Schrage: To Build Your Brand, Make
and Fix Mistakes Quickly.

Perverse Results... Here's a counterintuitive thought. Customers who experience problems with your service that are quickly resolved will rate your service higher than customers who experience trouble-free service. Hmm. But that's exactly what Michael Schrage reports in his latest Fortune column, ("Brave New Work," Dec 24, 2001). Holy cow. Does that mean that you should pay less attention to quality control and more attention to a SWAT team to fix problems?

This reminds me of a story from my real estate days. We were advising a major financial institution on the disposition of a surplus corporate facility. As we were meeting with the corporate real estate director, the property manager ran into the room red-faced. He announced that the wind had blown "my" sign installer's ladder down and conked a passing pedestrian on the head. At which point, the director began to read me the "How could you be so stupid?" riot act. Oops. So we immediately took control of sorting out the problem. And I'm convinced that our quick action led to a strong bond with our client. How ironic.

Schrage will keynote this year's PikeNet Forum in his presentation "Collaborating to Innovate -- What's the Right Balance of Teamwork and Technology?" And we'll incorporate the theme of his book Serious Play into the Pike's Picks Demos. "Behavior change matters more than technological change. ... The best demos let us improvise with each other, not just with ideas." So each Pike's Pick will get six minutes to demonstrate its service followed by color commentary and analysis from industry veterans. This should be a really fun session. Full details at www.pikenet.com/forum.

--Peter Pike