Unpacking stories to find the truth that lies underneath is always fun.  Here’s a story about a janitorial firm in Cincinnati Ohio that is both inspiring and, reveals how to escape commoditization by differentiating.

First the story.  The basic facts are these.

• They are a janitorial firm (since 1972) that service office buildings over 100,000 sq. ft.
• Like companies in the industry, their employees were largely immigrants looking for a first job that could lead them somewhere else.  After all, who wakes up thinking of cleaning toilets as a career?
• They like everyone else suffered from massive turnover – 400% a year (Yes, that’s 100% every 90 days.)
• You can imagine the turmoil and the low, low margins this level of turnover would create.
• So they implemented a bold idea.  They provided a Dream manager for their employees (all of them).   The dream manager met monthly with the employees and helped them articulate their dreams, plan for it, and because a financial component was usually involved, helped them save for it.

Think about the boldness of this idea for just a moment.  How crazy is that?  A dream manager?  Who has ever heard of such a thing.  A company that spends money helping you achieve your dreams?

Back to the story.

• The Dream Manager Program worked. It slowly gained momentum as employees started achieving their dreams.
• It really took off when Rita bought a house.  Then everyone saw that they too, could realize their dreams. (A car, a good education for their kids, a proper Christmas, a vacation back home, simple things many of us take for granted.)
• The results were (are) incredible.  In five years, 2,785 significant dreams were realized, turnover fell to 4%, gross revenue tripled, profits rose every quarter.
• Their costs are lower. Their client satisfaction tops everyone else (As you can imagine, their employees are very loyal and willingly work very, very hard). No competitor can match them.  They are differentiated.
• BTW, there are now 11 full time dream managers on staff.

What does this all mean?  Should we all hire dream managers as part of our business model?

No, not necessarily, but it does teach us an valuable lesson about how to differentiate.  It starts with a new phrase - value-disrupt.

A rose disrupts the moment. To differentiate, disrupt behaviour

Greatness has always disrupted the norm.  From fire to electricity; from writing to the iPod; different objects, different models, different ideas all inspire latent behaviours to willingly emerge that create new value.  (That’s they key!!)

Let’s unpack the story and discover the formula for differentiation.  As we go through the story we underline the elements.

1. Jancoa recognized a human motivation that existed in their target group.  In their case – the motivation of their employees to dream, to hope for a better future.  (While this motivation is universal for most of these immigrant employees they had long since stopped dreaming.  After all, life taught them they would never reach their dreams.)
2. To enable that motivation to express itself they created a disruptor – (The combination of a resource and associated interface)  = the dream manager with the monthly meetings.
3. The value-disruptor provoked a latent behaviour to willingly emerge.  Employees articulated their dream, planned for them and with the help of the dream manager, monitored progress a monthly basis until the dream was realized.  They did so without being coerced.  They wanted to do this.  A latent behaviour willingly emerging is the KEY.  It’s a new behaviour that a target group willingly adopts that causes a disruption to occur.
4. It disrupted the relationship between the employees and the company.  Duh Yeah!  I don’t just clean toilets here.  I make my dreams come alive.
5. That value-disrupted their markets.

So there you have it, the formula for differentiation.  I’ll return to this value-disruption concept in future posts.

Tips on disrupting

1. Focus on the new behaviour you wish to emerge.  As a result of changing your offer will they do different than they did before?
2. Test it for willingness.  Why will the target do it willingly?  To answer this question think about how easy it will be and how strong the motivation is.
3. Finally, remember that technology by itself is useless.  What is the work process that surrounds it that makes it useful?  Fire by itself just burns.  When you have a work process to control fire you have something useful that will value-disrupt.

Many thanks to Alex Manu who introduced me to this concept.

Thank-you for visiting www.ennova.ca.

You can buy their book about their experience here.  It’s a great holiday gift.