I worked all day Tuesday then in afternoon I flew from Indianapolis to San Francisco, via Chicago. I was a typical trip. The first flight was full and delayed, leaving me for a bit to wonder if I'd make the connection. Made the connection fine and arrived in San Francisco on time. I got some work done on the plane, read some and it was pretty uneventful, except for the water.

I had my shoes off and had the whole row to myself, so I had materials spread out all over. Suddenly my foot felt damp. Then I noticed water dripping....

The person in row in front of me had placed a 1.5 liter bottle of water in the seat direct above my feet. The bottle apparently wasn't completely closed. I had wet socks, a wet pant leg and I poured water from one of my shoes.
I moved rows, dried off and enjoyed the rest of the flight.

The taxi ride from the airport was 13 minutes to downtown - normally it would be 20 plus. The speed gain wasn't because of a lack of traffic, it was because my driver was apparently preparing for a NASCAR audition.

All of this led up to arriving at the Hotel Rex. Nicole Jackson, the front desk host asked if she could help and I told her I was checking in. My name wasn't on the reservations list - until the following night, when all of the rest of the team I would be working with would be there.

Then she informed me she had no other rooms.

I was tired and suddenly homeless. Nicole quickly offered to find me another room, negotiate me a better rate, offer to store my bag full of workshop materials, and to top it off, when making the reservation, told the person on the other end of the phone that I was pleasant!

The five block walk to the other hotel went quickly - after all, I'm pleasant! :)

In the end, Nicole turned a potentially bad service moment into a gem by her quick action and by going above and beyond the call of duty.

If you are ever in San Francisco and looking for a unique hotel experience, please consider the Hotel Rex. And tell Nicole hello for me.

Also posted in Customer Service

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

I've been hearing a buzz about a new ABC show called Desperate Housewives. Because of the conversations I've heard, I became more aware of a commercial I saw for the show over the weekend. One of the "testimonial quotes" from the media was something like, "This season's new water cooler show."

I don't know if that is true or not, but it struck me that that is a pretty good goal for us as leaders -- to have our messages discussed around the water cooler.

As leaders we need to communicate more clearly, confidently and consistently. Our main messages need to be communicated over and over.

Once is seldom enough.

Beyond that, we have to craft communications that are compelling and capture people's imaginations enough that they want to discuss those messages. If you have been trying to share new strategies, plans, or other messages and they aren't being discussed in the organization - at the coffee pot, by the copy machine or by the water cooler - perhaps you need to communicate again.

Also posted in Leadership

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

Imagine going into a Burger King at about 11:15 pm after a long shift at work. You are tired (and obviously hungry). When you walk in you see what appears to be the lone employee sitting behind the counter. After waiting to be greeted and standing at the counter for a minute, you make eye contact with the sitting employee and ask to place your order.

The employee (still sitting) says, "You'll have to wait ten minutes, I'm on break."

This happened to a friend of someone on my team.

The person, after asking again, not sure that the employee was serious, and receiving the same, "You'll have to wait ten minutes, I'm on break." decided to leave.

This is a true story told to me last week, and of course, is an awful example of Customer Service.

I don't share to complain about Burger King, but rather to ask myself, what would I have done about it? The two people I have talked to both said they would have called the 800 number and reported it. I'd like to think that I would, but up until now, I'm not sure I would have.

Why should we?

Because the owners and managers of this Burger King can't be there every hour the store is open. Without feedback on employee performance (or lack thereof) they can't improve it.

We can all shake our heads at service this bad, or we can give the feedback - not just in indignation for being wronged - but to improve the situation long term.

If we would all give feedback for service that is less than outstanding, we would begin to improve the service we all receive.

The only thing that we as Customers can do to improve service more is to make sure we provide feedback when we are delighted by the service, but that is a topic for another day.

Also posted in Customer Service

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

Energy is contagious, and as you go to work today (or meet with Clients, or go to e meeting, or walk to the coffee pot) you will be spreading whatever it is that you are carrying.

There are two basic kinds of energy - positive and negative. If you are carrying positive energy with you you are spreading:

Enthusiasm
Speed
Action
Success

If you are carrying negative energy you are spreading:

Stress
Fear
Fatigue
Failure

So the logical question is what are you carrying?

As a leader... to your Customers... to your team... to those you are training?

If you aren't carrying what you want to spread, do an energy adjustment before you walk away from your computer.

Remember - you are contagious!

