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Archive for August, 2018

If The Shoe Fits: Stop Curating and Start Managing

Friday, August 31st, 2018

 

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Founders are a breed apart, especially young founders, with little to no business experience, let alone leadership/managerial experience.

I got a call from one I work with occasionally. After getting the information he had called for he took me to task over Monday’s post.

In short, he said that founders don’t have much time to spend on culture, let alone do the people-managing stuff I’m always writing about.

He went on to say that’s why people in young companies tend to be so similar. It’s far easier, not to mention more comfortable, to get stuff done when everyone has a similar mindset.

My response was that his mindset would do much to limit his market, so he would do well to plan on being a nitch player.

It was not appreciated.

Curating a team creates the same problem that curating freshmen roommate assignments created.

There’s no question that curation reinforces opinions, while eliminating conflicting ones, narrows people beyond from where they started and acts like fertilizer to unconscious bias and outright bigotry.

Curation, whether of roommates of team, has no positive effect, which is why colleges are going back to random freshman matching and companies are striving for more diversity. Duke eliminated curated matching.

Freshman year of college, Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs at Duke explained, is about students “engaging with difference and opening their eyes to opportunities, and meeting entirely different people than the ones they grew up with or went to high school with.”

What this 26-year-old founder didn’t say (and may not even realize) is that some things, such as successful managing, are the result of hard-won experience, not “vision.”

There is a reason that more diverse companies have better results.

Just as there is a reason that managers who practice good customer service on their teams attract the best people, have lower turnover, and enjoy better personal career growth / stronger startup success (if founders).

Image credit: HikingArtist

Ryan’s Journal: What is Customer Success?

Thursday, August 30th, 2018

https://hikingartist.com/2013/04/22/how-will-stress-look-to-the-future-us/

 

In a previous life I had a title of Customer Success Manager at a tech company. As the name implies, I was tasked with ensuring the desired outcome for our clients was met on every level.

Sometimes clients just wanted to be heard and I was a therapist. Other times there were specific business criteria that had to be achieved and I felt like a CFO that was building my case to deliver to the board.

One thing was clear though. Success meant different things to every client.

My title no longer carries that tag line of CSM but the desire to exceed customer expectations continues. As I am in a client facing role (and can’t imagine it otherwise), success is still top of mind within my interactions.

However, I sometimes wonder if I am truly achieving it and what is the measure for success?

We have all been delayed at airports. You fly more than once in your life and it happens. Typically I don’t get too upset, because a lot of it is out of the hands of the crew. They don’t want the delay either.

However, there are a variety of ways the crew can deal with it. I have seen some that ignore the issue and hope it goes away. Pro tip, it doesn’t. I have also seen crews decide to make it a party by giving out extra snacks or drinks.

Same situation, different outcomes.

As the veil is lifted between brands and consumers, it become easier than ever to vocalize your displeasure.

This has had the effect of highlighting those brands that are nimble and responsive and those that double down on the trashcan fire by pouring gasoline on it.

I’m looking at you United Airlines. #notafan

But what does success really look like? There are KPI’s, surveys and referral programs. In the end, success has many forms, but for me it comes down to this.

Was I happy with the interaction? Would I talk to a friend positively about said company?

That’s it. I know it’s hard to quantify, but, in my heart, those two  questions are the key to success.

Image credit: Hiking Artist

The #1 Ingredient for Great Customer Service

Wednesday, August 29th, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevieawards/16489830599/

 

What do the companies with the best customer service have in common?

Engaged employees.

Engaging workers isn’t dependent on salary and perks, if it was, Chick-fil-A, Trader Joes and Aldi (TJ’s parent company) wouldn’t hold the top three spaces on  the Forbes Best Customer Service List.

While there are many things that can drive engagement, good management is probably at the top of the list.

And while the executive team impacts engagement, it’s the individual’s own manager who really makes the difference.

A bad manager will taint the best corporate culture, while a really good one will offset bad culture by acting sheltering their team from the impact.

