Category Archives: Reality checks

January 2, 2013 · 11:42 am

Lincoln

I hope all of you had a good holiday and managed to recharge a bit.

English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth Presid...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the things I did was to see the movie “Lincoln“. I’d encourage you to see it for a number of reasons. The acting is amazing but so too are the leadership lessons the film conveys. With apologies to my friend Geoff who wrote the very fine “Lead Like Ike” book, I think the leadership Lincoln shows beats Ike by half a century and is a great place to start this year’s business discussion.

I’ll state in advance that I recognize that the film grossly oversimplifies a very complicated time in our country’s history – the passage of the 13th Amendment which ends slavery although most of what you see is pretty accurate.  I’d also encourage you to read the Doris Kearns Goodwin book “Team of Rivals” on which the movie is based.  That said, what’s very clear is that Lincoln possessed some incredible leadership abilities.

First, he set clear goals – get the bill passed by a certain date.  Second, while he left it to his team to figure out the particulars of how the team would get the necessary votes , he was very clear about one thing – there were to be no cash bribes paid in return for votes.  Setting boundaries to go along with charging people with tasks is an often overlooked element of good leadership.  Third – he was supportive and understanding until several members of the team became discouraged enough to argue against the attempt.  At that point he became firm and inflexible, recognizing that while there are many roads to get to Rome the choice of destination was not a part of the discussion.  Lastly, he stayed out of his team’s way for the most part right up until his personal influence was needed to sway some votes.  He recognizes out loud that it is the power of the office that moves people, along with the strength of the cause and never confuses the power in those things with himself.

There’s a reason Honest Abe is so revered and this film help us to understand that.  Along with the obvious reasons, his brilliance as a leader is also on my list.  How about yours?

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December 20, 2012 · 10:58 am

Who Is Working For Whom?

Have you ever been in a clothing store where the customers were busy stitching together the goods?  Maybe there is a guy in the corner screening designs on to T-shirts or a grandmother doing embroidery on a scarf.  How about a restaurant where the customers cook the food (OK – I have been to one of those – many Korean places let you grill at the table but still…)?

I ask this because it’s something pretty common in the digital world.  After all, what would Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, and dozens of other sites be without the user-generated content that makes them worth a visit?  Sure, each of those sites provides the platform and the tools with which to interact, but if no one ever posted anything what would they be?

What’s triggering this are a couple of things.  First, the Instagram fracas I discussed yesterday.  Second, Twitter is deigning to let users download all of their tweets as if Twitter had anything at all to do with the content itself.  It got me thinking of all the crappy students who got paired up with smart kids in school and got an “A” because the smart kid did all the work and wouldn’t let the team fail.  The least one can do is to have an appreciation of and respect for the horse that got you here.  The platform is a “C” student – it’s along for the ride in most cases.  The importance of the content to those sending and receiving it doesn’t change based on the platform although the platform can help get it into a form that makes it more digestible.

When any of us who run businesses start minimizing the contributions our customers make to us, we’re in trouble.  In the case of many digital businesses, where the customers literally make the stuff on which the business depends, we should be thinking of as many ways to reward those folks and how to say “thank you” each and every day.  Screwing around with privacy or your data use policy or being obnoxious about using your customers as currency (even though we all know we’re being sold) is a sure way to blow up the business.  You with me?

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December 17, 2012 · 1:48 pm

Learning From Hospice

I’ve written many times here on the screed about customer-focused business behavior. I want to tell you about several professionals who exemplify what I think is the ultimate in customer focus.  These are the people who provide hospice and palliative care.  While it may sound a little cold to look at what they do as a business (and it’s a lot more than that, I know), there are a few really important things we can learn from them.

First, we often focus on the lifetime value of a customer and we prioritize the kind of service we deliver predicated on that.  After all, the new customer who walks in to take advantage of a GroupOn offer is very different from the loyal customer who comes in once a week.  How do you prioritize your customers when the entire reason you’re there is that you’re going to lose them in the near future?  The answer is to do it as they do – deliver an incredibly high standard of service to everyone, looking at them as if they’ll be customers for life.

We all have customers who are demanding.  Imagine a customer who can’t do much of anything for themselves.  While we might talk about our jobs as 24/7 situations, very few of us actually live with our customers.  These folks do, and they are on duty 24 hours a day for several days at a time.   That might make anyone a little cranky, but part of the job is maintaining a positive attitude in the face of a lot of negativity (terminal illnesses tend to breed bad vibes…).  Something to consider, perhaps, the next time we have a 30 minute meeting with an unhappy client or a customer rep who needs to engage an angry consumer on the telephone for an hour?

I can list a bunch of other comparisons here but the entire point is to change your perspective a bit as mine was changed over the last few months.  A family member was fortunate (strange word to use when anyone needs this) to have had some excellent care from professionals providing hospice and palliative services.  The way they went about their jobs, even when their customer was grumpy and difficult – was inspiring.  It opened my eyes and hopefully I can pass that along.

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