You will see that I have started using Twitter (look to the right side of the top page). In the era of fighting for attention (a stubbornly scarce resource), hitting the window of opportunity with valuable insight can seem like bullseyeing that ventilation shaft on the Death Star (”use the force, Luke.”). This is where I think Twitter fits.
My plan is to restrict my twits (?) to comments on customer service with, as advertised, a wide definition of “customer.” Some interactions create an opportunity to move the relationship needle in your favour, or hold it steady against a negative pull. I plan to call out excellence and shortcomings. Follow if you like; we will both see where it goes.
Longer discussions and stories (conceivably for those prepared to invest more attention) will stay on this blog. Things like this:
I dearly hope that business models that rely on high switching costs are on the wane. (See this article summary from HBR.) I currently have insurance relationships with two different Canadian banks (car and house); the renewal rates are weeks apart. Every year, I am reminded by each of the bundling discount that I could receive by increasing the number of products, but neither makes it easy for me to do anything but renew what I have… and I never remember until after automatic renewal notice! (Talk about scarce attention!)
Good for them for deriving value from my inability to keep track of the dates! The downside, I would argue, is that my home mortgage is currently with a third major back (in the current climate, this may not or may not be desireable business for a bank!). My experiences with small-ticket insurance items is such that I won’t entertain moving my business to either of the other two when the mortgage comes up for renewal (and that date is in my calendar!).
Perhaps the impossibility of maintaining customer equity when you have diversified products and an old-school model will drive more customer-centric approaches… but maybe not. Hey, they may not even miss me.
Here is an account of wrongful “not hiring” that is going to be heard by at BC Human Rights Tribunal. A woman is unsuccessful in a job interview. She believes that she is unfairly treated because she smokes. She gets her hands on an e-mail that claims this was part of the reasoning in the decision not to hire her. Game on!
If you have read other posts of mine (or attended courses or training with me), you will know that Getting to Yes’ “Power, rights, interests” model is one that I am quick to reference. The idea being that Power and Rights approaches often get bogged down faster than approach that starts with the Interests (e.g. what do you want?). Could it be that part of the problem with Human Rights Tribunals is that middle word? How does Human Interest Tribunal sound to you?
What does the woman want? Probably a job, but it will not end there: respect, some flexibility, smoking breaks? Maybe she wants to work with nice people. It is worth asking the question. The prospective employer wants an employee who will do the job, and to stick around because interviewing and hiring are time consuming. They want someone reliable and responsible, maybe they need someone who is independent. They likely don’t need someone who is “perfect,” and, if they are like me, are very suspect of people who claim to be so.
When the woman describes her “perfect attendance” in the interview, she is certainly telling them what she thinks they want to hear, but she is not telling the truth.
NOTE: I would suggest that if anyone is 100% truthful in an interview, they won’t get the job. Similarly, if an employer is completely straight with prospective employees, offer acceptance will plummet. There is an expectation that both sides couch things that cannot be supported objectively (i.e. she is the most difficult person to deal with; don’t get him going on his tomato garden, etc.)
An employer does want to hire someone they can trust. If “perfect attendance” is claimed in an interview and later found to be overstated (e.g. false), why hire the person? Does that not demonstrate a lack of judgement? Not hiring someone because they smoke is discrimination, but I hope that the reasoning goes beyond that. Not hiring someone because they exaggerated inappropriately in an interview is entirely justified. I will be interested to see where this ends up.
This month, I attended meetings at which the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council, in conjunction with the Canadian Standards Association, assembled stakeholders to discuss the creation of standards for the accreditation of training and education programs in the sector. Like any standards, these are planned to be objective yardsticks. Educational programs or courses that are submitted for review and meet the requirements specified in the standard, once finalized, will be accredited by the Council.
Discussion at one point focused on communication between students and teachers, which got me thinking about the divide between ideal-world and real-world communication in learning environments.
Teacher/Student Dialogue…Ideally
One of the principles put forward at the meeting was that of lifelong learning. I enjoy the parallel of this concept with continuous-improvement supply chain philosophies, such as kaizen.
