How To Win Back Unhappy Customers

I made a harried phone call at 4 pm to track a flower order - one I placed online but one that hadn't been delivered on the day it was supposed to. The company web site had taken my order, my credit card info and my delivery instructions and sent along a confirmation. But no phone number, no store ID and no person to contact. So I started calling the individual stores.

First store - 4:00 pm: (the closest geographically) "Nope, we didn't get the order here. How did you place it again? You could try this number and take your chances. Good luck."

Second store - 4:25 pm: "No it wasn't our store and I don't know how to help you. I don't know the codes to get into the system to find out where your order went. I just started working here a few weeks ago and I can't help much. But try this number (same as first store gave me). What? They're not answering? Hmm, then I don't know what to do. Sorry."

Third store - 4:30 pm: "I'm not sure who would have gotten the order but let me make a couple of calls and I'll call you back (which she did ten minutes later with the number for the fourth store)."

Fourth store - 4:45 pm: (a forty minute drive away) "Yeah we got your order and we'll call our delivery guy to get that out to you pretty quick here. Oh, you're not going to be home? Oh yeah, it does say you'd only be there until 5. Well what do you want us to do? Forget it? Really? Well OK. Yeah, we can refund your money but that's going to take a couple of days. Sorry."

But here's where it all changed. The fourth store called back the next morning and the store manager, who personally had messed up the order, offered this: "Mr. Burns, I am so sorry what happened yesterday. I messed up. I didn't read the order right and I wasn't on the ball. There are no excuses. I'm so sorry that we missed the special occasion. But the buck stops here. I'm the one who messed it up and I'm the one who is going to fix it. Your credit card has been reimbursed but I still want to send you your order today and I will pay for it, if you will accept it, as well as a $25 gift certificate in our store. Will you accept my apology and allow me to fix what I messed up? Please."

That's how you build strong service and win back lost customers: you are accountable, responsible and you make it right, no matter what it takes. People mess up, sure they do - and most would make up some lame excuse to not have to put their tail on the line. Some will protect themselves instead of keeping the customer. Some will use the "I just work here" clause to abdicate responsibility. And then some will damn the torpedoes and do it anyway - just to make it right. I am now a satisfied customer - one who is prepared to cross the city to get my flowers from here on in.

There is "WOW" or there is "not-wow." Fourth store gets a WOW - even though they messed it up the first time. That's how you win back unhappy customers.

Fascinating Innovation Example

How much fun could you have if you didn't let "societal norms" dictate how your organization approached innovation? How easy would it be to install a "fast lane" going into a subway station - for those that just wanted to catch their train a little quicker?

You change your attitude on simply accepting the way it's done currently and instead, develop a vision where people can have fun while doing something completely mundane.

Escalators move slow and stairs can be dangerous when you're in a hurry. How would you quickly and efficiently move people to the bottom of the stairs and, at the same time, allow them bring out their inner child while catching their train?

Why not consider a slide in a subway station? Watch the video.

Stat: Women Hold 51.4% of Management Positions

Women now hold 51.4% of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1% in 1980. That's a continually growing market - 100% growth in 30 years. And there's no sign of it slowing anytime soon because honestly, women are just overall better managers - especially when it comes to having the skills to manage Generation Y.

The truth is, in this time of change, the old-style "command and control" model of management is dead. Any organization that continues to embrace that model is already seriously disadvantaged in the market when it comes to recruiting and retaining quality staff. As I've said repeatedly, coaching and mentoring are the new models of management today and overwhelmingly, women are better at it than men. Here's why:

• Women adapt better to new situations.
• Women are more likely to delegate and more likely to reward people.
• Women are better inspirational mentors who encourage underlings to develop their abilities and creatively change their organizations.
• Women managers tend to have more of a desire to build than a desire to win.
• Women tend to be better than men at empowering staff.
• Women encourage openness and are more accessible.

As it turns out, men are still more confident and make quicker decisions than women in management. But when it comes to building strong Corporate Culture, women managers are more likely to have a bigger impact with their management style.

