Continuous Research, Writing & Improvement

Every Friday between 5 and 6 pm my kids hear the familiar jingle of the Ice Cream truck headed in our direction. The first time we heard it we chased that truck all through the neighborhood until we finally caught it. A memory my kids still talk about…

Now she comes by our street and goes really slow as she passes by the house, giving my kids plenty of time to find their quarters and their shoes.

Last Friday, as the music faintly filled the air, the girls set off to find some money. Unfortunately the economic crisis has trickled down to my kids’ savings and there was no money to be scavenged.

One of my daughters said she still wanted to go outside to say hi, another came to me crying. All she had was the two dollars that the Tooth Fairy had masterfully crafted into a beautiful butterfly. She really wanted ice cream but did not want to unfold her gift. I told her she should save the butterfly, but she could still go say hello to the ice cream lady.

To my surprise my two girls came back five minutes later with three ice cream cones in their little hands… Apparently when my girls told the ice cream lady that they had no money, she had compassion and gave them ice cream that she said she couldn’t sell because it had gotten squished, just a little bit.

What impressed me the most is that she gave them three drumsticks, one for my littlest girl who was too busy playing princess to hear the truck.

There is a really important business lesson to be learned here: Do you love your customers enough to help them even when they have run out of quarters? And do you know them well enough anticipate their needs? (The extra cone for a little princess that would surely want one as soon as she saw her sisters’).

My girls immediately decided they wanted to do something nice for her the next week. They also decided to have a lemonade and cookie stand to make money so they could buy ice cream next time too. Her small act of kindness inspired my girls to be innovative and they pulled in nearly six dollars over the weekend.

Thank you ice cream lady for making my girls so happy. You have earned lifelong customers who tell everyone they know how great you are. If only all businesses were as good to their customers as you!

If you can make it through the first full minute of ads, the meat of the conversation with Mike Carnell is really good. For any company starting out or in planning sessions of how to roll out a Continuous Improvement initiative with Six Sigma, Mike Carnell hands out some free advice.

Mike is a long time guru in the industry. He tells it like it is, without fluff, without worrying about stepping on toes. The best thing about Mike: he is always honest with you. And the results his companies have seen speak for themselves.

A short excerpt:

Steve Wilson: What are the must be’s for any deployment?

Mike Carnell: It is a process. It is not about DMAIC. Think about the environment you are going to create for people to work in. Project selection. Process for selecting the right people. Financial data to help select projects. Finance involved from the planning stage to quantify benefits.

Steve Wilson: Why is a deployment plan to important?

Mike Carnell: What you are doing is introducing change. If you introduce change without a plan you will scare people and create stress. A plan puts people at ease.

Mike was recently on Steven’s show, Quality Conversations, again this week doing a Q & A session. You can also follow Mike on Twitter (though he doesn’t tweet much, he still has plenty to say).