Originally published on LinkedIn on February 26th, 2025.
A topic that has been on my mind recently is one-way and two-way doors for decision-making. Perhaps you’ve been reading about Amazon’s Culture and Operating Model that puts the customer at the center of everything they do.
Decision-making is an important topic. My team and I are focused on elevating the customer experience as we reshape plastics to be our customers' first and best choice. One of the ways we can enable our customers’ success is through high-quality and high-velocity decision-making.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept, one-way doors or decisions are those that, once made, are difficult or impossible to reverse. These decisions often involve significant investments of time, resources, or both. On the other hand, two-way doors and decisions are more flexible and can be adjusted or reversed based on feedback and changing circumstances. These decisions allow for experimentation and iteration, making them ideal for fostering customer success through piloting and continuous improvement.
This year we will be supporting our customers with more two-way decisions.
1. Agile Approach: Adopting an agile methodology that empowers our team to make rapid adjustments based on customer feedback and market dynamics. This agility ensures our products and services quickly adapt to meet customer needs.
2. Continuous Feedback Loop: Establishing a listening strategy for regularly collecting and analyzing customer feedback. This valuable data will be used to make informed adjustments to products, services, or strategies, ensuring they better meet customer needs and enhance their overall experience.
3. Pilot Programs: Before a full-scale launch, we will be running pilot programs to test new ideas with smaller audiences. This approach allows us to quickly gather real-world feedback and make swift adjustments, ensuring our offerings are fine-tuned to meet customer needs without significant risk.
The most important part is to keep our customers at the center of decision-making by understanding pain points, preferences, and expectations.
See John Thayer's full post on LinkedIn here.
John Thayer is the Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, responsible for driving market leadership and sales strategies for the Polyethylene and Ethylene businesses for NOVA Chemicals.