Also posted in Leadership, Teamwork, Customer Service and Training

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

Down 3 games to none. No team in baseball history had come back from that deficit to make the World Series. Something like 26 times it had happened. Only 5 times had a team made it to Game 6. None had won Game 6, until Tuesday night. And now the Sox have taken the last step - on to the World Series.

Baseball fans will tell you even more about this, about the Yankees vs the Red Sox, about curses and Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone and more.

The Red Sox decided none of that mattered.

There is much your team and my team can learn from these boys from Boston. They were persistent. Too often our business teams get discouraged by a setback and decide to change course or try something else. Few of us show the persistence of the Red Sox.

They are talented. Our teams are talented too. What was different was the belief. Our teams too often think about the past "That never worked in the past" or "they'll never buy that" can be heard across corporate America every day. The Sox didn't listen to history, they just focused on playing their game.

And they believed they could win.

And they did.

The next time your team is discouraged, facing a set back or talking about history, think about the Red Sox. Sports analogies sometimes get old - I don't believe this one will.

The lessons for me?

Use your talents.
Keep a future focus.
Believe in your ultimate success.

What are yours?

Also posted in Teamwork and Leadership.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

I have a new favorite writing tool. It is quickly replacing the trusty thesaurus on my bookshelf. It is called the Visual Thesaurus and it is way cool.

You just type in your word, and a wonderful "map" appears with your word at the center, with related words and synonyms linked to it by lines. Related words to the synonyms are then linked to those words. Hover over one of the words and get a definition. Click on one of the resulting words and create a new map from there.

Use it any time you would normally pick up your thesaurus, but be warned, it can be addicting, as it is much easier to click on another word then to flip through the pages to find that entry, plus, the map itself is very engaging.

You can try it for a limited number of searches, and if you want to subscribe, click HERE.

You can also find a more complete review in this issue of Unleash Your Potential.

Also posted in Creativity and Training.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

We all know Google, and many of you likely use it daily (hey, you may have even found me with it!), but have you used Google News?

Go to http://news.google.com and you can search the new for any topic area you want (rather than searching the whole web, though you can do that from here too).

While this is cool, the Alert service is cooler. Have a concept, idea or project you are working on? Have a learning goal you are trying to reach? Set up a Google News Alert of that topic.

Then you can receive the latest news on your search topic right in your inbox. You can set it up to delvier news to you "as it happens", daily, or weekly.

I typed in creativity just now and read two really valuable articles. The same will be true for many other phrases you might enter.

Add this tool to your learning arsenal, and you will be glad you did.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

Some people act like the phrase, "It's Monday" is among the worst things they can hear. Radio disc jockeys proclaim the doom and people say things like, "What can you expect, it's Monday" with all of the enthusiasm of Winnie the Pooh's friend Eeyore. There was even a hit song "Rainy Days and Mondays" that contains the phrase, "rainy days and Mondays always get me down."

Well, today is Monday and it is raining. And I'm happy. Why?

Because Monday lets us start a new week with a fresh approach and a new chance to be of service to others.

Loving Mondays doesn't require you to be a work-aholic or even an incurable optimist. Loving Mondays simply means that you care about your work, you care about your personal development, and you care about serving others. In a recent email letter to some Clients I wrote, "There is no time like a brand new week to begin doing things in a brand new way."

Mondays give us a chance to improve, to refresh, to set a new path and to love our work.

Happy Monday!

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

I've read that a couple times a year Bill Gates takes a personal retreat. He takes a stack of books on the latest business trends to a remote cabin in the woods where he spends a week or so of uninterrupted reading and thinking.

I know what you are thinking - that would be easy for Bill Gates - he certainly doesn't have to meter out his vaction time, worry about paying the the cabin, etc. etc., etc.

That might be true, but think about it.

No laptop, no cell phone, no tv. No distractions. Just you, a stack of books, some highlighters and a jouranl.

What kind of ideas would you come up with?

How would it transform your life and your business?

What would you learn?

Maybe you can't take a week, twice a year. But you could take a weekend, or a day and a half.

Clear your calendar. Clear your bookshelf. Clear your mind.

Don't just think about it, do it!

Also posted in Leadership and Creativity.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

It is my experience, and I suspect it is true for most everyone else too, that certain words bring a whole cloud of emotions and connections and meanings to my head. In other words, when I hear certain words, it isn't like my brain just processes a Webster definition for me.

Such is the case for me with this word:

Heretic.

