the controllers
April 30, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
There’s a great deal of advice out there for the solo professional service firm (psf), but here’s a story that will help when you come up against “the controllers”. If you are so unique that you are in a category all by yourself, you will be an irresistible target for “the controllers” who are likely a main reason for your leaving the world of “having a job” and entering the world of “creating your work”.
This (lengthy) NYT story is about a solo psf who refused to be blocked. He’s Charlie Hess, military, F.B.I. and C.I.A. veteran, possessing brilliant and controversial investigative credentials, who worked as an elderly volunteer for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. He had a purpose – to attempt to solve cold murder cases by corresponding with incarcerated convicted killers. His relationship building and communication techniques are unique. The confessions have brought immeasurable closure and peace to the victim’s families, including the families of the 48 people murdered by serial killer Robert Charles Brown.
To the reporter who tried to understand the secret of his success, Charlie Hess responded:
“You have educated people and uneducated people,” Hess said. “You have competent people and incompetent people. And you have people who are just average.”
“What category are you in?”
Innate suspicion made him hesitate. Then he said, “I’m in a category all by myself.”
In spite of his results, “the controllers” got to him. So he quickly and simply turned it into a new opportunity and change of direction.
A little more than a year ago, Hess got a new correspondence going with another inmate in another state — one who has a very different personality from Robert Browne’s but who also has murders to discuss. Hess says he hopes to close more cases soon, under different auspices. In January, he received the Sheriff’s Meritorious Service Award. There was a big dinner, lots of warm words. Only weeks before, he was asked by the El Paso Sheriff’s office to sign a confidentiality form. He was insulted — what had he ever done that suddenly the bureaucrats didn’t trust him not to compromise privileged information? He turned in his office keys. “Quit is too strong,” he said. “I’ve left.” With a co-author, Davin Seay, he is writing a book titled “Hello Charlie: Letters From a Serial Killer.”
The Confessor: “He was a retired F.B.I. and C.I.A. agent volunteering on cold-case investigations in the Colorado Rockies. How did he persuade a man who may be one of the most prolific serial killers in American history to admit to his crimes?”
(Via NYT > Magazine.)
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generalist, solo professional service firm
observation
April 29, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
If you’re serious about change facilitation and small business transformation, and believe in the power of observation, check out Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares on the BBC. I’ve been watching it for years and learn something with every episode. Its nothing like the U.S. version, called Hell’s Kitchen, which I’m told is mostly a vulgar shock-fest with none of the business learning or human interest of the British series.
The show is about turning around businesses on the brink of disaster and although its the restaurant/hospitality industry, the lessons are applicable to any business, and include:
- leadership
- purpose
- management
- teamwork
- communication
- facilitation, mentoring and coaching
- process, organization and efficiency
- customer experience and service
- brand promise
- feedback
- simplification, focus and clarity
- marketing
- employee performance and problems
The program reinforces my belief that, in order to best help a small business team turn around its service problems, a solo professional service firm (psf) must be allowed the opportunity to observe, and to some extent partake in, the team activities.
Be prepared for resistance from clients when you propose this because its a lot more comfortable for them to just “tell you what they know” and thus avoid the risk of rocking the boat or making things worse by bringing in an outsider. I’ve learned that addressing one small problem at a time while building trust is the best course of action and gradually overcomes resistance.
Of course in the real world, you can’t you can’t go around yelling and swearing at your clients Gordon Ramsay style. But on the other hand, providing them only with theoretical advice and recommendations, and non-contextual training, will do little to help move teams, owners and managers from where they are, to where they want to be.
Here’s a show episode:
Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares
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generalist, solo professional service firm, customer experience, ramsays kitchen nightmares
empathy
April 29, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of empathy since watching “The Queen” the other night. The juxtaposition of how intensely Princess Diana was in touch with her empathy, vs how completely Queen Elizabeth II repressed hers, had a breathtaking (and empathetic) effect upon me.
So its no coincidence (but surely a synchronicity) that “empathy” started showing up everywhere. I’m posting excerpts from recent articles, interspersed with other examples (ex. Roddenberry, Clinton, Springsteen) that have have influenced me over time.
Definition. Empathy:
Empathy (from the Greek εμπάθεια, “to make suffer”) is commonly defined as one’s ability to recognize, perceive and directly experientially feel the emotion of another. As the states of mind, beliefs, and desires of others are intertwined with their emotions, one with empathy for another may often be able to more effectively define another’s modes of thought and mood. Empathy is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes”, or experiencing the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself, a sort of emotional resonance.
(Via Wikipedia)
TV. Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek: The Next Generation character Deanna Troi.
Deanna was ship’s counselor on the USS Enterprise-D, and later, on the USS Enterprise-E. She would also go on to serve in this role on the USS Titan .