In a professional setting, there is no room for knowledge building that fails to be applicable in the workplace. Operating with this in mind, students/trainees should ideally receive feedback on their course submissions, as well as in related areas such as problem solving (e.g., “You missed the main issue”), presentation and writing (e.g., “I can’t understand your argument”), and working with teams (e.g., “You caused disruptive tension with your classmates”).
On the other side of the equation, instructors also require feedback that provides information about both the degree of customer satisfaction (e.g., “You demonstrated knowledge and answered questions”) and the teacher’s effectiveness (e.g., “You made it easy for me to pay attention and learn”).
Through this kind of communication, teacher and student answer each other’s question, “What can I do to be more successful in doing my job/building my career?” Since, in an ideal world, both parties subscribe to the principle of lifelong learning, each will want the information that answers his respective question, to enable him to improve his performance.
Teacher/Student Dialogue…Really
The attitudes of teachers and students will never be standardized, but you can count on market forces to keep the parties somewhat aligned: students won’t waste their time in programs that don’t deliver value, teachers want to remain employed, and institutions want to attract students.
Many evaluations, rather than providing objective information that would help a student or teacher truly develop skills, address questions such as:
- Was it fun? or,
- Did I get a good mark?
And consider, would a teacher really be open to feedback that indicates, for example, that she is boring or her thinking is outdated?
Most of the training that I am involved with focuses on skill building (in negotiations and communications, for example), so, as with golf and languages, there is always potential for growth. I will confess to not always wanting it, but I do solicit and appreciate feedback from my students and clients. It is easy, however, to see how the commitment to lifelong learning could waver on either side of the equation.
THIS ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE NEWSLETTER FOR THE CANADIAN SUPPLY CHAIN SECTOR COUNCIL (supplychaincanada.org) – JANUARY 2009.
In work that I do with clients, the situations with the lowest return on time/energy (ROTE) consistently involve communications with those who don’t “get it.” “Getting it” and “not getting it” creates very strong in/out-group perceptions. “It” can take a number of different forms, and usually, I am on the outside looking in. I will hear, for example:
- THEY don’t get that a for-profit model can fit in health care.
- THEY don’t get that Canada is a different market from the U.S.
- THEY don’t get that they are losing the chance at more business down the road by being so contentious now.
My job is to help them to help the other side to “get it.” It can work, but not all the time. Recently, I fear, I was the one who was likely being accused of not “getting it,” which, honestly, is new for me. I actually pride myself on being able to see both sides of things, in most instances. As I understand, and tell my clients, when you are involved, things become less visible. On top of that, it can be completely unclear who is right.
For example, imagine those who did not want to give the automotive Big Three any U.S. Government funds.
For them, the situation is clear:
The Big Three (THEY) don’t get that the model is broken and more money is only prolonging their ultimate demise.
For those supporting a loan/bailout, it is equally clear:
The U.S. Gov (THEY) don’t get that we just need a bridge loan. Weather this storm, and we are set up for long-term success.
One of those positions is right, but only time will tell.
My recent challenge is bringing my “soft-skills” orientation into a “tech-savvy” environment in a discussion about creating value in information sharing and collaborating. Quite predictably, one of us is “not getting” that if and how people use any tool–not to mention the relationship between the parties–will dictate a large degree of effectiveness. Perhaps the other of us is “not getting” that in the future, personal relationships, perceptions and things like “the benefit of the doubt” have little or no role in the workplace.
One of those positions is right, but only time will tell.
There is no shortage of continuum-based models in business communication and negotiating. Although it is dangerous to oversimplify, I often force clients and students into binary decisions. One example from last fall was asking my class at Schulich Business School (during the current strike) whether they were sympathetic to the union or sympathetic to the school administration.
As an instructor/consultant, this creates better discussions because you can get away from the “it depends” that is necessarily pervasive in the domain of human behaviour. It also can get to the root of ideological divides (as people identify with different groups) and strategic trade-offs (where it really is this or that – e.g. sucking and blowing).The group identity idea made me think of a after-work beer-aided conversation I had with two of the three business partners that ran the company I was working for in Tokyo. I had just seen the movie “Lulu on the Bridge,” which is worth a watch.
