Monday, April 30, 2007

Minimize or Maximize?

Seth Godin tells of an encounter with bad marketing, at the Indian Embassy when trying to get a visa. He lists many ways to improve the attractiveness and easiness of travelling to India, then notes:

"My takeaway was this: the people in that building were way too nice and way too smart to not know the many ways they could fix this process. The problem is that this bureaucracy, like most bureaucracies, has an attitude of minimizing, not maximizing. They want to minimize expense, not maximize benefit. There isn't a single person there who has as part of his job, "change systems to increase the satisfaction of people we deal with." Nobody who is charged with, "increase revenue opportunities for us and for the people we work with." Or even, "employ more people in Delhi."

"Same thing happens at my village zoning board, at most schools, at many churches and even, believe it or not, at most businesses. It's not that difficult, but it requires a very different mindset."

Is your organization focused on maximizing or minimizing?

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