I’ll start today by quickly referencing the article I wrote last Monday – ‘Needles in Haystacks’ – which focused on important aspects of recruitment. I wrote at the time that we often don’t pay enough attention to candidates’ CVs or probe deeply enough for accuracy, and lo-and-behold a good example of the dangers of not doing so came along this week just to emphasize that very point.

You probably heard that Yahoo’s Chief Executive Scott Thompson was forced to resign recently amid a scandal over a computer science degree he included on his CV that he allegdly never actually earned. For sure, he makes the point that it was not his fault that his CV was incorrect, but regardless of the accuracy of the reports, my point is simply that there have been plenty of similar examples of people (at senior levels) taking liberties with their CVs, so it’s worth reflecting upon that issue when you are next hiring for important positions in your business.

And now for something completely different.

I often wonder who came up with the idea that customer service could be enhanced by attempting to remove any interaction between the ‘customer’ and an actual human being.

Let me explain.

About six weeks ago, as I left Dublin airport early one morning, I deposited some ‘tax-back’ forms in one of those drop-boxes at the tax-back kiosk in the departures area because nobody was on duty. Fair enough, it was very early. But as it turned out, that drop box was really a black hole in disguise because they have disappeared. I had actually forgotten that I had dropped off the forms until this week, when I suddenly remembered, so I decided to ring the company in question.

And when I did, I had the pleasure of interacting with a machine for several minutes, which proceeded to boss me about and made me press various different buttons, until I finally got to the ‘or press zero to speak to an real person’ option, which sadly turned out to really mean ‘or press zero to listen to the sound of ringing for five minutes and you might, if you’re lucky, end up speaking to a real person’

I hung up and tried emailing instead. Here’s the resulting email trail:

Me: Dear Sir/madam, I deposited three refund applications at your outlet in Dublin Airport early one morning about two months ago. As yet, I have not heard anything back from you. Would it be possible for you to update me on the progress of my refunds?

I then received an auto-reply saying I now was the lucky owner of a ‘Ticket’ and was in a ‘Queue’. Spare me.

24 hours later, an actual human being wrote to me:

Them: Dear Mr Larkin, Thank you for contacting us. We are happy to assist you with your query. Did the receipts say (company name) on them in the top left hand corner?

I wrote back immediately.

Me: I don’t have the receipts. I deposited them in your Drop-Box.

About 3 hours later I received this.

Them: Did you not keep copies?

Losing the will…I replied.

Me: No. I didn’t. There was no requirement stated on the advice leaflet that I needed to keep a copy of the receipts. Anyway, this would be whole lot easier if I could call your office and speak directly to someone. I have tried several times but nobody answers. Could I call you direct?

About 1 hour or so later.

Them: Sorry, but the only way to contact us is through the main number. I apologize if you have had difficulty getting through, but I cannot take direct calls. Would you be able to contact the store which issued the receipts and ask them for copies?

Anyway, I gave up after that. Maybe next week, when I recover, I will try again.

Now, I am all for streamlining processes, and using technology for best effect, but when you really think about it, in many cases, the addition of technology has not enhanced our experience but rather has shifted the workload from the provider to the customer. I could bang on about that particular issue, but it’s not really the point I am trying to make today. What I would like you to do for today’s article is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Now, I know that sounds like something you did on your first Customer Care course years ago, but I mean put yourself in their shoes but ask yourself some strategic questions in relation to what are known as The Six Utility Levers.

The Six Utility Levers, often used as part of Blue Ocean strategy thinking, are a useful way to examine your service experience from a strategic perspective, rather than solely at the operational level. Consider the following:

Lever 1 – Customer productivity
This type of utility lever is where your product/service can help your customers to do things faster, better, or in different ways. If you think about my above frustrating example, the company in question might tell you that their use of technology to handle customer queries is making it easier for those customers to get help 24/7, but the reality, for me at least, was that it did the opposite.

I think it’s worth your while to define where your product (s) or service (s) can truly add value to your customers – and once you are sure that the reality matches the promise – then you could build such benefits more prominently into your marketing messages.

Lever 2 – Simplicity
This type of utility lever is about how simple your product/service is to access and use. And here is a very basic example of how the simple is often made overly complicated. I was sitting at the ‘wifi hotspot’ at the airport the other day, along with three or four others, and all of us had purchased a voucher – you know the usual thing with a username and password. But each one of us had problems getting access because the passwords were ridiculously complicated with over 10 digits, a mix of upper and lower case, like 4eFq79UvYY5i, and so on. It’s as if we were seeking to access the Pentagon files not the damn internet. KISS is good.

Lever 3 -Convenience
The convenience utility lever is one which every business claims to offer but again small things can make the product or service totally inconvenient – and often technology is the culprit here too. Yesterday I tried to get access to the UEFA football site to buy tickets for Euro 2012. I tried all afternoon and simply could not get access – the site was clearly overloaded. Then, this morning, good and early, I tried again and was put in an online queue (what’s with the damn queuing) where I saw a progress bar telling me how close I was to moving towards gaining access. Then, just as I thought I was good to go, the following flashed up:

Thank goodness I have little else to do with my time but to wait, and struggle, to give UEFA my money.

Lever 4 -Risk
The risk lever is about how ‘risky’ customers believe your product/service to be. Generally, as you are well aware, most customers are risk-averse, so helping to assure them that things will turn out well is vital. For example, postal/courier tracking systems fulfill this role, as do customer endorsements and so on. In a service context, dealing with the same person from booking to post-event can help a customer feel more secure, particularly say in the context of booking an important event at a hotel and so on.

Lever 5 -Fun and image
This is something that often gets overlooked – the fun factor and the image associated with a particular product or service is an important – although often subconscious – consideration for customers. Think about the bars and restaurants we all frequent, or why people go crazy for Apple products and so on – how fun is it to use your product or service? What sort of image are you selling?

Lever 6 – Environmental friendliness
This utility lever is about providing friendliness towards the environment and whilst I think a lot of companies ‘talk’ about how great they are in this area, I am not sure the reality always lives up to the hype. But it is a growing concern for customers, and especially the next generation.

I thought these six levers were a useful way for you to think about your customer experience, albeit at a more strategic level, and to assess how well you perform in relation to them. As well as thinking about these factors in general terms, I would suggest that you also consider them against each one of your different products or services, or indeed for different parts of your ‘customer journey’ from say pre-purchase to after-sales service. I think it would also be a useful exercise to have your wider management team and even your employees reflect on these six levers too.

Anyway, I hope the article has provided you with some food for thought at least.

To finish, I received this email this morning when I logged on. As you may remember, I had given up replying yesterday due to the fact that I actually have a life.

Them: Dear Mr. Larkin, thank you for contacting our customer service team. We are glad that we were able to assist you with your query and we have now closed this ticket. Should you require further assistance please do contact us again.

And at the bottom of the email was the following:

Them: If you would like to tell us about your service experience, please click the link below.

Losing the will…to live.

Enjoy your weekend!

Every business owner or manager that I have ever met understood the need to step back and look at the bigger picture on a regular basis. In fact, nobody I have ever worked with over the years has disagreed that having a ‘handle on the big picture’ is vital. No, there is no argument on that front – a critical role for any senior manager is not to get too caught up with the nitty-gritty of the here and now, but rather to stay focused on what’s potentially out there on the horizon.

