CRM hits the big screen

Attending the European Customer Management World this week, I was fortunate enough to witness Ken Blanchard’s inspirational speech on the opening day of the main conference.

Ken, of course, has carved out a reputation as one of the most influential management figures in the world in the past decade, with titles including The One Minute Manager and Raving Fans (available in all good bookstores – and rubbish ones too). During his exhaustive 80 minute talk, he touched upon some fascinating areas and genuinely provided some real food for thought – compared to the following speaker, James Averdieck, founder of Gu Chocolate Puds, who subjected the audience to a series of images of his firm’s desserts, providing us with thought for food.

For further details on Blanchard’s speech, I summarise the key points in my ECMW report. You may note that Blanchard concluded with the point that “leadership is love” – a sentimental message, and one that you are unlikely to hear echoed from many management figures (I’m looking at you Sir Alan).

What I omitted to mention in my brief coverage, however, was that in the extended prologue to this maxim, Ken treated us all to a recital of the final scenes from the Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore weepy Ghost. Blanchard concluded by echoing Swayze’s final line from the film - “It’s amazing. The love inside. You take it with you” – and comparing this sentiment to leadership. Quite extraordinary, but entirely in keeping with Blanchard's inspirational message.

But it did get me thinking – are there other famous film quotes that could also apply to leadership and the customer management sector? Perhaps Bogart could have catered for the customer analysis field with his: “Here’s looking at you”. How many contact centres around the world could echo Strother Martin’s famous line from Cool Hand Luke: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” And wouldn’t it be terrific to see Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff utter the immortal lines: “May the ‘force be with you”. But I’m sure you can come up with some far better suggestions…

Neil Davey, editor

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