Though lacking the full Betazoid range of mental abilities, due to her half-human heritage, Deanna is an extra-sensory empath with Clairsentience. This often came in useful when dealing with hostile aliens.
(Via Wikipedia)
Music. Bruce Springsteen: Musical style.
Springsteen’s lyrics often concern people struggling to make ends meet. He has gradually become identified with progressive politics, various charitable causes and his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, on which his album The Rising reflects.
In recent years Springsteen’s recordings tended to alternate between mainstream rock and more sombre topical, folk-oriented music. Much of Springsteen’s iconic status stems from his concert performances: marathon shows up to four hours in length, in which he and the E Street Band energetically perform intense ballads, rousing anthems and rock and roll party songs, interspersed with Springsteen’s whimsical or deeply personal stories.
(Via Wikipedia)
Politics. Bill Clinton, the 42nd president, heads the Clinton Foundation: Boris the Fighter
Boris Yeltsin was intelligent, passionate, emotional, strong-willed and courageous. He wasn’t perfect, and he had to contend with staggering political and economic challenges as he led Russia away from centuries of authoritarian rule. But lead he did. At the end of the cold war, Russia and the world were lucky to have him.
History will be kind to my friend Boris.
(Via NYT)
Journalism. Anna Quindlen, author and columnist: The Great Obligation
All this makes you wonder if journalism schools should teach not just accuracy, but empathy. But the truth is, you really get that by covering stories, not studying them, by imagining yourself in the place of the people you interview.
(Via Newsweek)
Psychiatry. Richard Friedman M.D., director of the psychopharmacoloy clinic at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University: Understanding Empathy: Can You Feel My Pain?
What is critical to understanding someone is not necessarily having had his or her experience; it is being able to imagine what it would be like to have it. Thus, I do not have to be black to empathize with the toxic effects of racial prejudice, or be a woman to know how I would feel about being denied promotion on the basis of sex.
Contrary to what many people believe, being empathic is not the same thing as being nice.
In the right hands, empathy has tremendous positive therapeutic force and can narrow what looks like an unbridgeable gap between patients and therapists.
(Via NYT)
Neuroscience. Dr. Arthur D. Craig, neuroscientist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix: A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects
It is in the frontal insula, Dr. Craig said, that simple body states or sensations are recast as social emotions. A bad taste or smell is sensed in the frontal insula as disgust. A sensual touch from a loved one is transformed into delight.
The frontal insula is where people sense love and hate, gratitude and resentment, self-confidence and embarrassment, trust and distrust, empathy and contempt, approval and disdain, pride and humiliation, truthfulness and deception, atonement and guilt.
People who are better at reading these sensations — a quickened heart beat, a flushed face, slow breathing — score higher on psychological tests of empathy, researchers have found.
(Via NYT)
Workplace. Amy Joyce, Columnist – Life at Work: Two-Way Empathy Thaws an Icy Response to Time Off
(Via Washington Post)
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uncertainty and impasse
April 27, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I enjoyed reading about this new book, Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths, related to career and life change. Its about why and how we can cross into new frontiers, leaving behind the comfort of what is known and familiar. I like the way the author refers to artists and musicians, like Bob Dylan and D.H. Lawrence, as examples of how continually shifting identity is core to artistic and creative integrity. In this view, how you live and craft your life, “is” the desired outcome. Resisting this desire, or hunger, can lead to a great deal of suffering, described as ‘impasse crises’.
One of the most typically resisted steps in breaking the impasse and shifting beliefs is accepting uncertainty. I think of Bob Dylan who once said: “I accept chaos”. I often see clients, in their attempt to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty, be continually drawn back to the things that keep them stuck: jobs they hate, friends, family and peers who feel threatened by their change and so manipulatively hold them back, and the lure of mass market media promising easy answers. That leads to diminished self-trust and a lot of “I must work and push harder to make it happen” combined with impatience to see results.
But as I learned from one of my teachers, effort and fulfillment inversely correlate and shifting to a desired better version of oneself is largely built on the foundation of willingness to “not know”.
Feeling Stuck? Getting Past Impasse:
by Martha Lagace
Most people at one time or another feel as if they are just spinning their wheels, unable to gain traction either in career or in life. This feeling of being stuck in one place, while troubling, is part of a necessary crisis leading to personal growth, says Dr. Timothy Butler, Senior Fellow and Director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School.
‘Without it we cannot grow, change, and—eventually—live more fully in a larger world,’ Butler writes in his new book, Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths (Harvard Business School Press).
Butler, a psychologist, psychotherapist, and career development counselor for over 25 years, is also a researcher on career decision making generally and the relationship between personality structure and work satisfaction in particular. He met recently with HBS Working Knowledge to discuss how commonly business professionals may be confronted with a sense of psychological impasse and how they can free themselves.
