BASEBALL may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots in the American experience. Since the founding of our country, citizens from Ben Franklin to David Letterman have made fun of their elected officials. Milton Berle famously joked: “You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.” These days, though, the institutional inertia gripping Congress is no laughing matter.

Challenges of historic import threaten America’s future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

There are many causes for the dysfunction: strident partisanship, unyielding ideology, a corrosive system of campaign financing, gerrymandering of House districts, endless filibusters, holds on executive appointees in the Senate, dwindling social interaction between senators of opposing parties and a caucus system that promotes party unity at the expense of bipartisan consensus.

Many good people serve in Congress. They are patriotic, hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it, but the institutional and cultural impediments to change frustrate the intentions of these well-meaning people as rarely before. It was not always thus. While romanticizing the Senate of yore would be a mistake, it was certainly better in my father’s time. My father, Birch Bayh, represented Indiana in the Senate from 1963 to 1981. A progressive, he nonetheless enjoyed many friendships with moderate Republicans and Southern Democrats.

One incident from his career vividly demonstrates how times have changed. In 1968, when my father was running for re-election, Everett Dirksen, the Republican leader, approached him on the Senate floor, put his arm around my dad’s shoulder, and asked what he could do to help. This is unimaginable today.

When I was a boy, members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays. This type of social interaction hardly ever happens today and we are the poorer for it. It is much harder to demonize someone when you know his family or have visited his home. Today, members routinely campaign against each other, raise donations against each other and force votes on trivial amendments written solely to provide fodder for the next negative attack ad. It’s difficult to work with members actively plotting your demise.

Any improvement must begin by changing the personal chemistry among senators. More interaction in a non-adversarial atmosphere would help.

I’m beginning my 12th year in the Senate and only twice have all the senators gathered for something other than purely ceremonial occasions. The first was during my initial week in office. President Bill Clinton had been impeached and the Senate had to conduct his trial. This hadn’t happened since 1868, and there were no rules in place for conducting the proceedings.

All of us gathered in the Old Senate Chamber. For several hours we debated how to proceed. Finally, Ted Kennedy and Phil Gramm, ideological opposites, were given the task of forging a compromise. They did, and it was unanimously ratified.

The second occasion was just days after Sept. 11. Every senator who could make it to Washington gathered in the Senate dining room to discuss the American response. The nation had been attacked. The building in which we sat had been among the targets, and only the heroism of the passengers prevented the plane from reaching its destination. We had to respond to protect the country. There were no Republicans or Democrats in the room that day, just Americans. The spirit of patriotism and togetherness was palpable. That atmosphere prevailed for only two or three weeks before politics once again intervened.

It shouldn’t take a constitutional crisis or an attack on the nation to create honest dialogue in the Senate. Let’s start with a simple proposal: why not have a monthly lunch of all 100 senators? Every week, the parties already meet for a caucus lunch. Democrats gather in one room, Republicans in another, and no bipartisan interaction takes place. With a monthly lunch of all senators, we could pick a topic and have each side make a brief presentation followed by questions and answers. Listening to one another, absent the posturing and public talking points, could only promote greater understanding, which is necessary to real progress.

Perhaps from this starting point, we can move onto more intractable problems, like the current campaign finance system that has such a corrosive effect on Congress. In the Senate, raising in small increments the $10 million to $20 million a competitive race requires takes huge amounts of time that could otherwise be spent talking with constituents, legislating or becoming well-versed on public policy. In my father’s time there was a saying: “A senator legislates for four years and campaigns for two.” Because of the incessant need to raise campaign cash, we now have perpetual campaigns. If fund-raising is constantly on members’ minds, it’s difficult for policy compromise to trump political calculation.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allowing corporations and unions to spend freely on ads explicitly supporting or opposing political candidates, will worsen matters. The threat of unlimited amounts of negative advertising from special interest groups will only make members more beholden to their natural constituencies and more afraid of violating party orthodoxies.

I can easily imagine vulnerable members approaching a corporation or union for support and being told: “We’d love to support you, but we have a rule. We only support candidates who are with us at least 90 percent of the time. Here is our questionnaire with our top 10 concerns. Fill it out.” Millions of campaign dollars now ride on the member’s response. The cause of good government is not served.

What to do? While fundamental campaign finance reform may ultimately require a constitutional amendment, there are less drastic steps we can take to curb the distorting influence of money in politics. Congress should consider ways to lessen the impact of the Citizens United decision through legislation to enhance disclosure requirements, require corporate donors to appear in the political ads they finance and prohibit government contractors or bailout beneficiaries from spending money on political campaigns.

Congress and state legislators should also consider incentives, including public matching funds for smaller contributions, to expand democratic participation and increase the influence of small donors relative to corporations and other special interests.

In addition, the Senate should reform a practice increasingly abused by both parties, the filibuster. Historically, the filibuster was employed to ensure that momentous issues receive a full and fair hearing. Instead, it has come to serve the exact opposite purpose — to prevent the Senate from even conducting routine business.

Last fall, the Senate had to overcome two successive filibusters to pass a bill to provide millions of Americans with extended unemployment insurance. There was no opposition to the bill; it passed on a 98-0 vote. But some senators saw political advantage in drawing out debate, thus preventing the Senate from addressing other pressing matters.

Admittedly, I have participated in filibusters. If not abused, the filibuster can foster consensus-building. The minority has a right to voice legitimate concerns, but it must not employ this tactic to prevent progress on everything at a critical juncture for our country. We need to reduce the power of the minority to frustrate progress while still affording them some say.

Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

For this reason, filibusters should require 35 senators to sign a public petition and make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory. Those who obstruct the Senate should pay a price in public notoriety and physical exhaustion. That would lead to a significant decline in frivolous filibusters.

Filibusters should also be limited to no more than one for any piece of legislation. Currently, the decision to begin debate on a bill can be filibustered, followed by another filibuster on each amendment, followed by yet another filibuster before a final vote. This leads to multiple legislative delays and effectively grinds the Senate to a halt.

What’s more, the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60. During my father’s era, filibusters were commonly used to block civil rights legislation and, in 1975, the requisite number of votes was reduced to 60 from 67. The challenges facing the country today are so substantial that further delay imperils the Republic and warrants another reduction in the supermajority requirement.

Of course, the genesis of a good portion of the gridlock in Congress does not reside in Congress itself. Ultimate reform will require each of us, as voters and Americans, to take a long look in the mirror, because in many ways, our representatives in Washington reflect the people who have sent them there.

The most ideologically devoted elements in both parties must accept that not every compromise is a sign of betrayal or an indication of moral lassitude. When too many of our citizens take an all-or-nothing approach, we should not be surprised when nothing is the result.

Our most strident partisans must learn to occasionally sacrifice short-term tactical political advantage for the sake of the nation. Otherwise, Congress will remain stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor. Power is constantly sought through the use of means which render its effective use, once acquired, impossible.

What is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest. In a time of national peril, with our problems compounding, we must remember that more unites us as Americans than divides us.

Meeting America’s profound challenges and reforming Congress will not be easy. Old habits die hard. Special interests are entrenched. Still, my optimism as I serve out the remainder of my final term in the Senate is undiminished. With the right reforms, members of Congress can once again embody our best selves and our highest aspirations.

