26

June
2007

Simplistic Problem-Solving

category: Problem-solving
by Lonnie Harmon,

I look at problem-solving like I do most things, as simplistically as I can. I guess my philosophy to solving any problem can be summed up in three words:

  1. Listen – whether that’s to someone else, like a client/customer, to a trusted advisor, or often just to your own instinct
  2. Act – do something
  3. Flex – adjust as needed; it’s certainly better to act and flex than to just keep thinking about a solution

Here’s an example of our company, Intulogy, solving a client’s problem. Following DHL’s acquisition of Airborne Express, DHL was looking for a way to offer training to 15,000 couriers spread around the
United States…oh, and the training was going to be voluntary and it couldn’t be during the week when the couriers were busy delivering packages. And, they needed the training completed in a short period of time.

We had one meeting with DHL to discuss their need. We then had to quickly analyze nationwide data covering the location of hundreds of stations and thousands of contract couriers before proposing a solution of 50+ trainers, geographically dispersed across the U.S., delivering one-day training sessions on Saturdays and Sundays for 8 weeks.

I don’t want to understate the analysis that went into this proposal. We had a team of people plotting numbers by location and preparing charts and graphs so we could not only provide DHL an outstanding proposal, but also so we could understand what we were getting ourselves into.

DHL gave us a go-ahead with about a month to prepare. Since we use primarily contract trainers, we had to hustle to put together a team. One of our core values is helping others which really paid off for us as we scoured our network for great trainers. People we had helped wanted to help us. We were able to identify all of our trainers within a week so we could continue with the other formidable logistics of the project.

I won’t go into all of the logistics necessary in preparing for and fulfilling this project. I do, however, want to say flexibility was key. Because the training was voluntary, we would often have training planned for locations A-ZZ for a weekend and suddenly need to change C to FFF, UU to another A, etc. for a number of trainers the Thursday before the training.

Again,

  1. Listen
  2. Act
  3. Flex

For instance, I think any customer service experience requires paying attention to what the customer is saying, acting upon it quickly and efficiently and being flexible enough to adjust with them as they need it. Or conversely, as often happens when I’m ordering for my four kids, I get a cheeseburger with everything 15 minutes after ordering a plain hamburger and then wait another 10 minutes while the restaurant attempts to remedy the situation. They don’t listen, they can’t act and don’t even think about asking them to flex.


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