Why Doesn’t that Winning Feeling Always Last?

This past Sunday, hundreds of thousands of fans gathered in downtown St. Louis to celebrate their World Series Champions St. Louis Cardinals with a victory parade.

They cheered and snapped pictures as the Budweiser Clydesdales led a ticker-tape parade, followed by Cardinals team members and marching bands from area high schools.

And today, coffee shops and water coolers across the entire city are buzzing with prideful baseball chatter in a sea of red hats and red Albert Pujols player jerseys.

But that winning feeling doesn’t last. Why? And what does have to do with you and your workplace?

In a couple of days, or at least by next Monday, the buzz will be nearly gone around most water coolers and coffee shops. Again… why?

Because, like most corporate cultures, "we go back to the way it used to be." Change -- that “winning feeling” -- is hard to sustain beyond the emotional high of a seven-game series, even a World Series season.

Sure, there are those diehard fans that have attended and watched most of this seasons' 162 games and will chat for years about the 2011 season. And win or lose they will always support their beloved Cardinals. But what about the majority… the rest of us? Why don't most of us carry this energy after “our team” wins, after the playoffs?

When I heard the NPR Newscaster announce that this World Series championship has "united a city,” I instantly thought of two times I’ve personally seen a uniting of neighbors and workplace colleagues...and both were very different circumstances from a sports victory: they were because of hurricanes.

The first was hurricane Charlie. Charlie hit Central Florida with a wallop in 2004, while my wife was eight months pregnant with our first child. Tornadoes caused by the hurricane tore through our neighborhood, knocking down huge oak trees, ripping off roofs and shutting down all electrical power. Thankfully, our house had minor damage (compared to most). After the storm, I, along with all the local inhabitants of the neighborhood, left the safety of our windowless (sometimes roofless) homes and walked the tree-strewn street to survey the damages. Within an hour, 10-15 homeowners had united in the middle of the street with handshakes and a common vision, a common focus: "Let's make sure everyone else is okay!"

We split up with assignments and went door-to-door asking safety and power questions, returning with a report out. Within an hour, we had complied a list of all the collective equipment and expertise we had onhand that might be useful. We then went about helping each other, house by house, even after emergency equipment and professionals arrived.

So what? The so what was, until that day I didn’t know 95% of my own neighbors! I worked 7am to 7pm and after work and weekends spent time with my wife and friends. Sure, I waved at faces and cars driving by, but I never went door to door introducing myself.

Why? Well, nobody welcomed me and my wife when we came to the neighborhood. As neighbors, this was an “a-ha” moment for us, and we celebrated the rebuilding of the neighborhood with an all-hands barbecue. We really got to know each neighbor and we made a commitment that from that point on, we would formally welcome each new neighbor to the neighborhood. But it probably never happened, however. We were moving three miles up the street to a larger family home, and nobody was willing to champion this cause after we left. I am sure the commitment to welcome new neighbors died and things went back to the way they always were. How sad.

The second hurricane experience that I witnessed uniting people was Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. On Friday and Saturday, August 26-27, 2005, I co-hosted a physician and leadership retreat for the Ochsner Clinic Health System at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Canal Street in New Orleans. This two-day retreat was focused on how to create a new exceptional service culture that would be physician led, modeled and owned. Recent patient research confirmed that patients wanted more than good clinical healthcare... they wanted "healthcare... with peace of mind."

To create, lead and operationalize this type of culture, there would, of course, have to be clear benefits patients, family members and other visitors, and also benefits to workforce that that supports the MDs, PAs and mid-levels… all of the staff as colleagues and partners in care. On Day One of the retreat, the greatest barrier identified to this new patient-centric culture was that Ochsner realized it had, by its own admission, "created a culture of NO!" As physicians, they realized at this pre-Katrina weekend retreat that they had developed a habit of saying "no" much more than they said "yes" to their patients, staff and colleagues. To truly create “healthcare with peace of mind,” they knew they needed to change things and create a "Culture of YES!"

