190 Leading with NLP
company. A whole week was wasted. I have not used the com-
pany again.
Suppose you were the customer service manager charged
with sorting out this mess and making sure it did not happen
again. What questions would you ask?
‘What happened?’
This would be a good start. Look at the immediate system
without judgement – the customer, the supervisor, the
customer service representative and the warehouse.
Finding out exactly what happened might actually be
difficult, however, because people edit their accounts to
put themselves in the best light, in case they get the
blame. They tell you their intentions, not necessarily the
straight facts.
‘Who’s to blame?’
This is the least helpful question, as it just rakes over the
past.
‘Was it the customer’s fault for being so unpleasant?’
In his mind, he had very good reasons, he was frustrated,
could not do his work, had a deadline to make and was
exasperated at what he saw as a lack of professionalism.
‘Was it the supervisor’s fault for not calling back initially?’
He was overworked.
‘Should the courier should have checked the parcel and
asked for the order number?’
But that wasn’t his job.
‘Was the customer service representative to blame for
losing his temper?’
But he had a cold.
‘Was it the fault of the cold virus?!’
The virus could claim it was only doing what it was built to
do...
Blame evolution.
We need not pursue this – blame leads nowhere and every-
where. It is actually possible to blame anyone in a system,
because everyone is part of it. But blame takes you into the