Sadly, that’s not how the reality of business life works for many managers that I know, or for those whom I regularly encounter. In fact, here’s a flavour of the challenges facing some of the managers that I have met recently:

• Looking out onto the horizon becomes somewhat difficult when you have over 200 emails bombarding your inbox every day – many pointless admittedly, but all need to be at least read.
• Looking out onto the horizon becomes somewhat difficult when cutbacks in management numbers over recent times now means that you spend much of your day doing work that others used to do.
• Looking out onto the horizon becomes somewhat difficult when your day is continuously hijacked by one meeting after another, so much so that you only ‘get down’ to your own work just as everyone else is heading home.
• Looking out onto the horizon becomes somewhat difficult when your financial reporting systems are so antiquated that you get data long after you need it, and long after it has any real relevance.

These are just some of the real and practical challenges that I have discussed with various senior managers I have met over recent months, as they rightly bemoaned the fact that whilst they are paid to think ‘strategically’ (and indeed are largely measured by their success at doing so), much of their time spent day-to-day isn’t even focused on tactical stuff, but wasted on mundane activities which add little value in terms of getting that handle on the big picture.

I am sure you have your own issues on this front.

In a paper entitled ‘The Three Disciplines of Strategic Thinking” by Rich Horwath (a leading expert on strategic thinking – see short bio at end of article), he referenced a Wall Street Journal study which identified the top 5 executive skills sought by organizations:
1. Strategic thinking
2. Ability to work across functions
3. Ability to drive results
4. General leadership
5. Core financial understanding

And my experience with a variety of companies across industry sectors would concur with this – strategic thinkers are much sought after. That said, it seems to me - and as the earlier examples show - the reality of life in many companies is that senior managers are frequently prevented from doing the very thing they are hired to do.

And, unfortunately, I don’t pretend that I have any easy answers on this issue, other than to stress again the importance of making time to step back – even if you have to disappear up a mountain to do so. It simply has to be done.
What I can do, though, is offer you some questions to ponder when you do actually get time to think about where your business is headed. Indeed, I recently wrote about the power of questioning in terms of business development, so here are additional questions to help you reflect on strategic concerns in relation to your business. And I have presented them at three levels: your business, the competitive environment and the ‘macro-environment.

Think about your business:

Financial

• How is your business performing financially? How does that compare to other similar businesses? Do you actually know?
• Are you truly optimizing your revenues? Do your people up- and cross sell for best effect?
• How well do you control costs? Do your managers have the knowledge and skills (and information) to really get a grip on expenses within the business?
• What’s your predominant cash position? Are you doing everything you can to bring forward your cash inflows and delaying your outflows for as long as is (legally and ethically) possible?

Customers

• Who are your customers? Have you divided them into different key segments? What are their specific needs by segment?
• Are you meeting and more importantly exceeding those needs? What do your customers think about you at present? Again how do you know? When customers do give you feedback, how often does the word ‘excellent’ feature
• How do your satisfaction ratings compare to industry norms and best in class companies?

Product

• How does your product/service offering compare with that of your competitors? Where are the current ‘gaps’ in what you offer? Why do they exist? Can you bridge those gaps, or should you change track?

People

• Are your employees fully engaged with the business? Do you actually measure ‘engagement’? How does that benchmark externally?
• Do your people play an active or passive role in day to day decision-making?

Think about the competitive environment

Competitors

• Do you have a lot of competitors, or only a few? How does your performance compare to them?
• Is it easy to set up a comparable business in your area, or are there significant barriers to entry?
• In short, is your business considered a leader amongst your competitive set?

Markets

• Are you operating in a mass market, or do you offer a specialist or niche experience?
• Is overall demand growing, or subsiding in your region?
• What drives the market(s) that you are in? Price, quality or both? What trends are you seeing in your markets? Are you increasing market share or losing it in your key markets?
• How does the market operate? Do customers buy directly, online or through intermediaries, or all three? Who are these intermediaries and what relationships do you have with them?
• How is technology affecting the market dynamics?

Industry

• What are the key trends in the your industry which will impact on your business?
• What are the overall projections for the industry in your country/region?
• What supports are available for businesses such as yours? Are you maximising your usage of those supports? Who are the main business associations? Do you have a relationship with them?

Think about the Macro Environment

Economic

• What is the general economic outlook like for the short and medium term where you are? What is it like in the places where your customers come from?

Social

• How are consumer habits/needs changing? What implications might such changes have for you in the short and medium term?

Regulatory

• Are there any regulations on the horizon which might have implications for the operation of your business? What do you need to do to get ready for any such legislation/regulations?

Technology

• Are you maximizing the use of information technology in your organization, not only to deliver the best service possible for your customers, but to maximize productivity and efficiency, and to create internal learning platforms?
• What are the future technology developments which will impact on organisation generally in your field? How might they impact your business?

Environmental

• What are the key environmental issues that you need to respond to?
  How well do you manage your energy and waste removal costs? Are you proactive or reactive in this regard?

Now I don’t pretend that any or all of the above questions are new, or indeed overly insightful, but they would serve as a great foundation in terms of helping you to think strategically about your business, once you made the time to do so.

In the report by Rich Horwath which I mentioned earlier, he referenced research he had conducted among senior managers from 154 companies, after which he defined four types of strategic thinkers.

Here’s what he came up with:

“Using the analogy of underwater diving, there are four types of strategic thinkers. The first type are the Beach Bums. Like a beach bum, this manager mentally lounges around and doesn’t really contribute any insights to the business. The second type of strategic thinker is the Snorkeler. This type of manager skims the surface of issues. They’re the first one to wave their hand in the air and say, “We have a problem” but don’t offer any potential solutions. The third type of strategic thinker is the Scuba Diver. Like a scuba diver, when these managers are equipped with the right tools and instruction, they can come up with strategic insights. The final type of strategic thinker is the Free Diver. A free diver can dive underwater to depths of 800 feet on a single breath. These managers generate new and impactful ideas for the business on a regular basis.”

According to Mr Horwath’s research, only three out of every ten managers are highly strategic, or at the Free Diver level.

Which best describes you?

I’ll leave you today with a story about one senior manager I spoke with recently which links to this underwater team. He said to me some weeks back, “It’s hard to look to the future when you’re drowning in paperwork.” We had a long talk about it at the time and we both agreed that he needed to grasp the nettle: he had to go to his superiors and make the case that if they wanted the right results, he needed to be in a position to do what he was actually paid to do.

He called me yesterday and said that he had indeed sat down with the owners of the business and, whilst at first they blamed his problems on his own poor time management (which to be afir to him was not the issue at hand – I can vouch for that), but after a lengthy and ‘healthy’ debate he said that the decision has been taken to reinstate a Deputy GM position which had been taken out two years ago.

He would get the space he ’required’ they said.
He’d better deliver the results, they added.
Yes, he told me, he had significantly upped the pressure on himself to deliver. He was aware of that.
But he was happy to take that risk.
Happier than drowning in paper.

Enjoy your day!

Reference: Rich Horwath is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-selling author on strategy. As the CEO of the Strategic Thinking Institute he leads executive teams through the strategy process and has trained more than 50,000 managers around the world to develop their strategic thinking skills. He is a former Chief Strategy Officer and professor of strategy. For more information, visit www.strategyskills.com

I came across the following story on Gawker.com this morning in an article written by Emma Carmichael. I found it quite funny. It involved an email trail that developed between a man who was looking for a job and a recruiter seeking to fill a position. The job searcher was a guy called Robert and he had placed a profile on Monster.com in the US. In his profile he apparently indicated that he was only interested in jobs in the Columbus area (in Ohio state) but not outside of that locality. One day, he received the following email from a recruiter named Joe Goddard:

Robert then responded:

Which in turn prompted the reply from the recruiter:

To which Robert replied:

Which then promoted the following reply:

Ouch. Robert shot back:

Joe wasn’t giving up though:

Robert batted back:

and finally Joe ended the budding relationship:

People with too much time on their hands methinks.