Because the hurricane was narrowing it's focus on New Orleans, we decided to cut the retreat a half-day short and committed to "Providing Healthcare with Peace of Mind, by Creating a Culture of YES.” One physician stood up at the end of retreat and said, "To do this right, shouldn't we start this after the hurricane blows over?" Ochsner’s CEO, Patrick Quinlan, M.D., stood up and calmly approached the microphone to reply to the question and said: "I have waited seven years for us to make this commitment. I think a hurricane is a perfect time to put it to the test. And if we do not do this now, I am leaving!" You could hear the "gasps" throughout the room. "But…” Quinlan continued, "… not before I take you out first!!" He was serious and everyone knew it.

Over the next few days of the hurricane that turned into the worst flood in US history, physicians led the way to "provide healthcare with peace of mind" by creating a culture of YES. When they needed volunteers to work down in the cafeteria serving hot dogs, surgeons manned the grill! Over the next 24 months, as New Orleans dried out and rebuilt, the Ochsner Clinic gathered heroic and not-so-heroic stories of a culture of YES. With a little help from ILS, they were able to build a formal service culture around the end in mind: “healthcare with peace of mind” and the way to get there: "by creating a Culture of YES!”

For the past seven years, the Ochsner Clinic organization has made this tagline their “True North” of their guiding compass and has woven all of their recruitment, onboarding and performance processes around it, so they may build the exceptional patient experience and deliver of the promise of that True North tagline. There are plenty of organizations that provide healthcare in the greater New orleans area, but only one that provides Healthcare with peace of mind by getting 8,000 plus employees to create a Culture of YES.

It is important to win championships, awards, top customer and employee satisfaction status, but after winning the award… why doesn't that winning feeling USUALLY last?

Because, naturally, people will go back to the way it used to be and simply wait for it all to just blow over. Unless you take action.

Do you have an important, relevant call to action for all of your employees to believe in and live day-to-day? More important, do you ALSO have the support system around it to operationalize your tagline and make it “business as usual” instead of “random acts of kindness” that pop up about as often as a World Series championship or a hurricane?

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Tell a Story, then ask for ACTION...

President Abraham Lincoln, an incredible communicator, was known during the Civil War to attend a church not far from the White House on Wednesday nights. The preacher, Dr. Gurley, allowed the president to sit in the pastor’s study with the door open to the chancel so he could listen to the sermon without having to interact with the crowd.

One Wednesday evening as Lincoln and a companion walked back to the White House after the sermon, the president’s companion asked, “What did you think of tonight’s sermon?”

“Well,” Lincoln responded, “it was brilliantly conceived, biblical, relevant, and well presented.”

“So, it was a great sermon?”

“No,” Lincoln replied. “It failed. It failed because Dr. Gurley did not ask us to do something great.”

Inspiring communicators always expect a lot from their listeners. CHALLENGE THEM TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT!

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How Can “I’m Sorry” Be Inappropriate? (by Paul Grossman)

written by Paul Grossman, Vice President, Integrated Loyalty Systems, Inc.

This past weekend my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise for the long weekend. A couple of ports of call, good food and drink, and some quality time together sounded perfect.

In an effort to “simplify” things, most cruise lines -- ours included -- have instituted a practice that provides each person sailing with a “sign and sail” card that serves the multiple functions of stateroom door key, on-ship charge card and ID card when getting on and off the ship. All of which becomes significant after what happened next.

In the confusion of our early celebrating, one of our cards was misplaced. A visit to Guest Relations would take care of it right away. Couldn’t be the first time somebody misplaced their room-key card, right? A short wait in the line, explain the situation, and a very polite “No problem, sir!” put us back on track for a once-again carefree weekend celebration.

But carefree it was not.

Couldn’t charge a bottle of wine with dinner. Back to Guest Relations. Couldn’t get off the ship (card was “canceled”). Couldn’t get on the ship (ID photo was deleted). Couldn’t get into our stateroom. Couldn’t get a carved-out-pineapple drink… each time a problem occurred, it was back to Guest Relations. We barely had time to enjoy the bottle of champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries our family had lovingly arranged to be sent to our room to help us celebrate when we first arrived.