(Via HBS Working Knowledge.)
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generalist, solo professional service firm
patriarchal delusions
April 20, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
If you think that most marketers have the capabilities to move beyond simple, tried and true tools like gap analysis, you’d be wrong. Especially when its about marketing to women. When marketers fail horribly in this regard they may be described as condescending or patronizing. I believe the failure is rooted in patriarchy.
Female business travelers seem to agree when giving feedback about a new American Airlines Web site that targets them. It not only fails to provide them with any value, but manages to insult and infuriate them.
On the Road: Maybe a Lavender Web Site Wasn’t How to Attract Women: “A new American Airlines Web site just for female travelers has hit a nerve with many businesswomen.”
“There are so many things that are infuriating about this lip-service nonsense that I can’t begin to list them all,” said Ms. Pfeffer, an executive with the emerging markets division of Artisan Partners, an investment management company.
“But I have to ask this: Why does AA feel that female travelers need things explained to them that male travelers don’t? Are we that dumb? That inexperienced in the ways of air travel?” she said.
“We most certainly do not need 1950s-era advice, such as ‘Always bring a little black dress to wear with these heels’ — from the ‘Tips From Our Road Warriors’ section — good grief!” she said.
Said another: “As a female frequent traveler for both business and leisure, I’m quite indignant that AA thinks this kind of silly fluff is going to appeal to me. I want a clean plane, a comfortable seat, and good service at a fair price (not cheap, just reasonable). That’s what my husband wants. That’s what my colleagues of both genders want.”
(Via NYT > Technology.)
Its not just dinosaur companies that flounder in the patriarchal perception gap. Recently I had to threaten a car dealership sales guy with a “that’s two strikes, dude…” to get him to stop saying “duh” things like: “you can always pay extra per month on your car loan”.
The craziest thing is that the NYT article seemed to be written at least partially to prove that AA wants this valuable market to give them another chance.
American posted a statement on Flyertalk.com saying that content on its site “will evolve based on valuable feedback from our customers.” The statement said, “We felt this was an important step in furthering our relationship with our women travelers and demonstrating our continued commitment to the women’s market.”
Delusional.
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generalist, solo professional service firm, customer experience
reinventing or repeating?
April 19, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
This NYT article both inspired me and discouraged me.
Its about a new concept (trademarked!) called the life portfolio, to help corporate executives transition after severance or retirement, to something new and different. Its expensive, costs up to $25,000, and is often paid by the company as part of the severance.
Some of it is about rediscovering dreams and creativity and meaning.
REINVENTION; Helping Chart a Career’s Turning Point
By ELIZABETH POPE
Published: April 10, 2007
The introspection results in surprising transformations: engineers who become sculptors, mutual-fund analysts who take up alpaca farming and international lawyers who morph into school headmasters.
But most of it is about networking into alternative sectors, like not for profits.
About 80 percent of Portfolio clients refocus their priorities, abandoning the goal of another executive position to manage a nonprofit group, volunteer or do community service, he continued.
”We’re seeing a definite trend of people who want to turn their careers into a calling in the postcareer years,” he said. ”People worry that they’ll live to be 90 without a purpose. They’re saying, ‘I’ve got to share my good fortune and get involved with giving back.’ ”
I’m 100% in support of older people contributing their much-needed knowledge, skills and experience. But if programs like this indicate a trend, the price of admission raises barriers to most of the creative, entrepreneurial professionals who have been continually learning in the new business world trenches for over a decade. These are the people who had a different vision of the future, and who passed on the corporate hierarchy track knowing that most of that kind of experience would soon be extinct.
Hopefully, companies that hire older professionals recognize the need for new skills, experience, creativity and ideas, and not just the traditional, status quo management approaches. Here’s the reason.
‘In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.’
— Eric Hoffer
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why take the fun out of the trial?
April 18, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
Free trials need good support too. Unfortunately, some companies think of every trial customer touch point as a chance to pressure for the sale. But the effect is to take all the fun out of the trial.
This has been my experience with XM radio. It was an unexpected bonus to see it built in my new car stereo with a 3 month trial. But every time I’d try to use it, I got 3 stations only, which were nothing more than advertising for XM. The section in the car manual was no help, neither was the XM website. I quickly became frustrated in that zone of “how the hell can I not know how to make this simple thing work?”. After a few miserable navigations through their voice system from hell, I got a support guy Sunday night at 11 p.m.
It went downhill from there. All I needed was a simple answer to my problem. Evidently, it takes 20 minutes the first time using XM to get all the stations in. Support guy made me jump through hoops, going out to the car, in the dark, in the nor’eastener, before I finally got the ‘answer’ out of him. I then realized he was just keeping me on the phone to pressure me about when I’d buy. And I still hadn’t tried it! And I felt like an even bigger fool for being led on! I told support guy that he just sealed the deal that I’ll never buy it because he took the fun out of it.
