, they replaced the white light bulb with a blue one: the blue light bulb and red glass give an orange glow. Hallelujah! As soon as you give our person a KPI, his brain almost immediately thinks about how to do it so that he does nothing, and the KPI is fulfilled. In Slavic countries, KPI does not work. The deal works well where the employee generates profit, and even a salary, but in positions where profit is not generated. To date, management has gone through three revolutions.

The customer said just that: you can develop a reward system so that employees understand what I pay them for. So that it is like a mirror in which the employee sees himself through the eyes of the business owner.

The first occurred presumably 3 thousand years ago, when management by tasks arose: the first master took the first apprentice and told him: plan this board, you will get bread. The second was in the 1950s, when company executives discovered that more than half of their employees had college degrees. And it’s impossible to manage them according to tasks, so management by goals arose. And along with it, KPIs. In the 2000s, management by values ​​emerged. True, I developed and offered the client a value-based reward system a little earlier. The customer said just that: you can develop a reward system so that employees understand what I pay them for. So that it is like a mirror in which the employee sees himself through the eyes of the business owner. And I came up with an idea. And for the next 10 years or so, I periodically update this system for new companies.

What is its meaning?
- One day, the owner of a company who has programmers under his command came up to me. You can’t raise your voice at them, otherwise they’ll immediately go to work for competitors, but you can’t leave them without control. Programmers, as you know, love to program, but do not like to write comments on them, and without comments it is impossible. The system we have developed is a point scale from 1 to 9. Up to 3 are mistakes that employees make. Everything from 4 to 7 is a set of different values ​​that are important for the company: professionalism, customer focus, loyalty, etc. From 8-9, as I say, you need to be married to the company. So what happened to the programmers? One of the conditions for receiving 5 points is to write comments on the code. This is the first requirement, after passing which the programmer could receive large bonuses. Having received a 9 in all respects, he could qualify for a reward in the form of an interest-free loan, a company car, and a vacation with his family at the expense of the company in any country in the world. And everything is fine, so the programmer has reached 9 in all parameters, is going on vacation, but it turns out that he didn’t write one comment, and now he already has 4. And no one is going anywhere, but you can return to 9 within a year. This system works. Yes, three people quit, but the manager received a tool that allowed him to manage a complex team. This is a feedback system, and feedback is part of value management. The goal of value management is to transfer the team into self-management mode. That is, every employee knows what he needs to do and how, and he is controlled only by feedback.

In one of your speeches, the idea was voiced that buyers do not need sellers. They're just annoying. The development of this idea leads to the fact that we are facing the disappearance of the institution of sales consultants. Is it so?
- Yes, and much earlier than you can imagine. Look: a computer can parse, understand and synthesize speech. Our phone has a voice assistant. I think Siri could already sell simple household items. She knows what the user is looking for on the Internet and what he buys in online stores. But the sellers will remain. Where there is chic and luxury. In just 2 years, a simple golf car will be available from a vending machine, just like soda. If you don’t want to, don’t believe it, but it will happen. We no longer check the computer or TV in the store. Why check it, of course, it’s working, how can it not work. And remember the purchase 10 years ago. Was it possible to buy and test a refrigerator at home?! Salespeople will remain to help navigate the variety of choices, but for simple, everyday purchases, salespeople will disappear. And soon there will be an end to cold calling on the phone. They will be killed by my phone’s awesome “block caller” option.

What do salespeople need to teach today and why?
- The same thing that was taught before: how to make the customer’s life better. Because if you know how to make the lives of customers better, you will always be in business and with money. If you teach a salesman how to make his life better, he won't last long. Few people allow themselves to be deceived twice. To be able to make a customer's life better, a salesperson must deeply understand people, deeper than they understand themselves. And the seller must know his product extremely deeply.

What does “the purpose of business is to make a profit” lead to? Moreover, the fire alarm in the shopping center does not work. Moreover, the plane does not fly around the thunderstorm front, but, saving kerosene, flies over it and enters a flat tailspin. Moreover, the pleasure ship ends up without certificates and means of rescue.