After the second problem with the cards I asked for a manager. “Gerald” indeed took ownership of the problem, apologizing and endeavoring to fix it, only to be frustrated by their repeated technical difficulties and my repeat visits as each new problem occurred.

Since the problems remained. I told Gerald I needed to speak to his boss, the director of Guest Relations. As nice as Gerald was, as hard as Gerald was trying, the problem was still not being fixed. And I was spending more time at the Guest Relations desk than I was in my stateroom! And I wanted to get back to the stateroom, because I had ordered an Anniversary Celebration Package from the cruise line for us that included more champagne, more chocolate-covered strawberries and other goodies (I didn’t know our family had arranged champagne and strawberries for our first night onboard).

Back in the stateroom, my champagne was there, along with a bottle of champagne from Guest Relations, as well as TWO more plates of chocolate-covered strawberries (one from the celebration package, one from Guest Relations).

I received a call from Gerald’s boss, apologizing and hoping we liked what she had sent to our cabin. I said I did. Gerald showed up a few minutes later with two new cards that he assured us were fully functional (they were, finally!). The next morning, at 9:30, we received another call from Gerald’s boss (9:30 on a Sunday morning!) asking if everything was OK. It was, except for the constant calling!

That evening, after dinner, we returned to the cabin to find the cabin decorated with streamers and foil decorations and wedding bells and -- you guessed it -- another bottle of champagne and more chocolate-covered strawberries! We now had a backlog of strawberries and had no choice but to stack the plates of unfinished strawberries in a strange sort of service-recovery “tower” on the small table in our stateroom.

The service recovery was sincere. And it was appreciated. But why couldn’t Guest Relations have looked to see that we had already received champagne and strawberries and come up with a different service recovery? Why couldn’t they have guessed that since I ordered a celebration package that didn’t include cabin decorations, that maybe we didn’t want tacky cabin decorations? And if my main complaint, beyond the card malfunctions, was the time I was wasting with Guest Relations, why couldn’t the Guest Relations Director stop calling me and leaving messages to see if everything was okay? (Leave your personal extension I can call anytime, if needed.)

When we were at Disney, we were diligent about notating our service recovery actions, so that a client didn’t receive a duplicate second or third Mickey Mouse watch as an apology gift. It’s a good lesson. One that I wish the cruise line would learn.

Well-intentioned apologies are important. Doing something extra is a key part of the process: At ILS, we teach “LAST ++” which is “listen,” “apologize,” “solve,” and “thank,” and adds two important plusses: do something extra -- a “symbolic atonement” like the decorations and strawberries, and report it, so you can be sure the problem is captured and the service recovery can be appropriate.

And when my wife and I were telling the story to Jake over lunch on our return from the cruise, we just looked at each other and bursted out laughing when Jake brought out dessert: a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries!

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The Impact of Poor Communication Can Equal DEATH!

“Just call me, Eddie”

I need to write about this, because this day still haunts me, years later. And it is amazing the clarity I still have of the entire day, of every word said, and how it made me feel.

My dad had a heart attack the same week President Clinton had been scheduled to have his heart surgery, but Clinton had to wait an extra few days until the blood thinner had left his body (important to note). My dad was on a fishing trip vacation with friends out of his home state at the time. His closest family and friends were hundreds of miles away. When he was rushed to the local emergency department and immediately admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, where the nurse gave him a blood thinner IV and said it would help with his heart palpitations. As it turns out, he had to have heart surgery, immediately, to save his life.

I flew from Florida to Michigan to be with him prior to his surgery. While he was waiting for surgery, he joked a lot with all the nurses who came into his room. Each nurse he met would call him, “Mr. Poore”, and he would immediately say, “Please just call me, Eddie”. They would always reply, “Okay, Eddie. And I’ll make sure the next nurse knows that too.” Of course, the next nurse would come around and again address him as “Mr. Poore”, and Dad would reply, “Just call me, Eddie,” and this new Nurse would say, “Okay, Eddie. I’ll tell the night nurse”. They never got it right. After a while, my Dad became really frustrated and a bit concerned about his care team.