So if your organization is not yet embracing the new reality that there are more women managers than men, then you may need to rethink your Culture to figure out why.

Filter-Free Fridays™ Implementation Idea

Filter-Free Fridays™ can be a powerful tool in the workplace. Encouraging your people to have open, honest dialogue in a non-hurtful way can realize improved results in the workplace. It is safe to say that when employees are forced to bite their tongues and swallow their feelings, they harbor resentment, for their co-workers, managers and the job. This will create actively disengaged employees. But open, honest and direct dialogue can go a long way to improving the workplace morale and subsequently, engagement levels.

So, if you are considering implementing the Filter-Free Fridays™ concept in your workplace, let me offer you a simple exercise that a departmental staff (of 50 or less) could start with.

On Friday (it is called Filter-Free Fridays™ after all) at noon, the department buys lunch and has it brought in to the office (pizza, sandwiches, wraps, sub-sandwiches, etc): something people can eat without the need for dishes - there's less clean-up. Once everyone has had their lunch and before the smokers head out for a butt-break, start the 5-minute exercise.

The Approachability Scale

Time needed: 5 minutes
Materials for each participant: one piece of notepaper and a pen or pencil
Difficulty: easy and meant to be light-hearted

Ask each person in attendance (managers included) to rate themselves on a scale of 1-4 (there is no middle number on this scale) on their level of approachability. It is important that each attendee assess themselves truthfully in how easy they believe it is for others to approach them (engage in conversation, ask a question, etc). The rating scale is as follows: 1 is being difficult to approach and 4 being easy to approach. Please make sure this is explained. Ask each person to write their number on the piece of paper but tell no one else their number.

The second part of the exercise is to now turn to the others and ask at least five others (can be more than 5 but not less) to offer a rating. So, Participant A would ask 5 others to rate them on a scale of 1-4 on how easy or difficult they would find it to approach them. Then Participant A would write down every rating offered. Then, Participant A would offer a rating to each of the others they spoke with in return.

This part of the exercise should take no more than 3 minutes to complete. There shall be no explanations as to why one participant assesses a number to another participant. Just get the number, give a number back, both write down their scores and then move on to the next person.

Once the 3 minutes is up, call everyone back and have them average their 5 answers. Then ask them to compare it to the number they gave themselves and offer the following:

• You have just experienced what it is like to be told the perceptual truth on this Filter-Free Friday™. It is the truth as others see it - which can be a far cry from the truth you see.
• In the last few minutes, people have rated you based on how THEY feel about approaching you. Remember, these numbers are people's perceptions of you.
• If the average you received from others is lower than the rating you gave yourself, you can ask yourself what you might need to change to become more approachable.
• If the ratings from others was higher than you gave yourself, then you may have to study why others rate you more approachable than you rate yourself.
• If your self-rating and the ratings of others was about the same, then congratulations, your perceptions are in line with others. You're telling yourself the truth.
• And that is the purpose of Filter-Free Fridays™ - to tell the truth in a non-hurtful way. Each of you has offered your co-workers a glimpse of the truth in a non-hurtful and fun way.
• So for the rest of the day, remember what day it is: Filter-Free Friday™. I encourage each of you to stretch yourself a little bit today and to offer your truth in a non-hurtful way.

Then dismiss them for the rest of the lunch hour.

This exercise is not meant to be feedback on work performance. This is a simple social exercise meant to foster a little trust, camaraderie and most of all, honesty in communication. Good luck with it.

5 Questions To Challenge Your Culture

Two and a half years ago, I wrote a Blog post called, Employee Training Ends At Competence.

At that time, I illustrated why organizations train an employee or manager only to a level of competence - not excellence. Here's a new reason: there's little loyalty to employers anymore so why would they train you to be excellent and then have you go off and work for a competitor with all of the excellent training still in your head?

The truth is that an employer is only responsible for making you, as either an employee or manager, competent. Nothing more is required. If you want to become excellent at your job then it's up to you to improve. Then, if you leave your employer, you take the training that you paid for with you.

