Be Different or be dead

June 14, 2021

10 questions to find out if you’re really customer focused

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I’ll bet if I asked you if your organization has some level of being customer focused as a part of your business plan, you’d say “Of course”.

And you wouldn’t be alone.

Most, if not every company espouses the importance of providing their customers with awe-inspiring service; it’s generally a fundamental element of their overall strategy.

The issue for me is that even though ‘being customer focused’ is proclaimed as a leadership priority, when you look closely at the actions taken by employees to serve customers, there’s a big gap between the aspiration and reality.

The claim is simply that, an empty aspiration with no substance to support it.

So, let’s have some fun with this.

Here are 10 questions which, based on my 4+ decades of leadership experience involving customer service, point to the ones who are actually serious about delighting customers as opposed to those who like to talk about it but not do the hard work to deliver it.

If you answer ‘YES’ to 6 or more of the questions then you are serious about creating memories for the people you serve; if you answer ‘YES’  to less than half of the questions your words are outpacing your actions and you’re fooling yourself that you care about your customers.

Ok, so let’s begin. And be honest because you’re only hurting yourself if you falsify your responses.

▪️Do you have a formal customer service strategy in your organization?

▪️Does the compensation plan for executive leaders include a customer service component that accounts for at least 25% of their annual bonus?

▪️Do you formally measure how customers feel about the service experience they’ve had with you?

▪️Do you have a recognition and reward system that regularly honours ‘service heros’, employees who have gone above and beyond to serve a customer in an exemplary way?

▪️Do you measure how well internal customers are served by their internal suppliers recognizing that if internal customers are not served well, it is unlikely that real customers won’t be served well either?

▪️Do you have a specific program to eliminate the dumb rules in your organization that are constantly annoying your customers?

▪️Are your salespeople measured on how effective they are at discovering the secrets of their customers?

▪️Does marketing have a ’ME’ philosophy to create personalized value packages for your customers as opposed to a product flogging mentality?

▪️Is your customer service call center managed to enhance the customer experience as its primary responsibility with cost management taking a lesser role?

▪️Does your organization have a specific recovery strategy when a service mistake has been made and a customer is screwed over?

There you have it. Being customer focussed is more than a helium-filled slogan. It requires synchronization of every last part of the organization to work in harmony to achieve that goal.

How well did you do? Good or bad, I hope you stay on the path of doing a better job of taking care of the people who give you their hard earned money every day.

Cheers
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.14.21 at 05:52 am by Roy Osing
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June 7, 2021

How losing the top job can make you better off

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How losing the top job can make you better off.

If anyone had told me that one of the worst moments of my career would pay off in spades in the long run, I wouldn’t have believed it.

The position of president was up for grabs and I was one of the shortlisted candidates; it was a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. (The company had $2-billion in sales at that point).

I suspected who else was in the running. All were colleagues in the company, all were people I respected, and all were people I wanted to beat – badly.

The selection process comprised the usual headhunter interviews and leadership testing, followed by an interview with the selection subcommittee of the board.

I nailed the headhunter component of the selection process and was told that I had the top scores from the testing.

Even though I thought I could have handled the board interview better (I didn’t handle the finance questions particularly well I thought), I didn’t think it was a disaster and I wasn’t concerned that it would destroy my chances to win the contest and grab the prize.

The day of reckoning arrived. The board chair called all executives into the boardroom to announce the winner of the battle for president.

I was very nervous and expectant; my adrenalin was rushing.

All eyes were on me as it was common knowledge that I considered myself to be the front runner for the job.

It was over in a heartbeat. One of my colleagues and a very good friend with whom I ‘grew up’ in the organization was the winner.

The words announcing his appointment had barely left the chair’s mouth when I was overcome by agonizing pain in my gut. I couldn’t take a breath.

I thought I was well prepared for a decision that could go against me.

I had done my premortem work — practising ‘hindsite in advance’ — to protect myself for a negative outcome by thinking through my ‘do not be surprised’ plan: the actions I would take if the outcome went against me.

I imagined that each of the candidates would win and I prepared response plans in my head in the eventuality one of them was selected.
My concern was that if I didn’t have a plan to deal with a negative outcome in real time, the surprise could very well cause me to say, look, or do something that would not serve my long-term career goals very well.

It’s one thing to have a plan but it’s quite another thing to have to execute a worst-case scenario in front of the board chair, my executive peers and my new boss.

Without hesitation – it must have been an involuntary response as I don’t recall consciously thinking about it – I arose from my chair, walked over to the winner and congratulated him in a heartfelt manner.

I made sure everyone could see it and could hear my words; I offered him my support and unwavering loyalty.

They were all surprised with how I handled the situation, given that they understood how much I wanted to be president.

The feedback I received was gratifying. My behaviour was deemed ‘mature,’ indicative of a senior executive leader who could take a punch in the gut and who could place the needs of the organization before his own.