In one scene, very recently acquainted Mira Sorvino and Harvey Keitel lounge in the morning (I won’t spoil it by telling you how they got there). She engages him in a game of “Are you this or that?” where you take turns asking the such questions. E.g. “Are you a river or an ocean?” Goofy, but cute, so I thought I’d throw it into our post-work drink banter.While Partner 1 pondered the decision, Partner 2 blurter out, “Come on, everyone would want to be an ocean.” In retrospect, that response actually told a lot about the personality at play. Not long after, that partnership dissolved. It was not over the river/ocean question, per se, but there was certainly something behind the metaphor in the differences of approach and vision.Sometimes there are “this and that” scenarios. It is natural to prefer one side to the other. I think. it’s dangerous to not acknowledge the other side.
Last week Indira Naidoo Harris was a guest host for the CBC Radio One program The Current, and spoke with Lanny Davis, former special legal counsel to Bill Clinton. “Conversation” may be the wrong word for the exchange; “interview” also seems to miss the mark. The topic of the exchange was Hillary Clinton’s appropriateness for the position of United States of America Secretary of State under president-elect Barack Obama.
Some “conversations” are difficult; many more difficult than they have to be. This exchange was clearly both, as pointed out by the National Post in print and online. Mr. Davis gave not an inch, and immediately began the “interview” by calling out the “innuendo” of the Harris’s introduction. He then demanded “facts” to support the allegations. Apparently, he would have settled for just one, but none were forthcoming. It was a strange moment when Harris tried to move on by empathizing as to “difficulties” that Davis must be having with the “issues.” It sounds like a suggested phrase from self-help book on “Active Listening.” Davis was not to be appeased: “give me the facts.”
It is good to hear an exchange where one side gives the other no benefit of the doubt, because, from my perspective, a number of these conversations don’t happen because of the promised contentiousness. This type of conflict, however, is the reality of pushing against resistance in the form of someone who will attack everything you say. This can be especially true if the exchange has an audience. It is not about how you deliver your message; it comes down to what you are saying. (But imagine if they had been e-mailing each other!)
These conversations are good practice for reaching out of our in-groups. I would suggest that often we rely on another’s trust (or disengagement from the situation) to get away with not supporting our position sufficiently, if at all. Pushback is good practice, and demonstrates engagement. I would hope that Ms. Harris learned from the exchange.
I don’t suggest that the answer is to prep for every interaction like you are speaking to the Fifth Estate, or The Current for that matter. Some situations, such as a job interview, can add a degree of healthy “defense” that drives us to spend some time fact checking in order to have our support at the ready. It doesn’t have to be contentious, but conflict can call out some ideas that may be unchallenged but can’t be well supported.
I was recently working with a group of purchasing professionals around effective communication of change messages. Understandably, the focus was on influencing and persuading others to buy into the value that can be created by supply chain-focused initiatives.
We were discussing the example presented by one of the members of the group, who was attempting to centralize purchasing, moving away from the status quo decentralized (ad hoc?) purchasing. Playing a combination of devil’s advocate and helpful outsider, I probed for some objective evidence. The idea that centralized purchasing was “good” and decentralized purchasing was “bad” seemed to be the crux of the argument. How far would that fly outside this group?
No small part of presenting information is providing appropriate support, and this is where the difficulty arose. What may seem “common sense” to a group of purchasing professionals will likely need a bit more behind it to garner buy-in from those in, for example, a sales function. The conundrum that many of us face in supporting to external groups is this: “I can’t understand why you don’t understand this.” We are tempted to try “dumbing it down,” but it may also simply require being ready to answer the question, “Why on Earth would I want to do that?” This question will not likely come from those already on board.
In this article on corporate social responsibility (CSR; potentially requiring a softer sell than procurement rigour), Prof. John Peloza describes the dynamic whereby the camp of those who champion the CSR cause are often talking to each other about their importance, rather than to the finance side of the business where decisions are made. Part of the language of finance is numerical support in the form of return on investment, return on equity and return on assets. He claims that no one in the CSR camp bothers to learn this language in order to engage the finance group in discussion. (And, why bother? We’d rather talk amongst ourselves anyway…) The same may apply to those working in supply chain.