Personal Jewelry

Each employee who entered my dads room would also tell my Dad that he would need to take off his two gold necklaces prior to surgery and they would offer to take them off him right then and send them to security for safe keeping. My father was very attached to each necklace (one from his mom and the other from his deceased wife, a nurse) and did not want them taken off, ever! It was agreed (by one nurse) that the necklaces would be taped to his leg during the surgery so that he’d always have them on him. This too, of course, was never communicated to other medical staff, and every time someone new walked into his room, they would kindly suggest that he would have to “take off those gold necklaces”, finally my dad just freaked out!
I would watch his monitor above his bed: His blood pressure would rise; his pulse would rise… there were clinical implications to their poor team communication.

The two most important things to him were his good name and his gold necklaces and they couldn’t get either of these right.

Finally, now in surgery, as I am saying my final ‘goodbyes’, a nurse anesthetist came up and said, “Hi, Mr. Poore (not "Eddie"), I’m the nurse anesthetist. Do you know what I’m going to do?” my father replied, “Put me to sleep, I guess”. And she continued, “Yep, that’s right. And I see you have some gold necklaces on….” While she was still speaking, my father turned to me with a huge look of fear on his face and said, “Oh lord, they can’t even get these necklaces right, Jake!” That was almost the last thing he said on this earth.

My father died on the operating table that day. After his surgery the doctor didn’t even come out to talk to me. He sent one of his assistants out instead. When I asked what happened, we were told, “your Dad couldn’t hold his sutures, and he was bleeding to death.” I asked if the blood thinner he was given the day before had anything to do with that, and she said, “Blood thinner, what blood thinner?” I couldn’t help but saying, “You guys didn’t even communicate the name he wanted to be called or stop asking him about his gold necklaces, maybe you didn’t communicate the blood thinner, either.”

The Impact?

I could have sued them, but I didn't. It would not have brought my Dad back. Someone famous once said, "Patients are experts at what they know and understand and they will make assumptions/judgments on what they don’t know and don’t understand." My Dad did not know how good that hospital was at clinical care, but he was an expert at his name and the importance of his gold necklaces. Learn that! Communicate that effectively. Because the story I tell has nothing to do with your technical expertise, it's how your treated my Dad as a human being, not the "4am Valve Replacement, triple bypass in OR2!"

Whether you provide medical care, a hotel room, food and beverage or dry cleaning, remember, our customers will evaluate our technical expertise on what they are experts at, if they have a nickname, learn it and use it. Team communication is the key to your customer loyalty. Just think how many times I have told this story, starting with THE FUNERAL 5 years ago?

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Is it possible to orchestrate pride in your organization?

In business books today, there are a lot of analogies between “renters versus owners” regarding employee mentality. I instantly think back to my college days when my roommate would always take the opportunity to show me a ‘Dukes of Hazard move’ in our rental car while we were on vacation but would never think of doing the same move in a car that he owned. And of course, all college students know how well we treat rental dorm rooms or rented apartments versus our own rooms in our mom’s house or our own first home.

When I think about the nearly two decades I invested with the Walt Disney Company, I think about the times I had the most pride and the times I did not. I think the organization got it right after Disney acquired ABC Television on July 31, 1995. Prior to that purchase of ABC, I would always leave work and head home to find my neighbors on my doorstep asking me about the latest Disney news flash they heard about or saw on the television.

To my embarrassment, I knew nothing of this new acquisition, new movie, rumor or the like. And over time, they stopped asking, because I would use words like “I don’t know what they are doing”, “I don’t know why the company would purchase that…I’m just a front-line employee.” My language was all third person at best. After all, I was just an hourly employee working a job. Also, I was secretly using Disney to help build my own work experience and resume. At that time, I was just a renter, and that’s how they treated us lonely college students.

But all that changed one day when something simple happened… simple, but brilliant. Like any other day at Epcot Center, we would change out of our costume into our street clothes in the Cast Services Building and say good night to the security officer guarding the back door. But this time, he handed me a piece of paper, titled “Flash 4500” (extension 4500 was the number you dialed for information on the telephone to help guests get any Disney company trivia or status update). The Flash 4500 that day described that the Walt Disney Company was going to purchase ABC /Capital City, and described it in four meaty paragraphs. The first paragraph tied to our history and heritage (ABC actually hosted the first Disney program called, “Disneyland”). The second paragraph tied to good business decisions. The third paragraph tied to what it might mean to me, as a Disney Cast Member. And the last paragraph was brilliant; it asked and answered the top 3-4 questions we were bound to be asked by friends and family.

