I’ve been thinking about loyalty recently; how we have a story in credit union land about how our founders, and the generation or two that came after them were loyal to the credit union. The common story is that ‘the credit union was there when we didn’t have much and now that we are successful, we stay ‘loyal’ to the credit union.’ In a business sense it is a compelling story; it’s about a shared experience that keeps bringing people back. There’s a quality of ‘home’ to the story, and for many of us, home is worthy of loyalty.
And in more recent years, the financial services business has become a commodity. Virtually everyone in Canada has access to credit, and so, the story of having a financial institution ‘being there’ when we didn’t have much is more broadly based. As long as I meet certain criteria, they will be there, and in fact they may in fact be competing against each other for my business. My loyalty can be bought in that sense.
But a new phenomenon is appearing. Loyalty based on ease. For all of the ‘cool’ factor associated with Apple, the simple fact that it is ‘easy’ is a big loyalty driver. My phone talks seamlessly to my tablet with talks seamlessly to my laptop, which talks seamlessly with iCloud. My pictures are never lost, my music moves with me, and I can even have Apple TV if I want the joy of a bigger screen. But bigger than all of that? I turn the thing on, I put in my id and it works. It works. I am of an age where I remember having to allow about an hour to set a TV up, with the stereo, all the wires, the cable, the speakers… I plug my Apple ID into a gadget and it works. And so as I look at what my new phone is going to be? Who do you think I will talk to first.
But there is a danger here. And I’m not talking only about how much info about me that Apple now has, including my credit card. I’m talking about a business environment where easy is king (or queen as the case may be). You see, as cool as an Apple product might be, it is not a human being. You and I are complex organisms and while some of our behaviours may be predictable and common, we are inherently complex. As leaders we know that only too well. There is no, “Apple ID” that magically links your team together as a team. The individual variances in thinking, in emoting, in articulating are the places that creativity and innovation seed and grow. Technology is binary, humans are, well, human.
As our technical work is simplified and commodified, honour the complexities in yourself and the people with whom you work. Assuming that they are simple too, can only result in failure and frustration.
May this week find us relishing our own complexity, even if we enjoy some simple entertainment.