Is your organization customer-driven, or driven from the top-down? Here are quotes from two business books, “In Search of Excellence” (Tom Peters, Robert Waterman, Harper-Row, 1982) and “Best Laid Plans” (Alan Weiss, Las Brisas, 1990)

 “A simple summary of what our research uncovered on the customer attribute is this: the excellent companies really are close to their customers. That’s it. Other companies talk about it; the excellent companies do it.”

Tom Peters, Robert Waterman; In Search of Excellence

 “There is a fundamental difference between an employee who says “My job is to be at my desk by nine and answer the customer- service phones” and one who says “My job is to convince all customers that we will provide them the finest service they can get anywhere.” The first person is innovative about how to stretch the coffee breaks; the second is innovative about how to get a customer an out-of-stock product.”

Alan Weiss, Best-Laid Plans

These are rather old- but nevertheless, timeless- statements. Why is it that even today- after all these messages and case-studies about how the organization chart should be turned upside-down- there is this pervasive top-down management-by-directive (don’t tell us what the customer wants- we know better!) approach in business?