Be Different or be dead

April 3, 2021

Why great people often do things that surprise everyone

Source: Unsplash

Why great people often do things that surprise everyone.

You’ve heard these types of comments before as descriptors of an individual who attracts a positive rating from leadership and is viewed as someone with potential to go further in the organization.

“He can be counted on to deliver consistent results; he’s dependable.”

“She’s predictable; you get few surprises from her work.”

Predictability can be a negative

Predictability is often, if not always, looked upon as a strength; an attribute that leaders find “comfortable” and desirable.

Over my career, I noticed many predictable employees found their way up the career ladder, but these people didn’t add the greatest value to the organization.

In fact, I believe the easy and comfortable employee robs an organization of long term value because of their restrictive and conservative ways.

Here’s my thinking.

Unwelcome bedfellows

A high comfort level implies that predictable employees follow the approach expected by the organization’s “establishment”; they follow the rules that govern acceptable behaviour.

Meeting leadership expectations can sometimes be unwelcome bedfellows to breakaway thinking and achieving glorious results. The best result can sometimes be achieved by NOT following the prescribed direction exactly, but by following your gut — but it requires risk taking and the conviction of your ideas.

Predictable behaviour prohibits breakaway results.

Boredom

In many ways, being relatively certain of an outcome is uninteresting; the “amaze factor” is absent.
The capacity to discover something unexpected is stripped away, denying a result that presents a new opportunity that emphatically changes the direction of the organization.

While you are busy doing the expected, you’re not on the outlook for creating a surprise that vaults your performance to another level.

Learning from what is achieved WHILE it is being achieved and then taking whatever action is implied by what is learned is severely restricted.
Predictable behaviour is boring.

Equations

Acting involuntarily to a prescribed set of rules and behaviour means predictable folks’ actions can be formularized to a certain extent.
An equation — or some other tool that creates a relationship between inputs and output — can be used to determine the outcome of their actions with a high degree of precision.

It begs the question “If an algorithm can be constructed that use a person’s action(s) to predict an outcome, why use a human in the process?” You don’t need human value-add; use software to create it.

Predictable behaviour limits the human factor.

Originality

Predictability suggests compliance and risk minimization which stultifies innovation and creativity.

People look for rules and governing policies to guide their behaviour and approach to problem solving rather than finding the appropriate method to solve the problem at hand.

Original thought is missing in action in favour of dutifully following the rules and practices of the organization.

Predictable behaviour quashes originality.

Contingencies

Individuals who operate mechanically have difficulty creating a new approach to a challenge or problem if the accepted method doesn’t work.

A Plan B mentality escapes the predictable one; inefficiency and frustration are produced by continually attempting to reapply the same approach in hopes of achieving a different result.

Predictable behaviour misses the need to recover when Plan A doesn’t work out.

Predictability does help some individuals be successful in a controlled environment, but there are long term opportunity costs to the organization that are always ignored.

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

• Posted 4.3.21 at 06:24 am by Roy Osing
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April 1, 2021

Why goosebumps should tell you the best one to hire

Source: Pexels

Why goosebumps should tell you the best one to hire.

A key element of the business plan that many organizations use to separate themselves from their competition is to create memorable experiences for their customers.
To blow ‘em away and leave them breathless with how they’ve been treated.

The problem is, however, is that these same organizations haven’t figured out precisely how to do it. They’re excellent at declaring the aspiration but fall short when it comes to delivering on their intent.

And as a result their customer service intent is no more than a helium-filled shallow promise with no evidence to back it up and their performance is unaffected.

Typically memorable experiences are created by people, notwithstanding the relatively unsuccessful attempts - in my view - that many organizations make using technology to do it.

Hire the right person

The most important and basic way of achieving this objective is to recruit people who ‘love’ human beings. People that have the instinctive desire to serve their fellow homo-sapiens. To take care of them. To satisfy them regardless of what they want.

Hire the right person into a service position if you want to dazzle the customer or leave them breathless from the service experience they’ve had with you.

I’m not impressed with the quality of some people recruited into customer service positions because many of them are incapable of delivering even a mediocre service experience.

Why? Well, many of them have been placed in the position because of their seniority in the company, or because they are looking for a career move and they want to try customer service.

And as a result, these people find that they really don’t ‘like customers’ with all the complications they bring and they would really rather be doing something that didn’t involve interacting with other humans (and the customer who engages with this person suffers).

How does this happen? How does an individual who would rather be writing code, taking inventory or preparing financial statements ever get a job in customer service?

The decision making process to select people for service jobs is imprecise and severely flawed and in too many instances unqualified and unwilling people are let loose with your most precious asset — your customer.

So how do you fix the problem? How does an organization ensure they are hiring individuals who are not only capable of delivering mind-blowing service, but also look forward to doing it with every fabric of their body?

Can you train someone to like a human?

Many would say that you can train people to do it; certainly that’s what many human resource managers generally believe — why else would they use seniority as a criteria to place people in customer service?

The fact is, however, despite all the good intentions of cross-training, you simply can’t train someone to like someone else.