Back to the original example: in light of the current financial situation and a collective cry for more accountability, it may be getting easier to make the case for centralized versus decentralized purchasing. Nonetheless, that case will have to be made to some people who prefer having flexibility in the purchases they make. Having worked in sales, I completely understand the preference for decentralized… and how a sales person might not understand why you don’t see it their way.
Effectively putting the case forward to these “out groups” requires attaching support to what could be “common sense” arguments. It demands going beyond, “It’s just better, OK? Trust me.” Oh, and don’t forget: try to not come across as condescending.
Quick tip: If you find someone from an “out group” who has come to “get it,” ask them to tell you what brought them around. Chances are this support will be appropriate to others in that group.
This originally appeared in the October 2008 e-Newsletter for the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council (www.supplychaincanada.org).
Learning by doing is widely embraced as a driver of skill development. When I taught English in Japan, my objective was often to give people the tools, words, expressions, etc., that they needed to complete a “production” exercise (e.g having learned and practiced adverbs of frequency, students would create a weekly routine for, say, Paris Hilton when she is in jail. “Well she always checks the cutlery before she eats, she often asks for another blanket” and so on). Entertainment is never a small part of education.
Research suggests that when you are forced to “teach” something, your retention of that material increases dramatically over simply having to “do” something. (I would argue that my depth of comprehension of English jumped during my days of teaching it.) This is where the “reflective journal” fits into many skill development regimes and curricula. My MBA students have to keep a journal to share thoughts with me, or more specifically, show me where they are able to apply the learnings. The good ones could be used to teach others.
For example, in the course, we discuss acceptable alternatives (BATNAs, positions, et al) and the importance of thinking things through. My interactions earlier this month at Home Depot provide a good example of how this fits in the real world:
I bought a chandelier that had to be specially ordered. (”Special order” meaning, I think, items that had less than hotcake-like velocity in selling and therefor were stored elsewhere. Makes sense for the big box business model.) When I got the chandelier home, one of the glass fixtures was broken. Calling suggested that the only alternative was to take it back to the store to figure out what to do. I realized that my overriding objective was to make this trip to Home Depot my last for this particular transaction. (Note: This would be trip number 3, and still no chandelier.)
As a win-win guy, I ran through some possible scenarios. Maybe I return it; maybe they give me the glass bowl from the floor model (of which there was one); maybe they have some ideas that had not occurred to me. I was open to the discussion, but I also decided that I was not prepared to go back to the store again. Had I been passionately attached to the chandelier, my tune might have been quite different.
Not surprisingly, Plan A from HD Customer Service was “we’ll just order you another one; call in a week or 10 days and it should be here for you to pick up.” Sorry, three trips is my limit. A return should have involved a “restocking fee” (such are the rules for special order items), but this was quickly conceded, with a sigh that I suspect was intended to elicit guilt.
From a customer service perspective, I could not have been happier. I got what I wanted, which was to walk out of the store not needing to go back. From a negotiation perspective, there was a lost opportunity for customer services staff to keep the sale. Would it be possible to take an unbroken fixture off the floor model and send me on my way? I did not need to suggest it, so I didn’t. That may have been closer to a win-win, but in this situation, I am OK with win-lose as long as I am the former.
That may be lofty for the expectations of customer service staff at a big box store, but value has to come from anywhere you can get it, even if you are Home Depot. In this case, clarity of objectives on both sides, coupled with a solution-minded approach may have enabled value creation for everyone involved. That might not be too much to ask for/expect/instill in customer-facing staff in any business.
Post script: I ended up going to a local lighting store, who were able to arrange installation through an informal channel. This was one issue I hadn’t thought through. I can only imagine my experience in “learning by doing” a chandelier installation.
There is a risk in oversimplifying issues to the point of a binary explanation (e.g. this or that). The temptation to oversimplify is obvious when presenting the issue to a wider audience who likely have yet to pay attention to the issue: descriptions become easier (e.g. it’s like this OR it’s like that), and encouraging agreement and disagreement is more likely (you are with us OR you are against us). The inherent danger is that these oversimplifications take deeper root.