In my final 11 months, I will advocate for the reforms that will help Congress function as it once did, so that our generation can do what Americans have always done: convey to our children, and our children’s children, an America that is stronger, more prosperous, more decent and more just.

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Plenty of lessons in here for all of us…

• On-time delivery
• Project management expertise
• Local presence
• Senior staff

I remember thinking these sounded more like must-haves as opposed to key differentiators.  The thing is if you’re going to start talking about key differentiators, aspects of your business that  set you apart from your competitors, they really should be different.

So was born the seeds of my “so what” question.  I’ve since turned the question into a facilitated process I run entrepreneurs and personal clients through.  It can be helpful in a variety of ways, but I find it’s best suited to helping companies get to the bottom of what is really special about their company/product/service.

The basis of the game

It’s a “game” I play with entrepreneurs or anyone really who is working hard to represent the true value essence of their business.   Every time they portray an aspect of their business as “strategic” or “game-changing”, I ask them: “So What?”.  I usually get this look that conveys something along the lines of “What are you, crazy?  So what?  Isn’t it obvious?”.  We then have a chat about the difference in perspectives between business owners and their customers and how too few business owners judge the value of their products through the eyes of their customers.

My service is available online through a SaaS (software as a service) model.

So what?  So are a thousand other companies.

Sometimes I have to explain the game, sometimes they catch on quickly.  The point here is to both weed out talking points in your pitch that aren’t truly strategic while getting to the root of what is strategic in others.  The goal of course is to move your message “up”, making it more strategic, while simultaneously connecting deeper with the value you are truly offering your customers.  You know you have a winner when you can connect your strategic value to a customer’s emotional driver.

My product offers features not currently available in this space.

So what?  Maybe no one wants those features.

So you can see the game might sound a bit blunt, and to be honest it can be.  My experience though is that almost all the entrepreneurs and personal clients I’ve worked with that truly are committed to succeeding, take no offense.  In fact, they see the game as quite the opposite and generally embrace challenges to their business model as an opportunity to either reinforce their value proposition or identify an area that needs improvement.

I only work with non-profits.

So what!?

Turning the game into a process

So this idea had been rummaging around in my head for a while how to turn my little game into a process, and several months ago I got the opportunity.  An entrepreneur I’ve been working with had an important funding presentation upcoming.  She had a good product, but one that suffered from an image problem – the potential of the opportunity was getting lost in aspects of a business model that came off sounding small.  She also suffered a bit from having a technical background.  I find technicians to have no shortage of big ideas, but sometimes they can struggle conveying them conceptually without retreating to the comfort of details.  And, stereotyping here, technicians are horrible marketers.

So, in a coaching session, using a large whiteboard, I drew five columns with room for headings and asked her to name up to five key/strategic differentiators of her product.  Those things that truly set her apart, would ultimately make her a success and were essential elements of her value proposition to customers.  She came up with five key differentiators and we boarded those as headings for the columns.

Why up to five?  This is just my number, one that “feels” about right.  I say that if you have more than five key differentiators then you have way too many to start with.  Likewise, I would say that you should try to start this exercise with at least three differentiators as I’ve found the process may lead you in directions you hadn’t anticipated.

Working the board

So, after the starting 3-5 key differentiators are on the board as column headings, I work one column at a time.  There’s no magic here and I generally work left to right unless there is some over-riding reason to attack a particular column first.  For each column, I start by re-stating the key differentiator, then asking:

So What?

From there, you whenever a answer is offered to that question, I follow up with another “So what?”.

Obviously, it’s not quite that easy and there is much more to facilitating a strategy session than asking a simple question.  It helps to have a background in facilitation and knowledge of the entrepreneur’s industry.  In my days as a consultant, I ran many facilitated sessions and went through a variety of training sessions on how to facilitate. All that training really helps these sessions as many times you need to draw the entrepreneur’s thoughts out and help them answer that So What question.

It’s also important to be able to “work the board” as more and more information gets posted in more and more columns.  What I often see arise out of these sessions is interesting linkages between thoughts in columns and new messages arising out of other comments.  Staying aware enough to recognize when these new pathways of discussion present themselves can help take the session in important new directions.

So when do you know you’ve answered the So What question?  I really don’t have a good answer.  With very few exceptions, you just get to a point when the subject of the session answers the question and you just know that what they said is important enough, strategic enough to qualify as a So What.  I know that sounds kind of soft, but I can say that most of the time my client’s have agreed with me.  I think it helps to have a seasoned facilitator who is both brutally honest about what is strategic or not, and also has a fair amount of business perspective to bring to the session.

Frankly, the other option is the column is simply crossed out.  Sometimes after extended conversation, it just becomes obvious that the differentiator really isn’t all that special, and the discussion isn’t leading in the direction of a replacement.  Crossing out a column is an opportunity to hone your message and focus in on those differentiators that truly are special.

Outcomes

So obviously, the main outcome is the more targeted strategic differentiators for the client.  As I’ve mentioned though, all kinds of other linkages and information can arise out of a So What session.  In particular, I have found the following to be quite common:

• Central themes – in a session with the Marketing Director of a regional park system that has several extraordinary spaces available for rent, we uncovered two central themes aligned with two different target markets.  The information spoke to potentially two separate marketing campaigns for the spaces.
• Emotional drivers – any time you can connect your brand with emotional drivers you have the potential to create especially strong ties with your customer.  Working with an entrepreneur offering an online service targeted at college students, we uncovered emotional drivers of laziness and fear; two very strong emotional drivers in support of their brand.
• New directions – sometimes, like the session I most recently ran for a consultant focusing on C-level services, between columns crossed out and answers to repeated So What question, we find the general theme of the company’s strategic differentiators heading in a completely new direction, or uncovering new themes.  In this particular session, a theme rose out of several columns and ultimately became an important new direction for the consultant to market their services.

How do you approach defining your key, strategic product differentiators to your clients?  How would you answer the So What question for each one?  Are you sure your differentiators are important to your clients and not simply what you think is important?  Feeling uncomfortable answering any of those questions?  Let’s run a session together…

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So what?

• Are a source for great testimonial quotes.  Put these on your website, in your brochures, on your resume.  Nothing helps make your delivery claims real like a quote from a customer.
• Offer yet one more touchpoint for your sales and/or marketing folks to ask for referrals, cross-sell and up-sell, etc.
• Present a chance to capture honest, real-world feedback on your products and services – potentially identifying opportunities for improvement or growth.

I am very bullish on customer satisfaction surveys and strongly feel they should be a component of every company’s sales and marketing strategy.  For those of you who feel differently, I’d love to hear your thoughts via comments.  In this post, I’d like to share three very different customer satisfaction survey models I’ve seen over the years and where each might be used most effectively.

The “One Question Survey” Survey

I’ve written before on the Net Promoter Score that consulting firm Bain & Co. developed and trademarked.  The execution of this survey couldn’t be simpler; you ask your customers one question:

How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?

Customers rate that likelihood on a 0 to 10 scale with 10 being extremely likely they would recommend you.  Based on their responses, customers can be categorized into one of three groups: Promoters (9-10 rating), Passives (7-8 rating), and Detractors (0-6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter score. A score of 75% or above is considered quite high.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has several benefits.  First, it’s simplicity and brevity may increase your survey response rate.  Also, since the NPS results in a percentage metric, it can be quite useful in benchmarking exercises.  Finally, I feel the NPS can be a powerful motivator for organizations focused on excellence.  The metric is not without it’s detractors however, and the Wikipedia article linked above has a good overview of some of the criticisms.

