The Week Before Christmas

“Twas the week before Christmas, when all through our town,
Everyone was frantic and  seriously needed to calm down.
The streets full of traffic and aisles of carts,
Shoppers hustling and bustling at the local save-a-lot marts.

The clerks were complaining , overworked in their heads,
While visions of their day off danced in their heads.
And I in my craziness set off to the mall,
Trying to make a payment aka bang my head on a wall.

When waiting in line the clerk made a clatter,
I so needed to correct his attitude matter.
I looked at the dude with whom I would clash,
All snug in his little ho ho ho sash.

My peace interrupted like sun on new snow,
I took a deep breath before I did blow.
When sternly I spoke like it was to a child,
He gave me a stare like a deer in the wild.

With a little word here and a look in the eye,
I realized very quickly his poor service he’d deny.
Quite rapid in height did his denial climb hig,
As he pointed his finger, and waved with a sigh.

“Now Lady! now, Lady! I have the power!
To make you wait longer, it is my rush hour!
To the back of the line! Off there you go!
Now dash away! Dash away! I am status quo!”

As soon as I realized his bells wouldn’t jingle,
I moved to the back and thought “What a dingle.”
All hollow and empty without realizing he’d flunked,
I watched him a moment then walked from the skunk.

And then I went looking through the little rat race,
To a kind little lady and her service place.
As I walked to her station and stood in her line,
I wondered if I would get out of there in time.

She seemed eager to help, from her head to her foot,
Her attitude wasn’t all tarnished with ashes and soot.
She was fast and efficient and a hardworking clerk,
And she was definitely someone who enjoyed her work.

Her eyes-how they twinkled! her voice full of merry!
Her cheeks held her smile sweet as a cherry.
Her words tied up her service with a nice little bow,
As she thanked every customer and set them aglow.

It’s not really that hard, it comes from within,
The attitude of service that never wears thin.
Who do you serve? and where do you give?
That’s the tell tale sign of just how you live.

When it’s all about you and no one else,
When it’s for others, not me and myself.
When it’s done without fear, when it’s for others you live,
Then it’s rewarded, you’re paid more than you give.

I got out on time, and went back to my work,
And I thanked God that I wasn’t that jerk,

Who pointed his finger, and stuck up his nose,
Asleep at the switch, not someone who knows.

That all service is giving, and giving is life,
No matter how busy, no matter your strife.
It’s all in the attitude, it’s all in the wrist,
It’s a pleasure to serve, a joy to assist.”

Reason happens for a cause

I think one of the silliest phrases on earth is “Everything happens for a reason.” Really? What does that mean exactly? I hear it when someone loses their job or gets sick. When I ask the person saying that “Who is the person or thing that makes the bad thing happen in the first place,” they say they don’t know. Yet they believe that  someone or something caused something terrible to happen so that they could then see something great happen as a result.

In my neighborhood, there is a two-lane intersection with only one-way marked with stop signs, so that those traveling east or west do not  have to stop. The lanes traveling north and south have a stop sign. It’s such a scarey intersection that I always slow down and look because it is the perfect storm for an accident. I’ve slowed down and HAD to stop in the intersection because the oncoming car stopped, then pulled out right in front of me thinking that I’m supposed to stop as well.

If there is an accident there, the reason will be because its a dangerous  intersection.

If after the accident the county decides to put in stop lights or another set of stop signs, someone will probably say the accident happened for a reason.  So, someone allowed someone else to get hurt so that we could have a safer intersection??

How about we reason about something after it has happened. There was an accident, and we considered what to do so that it didn’t happen again. I like that better. (Even better would be we see it is dangerous, let’s fix that before someone crashes.)

Let’s say  I lose my job. After thinking about what I’ll do next I have this epiphany and start my own business and realize that I’m glad I lost that job because now I am doing this. Does that mean that I lost my job for the reason of getting my new gig? Or did I apply reason to the cause?

Things happen for a reason, sure, but not in the way that some people mean. Reason happens for a cause.

The Other Guy’s Shoes

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a used book that had highlighter marks from the previous reader. Honestly, it kinda annoyed me to have their stuff brought to my attention over and over.  But,  I got to thinking about what I was highlighting in yellow versus what the other reader had highlighted in green. Sometimes we would mark the same passage, but most of the time we were on opposite ends of the spectrum of what drew our attention.