So why don't more employees and managers pony-up and take the initiative to be their very best? Because their Corporate Culture doesn't demand it. Sliding by on "mediocre" is OK for these organizations.

And there is the conundrum: who goes first - the employer or the employee? Here are 5 questions to ask that should challenge your Culture:

1. Can you build a Culture of High-performance if no one is willing to step up and become a high-performer without the employer's investment?
2. Can you build a Culture of Accountability if everyone thinks the responsibility for making you better is on someone else?
3. Can you build a Culture of Service if no one is willing to serve themselves?
4. Can you build a Culture of Leadership if everyone else is waiting for someone else to lead the way?
5. Can you build a Culture of Excellence if everyone is satisfied with being trained to a level of competence?

At some point, these questions need to be addressed among all of the employees and managers - but only if you want your Culture, the pulse of how your organization works, to improve. Otherwise ignore this post and keep on doing what you've been doing.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Why Culture Will Defeat Strategy Every Time

Merck CEO, Richard Clark, is quoted as saying, "Culture eats strategy for lunch."

If you don't think that corporate culture is the most important thing in the building, then you're just not getting it. Culture is the pulse of your organization. It is the "how we do things here" or how things are NOT done in many instances. Culture is the result of the collective attitudes in the building coming together and either working together or falling apart together.

Culture is what determines how well you serve customers, how well you serve each other and how well you deliver results. All of the business strategy in the world will never get you to a better result if you don't address the culture first. Here's why:

• your Culture is too strong to radically change your processes - Culture will slow down and ultimately defeat change
• if your new initiative seems like more work without the employees being consulted, the Culture will defeat it
• if your managers aren't strong on promoting a new initiative, the Culture will defeat them too - since how management acts is part of the Culture as well
• if an apathetic Culture exists, all of the sales and customer service training in the world will not crack the Culture
• most business strategies foolishly leave out any attempt to improve the attitudes of their people in an attempt to improve the organization - that's where Culture lives: in your people

Culture needs to be moved gently for lasting change to be affected. Culture is the KEY to successfully implementing strategy. If you are not actively choosing to address Culture in your organization, then you are, by default, allowing the existing Culture to swallow your initiatives whole.

Oh, and on a celebratory note, this is my 400th career Blog posting. Thanks for reading and inspiring me to keep writing.--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Approaching Tomorrow With Yesterday’s Training

I’m guessing you’ve noticed that the new staff at your workplace are getting younger – or are you just getting older? Either way, the truth is that the workplace is getting younger, staff are getting younger, customers are getting younger, clients are getting younger, suppliers are getting younger and managers are getting younger. But for the most part, training is getting old. You can’t run the same training program you’ve been using for years – certainly not if you want to be ahead of the uptake of the new youth in the market. If you’re still using your old training programs and vendors, you’re building a poor corporate culture right from the start. And that’s going to be a problem.
Training programs today need to:

• reflect the changing market for customers who are already researching you on-line before you speak with them the first time
• reflect that your business hours may need to undergo examination to better reflect when your younger customers are working (it isn’t 9-5 anymore)
• reflect that most people don’t even answer their phones, let alone return voice mails – are you reaching your customers the way they want to be reached?
• reflect that niche marketing is a reality and where you once bought all of your office supplies from one vendor, three or four are now better suited to serve niche needs
• reflect a new set of values through Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives – if you don’t have one, the younger workers won’t apply to work there
• reflect the fact that the Old Boys Club is dying and that the new workers don’t do business like the old boys – you need to get respect not woo them with golf
• reflect that management training had better be more focused on mentoring and coaching than policing new workers – they don’t respond well to “command and control” management

In 2015, 75% of the workforce will either be over 50 years of age or under 30 years of age. And the under 30’s are going to control the market shortly thereafter. So what are you doing to better reflect a new attitude in the marketplace?

--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Why Culture Is More Important Than Strategy

A Bain & Company survey showed 9 out of 10 senior executives believe that the role Corporate Culture plays in an organization is as important as Business Strategy.