I feel the NPS is a good choice for your customer satisfaction surveying when your customers have short attention spans (hence why I am considering using it with my entrepreneurs!) or you are focused on a benchmark for your pursuit of increasing delivery excellence.  Given the controversy surrounding the metric and the effort it would take to explain it to prospects, this survey is probably best suited when you plan on keeping your survey results internal.

The “Are you satisfied?” Survey

This is the type of customer satisfaction survey I think most of us are used to seeing.  The questions tend to be a mix of “How satisfied were you with our delivery” and “How likely are you to do business with us again?” type of questions.  Typically, customers are asked to indicate their answers on some sort of scale, allowing for aggregation of responses into a numeric metric.

While this type of survey is probably the most practiced, and does create satisfaction metrics in a form that is easily published, this is probably my least favorite type of customer surveying.  The main complaint I have with it is it’s prevalence.  If your company goals are excellence and growth, to simply do “what everyone else is doing” does little to separate your organization from the rest of the pack.  However, this doesn’t mean I don’t see any value in this type of survey.  You have to start somewhere, and this is an easy place to start.  Also, since many organizations do nothing, there is a good chance your competition, or some portion of your competition, doesn’t survey.  Therefore, simply getting started with a basic survey could help with some differentiation.

Even though I’m framing this type of surveying as the most basic, don’t forget that you need to examine your operational processes to support the surveying process.  Remember the last time you gave really bad marks on a survey and thought even less of the company when they didn’t followup?  Don’t let that happen to you.  Even worse as a missed opportunity, is not following up with customers that leave glowing remarks.  So, make sure to look at customer surveying as a lifecycle process and make sure it becomes embedded in your current procedures in order to get the maximum value out of it.

My current employer has tweaked the basic survey in a very novel way that generates some extra value from the survey.  Since we are an economic development non-profit, it is very important for our funders to understand the impact we are having regionally for the dollars they have given us.  The popular public sector term for this is “leverage”.  So our post-project customer satisfaction survey, in addition to the standard  “how satisfied were you” questions, include a number of questions related to the economic impact our project had on our client.  These impacts include cost savings, jobs saved or created, increase in sales, etc.  This allows us, in real, customer-reported numbers, to compute a leverage number for our funders stating something to the effect of “for ever dollar given to us, we generate X dollars in economic impact”.

More importantly perhaps, it allows us to do the same for our clients.  It can be very powerful to tell a client that for every project dollar spent with us, on average, our clients tell us they get X dollars back in tangible economic impact.

So while I don’t want to discourage you from “standard” customer satisfaction surveys, I would urge you to think how you can make the results relevant for your customers.

OTACE

Finally, I’d like to talk about the best customer satisfaction process I’ve personally been a part of: OTACE.

OTACE stood for On Time Above Client Expectations; so right out of the gate, the very name of the surveying process communicates a commitment to excellence.  The way OTACE worked is:

1. At the start of a project, the customer picked 3 – 5 project management characteristics that were important to her.  These characteristics were things like quality of deliverables, cost, on time delivery, communication, etc.
2. The customer then ranked the importance of each characteristic on a 1 – 5 scale, with 5 being very important.
3. Once the project has completed (or during the project for longer engagements), the customer scores how you performed on each of the project management characteristics they selected.
4. Now for each characteristic, multiply the score you received by the weighting factor from step #2.
5. Finally, simply divide that total score by the total of all weighting factors for your final satisfaction score (with a 5 being perfect satisfaction).

That sounded confusing and it’s really not so let’s look at an example.

You’re getting ready to start a project with a new customer so you sit down with them to review your OTACE process.  They really like the commitment to quality delivery this process sends and they select Communication, Quality of Deliverables and On Time Delivery as their project characteristics.  They rank Communication a 4 in importance, Quality of Deliverables a 5 and On Time Delivery a 3.

After the project is over, you sit down with your client to review how you did.  In this post-project process, they rank your delivery as follows: a 5 on Communication, a 4 on Quality of Deliverables and a 3 for On Time Delivery.  So your raw score is 49 ( (5*4) + (4*5) + (3*3) ).  Divide that 49 by 12 (the sum of their weighting factors) to get your final quality rating for this project of 4.1.

You can see this process is a bit more complicated, requires more customer involvement, and probably requires more education and training not only for your sales staff but potentially your customers.  So why make the effort?

Unlike any customer satisfaction process I’ve seen in my career, OTACE not only demanded a commitment to quality and excellence, but in return offered explicit data you could show your customers as to how you were performing, as rated by their peers.  Assuming you were performing well, what a great sales tool.  Ah, but there’s the rub – you need to be willing to share your performance with your customers and not every organization is comfortable with that.  Frankly, not every organization is ready for that either.  This is an evaluation you will have to make for yourself and your own organization.  Don’t think you have to be perfect though.  You will undoubtedly have a project or two over time that a customer will rank very low for factors out of your control.  What I found was that having a mechanism to not only transparently show those scores to our clients, but show them in context of all our other scores, help create a level of trust in the sales process at a stage where it rarely exists.

The other benefit to this process that I hope is self-evident is that your customer tells you what is most important to him on this project, before the project starts.  How many of us would have loved to have know this information on bad projects of the past?  So while it’s no panacea for constant communication and involvement, it can definitely help give you a head start on understanding your customer’s motivations.

So what do you think?

What customer satisfaction approaches have you seen or been impressed by?  Do you currently survey your customers?  If so, how (and if not, why not)?

UPDATE (12/09) – I just noticed an article posted on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends blog entitled 10 Customer Service Trends for 2010 by columnist Barry Moltz.  Some interesting stuff and more food for thought, like how about “firing” your worst customers?

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3 Customer Satisfaction models

Along the way however, as I watch the leaders I respect and admire, I’ve noticed some qualities I don’t see mentioned.  One day it dawned on me that these qualities were more on the “softer” side.  I’ve been jotting a couple of them down here and there and I’m close to having a decent post about them.

I’d be interested in hearing about your undiscovered leadership qualities.  What have you noticed in the leaders you admire that you’ve never seen covered in a Leadership book?

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Submit your Leadership qualities

One of those learning opportunities came my way over the last couple of weeks.  In no less than three fairly strategic discussions, at some point in the discussion someone said:

But if we did it for them, we’d have to do it for everyone.

I don’t know what it is about that comment that drives me nuts, but it always has.  Maybe it’s that too often it’s used as a door-closer to a discussion.  Maybe in my mind I interpret it as the person using the comment as a smokescreen when they really just aren’t interested in change. After some reflection over the last few weeks, I think my real problem with the statement is what I perceive as it’s inherent negativity; especially when the comment is made by a leader.

So, having noticed that his learning opportunity was sent my way, I set about to take advantage of it, in two ways.  First, I started upon some reflection of why this phrase bothers me so much, and positive ways I can process the statement and keep the conversation moving forward.  Second, since every time the comment was made it came up amid discussions I was having with some very smart people that I truly respect, I paid particular attention to how they responded.

In a couple short weeks, I have a completely new toolkit on how to deal with this potentially deadly comment.  Here’s what I came up with:

First – keep your emotions in check. If you are like me, I’ve recognized that when this comment comes up in a discussion, I tend to get somewhat irritated.  That irritation can come through in not only your comments but your body language.  Without even trying (or knowing it, if you’re not aware), you might come off as defensive, even angry.  Nothing kills a positive discussion like negativity.