Anyway, I thought this was a funny incident and one which brightened up my Monday morning. In truth, neither party came out smelling of roses after this exchange, but it did get me thinking about recruitment, something I have written about here before; especially in relation to how to make the most out of the interview process so that you select the best candidate available.

You would imagine that, in these difficult times, recruitment generally has become easier for employers but that would not seem to be the case at all. In fact, many managers and owners tell me that apart from having to wade through a huge number of – mostly unsuitable – applicants for each post advertised, the quality of candidates is poor as the best people are staying, or are being induced to stay put. How true this is in practice I can’t say, but regardless of what challenges you are facing right now in terms of recruitment, today I would like to focus on how you might select the best person for any particular job from the pool of candidates available.

Now, my first point may sound incredibly obvious, but one thing that arises from the exchange above is just how important it is to actually read a candidate’s CV in great detail. Yes, I know, I know, that’s a really basic point but, that said, it’s amazing just how often I still see managers at interviews flicking through the candidate’s CV whilst the person is answering a question, and it is clear that they are often seeing the said CV for the first time.

I have spoken too in the past about the need to have some sort of ‘Employee Profile’ which helps you to define the skills and characteristics associated with each key position for which you are recruiting. The need for such a tool remains valid. As you review the appropriateness of your current profiles, or as you prepare new ones, I was recently reading again through the book “Winning,” by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, and he made a few interesting points when it came to recruitment which I think are valid here.

First off, he indicated that when recruiting he used three ‘acid tests’ to screen candidates, namely integrity, intelligence and maturity. His belief was that those who had integrity were likely to tell the truth and keep their word so that immediately moved them up the list.  And he wanted intelligent people because that was necessary for any position, but ‘intelligence’ - in his view  – meant someone with “a strong dose of intellectual curiosity, with a breadth of knowledge to work with or lead other smart people in today’s complex world.” He also looked for maturity (not age related) because he felt that such individuals could handle stress, deal better with setbacks and problems whilst at the same time, they could enjoy success when it came.

Whatever you think of Mr. Welch, I like those three items as a basis for screening applicants and I think they are applicable for most management positions. Whether you feel they are applicable for you isn’t the key point here, because you can easily define your own ‘bottom line’ requirements and use them as part of your employee profiles to screen candidates so that you can quickly narrow down the field.

Returning to Mr. Welch views on this area, once a candidate hit those three minimum benchmarks, he then applied what he called the “4 Es”, namely:

Energy – In this regard he was looking to see whether a particular candidate had high levels of energy and enthusiasm because such individuals were action-orientated and open to change and uncertainty.

Energize – he was always keen to explore whether a candidate could truly energize others, in a meaningful way, and if they could, by their own attitudes and skills, influence others.

Edge – he defined this as the ability to make tough yes-or-no decisions. Sure, he wanted someone who could analyze situations and problems, but he also wanted people who knew when to stop thinking and start doing.

Execute – At the end of the day, he believed that managers had to have the ability to execute, to get things done, to make things happen and the above three were of no use without this fourth ‘E’.

Again, whether you agree with these particular points, it is the principle which is of value here. Having a clear picture – simple, concise, relevant and measurable – of what you are looking for in a candidate is vital in terms of helping you to improve the recruitment decision-making process. If not these four points, then come up with your own, but do take some time to review your employee profiles, or develop new ones, as a result of today’s post. Apart from their use during the recruitment process, I find that taking time out of your busy life as a manager to develop/revise such profiles makes you really think about what are the core attributes and skills YOU want from your key managers. That is a useful exercise at any time, I think and one we don’t always do frequently enough.

Finally for today, the goal of recruitment is often presented in terms of ‘finding a needle in a haystack’ but I think it is a bit more than that. If you manage the recruitment process effectively, it’s not that hard to find A needle, but finding THE needle is something else entirely; and it’s only through knowing what that needle should look like in the first place that you can really master that challenge.

Enjoy your day!

I’ll tell you: It’s three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone: Commerce, education and, the, uh, what’s the third one there? … Commerce, education and the uh, the uh. . .the third agency of government I would do away with — the education, uh the, uh, commerce, and let’s see — I can’t… the third one, I can’t. I’m sorry … oops.”

Some debates can be rather revealing I think. This was US presidential candidate Rick Perry fluffing his lines a few months back in one of the debates. Later in the session, a lot later it has to be said, he did remember that it was the Department of Energy that he was planning to do away with if he made it to the Oval office. Yes, this debate told most of us all we needed to know about Mr Perry.

Unfortunately, not all debates are as revealing.

Back in the real world, the world of work that is, life is full of either/or discussions, not all of which add a whole lot of value to our daily existence it has to be said. Once such ‘debate’ is the Leadership Vs Management conundrum which gets bandied about all the time – or at least it does on management training courses of various kinds. No doubt you will have participated in the debate in some shape or form over the years.

And I will make an admission, and an apology here.

I too have been at fault on this front for I have previously fuelled the debate and have eagerly indulged in rampant navel gazing in the past, pondering concerns such as: are management and leadership complementary, or mutually exclusive? Can a manager be a leader, or a leader a manager? Is leadership a function of management, or the other way around? Yes, as ashamed as I am to admit it, I have wasted my own time, and that of others in times past, discussing such abstract and ultimately meaningless questions. Thankfully, I can console myself with the fact that greater minds than I have fallen into the trap too:

All great stuff for sure, but I’m sorry to say that today I think it’s all baloney. Yes, catchy and memorable sound bites like these do of course have their place, but they do not really tell us, in any meaningful way at least, how the two roles – leading and managing – interrelate in organizations, in terms of the realities of day-to-day working life. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting the leadership-management distinctions – let’s be clear on that – what I am saying though, hopefully loud and clearly, is that we should avoid thinking of them in either/or terms. We should kill the debate in other words. Ultimately, to be effective, any person holding a position of authority needs to be able to both lead and manage, but the extent to which they will need to do so will naturally vary depending on their specific role and level.

Maybe I am not making a whole lot of sense here, so let me step back for a moment and start again.

When you strip away the complexity, ‘managers’ – in any business and at any rank – need to be concerned with two things:

1. They need to achieve results
2. They need to engage their people

Naturally, these two concerns go hand in hand, but if you really think about it, managing or ‘hard’ skills such as the ability to plan, organize, control and so on help us to realize the things we want to, or need to, achieve. On the other hand, leading or ‘soft’ skills such as the ability to inspire others, applying flexible styles in how we deal with people or motivating others are essential to bring the best out in our people so that they really want to help us achieve our goals. For many years the debate has raged as to whether it is management or leadership that is most important in terms of balancing the engage-to-achieve relationship, and as a result the impression has grown that there are both leaders and managers in every business. But there aren’t. Again, think of it this way, no business could function if you had some people who adopted leadership roles whilst others focused on the management functions: that’s a really nonsensical proposition when you really analyze it. No, the more I have explored this issue, the more I have come to recognize that to be successful, any ‘manager’ needs to be able to lead AND manage.

In fact, as I have studied the issue more closely I have also realized that I have known plenty of ‘managers’ over the years who were actually great leaders, others who were less so and then there were a few who got it consistently wrong. I have also had the dubious honour over the years of meeting individuals with snappy little titles such as ‘leadership fellows’ or ‘emerging leaders’ some of whom wouldn’t have known real leadership if it walked up to them holding a sign. Sadly, for too long now, terminology has driven the debate but whether you call someone a leader or a manager is really irrelvant because the truth is that nobody in a position of authority can reach their full potential by ONLY leading, or ONLY managing.

