Your noncustomers will help you succeed.

• Author: Krames, Jeffrey A.
• Position: THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - Lead with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis - Brief article - Book review

pope Francis's ultimate goal is to personally reach as many of his flock as possible, and he wants all church leaders and members of the clergy to do the same. He wants to bring people closer to God regardless of religion, race, and sexual preference. Your goal in the world of business should be analogous. You must reach out to the outsiders--your noncustomers--to be successful.

Peter Drucker called potential customers noncustomers. It was Drucker who said that 90 percent of the information gathered by any institution comes from inside that organization. That is where most organizations get it wrong, explained Drucker; they need to look outside--for example, to the marketplace--where the most important things happen.

There is a meeting of the minds between Pope Francis and the late Peter Drucker. These two thinkers also agree on ways of detecting real change: Francis talks about change in the way people feel about their religion, spirituality, God, and the Church, and for Drucker it is about how managers detect change that might make their "theories of the...