I disagree.

I believe the Bain & Company question was flawed therefore giving the appearance that Corporate Culture and Strategy are two different things. They are not. Corporate Culture is the result of Business Strategy and therefore one cannot exist without the other. Any company seeking to separate the two or believing that they are not one in the same will struggle with their Culture and therefore will struggle to find high-performing salespeople, quality managers and top talent throughout their respective organizations.

Corporate Culture IS the strategy.

You don't build a Culture around success: you build success around a Culture.

• With a poor culture, there is little success - maybe accidental success but certainly not consistent.
• You cannot build a top-performing organization with mediocre people and have it sustain for any period.
• If you had a poor Culture and were achieving accidental success, would it matter to you to improve your Culture?
• You won't attract the best people in the industry by creating a mediocre Culture environment.

If the point of the exercise is to be the industry standard to which your competitors are measured, wouldn't you want to assemble the best and the brightest minds in your industry to be able to lead your industry segment?

So now, do you have a plan for building your culture? If you don't have a Strategy for attracting the best and the brightest, improving your current people and eliminating those who don't fit in then you will become just another mediocre organization who can't seem to figure out why your competitor is stealing your best people and why there seems to be so many excuses when times are tough.

Corporate Culture IS the Strategy. All lasting success stems from that.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

A Filter-Free Friday™ Salute to Excellence

I'm going to hazard a guess that you are sitting at your desk reading this. When I'm not standing on a stage, I spend a lot of time sitting - in front of the computer researching, writing and responding to emails. It was time I found an ergonomic chair that didn't tire me out - and yes, you can fatigue by sitting in a poor-posture chair. The way I see it, you spend 8 hours a night in a bed that costs thousands. Why sit in a two hundred dollar chair without proper support and ergonomic design for 5-8+ hours a day?

After reviewing chairs online for about a week, I started visiting office chair stores. I sat in sixty chairs over the course of five days and in that time, found only one chair that seemed to fit (I realize I'm sounding a bit like Goldilocks here but it's important that the chair be juuuuust right). But I still had one last stop to make: Lifeform Chairs in Calgary.

Lifeform (the Mortensen family) has been making chairs for five generations. You'd think that being around that long they'd have it figured out. Well they do. And they still do it the old-fashioned way: they construct them, assemble them and sew them by hand right in their Calgary factory and then ship to all parts of the world. Ten thousand chairs a year are manufactured here.

My first sit in their Executive Series Ultimate High-Back chair had me sold. That's my new chair in the picture - and yes that's a mouse pad attached to the chair - something they can also do. There are five levers under the chair that can adjust the chair like nothing you've seen and another lever (for lumbar support) on the back. I even got to pick the actual hide of leather (no kidding - a full hide). Seven days later, voila - done.

My sales rep was Chief Operating Officer, Chris Mortensen. He knows chairs - and he knows how to assemble a great staff. I met many of the staff and I have concluded Lifeform, in addition to building an excellent product, also has an excellent corporate culture. They build a product that is far ahead of anything else I had seen - including (in my opinion) Herman Miller, Steelcase, Humanscale, etc. Not much wonder the employees are happy - they are in a class by themselves. That's a good feeling to go to work with.

So, on this Filter-Free Friday™, I speak my truth and give my tip-of-the-hat to Lifeform Chairs of Calgary. Pardon me if I don't get up to salute you. This chair is really comfortable.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Study: Top Managers Are Nice Guys

A recent study by Green Peak Partners in collaboration with a research team at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations showed some amazing findings about who makes the best manager.

Overall, people who are nice people tend to lead a higher-performing department that those who are harsh, hard-driving, "results at all costs" managers. Hard-drivers actually diminish the bottom-line. It turns out, the managers who get the best results and make more money for the company are the self-aware managers who are exceptional at communicating one-on-one with their people. This is exactly what I have been saying: managers need to be more like personal coaches than policemen.