Sure, I am very well aware that, at times, ‘leading’ may take precedence for a manager such as when setting overall direction for the business or when motivating and inspiring people but, as far as I am concerned, process always has to be ‘managed’ in order to deliver the expected levels of performance. For example, an individual can have any vision they want, or be blessed with a second-to-none ability to inspire others, but unless he can manage the day-to-day aspects of a business, then he cannot be as successful as he might otherwise be. Equally, someone may well be great at managing aspects of execution, but if she cannot motivate and inspire people to work together to achieve common goals, then that too leads to some degree of ineffectiveness. Leading and managing are therefore joined at the hip and cannot be separated; we need both.

And in case you think I live in Cloud-Cukoo Land, I am not saying that all managers currently DO have both sets of skills, but certainly both are needed. In fact, it is this inability of many individuals to lead and manage which creates so many problems in the workplace today, because a lot of people are either strong at the management side of things, or at the leadership part, but rarely both; which in either case leads to underperformance. If you look back at the past decade in particular, many of the so-called great business leaders may well have had strong ‘leadership personas’, but you would wonder whether some of them could even count given the financial destruction they caused to their companies. Leading without managing only led to hubris. Managing without leadership leads to demotivation. And it’s not just at this senior level that the issue matters: I have seen many supervisors or middle managers who were either good at the managing side of things but fairly poor at leading, or vice-versa, and this creates its own problems in terms of organizational performance.

So, the real challenge of effective leadership (or management, call it what you will) is therefore not about what you label yourself, but rather what you can actually do – and how well you can do it. Ask yourself whether you have the right attributes and skills to help you to excel in both the management and leadership roles associated with your position? Do you even know what those diverse requirements are? And don’t be afraid to admit failings on this level either, because it is never easy to be an all-rounder and this is why only a few very talented individuals can get it right. I remember early in my own career that whilst I had a natural ability to inspire and communicate with others, I had to work very hard to address shortcomings on the management side of things, particularly when it came to financials or administrative tasks. But work hard at it I did.

Finally, for all I have said here, don’t think that I am promoting the view that you need to be some sort of superman or wonderwomen, extraordinary hero, or corporate champion to be truly effective in a management role today; no, managers are from Earth not Krypton. That said, if you really want to stand out, then you do need to maximize your ability to both manage and lead.

Enjoy your weekend!

“Hello…”
“Yes, eh, hello, is this the Lakeside Conference Centre.” (Name changed because I don’t want to publicly critize the business in question.)
“Yes it is.”
Then why didn’t you say so when you answered the phone.
“I would like to enquire about booking a conference room for 100 people, in mid-June this year, please.
“Okay, hold on, I’ll transfer you to our conference office.”
Phone rings and rings until after about twenty times, my call bounces back to the switchboard.
“Hello…”
“Yes, it’s me again.”
“Oh, did nobody answer you?”
“No…nobody answered.”
“She must be on another call…can I take a message, or would you like to call back later.”

Last week I bemoaned the fact that I seem to be complaining a lot at the moment; and I was worried that I was turning into some sort of grumpy middle-aged man as the years slip by. And not a week later, here I am again with another complaint. But what can I say? Bad things are happening to me these days, so I have to tell you about them.

Anyway, the above telephone experience was an example of a call we have all had in some shape or form. And of course, in any business, things will also go astray from time to time and the customer experience will fail to live up to expectations on occasion, but when you consider that I was calling this particular venue to potentially deliver a one-day conference for up to 100 people with lunch etc., you would expect a bit more professionalism than what I received. Perhaps if I called back a second time, the experience might be better, but that’s not the point. I won’t be calling back.

Still, the incident got me thinking again about just how difficult it is to deliver consistency across all elements of the service experience, regardless of what that experience might entail in your business. But whatever field or sector you are in, your customer experience will have what I call critical ‘hotspots’: those really essential personal and product-related interactions that combine to form the overall customer experience. In any business, these hotspots will include personal component such as telephone enquiries or reservations, dealing with customers face to face, or dealing with them when they make a complaint, or when they need guidance and support. The hotspots might even be in how you ‘interact’ with customers through your visual displays, or especially through the products and services you offer. A hotspot may be brief, say when I ask an employee for directions whilst in-store, or more intense, say if I was asking a salesperson to explain the specification of a car that I was considering buying. Essentially, any customer experience, in any business is made up of a series of hotspots, each one of which contributes in some way to how they view the overall experience.

And again, regardless of your particular business, I am pretty sure that you will agree that there is no issue more challenging for you as a manager than seeking to achieve consistency and quality across all your hotspots; in fact you might say it is the holy grail of all service operations. Every owner and manager that I have met has, and does, struggle with this issue to some degree – and no doubt you do too – perhaps spending significant time pulling your hair out trying to ensure that your employees handle each of the hotspots in a similar fashion, doing the same things, in the same helpful friendly manner.

Of course, there are wider concerns at play here too, such as employee engagement levels and management effectiveness each of which create the conditions where employees are more motivated to handle these hotspots to best effect, but at the core of this issue is the need for clear guidelines as to how such important customer interactions should be performed; yes, I know, this is undoubtedly, basic stuff which I have written about before,  but in these turbulent times nothing matters more than service quality and no matter how much is spoken on this area, I’ll bet you that even in the last week – as a customer – you will have been involved in a hotspot which you felt could have been better handled by the employee in question. So yes, for sure, this is a basic area, and, yes, it already gets a lot of attention, but it still seems beyond many businesses to get service quality right – consistently that is.

Despite the challenges associated with this area, and those challenges are indeed significant, it can’t be ignored because unless there is a ‘right’ way of doing things, all the hotspots in your business will not be handled effectively or consistently and ultimately customer expectations won’t be met, never mind exceeded. For sure, most business people that I encounter are bored silly at this stage hearing terms such as standard operating procedures, standards of performance, SOPs or similar to define how these hotspots should be handled. And I understand that frustration because, unfortunately, too many businesses get the approach to quality assurance wrong and end up with manuals full of standards with accompanying procedures, only to find them gathering dust on a shelf in the HR Office, but adding little real value to daily operations.

So, for today, I would like to highlight some points that might help you better master the issue. Some fo these I have touched on previously, but given their importance, they are worth highlighting again.

Change how you look at this area

Before exploring a simple but effective approach to combating the paper problem mentioned above, part of the trouble here, in my experience, is that when you talk to employees and indeed managers about ‘standards’, their eyes tend to glaze over and you can just tell that they are thinking something along the lines of ‘shoot me now’. And that too is understandable. Words such as ‘standard’ scream conformity and rigidity and they certainly don’t instill any sense of excitement or passion for service, do they? In fact, they are likely to have the opposite effect. Now, don’t get me wrong, solutions to delivering consistent, and high quality service have to be about more than massaging the terminology involved, but trust me, changing how we communicate the issue is not a cosmetic exercise.

Think of it in simple terms – would you rather talk about ‘standards’ or something called a ‘service goal’. I know which one would matter more to me. So, instead of talking about standards (what we want to achieve) and procedures (what we have to do to achieve the standard required), I have recommended for many years to client companies that they talk in terms of Service Goals and Service Steps. In fact, I know that a number of my regular readers here have already applied this, or a similar, methodology and they constantly tell me that changing the ‘packaging’ around this issue has made a big difference. So, think about what you do currently in this area and how you might make it a bit more ‘sexy’. Of course, there has to be substance behind the sexy packaging too and here’s how that can be achieved.