My currency with the board and executive leadership team escalated. My career continued to be rewarding and I was given many exciting opportunities to learn and contribute to the organization’s success.

No one could have convinced me that losing a senior promotion such as this could ever be a long-term career sweetener that allowed me to learn, practise and develop my own dimensions of stand-out leadership.

But it did.

It’s all about how one deals with a bad hand. You can bail out screaming how unfair you’ve been treated, or you can look for a way to turn a bad lot into a prosperous outcome for everyone. And you can take a short term view or a long term perspective.

Muzzle your ego, suck it up and make the call with your long-term interests in mind.

P.S. In anyone’s career there are always going to be setbacks; no one ever gets to reach their career goals in a straight line — strategic meandering is the normal route.

Here’s my list of what you need to consider if you want to be a ‘survivor leader’ in the face of these body blows:

▪️ Always do what’s right for the organization even though it could place you at personal risk.

▪️ Shut your mouth — pause and breathe — and suck it up when you get hit with a disappointment.

▪️ Look to the horizon not your shoes when making a decision in a emotionally charged situation.

▪️ Go against the ‘popular’ advice when hit with a career blow. It may not feel good but it’s often the best course of action to take.

▪️ Keep working hard in the face of adversity and show ‘em what you got.

▪️ Be wary of advice from those close to you. Sometimes their judgement is more clouded by emotion than yours is.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 6.7.21 at 06:33 am by Roy Osing
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May 31, 2021

6 really simple ways to have the spotlight shine on you

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6 really simple ways to have the spotlight shine on you.

There is an urgency about moving on in your career; you’re not getting any younger and the competition isn’t getting any easier.

These six practical and proven ideas will help you either get going or will accelerate you down the current path you’ve chosen.

Invisibility begets ignorability

Get noticed in a crowd of people all looking to advance themselves. You must be competent in your current role, of course, but if you are indistinguishable from your colleagues, you have no way of being on a decision-maker’s radar.

It’s funny that getting noticed is uncomfortable for many people; they don’t like drawing attention to themselves. It’s almost like we’ve been taught at an early age that it’s somehow “not right” to do things that make us stand out in our class – we think it makes us arrogant and narcissistic.

Well, you need to get over that, if that’s how you feel.

Develop a ’be visible’ plan that, in a simple and factual way, presents your achievements and what you do day-in and day-out to execute your organization’s strategy.

Value is the end game

Create value that people care about. The focus must be on the benefits you create for the organization (and for people), as opposed to delivering a project or beating a due date, for example.

For instance, it’s admirable that you completed your project two weeks ahead of schedule, but what’s more important is the benefits you delivered to customers or employees or shareholders, earlier than expected.

Realize that the project or task you’ve been given is just the internal vehicle for adding value. Keep your eyes on your contribution to the marketplace within which your organization operates.

By the way, if you are successful with this approach, other organizations will notice.

Differences must define you

Be the only one that does what you do. If you’re not different than everyone else in some meaningful way – in a way that contributes to the goals and objectives of the organization – you will be viewed as nothing more than a common member of the herd and will have difficulty achieving a breakthrough in your career.

Sameness begets mediocrity; copying shows zero originality

You must find your own way to break the mould of commonness  and it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here are five ways to do that:

✔️ Invent your own problem-solving method using crowdsourcing, or canvassing others;
✔️ Do more of what was asked;
✔️ Do the opposite of what the pundits preach;
✔️ Use trusted external resources for added credibility;
✔️ Launch additional projects from your original task.

Doing it is 10 times better than talking about it

“A little less conversation, a little more action please.” – Elvis Presley

It’s not about intent; it’s about getting stuff done  in the trenches where life is messy  and people never behave the way you expect them to.

It’s easy to declare what you want to achieve and sell your idea on its theoretical merits. But in the final analysis, unless that notion actually produces something, it’s basically useless.

Getting it done relies largely on the right hemisphere of the brain where emotion, passion, tenacity and perseverance live, not the left brain that houses logic and intelligence.

Expending emotional energy to overcome barriers is vital to implementing a good idea.

My rule of thumb is to spend 20 percent of your time on the idea and 80 per cent on implementing and tweaking  it.

Find a ‘done it’ mentor

Find a mentor who has done stuff. Most people look to the p the west erson who knows stuff as their source for career advice and guidance. After all, most “experts” have knowledge credentials posted after their names – doctorates, and master and bachelor degree designations, for example.

In my experience, however, the people to look up to are those individuals who have proven they can deliver results. They are the ones who should be listened to and followed.

I know many smart people who have achieved less than their potential because they put all their trust in the way things should work – based on theory – as opposed to pouring their energy into finding a way to make them work in the hard realities of people’s biases and internal politics.

My mentors always had the subliminal tag “master crafter in doing stuff” associated with their name.

