This week brought a salutary and expensive lesson for me although all has turned out well. It is my sons wedding on Saturday the 19th in the UK and of course we are flying over to take part. I had ordered a custom made shirt over the Internet from http://www.tuxedo-formalwear.com and I was looking forward to getting a shirt made for the first time in my life.
Some very sketchy instructions were sent when I ordered the shirt including the sleeve length which should be measured from the nape of the neck to the sleeve length you require. This is where the confusion sets in as to the definition of the nape of the neck.
If you type nape and neck into google there are approximately 150 definitions of what the nape is - some cite the center of the neck just below the hairline and others cite the join between the shoulder and the neck and believe it or not there are many variations in between. Anyway I asked a local tailor and he used the shoulder to neck measurement and guess what it was the wrong one and the shirt turned up - after 6 weeks - with
sleeves for a midget!
Anyway to cut a long story short the company who I ordered it from are not interested and blame me for miss measuring and it appears that even though I followed their instructions and got a tailor to confirm I have no redress other than to warn people to not use the company as they are misleading their customers and then not willing to do anything about it. (Maybe I ws using the wrong image!!!!!!!)
The end to the tale is not that bad as I took the shirt back to my local tailor and he is taking the sleeves off another shirt and putting them on to the new shirt so at least I will be able to wear it - all for an extra $55. This is one expensive shirt.
Back to the moral of the story and the need to understand a definition. We have been embarking on an Innovation initiative for the last few months at the company I am currently with and we still haven't decided what we mean by Innovation - I know if you ask 100 people you will probably get 150 different answers. Similarly with the nape thing - if you ask 100 peope you will get many answers.
But when it becomes important is when things get measured - in my case my sleeves and in the companies case bottom line value or number of ideas etc. This is when the definition becomes very important and when heads can role if you get it wrong. I know in Royal Mail we had this very problem in that we failed to define what we meant by Innovation and when we did our formal review we didn't meet the boards expectations as their idea of innovation was very different from ours. The team was finally dissolved and 3 years later is being reborn - hopefully with a tighter idea of what they have to achieve.
So make sure you understand the definition of whatever it is you are trying to achieve - especially when it is going to be measured!