What I’ve tried to focus on is a belief that the person making the statement has made it for all the right reasons; like you, they have a vested interest in a positive outcome for the decision at hand and this statement is simply their language to voice a particular concern.  If you process the statement as merely an indication that they are just as passionate about making the right decision as you are, you can get past whatever negativity you may perceive in the words chosen.

The next logical step I’ve come across is to examine the target population being discussed (the “everyone”), in the context of what you are proposing for the individual.  By that I mean that maybe, like the picture above, there are some unique aspects to the individual person or group you are proposing to take action for, that sets them apart from the population at large such that the odds are you wouldn’t have to do it “for everyone”, or the way you do it for the individual would not fit the needs of everyone else.

Say for example you are an HR Director and you are considering making a special allowance for an employee to work a reduced-hours work week.  It is natural then for the rest of the executive team to wonder whether then everyone in the company will want to have a reduced work week, leading to loss of productivity and revenue.  If however, there are unique circumstances surrounding the individual and/or the request, then perhaps the request could be granted in such a way as to head off a large influx of follow-on requests.  For example, maybe the individual was pursuing an MBA and their final semester required a class only offered during the day.  If the exception is granted and put into policy as an education allowance, then both your employees and the company both win.

You may also want to think about if “doing it for everyone” is a necessarily a bad thing.  Let’s say you run an office building and a couple tenants have asked if they ride their bikes to work, could they lock them up outside the back entrance.  “But if we let a couple tenants do this, then everyone will want to,” comes the response from your Board.

Well, first of all, from thinking through the second tip above you may have probably already determined that not everyone in your building will want to ride a bike to work.  That said, there are probably more than just the couple that asked you.  So, what’s so bad about a bunch of people riding their bike to your office building?  Isn’t that a good thing?  Maybe there’s an opportunity here to “be green” and foster healthy lifestyles.  With a relatively small investment, you could install a bike rack, promote it to your tenants, and maybe create some good will as a landlord.

Lastly, think about how to accomplish the same objective in a different manner.  I’m on the Board of a professional networking organization.  We offer a free year of membership to members who lose their employment.  We were recently approached by an individual fitting the application criteria of the group that was moving back into our area after being down-sized from his out of state employer.  He found out about our group and petitioned to be given a free membership to get plugged back in to our community.

The ensuing Board discussion centered around a real desire to help this person tempered by the “but if we did it for him…” question.  With the current economy combined with the popularity of our group, this was a very real challenge.  Just as the discussion was wrapping up with a decision to not give this person membership, one of the Board members came up with an idea that maybe we could institute a program or policy whereby job seekers fitting our membership criteria but weren’t previously members, could attend a one or two meetings and be given an opportunity to give a short overview of themselves.  Good for the group – a member might find just the new employee they were looking for.  Good for the individual – they get access to potential employers and an opportunity to introduce themselves.  Good for the Board – we get to do the “right thing” and will most likely get a paying member sometime in the future.

So there are four solid ways I’ve come up with to respond to a valid question that I previously saw as a negative roadblock in discussions.  Over to you, readers.  Is the “if we did it for them…” challenge one that you’ve struggled with?  Regardless, what techniques do you use to get past this roadblock if the proposal on the table is one you are passionate about?

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If we did it for them…

Note cards.  Those brilliantly simple, 3×5 lined notecards.

The article uses as it’s foundation something called the behavioral school of economics to initiate a conversation around how current management and leadership theory is changing and looking more at how we truly think and operate in the real world as leaders.  Towards the end of the article, the author draws a seemingly obvious but nonetheless insightful observation:

The ultimate lesson of the 3 x 5 card school of management is this: in turbulent, unpredictable, rapidly changing times, we’re all looking for things that work.

Amen, brother.

As a Leader – what should matter most?

This point struck me as very similar to a frequent conversation I’ve had in relation to technology over the years.  Whether from subordinates, managers or leaders, it seems we all too often forget what the true goal of any project should be: positive results.  Therefore one of my consistent mantras in any conversation involving technology is: Technology is a tool, not an end.  Over my career I’ve found there are often many ways to achieve the results you are seeking without the time, effort and money to implement a technological solution.  I’ve also too often observed the close corollary that many times the value created from a technology solution is not greater than the resources required to implement and maintain it.

Don’t get me wrong – I love technology.  I tend to be an early adopter.  I’ve been a Director of IT and implemented several high value solutions.  I’m a computer game junkie and was a level 60 in World of Warcraft before you probably even knew what it was.  And while I wouldn’t be lost without my Blackberry, I would prefer not to test that assertion.  But at some point, both personally and professionally, it becomes a matter of focus: what is more important, the results or the method?

My new simple tool

There is another DCO reader out there who shares my passion for the ultimate organizational system.  I think we both recognize it is a Holy Grail quest, but yet we continue the search.  With my recent switch to a Mac at home, I have a whole new field of contenders to review that claim they want to organize my day and my life.  While many offer valuable pieces of the puzzle, and one or two came close to being lifesavers, the process of demo-ing them all simply reinforced the message that my day and my life are in my own hands and I alone am solely responsible for the positive results I create out of them.

I’ve recently come full circle back to that “3×5″ approach to life management.  As part of my personal coaching, I’ve come to adopt, and very quickly love, a new simple tool: the Moleskine notebook.

You’ve probably seen a moleskine; you may recognize the name even if you haven’t.  Moleskines have a rich legacy:

MOLESKINE is the legendary notebook that has held the inspirations and ideas of everyone from Van Gogh, Picasso and Hemingway to famed author, Bruce Chatwin. Artists, authors, and geniuses of all variety have long appreciated the simplicity and superior functionality of these notebooks.

Originally these books were produced by small French bookbinders who supplied the Parisian stationery shops frequented by the international avant-garde. However, In 1986, the last manufacturer of Moleskine, a family operation in Tours, closed and Moleskines were gone – but not forgotten. As a result of their previous popularity and demand, they did return. In 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought these books back for writers, artists, travelers and all free-thinkers around the globe.

I carry my Moleskine (a 5×8 square ruled softcover) with me wherever I go now.  I love the attention to detail and the pure functionality of this diary-sized notebook.  It may seem extravagant versus simple 3×5 cards, but I find it to be a fitting repository for my “next big ideas”!

Some simple resources

You can visit the official Moleskine website for overviews and specs of all their products.  While you can order off the Moleskine website, I actually found Amazon’s Moleskine Store to be ever so slightly cheaper on a product by product basis, and many times you can get free shipping at around $25.

As is the case with many Harvard Business Publishing’s articles, the author was plugging his book, Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self.  While this tends to annoy me in other venues, I really don’t mind it when HBP does it since their authors consistenly write thoughtful, pragmatic, useful information geared toward personal and professional excellence.  Basically, everything we’re all about here.

Tell me – What’s YOUR favorite low tech tool?

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low tech

Honesty

Whether it’s employee appraisals or what happened to the stock price, honesty seems to be missing from many of our leaders these days.  And I’m not talking about the “if I just don’t tell them is it really lying?” kind of honesty.  I’m talking about blunt, hard-edged, “give it to me straight since it’s the right thing to do” kind of honesty.

