Critelli's Way

As this Wharton School article notes, Pitney Bowes CEO Michael Critelli learned some lessons the hard way on his journey to the top:

Another lesson he learned almost as early was much more painful, and it involved dealing with customers. After graduating from law school, Critelli became a trial lawyer and failed to make partner in two firms before joining Pitney Bowes in 1979 as a company attorney. The previous year, he had spent much of his time assigned to a Chicago firm's largest client who, at the time, was involved in complicated construction litigation. He worked diligently to collect large sums of money for the client, he recalled, while another young associate seemed to spend all his time fixing traffic tickets for the client's family.

At the end of the year, the ticket-fixer made partner and he didn't. When he asked the firm's managing partner why this had happened, he got a blunt and unforgettable answer. "The owner of the company has more money than he knows how to spend," the managing partner said. "His biggest source of aggravation is his extended family. You didn't understand that. That's why you're on the way out and he (the other associate) is going to be made a partner."

Critelli described how he translated these lessons about customer service and change into the world of Pitney Bowes. "It's the customer who decides what delivers value," he said. "Customers want to be treated as unique and valuable." But he cautioned that there are tradeoffs: Customer service can be expensive and companies must measure what they can afford and for whom. For a major client like eBay, for example, Pitney Bowes sends representatives to spend weeks simply observing company operations to develop a better feel for possible innovations. The company even has two staff anthropologists who are paid to watch people work.