As I kept thinking about it, the phrase “prisoner of my own reality” came to mind, and I became less annoyed and more curious.  I wondered about what makes one person view a situation one way and someone else see the same situation entirely different.

I see this in the entertainment arena. For example, Simon Cowell on American Idol. He says what he thinks, and some agree and some boo. Alas, however harsh, he is right most of the time (my perspective!).

I see it in politics. One group will be enamored with a certain politician and the rest of the people will think he’s a cartoon character or worse. For some, his policies will save the universe, for the rest, they are a meteor sent to destroy.

I see this in religion. Two groups may read the same scripture verse but attribute different meaning to it. Some are allowed to smoke tobacco, but others believe doing so will send them to straight into the fiery pit.

Sir Ken Robinson, in his book The Element, tells a funny story of seeing a 40-year-old man strutting himself on the beach in California. He was “pale, hairy, and inhabited a sagging body that clearly spent its days at a desk and its nights on a bar stool.” Sir Robinson noted that although the man could be forgiven all these things, he certainly wouldn’t be forgiven for wearing a nylon, leopard-print thong while he did said strutting! He liked wearing his thong. No one else did.

So much in life is just a matter of perspective based on an individual’s culture, their perception of what is important or memorable, or what feels good, sounds good, or tastes good. I hate lima beans. My kids love them.

Some things are a matter of expertise or knowledge in a certain area. You might know more than me about something or other, so your expert opinion may differ from my novice take on it.

Whatever the reason, we all see things differently at times.

In the service field, especially customer service, we come in contact with people with all kinds of perspectives, some the same as ours and some not the same. We can turn down our own stress-o-meter and lighten up just by recognizing that, and allowing someone their perspective, putting ourselves in the other guy’s shoes, listening to their take on things. It’s not personal, it’s just another perspective. Just because we endeavor to see someone’s point of view  doesn’t mean we will lose our own. Just because we reach out to someone to see what they think, it doesn’t mean we will become them and lose our own way. It doesn’t mean we are wrong in our view. We are just looking at the picture from their vantage point. Sometimes we actually learn something valuable and  it changes us for the better, even when their view doesn’t become our own. Sometimes it cements our position. Sometimes it will change them to be more open to our view.

Seeing the other person’s reality and taking it into account prevents us from being a prisoner of our own reality, where our way is the only way, our opinion is the only opinion. We are always open to improvement.

This can also keep us from being a prisoner of someone else’s reality. But that’s another blog.

Velvet Ropes

Many times we as humans tend to run to someone else for help when we are able to help ourselves.  Many times we as humans aren’t as confident in our own know-how as we should be. We tend to  get talked out of our own talents and capabilities, either by ourselves via the amygdala of our brain, or by friends or family.

Many times we as humans aren’t curious enough to explore and to discover. Many times we as humans just go with the flow. Many times we as humans participate in the dance of the status quo, listening to the beat of the “That’s the way we’ve always done it” song.  We go along for the ride, like being in the fan club of life but not participating.

I noticed that horses do this too. I was watching a show about a trainer working in the back end (behind the scenes) at Churchill Downs where she cares for and trains race horses. What I found interesting is that all she needed to do was put a rope across the entrance of the stall and that race horse would not get out. I thought to myself, “Look at that horse. I imagine if it really wanted to go under the rope  it could fit. If the horse wanted to, it could jump over.” Right? There was plenty of room over and under, but the horse was restrained with just one little rope. Once in a while you meet a horse that has figured out how to unlatch a gate or untie a knot. Heck, I once saw a whole herd of cattle break through a fence line and parade through the street of a neighborhood I once lived in. Quite funny actually.

Many times we as humans are as restrained as race horses. We don’t invent, we don’t figure out how to go over a hurdle or under a hurdle. We just stand there. We just go with the flow.  We wait for someone else to figure out how to fix us or fix our situation for us, when we have our own brain, our own intelligence, our own inspiration, and our own artistry. We have it within us, but we have a little, invisible velvet rope keeping us in our place.

