April 2007
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TWO MUSINGS
LEADERS KNOW HOW TO ASK FOR POSITIVE COLLABORATION!
Leaders understand this key distinction: We have to help people help US to win! But we'd like it to be 'positive sum'. In other words, THEY win in the process too!
A colleague of mine lands in Boston, literally 25 minutes before his connecting flight from Boston to Hyannis. It's a small twin propeller flight and he's got only carry-on in hand.
It still seems hopeless, but he decides not to 'assume'. Flagging a customer rep he asks if the flight is on time. To his chagrin, he learns it is! Most of the time he knows the usual delays would have been his deliverance.
The connecting flight is on Cape Air. He runs for the shuttle to the other terminal, and 'just' catches the one pulling away from the curb. He calls Cape Air on his mobile, shares his predicament, and asks if they can 'hold' the plane for just 5 minutes. He knows that with air traffic and bag loading, that's almost a given anyway. They are startled by his request and say, 'You're kidding right?'
He says, 'No, could you please ask, I'm literally around the corner.' They call and verify they'll hang on for him for another 5 minutes.
He dashes in, rushes up the escalator, and arrives at the gate. They tell him they were expecting him but HAD to pull away from the gate due to their internal policies.
My colleague asks one of the gate agents, "Given that you had agreed to wait, and the plane is right there on the tarmac,? what can you do about getting me on board?" The gate agent replies, 'Nothing.'
Undeterred, my colleague turns to the other gate agent. "I need help, and I believe you're the person to give it to me. Who can say 'yes' to me, given that the plane is still just there, it's a small plane, the ladder is still visible and close by? Who would it hurt to help me out here? Cindy, please do what you can for me (reading her name tag and personalising the request)."
Cindy is moved by his plight AND his personal appeal to her. On the spot, she makes a decision. She calls the captain of the plane right there and then and asks if she can get my friend on board.
After a minute, she turns back to my colleague and says, 'It's a small plane, the captain wants to know how much you weigh.'
My colleague, with a smile, replies: 'How much do you want me to weigh?' With a laugh, Cindy says, 'Forget, it follow me!' He 'just' gets on board!
This is a rather radical case, but it demonstrates a number of principles popularised by Jeff Blackman:
- Be polite throughout, but firmly persistent (when there's even HALF a chance to get the necessary action).
- Stay calm and resourceful, offer ideas for others to implement. (Even if they can't do what you request, only they often know what IS possible, and your ideas may 'trigger' their own thinking).
- Follow up on the process (don't wait for 'I'll get back to you') and get firm agreed action time-lines.
- Make this a time for hope, not helplessness. Clearly look at ALL options...pick your first preference, as well as your 'next best' to go for. That way you know what you're aiming for.
- Keep asking questions that reveal the possibilities (politely keep probing).
- Spend 90% of your time with the people who can say 'yes' (converge on decision makers not 'handlers').
- If you can't find a decision maker, find an 'influential', someone who can say 'yes', and influence the ultimate 'yes'.
- Create a team spirit (it's you and them working to make it happen).
- Help someone else win (let them feel great, write a note of appreciation to their supervisor, give deep appreciation).
- The moment you have the decision, be appreciative and MOVE. Don't linger, don't give people time for 'second thoughts'. Say 'thank you', SMILE...get going!
Does it work for more than twin propeller planes and service 'saints' called Cindy? Absolutely!
Some time ago I had to extend a stay in Singapore. The next day I had to reach Dalat in Vietnam. I was ticketed throughout on SQ. Unfortunately the next day the SQ flight would get me into Ho Chi Minh City too late to make the Dalat connection.
I called the SQ service centre. There were no other SQ flights. How else could I get there I asked? How about connections via other airlines? I kept giving suggestions. After a few attempts, the lady got into it, and said, 'Just a moment' (this after initially telling me it was hopeless). She got back on and said there was a Garuda Air flight from Singapore that would work, and it was direct to Ho Chi Minh City from Singapore. I then requested if they would endorse me onto that flight.
Please note the change in plans was not their fault. I was asking for a 'favour' as a Gold Card SQ member and loyal fan. She paused, and perhaps taken by the spirit of our exchange as well as the spirit of service, said 'Okay'. She helped her organisation earn my gushing gratitude. I got the sticker put on FAST!
This again illustrates...get people involved in helping you WIN. People are actually quite happy to help more of the time than not. Dale Carnegie wrote a long time ago about the type of person that even the Caretaker is sorry to see go! This is someone who appreciates others and offers sincere recognition.
