Seek Out and Win Those Customer Moments of Truth

April 28, 2010 By 8 Comments

It’s finally cycling season here in the Chicago area!  After a long winter of not taking my road bike into the shop for a tune-up , I recently rolled it in on a busy Saturday, when the owner and crew were fully engaged at a break-neck pace selling bicycles and writing up repair tickets.  Bad planning on my part, but I’ve not yet developed the habit of thinking about my bicycle in February, so here I was.

My need were simple.  I plan on riding about 1,000 miles on the road bike this summer-a good target for me given my schedule and level of fitness, and I wanted the bike checked out for general mechanical integrity, wear and tear, the trip computer replaced and new pedals installed. The owner wrote up my ticket and promised that someone would call when it was ready.

About a week later, I received the call and drove over to pick up my favorite two-wheeled vehicle and was pleased to see it as the clerk rolled it towards the counter.  My thoughts of jumping back in the saddle that night were quickly dashed however, as I looked over the bike and realized that the same pedal with the broken clip and the same intermittent trip computer were still present.  The ticket was filled out…and signed, but not a thing had been done. I looked right and left and realized that the shop owner was not present.

The individual helping me happened to be the shop’s bike fitter and as it turned out a seriously sharp bicycle mechanic.  She also understood to a “t” how to deal with what had quickly moved from a happy occasion to one filled with disappointment and annoyance.

Within seconds, she stepped in to defuse the situation.  She admitted that she had no excuse for what had happened and she immediately grabbed another mechanic, put my bike on the rack, and for the next 30 minutes the two of them checked, tuned and tweaked and cleaned and lubed the bike from top to bottom. She showed me that my tires needed replacing…educated me on the different options and instantly installed the tires.  She upgraded the trip computer at no additional charge..and suggested what I might want to do from a maintenance perspective after the riding season.  Oh, and she pointed out the local riding group…got me to add my e-mail address and worked to convince me that I would not be the slowest rider of the group.

In a word, she was fantastic.  Crisis abated, brand saved…and in fact strengthened.  The bike performed great on my first ride, although I now know that I can use a bit of a tune-up.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The situation had the potential to go bad in a hurry.  I’ve purchased at least 8 bicycles from this shop over the years.  I buy all of my supplies and now that I’ve advanced into a new class of equipment, my annual purchases have increased.  I’m in the market for a new car carrier, and I’m hopeful that one of my sons will pick up this hobby.   This business is dependent upon a bunch of happy, life-time customers like me, and there’s no telling what damage a few dissatisfied ones might do to the shop’s top and bottom lines.

While it was obvious to me that there was just a mix-up, the way the situation was handled strengthened my relationship (yes, there is a relationship) with this shop.

Owners and managers, take heed and teach your people to seek out and seize upon moments of truth as golden opportunities to build loyalty and business.  Celebrate these successes.  Make them part of the legend and folklore of your business and hire and train people that get it and that want to contribute to this legend!

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Crisis Leadership, Performance Tagged With: , , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: For a Change, Look At What’s Working

April 26, 2010 By 7 Comments

A Cup of Leadership CaffeineConsider these frequently overheard refrains from two different leaders:

Leader 1: “That’s great!  Congratulations!  How do we do more of that?”

Leader 2: “That’s broken and we need to fix it right away.”

We have all met both of these characters.  One sees opportunity and achievement and building blocks everywhere she looks and the other sees flaws and problems that need fixing.

And while you are free to accuse me of making a hasty generalization here, my “blink” assessment of the two is that I want to hire or work for Leader #1

Don’t get me wrong.  I like the attitude of Leader #2 if we’re talking about toilets, sump pumps and just about anything else that is found in the plumbing family. Otherwise, #1 is my choice for manager or project leader.

I’m not certain why some people are pre-disposed to see beauty and what’s right in people and things, and why others see gaps and flaws when looking at the same objects. In the world of leadership, I do worry that some of this reflects bad habits carried forward from early, unsupervised and un-coached first-time leadership roles. More than a few first-time leaders are thrown or drafted into their position with no more idea of what to do than you or I might have if we were asked to perform surgery today, and the instinct to tell, order or criticize is part of a survival strategy.  Left untreated, this early style easily becomes dominant.

And yes, you continuous improvement disciples might appropriately chastise me for discrediting the person that’s looking for things to continuously improve. My focus here is on the impact that these two different leaders have on the people around them.  #1 fuels performance by encouraging people to build on successes and #2 flummoxes people by going for the negatives or the gaps. #1’s style not only doesn’t preclude continuous improvement, I believe it fuels it by reinforcing the notion of doing more of “what’s working.”