So when I came across this video regarding using what you have available to help yourself, I just had to post it.

This video is so cool. It’s by Kurt at Radio Active Trading. In the situation he describes, he was curious. He was inventive. He was a discoverer. He surpassed the status quo. He lifted the velvet rope and went on through.

You’ll enjoy this.             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBdb7oEcmYI

Not that hard

There’s a new health food store in our town, and I’d shop there more often if it wasn’t for the fact that  it’s a bit far from my house.  Wednesday is the big sale day with such incredible markdowns  it’s comical. Like avocados, 3 for $1, or beautiful, ripe pineapples for 99 cents. It’s bright and airy, with a good variety and stock of things. So, when I can or when I am already in that area, I like to stop in and stock up on produce. But I have noticed that the cashiers could use a little help in being customer friendly.

“Do you know the bulk code for this item?,” she asked me.

“I think it is #1099.” To which she made a face. So I immediately added, “I looked around, and couldn’t find a pen or a tag.”

“Well, I can tryyyy to look it up.” She was very serious and put the item to the side to deal with it at the end. Looking it up, she said, “No, it’s #1599, you were close.” Still serious.

Why not just say, “Oh, that’s no problem Mrs. Customer, I’d be happy to look that up for you.”

Not that hard.

Touchstones

Ever wonder why you listen to the advice of some people and not others? I find that I personally will listen to someone I trust, no matter how bizarre their opinion might seem to someone else.  I know them, and I trust them, and I’m basing that trust on my past experience with them.

Someone that I have grown to distrust can give what seems like the best advice, and I find myself right away blowing it off. I don’t trust them so no matter what they say, I tune them out.  I am unconsciously considering the source first.

I do this with people who annoy me too. They give advice, and I find they itch me. I don’t think about it, I just scratch and move on without taking the advice. I’m not saying I am right, I’m merely pointing something out.

Take a teenage girl in high school, for example. Her parents can try to talk her out of her interest in a certain boy they don’t like, but many times to no avail. They are her parents, the people in her life that love her and have nurtured her since the day she was born. They are in it for the long haul.  But she doesn’t  listen, and in this situation, she doesn’t trust them enough to heed the warning. She has tuned them out. Then one day, the girl hears something from a friend or the boy does something she deems stupid, and boom, the love affair is over.

Customers are like this too. If their trust in your business is squandered, if they have tuned you out, then they will go elsewhere. No matter how many times you try to get their attention with gimmicks or hot dogs, they have gone offline. And their trust and attention can be broken a million ways. Bad product. Bad service. Bad policies. Bad weather. Bad price. Bad hair day. Bad anything, as customers can be fickle, which is opposite of loyal. They are easily rubbed the wrong way.

Rubbing the wrong way comes from the use of the word  touchstone, which was a very dark rock that an assayer would use. He would rub gold, for example, on the slate or touchstone, and compare the streak that was left behind to that of the streak left by what he knew as real gold, and then closely compare the two streaks. If they matched, he had real gold. The mark on the touchstone was the standard.

It’s so easy to rub someone the wrong way, to go against the standard of what they believe or hold dear, and they may be rubbed the wrong way without even knowing why, they just are. You can be perfect, and that alone would rub someone the wrong way. That is why it is so important to connect with customers, to be genuinely thankful for their patronage, and to keep your thinking in the mode of server rather than one that they should be serving.

They will compare the streak you leave behind on their standard, and they will know if you are the real thing, without even giving it a conscious thought. It just is.

Failure is an 8 letter word

Maybe failure is not a good word. Or maybe we’ve just been brainwashed to think of it only as a negative. Maybe we should change it to “stepping stone” or “experience” or something else so that we won’t be so afraid of it.

Abraham Lincoln endured many failures, but is revered as one of the greatest American presidents of all time.

Bill Gates was a college drop out. Have you ever heard of Microsoft?

Isaac Newton did horrible in school.

Thomas Edison’s teachers thought he was stupid. He tried 9000 experiments before he invented the light bulb.

Soichiro Honda couldn’t get hired by Toyota.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team because he lacked skill.

Colonel Sanders chicken was rejected 1009 times before a restaurant accepted it. Ever hear of KFC?

John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by 16 publishers.

