Life in Italy - Living in Wonderland

The Chartered Management Institute asked me for a contribution to a new blog they were setting up, and then they scrubbed the idea. Here's what I wrote, - and I will post from time to time.

When we decided to move to Italy, it was essentially a move to what the Italians call “Slow Living.” The philosophy is quite simply that nothing is really that important. Nothing is worth worrying about, what matters is home, friends and family, then the local community and somewhere down the line come Italy and Europe. It’s a totally different style from living in UK, and one that is very appealing. For me then, work is no longer the driving imperative. I am more or less retired, a decision that sometimes gives me the Grey Guru status of experience and alleged wisdom, not quite the revered status of Gerry Robinson or John Harvey-Jones, but something of a minor USP.I still have several clients in the UK, and in an Internet world with Google, email and Skype, there is very little difference in the way I can handle projects now, compared with the way I was operating a few months ago in Tunbridge Wells.

The first essential since we drove up, loaded to the gills and closely followed by an enormous international freight lorry, was to resolve the issue of a phone-line and broadband. Consequently, we were delighted to discover that the local village had broadband, and immediately signed up for Telecom Italia’s Alice broadband package. Nothing happened. Right through the process of finding and purchasing our new home we have been increasingly grateful for having discovered Dominic, a locally-based English project manager who is our ‘Mister Fix-It’ and we asked for the help of his Italian fluency and local knowledge. Why was nothing happening?

A week went by and it emerged that someone in the telecom office noted that there was no phone line nearby and decided it wasn’t possible, so the file was shelved. Then Dominic checked this out and discovered that the neighbours across the fields had a phone. I spoke to the neighbours who happily divulged their phone number and with this as evidence, Dominic persuaded telecom to come out and carry out a survey. A week went by and the engineer duly came, and said that a cost would be involved to bring the lines to our property, and that they would get back to us with a price.

Another week went by and we hadn’t heard, so Dominic chased again, only to discover that for whatever reason, the Alice package wasn’t available for our address, so telecom had cancelled the job and closed the file - again. After asking about alternative options, he then discovered that they had another Internet package under another brand, and that this would be available if we put in a phone line. He asked for more details, and since the survey had already been carried out, someone, somewhere had the paperwork.

Another week passed and Dominic chased telecom, and with a triumphant note in his voice called me with the price for putting the line in. Two months later the job was finally approved and allocated to the engineers but the weather is now too wintry for them to work in the fields, putting in posts and lines.

It happens all the time, and haven’t you been there? There’s a gulf that opens into a chasm as marketing, production and sales all work in their own departments and avoid at all costs getting involved with each other. The organisation fails, because each department is focusing on its own Key Performance Indicators rather than keeping the focus on what the customer wants. Having undertaken various projects over the years for BT and, latterly, Openreach, I know the challenges that arise in this industry as new technologies emerge and there is an increasing need to integrate Service Marketing and Service Delivery. If these are not inter-connected, then there is no chance of customer service ever becoming a reality. In my experiences with BT and Openreach there was an acute awareness of the need for customer focus, and the level of service has steadily improved – a tribute to clear-thinking management and a joined-up operation. Maybe your experience has been less positive, but I know the efforts that they are making, and it's all in the right direction.

Meanwhile, another month has passed in rural Italy. Nothing is that important, and in the end we will one day have our phone-line and our broadband, which may not be called Alice, but after weeks of trying to operate with mobile internet on a dongle, or heading off to a nearby town where there is free wireless access provided by the municipality, it will be Wonderland.