Don’t Be an Order Taker—Ask Questions for Better Results
In the spring, I often hire someone to do a yard cleanup. Because I can never remember who did the work last year, I start from scratch each year in hiring someone. I'm always surprised by how few questions these guys ask when I explain what I want done. When they finish, I expect them to ask if I'd like them to mow or do lawn maintenance for the summer, but they rarely do. And when the following spring rolls around, they never call and say, "We did your spring cleanup last year. Would you like us to do it again this year?"
These people are order takers. Order takers are people who respond to a customer's needs when asked and respond exactly as stated, but they do nothing more. For people who earn a living doing yard work, this may be OK; apparently, it works for them. But if your products or services are complex, expensive, or easily misunderstood, simply taking orders is risky because what customers request may not reflect what they really need or could benefit by having.
According to some managers I've talked to, order-taking among their IT staffs happens a little too often. Given that their customers don't always communicate their needs fully and accurately—and indeed, often customers don’t even know what they want—these managers fear that their employees may unquestioningly accept flawed requirements and, as a result, provide inadequate or ill-suited solutions.
These managers understand that more needs to be done in terms of asking good questions, seeking clarification, and avoiding false assumptions. A healthy dose of skepticism is critical in working with customers.
And it’s not just for customers. That same skepticism is appropriate even in responding to requests from one's own management. I recall an IT director, Craig, who rushed into the office of an IT manager and said that he needed a report generated quickly from the customer database. He rapidly sketched a bunch of circles and boxes on the whiteboard and said the logic he had diagrammed would produce the report he wanted. And off he went.
Because Craig was a savvy ex-techie, the manager was confident that no clarification was needed. But when one of the manager's programmers reviewed Craig’s whiteboard scratchings, he concluded that Craig's logic would generate meaningless results. Not being an order taker, he tracked Craig down, asked some questions, and generated the report Craig really wanted—not the one he had asked for.
Craig thought he had accurately described what he wanted. Yet, he was like customers (and people everywhere) who sometimes misjudge or misstate their requirements. Such foibles are universal human traits, not failings on the part of Craig or your customers. And that's why it's a good idea not to be an order taker.