I’ve worked for both of these characters at different points during my career, and now when I see them regularly in my client assignments, I’m never surprised to observe that the results are always the same:

  • #1’s teams are productive and creative, and good people migrate towards this leader.
  • #2’s teams are often efficient but lifeless.  Good people seek to escape and those that don’t mind the constant “here’s what’s wrong” view of the world linger on, comfortable in the fact that someone will tell them what to fix.

5 Ideas For Changing Your Leadership View from What’s Wrong to What’s Right:

1.  Project post-mortems or activity debriefs are a great place to start. Instead of the typical, “let’s assess what we did wrong and how we can improve next time,” try: “what did we do right and how can we do more of it next time?” I guarantee that those are two very different conversations.

2.  Set a goal every day to offer one piece of behavioral, business-focused positive feedback every hour. Keep tally of how well you do.  And remember, the feedback has to be genuine, and specific and behavioral enough that someone will understand what to keep doing or to do more of. A classic example is, “nice presentation.”  It’s fine to hear that, but what did you do that was nice?  A more specific example might be, “during your presentation, you really engaged the audience.  Your eye-contact was excellent, your body posture was open and inviting, and best of all, your constant smile warmed everyone up.”

3.  Bite your tongue and hold-off every time you are tempted to criticize. While I don’t want you to short-circuit your use of constructive feedback, I do want you to quit telling everyone what’s wrong, what’s not working and what needs to be fixed.  Replace statements with questions and then shut up and listen!

4.  Try adjusting your altitude just a bit and looking at the big picture of what your team does effectively.  Let them know how impressed you are by their work and their outcomes.

5.  Let your team members find the areas that need to be improved upon, and then encourage them to take ownership of those ideas.  Take it a step further and help knock down some obstacles so that they succeed with their improvement initiatives.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Don’t think for a second that I’m asking you to walk around and avoid dealing with problems.  I am however encouraging you to adjust your focus a bit and start looking at what’s right, what’s working and what you need to do more of, rather than what’s wrong.  If you already do this, do more of it.  And if you’re reading this saying, “that’s not me,” it can’t hurt to try the above suggestions, can it?

Here’s to building on strengths and successes.  And here’s to plumbers everywhere that keep the water flowing!

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , ,

Summer Jumpstart: Must Read Management Books

April 23, 2010 By 7 Comments

Professional Reading TimeA few weeks ago, I published a post on “Jumpstart Your Marketing Reading to Restart Your Brain.” The post was ostensibly in response to my frustration over what I view as out-of-of-tune and out-of-touch textbooks that are used in college marketing courses.

Ditto on management texts.  However, I’m still saving my diatribe on texts…and what needs to be done to dramatically improve the tools and content of management and business education for another day.

For now, I’ll focus on passing along my list of books guaranteed to rekindle your enthusiasm for the art and science of management.

Note from Art: my marketing list has a more contemporary flavor and the management list is a bit more dated, and perhaps classic.  That is by design.  I’m focusing on those elements of management that I perceive are universal truths.

Summer Management Refresher Reading:

First, I encourage you to pick from my list of marketing books.  After all, as Drucker indicated, “the goal of an enterprise is to acquire and keep customers.”  From Innovator’s Dilemma to Crossing the Chasm to Discipline of Market Leaders to Purple Cow, Duct Tape Marketing and anything by David Meerman Scott, these books provide you with a fantastic grounding on how to think about the pursuit of creating value, competing, positioning and winning in the market. The lessons of how we create value are foundational for thinking about how to manage effectively.

The Rest:

  • The Science of Success, Charles G. Koch, CEO of Koch Industries.  This little-known book is priceless for offering a systematic view of Market-Based Management.  Worth reading over and over.
  • Execution, Charam and Bossidy.  While lighter than The Science of Success, the guidance…and energy you gain from reading these two bright minds is worth the price of admission.  Pay particular attention to the content on “Robust Dialogue.”  I’ve noticed an updated version on bookstore shelves.
  • Out of the Crisis, W. Edwards Deming.  No management education is complete without Dr. Deming, and his lessons and points are every bit as relevant today as they were when he wrote this book.
  • Market Driven Strategy, George Day.  OK, I jumped back to an academic for a dated book on strategy.  Nonetheless, read this after you’ve read the marketing books that I’ve suggested and the pieces will start fitting together.  At least for me, Day’s treatment of many of the core strategy topics still resonates to this day.
  • Leading Change, John Kotter.  I find this work so important that I re-write Kotter’s 8-points for leading change next to Deming’s 14 points for managers inside the cover of everyone of my business journals.
  • Good to Great, immediately followed by How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins.  While many Good to Great firms are no longer great or good…and some are gone, the lessons are important. How the Mighty Fall is a great postscript to Good to Great…with some fresh thoughts on how great firms sow the seeds of their own demise while they are at their peak.
  • The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker.  Much like Deming, Drucker was a man far ahead of his time.  It is possible that since his passing, some of the collections might offer more value than this book, but I’m hard pressed to find fault with recommending this classic book from a great management thinker.