You can give them ‘how to have a smile in your voice’ training and teach them how to grin at others and use other tools intended to deal with customer better, but you can’t train a person to bring all the honest emotional energy to the table that is required to create a memorable experience for another person.

People who love people are born to do it, and so the challenge is to discover them and embrace them in your organization as they truly are the custodians of the loyalty moment when a customer decides to continue doing business with you (and to tell others how great your organization is) or to leave for another service provider.

So how do you spot these people who naturally care for — ‘love’ — other humans?

You have to start with the usual task of filtering through the profiles of potential candidates, looking for content that relates to serving customers as opposed to merely stressing academic achievements or other hard accomplishments.

Most people avoid what they believe is the soft stuff as it relates to their background, but for the delivery of remarkable service, the soft stuff is absolutely essential.
And check their references to see if others commented on the candidate’s capability to effectively deal with others with care and affection.

Source: Pexels

The interview

But the critical element of the hiring process is the personal interview and I discovered an effective tool to separate the individuals who could really create magical experiences for others from those that talked a good game but who didn’t have the attitude or inclination to do it.

Ask two simple questions

Here’s a rather simple but so effective way of separating the human being lovers from the ‘fish’ who may have been through some type of customer service training program.

▪️ First, ask the prospective employee “Do you love human beings?”.

They will realize that this is a bit of a trick question but will not know where you are going with it. It’s a fun question to ask as the interviewer to say the least.

Most people will say ‘yes’ in varying ways, ranging from the declaration ‘absolutely’ to the positive inference ‘sure’ and the questioning ‘of course’.
However, to satisfy the real intent of the question, you need to dig deeper.

▪️As a follow up question, pose this: “Tell me a story that will show me that you love and care about your fellow humans”.

The responses you get from this question will define two types of candidates: one, ‘The Intellectualizer’’ and two, ‘The People Lover’.

The Intellectualizer has figured out what you are up to with the question and conjures up a story with their mind that leaves you cold.
Their answer draws on logic — what they believe you expect to hear from them — and therefore it’s dispassionate to the point of being superficial and phoney.

Those that don’t have the innate desire to move people emotionally with their answer should be ushered out of the interview.

The natural-born People Lover, on the other hand, thrills you with a story that leaves you warm all over.
Their story paints a vivid picture of someone who cares about other people and who is creative at finding ways to deliver unforgettable memories for them.

This was the question that separated the people who really got what it took to serve others from those who had only a theoretical understanding of what it too to be a caregiver.

Do you feel the goosebumps

Those that were born to serve leave you with goosebumps while they tell their story. Their story is rich with detail and the threads that bind it together were all about the importance of connecting with people on the emotional level. And their authenticity pours out with every word.

These individuals were the real deal. I hired them with minor interest in their other qualifications. And they always did me proud the way they dealt with our customers.

And many eventually found their way into higher level positions in the customer service organization to provide the leadership necessary to sustain this strategy that was extremely effective is gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage for our organization.

So if you really want to achieve a service strategy based on remarkable and memorable experiences, hire the People Lover who will leave you with goosebumps.

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

• Posted 4.1.21 at 04:39 am by Roy Osing
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March 29, 2021

6 easy ways to know when to quit and walk away

Source: Pexels

6 easy ways to know when to quit and walk away.

We are all, at some point, faced with the decision: do I stay or do I go?
It could be in a relationship or it could be in a particular job role and generally results from reaching a tipping point of some sort. Something has happened to you and it triggered the question.

So, how do you decide whether walking away is the right thing for you to do?

Here are 6 filters that in total should help you decide if adios is the right call.

Check your energy reservoir

How much energy is it taking to continue doing what you’re doing? Are you constantly having to call on your energy reserves to push ahead?

Everyone has an energy reservoir which represents a backup level of energy to draw on when required. And the issue is whether or not it is as full as it once was, or has its level been reduced.

If your reserves are down, there are 3 implications:
— there’s less to draw on when you need it for future challenges;
— it will take longer to replenish when expended, thus requiring a longer recovery episodes when needed;
— you may want to reconsider how you use your scarce reserves and decide that your current activities have a lower priority than they once had. Your incremental payback from tapping your reservoir is diminishing every time you draw from it.

If you conclude that you’re not receiving a large enough return on your energy investment, a “go” answer is the highly likely response to the question.

Check the people around you

Do you still enjoy their company? Are they as interesting as they once were or are they getting too predictable for you? Do you like being with them or do you find yourself not looking forward to being with them?

If you are staring at a negative reply to this question, you’re leaning for a “go” answer.

Check your support symmetry

Sometimes having strong symmetric support for your efforts is worth the investment in time and energy you have at your disposal.
But ask yourself these questions:
— do you support others and they don’t support you back?
— do you find others return the support you offer them unconditionally?
— are their specific individuals in your bubble that speak of support for you, but act in an unsupportive manner?
If you conclude that asymmetric support for you exists in too many of your colleagues, then a “go” light is your most probable outcome.

Check for toxicity

Is the working environment toxic? Are there a needless number of contrarians trying to force their own self-serving narrative and agenda?

