An international service organisation recognised that it had to learn to move away from its historic manufacturing attitude (‘we sell what we make’) to a service attitude (‘we’ll provide what the customer wants’).
Recognising the need to educate the leaders, internal quality experts organised a study tour. The top people were shown excellent service companies at work. They were fascinated by what they learned. The conversations remained lively for weeks, but slowly things returned to normal.
Urgency for change is best achieved by studying your own system. It’s harder to deny the need for change when you see it for yourself.