Back in 2008 I listed four points needed to engage your team, and they are just as true, if not more so, a decade later.

  • The guideline is the same thread that has run through every major philosophy and religion for thousands of years—treat your people as you want to be treated, whether your boss treats you that way or not.
  • Authenticity is the current buzz word, but it translates simply to be honest, open and do what you say; never fudge, let alone lie, intentionally or otherwise.
  • There are absolutely no circumstances that warrant or excuse the messenger being killed. None. Because if you do, there’s no going back—ever.
  • If your company doesn’t have an engaging culture then you must be an umbrella for your people, because you can create one below you, even if you can’t change it above.

Truly great customer service requires engaged employees, because they are the only ones who can provide customers with the best experience possible.

Image credit: mikeg44311

Rotten Customer Service Then and Now

Tuesday, August 28th, 2018

 

Customer service — or the lack thereof — isn’t new. It goes back centuries, one might even say eons, and no, that isn’t based on assumption.

The first documented customer complaint happened slightly more than 5,800 (not a typo) years ago

What could be the world’s first complaint about shoddy service is on a clay tablet that was first sent about 3,800 [BCE; they forgot to add 2,018 CE years to the total–ed] years ago in southern Mesopotamia from the city of Ur…

Here is an excerpt from it.

Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:

When you came, you said to me as follows: “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: “If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!”

What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? (…) Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

What I found most interesting is that the complaint wasn’t limited to the shoddy product or the initial lies in service of making the sale.

It sounded angriest at being “treated with contempt.”

Update the product and delivery method and it could be a template for almost any 21st Century customer unhappy with a product or service.

Decades ago rotten customer service was more a function of little-to-no training and draconian scripts, but the advent of technology raised rotten customer service to new heights — think Ma Bell and Comcast.

And it was tech companies that added contempt to the rotten customer service recipe in ever larger doses.

If contempt is yin, then arrogance is its yang.

And there is no question that tech companies excel at arrogance.

Image credit: The British Museum

Golden Oldies: Who is Your Customer?

Monday, August 27th, 2018

 

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

For centuries ‘customers’ were the people who bought a company’s products or services. A few decades ago that started to change and not just. Governments started recognizing that taxpayers were, in fact, customers, as did schools and universities, with regards to their students. Hospitals and doctors embraced, or were forced to, the idea of patients as customers.

Through most of that time customer service was mostly a function of caveat emptor. Even before the web and social media made both complaining and complimenting easy ‘ before that, gossip and message boards spread the word. The change is most easily seen in the medical world where Medicare/Medicaid and insurance companies, paying based on outcome, as opposed to fee-for-service, have forced radical change in patient care.

It was during this period that management academics and gurus put forth the idea that workers were customers and customer service was the responsibility of their direct boss—not HR.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Customer service is a major topic these days (more on that tomorrow); as is employee retention, but do they really have anything in common?

Absolutely.

Every manager, from team leader to CEO, is also a customer service manager, because your people are your customers.

That’s right, customers.

More accurately, that makes you an ESM—employee service manager.

Why do you service your people? To

  • help them achieve their full potential;
  • assure high productivity;
  • lower turnover; and
  • create an environment that’s a talent magnet.

How do you service your people? By

  • cultivating the kind of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) that truly values people and understands how important it is to manifest that;
  • offering high-grade professional challenges to all your people and making sure that they have the resources and all the information necessary to achieve success;
  • fostering fairness so that people know they are evaluated on their merits and favoritism plays no part; and
  • always walking your talk and living up to your commitments.

What’s in it for you?

  • Better reviews, promotions and raises;
  • increased professional development;
  • less turnover and easier staffing; and
  • what goes around comes around—everything that you give your people will come back to you ten-fold!

Flickr image credit: Angela Archer

Ryan’s Journal: The Problem with Choice

Thursday, August 23rd, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamsjung/6131663623/

 

I have a guilty pleasure that has persisted for years. My wife is well aware of it and actively encourages the habit. I’m an avid watcher of The Bachelor and all of the spin offs. When I first saw it with my wife years ago I could not believe how vapid and inconsequential the show was. I truly did not care about the outcome, thought everyone participating was a fool and hated myself for wasting time watching it.