Defining Service Goals
The start point to better managing the customer hotspots in your business is to define guest expectations for each and every hotspot and then translate those expectations into short, snappy goals. Let’s take a simple example that would be common to most businesses – handling a telephone enquiry:

Nothing earth shattering there, but for this particular hotspot the service goal is now clear, and more easily communicated to employees. The key point here is that the service goals you agree, as a first step, set the boundaries for what everyone involved is trying to achieve in terms of service delivery. They are:
- Challenging because the aim is to achieve them all the time
- Relevant because they are based specifically on what customers generally expect
- Easy to communicate to employees because they simplify what it is they are trying to achieve for their guests.

The next step is then to consider how much guidance to give your employees as to what must be done to achieve each of the service goals you define for your business. This, unfortunately, is where many businesses end up wading through paperwork because they define procedures in great detail, covering every possible eventuality. I am not a fan of this approach at all, and especially if you have an engaged bunch of people, then all they need is ‘guidance’ not ‘hand-holding.

So, this is where I promote the use of service steps not procedures.

Defining Service Steps
Like any goals, it is necessary to actually do something to achieve them. And for each service goal identified, it is therefore essential to consider what guidance will be given to employees on how to consistently achieve that goal. As I said, you really need to consider whether written and documented service steps are needed for every goal, or should employees be allowed to work on their own initiative? My advice is to only use written formats when it is really essential; a good quality photo depicting the end result required for a practical task, like how to set up a display, supported by effective on-the-job training can be more beneficial than written materials. However, for some tasks, such as handling telephone enquiries example, the visual approach won’t work so written service steps might be required.

When developing written service steps, it is always advisable to use a simple template and keep them short and to the point; a one pager should suffice for each hotspot. Here is a sample of how this approach might look for Handling a Telephone Enquiry:

I think this approach offers just the right amount of guidance to employees as to what needs to be done to manage that particular hotspot of handling a general enquiry, but it’s not overly prescriptive in that it defines what exactly should be said when the call is answered and so on. You can get such points across during training and coaching sessions. If each one of your employees were to consistently adhere to the ten steps above, then I think that would not only meet but exceed most customer expectations, particularly if employees are enthusiastic and passionate as they handle the call – this is where the engagement issue comes in.

There is no pretense that the guidance offered today will solve all your problems related to service delivery and it is always easier to talk about it than to make it happen in practice. However, the advantage of the simple approach outlined today is that it builds an easy to apply framework around the only thing which ultimately matters in any business – exceeding customer expectations fo every hotspot. Finally, in my experience, this approach works best when employees are involved in defining and agreeing the service goals and steps in the first place because that harnesses their commitment, so get them involved at an early point is setting up this, or a similar approach.

Enjoy your day!

“What’s that, Mommy?”
“What’s what?”
“Out the window, Mommy, over there?”
“You mean that thing over there?
“Yes.”
“You know what that is. It’s another cloud.”
“But why is it a diferent color from the other ones we just saw?”
“Because, it has rain in it”
“Huh…I don’t see any rain, Mommy.”
“Well, it’s not really rain yet but it…look, just color your book like a good boy.”
Silence for less than twenty seconds.
“Will we be landing on a cloud, Mommy?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re not real things.”
“But they are real, they have water in them, you just said.”
“No I mean. . .they aren’t re. . .oh, look, just color your book, please.”
“But, Mommy…”
“I said color your book.”

This was part of a conversation – only a small part, mind you – that a little boy had with his mother on my flight yesterday morning. At 7am. And if you think that she sounded a bit short with him, well she was in the end; but he had questioned her for about thirty minutes up to the point when she told him to focus on his coloring skills. I have just given you the briefest snapshot of his cloud obsession, and apart from wanting to land the plane on one, he had already been down the ‘Is that where God lives?” route with her when he saw some big white ‘fluffy’ ones earlier. He seemed like a bright little spark, if a somewhat over-enthusiastic one for that hour of the morning.

Still, he got me thinking about the power of questions and how, as children, we quickly master the idea of probing everything, and then somewhere along the way we lose that capability. . .maybe we learn that asking too many questions ultimately annoys the people around us, so we curb our inquisitiveness. But questioning is an art that we should never lose sight of, and especially so as managers, we should never stop testing all aspects of what we do.

And one way to do so is, when faced with a problem, to consider applying the ’5 Whys’ concept. The 5 Whys is a simple problem-solving technique that helps you to quickly get to the root of a problem. It was made popular in the 1970s by Toyota, and has since become a widely applied tool and particularly so in Six Sigma and Lean methodologies. The 5 Whys approach involves looking at any problem and asking: “Why?” Very often, the answer to the first “why” will prompt another “why” and the answer to the second “why” will prompt another and so on; hence the name the 5 Whys. Five is, of course, simply a good indicator to apply but what this approach essentially means is that you start removing the outer layers of the problem so as to get to the root causes within, almost as you would when peeling an onion. A simple example of the 5 Whys in action is shown:

Source: http://www.velaction.com/5-whys/

I think the principle of applying the five whys for problem solving is a good one and if you don’t use it already, then give it a try at some point.

But there are more general ways to apply the art of questioning to what you do, and the following random questions might provide some food for thought for you and your management team:

Why are we here?
Now, I don’t mean that you consider this question in some sort of hippy way, but I do suggest looking at your department/business and really thinking about what it is you are trying to achieve? Don’t fall into the trap of seeing this as some sort of pointless navel-gazing exercise either, one that’s great for consultants with plenty of time on their hands, but far too abstract for busy managers – many global companies have changed dramatically after thinking about the why question in a substantive way.

For example, Apple became a very different business when it changed its why from ‘making computers’ to ‘making computers beautiful’. Steve Jobs understood that to make the computer more beautiful meant not only better design, but also better software, so that it not only looked better but worked better. And upping their game at design and software in turn meant bringing the best people on board and so on. . . with the result that a seemingly simple shift in thinking led to a radical change in the business model.

What do we do better than anybody?
A lot of managers think about what they do well. In fact, it’s often the predominant focus of thinking because it makes them feel good – and we all want to feel good about ourselves. Nothing wrong with that either. But when I ask owners and managers ‘what they do better than anybody else?’ many confuse the question with ‘what do we do well?’ so I often get answers like, “we provide excellent service to all of our customers” or “our products are second to none” and so on. For sure, I don’t want to seem like I am knocking such responses, but lots of companies offer excellent service or great products – so it’s really no big deal if you do too. The more important question is to try to determine what you (verifiably) do better than anybody else. Is that a long or a short list? Is there even a list?

What do we do less well than others?
Of course, you are likely to already be closely watching your competition and I have written before that your simple credo should be that ‘You lead, they follow’. Okay, that’s a nice little target to aim for, but the reality is that there will always be some things you don’t do so well in comparison to others. What are those things? Why are you under-performing in those areas? What can you do to raise your game? Is it even feasible to consider getting out of those particular areas if you can’t compete? For example, many hoteliers I know in mid-range establishments located in city-centres would gladly not serve dinner in their restaurants, if the classification regulations didn’t stipulate that they had to – they simply can’t compete with the variety, and sometimes quality, available around them. Many operators, again if allowed, now only offer bar-food options for dinner but have moved out of the restaurant dinner business altogether. Sometimes, when possible, exiting a market or sector is the smartest move if you can never realistically be a leader in it.

