Don't Miss This Perspective

Last Thursday night I was at the gym working out and a thought struck me:

"When someone shares their perspective, always keep in mind the wounds of their life upon which that perspective is based.  No one has perfect perspective."

The older I get, and our young adopted kids have joked that my age is actually over 100 years, I become more convinced that everyone is wounded.  Those wounds, which start in our childhood and expand into the present, affect our perspective and how we interact with others.

Later that night I decided to open an email that my son, Jeff, had forwarded me with a customer service story.  It is a great reminder that people are often angry about something other than what it seems.  Don't miss this story!  You may want to use it as a discussion topic during a future team meeting.

I believe in you.

It is Monday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. Did you take Sanctuary time over the weekend to improve your focus?
2. How did you do on your 3Strands last week?
3. Have you defined your 3Strands for this week?
4. By 9:00 a.m. this morning you should have 3Strands emails from each of your direct reports.

Stay on track.

The Disney Experience

There was litter on the floor.  The motor car was broken down.  A life-size elephant  statue  had a cobweb with a leaf caught in it near its right eye.  There was sooty exhaust or smog scum on more than one pillar...

These were all part of my Disney experience a few years ago.  It was not perfect in other ways too.  

Last week I encouraged you to consider the consistent experience of some great companies.  THIS WEEK I want to remind you that even great companies fail daily.

"Perfect" means complete, as in thorough, rather than flawless when describing our "perfect client experience."  Mistakes happen, but our processes should respond to them in such a way that clients (and employees) remember our recovery more than our failure.

So if your June is not getting off to a great start, do not give up or blow up at employees or clients.  These problems are temporary and will pass.

Disney employees make mistakes and so will yours.  Consider the process in Meeting Notes to prioritize the way you respond to problems and improve your processes.

Meeting Ideas

Whether you are the CEO, running sales, managing the service group, or leading in some other way, at times the amount of work we have to do or problems we want to solve can seem overwhelming.

Here is a simple method to getting work done:

1. On your own or with your team make a list of the work that needs to be done.  You can call this your parking lot, dump, priority list, or whatever you want.
2. Prioritize the list based on importance.
3. Take the first 1-3 items on the list and focus on them.  These can be your 3strands for one week.  Only take on what you can complete in one week.
   • Assign them to yourself and/or others on your calendar.
   • Your work time on these issues should be uninterruptible time.  Let your people know you are not to be bothered unless the building is burning down.
   • Look at these 3strands daily to hold yourself accountable.
   • If you are missing your self-made deadlines, then immediately engage someone else in your process for accountability.
   • Complete the first item.  Then complete the second item...  Do you understand the pattern?
4. Do not look at your parking lot items except momentarily when you need to add more things to the parking lot.
5. After you solve the 1-3 most urgent problems then celebrate.  Get a power size Jamba Juice or a nice cup of coffee.  Take a 15-20 minute break to read something or think about your favorite project.  If this is a team effort, then buy non-alcoholic drinks or lunch for the team.
6. Return to your parking lot list.  Confirm it is prioritized correctly.
7. Choose the next 1-3 items from the top of your list and repeat this process.

Have fun!

Day 130 | Apply Disney's Survey Results

I heard Lee Cockerell, former EVP of Operations for Disney World, speak last night at Bayside's THRIVE conference.  A lot of what he said reinforces our LEADERSHIP Essentials and 3strands LEADERSHIP principles.

Here is something you can apply in your business to improve relationships with customers - it is the results of a Barna survey of Disney World customers that asked just one question:  What are your expectations when you come to Disney?

The top answers:

1. Make us feel special.
2. Treat me as an individual.
3. Show us respect - all of us.
4. Have knowledgeable people working for you.

Simple, yet VERY POWERFUL.  Why not apply these results in your business... and more?  Please consider:

1. How a simple survey like this can build stronger relationships with Clients, employees, and at home.
2. Working with an outside firm or an intern to call all of your Clients, ask this question, and bring you their feedback.
3. Consider taking one month on each expectation and piloting new ways to exceed that expectation.

Never, never give up.

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. How are you doing on your 3strands this week?
2. Is the work remaining to complete this week's 3strands scheduled in your calendar so you can work uninterrupted?
3. Have you scheduled your Sanctuary time later today or over the weekend for personal accountability and focus?

Stay on track.