The impact? Well, I read it, and then tossed it in my passenger seat and drove home. Like every news flash about Disney, 3-4 neighbors tackled me on my front doorstep to ask “why Disney would buy ABC?” Except this time, I was armed to be an Ambassador for the company, instead of just an hourly employee building a resume. They invested in me as an owner, and guess what? I took ownership. For the first time in my career, I used words like “we”, “I”, “my” in explaining the companies’ decision. “Here’s why we did this.” “I think it’s a good idea.” “We foresee benefits …” and the invisible sash went over my shoulder that said, “Disney Company Ambassador.” I felt very proud that day to be included on a major step in my company’s future. That they would entrust me with that important information.

Can you always invest in your employees with information before you leak it to the press,? Obviously not every time, but you can sure try to do so simultaneously. Or could you allow your cast members to leak the information to the press? What a statement that would be!

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A Tale of Two Coffees...

You're on the road, and you don't really have time to stop anywhere. You want a quick, drive-thru coffee. You're coming up to an intersection. On your right, you see a Burger King. On your left, you see a McDonalds... which one do you go to?

I went to both yesterday, just to see... I turned into Burger King excited to "have it my way". I pull up to the speaker:
"What can I get you?"
“Coffee, please.”
"$1.49, pull up to the window."
"A large coffee."
"$1.70, pull up to the window."

I felt like I had to shout into the speaker due to its poor sound quality. I pulled forward (there was only one window), and she handed me my coffee. A cup of coffee with a bag full of stuff (4 creams, 2 regular sugars, 2 Splenda, 2 Equal, and a stirrer in a wrapper, but no napkins to wipe up the coffee I would invariably spill, and stain, on my black dress pants). I proceeded to pull forward to make my coffee "my way", which is with two creams only. I struggled to get the wrapper off the stirrer. Now I feel guilty that I have to throw out all the rest of this stuff that's perfectly good... but wait. Where do I throw it out? There's no trash can! Those extra creamers may have to stay in my car all day in the heat.


Across the street at McDonald's, I pulled up to the speaker and was greeted with "Good morning sir, welcome to McDonald's. How are you today?"

"I'm fine, how are you?" (it was an actual conversation)

"Fine, thank you. How may I help you?"

"I'd like a coffee please."

"What size?

"Large."

"Would you like any creams or sugar in that?"

"I'd like two creams, please."

"Okay, that's one large coffee with two creams. Would you like to add two hot apple pies for only a dollar?"

"No, thank you."

"Please drive up to the first window."

There were three windows, one of which wasn't being used. As I pulled up to the first window, the car ahead of me was pulling away. I was able to immediately do my transaction. I was greeted with a smile and eye contact. By the time I'd finished paying, the second window was free for me. (It's by design that there is a car and a half's length between the two windows).

The second window handed me my coffee, just the way I like it. The two creams were already in it, and it was stirred! I had no other "stuff" to handle and waste. I like the lid off, so I pulled forward to deposit it into the trash can built for drive-thrus, and I threw away all the Burger King stuff!


In today's economy, as we scrutinize every penny we spend, we demand an experience, and not to be treated as a transaction. All things being equal, the coffees were pretty much the same, but now my loyalty lies with McDonalds (if I don't have time for a Starbucks!)
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Who Really Owns the Patient Experience in Your Hospital?

The challenge in most organizations is that each one of the executive leaders has a bias towards the department they represent. The CNO is responsible for the nursing staff, the COO is responsible for operations, the CMO is responsible for physicians, the CFO is responsible for the bottom line, and the CEO has so many responsibilities already. No one really represents the patient from the patient’s perspective. When you get down to the director level, the silos are even more focused. Do they care about the patients’ satisfaction? Of course they do, because they are held accountable and some receive profit sharing (bonuses) on patient satisfaction scores. But who owns the entire patient experience? No one.

