Our relational design influences productivity, the brand and revenue.

• Author: Hall, Robert
• Position: Marketing Solutions

Over the past 25 years, the effort to design more productive organizations has been dominated by the math of task efficiency, often overlooking the math of relational engagement and effectiveness. The race to scale by creating larger, more specialized, centralized functions has moved work further from its beneficiaries--the employees or customers impacted by it. This growing chasm has occurred in business, in government and in every other type of organization. The result is organizations in which workers have lost emotional connections, inhibiting their empathy and responsiveness to the customer or end user.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Is it any surprise then that it has also diminished their motivation? In the quest for efficiency, our organizations have become designed for separation and estrangement. This loss has sapped productivity, tarnished our brand and stifled organic revenue growth.

What would a marketplace repulsed by organizational estrangement and hungry for greater relational vitality look like? Look around and you will see. Trust of large institutions has plummeted. Employee and customer loyalty is in decline. Brand loyalty becomes more difficult to build each day. We keep succeeding in removing cost from our transactions. We keep failing in claiming the revenue potential of our relationships. The cost benefit is trumped by the revenue loss. The larger, more bureaucratic institutions keep winning the costs race. The smaller, more relationally connected institutions keep winning the organic revenue growth game.

Two primary tools for improving productivity have been reducing time and cost from customer interactions and incenting greater sales. We push for more on-line banking, shorter interactions in our call centers and streamlined account openings. On the sales side, we have relied on financial incentives to motivate and reward sales. Yet sometimes the push for short-term sales actually hampers longer-term relationship and revenue growth. We all know that a number of customers and prospects have been repelled by overzealous product pushing. Are there other tools we should enlist in enhancing our productivity and effectiveness?

The opportunity and motivation to do great and productive work comes from many sources. It turns out that connecting workers more closely to the beneficiaries of the work has a powerful impact on productivity. Adam Grant, management professor at Wharton, has devoted a significant portion of his career to...