Day 114 | Southwest Airlines

Late last year I returned to Southwest Airlines after flying United as a top flyer for several years.  I now lean towards Southwest, but am not fully committed to any airline. 

Airlines can do such a terrible job of interacting with and serving customers, yet Southwest consistently does a great job.  How do they do it?  You should find out.

I encourage you to fly Southwest Airlines during the next three months just to study the entire experience from online purchasing your tickets to email updates to check-in to boarding to the flight experience and departure.

If you keep your eyes and ears fully open there has to be at least one idea you can gain and apply to your business for at least $10,000 in additional revenue or profits this year.  

Why not learn from the best?  They spend millions of dollars perfecting their client experience.  You can learn from them for free (you are going to the destination anyway).

REMINDER:  We slashed the price of our LEADERSHIP Essentials Academy to just $295 monthly per company for online content, and only $295 per person for two days of in-person LEADERSHIP Essentials training.

Join our Academy here (includes access to Dave's Charm School for I.T. Geeks soft skills training)

Confirm your seat here for our March 20-21 Academy in San Rafael, California or our June 5-6 Academy in Belmont, New Hampshire.

It is Friday.  ACCOUNTABILITY TIME!  

1. How did you do on your 3Strands this week?
2. At the end of today or at least before 9:00 a.m. Monday take Sanctuary time and hold yourself accountable to this week's 3Strands and define your 3Strands for next week?

Stay on track.

The Answer Is "No"

Someone who often gives great advice on providing a superb Client Experience is pushing the mantra:

The answer is "Yes," now what is the question?

The question is, "Will you manipulate me?"  The answer is "yes" because you have to manipulate people - or lie - if you teach your people to say "yes" to everything and then work their way out of it.

Typically this Wednesday post is longer, but I just could not wait to remind you that I am in your camp:

You can still provide a near-perfect Client Experience and say "No" to unreasonable requests.

Look to the Meeting Ideas section for one fun game to play to emphasize REALISTIC OPTIMISM rather than "the power of yes" that some people want you to blindly embrace.

If you are saying "yes" too often...

• Allowing poor-performing employees to stay too long
• Not enforcing the rule that techs document work as they go
• Looking the other way when people are chronically late

Then wake up.  These are attributes of a "Bad Boss."  These behaviors are a choice.

If you are sick of the cost of these types of choices, and you want to be a better leader, or would like to discuss your specific employee or company culture issues, then email me.  

BE a 3STRANDS LEADER

Systematic Leadership;  inspiring others in Meaningful Work;  and consistently expressing Sincere Gratitude to people around you.

Meeting Idea

Have a team meeting. Explain you want to reinforce your company's commitment to be positive, encouraging, and going above and beyond for your Clients.

The game is simple.

1. One person is a tech or a sales person for your company.  The others are your Clients.
2. You will give $100 cash (show at $100 bill) to anyone who can answer "Yes" to 10 questions in a row posed by the group.
3. Start with relatively easy questions.  You do want to reinforce that a "yes" is important when appropriate, even when it means you have to stretch to deliver.
4. The same question cannot be asked twice of one person, or of another person.
5. Encourage positivity, but reinforce REALISTIC OPTIMISM, empathy, and respectful problem solving rather than saying "yes" to services you never agreed to provide.
6. At the end tell everyone they are winners and buy them lunch.

Daily LEADERSHIP Tip / What The BEST Do

Visit us at the ConnectWise IT Nation this Wednesday-Friday.  Email me if you want to take advantage of our show specials.

QUESTION:  How do the BEST companies provide a GREAT Client experience more consistently than other organizations?

ANSWER:

1. They hire great people.  How?
2. Define a strong company culture with accountability.  How?
3. A group of people within the company, if not everyone, defines their company culture cornerstones:  mission (why they are in business), vision (where they are going as a team), and values (how they do business).  And the most important cornerstone:  Accountability to live them out.  Is that all?

No, there is more.  I can teach you, but not in a newsletter.

The key takeaway for you here is every GREAT company starts with hiring superstars.  You cannot deliver a consistently "perfect" Client experience with mediocre and/or unengaged employees.  John DiJulius said something similar in his newsletter last week, but I wanted to start you down the path as to HOW they do it.

Great people are the start.  An accountability culture where employees motivate themselves is the goal. It takes some work, but anyone can do it..