In Singapore, Raffles Hotel is my 'home away from home'. They work hard to make us feel at 'home'. I have fun with them reciprocally. We were chuckling with the staff while loading our bags in their car about how they buy my favorite Haagen Daz flavor and have it available for me at Raffles. Just then a gust of wind blew a $10 note out of my hand. I had pulled it out to have someone run in and get me some change for it. It blew right into the hands of one of the valets. Beaming he came over to hand it back to me. Here was chance for some of that 'heartfelt recognition', not to mention some FUN.
I said, in the hearing of the GM who was standing close by, 'Hey I don't want it back. It blew right to you! That's Karma! I don't want to mess with that. It's probably a cosmic tribute to your excellent service and winning attitude.' There was a chorus of laughter and the valet went beaming on his way...hopefully proud of his professionalism and service, and eager to offer it to the next guest he came across.
So ask yourself, 'Who could help me and my organisation achieve our goals?' Then ask how you could create some value for them in doing so. How could you connect better with people who can say 'yes'? How can you build them up and help them write THEIR victory song (not yours). How can you make sure they get visibility and appreciation for their efforts? See how you can become a publicist for people whose 'can do' attitude and willingness to help deserve kudos and PR.
My father as an Ambassador had a great trick in terms of multiplying networks and 'open sesame' possibilities. As he landed in a new town he would ask initial Embassy contacts to suggest 4-5 interesting people to have over for dinner. They were then invited to an initial party. He looked into their interests, their organisations, their hobbies, and treated them as truly honored guests...which they were. He then asked each of them, as to the names of another 5-6 people they would recommend he dine with and get to know. Each of those next 5-6 were asked in turn. To this day, my dad who is now retired, can get amazing things done virtually anywhere he goes around the world (complimentary stays, tickets to sold out shows, invitations to 'select' occasions and much more) -- due to these carefully nurtured networks, friendships and relationships.
As I went to the airport from Raffles to board the Garuda Air flight, the security check person in front of Immigration beamed at me: 'Good morning sir, how are you?'
I replied enthusiastically, 'Excellent, how about you?'
Came the reply, 'VERY good sir. Why not? Life's too short. Always be grateful!' And with that he helped me with the bag and wished me a good flight.
What did the positive attitude we shared cost either of us? Nothing. What did it contribute to a memorable and unexpected moment? Quite a bit. He got better cooperation, I got a hand with a heavy bag.
I noticed he repeated this with the next passenger, who just glared at him in a surly manner. What a shame! The well-heeled passenger grunted his bag onto the belt, while the bemused security agent looked at him with curiousity.
HELP people HELP you! Ask for cooperation in a way that inspires people to offer it. Build up your networks so that you can multiply the value of this potential. Collaborate with others so that they become part of your value chain in the exercise of making it happen. As powerful as this is with strangers, imagine its value with partners, suppliers, team members and friends.
As you live this paradigm, you create tidal ways of positivity, possibility, reciprocal cooperation and mutual empowerment for everyone you interact with and enable.
Happy collaboration!
BECOMING AN OBJECT OF DESIRE
Some time ago my wife and I were conducting a leadership session in Surrey, England. My wife Leslie and I walked into a small store and our eyes were caught by an unusual bag of potato chips -- Devon Potato Chips. The bag was distinctive, but we were most taken by the fact that the store-keeper proudly started to tell us about why he was so delighted to include them in his store. He began to do an ad for one of the products he stocked! They begin with premium potatoes from specially selected fields we learned, and so the legend on the bag confirmed. They are individually prepared in unique batches that are overseen. The batch was indicated, and so was the name of the PERSON who fried the contents of this particular bag, at the perfect temperature and for a carefully monitored period of time! 'Fried by Henry' the bag broadcasts. The sheer personality and pride behind the preparation of each bag literally asserted itself to us. Not only were the potato chips or 'Crisps' as they are called in the UK remarkably delicious, our experience with them glistened with distinctiveness due to their pedigree, preparation and personality. Bravo Devon! By the by, each store that stocks their products, gets a picture of all the Fryers, grinning together with accomplishment. The store-keeper pointed out Henry!
Frank Perdue de-commoditized chicken. Not only did he go for the best quality, but he packaged his chicken with colorful distinction, with colour dividers letting shoppers know where the Perdue chickens are. There are pop-up thermometers that indicate when the bird is done, and recipes printed on the package to suggest how to create tasty memories for oneself and one's family. This is a real 'brand experience’ that begins with the best product, but then creates an emotional link with customers through sharing an imaginative personality and thereby PERSONALISING the offering. Frank Perdue, rather than a well sculpted model, became the media spokesperson. And so came the much lauded and award-winning ad campaign line: 'It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.' Everyone loved it; the chicken was part of a 'story', and $2.7 billion in revenue today shows that it endures. Other Perdue innovations included being the first poultry company to provide nutritional labeling on packages, the first to offer a money-back customer satisfaction guarantee and a toll-free consumer hotline (for chicken)! They were also the first to offer fully cooked chicken in microwavable containers...and on and on. Thus do chickens enter our lore and connect to both our sentiments as well as our taste buds. We are loyal to the philosophy as well as the chicken.