How many of you know someone that got a good if not great employee appraisal year after year then gets let go out of the blue?  No conversations with their manager, no agendas for improvement and no trips to HR?  Just… let go.  Certainly every business has a right to perform their HR function however they see fit within the boundaries of the law, but doesn’t it seem to make a lot more sense to try to heal the wound than simply cut off your hand?

I’ve had this conversation with many of my personal and professional contacts, and a fair number of us think one of the main reasons situations aren’t handled with more honesty is tied to the next quality on my short-list.

Comfort with Dis-Comfort

As much as we all say we’re committed to the “hard conversation”, the fact is that many of us, leaders included, don’t look forward to those conversations and come up with any number of rationalizations to avoid them.

I’ve found that leaders are generally pretty good with discomfort until it becomes personal.  While it may be uncomfortable, even gut-wrenching to direct HR to cut 10% of the workforce, often it’s harder to call a direct report into your office and tell them they aren’t performing and are getting let go for cause.

Selflessness

Last but not least on my short-list of missing positive leadership qualities is selflessness.  We only have to look as far as Enron and the recent financial collapse to find catastrophic examples of what happens when greed and self-interest take hold.  Too many bad things happen when we are insecure and selfish (and all those other bad habits).  Only when we lose ourselves and focus on something greater, and more positive, do we start truly leading.  I can’t offer any scientific arguments, only the wisdom of a recent thread of thinking amongst some friends on Facebook that went something like “you can only give to the world what you’ve taken care of inside yourself.”

For more eloquent thinking on this quality you might enjoy Leading Blog’s post on “The new golden rule“, or Next Level blog’s article on “Leadership advice from an investment analyst.”

How about you, readers?  What leadership qualities do you find missing these days?

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Missing leadership qualities

What the hell happened to Customer Service?

I trust I don’t need to make my point here.  Well before our “current economic conditions” it seemed like good quality customer service, where the individual involved truly cared about you and how they represented their brand (your company!), was on the decline.  Wait – we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well here so there’s no need for me to mince words.  I think good quality customer service has pretty much disappeared.

Which leads me to that thing that’s rattling around in my head.

I believe honest, caring, helpful, engaged customer service may well be the single biggest opportunity for your company right now.  Especially during these tough times.  It’s one thing to lower your prices; customers are expecting (demanding?) that.  But to deliver your products at a lower cost, while providing great customer service, now that’s a recipe for growth.

A while back I talked about something called the Net Promoter Score.  Now while I’m not advocating we all implement this in our organizations, what would your honest answer be to the following question:

On a scale of 1 – 10 (ten being superb), where do you think your customers would rate your service?

If we’re all being honest, I think the answer for many of us might be a sobering realization.  Given the fact that none of us are without competition, does providing customer service at a 6 or even 7 level really provide an exit barrier, especially in these days of cost-cutting and special promotions?

I, for one, don’t think so.

Still with me?  Take ten minutes for a quick exercise.  Pull out a piece of paper and write down every area or role within your company that interacts with your customers, keeping in mind there are probably many non-human interactions.  Based your your knowledge of your company, give each of them a quick rating of poor or below average, average, above average and excellent from your customer’s perspective. Don’t over-think this, there are no right answers and we’re not going to compare to industry benchmarks.

Now, answer me three simple questions:

1. Are you comfortable with your ratings?
2. Did you find any areas that are under-performing that represent critical customer interactions?
3. Now, for each of those critical under-performing interactions, put on your thinking cap and come up with some ideas on how you could raise their score with minimal capital expenditures?

I don’t have the answers, and I don’t know your company.  But I’d be willing to bet this little roadmap gave you some ideas.  You don’t always have to spend money to grow your business.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below, especially if you went through our little exercise.  Feel free to share anonymously, but please – share!  Also, please use the “Share This” link to send this to friends and colleagues you think have something to say on this topic.  My sense is there is a meaningful conversation to be had.

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Building your brand through Customer Service

I’ve been on this Board for over five years and had seriously been thinking of not continuing on it.  It had nothing to do with not feeling like we hadn’t accomplished anything.  During my Board tenure, we increased chapter membership well over 300%, raised participation in monthly member meetings to around 40% from a dismal 20% or so, and I was personally responsible for bringing a highly successful CIO Forum to our region (attended by close to 200 practitioners in it’s first year).  We’ve also begun some important educational outreach initiatives into our inner-city communities.  All in all, I’m very proud of our achievements and feel fortunate to have been part of such a highly functioning team.

My reasons for possibly leaving were more tied to two reasons.  First, the organization is for technology leaders, and now that it’s been close to two years since I was a Director of IT, I felt like I wasn’t tied as closely to our subject matter as in the past.  Another reason was simple time demands.  As I get more and more involved in entrepreneurial activities, I have sometimes felt like there has often not been enough time to devote to all my pursuits.  There is also another couple organizations I would like to get involved with, and when I added it all up, I really questioned whether it would leave me any personal time for my own pursuits.  So freeing up some time from the SIM Board seemed like a reasonable approach.

As SIM is focused on technology leadership, I’ve served on the Board with several prominent area executives, many of whom I consider a mentor.  To help me think through my decision, I reached out to one of them for his thoughts on how he evaluates his Board involvements, as I know he is involved in several Boards in addition to a demanding job.

I was expecting a talk centered around the time cost of involvement weighed against networking and career issues.  What I got was refreshingly honest and personable that I wanted to share it with you here.  I wouldn’t have expected any less from this person, that’s why I reached out to him in the first place.  But his response really made me feel good that there are still leaders out there that are values-based in their approach to business.  Here is how this person approaches becoming (and staying) involved with a Board:

• Do I believe in their mission?
• What needs accomplished?  Is it achievable and can I contribute?
• Is the group making a difference?
• Do I like the majority of people on the Board and can I get along with them?

Two things jumped out at me immediately.  First, no thought was given to time commitment.  Obviously, we all have that equation in the back of our head, but what I’ve found from working with a number of successful executives is that they tend not to think of the time involved so much as the results.  Which leads me to my second observation.  Results are not only more of a measure of whether to get involved or not, but also more tied to the group’s ability to work together than any one individual’s ability to make things happen.

So what did I decide?

Based on my conversation with my mentor, I have decided to stay on the Board.  I believe in our mission, we are getting great things done, and we have a good team that enjoys working together.  What I communicated to our Board President though is that I need to switch roles.  For the past four years I have been functioning as our Board’s 1st VP responsible for all member meeting programming.  If you’ve ever put together a speaker schedule you know it’s a lot of work.  While it has been very gratifying as the programming I’ve pulled together has largely been credited as one of the reasons for our chapter’s growth, given other priorities at the moment, I’m not sure I have the time to devote to take it to the next level.  Plus, frankly I need a break.

I’ve tagged this post under both “Growth Leadership” and “Leadership Development” as I think there are lessons here for both.  As leaders, the issue of personal time and life/work balance are different I think than for others.  We have long accepted that large, gray space between life and work, and realize work is not a 9-5 occupation.  As a leader we push ourselves to do more, hoping that inspires others to do more along with us.  We, hopefully, focus less on the time we are committing than the results we are generating.  That is the growth lesson that I learned out of this decision.

What do you think of my mentor’s guidance?  Are you on a Board, or Board(s)?  What criteria do you use to decide where and how deeply to get involved?

