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Subject: 
Reply 1: The Building Corner Person
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.color, lugnet.lego
Date: 
Mon, 14 Mar 2005 10:08:34 GMT
Viewed: 
5387 times
  
Dear Jake,

I hope you don't mind me splitting the replies into several parts, in
order to reduce the complexity.

Example: I talked to a person who was in charge of one of those building
corners in Legoland Günzburg. One of my questions was: "Don't you have
an awful amount of 'loss' here?". An interesting talk erupted around
this issues, like parents asking wether they could somehow purchase what
their kid built, etc. One aspect was that certain parts 'vanish' more
often than others, because they can't be bought in the shops. I asked
wether they have told someone about this, and I got the answer that they
tried numerous times, but nobody up there listens. Everything is planned
and done in Billund, and information from their own employees at the
'customer front' is not heard. -> A communication problem.
So how do you know that the information is not heard? Can you tell me with any
certainy that the information simply didn't make it to the right ears? Do you
believe that there's any chance that the information made it through channels
but the idea was declined or is in progress or is being discussed or any number
of other options? What channels did this person use to get this information
across? How hard did they push it?
Actually, I can't give you more details that could be labeled
"evidence", as I didn't bother to ask back then. I was just talking to
this person, and I didn't consider it to be my job to be a kind of
"Danish Inquisition" ;-) Next time, I'll try to dig deeper when I talk
to your companies employees.

My impression was, though, that this person and her colleagues tried to
communicate the problem a) several times b) to different positions in
the hierarchy c) without any reply whatsoever. Quote: "But nobody up
there bothers to listen to us anyway". I didn't try to get a detailed
description or written statement of whom she/they asked what and when,
but the frustration expressed here really shocked me. Especially as this
will definitely prevent these persons to ever try to communicate
something that might be important.

In a perfect world, an employee would have a single point to drop an idea, and
it would get near immediate reaction and explaination. But we don't live in a
perfect world. If someone believes in an idea, they often have to push it.
Certainly I've witness this first hand as I've worked for 4.5 years to hammer
home the concepts of community. If I hadn't pushed (and pushed and pushed and
pushed...) nothing would have ever been changed.
I never said that I expect an immediate result for any request
whatsoever. But - and this is something your company, and the community
development team, too, still has to learn about reaction to external
input - Don't appear to be an informational black hole. Don't even start
to give this impression. I'll give more details on this later. I don't
know wether there are communication 101s out there, but a) ANY kind of
reaction is important. At least ackowledge receipt. b) Even bad news is
better that no news. If someone sends in an idea that is totally crap,
you should tell this person this - maybe more polite, but it should be
communicated.

Based on this one conversation with this person, and without any further
research, facts, inside understanding, etc., I'm not sure that I would agree
either of us know enough to call it a communication problem.
Communication is - in a human way, not in a mathematical/I.T. way -
bidirectional. Lack of reply/reaction leads to frustration, which in
turn leads to a lower incentive for further communication attempts. So,
in this case, a communication channel broke down. A "Yes, we heard your
suggestion, but we can't do this for a variety of (undisclosed) reasons"
might have prevented this.

End of first Part...

Yours, Christian



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Reply 1: The Building Corner Person
 
In lugnet.color, Christian Treczoks wrote: <snip> (...) Not to dump, but TLC responded with a 'Yes we heard you (after the fact, to be sure), but due to financial/other reasons we are not going to change the colour back'. Jake said it, and now we (...) (19 years ago, 14-Mar-05, to lugnet.color, lugnet.lego)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: CEO-Letter // The answer
 
In lugnet.color, Christian Treczoks wrote: Christian, thanks for your indepth response. We can have discussions much better when the posts are calm and logical like this. Just to make sure it's clear, I'd like to point out that you're absolutely (...) (19 years ago, 10-Mar-05, to lugnet.color, lugnet.lego, FTX) ! 

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