Over the 10 years that you have been building value-based management systems, what mistakes do companies most often make when doing sales, and why, in your opinion?
- The most offensive mistake that makes me give up and I don’t know what to do: the company decides that the buyer can be deceived with impunity. Of course, companies don't talk about this openly. That would be too much. But when I ask at public speeches: who believes that the goal of business is to make a profit, there are many supporters of this ideological position in the room. What does “the purpose of business is to make a profit” lead to? Moreover, the fire alarm in the shopping center does not work. Moreover, the plane does not fly around the thunderstorm front, but, saving kerosene, flies over it and enters a flat tailspin. Moreover, the pleasure ship ends up without certificates and means of rescue. Moreover, the price of a product first increases by 70%, and only then a 50% discount is provided on this product. Many companies are at war with the client. And in war, all means are good. Perhaps all other mistakes are derived from the desire to deceive and get quick results.

The new generation is making the leap and running their businesses differently; they are close to the concepts of “common values” and “equal and trusting relationships with clients.” They don't need to be taught this.

You are often invited to the CIS; we are all united by a common past, including the roots of the service. In what ways are we still similar and in what ways are we different in service?
- We are similar in that we do not like scoop style service. We are similar in that scoop style service is still thriving. We are similar in that the new generation is making the leap and running their businesses differently; they are close to the concepts of “common values” and “equal and trusting relationships with clients.” They don't need to be taught this. Young people learn to speak openly and on equal terms with clients even in childhood, on social networks. They know that we are connected with any person on the Internet not by six handshakes, as in the middle of the last century, but by only two or three friends. The younger generation easily makes contacts and easily and forever erases contacts from their lives forever. They understand the essence of the company's offer based on subtle signals, and they are interested in advertising more as art than information about the product. They learn information about what to eat and wear from their idols. This is a completely different economy. And it is the same for all countries. In 10 years, only this will remain - the economy of network contacts.

There are also many differences, but these are not cultural differences. In any city in the world there can be two hotels on the same street, and one will have a friendly and hospitable atmosphere, and the other will be terrible.

05/04/2016Konstantin Kharsky

Prehistory
Value management is a logical continuation and, hopefully, development of previous management methods. Therefore, before we talk about value management, let’s take a brief look at the history of the issue.
It all started, presumably, with task management. Imagine earlier Middle Ages. A master hires an apprentice. And sets him a task. Teaches methods of performing work, supplies tools and materials. Vigilantly monitors the work of the apprentice and accepts the job. Well, or he doesn’t accept it, in which case the apprentice has big problems. This went on for centuries. To be honest, in some companies task management is still the main method of management. The general director, or even the CEO, assigns a task to his deputies, they cascade this task down the hierarchy... Well, as they cascade,... they delegate it. Until the task finds someone who will complete it or the last one.
Task management requires its own payment method. In fact, any management methodology requires its own specific method of compensation. And if you mix it up and add a more modern approach to remuneration to the medieval methodology of task-based management, the result will be nonsense.

The best way to reward in task-based management is... a deal! Here's your task, here's how much it costs to complete it - go ahead. A very good method of remuneration, subject to correct pricing. I know. I built ships at the Baltic Shipyard named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze. And we had a deal. The foreman gives the brigade an outfit. The order states how much the brigade will receive. If you want to do it for a month, you want to hand in the work by lunchtime. Well, we knew that the shop manager does not approve of wages of more than 250 rubles. Well, we tried. We tried not to overwork it. Otherwise, they’ll send you to the 24th Party Congress as a delegate. Do we need it?
Then, when the Middle Ages ended, managers (manufacturers, capitalists and other entrepreneurs) noticed that their subordinates were full of employees with diplomas from all sorts of colleges, MBAs, and universities. And setting them tasks, well, it’s not very cool. Their salaries are such that they themselves must be able to formulate the necessary work into tasks. This is how (or approximately this) management by objectives arose. The manager invited a specialist and said: “Dude, your goal is to double sales in your region by the end of the year. Go to human resources specialists and get your KPIs.” Exactly! Along with management by goals, corresponding remuneration also appeared. KPI. Some people like KPI so much that they use it in their medieval companies, where task management is about to take root.

This went on for some time. And at the turn of the third millennium, a movement emerged called values-based management. Or value management. This is a new stage reflecting the social and professional maturity of employees. Now, in an age when information is available, when professionals compete in the labor market (this also happens), an employee can only be told his priority and then he will do everything himself. Set goals for yourself, break down the work into tasks and complete them. When managing by values, the employee's usefulness is rewarded. A company that has implemented value management is able to understand, describe, evaluate and reward the usefulness of each employee.
Now that we've given you a brief history of management, we can talk about value management. Read with confidence, all clever terms have been replaced with understandable words that you use in everyday life.