However time heals all wounds. The premise of the show is simple. One woman or one man has around 30 suitors to choose from. Over the course of the season they whittle it down to one with the hope that the relationship ends in true love.

I know, absolutely ridiculous. However if you watch more than one season you start to see some of the same people. They bring back fab favorites, others get second chances, villains and heroes are established. It’s essentially a giant soap opera and becomes hilarious to watch.

One thing I have noticed is the idea that choice can be a double edged sword. We may not all have 30 people pining for our heart, but we do have an abundance of choices.

We have career paths to choose. If you are hiring there is always another candidate; if interviewing, there is always another opportunity.

You walk into some restaurants that have everything from pizza to burritos and you can’t think, nothing quite hits the spot.

Choice can immobilize us.

Why are we left feeling empty after these abundance of choices?

I think part of it is a state of mind. If you always think there is something better down the road then you’re never satisfied with your current situation.

There is always more money, a better title, a better life.

As a former Marine I lived a life for some time where we were told to, “embrace the suck”.

We didn’t have a choice and in the absence of choice there can be peace and freedom.

I don’t have a single solution, but I know the choices will only increase.

How will you choose to live?

Image credit: Jason Taellious

Yes, You are Being Manipulated

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sterlic/5507406859/

 

Do you believe that the stuff on blogs moves virally, based on interest or merit, to mainstream media?

If so, you are very naïve.

It moves via manipulation, viz the Hidden Persuaders, by people who are paid to manipulate. (Unfortunately, this cited post won’t make it.)

Ryan Holiday is a marketer and publicist who specializes in manipulating blogs in service of his clients.
(…)
contrary to prevailing wisdom, that most original reporting in online media was done by smaller blogs, (…) by influencing small blogs today, one could alter what was in the Washington Post tomorrow.

Virality is most prevalent in stories with high emotional content, especially anger and awe.

Holiday had no problem with his work when the goal was to sell a product, but when the same tools started to be used to manipulate social and civic attitudes he stopped.

If the effects of this media manipulation were merely to drive customers to products they wouldn’t otherwise buy, Ryan would still probably be out there plying his trade. What caused him to reconsider his profession (and write Trust Me I’m Lying) was the increasing use of these manipulation techniques to spread political ideas, and, in the process, hurt individuals. In the second half of the book, he talks about how sites like Jezebel and Breitbart News use the techniques he pioneered to push product for American Apparel to maximize their own page-views by stoking outrage both among their supporters and their opponents. In his view, much of responsibility for the coarsening and polarization of politics and culture can be laid at the feet of professional manipulators like himself.

Using professional manipulators to change and/or incite public opinion is nothing new.

But the tools at their disposal are more insidious than ever.

Therefore, making caveat emptor your personal slogan makes more sense than ever.

Image credit: Scott Akerman

Ducks in a Row: Pay-for-performance Kills Employee Engagement

Tuesday, August 21st, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/justycinmd/5748054859/

 

With 68% of employees disengaged, you would think the board’s critical eye would be turned on the executive suite.

You would think wrong.

One of the greatest causes of disengagement is the difference in compensation between the CEO/executives and the workers.

That difference is the direct result pay-for-performance, coupled with the board’s ego-driven competitiveness and desire for bragging rights.

Name the most brilliant, talented, past or present CEO you can think of, then remove them from their position.

The company may hiccup, but it won’t go down in flames.

Now remove all the line managers/team leaders OR all the workers in a specific department or with a specific talent and watch the company stagger and fall on its face.

An unintended consequence of pay-for-performance is we treat companies as if they are in the airline business, except the only person who matters is the pilot—not the grounds crew, nor the quality control tinkerers, nor the guys who wrangled the ore and fuel from the ground, forged the parts, tightened the bolts and soldered the frame.