I feel and sense religious zealots with opinions far outside of the norm. Beyond that I get a bit of a sense of danger in association with this word.

Contrast that with the definition that arrived in my inbox yesterday morning from Wordsmith.org:

heretic (HER-i-tik) noun

One who holds unorthodox or unconventional beliefs.

adjective

Not conforming to established beliefs.

[From Middle English heretik, from Middle French heretique, from Late Latin haereticus, from Greek hairetikos (able to choose), from haireisthai (to choose).]

I clearly value "one who holds an unorthodox or unconventional beliefs." Without these people we would never make progress, improve things or challenge the way we've always done things.

The more I thought about it, the more I want to be seen as a heretic!

Yes, there are definitions of the word that contain a religious connection, and I am sure this is about the only connection I've ever made in the past.

Is everyone who challenges conventional wisdom right? Of course not.
Are some of those people dangerous if they act on their nonconventional beliefs? Certainly, though it is rare (think many terrorist groups or their founders).

What struck me most is that a word I've shunned mentally in the past is a word and has a meaning that can contribute to positively to my worldview and thoughts.

I share this experience for two reasons.

1. What I experienced as I learned new meanings for this word explains one reason why we should all work to build our vocabulary. New words give us new thoughts - nuances and new ways to describe and think about things. This is very powerful in communication for sure, but equally helpful to our thinking.
2. I wanted to share the insight with you! Want to be more creative or come up with a host of new solutions to a vexing problem? Be a heretic. Lose the preconceived notions and choose to think in new ways!

Also posted in Creativity.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

In my last post I mentioned the book, How Full is Your Bucket, and today I'm going to mention another study described in the book.

The book cites a study led by Dr. Elizabeth Hurlock in 1925 that studied 4th and 6th grade kids in math classes and how much they improved their skills based on what kind of feedback they received.

Children in one group were praised in front of the class for their work; those in a second group were criticized. A third group stayed in the class but was neither praised nor criticized, and the fourth, a control group, was moved to another room after the first test.

By the end of the fifth day, the results showed:

Those given praise - 71% improvement
Those criticized - 19% improvement
Those ignored - 5% improvement

(all improvements are compared to the control group)

If this study and the results don't tell you something about the amount of positive feedback you should be sharing with those around you, I'm not sure what would.

Think about the feedback you give to others. What percentage of it is positive, encouraging and reinforcing? Do you think that your results might improve in supporting, coaching and leading others if you chose to provide more positive feedback?

Do a self analysis, then identify ways you can be more supportive and encouraging, starting today.

Also posted in Leadership and Teamwork.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

When working with organizations on building a Customer Service culture, building awareness of the Customer's importance or helping with skill building, I often have people share a personal Customer Service horror story and a success story. This exercise leads to conversation about how it feels to be the Customer, what kinds of things matter,and helps everyone to see the power an individual interaction can have.

One of my debrief questions for this type of exercise is to ask how many people still do business with the company they had a horrorific experience with (few do). Alternately, I ask how many still do business with those who provided them with a WOW experience (most all do).

In recently reading How Full is Your Bucket a story was shared that validates emphatically this point of view.

The authors studied 4,583 call center representatives from a major telecommunications firm. They discoveredthree representatives who scared off every single Customer they spoke with in a given day - and those Customers did not return.

The book accurated summarizes that, "The company would have been better off paying those three represntatives to stay home."

The study also found 7 reps that retained and engaged every Customer they spoke with. Want to bet that those Customers were Customers for life?

This is the internal view of the Horror and Success stories... a view I thought was worth sharing.

Also posted in Customer Service.

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati

My sister Paula had a birthday today. I won't tell what number it is, because, well, she may not want everyone to know.

Early this morning I sent her an email, that in part read,

"...take some time to today just for you. Even if it is just 15 minutes, do something you love as a celebration of the fabulous person (and sister) that you are."

As I read her reply a few minutes ago, about all of the tasks she has before her kids are in bed and she could even think of that 15 minutes, I realized that her story is the story of all of our lives.

We may not have it, but we all need to take that 15 minutes. It might be meditation, reading, a hobby, anything that allows us to learn, renew, refresh or reflect.

While I suggested it to my sister for a special day, let me suggest it to all of us, every day. Those fifteen minutes will make you a better leader, team member, parent. They will make you a better person.

Happy Birthday Paula!

Also posted in Teamwork and Leadership

Digg it | del.icio.us | Add to Technorati