Akio Morita, founder of Sony, started with rice cookers that burned the rice rather than cook it.

Meryl Streep has been nominated 16 times for the Academy Award Oscar. She only won twice.

Henry Ford’s first 2 car companies failed. He forgot to add a reverse gear in his first car.

Marilyn Monroe was dropped by 20th Century Fox because she was considered ugly and not a good actor.

Steven Spielberg was a high school dropout.

Lucille Ball was dropped from acting class for being too shy.

Charles Shultz, author of Peanuts cartoon, was rejected by his high school yearbook committee.

So what stepping stones in your life can you brag about?

Schlepping the Numbo

Ever watch the show Kitchen Nightmares? I do, and I love it. It chronicles Chef Gordon Ramsay, known to be one of the best chefs in the world, as he goes into an existing restaurant to try to save it from the owner(s).

These restaurants are usually hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, filthy dirty (where’s the health inspector when you need them?), with outdated decor, lousy or confusing menu’s, greasy-awful food, and customers no where to be found. On one episode I saw, he actually closed down a dining room with customers when he discovered that the food they were eating came from containers full of rancid food.

Often the families of these owners are in serious jeopardy of being torn apart,  and their entire livelihoods on the brink of destruction.

In comes Chef. He watches their operation with a sharp eye. He makes his diagnosis and formulates a plan. More than once he has vomited before he gets to the plan part.

The whole process is amusing to me, as I watch the Chef attempt to dunk an angry and stressed out cat into a bathtub full of ice water.

Without fail, the owner will think that Ramsay is crazy, that he just can’t know what he is talking about. (check out http://www.gordonramsay.com – he seems accomplished to me!) Chef will invariably schlepp  the numbo into the storage area or walk-in fridge and  show them the mold growing in the refrigerator, point out the roaches all over the “clean” dishes, the grease caked on all the cooking services and their crevices, and the rat feces lining the prep counters. (Getting hungry yet?)

Without fail, the owners will stare like a deer in the headlights, with the “Wow, gee, I had no idea. We clean the place daily.”

With much weeping and gnashing of the teeth from the owner, the Chef will confront the issues head on, in his usual English and brutally honest way. Ramsay will  reinvent the menu, teach them to cook and use fresh (not frozen) food, redecorate and modernize the dining area and  logo, and pack the place to the gills with new customers. Most often he manages to get a food critic in to help with spreading the word.

All this in a matter of 2 or 3 days.

Watch it sometime. These business owners had become prisoners of their own reality; lazy, arrogant, and afraid to take a hard look at themselves, afraid to change and grow. Before this, these stubborn people would listen to no one and take suggestions from no one. They were nice and comfortable in their warm and cozy habits, even though the world around them was not looking so good.

Let us not be inmates in our mental fantasies. Let us learn to listen. Let us learn to listen to those we serve. Let those we serve, especially management, listen to us  – their staff. If the staff isn’t worth listening to, then why were they hired?

There’s less poop outside the factory

I’ve been thinking a lot about factories, more specifically, factory workers, and  it seems many people are talking about them.

Seth Godin, in his new book  Linchpin says “When people realize that they are not a cog in a machine, an easily replaceable commodity, they take the challenge and grow. They produce more than you pay them to because you are paying them with something worth more than money. They do more than they’re paid to, on their own, because they value quality for its own sake, and they want to do good work. They need to do good work.”

Working behind the scenes in customer service call centers, I’ve noticed that front line agents, those that take the calls, are often trained to put the square peg in the square hole as fast as possible, even faster than that, for the least amount of pay possible. In some cases, especially contracted agents (those who aren’t employees), these workers are required to live with very little support or encouragement. I’ve also noticed that these agents are easily replaced with a new batch of workers who will also work as fast as possible, for perhaps even less money. They are pushed to compliance  by those who are unashamedly labeled as Compliance Managers. These managers often express frustration that these agents are stupid, lifeless, and without good service skills. But not to worry, when new agents come out of training, the Compliance Manager can goto his handy dandy statistical report, run his fingers down the list,  cut the bottom off and send them packing. They brush off their hands, and hope that the new ones will ‘get it.’ This happens over and over in some places, its just the way it is. It’s an assembly line, a factory, where parts (people) are interchangeable.