Value management
First, I wrote a book about value management. The book took about eight years to write. Since about 2002, when I first started thinking about the impact of values ​​on the lives of individuals and companies. The book was published in May 2010. The book is available in electronic form and is free (vm2b.ru). We felt that the more people became aware of how values ​​drive them, the better.
After the book was published, the work on studying value management did not end. And now we have what we call (by ourselves) value management version 2.0. This is what we will introduce you to now. Look.
When a mother sends her son Vovochka to a corner and says: “Wait and think about your behavior,” how can Vovochka fulfill her mother’s request? Well, he knows how to stand. He knows where the corner chosen for carrying out punishments is located. How to think? What is it to think? Is it possible to have some kind of verbal instruction, following which a person would (suddenly) begin to think?
There are such instructions. In her: Ask yourself why the author wrote this article?
If you asked yourself a question, you thought about the reasons and motives that guided the author. And among those who thought about it, there are those who found a suitable answer. And they attributed some motives to the author. Very good. No, the motives that you attributed to me may not be very good, that’s not mine, that’s your business. It's good that you thought about it. How did you think about it? What have you done? You wondered!
We think with questions. When a person asks questions, he thinks. When he doesn’t wonder, he doesn’t think. Now you can divide all your friends into two unequal groups. Among those who ask questions there are those who ask correct, good, useful questions. And there are those who ask stupid, narrow-minded, useless questions. For example, “Lord, why do I need this?” I would like to suggest to such people: wait and you will find out everything.
Let's stay with those who ask good, useful, productive questions. By the way, pay attention to the following phrase: the scale of a personality is determined by the questions that this person asks.
Now call your sales director and understand (not “find out” or “ask”, but “understand”) what questions your sales director is asking. It's all about the questions he asks and the questions he doesn't ask. If you compare two salespeople, one successful and one unsuccessful, you will notice a difference in the questions they ask. These questions are the beginning of success and failure.
You may wonder if the author has lost his way, he promised to talk about value management, but he himself...?
The questions a person asks reflect his personal value system. Is there a value behind every question? If a person is obsessed with money, what questions will he ask? If a person wants to change jobs, what questions will he ask? If a person wants to open his own business, what questions will he ask? If a person wants to be left alone, what questions will he ask?
The questions that each of your employees are asking now are their current value system. You can believe me, there is a terrible mess going on there. Why? Because no one has ever put their values ​​in order. Here is an employee and here is his value system. It came about by chance, under the influence of many people. and there are even literary heroes who left their mark and taught us to ask some questions. Everything is clear here for now. Hope.
So you sat down and wrote down “Sales Director” on a piece of paper. And they began to think. They began to ask themselves: “What questions should the sales director ask so that I don’t want to fire him at the end of each quarter?”
So you think and write down useful questions on a piece of paper. When you accumulate 10, 20 or 25 of them, it’s time to stop; there’s more than enough to start with. I think that a professional is distinguished by one single question. A professional asks them, but an amateur does not. Finding this question is not at all easy. But you found it. This is the target value system. There is a current one and there is a target one. There are questions that a person (employee, spouse, child, client, tax inspector) asks and there are questions that you think he should be asking. Now all that remains is to replace the current value system with the target one.
Let's summarize the first result.
a) Determine a person’s current value system - this is value management.
b) Determine a person’s target value system - this is value management.
c) Replace the current value system with a target one - this is value management.
But that's not all, let's move on.
Here's the seller. He asks some questions that you find useful. Here is his department head. The same goes for asking useful questions. Here is the sales director. Here is the chief accountant. Here is the deputy for IT. And you are on this list. Everyone is asking the right questions in their place. This is good. It is perfectly. For most companies, this is not achievable without heroic leadership efforts. But that is not all. It's cool, but it's not the full picture.
Is there a question that all employees in the company ask? So I worked for three months (in the late 80s) at the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. There was a question that many people asked. How to carry porcelain through the entrance and then sell it profitably? Not a very useful question, you will agree.
What question should the entire team be asking? Finding this question is value management. Make sure that everyone really asks this question... But we know what this means. If the entire team is asking one question, it means that a lot of people are thinking about one thing. Together they will all come up with something. And one more thing, no less important. When several (hundreds, thousands) people think about one thing, who are they to each other? Right! They are like-minded people. They are a team!
Now you know everything there is to know about value management. Find the issues that will make your company great. The scale of an individual (and company) is determined by the questions that this individual (and company) asks.