You might argue, “Everyone owns the patients’ experience.” And my response to that is that really each individual department triages the patient just enough to make them satisfied through the department’s eyes, not the patient’s eyes, and the patient’s eyes see their entire hospital experience as one entity. We’re symptom fighting versus building the entire experience. Is it your fault? Not really. It’s difficult to think experientially when you are held accountable within your department only, and it’s difficult when you don’t have the authority to cut through departmental turf issues.

How do we resolve this?

We advocate that you create an executive position (like a Chief Experience Officer-CXO) to focus on the entire patient experience and to map out that experience. This person would bring together department heads monthly, make sure everyone is on same page of what their individual/department impact is on the patient experience, and evaluate patient satisfaction scores to not just meet expectations but to exceed expectations, one department at a time, each step of the way.

Why is this important enough to budget for?

Along with clinical excellence and financial stability, healthcare systems are being ranked and evaluated by objective assessors (satisfaction, “how did it make you feel?” questions) in hospital surveys, H-CAHPS, Gallup, Press Ganey, and online sites.

Each and every way that a patient (and their family) touches your organization becomes part of the "patient experience." But who ultimately owns that experience? All too frequently there are many "chiefs," but no one specific person who can cut through departmental turf issues and truly improve quality and efficiency all on behalf of patients… who can do this in your hospital?
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Knowing Your Customer

There’s a hotel chain in California that takes the time to understand their customers preferences and tastes, matches paintings displayed and music played to fit that customer. Spas do that. What can you do to customize your product or service to your customer?

Let me give you some examples:

Example #1: When I stay at a Ritz-Carlton for a business conference, and set the alarm clock to wake up to the radio-- it doesn’t play rap music and isn’t on a Spanish-speaking station. The Marriott, Hyatt and Sheraton are not like this. They haven’t thought about these customer profile preference details. The radio stations are usually left on the station of whoever cleans the room.

Example #2: When I go to Hertz to rent a car, it is set ideally for the demographic of whoever rents that type of car… mine is business account through the company. When I rent a car from Dollar, I get the favorite station of the person who cleaned or drove the car, and it is usually set for a music genre and a volume that is would not fit my business profile.

Also, rental car companies need to provide a hanger for your suit coat and an umbrella on rainy days. How expensive is a wire hanger? What if you had a box of hangers at the rental car location for business people?
The rental car radio could be set at:
Level 1- a variety of pre-set music
Level 2- ask me my preferences, and when the car gets washed, pre-set the radio stations to my preferences

Example #3: The other day, I went to Sbarro for breakfast at the airport, and the bacon wasn’t done. I asked if they could cook it more, and they said “no”…. just a flat-out “No, we don’t that.” “Would you like sausage instead?” I said “no, thanks.” I took my business elsewhere. Then, when I finally sat down to enjoy my breakfast in the food court area, there were two baggage handlers with the volume way up on their radios (walkie-talkies) blaring and disrupting everyone else. They weren’t even listening to the radios and raised the volume of their voices to talk over the blaring. Anxious to get out of there, I quickly finished my meal and headed to my gate. The Southwest flight was peaceful. The flight attendants smile, have fun, chitchat with you, and remember if you want cream with your coffee. It was like night and day from what I had experienced earlier that morning.

Southwest knows their customers have busy, hectic lives and that travel can be stressful, so they do their best to make it a relaxing, enjoyable experience for their customers.

Again, what can you do to customize your product or service to your customers?
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Slang: To Use It or Not to Use It? That is the Question.

Getting your staff to say I'm sorry is key when they make a mistake. Baby boomers make up the majority of the customers in the US today. They don't know or appreciate the current slang, jive or acronyms. Today's workforce, however, is made up of a lot of young people who have not been explicitly told how to say good morning, you're welcome, or how to apologize... It's not "Wassup?"; it's "Good morning", "Good afternoon", and "Good evening". It's not "See ya!"; it's "Thank you for choosing our business; have a good day". And most importantly, when you make an honest mistake, apologize with a sincere "I'm sorry", not "My bad". Or even better, "I'm sorry for the inconvenience", and do something to plus it up. Check to see if this is in your new employee orientation program.