When the big scare regarding pet food safety hit a few years ago, my husband and I decided to bite the bullet and have our dog food delivered by a great company called Furry Friends. They will deliver 30# of premium dog food to our door, usually within a couple hours of us calling. We were hesitant at first because we had been buying a cheaper brand recommended by a friend who saw a great review in a consumer test magazine. The cost of the premium bag vs our cheaper brand was about $15 a bag.We  figured a living dog is better than a dead, poisoned dog, and thought we could cut back somewhere else.

But an amazing thing happened. The better the food, the more nutritious it was, the less our dog would eat. We had been buying the cheaper food every other week and having to do more “poop patrol” in the yard. And pardon me, but the dog farted more too!!!

With the new food, and I am not kidding, we buy a bag every 5 or 6 weeks. He just doesn’t need to eat so much. So, by spending more on the best, we are saving money, collecting less poop in the yard, and the house always smells like roses!!

The moral of the story:  If you pay more for better workers, if you actually act like you like them, if you encourage, help, and support them, your turnover rate will decrease, your cost to train new ones will decrease, your monkey-to-expert ratio will be lower, and your people will be happier and work in partnership with you to take your business to heights you never dreamed of. You’ll also be dealing with a lot less poop and hopefully, less farting as well.

Fans vs Tribes

I always enjoy reading things that reflect how I think but can’t put into words. One such book that does this for me is “The Element,” by Sir Ken Robinson.

More than once in my life I have been a part of a group, thinking that it was a tribe, and realizing later that it was a fan club. I am not sure that people really are conscious of the reasons they join one group or another, or even that they have joined a group or if they joined as a fan or to be part of a tribe.

But I know that there is a huge difference between being a FAN of something, and belonging to a TRIBE, and have noticed this in some of the groups that I have belonged to. I remember thinking in one group, “I think there is one part of our group that belongs to a group within our group,” yet not being able to put my finger on it enough to take its pulse and articulate it, even in my own thinking. It was both a curiosity to me and a frustration for me.

Until I read Sir Robinson’s work.

Being a fan is like being a part of a crowd, like football or hockey fans. Fans are usually in the same group for the same reasons and feel the same passions. Sports fans may cover their lawns with the same flags or wear their team jersey, and their moods may shift depending on  how their team did in their last game. Fans show up for the game, stand on the sidelines, sit in the bleachers, cheer and boo depending on what’s happening, but they aren’t in the game. They are  only important if their cheering motivated the team, but the win or loss is not really dependent on the fan. The fan goes along for the ride.

Fans will often take the side of their team in an argument or issue, regardless of whether or not the team is right. I’m a Dolphin’s fan. I know, we haven’t done great in years, but we are the only team in the NFL to go undefeated an entire season, so there!! But even though I see our weaknesses, I don’t like to hear those silly Bronco fans mouth off about the fish. I’m a fan.

Sir Robinson explains that people often derive a large sense of who they are through affiliation with specific groups and tend to associate themselves closely with groups likely to boost their self-esteem. Fandom is in many ways ‘deindividuation’, losing your sense of identity. Perhaps you could think of it as allowing themselves to rise or fall according to someone else’s accomplishments or believing. When taken to the extreme, its a mob mentality. Basking in reflected glory is what Robert Cialdini called it. The Dolphins win, I bask in the glory, even though I had nothing to do with the win, I contributed nothing really.

A tribe is something different. Tribes are formed with people of like passion, coming together for inspiration, motivation, learning. It is a place where you find others who think like you, who share your interest or way of life, who cheer you on, and who inspire you to pursue your calling and work out your own wholeness, your own goals, in the way in which you, the individual, is meant to do it. The tribe is not threatened by who you are and what you do. In fact, its just the opposite.

Tribes help people become more of themselves, what they are and do, leading them to a greater sense of individuality and accomplishment. Everyone has their own intelligence, their own ideas, their own abilities, and tribes can encourage that and foster success in the individual, which in turn, makes the tribe even more vibrant and successful.

Being a fan is partisanship. Being in a tribe of like-minded people takes you to self-realization, where who you are and what you do really matters and can flourish.