Divergents can be positive if their modus operandi is to seek out-of-the-box solutions to common problems.
But if their purpose is to be disruptive, the negative energy and emotion they create warrants a “go” conclusion.

Check your emotion barometer

Do your emotions run high when you are among your colleagues? Do you find yourself anxious and short tempered while engaging with them?
Conversations that send you to emotional extremes — anger, over reaction, shouting — are personally taxing and are often unproductive from the team’s perspective.

If you feel you’re on an emotional tightrope constantly with your immediate circle of contacts (958) then the “go” door is probably slightly ajar.

Check your appreciation meter

Do you feel that your teammates appreciate your efforts or does it look like they expect that you’ll just keep barrelling along doing more than what is expected?

Often, “Nice work” or “Good job” from those who witness your work go a long way to making the effort you put in feel worthwhile. And when you never hear the words, there’s an emptiness you feel which gradually results in a ‘to hell with it’ attitude.
If your hard work is falling ‘on deaf ears’ maybe you’re closer to a “go” than you realize.

Wrap up

It’s rarely a single factor that decides anything. Usually it’s a combination of a number of seemingly small things that make you decide to either stay in a relationship or role or leave it.

If you’ve given yourself a “go” on most of the above filters then perhaps a “gå” is in order.

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

• Posted 3.29.21 at 03:29 am by Roy Osing
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March 22, 2021

Why a winning personal brand is owned by someone special and different

Source: Pexels

Why a winning personal brand is owned by someone special and different.

Fitting in has been hammered into our heads our whole lives.

School teaches us to comply and conform to what the textbook says. Our parents reinforce at a very early age that being normal like everyone else is the thing to do, that not being like others gets you noticed and gets you in trouble. Business encourages us to find best practices and copy them as the way to improve performance.

As a result, we have created herds of people who are all alike in some way.

This is a real problem in organizations in which establishing a competitive advantage is the ultimate goal. An advantage isn’t about copying what another organization does; it’s about creating a uniqueness and distinction that is unmatched by anyone else.

And it’s also an issue for individuals who are looking to get a job and start a career. Getting that interview and landing that position is not about looking like every other candidate; rather, it’s about standing out and being noticed as someone who demonstrates special attributes that others don’t possess.

Gecko or Chameleon?

The point is this: If an organization or individual does not possess anything unique about them, why should anyone notice and care about them? Why should they be chosen over the plethora of options people have?

If they are not different in a way that is compelling, relevant and appealing to others, they will blend into the crowd and will disappear from anyone’s radar.

What do you notice and find more interesting: a chameleon or a gecko?

A ptarmigan or a cattle egret?

Your identity is determined by your context, the frame you live in. It could be the market segment your organization competes in or your MBA graduation class.

In both cases, the challenge is to find a way to gain a competitive edge and be successful given the many others seeking the same result.

If you are indistinguishable from others that share the same context, you will have no identity to those witnessing you and deciding whether or not to engage – other than family, of course, who have no choice in the matter.

Success is achieved for both organizations and individuals by staking out an unmatched position that separates one from their context; that separates them from peers, colleagues and competitors.

The best isn’t good enough

Jerry Garcia, business genius and leader of The Grateful Dead, nailed it:

“You don’t want merely to be the best of the best, you want to be the only ones that do what you do.”

Claiming a position like being the best, the leader or ‘No. 1’ doesn’t separate you from your context for several reasons.
▪️First, it’s not unique – many make claims like this.
▪️Second, it rarely can be substantiated with hard facts.
▪️Third, it’s not believable by the people who hear it.

Stepping away from your context is not about using comparatives like “better” and superlatives like “best”; it’s all about being “the only one” that does something.

It’s a simple expression of what you do that no one else does. It can be observed and it can be measured.

It doesn’t have to be complicated

Finding what makes you uniquely special needn’t be complicated. It’s a matter of discovering what interests people and satisfying it in a special way that surprises others and makes them remember you.

— Strumming a signature long, protracted guitar chord at the end of every song.
— Amazing problem-solving abilities of employees who directly deal with customers every day.
— Having employees who genuinely care about others.
— Offering a personalized video résumé that speaks to your audience.
— Being the first one to put their hand up and volunteer for a project that will take personal time.
— Remembering the names of people you meet.
— Creating a character for your grandchildren – mine was “Papa Troll” – that enriches their lives with fun.
— Giving credit to peers and colleagues rather than wanting to personally grab the spotlight.
—Using uncommon words and your own language that is a bit out there, such as ’yummy incoming’ and ’Cut the crap’.
— Having a simple and informal communication style that captures the hearts of other people and makes you real.
— Keeping promises made in a world where this attribute is very rare.

Get it in your head

Stepping out of your context begins with having a mindset that makes it a constant priority; you live and breathe it every moment of every day, whether you are in an organization or in your personal life.

You are always looking for opportunities to surprise others and do things differently than what they expect.

Be the chameleon.

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

• Posted 3.22.21 at 04:59 am by Roy Osing
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