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In case you are looking for more options, check out Bret L. Simmon’s Recommended Reading at his Positive Organizational Behavior blog or Wally Bock’s great Book Reviews over at Three Star Leadership. Both of these gentlemen are great management thinkers and writers and their recommendations merit your consideration.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Professional Growth Tagged With: , ,

Rethinking Talent, Leadership and the Organization

April 21, 2010 By 9 Comments

New IdeasNote from Art: This post is intended to push you in the direction of thinking about “what if?” and “why not?” and “how?”  If you’re not thinking about possibilities and new approaches, you’re not really thinking.

Anyone involved in leadership and responsible for the development of leaders should read the recent BusinessWeek article, “Can GE Still Manage?” The article offers a fascinating look into GE’s traditional leadership and high-potential development practices, and raises an interesting question of whether these practices still hunt in a very different world than when they were conceived.

As someone that grew up in business during the era of Jack Welch and the emergence of GE’s Crotonville programs as perhaps the pinnacle of talent and leadership development programs, it’s interesting and a bit alarming to suddenly wonder whether the approach of convening for weeks at a time with other high-potential leaders and learning, debating, and engaging together, might just be passé in many ways.

While I’m not qualified to critique GE’s approach, the article certainly begs all of us to be thinking about or rethinking everything that we take for granted in how we find and cultivate talent and how we deploy our resources.

Questions that Must Be Asked and That Might Be Uncomfortable:

  • What are the skill sets required for success tomorrow?
  • What do we keep and what do we jettison from 20th-Century talent and leadership thinking and systems?
  • How can individuals that don’t know a tweet from a twit possibly comprehend the macro shifts occurring in how information flows, how opinions are formed and how people connect?  Whether the individual applications live or die is largely irrelevant…the seismic shift has already happened and many are still waiting to read about in the newspaper.  The point is that you need to be immersed in it to even begin to understand what is going on.
  • Most of the contemporary leadership writing and content focuses on universal leadership truths…those skills and activities that effective leaders have understood for literally thousands of years.  GE’s approach to cultivating leadership talent may be the modern representation of how to best develop around the universal truths.  It may just not be enough any longer. What’s next?
  • Is the best way to cultivate talent, simply (ha!) to hire smart, diverse (gender, ethnicity and skills/aptitudes) individuals and give them the freedom to create.  Has Google’s model replaced GE’s?

Organization and Management Speculation? In Search of Tomorrow’s Enterprise and Talent:

OK, while I’m speculating on innovations in talent development, let’s begin rethinking our traditional management systems.  Some potentially not too-far-fetched thoughts:

  • It’s not too hard to imagine that tomorrow’s enterprise must be mostly all-different than yesterday’s.  Everything that we do must enable interaction, communication, learning, knowledge sharing, idea generation and simplified paths from idea to implementation.  Today’s management systems and organizational structures often confound those objectives.
  • Every employee is a brand builder for himself/herself and for the firm. Every employee has a distinct voice inside and outside of the firm…and the boundaries are increasingly blurred between personal and professional.
  • Functionally, everything changes. Just to pick on a few, classically trained and focused marketers are museum-pieces.  IT organizations that aren’t ahead of the power curve on figuring out how to leverage the new media and technologies will be blown up and reinvented or outsourced.  HR organizations that fail to enable talent development in support of strategy as their prime directive will join their obsolete IT counterparts.
  • The role of a leader becomes fluid, with a person assuming this for one initiative and acting as follower for others. The skill sets for business and career success are increasingly oriented towards coalition building, project management and learning that begets actions.
  • Some form of Collins’ Level 5 and a Servant Leader emerges to head organizations…or larger parts of organizations.  Humility…not to be confused with weakness, plus fierce resolve are the core criteria for top leaders.
  • It appropriately will become increasingly difficult to draw an organization chart.  Given the fluidity and constantly shifting nature of the organization, the traditional boxes and lines approach to showing hierarchy and responsibility will die.