IT IS MONDAY.  How did you do on your 3Strands last week?  Have you defined your NEXT BOLD MOVES (3Strands) for this week?

Let me know if you need help.  Remember Jeff, our Certle product manager, and me will be at IT Nation if you want to meet.  Stop by our booth or email me in advance to schedule time to talk.

Be a Systematic Leader - because inconsistency hurts.

Only Superstars

Intentional leaders enable companies to thrive by making decisions based on facts, logic and prudent financial management.

Would you like to have only superstars working for your company? By "superstar," I mean people who are passionate about your company culture, consistently do their best for your company, and contribute positively to the company's bottom line.

If this is what you want, then you have to make the decision that you only want superstars. Next you have to consider what every manager hates to do: Firing someone, or maybe multiple people.

Tony Hsieh, in his book Delivering Happiness (page 97), says "... We realized that we had laid off the underperformers and the nonbelievers, but because everyone remaining was so passionate about the company and believed in what we were doing, we could still accomplish just as much work as we had before."

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix in his Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture (slide 32) says, "People who have been stars for us, and hit a bad patch, get a near term pass because we think they are likely to become stars for us again... But unlimited loyalty to a shrinking firm, or to an ineffective employee, is not what we are about."

The Society for Human Resource Management ("SHRM") in a recent article on "positive turnover" (page 20, Jan. 2011) stated, "If a low-performing employee is discharged, it... shows that the performance management system is working and managers are doing their jobs. In addition, other employees may gain confidence that their leaders are making decisions that will keep the organization strong."

The bottom line: If you have an employee who is not a superstar and/or not fully passionate about your company then you are better off firing the person with a generous severance and investing the money and time that employee was receiving into developing a stronger company culture.

Time and again companies do better without someone who has a negative attitude, poor work ethic, is constantly late and demonstrates other behaviors that prove they are holding your company back. Let the person go. Keeping them encourages their behavior and poor performance, whereas letting them go may help them understand that they need to develop better work habits so they can succeed in their next job.

ONLY SUPERSTARS is a fork in the road for many leaders. Do you have the guts to get rid of people who are holding your company back from becoming the best it can be? It is better to run a little leaner and harder than to invest money and time in someone who will never give their all for your company.

Obviously this is not a company-wide discussion. It is a decision you have to make on your own or with your management team. Here are some questions to consider:

1. Are certain employees performing so poorly that no other company wants to hire them?

2. Is our company not growing as rapidly as we can because one or more employees are fighting positive changes, not working a full day, not giving their job everything they have to give, and/or behaving in another manner that is negatively affecting other employees?

3. What would happen to our organization if we decided 2011 is the year we redirect everyone's focus to developing a superior company culture that gives us a sustainable competitive edge in our markets?

4. Reed Hastings of Netflix estimates the difference between an average performer and a superstar is 2x for procedural work and 10x in creative work. How much better would we be performing if we let our poor performing employees go, and invested in our company culture and developing the skills of our remaining employees?

5. Developing a superior company culture is a lot of work, but it provides you with a significant competitive edge. That is why the best companies invest in it.

Think FAST

The project deadline was missed. You find out because you are copied on an email explaining how work is continuing rather than completed. This is work for your most important client or a critical, high visibility internal project. You want to rip someone's lungs out... figuratively speaking. What do you do?

A client emails you that your customer service, technical person or manager did not call them as promised. They are very upset. This client is not your largest, but they are important. This is not the first time this person has not followed through. You are livid. What do you do?

One team member tells you the sale at a prospect has the approval of a key decision-maker. Hours later another team member says that yesterday the prospective client added a requirement that might eliminate your company from consideration. Your numbers for this quarter depend on closing this sale. How can one person tell you the sale looks solid and another say it is doomed? You realize you should have taken that vacation when you had the opportunity. You think someone must be lying to you. Anger starts to seep from your pores. What do you do?

The reaction I would have in my younger years was not successful. Here is the approach I try to take today that more consistently delivers results and demonstrates the qualities of an intentional leader:

1. Pause and remain quiet. (This is possibly the most difficult part of the process. Once you master this, the rest is much easier.)

2. Breathe deeply into your stomach five, maybe ten times. Face it, the situation has already advanced enough to a point where waiting 60 seconds is not going to change the outcome.

3. Ask questions. You may find that:

   • (#1) The client approved an extension to the deadline because they added more work.