Here are some other findings of note:

• Bullies, often seen as part of a business-building culture, were typically signs of incompetence and lack of strategic intellect.  
• Poor interpersonal skills lead to under-performance in most executive functions.
• "Self-awareness," should actually be a top criterion in choosing managers.
• Executives who change jobs frequently are often trying to outrun a problem, and that problem often has to do with how they 'fit' in the workplace.
• People with multiple siblings tend to be better managers.

The future of management is NOT time-wasteful courses like Time Management, Conflict Resolution or Personality Profiling. The future of successful management is in developing your managers to be better "people." Make them be better coaches, mentors and people with feelings and you will attract and retain great people who can learn from and be valued by their bosses.

The market is changing. Old style thinking and old-style courses haven't been able to solve the problems because the problems still exist. But the philosophy of "make people feel like they mean something" improves engagement, loyalty and recruiting for top talent.

But only do this if you WANT to be better than mediocre. Otherwise, ignore my words and do nothing differently.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Ethnic Cultures And Corporate Culture

The workplace of the future is going to be colorful. Here's why: record levels of births among minorities in the past ten years are moving the USA a step closer to a milestone in which NO ethnic background commands a majority.

According to USA Today:

• minorities accounted for almost 49% of U.S. births in the year ending July 1, 2009, a record high
• 48.3% of kids under age 5 are minorities today
• only 19.9% of people 65 and older today are a minority

That means that in 15 to 20 years from now, those kids under 5 today will be entering the workforce. Almost half of the workforce will be minorities - meaning there will be no real majority. There will be a lot of diversity in the workplace.

Senior managers, your workplace of the future had better have a culture of "culture inclusion" if you want to be able to attract the best and brightest.

We all come from somewhere. We all have our backgrounds and diversities. Expecting your people to not celebrate where they came from is not good business.

You can't hire a high-performer and expect him or her to perform to a high level by stripping away everything that made them who they are. They are not workers - they are people who come to work. Don't forget the people part if you want to build a strong corporate culture.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Why Requested Referrals Are Bad For Business

It's golf season and you know what that means? It means that mediocre salespeople who are mediocre golfers will be inviting their mediocre clients out for an mediocre day of golf in the hopes of pressuring the mediocre customer into giving an extraordinary referral to another mediocre potential customer. And all because it was simply not another ordinary day at the office.

If your people are pressuring your customers into referring you to others, you need to ask yourself: are you worthy of the referral?

If your customers are not referring you without pressure then they are not ravings fans. They're just customers who think you're ordinary like everyone else. Why would a customer refer a mediocre sales rep to others? Because the customer feels indebted by an afternoon of free golf - which has nothing to do with your salespeople or your product.

Instead of attempting to extort a referral from a client, how about taking that five hours of golf and strategizing ways to improve your culture of customer-focus make the customer experience better so that you develop raving fans who are prepared to shout from the rooftops for you? It sure beats some lame, half-hearted, feigned-indifference referral.

Managers, be very aware of what your sale people are doing on the golf courses with customers. They may be actually harming your company while bolstering themselves. Pressuring customers into giving referrals drives a wedge between your company and your customers - especially if you're really only average.

Then there is the follow-up question: are you prepared to enter into a new client relationship with complete honesty built on the back of a pressured referral solicited by a customer's feeling of indebtedness?

Want a referral? Earn it. Don't beg for it.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

How To Trash Your Corporate Culture for $10

Last week, Subway Restaurants fired an employee for giving two 6-inch sub sandwiches to victims of an apartment block fire. Heidi Heise, in Dartmouth, NS, was summarily fired for giving the two sandwiches to neighbors left homeless by a fire - and failing to write it down.

Sometimes the "right thing to do" is more important than the rules. Heidi guessed right but she got fired. The victims of the fire were homeless and now Heidi is jobless. Heidi was right. Subway was wrong.

This was a bad call from Subway for a lot of reasons. Here's why: the employees still working for Subway probably now think that Subway is an awful place to work (employees always side with an employee who gets fired for doing something good). Subway, when they could have championed such a beautiful gesture, stomped it and now will have a hard time finding employees who will trust their managers. You can bet that customers are also giving them an earful because it's Dartmouth and people in Dartmouth help people when they're down.