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Thinking through commitment

A few posts back, I wrote about a new feature I had added to the blog, the “Great Posts from Around the Web” widget.  Using free ranking services available from Postrank, I built an automatically updating list of great blog posts on the topics of Entrepreneurship and Leadership.   I only used those blogs I have followed for a while and felt really did offer good content that you would want to read, and left it to Postrank to then only display the best individual posts.

As a blogger, I usually don’t see the front page of my blog unless I’m playing around with the design, or I’m proofing a published post.  However, since I put up the great posts links, I’ve been checking in every once in a while.  Today in particular, I was really impressed by the list of Entrepreneurship posts that were listed, as you can see in the image to the left.

That’s a nice list of articles, broadly focused on a number of topics of interest to entrepreneurs both large and small.

The Leadership list is pretty good also, although it suffers from not having as many blogs providing content.  Frankly, I haven’t been able to track down many good blogs on the topic.  “Leadership” seems to be one of those topics that attracts a great number of bloggers more interested in hyping their latest book or seminar date, than offering true insightful commentary.  If you have a favorite leadership blog, please send me the link for my review.

So I’m certainly not suggesting you check out the blog every morning, but if great writing on the topics of Entrepreneurship and Leadership are of interest to you, I would suggest you drop by every once in a while to see what has popped up in the list.  One of my E-mails or seeing a new post from me in your RSS reader would be a great reminder.  Click on through to the blog to read the latest post and use it as an opportunity to find even more great content.

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Shameless self-promotion

I’m using a service called Postrank.  In their own words:

PostRank is a scoring system developed by AideRSS to rank any kind of online content, such as RSS feed items, blog posts, articles, or news stories. PostRank is based on social engagement, which refers to how interesting or relevant people have found an item or category to be. Examples of engagement include writing a blog post in response to someone else, bookmarking an article, leaving a comment on a blog, or clicking a link to read a news item.

PostRank measures engagement by analyzing the types and frequency of an audience’s interaction with online content. An item’s PostRank score represents how interesting and relevant people have found it to be. The more interesting or relevant an item is, the more work they will do to share or respond to that item so interactions that require more effort are weighted higher.

PostRank scoring is based on analysis of the “5 Cs” of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting, and clicking. By collecting interaction metrics in these categories the overall engagement score is calculated and the PostRank value is determined.

In plain English, the service takes the feeds you group together, ranks them based on an internal algorithm related to social popularity, and gives you some options on what to do with the results.  For example, you can tag a group of feed, say with the tag Leadership, and Postrank will create a “channel” based on that tag.  That is basically how I created the feed that fuels the Great Posts, Leadership tab.

Once you’ve got your channels created, you can tweak them a bit around two dimensions.  First, you can select what level of posts you want included in your channel: All, Good, Great or Best.  I have selected “Great” for both the Leadership and Entrepreneurship channels.  Second, you can include word filter in your feeds if you are looking for very particular content.  I did not do that for either feed.

How to use these links

Postrank automatically updates the channel content based on the changing popularity of the individual items in the feeds.  So new, popular blog posts will show up automatically alongside old blog posts that may have become suddenly more widely read and bookmarked.  The end result is a constantly changing mix of what should be very relevant blog posts for each topic.  I invite you to browse through the list when you stop by, and click through the titles that look interesting to you.  It’s one more way to bring you interesting, relevant, hopefully valuable content.

I have seeded each channel with the blogs I personally felt offered the best content.  If you have a favorite blog or news feed in either channel, please comment or send me a message and I will review it for possible addition to the channel.  I’ve played around with Postrank quite a bit and not all feeds make good additions to your channel.  For example, I originally had the Venture Beat blog in the Entrepreneurship channel.  Venture Beat is a great blog to read to stay on top of VC doings in the technology space.  Two problems – it’s too popular and it’s strictly technology focused.  Since it was so popular it’s posts were overwhelming the channel.

I would also say that the feeds I used to build the Entrepreneurship channel are fairly broad, just like the concept of Entrepeneurship is, so expect the content to cover a lot of ground.  If at first you don’t see much you like, be sure to check back now and again.  I’ve been watching the results for a few weeks now and I’ve really liked the mix of content.

So that’s my surprise #2.  What do you think?

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Great posts from around the web

At lunch recently with some former colleagues, one of our conversation topics reminded me of this.  My colleague, Director of Marketing for an regional accounting firm, was lamenting an ongoing management discussion over a seemingly minor issue.  Her mind was focused, rightly so, on the issue of how to maintain and grow their customer base during the recession.

The conversation came full circle for me when I returned from that lunch.  There in my mail slot was a hand-addressed envelope from an entrepreneur I recently had an initial coaching session with.  Inside was a very nice custom note card with a handwritten thank you note from the entrepreneur.  In classic style she ended the note wishing me luck on a personal project we briefly discussed.  It’s shouldn’t be a surprise this person is an ex-Marketer.

And, forgive my stereotyping, it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that almost all the marketers I’ve ever known are women.  They get the relationship part of the equation that business leaders often miss or overlook.

The blogosphere, business rags, and social media channels are all ablaze with the mantra “now is the time to sow the seeds for growth,” and I agree. There are no simple answers, certainly no right answers, most definitely no slam dunks.  But I have to think my lunch companion was on to something: isn’t it about our customers?

What did you do, TODAY, to make a customer feel special?  What did you do, TODAY, to sell a new customer without them feeling they were sold?  What did you do, TODAY, that didn’t generate revenue but was simply the right thing to do? If I surveyed your customers, how special would they say you make them feel?  Too touchy-feely for you?  Okay – How many do you think would say they’ve never shopped around for you replacement?  Do you think, given the current economy, there aren’t maybe around a gajillion competitors that would treat even one of your clients like royalty to get them to switch?  Not feeling so touchy-feely any more?

This would normally be the part of the blog post where I launch into some ideas on how to address the topic at hand. Frankly, these are scary times and I don’t have the answers – that’s your job.  At least it’s your job to try.

But let me suggest a place for you to start.  Read this simple post.  Got it?  Good!  Move directly on to saving and growing your company.  Don’t get it?  Read it again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the next.

I may not be able to tell you how to save your business, but I can sure tell you where to start looking.

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Survive the recession one customer at a time

I didn’t receive any comments one way or another, with the exception of a nice mention from fellow blogger Simon Stapleton.

Frankly, I’m a little disappointed.  Not that no one commented – comments tend to be very scarce on blogs to begin with.  No, I was looking forward to the counter-arguments presented, anticipating divergent viewpoints just as passionate as my original post.  So with today’s article, I’m going to post yet more information to further support my position.  This is a topic I keep my eyes on from time to time, and some of the articles I’ve found recently are fairly interesting.

First, a slight detour

To start with, let me say that I recognize simply “being nice” is NOT a leadership requirement.  I tend to draw a rather blurry line between leadership and personal excellence on this blog, but this is one area where I think there is a clear difference.  If you’re like me, over my career I’ve known many a leader.  They each have brought their own unique mix of personal characteristics to their leadership style.  It would be incorrect to say they were all nice.  It would also be incorrect to assume that of those that were nice, “being nice” led to their position as a leader.  There are plenty of effective leaders who aren’t nice, and there are plenty of nice people who aren’t leaders.  So while I do maintain that being nice is a foundation quality of personal excellence, I do not feel that requirement extends to leadership.