If we went out of business tomorrow, who would miss us?
I love this question. A few years ago, I was working with a business mentor and he asked me that question about my own business. I nearly fell off the chair to be honest and I did find it interesting to consider it. I’m not saying I liked the answer, but either way, it’s a useful one to ponder, isn’t it?

How much do you really know about your customers?
I won’t labor the point about being close to your customers, because that’s a given, but what I will say is that it is vital to ask yourself how much you really know about your customer base – all of them, I mean. In my experience, most companies know and hear from customers who are either very happy or very disappointed, but the majority who lie in the middle tend to go largely under the radar. Equally, how much do you know about customers who have stopped using you, or even those potentials who have not yet started?

What’s it like to be your employee?
How you see the employee experience, and what it’s like for your people, may not always be the same. I have written before about differing perspectives between managers and employees and a recent study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel (CIPD) confirms this very point when they found that whereas 80% of the managers surveyed believed that their employees were satisfied or very satisfied with the way they are being managed, only 58% of employees felt that they were.

What happens when you’re not around?
This is another simple question that I ask managers all the time and I find that it’s always worthwhile to reflect on what happens when you are not there to keep an eye on things. Is your management team, or are your supervisors, strong – and dedicated - enough to ensure that the work is done to the standard you expect when you’re not around?

Okay, I’ll end it there for today except to keave you with a quote from Einstein which I think works well here, ‘To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.’

Finally for today, I don’t normally do self-promotion but I have a new book out, entitled Journeys – Short Stories and Tall Tales for Managers and as it’s very close to my heart I would appreciate any and all the help I can get to spread the word about it.

Briefly, Journeys is a relatively unique business book in that it uses the art of storytelling to highlight some important messages about management. It contains 15 interlinked short stories, real-world and work-related perhaps but they are stories nonetheless, each of which explores a different aspect of management. Many are linked by common themes and characters, but all promote the view that our potential for success – in business and beyond – is directly influenced by the interplay between our attitudes, attributes and actions. In other words, we must constantly focus on who we are and how we think, because that ultimately drives what we do. I have received very positive feedback to date, from new and experienced managers, and would love to see the book as widely circulated as possible, so tell your friends as they say!

Thanks in advance for your support.

Enjoy the weekend and see you back here next Wednesday!

I was talking to the manager of a charity yesterday and he is faced with a major dilemma. A big part of getting the best out of his door-to-door fundraisers is obviously the financial incentives on offer to them; the rewards are mainly based on them generating extra donations, and particularly subscriptions. Now, given the times we are living in, it is very hard to increase donations – even for experienced fundraisers – and this means that not only is the charity having to curtail its activities, but he’s finding it ever more difficult to hold on to his fundraisers – many are choosing not to work at all, but to take whatever social welfare they can get as they wait for something better to come along.

Read the rest of this entry »

My apologies, I’m very late circulating this today but I am completely swamped at present. Sorry for any inconvienience…

“I’m afraid, there’s nothing I can do to help you, sir”

Last Friday, I wondered aloud whether I am turning into an old curmudgeon. Today, I am more convinced than ever that, sadly, I am; in fact, it’s clearly a progressive problem and it’s only going to be a matter of time until I turn into Victor Meldrew (that grumpy old TV character who complains about everything, for those of you not familiar with him).
I suppose I should give you more details if the rest of this article is going to make any sense.
This morning I was dealing with a so-called ‘customer service agent’ which in this particular case was really an anagram for ‘I hate my job and I hate you even more for attempting to make me do it.”
All I was trying to do was change some flight arrangements but I might as well have been asking him to walk across hot coals in his bare feet for me. Sure, there was a male voice at the other end of the line answering my questions, but there certainly wasn’t anyone who actually cared about their job or their customers.
But he was clever too. Oh yeah, he was clever enough not to be rude to me, but he was completely unhelpful and nothing could be done because ‘company policy says that fights in that ‘code’ cannot be changed.’

Now I would understand the intransigence if I was some random customer, but given that I conservatively spend €5000 a year with this particular airline and have done so for the past ten years, I’m not some random customer.

Anyway, I have written many times about employee engagement and I am sure you are sick of me droning on about the issue, but every day I see the effects of employees who don’t care about what they do, so I think it’s worth every bit of attention you pay to the problem even if I end up sounding like a broken record in the process.

Now, these days, most companies I know of tend to keep a close eye on their absenteeism rate as an indicator of whether some people are swinging the lead, and in most private sector businesses, there’s not much scope to miss days without having a good reason. But I think there is another area that we need to consider and I’m perhaps stealing, and reworking, a reasonably well known term here when I describe it as Presenteeism – yes, we need to think more about those employees who turn up for work, but do as little as they can get away with. To me this is a hidden scourge in many businesses, but don’t just take my word for it because there are many credible employee engagement surveys which indicate that as much as 50% of employees in some organizations fall into this category – turning up, but doing less than they are capable of.

There are many worthwhile surveys and tools which can help you to identify which of your people suffer from Presenteeism but you likely know who they are already. That said, in an unscientific way, to help you think even more about who might be ‘Present but not correct’ in your team, here are a few scenarios to consider:

• Imagine you call all your team together to make an important announcement. Picture each one of their faces as they sit there in front of you waiting to hear what you have to say. Seriously, try to visualise them seated in front of you. Then you make an announcement – you need them all to work on the coming Saturday (or whichever is a normal day-off) to help deal with a very important and urgent project. Now, picture again their faces, as you say the words. Sure, few people are likely to be over-joyed at the prospect of having to work their day off, but try to think about which of those faces in front of you are likely to be the ones who show the greatest disappointment. And who will most likely immediately react to what you have said in a negative light telling you that they can’t do it, or similar?

• Think of another scenario. You take your team out for a meal as a gesture of thanks for their hard work. You stay for the duration of the dinner, but take your leave after dessert. As you depart, you inform the team that you are leaving the ‘tab’ open for them to have a few extra drinks, but that you don’t want them to go overboard. . .think of what might happen after you have gone. Which of your team members might be urging restraint and who might be attempting to screw you for everything they can get?

• Here’s another one. Your company has hired a consultant to identify ways in which
  performance can be improved. The consultant meets with each staff member
  individually – in confidence – and asks them a series of questions as to what
  could be done to raise their engagement levels. Think about how each of your
  team members might respond in such circumstances. Which of them would propose
  positive suggestions, or even bring up negatives but in a constructive manner?
  Who might use the opportunity to off-load about the company, or in particular,
  about you?

• One final one. You set your team – all of them – to work collectively on a project. As they do so, a major error is made. The team has two choices: they can either tell you about the issue, or they can act as if nothing has happened and hope that the error will go unnoticed. Think of your team members: who will be advocating to tell you? Who will likely counter argue? Who will be caught in the middle, waiting to see where the majority opinion wins out?

Okay, these are just scenarios and you cannot read the mind of each and every one of your employees. Still, I regularly use these thought-provokers on management development programs and I see all the time, particularly when a manager knows their team well, how beneficial this form of mental imaging exercise can be. Often, the busy life you lead at work prevents you from standing back and really thinking about such things, or you do so case-by-case, but only as problems arise.

And a couple of points usually arise from thinking about these scenarios. First off, you need to honestly ask yourself whether you contribute to the levels of Presenteeism seen, as a result of how you manage your people; and by the way, research shows that ineffective leadership is always a factor in the levels of disengagement seen, so you may well be doing things – however unintentionally – that are causing some of your people to be present in name only.