The Bottom Line for Now:

While perhaps I’ve pushed the envelope on creativity and speculation, the excellent GE article referenced above was the catalyst here. There is much of human nature that appears to remain constant over time, however,  our tools change constantly.  Finding ways to use new tools to create, connect and compete requires a good healthy rethinking of everything.   This is truly exciting.

Filed Under: Leadership, Management Innovation Tagged With: , , ,

Leadership Caffeine-It’s Time to Frame Your Professional Positioning Strategy

April 19, 2010 By 6 Comments

A Cup of Leadership CaffeineWhat do peers and managers perceive is unique about you in the workplace?  What do you do so well, so uniquely that makes people stop and take notice?  What’s your personal positioning strategy that meaningfully differentiates you from others in the minds of your customers, managers and stakeholders?

You’re to be excused if you need to reach for another cup of coffee while you contemplate these “brand called me” questions that you likely only think about once every two years when you update your resume.

What is that you do that sets you apart from the crowd in a way that builds your professional brand equity?

Successful professionals deliberately craft their professional positioning strategy and work hard at deliberately managing this strategy to grow their influence.

While this may sound like so much marketing-speak to you, ignore the guidance at your own peril.  Given the talent available in the marketplace as well as the need for firms to re-arm and to pluck and place the best and brightest in roles where they can help navigate the stormy seas of today’s world, not having a professional positioning strategy is a commitment to floundering.

5 Steps for Developing Your Professional Positioning Strategy

1.  Know Thyself: while this may be difficult depending how far you are up the Emotional Intelligence ladder, I encourage you to seek out reliable feedback on how you are perceived and valued.  One professional developed her own survey and asked peers, managers and team members to answer some direct questions on perceived contributions, strengths and weaknesses…anonymously of course. Consider prior performance reviews.  Ask trusted advisors and peers for their input. Fair warning…getting an accurate read on how we are perceived and how we are valued can be a challenging task.  Many people are uncomfortable offering the type of quality feedback that you need to gain clarity and define improvements.

2. Assess the Environment: a good career strategist carefully considers environmental factors and forces, and so should you.  Seek to understand your firm’s strategic goals and external market and competitive forces and then translate this knowledge into something meaningful for your career. Consider:

  • What do the firm’s goals mean for you and for other employees?
  • Is the firm placing increased emphasis on certain skill sets like project management or leadership?
  • Are the  priorities on cultivating cross-cultural relationships with suppliers and customers?
  • Is the emphasis on identification of new revenue streams?
  • Are we being challenged to innovate?
  • What else is going on that might require me to invest in developing or strengthening my skills?

Tuning in to your firm’s needs and strategic direction allows you to frame your own positioning approach and supporting activities.

3.  Analyze: what’s working for my coworkers? More questions: who’s getting ahead and why?  Who is earning the plum project assignments?  Who earned the most recent promotions.  Are they better at cultivating influence than you are?

Drop the sarcastic, “they must have pictures” thoughts and look at these individuals as objectively as possible.  Someone thinks highly enough of their skill sets and capabilities to provide opportunities, more responsibilities and more rewards to them.  How would you characterize their brands?  Observe and learn.

4.  Summarize: what does all of the above mean for you and your brand? If you’ve been diligent in asking and answering the issues above, you’ve gained some nice raw content to begin framing your own professional strategy and personal positioning.  Considering that most people aren’t working or even thinking about their careers at this level of detail, you’ve got a unique opportunity with this level of analysis.

5. Tying things together: ask and answer:

  • Based on synthesizing my own situation and strengths and weaknesses and my firm’s needs, where do I need to invest in improving and gaining experience?
  • My work above should give me a sense of my current brand identity.  What is it? What do I want to change about this identity?
  • What’s my desired professional value proposition?  Craft a forward looking statement that addresses the issues of why people should trust, value, refer and rely upon you.
  • What actions can I take to strengthen my skills, earn the trust and confidence inherent in my professional value proposition statement and increase my visibility?
  • How will I measure my progress and continue to gain feedback?

The Bottom-Line for Now:

If this sounds like a cross between a strategy engagement and a marketing plan development, you’re spot on in your assessment.  You can choose to let your career happen or you can deliberately manage your own personal professional brand and value proposition.  The former relies upon chance and the latter helps you create opportunities.  I opt for the active and forward-looking approach.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership Caffeine, Professional Growth Tagged With: , , , ,
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