Please also refer to our podcast on this subject, "The Value of Saying I'm Sorry"
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How do You Train People to be Sincere and Caring?

Hello!



Wonderful idea you are exploring (in your previous blog, “Job Tasks vs. their Role in Customer Experience”). I find the most genuine sentiments come from staff from which this is least expected. They see the big picture because they are not overwhelmed by the details. The idea that you can train them to act positively is just great. And what a concept... including them on the team and making them aware of the mission.


Here's a case in point... I had to give a presentation to be webcast firm-wide with another lawyer that I am challenged with, and was a mess over it. I was in the office late on a Friday night with paper spread all over my desk with the look of desperation on my face. The guy whose "job" it is to pick up the garbage stood in my doorway and asked, "What's the matter, girly?" I explained my dilemma, and he put his hand on his hip and said, "Girly, all you got to do is smile, don't you know that?" Fixed! There's something though in the fact that this guy and his team have no political agenda. We believe them because there is nothing in it for them. How do you train people to be sincere and caring? Seems to me that they either have it, or don't. But then again, it works at Disney, doesn't it?


Ms. JP


A Law Firm in New York State

Dear Ms. JP:

How do you train people to be sincere and caring? Well, that’s a long answer, but here is my response.

First, I think you are right, the people who have it will always have it. For the rest of us multi-tasking, overachievers, you need to first build clear, unambiguous expectations from the customer’s perspective.

Build it clearly, coach the murkiness out of it, catch them doing it right more that wrong, and share how their behavior/attitude makes an impact on customers and other team members. In short: Define what you want, reward it when you see it, and hold them accountable when you don’t.

The greatest problem I see in this success formula is not defining what you want clearly enough (i.e. “Jim, you need to be nicer to clients…” -Huh?)

The Golden Rule

I hate the Golden Rule (do onto others as you’d like done onto yourself). Why? Well, if I treat others like I want to be treated, then I’m assuming they’re just like me, growing up on Lake Ontario with Irish/German parents, 6 brothers and sisters, a grandma, dog, and two cats.

I will never forget my first day on the job at Wegmans Supermarket. I was 16 years old. The phone rang in the produce department, I picked it up and it was for my co-worker, Tony. Instead walking 75 feet to tell Tony he had a phone call, I yelled across the store, “TONY, TELEPHONE!”

My boss was appalled - “Jake! What are you doing?” “What?” I asked. “That’s what we do in my house. I was doing what you told me in employee orientation, you know, the golden rule.” He took time to explain not only the desired behavior he wanted, but also that customers have a choice in supermarkets. The product we sold was common, our customers could go anywhere, so where we differentiated from other supermarkets was our great service. Our customers demanded great service and courtesy behaviors from me and everyone in the store, or they would take their business across the street. My behaviors had impact.

I did not see it then as clearly as I see it now, but he was a great manager for taking the time to explain it to me in those terms.

Favorable & Forbidden Phrases & Behaviors

I think most front-line staff can be groomed to be sincere if given a choice between what I call the Favorable and Forbidden Phrases and Behaviors. You learn this very fast at Disney; their culture is very explicit. Yet most companies don’t teach this because they think it just common sense. It may be common sense, it’s just not common practice.

• Never say, “That’s not my problem.”
  Instead, say, “Let me find someone who is responsible for that so they can help you.”
  
• Never say, “I don’t know.”
  Instead, say, “I don’t know, but let me find out for you.” (And if you do this, and someone asks again, you may know for next time.)
  
• Avoid looking at your watch, rolling your eyes, or pen clicking.
  Instead, sit or kneel so you are at the same level, look at the customer in the eye, smile and speak warmly.

The list goes on.

Most companies don’t have this kind of list, or if they do, they do not use it to train their employees. Typically, if an organization has this type of list, it doesn’t outline the favorable, only the forbidden.

We are one of the few firms who consider this a great client differentiator, and when we share this with front-line staff, this “no brainer” list actually helps build pride and team accountability.
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