   • (#2) Your employee did contact the client, and even documented it in your PSA software. The client had not checked their Junk Mail folder.

   • (#3) Your employees are talking about two different sales opportunities.

Intentional leaders do not jump to conclusions, immediately react with emotion or make assumptions. Instead they ask questions to confirm the information, the real problem and to determine a solution that includes a process for avoiding miscommunication in the future.

How often have you gotten upset when it was unnecessary (and unproductive)? Start today by just being silent the next time a problem arises so you have time to think of questions instead of jump to conclusions. Think fast instead of talk fast.

Developing these three steps into a new habit will improve your effectiveness as a leader; relationships with other people; and increase retention of top performing employees (and much more). It is a cord of three strands that will carry you through many difficult situations.

Proverbs 17:27-28: A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered. Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue. 

Meeting Ideas

THINK FAST is an opportunity to learn a habit that can transform your professional and personal life. Too often we react to situations without thinking instead of responding to situations AFTER we confirm the facts. The objective is to respond in a way that is laser-focused on the problem rather than incorrect assumptions.

Here are some ideas on how to discuss developing this habit with your team:

1. Give me one example of when you reacted to a work situation rather than responded. What were your assumptions?

2. How did reacting based on assumptions waste time, lose money, hurt business relationships or cause other problems that could have been avoided if you had taken the time to THINK FAST as outlined in this discussion.

3. When you try to do Step 1, which is to "Pause and remain quiet," what will be your biggest challenge? What action can you take, such as excusing yourself and walking away for a couple of minutes, or extending your silence to collect your thoughts, will you have to take to stop yourself from reacting too quickly?

4. Is THINK FAST a habit you want to develop? If yes, then who will hold you accountable and how?

5. If THINK FAST is not a habit you want to develop, then discuss why. If this is your situation, consider whether the problem is that you just do not like to admit it when you are wrong. If this is the case, then think about this more and discuss it with a mentor or respected advisor. Another alternative is to try a blended approach that starts with thinking instead of action, but you accelerate your way of confirming information so you can take action more quickly.

Are You Really That Good?

BusinessWeek came out with their listing of Customer Service Champs this month.  Here are some quick thoughts to ponder as they relate to being an intentional leader rather than assuming your people deliver great service:

1. Do not feel bad that you are not on the BusinessWeek list. You may actually be better than their winners. They just are larger and/or have a better PR firm.

2. How do you REALLY know your people are doing a great job servicing clients? ACE Hardware doubled its mystery shopper program last year as competitor True Value worked harder at its customer feedback program. You need to know. In 1980 Robert Redford starred in a movie titled, Brubaker. It is based on a true story. The guy was taking over as the warden of a troubled prison. To fully comprehend what he was getting into, Brubaker first entered the prison as a new inmate with only one person on the inside knowing that he would enter that way, but not when. As a result, Brubaker knew what to do from the beginning and transformed the prison before political problems removed him. You have to know first-hand. Find a way to test your people and learn your company's reputation without people knowing who you are.

3. Great customer service companies invest heavily in training their people. Wegmens, a supermarket chain increased their training budget 13% last year during the recession. USAA trains call center reps up to six months before they are allowed to answer a phone on their own. How do you find the time or the budget to train? You decide it is more important than the customers you are losing, then you make the time and find the money.

To be an intentional leader you must be committed to deliver superior customer service.  You do not have to make a BusinessWeek or other list.  You just have to be a winner on your clients' list.  Do not assume your people are doing a great job.  Find out first-hand.  Lastly, invest time and money in your people, then watch sales soar!

Meeting Ideas

ARE YOU REALLY THAT GOOD is encouragement to stop assuming your company gives great service and really, intentionally finding out just how great your people are with clients.

Here are some ideas for discussion during your next staff meeting, or just to do yourself, to consider how to become a champion in customer service so your company can grow faster:

1. What are the three most important aspects of customer service we should test?

2. Can we call into our support people and pose common problems to see how well they respond? If so, when should it be done, who is doing it, what questions will be asked and shall we mix it up between calm, upset and illogical customers?

3. What other areas of our business should we test? Sales? Accounts Receivable? Accounts Payable? Shipping or Receiving? Marketing? Reception? HR? ...?

4. How can we test vendors who represent us? How often should we test them?

5. Based on what we learn how will we train, reinforce and hold people accountable to our standard of quality customer satisfaction?