The second issue, is that you should have a picture in your mind of who in your team is suffering from Presenteeism and how bad they are suffering from it. You probably knew who they were already, but maybe that picture is clearer now. What next? Well in my experience, people suffering from Presenteeism usually fall into two distinct categories – those with potential to change, and those ‘lost causes’ who are adding no value to your business and probably doing more damage than good.

Now, regular readers amongst you will know that I always believe in giving people every chance to improve, so I am not advocating that you ‘shoot’ the lost causes at dawn; but if, after guidance and support from you, they fail to raise their game then I would have no qualms about helping them to redirect their careers elsewhere. However, for those with the potential to ‘give more’, the only route to achieving that aim is to spend time defining what their blockages are and then coaching them for improved performance.
Yes, that is time consuming.
Yes, that can be a pain in the neck.
Yes, it is unfair that you should you have to coach people to do what you already pay them to do.
Yes, nobody ever cuts you the same slack.

Yes, to all of the above. But like it or not, that’s the reality of the modern workplace. Some people, the minority unfortunately, give their all every day without the need for hand holding. At the other extreme, as mentioned, a few fall into the lost cause category. The majority, and all the research proves this, can give more and will do so if the ‘conditions are right’. The only motivator for you to really address the Presenteeism issue is to recognise that even a small increase in effort by each employee can collectively make a massive difference, or as Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, once said, ‘If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito’.

Every truly ‘present’ employee can make a major difference to your business…

Enjoy your day!

Last week I went to upgrade my phone: I did so because I had received two calls from my service provider telling me that I qualified for a limited-time free upgrade (which by the way, as you well know is always far from free – the small chunk of metal and plastic I would receive would probably be free, but to get it I would need to change plans so I am sure if I did the sums I would be paying extra somewhere along the line. Still, my current phone is doing ever more odd things, like calling itself, so I thought I would avail of the ‘offer’.

Last week I went to upgrade my phone: and when I entered the shop there was a long queue. And seemingly no system to manage the waiting customers. Or enough staff to deal with the volume of business.

Last week I went to upgrade my phone: and after about fifteen minutes, having not even been acknowledged, I left because I hate waiting around so that I can buy something.

I sound like an old curmudgeon, don’t I?
And maybe I am turning into one.
Anyway, the incident got me thinking about the broader issue of what are some of the key factors that give companies a competitive edge over their rivals. So here are some questions to consider on the issue, and I haven’t really put them in any order of importance.

Do you make it easy for your customers to buy from you?
I know this sounds like an obvious requirement, but you well know from your own experiences as a customer that it’s often not so easy to get what you want. And I don’t just mean in terms of slow service either. Recently I rang a hotel to book a room and I was asked so many marketing–type questions before I could actually make the damn booking that I thought about charging them a consulting fee for my time. And have a look at some airline booking sites these days and see just how many hoops you now have to jump through to make a booking – thanks to the low-cost model infecting everything today, all aspects of ‘flying’ are now priced independently. Next thing is we’ll have to make a contribution to ensure that there are engines on the plane.

There are lots of things we do – often unintentionally of course – which make it harder for people to buy from us. Think about where this might be a factor in your business.

Do you have a quality assurance system in operation within your
business?
Quality is of course the key, no matter what business you are in. And every business on the planet projects itself as delivering high-quality these days. But let’s be honest here, sometimes the reality is less enticing than the promise.

The true measure of quality is what your customers tell you, so as part of your quality system how effective is your feedback system at present? And, as you think about this area, if you use comment cards as the sole channel, consider how effective that approach is in terms of really gathering feedback from an appropriate proportion of your customer base. I recently wrote about this particular issue and as I said at the time, comment cards hit a very small number of customers, and usually only at the extremes.

What’s your big idea?
When I talk to business owners about ‘what’ they do, they can usually talk to me for hours. When I ask ‘how’ they do it, they can regale me about their various production systems and procedures. If I ask ‘who’ does the work, they can tell me all about their great people and so on. But when I ask ‘why’ they do what they do, I am often met with blank stares…usually to be closely followed by the answer ‘to make a profit of course…’

Profit is good. But it’s an outcome from your business and not the sole reason for it. Again I have written many times on this matter, but the best owners/managers have a ‘why’, a vision, a big idea for their company and that isn’t a set of figures or wishy-washy dreams, but a meaningful picture of
the future that creates focus, direction, and commitment. The ‘why’ alone doesn’t set the business apart, but it generates the passion which does.

Why choose you?
Whatever field you are in customers today have choice. And, yes, for some customers price has become a determining factor in recent years but it is never the sole differentiator. In any case, over the long-term, seeting your business apart by price alone never wins out, or certainly not if you are offering some form of ‘experience’ to the customer. I always ask a fairly straighforward question when I start working with a particular company: What have you got, or what do you do, that none of your customers currently have or do?
I rarely get a worthwhile answer.

How well are you engaging your stakeholders?
Better businesses do many things of course, but two in particular help them tailor what they do to meet the needs of their various stakeholders. In top performing companies, the needs of investors, customers, employees, the local community are constantly sought, well understood, and the business is geared not just to meeting those needs, but to exceeding them. For example, the call from my phone provider last week could have come across as a ‘sales’ call, but the girl on the line was actually brilliant at how she managed it, coming across more as a type of service advisor than a seller. She actually got me discussing what I needed from a mobile phone -me, who usually kills a sales call within ten seconds of learning it’s a sales call. Great stuff. A credit to her and the company. Unfortunately, the rest of the business failed to meet, never mind exceed, my expectations.

To really engage your stakeholders, strong leadership is naturally required and it goes without saying that the best performing companies have the strongest management teams – who work as a unit to drive the business forward.

What do you know?
One thing that gets overlooked in many businesses is just how important ‘knowledge’ is, and particularly so in such a rapidly changing environment. This has implications for our own skills and knowledge but also for how much we understand about what’s happening, and likely to happen, in the business environment.

It’s worth thinking about what the knowledge gaps are in your business at present and how you might bridge them. And these knowledge gaps can be small but vital in terms of performance. Let me give you a simple example. Recently I was working with a hotel where there had been some cutbacks and lay-offs; naturally this had an effect on morale. When working with a group of employees, some of whom had a long-service record, they felt that the cutbacks were unfair, as the hotel was ‘busy all the time’ and making ‘loads of money’. I asked them a simple question: For every €1 in sales, how much of that is profit? The answers I got ranged from 60c to 80c, nothing lower. The actual figure is often less than 10c.
Knowledge is vital at all levels, but sometimes we forget that our brains need constant feeding if we are to individually improve – and the collective impact of that improvement is what drives better business performance.

Do you lead or follow?
Most companies these days think a lot about their competitors, but it’s the mindset behind that thought-process which I think is important here. Some companies fear their competitors and watch them closely in order to make sure they don’t fall behind. The better businesses also keep an eye on their competitors but they do so to ensure that they constantly stay ahead of them. This is more than a play on words and it’s worth thinking about which best describes your current approach to competitor analysis.

What’s your image?
Image is important in every walk of life, sometimes maybe too much so, but that’s the way it is. I have left this point until later in the list, because creating a positive image, without having the substance to back that up, is at best a short term gain. But when you do the right things, you need to spread the word far and wide, day and night. This involves tailoring a message that sets you apart and then requires consideration of everything from branding to advertising.

What’s your image in the marketplace right now? Obviously, you will likely have a good one amongst your existing customers, or at least hopefully you will. But what’s your image amongst those who don’t use you, or even better, those who once chose you but no longer do? That’s often a more interesting question to ponder.

