The TEAM Approach

Service Quality Context: It's Everywhere!

I just finished a conversation with a leader in a top rated US hospital about creating a Customer Service culture. We both marveled at the comments she had received from her organization recently suggesting that customer service is so simple, why would their organization even need to teach it?!

Is customer service simple? Maybe. Is it easy to achieve consistently in most organizations? Definitely not. Most of us can recall countless examples where we personally witnessed (or were victims of) horrendous customer service failures.

So what is the solution? The problem, at least partially, may stem from our solution-orientation. We actually think we can fix this, and it will stay fixed. Customer service, however, is a moving target and we need to be working at it regularly. The more intentional we are about keeping service in the forefront of our organization, the greater the chances of providing consistently excellent service.

That of course is true, if we also pay attention to what Dave Erdman, President of Vital Learning Corporation, refers to as “Service Quality Context (SQC).” By SQC, Dave is talking about the various functions, policies and processes that impact service. One example of what of SQC might refer to is hiring.

Consider your organization for just a moment. Is hiring done in a way that leaves a candidate who was not selected feeling positive about your organization, wanting to spread goodwill about you, even though they were not selected? Does your hiring procedure begin the acculturation process even before a candidate steps foot in your organization for the interview and continue throughout the  process to enhance their comfort and integration in the first few weeks on the job?

As you can see, SQC can greatly impact customer service from dozens, perhaps hundreds of vantage points in your organization.  So should we invest time, energy and money teaching customer service? Perhaps you'll need to consider the your organization's SQC health before you can answer that question. But, what ever the answer, providing excellent service consistently is still a worthy goal that will differentiate you in times of increasing competition from around the block and around the globe.

Are You Tethered to Your Work?

As I finish up my workday and settle in to compose this post at 10:12 PM I remind myself that I did arrive in the office a bit late today. It was almost 7:45 AM which helps me feel a little better about the hours worked today. And of course, there was that breakfast meeting that lasted almost two hours. Well, it did at least include food.

As I listen to my own rationalizations, sometimes I wonder if I have gone mad. Then as I look around, I think the whole world has gone mad with me! The increasing time investment in the workday seems to be a problem not only for the self-employed types, but for my internal colleagues too. Everyone today seems tethered by the technology that allows us to extend the workday to include our drive time, home time, even vacation time. There seems to be little true “down time.”

A recent post by Management Issues notes that even the French (one of the few civilizations that still knows how to really live) are concerned that they may not work enough!

Well, according to the “Take Back Your Time folks, we here in America work more than medieval peasants did, and more than the citizens of any other industrial country. In fact on average, we work nearly nine full weeks longer per year than our peers in Western Europe do!

Are you feeling tired lately? Or worse yet, do you feel guilty about feeling tired? Be honest. If so, you need to order a copy of the Take Back Your Time book and perhaps start a support group with your work friends who are probably feeling the same way. As one of my favorite speakers Jim Rohn says, “Life is not a practice session.” This is it friends; it is ours to choose how to spend it. But, when it is gone, it is gone.

Communication: A Team Exercise

Have you ever sat in a meeting and watched team members communicate without any awareness of a communication miss that was kind of obvious to you?

To sensitize team members on how easy it is to miscommunicate, try a short exercise with your team called Words, Words, Words. Whenever you see this problem croping up, remind the team of the exercise and try and rally the extra effort that good communication requires.

Performance: Federal Government Style

This was sent to me from a friend who works for the government and it was suggested that these are actual quotes taken from Federal Government employee performance evaluations....

1. "Since my last report, this employee has reached rock-bottom and has started to dig."

2. "I would not allow this employee to breed."

3. "This employee is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definite won't be."

4. "Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap."

5. "When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet."

6. "This young lady has delusions of adequacy."

7. "He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them."

8. "This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."

9. "This employee should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better."

10. "Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together."

11. "A gross ignoramus -- 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus."

12. "He doesn't have ulcers, but he's a carrier."

13. "He's been working with glue too much."

14. "He would argue with a signpost."

15. "He brings a lot of joy whenever he leaves the room."

16. "When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell."

17. "If you see two people talking and one looks bored, he's the other one."

18. "A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on."

19. "A prime candidate for natural de-selection."

20. "Donated his brain to science before he was done using it."

21. "Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't moving."

22. "He's got two brains cells, one is lost and the other is out looking for it."

23. "If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week."

24. "If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'd get change."

25. "If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean."

26. "It's hard to believe he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm."

27. "One neuron short of a synapse."

28. "Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled."

29. "Takes him 2 hours to watch '60-minutes'."

30. "The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead

The Federal Goverment recently launched their own "best places to work" program to try and improve performance through their work culture. You can track how well agencies are doing through a special website they have set up for this purpose. It is interesting that the very top performing agency received only a 70% rating. It looks like the goverment has a way to go on this process.

Management: Why Relationships Matter

We facilitated a session this week for PENNDOT’S Leadership Academy for Managers for a group of excellent managers.  This group had been so engaged in the learning process that the experience was just as enriching for the facilitation team as it was for the participants.

One of the concluding activities had the managers meet in mentor groups to discuss ways of increasing their effectiveness in various categories contained in their 360-feedback report and one of these areas they looked at was delegating.  I listened in as a group took a critical look at this challenging skill and responsibility to see what kinds of ideas that they would share with each other.

In previous cohorts I sometimes heard frustration expressed over those few “problem employees” that just do not seem to want to work. Interestingly, when ever this would come up the focus was always on the employee who did not want to work, unless of course the focus would shift to PENNDOT for systemic problems that an employee would blame for all of their performance problems. But this discussion was quite different.

With quite a bit of passion, one manager shared his observations on the secret to delegation. He summed it up in one word: relationships. He shared personal stories of employees pulling their trucks in at 6:30 PM to get a job finished up (that absolutely had to be finished) and not even logging the time in because they new it would reflect badly upon the supervisor or manger. He discussed the loyalty that these employees had in getting the results for their managers directly in proportion to the relationship that existed between them.

As I listened, I could not help note that the emphasis that this manager placed upon what he did as being key to the successful motivation, team spirit and performance. This was a stark contrast to other managers and supervisors who often placed the blame entirely on their employees, or even the organization. It was never their fault that things were not going well.

I was reminded of an exercise in a program that will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the year 2007, called Adventures in Attitudes. In this particular exercise the author, Bob Conklin, sums up the key to all human relation problems in three possible choices.

1. Change the Situation- fire the employee, divorce you spouse, move to a new neighborhood, etc
2. Change the Person- make them stop the abusive behavior, make them work, etc
3. Change Yourself- find ways to change your behavior to adapt to the situation or person that is difficult

It was obvious that this manager instinctively understood what Bob Conklin has passed along to the 4 million graduates of the Adventures in Attitudes program  and that is, that what we need to work on, is really us. We are the key, our relationships determine our results.