Toweling off, I thought of an old favorite book and quote by Tom Robbins.
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generalist, solo professional service firm, customer experience
imaginative visuals
April 18, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
This Slate article is about the UPS whiteboard-guy ads, which I really like. The writer attributes the appeal to the use of white space, the clever animation that gives the drawing and dry-erasing a speeded-up effect, and the story-telling narrative. I would add to that list.
It demonstrates how simple, low-tech, right brain creativity results in remarkable services. Its a surprise and its unexpected, so it sticks.
The mesmerizing UPS whiteboard ads.:
“The Spot: A man stands in front of a large whiteboard. Using a dry-erase marker, he creates quick, informal sketches that animate the range of shipping services offered by UPS. A sketch of a UPS truck turns into a sketch of a UPS plane; a sketch of a cardboard box turns into a sketch of a laptop computer that can track UPS shipments; and so forth. [more ...]”
(Via Slate Magazine.)
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repair
April 17, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
I’ve been thinking about user experience in terms of keeping customers when things don’t go well. Last week’s scenario was the customer (me) saying “no”. This week, its the customer (me) saying “its broke”.
A few weeks ago I was working away on my 22 month old G4 17″ Powerbook, one of my most treasured possessions, when the screen went black. Funny little sleep quirk, I thought. No, it was Powerbook narcolepsy that quickly worsened into a full-blown coma. Since I did not buy the Applecare extended warranty, I was dismayed to see that its a common overheating problem with the machine and required (minimum) a logic board and top case replacement.
With help from some great tech forums, I got a few extra days by making some difficult system changes; and then the hard drive died. Fortunately, I had good backup, so I ordered a new MacBook and wrote off the old machine as a $3,000 lesson learned (don’t buy high end; get the Applecare). A week later, I realized I had warranty coverage through the credit card company. As part of the claim process, I had to get a repair estimate from the Apple Store. Thus, my first experience with the Genius Bar.
It was such an excellent experience in every way that I feel compelled to summarize the impression it left on me. I did not go there totally p.o.’d because I love Mac and would never go back. But on other hand I was not exactly thrilled about the short life of the Powerbook and the time, money and effort it cost me to deal with the breakdown and the subsequent replacement. Amazingly, I left the store loving Apple and everything about it more than ever because of the experience with the Genius who helped me.
It was actually fun to talk through the diagnosis with him and at one point he asked if I wanted to apply for a Genius position myself, because I knew so much about the OS. Totally flattered, I told him that I was just happy to get the machine repaired so that my awesome red Casauri bag would not be wasted. He told me the red bag would look even better carrying a new 17″ MacPro. I thought..”yup, iPhone, too”.
A pretty dramatic change in customer impression; I was there maybe 25 minutes?
Here’s what I most remember about the experience and how it translated:
They have my name and appointment on a large monitor so they value me and my time and I feel better from the start.
They don’t offer platitudes, apologies, excuses and admonishments so they’re completely and efficiently aligned with my purpose: to solve my problem, nothing more, nothing less.
They share knowledge about the process, tailoring the communication to the knowledge level of the customer, so every customer and problem is equally important and valuable.
They make decisions and offer solutions with complete autonomy so I know I’m with the best possible person, who has access to all the knowledge required, to solve my problem.
It will be interesting to see how the repair works out and how long the repair parts last. From a customer’s (client’s?) perspective: I really want to feel like the the happy cat, not the skeptical, cynical cat. Skepticism is too hard and its not fun.
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generalist, solo professional service firm, customer experience
relativity
April 17, 2007 by Mary Wynne-Wynter · Comments Off
You don’t need to understand physics to appreciate the magnitude of the the knowledge being gained about the cosmos, and Einstein’s theories. In fact, its better to not ‘know’ and just feel the connection and alignment that we (individuals, collective, earth), as particles, have to the immense and eternal field.
The image may help you see the insanity of 100% reliance on linear thinking for creative problem solving, scenario modeling and decision making.
Artist concept of Gravity Probe B orbiting the Earth to measure space-time, a four-dimensional description of the universe including height, width, length, and time.
Image credit: NASA
Einstein was right, probe shows: “Early results from a mission to test two key predictions of Albert Einstein show he was right about at least one.”
Gravity Probe B uses four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure two effects of Einstein’s general relativity theory.
One of these effects is called the geodetic effect, the other is called frame dragging. A common analogy is that of placing a heavy bowling ball on to a rubber sheet.
The bowling ball will sit in a dip, distorting the rubber sheet around itself in much the way a massive object such as the Earth distorts space and time around itself.
(Via BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition.)
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