Dear Big Organisation

Dear Big Organisation,

I am a complex and whole human being with unique needs.

Here are some of the things I am not and I will never be:

1. An upselling opportunity

2. A referral

3. An episode

4. What’s on your screen

5. An assessment

6. A deferred member

7. A unique customer identification number

8. A former dependent drug user

9. A change of circumstances

10. A patient in secondary care

11. A telephone customer

12. A service user

13. A transaction

14. A bed blocker

15. A NEET

16. A short stay residency

17. A non emergency repair

18. An appointment

19. A blood test

20. A renewal

21. An appeal

22. 11 minutes

23. A closed case

24. A transaction

25. A minor planning application

26. A Direct Debit opportunity

27. A complaint

28. BZ01Z (or any other NHS tariffs)

29. A uniform and a car parking pass

30. What it says here

31. An outstanding claim

32. A customer accessing a service

33. A unit cost

34. A Blue Badge

35. An open case

36. A non compliant patient

37. A request for information

38. A DNA (Did Not Attend)

39. What I put in my original form

40. An exemption

41. A sale

42. An electronic record

This list is not exhaustive but I hope you get the message.

Thank you for understanding me.

Yours kindly,

A whole human being

The lesson for big organisations

The lesson is simple. As soon as you put someone into a category you stop understanding them as a human being. As a result it is harder to give them what they want or need. Instead, you give them something fixed and pre determined which may or may not work. You take a chance. Taking chances is expensive for business and irresponsible in public sector organisations.

In big organisations, armies of people are employed to disguise original humans as categories, types and tariffs. This is done via documents and screens often by people who have never met or spoken to the original human. Once disguised, the original human is passed on to people to add further layers of disguise. This could be done in the same office, another town or even in another country if part of the organisation has been offshored. By the time all the layers of disguise have been added, the original human need is unrecognisable and the opportunity to meet that need is lost.

The theory here is that IF you break down my needs into parts  (change of circumstances, new claim, sales, membership etc) and then send them to different parts of your organisation (sales, assessments, referrals, change of circumstances etc) THEN you will deal with me more efficiently. The opposite of this is actually true. You lose me in the system. You lose your relationship with me and you lose my trust. Losing people is expensive for both the public sector and for business.

You only find out my needs by understanding me and treating me as a unique and whole human being.

Courtesy of Systems thinking for girls