Despite all of their advertising promoting themselves as a healthy place to eat, Subway's brand has been tarnished by some bean-counting, short-sighted manager who thinks the rules are more important than doing the right thing.

Rival Quiznos has offered Heidi a job and are raising money for the fire victims. Any thing Subway does now will be too little too late.

Total cost of the two sandwiches: about ten bucks. Cost of the hit to their Corporate Culture and customer loyalty: priceless.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

3 Reasons To Build A Filter-Free Culture

For Filter-Free Friday™, lets discuss why a Filter-Free environment is good for morale and how it can save your organization money on Conflict Resolution courses.

Conflict Resolution seminars can actually erode a functioning corporate culture because they are based on the premise that a workplace or a relationship has conflict. But the truth is that conflict only arises in the absence of respect.

People who don't respect each other fight with each other. They are not able to articulate their feelings, ideas and concerns without it escalating into conflict. A relationship or workplace devoid of respect will have many petty arguments about nothing mostly. Once a discussion escalates to conflict, then the original discussion is no longer the issue that needs to be addressed but the conflict instead - regardless of what the discussion was about. And once the conflict has been quelled, there still is no resolution on the original discussion - at which point it would likely be abandoned for fear of it escalating again.

Filter-Free Fridays are designed to articulate a truth to another in a non-hurtful way. Once a workplace gets used to articulating their issues without reprisal or escalation, there becomes a bedrock of trust and respect for them to work in.

Here are the three reasons a manager needs to create a Filter-Free departmental culture:

1. People get along better and work together better when they know where they stand. There is no animosity and there is a trust that everything can be discussed rationally - without personal attacks.
2. The dreaded "unsaid" is a killer to corporate culture. Always biting your tongue in order to avoid conflict creates stress and subsequent absentee days. People who don't speak up harbor resentment and, worst case, can go postal.
3. A department that respects its people enough to tell the truth is admired and envied by other departments. But the best news is that high-performing job-seekers will apply to work in an environment of respect. A Filter-Free workplace attracts better employees and helps reduce turnover.

Filter-Free Friday™ came about because the idea of speaking the truth to each other intimidates and sometimes scares the crap out of many. So instead of trying to build an overnight honesty culture, the thought was to start with one day a week and see how it goes. Once you get used to being honest in a non-hurtful way, every day eventually becomes Friday.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

How To Protect Your Market Share

So what happens when your competitor, who once had a terrible reputation for apathy and poor service, re-brands, re-tools and re-launches itself with a bold new strategy to take back the market share you stole away when they were performing badly?

In fact, their former customers (some of your current customers) have noticed and are showing your competitor some respect and giving them another chance to regain lost trust. What is your next step as a manager?

If your current customers (even if they were once someone else's customers) are showing respect to a competitor, it's because they are not fully satisfied with your service and/or product. People don't jump ship to another supplier when they are completely satisfied. They jump because there is something missing.

A recent survey of senior executives showed 80% believed that their organizations offered a superior customer experience. When surveyed, only 8% of their customers actiually agreed. That's a 72% disparity between what managers believe and what the actual truth is.

Managers, when this happens (and hopefully you do it before this happens) you go back to basics. Figure out what you did to capture those customers and build a new culture around some old values - values that were attractive to customers. Don't sit around and wait for senior management to be shown the difference between 80% and 8%. By the time they figure it out, you'll be experiencing layoffs.

Coach your people back to basics. Make it simple. Make it meaningful. Make your customer the most important person in your life at that moment and make them feel it. No company can compete with that. No way.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com/

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks- Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

5 Reasons Why Middle Managers Create Culture

Culture, it could be argued, starts at the top. But at that point it is simply a vision, a direction.

Corporate culture is not a plan - it is the result of a plan (or the lack of one). It only becomes a culture once the front line people, the average everyday workers, start to act in accordance with the vision. If they do the opposite of the vision, then the vision becomes a nothing more than a daydream.