So for the purposes of this post we are going to move into the realm of leadership, particularly what is  called “positive leadership”.  Yes, this is broader than simply being nice in the context of personal excellence, but frankly much more information is available on this topic (in some cases even research).   I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on what finding if any carry over from positive leadership into personal excellence.  Personally, I think there is a strong correlation.

So, why care about Positive Leadership?  A recent meta-analysis (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) shows three important things:

1. The personalities of managers directly influence employee satisfaction.
2. When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes result.
3. When employee satisfaction is low, negative business outcomes result.

It’s kind of hard to argue with that logic, now isn’t it?  Obviously there is much more to the findings that the highly simplified statements above.  The important point here though, is a rational basis upon which to examine positive leadership within, namely “positive business results”.

More definitions

Next, I found this great presentation by Dr. Marilyn Buckner with some good critical thinking around not only why Positive Leadership matters, but how to define and evaluate it.  I invite you to scan through the entire presentation I’ve embedded below at your leisure.  Here are the five broad dimensions that Buckner’s research found to define personality:

1. Adjustment (Emotional IQ)
2. Ascendance (Extrovert/Introvert)
3. Likeability (Interpersonal Sensitivity)
4. Prudence (Planful) – Planful?  Did she just make up a word?
5. Innovativeness

Here is where we start to move away from simple “niceness”, which in my mind would be most closely related to interpersonal sensitivity, to the broader concept of Positive Leadership.  Interestingly, while the Harter, et. al. study mentioned above found that four out of five dimensions predict leadership ratings independent of the organization or occupational capacity, Likeability was the weakest determinant.  (The strongest was emotional IQ.)  I may sound like this argues against my own premise, but remember I am not longer examing being nice as an excellent trait, but positive leadership as superior.

The Buckner report is very interesting and again, I invite you to click through the entire presentation.

The costs of incivility

Another study I found, this one from the USC Marshall School of Business, suggested that managers should not discount the impact of being nice.  Focused on the rate of occurence of incivility in the workplace and it’s consequences, this study estimated that a “Fortune 1000 executive has to spend an average of 13 percent of his or her time mediating disputes and consoling demoralized workers, amounting to nearly seven weeks per year per executive.” The study ended up with some relevant concrete recommendations, which I’ll summarize here.  Click over to the full report for detailed information:

1. Set zero-tolerance expectations
2. Take an honest look in the mirror
3. Weed out trouble before it enters your organization
4. Teach civility
5. Put your ear to the ground and listen carefully
6. When incivility occurs, hammer it
7. Heed warning signals
8. Don’t make excuses for powerful instigators
9. Invest in post-departure interviews

Personally, I’ve found numbers 4, 6, and 8 to be very hard to stay focused on.  #4 because we all pay lip service to employee training, but very few follow through.  #6 because this sort of thing simply isn’t a priority for most.  #8 especially when your worst instigators are your best salespeople.  No one wants to lose sales, but what kind of message are you sending otherwise?

Some Positive Leadership reading

So if you’re interested enough to find out a bit more on the topic of Positive Leadership – stay tuned here as I’ll certainly cover it from time to time.  If you’d like to read some fantastic blogs dedicated to the topic, I highly recommend the following:

• Leading Blog
• Lead Quietly
• Marshall Goldsmith
• The Practice of Leadership
• The Question of Leadership

Each blog offers its own unique spin on the topic of Leadership in general, but all are positively focused.

The Harvard Business Review recognized Positive Organizational Scholarship as one the Breakthrough Ideas of 2004. Kim Cameron, cofounder of the Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan, has presented some of the ideas coming out of that research in Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance. Amazon’s overview:

Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what Kim Cameron calls “positively deviant performance”–performance far above the norm. Citing a wide range of research in organizational development and psychology as well as real-world examples, Cameron shows that to go from successful to exceptional, leaders must learn how to create a profoundly positive environment in the workplace. They must build on strengths rather than simply focus on weaknesses; foster positive emotions like compassion, optimism, gratitude, and forgiveness; encourage mutually supportive relationships at all levels; and provide employees with a deep sense of meaning and purpose. In this concise, inspiring, and practical guide, Cameron describes four specific positive leadership strategies, lays out a proven process for implementing them, and includes a self-assessment instrument and a guide to assist leaders in the implementation process.

At just over 100 pages, this book is a quick read, but packed with great positive leadership strategies and tools.  The best part is it’s cost at under $15!

Another good starter book I found in my searches, this one also under $15, is The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness.  Written by two award-winning advertisers (Kaplan Thaler Group) in New York, their contention is the dog-eat-dog world mentality is incorrect. According to them, the best way to get to the top is by being nice.  Again a short read, the book offers key principles, case studies and exercises to help make niceness habitual; something I think we could all use a little help on from time to time.

Final Thoughts

So, how to wrap-up this rather meandering walk through Positive Leadership and being nice?  I would simply go back to a thought I threw out rather carelessly in my prededing post on this topic, that:

I have yet to see a situation that no matter how difficult, how contentious or chaotic, can’t be made a bit easier with a dose of kindness or consideration.  Anger will only escalate the situation.  While a kind word may not work miracles, there are times when it does.

I welcome your thoughts and observations.

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For your consideration…

There’s an old cliche that goes “A rising tide raises all boats”.    For the purposes of this post, I’ll turn that around to say “A receding tide exposes your Leadership”.  Let’s look at how FexEx’s has provided a business leadership lesson for dealing with this recession.

What did they do?

While FedEx income and earnings per share beat analyst’s expectations and were up over the same quarter last year, much of the gain could be traced to the drop in fuel costs and FedEx CEO Fred Smith acknowledges that “our financial performance is increasingly being challenged by some of the worst economic conditions in the company’s 35-year operating history”.

So what was their response?

Instead of simply laying off workers, Fred Smith exhibited some true leadership and character by:

• Taking a 20% pay cut, and additionally reducing senior executive salaries by up to 10%
• Suspended 401K company matching contributions
• Implemented a hiring freeze and reduced labor hours
• And yes, reduced the workforce; however no cuts to hourly workers

(Credit CNN.com for quotes and data)

The Leadership lesson

While not highlighted in the CNN article, the piece I heard indicated that the other measures FedEx took greatly reduced the number of jobs that were cut.  I think the other great benefit of the approach FedEx took is the message it sends to employees.

A few years back I was part of a very similar program.  The company I work for is a non-profit, and while our funding sources are very diverse, we found ourselves one year facing a rather large cut to one of  our funding sources.  Our President’s response was a real leadership lesson for me.

Yes, we cut some staff.  However, our President also instituted an across the board salary reduction for all employees.  The leadership lesson was that from the top down management took a larger percentage cut than the rest of the employees, with our President taking the largest percentage reduction of all.

What was the impact?

First and foremost, we were able to weather the economic impact and come out the other side stronger than before.  I predict the same will happen to FedEx, and probably lots of other well run companies.

