I read with some interest the New York Times article in yesterday's paper about the challenges that Sprint, the US cell phone carrier, is having.  For years Sprint has had really poor customer service and compounded that by an arrogance in the marketplace.  Additionally, several years ago Sprint decided to buy Nextel, which was a niche player with a very different technology.  Rather than fixing the already significant customer service problems, Sprint just compounded them by acquiring another firm with its own set of problems, a different customer base and a different technology.

The article describes the challenges faced by Daniel Hesse as the new CEO.  You may recognize Hesse, he's the guy in the new TV commercials for Sprint, walking and talking about the new offerings from Sprint.  What interested me was the description in the article about the complete lack of interest and accountability for customer service.  According to the article, not long after Hesse took over, he convened a meeting and asked who was accountable for customer service.  Three senior vice presidents who could have been responsible all failed to indicate that they were responsible or accountable. 

I find this trend to be more and more common in most businesses.  No one is every really accountable anymore, and there are some very valid reasons for that fact.  First, most management teams give very poor direction and guidance.  Sprint never emphasized customer service and churn because it was being valuated based on new headcount growth.  In my earlier days I had the opportunity to do a small bit of consulting at Sprint.  They recognized and acknowledged for at least six to seven years they had poor customer service and high churn - they didn't care!  They weren't being measured on that and their direction was to add new customers.  Now that the cellphone market is consolidating and slowing down, churn and service becomes a much bigger issue.

Another reason no one is accountable for anything is that there are no clear "sight lines".  There are so many cross-functional, matrixed organizations that it can be hard to determine who owns what and where responsibilities start and stop.  Turf wars and bureaucracy also contribute to this problem.  Next, few people get rewarded for being in "maintenance" - whether that's maintenance for roadways or for maintaining relationships with existing customers.  Few dollars are spent in any industry on maintaining infrastructure or existing customers - all of the excitement is in the "new" things.  So maintenance is minimized or postponed.

A final reason that there's little accountability is that there's little connection between performance and compensation unless you are in sales.  Most people can get by doing a fairly poor job and never any hassle for the lack of effort.  It's simply too easy to ignore problems until they fester, and by that point the problem almost seems unmanageable.  I see that the Sprint call center is asking people to email their concerns and complaints.  That's indicative of a problem when your call center needs people to email their issues.

If you want to get things done effectively and you want efficient and effective processes, start by defining very clearly who is accountable for what actions or tasks, and enforce that accountability with rewards for those who demonstrate their ability to complete tasks or actions and counsel or remove those who don't.