Human Sigma Managing the Employee-Customer Encounter

Six Sigma changed the face of manufacturing quality. Now, HumanSigma is poised to do the same for sales and services. Human Sigma offers an innovative research-based approach to one of the toughest challenges facing sales and services companies today: how to effectively manage the employee-customer encounter to drive business success.

Based on research spanning 10 million employees and 10 million customers around the world, the HumanSigma approach combines a proven method for assessing the health of the employee-customer encounter with a disciplined process for improving it.

Human Sigma is based on five rules to bring excellence to how employees engage and interact with customers:

RULE #1: E Pluribus Unum. Employee and customer experiences must be managed together — not as separate entities.

RULE #2: Feelings Are Facts. Emotions drive and shape the employee-customer encounter.

RULE #3: Think Globally, Measure and Act Locally. The employee-customer encounter must be measured and managed at the local level.

RULE #4: There Is One Number You Need to Know. Employee and customer engagement interact to drive enhanced financial performance. And this interaction can be quantified and summarized with a single performance metric.

RULE #5: If You Pray for Potatoes, You Better Grab a Hoe. Good intentions alone do not constitute a plan of action. Sustainable improvement in the employee-customer encounter requires disciplined local action coupled with a companywide commitment to changing how employees are recruited, positioned in roles, rewarded and recognized, and importantly, how they are managed.

Essential reading for global business leaders, Human Sigma shows how sales and service companies can flourish in the new global economy. It reveals a profoundly different method for managing human systems for growth. Blending strategic analysis with hands-on, practical steps and advice, Human Sigma will change how you view your work, your employees and your customers forever.

John H. Fleming, Ph.D., is a Principal at The Gallup Organization and Chief Scientist for Gallup’s Customer Engagement and HumanSigma practices. He consults with Gallup’s global clients to help them improve customer engagement and enhance their business effectiveness. Fleming is a coauthor of the Harvard Business Review article “Manage Your Human Sigma.”

Prior to joining Gallup, Fleming spent six years as a member of the psychology faculty at the University of Minnesota. He received his doctorate in social psychology and master’s degree in psychology from Princeton University and his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. He lives near Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife, Robin, and their twin daughters, Allison and Emma.

Jim Asplund is The Gallup Organization’s Chief Scientist for Strengths-Based Development. He leads Gallup’s global research on the science of human strengths, and how to apply them to improve organizational performance. His consulting expertise focuses on how strengths, employee engagement and customer engagement interact to drive financial performance. Jim is also one of Gallup’s leading methodologists, specializing in complex research and development efforts.

Prior to joining Gallup, Asplund spent eight years as a lobbyist and policy expert at the Minnesota Legislature, representing clients in the areas of taxation, education funding, utilities, land use, and economic development. Asplund earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Grinnell College in Iowa and his master’s degree in public policy with emphasis in mathematical demography from the University of Minnesota. He lives near St. Paul, Minnesota, with his wife, Susan, and their sons, Jakob and Jonas.