In their rush to acquire the “best” talent, boards are likely to forget that corporations are not independent entities

It’s a group of people all moving in the same direction, united in a shared vision and their efforts to reach a common goal.

To move in the same direction people need to be engaged.

But how engaged would you be when the proceeds of your hard work show up in someone else’s paycheck?

In the 1970s, shareholders took out about 50% of a company’s profits, while the rest was reinvested in the productive capacity of the firm, including R&D to employee training and rewards. Today, the shareholder gets over 90% between dividends and share buybacks. Today, a 60% or greater weight on equity or equivalents is the norm in pay packages.

Dominantly CEO/ senior pay packages.

The funny thing is that rank and file aren’t looking for similar pay.

They are looking for fairness in relative pay.

Image credit: JustyCinMD

Golden Oldies: The Importance of Wetware

Monday, August 20th, 2018

 

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

In the six years since I wrote this individual focus on meware has skyrocketed, while focus on wetware has plunged. If this is true for you, you may want to reconsider the long-term effects, both professional and personal.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Wally Bock writes one of the few blogs under the “leadership” banner that I like, mostly because he writes common sense, keeps it simple and (usually) sees leadership through a lens similar to my own.

In a recent post Wally writes about people.

People are emotional. Some economists write like they think it’s not so. Some philosophers think it’s bad. But it’s the way we are. Our emotions affect everything we do and every choice we make.

People are perceptive and insightful. We notice things and reach conclusions without the need for advanced programming.

People are creative. Human beings are natural idea generators. Just let us show up and watch us go.

People are both consistent and inconsistent. As a species we’re pretty predictable. Once we’re past young adulthood, our previous behavior is a good guide to our future behavior. But individually we’re a source of constant surprise.

People have knowledge. Knowledge is information plus context. On a good day, we can generate wisdom.

People have relationships. They are a source of strength and support and insight. They are also a source of biases.

People have lives. We have a life at work and a life at home and a host of other lives. They are all in play all the time.

That post reminded me of an ancient Cathy comic from the Eighties in which a computer salesman tells Cathy he knows hardware and software, but isn’t fluent in wetware.

Unfortunately, a lot of managers aren’t as fluent in wetware as they need to be to generate high levels of success for both their team and themselves.

For that matter, people in general aren’t always wetware aware, let alone fluent.

However, they seem to be both fluent and aware when it comes to meware.

The problem is that meware won’t raise productivity or drive innovation; it won’t produce responsible, well-rounded kids or create viable relationships.

When it comes to life, wetware is really all that matters, whether professionally or personally.

Flickr image credit: ThisParticularGreg

If The Shoe Fits: Too Much Money?

Friday, August 17th, 2018

 

Mega rounds of funding are creating a frenzy in the startup world.

Start-ups raising $100 million or more from investors — known as a mega-round in Silicon Valley — used to be a rarity. But now, they are practically routine, producing a frenzy around tech companies with enough scale and momentum to absorb a large check.

But are they smart?

It may be great for ego and bragging rights, but does it make you richer?

Probably not.

Consider Zappos and Wayfair.

EACH ONE of Wayfair’s two co-founders made as much money as ALL of Zappos’ shareholders combined. (…)  Put another way, Wayfair co-founders made at nearly 10X as much as Hsieh.

Mega rounds hurt employees by substantially diluting their stock and forces you to grow, often at an unreasonable rate.

In these days of frenzied money, some founders, such as Gusto’s founder/CEO Joshua Reeves choose to say no to excessive funding.

Gusto, a payroll and benefits software company, raised $140 million in July, but could have done five times that, according to Joshua Reeves, its chief executive and founder.

Startups seem to have forgotten that the purpose of a company is to make money, not raise it.

Mr. Reeves, of software start-up Gusto, acknowledged that founders who obtain outsize sums of capital can get caught up in a “growth at any cost” mentality. That is why he chose not to maximize his funding round despite the intense interest. “It’s up to the founder to realize that’s a distraction,” he said. “Success is not having more money or a bigger team, but having more customers or revenue.”

Think about it.

Image credit: HikingArtist

 

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