But get the middle-manager to see the benefit of the vision and you have one powerful ally in your strategy to make the culture vision a reality. Mid-managers are the people who touch the front-line worker every day. They are the people who either garner their respect or lose it (on senior management's behalf). If you want to get something done (especially shifting your organization's culture) then here are five reasons why you need your middle manager:

1. A strong culture attracts good people. 
2. A strong culture reduces stress-induced sick days. 
3. A strong culture increases employee engagement. 
4. A strong culture silences the dissident voices. 
5. A strong culture attracts better customers. 

Now you tell me one of these things that a middle manager doesn't do.

Middle managers create the culture you have. If you want to improve your culture, improve your management training. The rest follows.

--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Tag-Teamed by Excellence

I'm on the road this week in Ottawa so I asked where we should have supper. One of the people in our group offered four chain restaurant names that were in the area. All four served basically the same mediocre food with the same mediocre ambience. In fact, you could have swapped out the signs on the front of the buildings and you'd have been hard-pressed to know the difference. It's why I never eat at any of these places: I would simply be rewarding them for their mediocre product and service.

So I took a chance on a restaurant that I had never tried before. Although the food was just slightly better than ordinary, it was our waiter who showed me what happens when employees engage on the job.

Ashley is a twenty-something male server. This guy had personality and a really good sense of confidence. He engaged us all in conversation, honest conversation, including his stint as a musician in a Christian rock band that traveled the four corners of Canada in a Ford Econoline van.

It was Ashley who captained our table while he and four other servers tag-teamed us. One brought drink refills, one brought the food, one cleaned up around us and one looked after getting us our bill. All five servers were cordial, efficient and engaging.

This is how you do it managers: you engage your people and coach their strengths so that they can engage their customers in the same way:

• Let your engaged and engaging people loose on your customers to be who they are - not who you dumb them down to be 
• Trust them to be beyond competent - think excellent 
• Let them shake hands with their customers - when's the last time a waiter shook your hand?
• Support them to be worth far more than they get paid - it's why I left a 30% tip

Do your customers love your people that much? If not, you need to start managing (coaching) them differently.

--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Management Excellence In The Moment

Tom Peters, management guru, said last week in a Blog post the following:

EXCELLENCE is not an "aspiration."
EXCELLENCE is not a "journey."
EXCELLENCE is the next five minutes.

In the same way a sports coach instructs the players to win their individual shifts (so that the games might win themselves), excellence is not something achieved. It is purely the practical application of oneself in this very moment.

• To make the customer standing in front of you the most important person in your life at that moment is excellence.
• To make your spouse the most important person in your life at this moment is excellence.
• To make a child the most important person in your life for a moment will bring moments of excellence for a lifetime.
• And to make the employee you are engaging right at this very second, the most important employee on your staff for this moment will show benefits of increased engagement and productivity.

Managers, it's about being focused in the present, to be excellent at this moment, that will make you the most important person for many moments from those you inspire.

--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

The F-word And Filter Free Friday™

The reason why Filter-Free Friday™ has become necessary is because people don't tell the truth if it makes them look like a complainer or if it will create animosity. So I believe that it is imperative that we all get used to speaking the truth (in a non-hurtful way) that helps individuals and organizations get better - whether they want to or not. Hence the strategy behind Filter-Free Friday™.

"Fine" is a four-letter F-word that people use to politely describe something - but really say nothing - in the hopes of avoiding a confrontation or hurting someone's feelings.

Ask any serious restauranteur or any corporate manager what it's like to hearing "fine" as a customer descriptor of their service experience and they will cringe.

"I get concerned when patrons describe their dining experience as "fine," one restaurant owner said to me. "We don't have anything to go on. Did we just do okay or did we really mess up and they're too afraid to say something? I would never argue with a customer if they told me the truth and it wasn't a great experience. We can't fix what we don't know is broken."

