You are who your customer says you are

. . . not who you think you are.

Think for a moment about how the customers of the enterprise that you own or work in would describe it. (Name of enterprise) is ______, represents ______, and does ______ really well but does not do ______ very well at all.

Now compare this to what your enterprise seeks to be – the mission or purpose of the organization. It seems to me that if the two match – what you are trying to be and the perception of your customer – the organization is highly successful. Of course, the opposite is also true. The world does not view companies such as BP & GM in the way that they planned.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Walt Disney, Wal-mart are all examples of successful organizations that actually look like they purposed to be (according to their mission statements).

This is elementary . . . except in failing organizations. Hmmm, perhaps this is the reason for their failure.

You are who your customer says you are