Such binary identification with words is described as religious attachment to the resistance to “private” involvement in Canada’s health care system by Robert Ouellette of the CMA. At some point, an argument was being made that a 100% public system (conceivably the “Canadian” system) was superior to a “free market/services to the wealthy” system employed (conceivably the “American” system). “So it really is pretty simple,” goes the explanation to those whose decision/votes one is trying to woo, “You either support a Canadian system, or we risk deteriorating into, well, you know what.”
This type of positioning may be necessary to garner support for a cause, but when the binary support can cloud the issue. In Alberta, Ralph Klein famously put forward the “Third Way” after clearly describing the other two alternatives, one being unacceptable, the other impossible. But the same forces of binary division happen when you talk about the an “Alberta solution” vs. an “Ontario solution.” The required changes in the health care system are not about Alberta vs. Ontario, Canada vs. the U.S. or private vs. public; it is about finding a manageable way to meet the growing strains on the system.
Words are necessary to describe these things, but there has to be a tolerance for ambiguity of language along the way. To commit to a strategy, you have to describe the path, but “this or that” language has to be avoided for fear that it does take root. In winning people over, it is tempting to simplify language, but some things will never be simple. Health care is one of those things; so is government and economic policy. Is anyone prepared to get specific on the “change” that either McCain or Obama will bring? Likely not until January.
Type “Competition + Process Improvement” into the News section of your favourite search engine, and you will likely get a story (or a press release) that talks about a company overcoming new-millennium hyper-competition. The focus is on the solution (especially if you land in a press release), but one can imagine the work that goes into getting to solution. Not to mention, sustaining it. You may be living that “work” right now.
The classic problem-solving methodology is very straightforward: (1) identify the problem, (2) generate possible solutions, and (3) pick the best one. A prerequisite is to maintain a rational and objective focus, along the lines of “Getting-to-YES” style negotiating. Emotions cloud those operating “in the moment,” but in situations where parties (willingly or not) have to collaborate, distortion can come from many different – and surprising – places.
Rightly or wrongly, we have all pushed back (or been pushed) with a challenge to the legitimacy of our interests. Parents talk about “needing vs. wanting” ice cream after dinner (remember all those children that go to bed hungry); in the workplace, we ask people to separate “nice to have” from “need to have.” In all of this, the message is that “need” trumps “want,” which may cause some subtle limitations to successful results.
Too often, “need” identifies one potential solution (”We need a better inventory system”), while “want” can get to the root goal (”We want to remain competitive with as few changes as possible”). The wording and semantics may seem a better fit with strategic visioning than with everyday discussions, but think of the “want” behind some of these “need” statements:
- “We need more budget to do this project.”
- “We need to reduce head count.”
- “We need support from management/other divisions/the union.”
At the risk of treading into a discussion on inspirational leadership, visions talk about wants (or hope) that would offer almost-universal solutions. Each of our above “need” messages offers a solution that will become a problem for at least one other party:
- Extra dollars come from someone else’s budget;
- Head-count reduction hits “Joe Plumber” pretty hard, and
- Support takes other people’s time and energy.
The first thing to identify is a problem that we can all address. The corporate vision statement may do it, but the responsibility may fall to leaders and micro-leaders.
- “We want this company/unit to remain in business/this country.”
- “We want to reach a sustainable operating size.”
- “We want our company to be more responsive to external change.”
Far from being flowery, these may convey the real, wider-reaching need for change and improvement.With a recent MBA class of mine, the discussion focussed on an idealistic entrepreneur’s encounter with venture capitalists (from CBC’s Dragon’s Den). In the “identify the problem” stage, the initial class consensus was “she needs money,” (which, by the way, is the whole reason for going on the show in the first place, right?). I would (and did) argue that a focus on what you want to accomplish changes the discussion from “give me your money” to “do you want to help me do what I want to do?”
The difference can be very subtle, but can be extremely important. The latter offers more options, including, for example, referrals to other contacts or organizations if the dollar return happens not to be there. Money is one answer, and it may be the only one. You risk not finding out for sure unless you explain your vision. It is not simply a matter of substituting words (find and replace “need” for “want” won’t do it). Try switching the approach to the problem…from mine to ours. Some leaders/vision statements do it well; other times, those in the day-to-day discussion have to help identify shared problems.
This originally appeared in the October 2008 e-Newsletter for the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council (www.supplychaincanada.org).
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