More important I think, as I mentioned above, was the message that was sent to employees; a message I took as two-fold:

1. We value you enough to take some bitter medicine for the good of everybody, and
2. Our leaders are going to contribute more, as they should

Ultimately, while there was some mumbling in the hallways, I think most employees appreciated and understood the shared belt-tightening.  The effect of the program, and how it was communicated by our President, was that “we’ve encounted some hard times, we’ve made some hard choices, and now it’s time to move on and get back to work.”  From what I gathered talking to my team and employees at large was that:

• The quick, decisive action made them feel better about their job security
• The top-down, across-the-board pay cuts clearly sent a message of “we’re all in this together”

Final Thoughts

There has been countless articles written discussing these “challenging times”, “how to survive the economic crisis”, etc. etc.  I do not intend to minimize in any way the seriousness of the business environment we are currently in.  Let’s keep our heads about us though – it still comes back to Leadership.  I would submit that leadership skills of character, courage, decisiveness, and yes, compassion will serve us all well not only to weather this storm, but come out stronger on the other side.  If you do not have these skills in abundance on your leadership team, now may be the time to make some changes.  One outcome of the unpleasant employment situation is the abundance of great talent available.

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Send the right message

We distribute feedback forms at every meeting and while the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, there were a couple obvious detractors.  One comment in particular, caught my eye:

This Web 2.0 stuff is just too touchy-feely for me.  It reminds me a lot of all the hype around the Internet pre-2000 and we all know what happened there…

Great comment, and one that was the genesis of this post.  In truth, I had been thinking something along these lines for a while now.  Not that Web 2.0 is a boom headed for a bust, but rather what is the fuss really all about?   Skipping ahead to the answer (or at least my answer), it’s a forest for the trees paradox: too many people focus on the trees not the forest.  It’s not about the tools, it’s about what they can do.  And I contend that if you can get past the “touch-feely” nature of the tools, all Web 2.0 is doing is bringing back the good ‘ole days of doing business. 

Read some of the thought leaders around the Internet on the subject of social networking and marketing.  Try Chris Brogan.  Try Seth Godin.  Heck, try ProBloggerif you can get all the ads to load.  You’ll find a lot of touchy-feely conversations about, well, conversations with your customers, getting your “message” out, using social media to build relationships and deliver value. 

But forget for a minute the “social media” part, the blogs and the buzzspeak.  Focus on what these guys are talking about, and think back to the way it used to be.  I remember a time when my Dad knew the name of the guy who pumped his gas (yes, I’m dating myself here).  That guy also owned the station.  I remember a time when the same person who sold your parents their cars, was around to sell to their children also. 

What’s the point here?  The point is to not get so focused on the tools, but on the results.  One of the results of “building relationships that deliver value via social media” is authentic customer relationships.  Remember those?  And what is the big deal about authentic customer relationships?  I would contend two important aspects are revenue and repeat business, but that’s just me.

The other disconnect between Web 2.0 and senior business executives I think is that they all have been around long enough to know it’s simply not that easy.  You don’t just start a blog and see an increase in sales.  So while I can’t get inside the head of our member who left the “touchy-feely” comment, what I think he may have really been saying is “help me connect the dots between all this new technology and tangible business impact.”

Let’s say you wanted to take a shot at developing some “authentic business relationships” with your customers, and you decided that a post-sale survey process was the tactic you were going to use.  If I was on the team to think this through, I might brainstorm something like the following:

1. If you just want to do what everyone else is doing, take some sort of automated customer survey.
2. If you want to stand out a bit from your competition, have actual people do the survey versus E-Mail. 
3. If you want start to differentiate yourself from your competition, make sure the people that perform the survey can speak articulately, are trained to listen and actually seem to care about the process and your customer (THEIR customer).
4. If you want to surprise your customers, close the survey loop.  If the response was positive thank them.  If there were any issues, have someone who can fix the situation contact the customer, or better yet make sure the person that calls them fixes it during the call. 
5. If you want to prove to your employees you’re serious about this. save results and use them for continuous improvement.
6. If you want to be an industry leader, publish your customer satisfaction score online. 
7. If you want to challenge your industry (and yourself), publish your survey details online, the good AND the bad.
8. If you want to be world class, allow website visitors to drill down into your survey scores, seeing actual comments and how you handled negative customer experiences.
9. Really getting crazy here, how about implementing a mechanism where the customers themselves could add their comments to their own survey.  This could be especially powerful when you’ve successfully resolved a customer complaint.  Use this review platform as a springboard to develop an online community for your customers.

So did you notice that I didn’t mention blogging, twitter, Facebook or social networking at all?  But I could absolutely re-write every step above, using Web 2.0 tools every step of the way, and then some.  The point is not what tools are used, but what the objective is. 

Another point that gets lost in all the 2.0 buzzword concepts, is aspiration level.  Most thought leaders talk at the level of highest aspiration – that’s their job in a sense, to inspire and imagine the future.  As business leaders, we all have to balance our capabilities and resources against the forecasted benefits of the project to see at what level of excellence it makes sense to aim for.  Just looking at the steps above for a simple customer satisfaction survey, it would take some serious commitments to implement all the steps above:

1. Creation of survey, identification of delivery method, including budget allocations.  Definition of baseline metrics.  Strategic discussion on what to do with feedback.  Who “owns” the process?
2. Additional budget expense; potential management issues.  Outsource versus hire decision.
3. Probably implies resource hiring or internal re-alignment.  If still outsourced, then will most likely entail even higher expense than #2 as more professional firm is retained.  Ongoing training. 
4. Executive management commitment to quality.  May be linked with strategic quality orientation, perhaps ISO or Six Sigma adoption.
5. Creation of the database to store the results.  Creation of metrics; new topic on director or executive agendas.  Executive buy-in to continuous improvement.
6. Official back-end system for surveys.  Integration to website.  Coordination with Marketing.
7. See # 6, and add plenty of serious talks between Marketing, your C’s and probably your Board.  Guts.
8. More in-depth IT work on your site.  Commitment from management to make sure resolutions are entered.  More guts.
9. Development of a full fledged review management system on your website, probably integrated into CRM and other backend systems. 

Now I’m going overboard on purpose here to prove a point.  If you’re going to implement systems to show your customers you care about them, then do that.  How many of you came away from a provider’s survey process with lesser opinion of them than you started with?  As the saying goes “it takes forever to build a good impression, a second to destroy it.”  A lot of what Web 2.0 is about is building good impressions. 

Are there Web 2.0 tools that could be used in this program?  Absolutely.  Some of which could be indispensable, and could even lower the overall program costs.  Could this initiative be rolled out successfully without Web 2.0 tools.  Again – absolutely.  So to me, the issue is not so much getting caught up in specific Web 2.0 buzzwords or tools, but to look behind them to what the thought leaders are saying they should be used for.  I think you would be surprised at the “old-fashioned” nature of many of those uses. 

The fact is, technology has lowered the price of admission for everyone, allowing even small business to act in ways that took the resources of Fortune 500 companies just a few years ago.  Many of you are feeling a bit overwhelmed not only by the jargon, but maybe by the choices.  But the changes that are taking place online and the, dare I say it, “conversations” that are happening online are important, and they fit all the themes of this blog: growth, leadership and entrepreneurship.

So, how do you get started?  I’ve talked way too much lately about Web 2.0 on this blog and I’m anxious to get back to entrepreneurship for a while.  For a fantastic primer, I’d recommend this recent post by Chris Brogan: If I Started Today.  Take a read and let me know what you think.

This is a post from: DaveCrainOnline.com. If you liked this post, and haven't done so already, you can sign up to receive future posts via E-Mail. If you prefer RSS, here's my feed.

Turning Buzzwords into Reality