Most serious managers and business owners want honest feedback. The good ones, no, the excellent ones want to hear exactly how they're doing from the customer perspective. It helps them identify their weak areas and build solutions for them. But then there are the mediocre orgnaizations who want to be right more than they want you to be happy. These are the folks I encourage you to give honest feedback.

Stop being a pushover customer - one who just lays down and takes it and then pays hard-earned money for it. If the experience lacks, say so. You don'have to be a jerk about it. Just be honest. If you were disappointed, say something. The good organizations will fall all over themselves making it right for you. The bad ones, well you'll know the bad ones by the way they handle a complaint. Then you can tell your friends how they either made it right or didn't bother.
--

Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Stop 360° Performance Feedback Now

For those not familiar with 360° Performance Feedback, here's how it works in a nutshell: 360° Performance Feedback is feedback that comes from all around an employee. "360" refers to the 360 degrees in a circle, with an individual figuratively in the center of the circle. Feedback is provided by subordinates, peers, and supervisors. It also includes a self-assessment and, in some cases, feedback from external sources such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. The results from 360-degree feedback are often used by the person receiving the feedback to plan training and development. (Source: Wikipedia)

But here's my problem with it: if a co-worker is too afraid to send back a salty bowl of soup in a restaurant because they don't want to seem like a complainer, they can't just all-of-a-sudden be able to grow a pair and be able to offer honest, no-holds-barred feedback for a co-worker. No way. They'd be scared to death of creating animosity.

The 360° Performance Feedback model is based on the premise that people will tell the truth. But you know you don't. You don't address someone who parks like an ass and takes up part of a second space. You don't speak up when you get poor service - you whine about it to your friends though - lot of good that does. You won't even talk to the guy with really bad body odor because you don't want to hurt his feelings.

You're so afraid to hurt someone else's feelings that you swallow your own. That's cowardly and cowards are liars. They will say only that which makes people like them. They will not be honest for fear of being confrontational. Worst of all, they don't want people to criticize them so they say everything is fine. A co-worker's performance is fine. Not getting the promotion is fine. Annoyed by disruptive behavior? Nope it's fine too. Everything is fine (unless you get a one-on-one with the boss and then you secretly tell her that you're annoyed). But you go home and whine to your spouse and friends about how bad it is.

So now do you really believe your co-workers when they say that you're doing a great job?

Stop the 360° Performance Feedback now. It fosters lying, deceit and withholding the truth - and it's killing your corporate culture.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email

Why Free Advice Is Free

"Let me give you a little advice, for I am not currently using it," is what you hear when a broke financial planner offers you investing advice.

Would you take free medical advice from a pump jockey at a gas station? Would you take free legal advice from your city bus driver? Would you take free career advice from someone who's been fired from every job he's ever had?

If you don't have to pay for the advice, is it worth much? It seems that once you commit to paying for something, you view the information differently.

Take a person who borrows a book from you - a book you may have gotten great value and results from by acting on the advice within. But because your friend didn't buy the book for themselves, what are the real chances of them taking the advice the same way you did?

Getting sales advice from your next door neighbor, the salesman, is different than getting sales advice from the sales trainer you are paying to help you. Getting business advice from the corner store owner on your street would probably not come with action steps like you would get from a business coach.

The same could be said of any information you pay for. In fact, there is more learning in a credit card than a Library card - if the credit card is being used to buy books, learning DVD's and seminar registrations.

If you want advice that will move you forward, be prepared to pay for it. If your organization wants to move to the next level, pay for new training. Because here's the truth: if you had the answers, you would already be achieving what you want to achieve. But since you're not where you want to be, you're obviously missing something. So you need help - good help - help that will cost you money but will give you a return on investment.

You see, the illusion of doing something isn't going to cut it anymore. Your people are too smart. If you want to build an organizational Culture of Excellence, replete with solid managers, you're going to need some outside help. Get it and get moving on it.
--
Kevin Burns - Management Attitude/Culture Strategist
http://www.kevburns.com

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

Subscribe to Kevin's Managing with Attitude Blog by Email