Local Rugby

In the week that Dudley Kingswinford Rugby Club beat the formerly mighty Manchester 137-0 and their local rivals Stourbridge lost again to leave them hovering dangerously above relegation it was interesting to see both coaches making the same point but for different reasons.

DK player coach Jon Higgins went on record to warn of the dangers of being too ambitious, pointing out that former Championship team Manchester's rapid and humiliating plummet down the leagues with hardly a point scored until this season is simply a result of their unsustainable finances drying up and the desertion of their paid journeymen, while in contrast DK's starting line-up included 13 of their former Colts.

On the other side of that coin, it seems Stourbridge's coach Neil Mitchell is well aware of the dangers of basing success on imported paid players and what relegation might mean. Here's what he said:

“If you look at Wharfedale or Cinderford they have a core of players from the local area who are real brothers in arms. We don’t have that but we have got to find it.

“I want the players to take more responsibility, run the lineouts, draw up a team charter because everyone is going to have to muck in. I don’t want anyone thinking ‘What happens if we go down?’ or phoning this agents because we need to stick together.”

The Dreams nightmare continues

They obviously weren't going to ring again so I had to spend another half hour listening to the piano and the announcements on the 0844 number before I got hold of another Scot. This time a girl named Kim. My previous phone call was recorded on her system but I still had to explain everything again.

First she said that the sprung slats were £40 extra and she would have to ring the store to see what I ordered. I told her that her colleague (Ross, she informed me) had promised to ring back but had only managed one of those silent calls that satisfies the CRM system and drives customers mad and she promised to ring me back and wait for me to answer.

She did ring back and the story now is that the Roma only comes with solid slats and has no pre drilled holes to allow the fitting of sprung slats so they aren't an option and she can't send me any. I'll have to open the box now to confirm this but obviously I don't believe her. She said she's looked at the instructions and also the people in the store confirm that I couldn't possibly have seen sprung slats on the bed in the store, I must have imagined it. She says I'm welcome to go in and check - yeah, like they won't be changing them as I write this. I've already spent an hour and a half hanging on the phone and talking to people who will tell me anything to get rid of me and they think I'm now going to drive all over there for another argument in person. As if.

I asked if I was the only person to buy a Roma bed and notice that the slats were solid and not sprung as advertised on the internet. She said I was. She also said that since I didn't buy the bed from the misleading internet, but in store, she was unable to do anything for me except perhaps sell me a different bed.

She said that Ross had the wrong number on the system which is why he didn't phone. I said that he did phone the correct number but hung up as I answered and she mumbled something I didn't catch. Perhaps the people who record the call for training purposes will understand what she said.

I don't want the bed now and intend to get my money back, so it doesn't make a lot of difference but I would love to hear from anybody who has a Roma bed with sprung slats.

If getting my money back is half as stressful as trying to get them to supply what I ordered you'll be hearing from me again. Meanwhile, pleasant Dreams.

Dreams the Bed Company

02084954527 just rang. I happened to have the phone in my hand and answered on the first ring, but the caller had already hung up. I rang back - "You have been contacted by Dreams The Bed Company.....". Graaaahhh!!!!!

Well I suppose their state of the art CRM system shows that they rang me back and resolved my query. But of course they haven't. Now I imagine I have to ring them back again and wait another half an hour.

Or I can just phone my bank and cancel the transaction and leave their bed out in the rain for them to collect.

What would you do?

Dreams turn customer service into a nightmare.

We've bought a bed for the spare room. I'm sure it will be a lovely bed if one of the Dreams Team will only come to the phone to sort out my problem with the delivery.

The bed has been delivered with solid slats instead of the sprung ones advertised on the web site.

I rang the store and first of all they said it doesn't come with sprung slats they cost extra. When I insisted they look at their own web site they said it was a mistake on the web and they would ring me back.

They rang me back and asked me to ring customer service. So far I've been hanging on for 10 minutes listening to a repetitive piano loop and an occasional recorded assurance that one of the Dreams Team will be with me as quickly as possible.

I can't understand why the store isn't authorised to sort this issue out.

Somebody finally answered. The order at Dreams end, but not on any of my paperwork states 'solid slats' apparently. The web site says:

Sprung slats provide a secure, comfortable base for the mattress of your choice.

Specifications:
- Modern design
- Metal frame
- Chrome finish
- Sprung slats

At least, it does at the moment. I've taken several dated and timed screen shots in case it gets changed while I'm waiting for them to call back. Annoying isn't it. I've got work to do today and I'm spending it getting wound up by good old British Customer service. Dreams indeed!

Waiting targets for accident and emergency to be scrapped

At last, some common sense in government. After years of persisting with the damaging philosophy of arbitrary targets micro managed from Whitehall our new government sweeps away Blair's foolishness at a stroke and hands control back to the managers. Well done Cameron, and thanks for listening.

Link to the Guardian article.

Foxconn factory ends condolence payments over suicides

One suicide note appears to have convinced Foxconn that their policy of compensating the families of suicide victims is motivating employees to take their own lives.

Foxconn factory ends condolence payments over suicides

This looks like an example of one of the two big mistakes which are commonly made when interpreting data. In this case they are treating a Special Cause of Variation as Common and reacting inappropriately. As Deming said, don't just do something - stand there.

The sin of believing your own publicity.

All of what we do, for our clients and for ourselves is based in systems thinking. As a result we've been more keenly interested than most at the unfolding story of the Toyota crisis. We've watched Toyota's growth both in reputation and sales over many a year now and always with admiration - until now. Over recent years there has also been a boom in Toyota based management books. Indeed it's hard to find a management book published in the last ten years that doesn't have either Toyota in its title or contain copious mentions of the company.

The story of the gaffes committed in not listening to their customer's complaints and pretending there was no problem, to accepting that there was a problem but not reacting quickly enough to it will no doubt produce many reprints of those books and spawn a whole new set in the categories of PR and disaster management.

The question in my head through all of this has been - did they begin to believe their own publicity, were their heads turned by so much praise? In fact I was reminded of the case of Sainsburys who were a client of ours through the 80s and 90s. They were at that time family led and quite simply believed that they were the best, which they had been without doubt, but they refused to believe that the runners coming up on the rails were a genuine threat. We were working with other retailers at the time and could see clearly that Sainsburys weren't as good as they thought they were in many areas and were clinging to what had worked well in the 70s. They just didn't listen to us and they were in for a terrible shock when Tesco, the upstart they disliked the most hit them very hard indeed.

Toyota appears to be the other side of that coin. The new kids on the worldwide block who overtook the old established front runners and forgot to carry on doing what they had done so well.

There's an excellent interview by John Shook on his Lean Enterprise web site with Takahiro Fujimoto, who thinks that Toyota did start to believe in their own infallibility which I would urge you to read.

PS. We have no control over the Google ads placed adjacent to these posts, one of which currently reads - Employee Rewards. Widest range of incentives to increase workplace motivation. - If you're tempted to click on that, please don't. Instead take a look at Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise and Other Bribes or listen to his podcast.