Who are you partnering with?
I have written before that no business – particularly SMEs – can make it own their own these days. The need for ‘Co-opetition’ and Alliances is growing to help you  maximise your reach and impact. How networked are you at present?

How efficient and effective are your processes?
Apart from the above issues – which you might think are a bit ‘intangible’,  companies which outperform their competitors do so in large part because they have mastered their key processes – everything from planning, control, marketing, finance, operations and so on. They first define or ‘map’ those processes, so they fully understand the pressure points, and then they constantly review and improve them so that they are both efficient and effective in what they do.

Are you continually improving?
The previous question leads me to my last point. The best companies are constantly getting better, raising the bar, striving for excellence. This is again far from a cliché because when you look at how they do so, you find that such companies have real and meaningful processes for managing innovation so that finding and implementing new ideas is the norm not the exception.

To round off my story from the start of this piece, I received a call again yesterday from the girl working at my phone provider to ‘remind me’ that the upgrade offer would end soon, so as I would not miss out – again without coming across as pushy or over-eager. I explained that I had already tried to avail of the offer.

What this little incident highlighted for me was that clearly parts of my phone provider’s business are outperforming other sections. Now, I am well aware that it’s incredibly hard to get all parts of any business operating at a high level but, unfortunately, from a customer perspective, a little bit of excellence is never enough.

Enjoy your weekend.

Newt Gingrich, the US politician who was recently running (or maybe still is) for President apparently once asked Senator Bob Dole why people took such an instant dislike to him.
And the reply from Mr Dole?
He bluntly explained: “Because it saves them time.”
Classic. I do love good put-down.

Have you ever taken an instant dislike to someone?  I mean have you ever taken a real turn against a person who hasn’t actually done anything specific to annoy you, but for some reason you just go right off them? It’s almost as if the dislike comes out of nowhere, almost immediately, and usually gets worse not better over time. I am sure it has happened to you, it does to everyone. And I experienced it again some time ago. I was in London to make a presentation for what, at the time, was potentially a new client. But the whole episode was a disaster. We simply did not hit it off and I still don’t know exactly why.

This kind of thing happens to us all and whilst we talk all the time about the importance of first impressions, rarely do we take a step back and try to better understand how that process works? What is that makes some encounters ‘click’ whereas others end up like that meeting in London did; a dead and buried relationship before it even started. Certainly, I have never spent much time thinking about the nuts and bolts of how first impressions are formed, so I thought it might be useful to cover the issue today seeing as it was on my mind.

The need for speed
For starters, we all know that first impressions happen fairly quickly. In fact, according to research by Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov from Princeton University, which was presented in their article “First Impressions,” in  Psychological Science they showed that all it takes is a tenth of a second to form an impression of a stranger from their face, and that longer exposures don’t significantly alter those initial impressions. The researchers explained that why our brains make such snap judgments is not yet entirely clear, but some of their research suggests that the part of the brain which responds directly to fear may be involved in judgments of trustworthiness. Todorov was also quick to point out though that his findings did not imply that quick first impressions cannot be overcome by the rational mind.

So how might we make a subconscious process more rational?
Not very easily that’s for sure, but having a better understanding of what is going on in those early encounters is a good starting point. For sure, we all know about our appearance being a significant determinant, but beyond that you could say that we form our first impressions by using a type of filtering process. We consciously take information in about the other person, but more importantly, we subconsciously read their body language. Very quickly we use those cues to form an initial impression and make decisions about what they are like and who they are. And once formed, that’s how you view the person – through that filter.

Can our initial impression of someone be wrong? Of course, and very much so,
but still we fight that urge to change our initial opinion because we like to be right. Research also shows that we tend to see a new person’s initial behavior as being representative of what they are like most of the time when it may not be. We read a multitude into a small amount of information – this is often called the Halo and Horns effect, where we assume that a person with one positive, or negative trait, has many more of the same.

As I look back to why I took the dislike to the person I was presenting to in London, I think it started to go awry when I noticed that they did not make any eye contact with me when I was speaking – I hate that, and I am sure that ‘cue’ for me served as a trigger which subconsciously got the ball rolling in how I so quickly developed a negative impression of them. And you know, I was probably way of the mark but that’s life I suppose.

How might we better ‘manage’ first encounters? Well first off, manage is probably the wrong term to use here, but with greater awareness, we can over time
push out the decision-making process until we have a better understanding of
who we are dealing with. The first lesson we should all take onboard is that when
dealing with the issue of first impressions, we all tend to focus only how we
felt during and after the encounter, but rarely do we think about what impression
they may have formed about us. . .for example, maybe I did something which
inadvertently insulted the guy at the meeting and that led them to project inaccurate negative traits onto me.

A useful way to further examine the dynamics of what happens during those first impression forming moments is to consider two components: Situation
and Personality

• On the situation side of things, you should remember that how comfortable you feel in the situation and how comfortable they feel is a factor in how the first impression is built.
• On the personality side, how you feel about them is a factor and how they feel about you is also an issue. A simple, but often overlooked point to remember is that you’re impression of another person is only 50% of the equation.

These may seem obvious dimensions but we tend not to think of the impact they can have. For example, you may feel uncomfortable in the situation and that in turn can affect how you project yourself and indeed how you judge the person you are dealing with; and vice versa. Equally, do you only consider what you think of the other person, or are you also aware of what image you may be projecting?

Again research indicates that thinking more about how others are feeling during the early encounter can help a lot; if you can shift your focus from your own feelings to making others feel good in the situation, you’ll be more likely to make a better first impression. After all, every relationship we form is the result of an exchange process – and in each exchange we seek to maximize benefits and minimize ‘costs’ – hassle, time, dealing with someone we perceived as difficult etc are all costs. In other words, we weigh the potential benefits and risks of any relationship we enter into and positive relationships are those in which the benefits outweigh the costs, while negative relationships occur when the costs are greater than the benefits.

So, in a nutshell, when first meeting someone the trick is to focus more on their needs and less on yours; if you make them feel there are benefits to a relationship with you, with few or no costs, then you become more ‘desirable’ to them.

Now, if you are like me, you are probably thinking that if you spend all your energy meeting the other person’s needs, then what about you? How can you be sure you get what you want? How do you balance getting what you want while focusing your energy on others? Well, strangely enough, research also shows that the shortest route to getting what you want is to give to others first. The
more you give people what they want, the more you will get in return. And what is it that people want? Well, again based on several studies, the following factors are important:

• To feel appreciated
• To form a connection with others
• To feel a ‘lift’ from dealing with others
• To learn new things

So, before I wrap up for today, when dealing with first impressions we often focus on what we felt about others, or how they stacked up against our needs and expectations. The trick it would seem is to focus more on them and think about what you bring to the table on first encounters. Do offer a good mix of making people feel valued, really connecting with them, giving them a lift and offering them some new insights? And do you do all of the above in a genuine manner – people can spot ‘fakes’ a mile away.

Okay, maybe today’s article is a little bit of the ‘pink and fluffy’ variety – no real concrete action described today, but all the same, I think it is an area that we all should think more about, and hopefully the information here will help you do just that.

And remember, when you meet someone for the first time, they get but a little sample of you, and you of them – you are seeing a miniscule amount of each other but that is 100% of what you know. That tiny sample of you is all they have to work with – think about what sort of impression you are giving with that little snapshot?

As I think back again to the London encounter, if I am honest, when I didn’t get the eye contact, I am sure that I changed my attitude subtly and as a result the failure to connect was as much a fault of mine as his. Before thinking about it today, I would only have blamed him.

Enjoy your day!