Put your people BEFORE your customers

Steve Mann blogged on what he has called Distilled (Marketing) Learnings (he is American hence the grammar :>).  He has shared 8 points but point 6 in particular was so accurate yet so under recognised.

To become customer centric think Employees First.  This is a shameless plug for Danny Meyer's Book, Setting the Table.  But, if you really want to build a customer-centric organization, don't start with Customer initiatives, start by training and attracting talent that is customer centric to begin with.  That gets the notion of putting the customer in the center of what they do, whether its software development, marketing or serving up a great martini.

Well said Steve.  If only more companies followed this rule!