Be open to anything

Do anything asked of you and do it with eagerness and an open mind. I have seen many high-potential people fall by the wayside because they were picky about what they did to the point that they refused to take on certain projects because they didn’t want to set themselves up for failure by trying to achieve something they felt they were not qualified to do.

Unfortunately, their actions were perceived as an unwillingness to help the organization achieve its strategic goals, to take on the personal risk necessary to deliver even though they may not be perfectly qualified.

And they found themselves in the camp of individuals who were never again asked to lead projects of a strategic nature; their career stalled.

The point is, upwardly mobile people are expected to overreach  every once in a while, to go for something that is beyond their capability. They treat the opportunity as a source of learning and growth and are okay with the inherent personal risk involved.

These six tips won’t be found in any textbook. They are all based on what actually worked for me in the real world. Good luck.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 5.31.21 at 07:43 am by Roy Osing
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May 24, 2021

5 reasons a fresh start for people is an impossible dream

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There are 5 tenets to what people mean when they say they want to start fresh.
They want to:

▪️ lose yesterday and build a new tomorrow.
▪️ forget the pain of the past and seek future pleasure.
▪️ throw away the track record of yesterday and start over again with a clean piece of paper.
▪️ build new relationships to replace the old.
▪️ forget what was learned in the past in favour of acquiring new knowledge for their next chapter.

A fresh start seems to imply that the past offers little value as one considers building a new future.

And of course this thinking is a nonstarter; throwing the baby out with the bath water makes no sense at all, and it will never allow you to refresh yourself the way you want.

Regardless of the overwhelming desire to strike out on a new journey and rid yourself of what you don’t like about your present circumstances, there are pieces of your life up to now that have been amazing for you and should form an integral part of your future.

I think a fresh start should really be looked at as another start, building on what you’ve achieved so far to reach greater and more importantly different heights. It also implies that you want to make another try  which is the right thing to do when you’re dissatisfied with your current state.

How do you start again to satisfy your craving for change and at the same time preserve your ‘specialness’ that made you who you are today?

Define your ‘west’ vision

What the hell do you mean by “I need a fresh start?”

Fresh starts don’t happen ‘in the moment’, they need at least a modicum of thinking about what you want to do — note that I’ve avoided the word ‘planning’ which I think would have scared many of you off 😊

Your fresh start vision doesn’t have to be crystal clear but it does have to be directional with enough clarity to inform the actions needed to make the fresh start happen.

So at this point, paint a picture of what your new future looks like in general terms.

Try not to be too granular in your new ‘I want’ a new start definition:

I want to travel the world.
I want to move to Europe.
I want a new career in marketing.
I want a new relationship.
I want to learn a new language.
I want to homeschool my kids.

Declarations like these define your ‘start again’ context and where you will devote your time and energy. If you don’t do this work, your attention will be scattered with the likelihood you will miss your refresh mark.

Inventory your likes and dislikes

A start again plan typically includes casting off things about you and your life that you don’t like to make room for the new exciting things you decide to do.

Taking a self inventory of what you like and dislike about yourself is where you begin this work.

So, you need to create two lists that are a ‘character bifurcation’ of how you see yourself, defining the unique special features you want to retain and build upon to be different and those you want to let go of.

Select 3 likes

Your new start up plans I’ll fail if you try and take on too much; if you try to build your new future on too many of the features you really like about yourself.

It gets too complicated to create a fresh beginning from 10 traits you don’t want to lose than it is to build from a handful, so think about focusing on the 3 traits you really like about yourself — your confidence, creativity and love of people for example — and that you believe will contribute the experience you will require as you begin to ‘head west’.

These 3 strengths will be the nucleus of the energy you will draw on to unfold your new tomorrow.

Define what you need

Even with your best likes, however, ‘head west’ beginnings will be deficient in the ingredients needed to achieve the new destination; there will always be a deficit that needs to be filled — it wouldn’t be a new start if you didn’t have to acquire something new.

Try to define one or two new things — nirvana would be only one — you need in addition to what you already have in your kitbag to start fresh.

Look for help

It’s quite normal to find a mentor to help us with our career, so why not find someone to help us morph our lives into something new and more exciting — a new start mentor.

A life change is normally a risky affair so find someone who has experience in navigating through the turbulence of leaving behind equity that has been hard fought for over one’s life and adopting a new course.

New start mentors don’t offer solutions, they provide a ‘boots on the ground’ view of what life change entails so you can make informed decisions.

By now you’re probably exhausted by the regimen I’ve prescribed to launch your new beginning; the process feels complicated, time consuming and tough work.

But it is a disciplined process; new starts rarely happen through serendipity, by falling in a bucket of sh*t and come out smelling like a rose.

If that’s what you’re hoping for, kiss your fresh start goodbye.

If you want a life makeover, be prepared to do the work.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 5.24.21 at 04:49 am by Roy Osing
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