Buenos Aires. A riverfront real estate development needs a campaign to promote it. Realizing the clutter in the marketplace of glitzy and obviously fake promotional campaigns, their consultants come up with an ingenious insight. Taking their cue from the fact that Buenos Aires is one of the few world capitals with few landmarks (only one really at that time in a city of 3 million spanning 77 square miles), they encouraged their client to help build an 'instant landmark'. The actual real estate development which wanted more visibility, included offices, apartments, shops and restaurants, and was located in a less busy part of town. So the consultants suggested building a landmark bridge, a bridge across the river, so that there would be easier access. This would work as long as the bridge was a magnet and in exploring it, people would be naturally led to the development! To add more personality, panache and flair to the idea, the client commissioned a world-famous architect (diverting fees for the ad campaign into this instead). They thereby helped to create a tribute to the city's culture, not to mention generating all kinds of PR attention, free media coverage and much more. It was an extraordinary way to create a personal equation with residents of the city as well as visitors and to lift their development into the stratosphere instead of just rolling out cute jingles. Personality, specialness, connection, imagination, all were highlighted once more.
Singapore has a zoo. How to give the zoo a personality? Singapore creates a 'Night Safari', a ride which takes you through beautifully lit 'animal habitats'. The zoo has flair in the morning too, when you can have 'Breakfast with the Orangutans'. Suddenly, the zoo is truly interactive, educational, experiential, and PERSONAL.
Niagara-on-the-Lake is a pretty town about 30 minutes away from Niagara Falls in Canada. To distinguish itself, it has hosted 'The Shaw Festival', the only theatre festival in the world dedicated to the work of George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries (Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, Virginia Woolfe, Thornton Wilder and many others). While there are numerous Shakespeare festivals, there is only one Shaw. This Festival expresses a more modern and perhaps more urgent set of themes, themes that inflamed the world at the cusp of the last century -- some of which continue to haunt us today. A Hong Kong entrepreneur, added to the personality and uniqueness of the town by purchasing and restoring the grand old hotels of the town like the Prince of Wales, adding exceptional restaurants, world-class spa treatments and more. The town has a Main Street with an old-time Apothecary shop, lovely antiques, fudge shops, wine tastings and more, replete with carriage rides and vintage cars. Not far away are some interesting wineries with restaurants of their own. Close by, horse-back riding, one of the oldest Steamboats still on the river, tours of Fort George... The town has CONNECTED with travelers who yearn for a taste of yesteryear with modern comforts and provides for cultural, gastronomic, athletic, aesthetic and other diversions galore. The town itself becomes a highly personal and beloved experience that takes us to another time as well another mood and pace.
Our challenge as these examples suggest, is to become a highly personal OBJECT OF DESIRE for our customers and all those who interact with us. We can do it whether we offer seeming commodities like potato chips and frozen chicken, or we can do it as someone running a zoo, or even seeking to uplift a town, or attract visibility for a commercial development. We can do it if we care enough and are brash enough to really stretch. If we can show genuine EMPATHY with the customer experience, unleash our IMAGINATION, display STYLE and PERSONALITY, we begin to create both distinction and differentiation. As one observer said, our aim is to literally 'INTIMIDATE THEIR IMAGINATION'.
KEY LEARNING POINT: Is our business 'an object of desire'? In what way could it be, should it be? What aspects of our value offering 'intimidate imaginations' and redefine the game itself? An important question to ask about what we do from the point of view of our customers is: 'What would they LOVE?' The answers will invariably come down to interactions that show abundant:
- personality
- specialness
- Wow! Appeal
It takes leadership to liberate and stimulate this audacity in our people. We have to model the willingness to create such extraordinary experiences. Our job is to make an impact on the world. The primary difference between management and leadership comes down to this. Management is about dealing with resources. Leadership is about dealing with ourselves, and then our people, to invent tomorrow’s dazzling potential not just today’s improved quality offering.
This month, with our teams, let's look for ways to accentuate the distinctive personality of our business, to enhance the imaginative specialness of what we do and how we do it, and look for arenas where we can be genuinely memorable and 'intimidate the imagination'. Let's innovate ways to leave those who become part of our story, 'breathless with joy', and to connect with their desire to be 'blown away' with delight.
Omar Khan,
Senior Partner, Sensei International
Phone: 1 (212) 295 2191, Fax: 1 (212) 295 2121
e-mail: omar@sensei-international.com
Omar Khan is a globally acknowledged leadership development innovator and success coach. He is a sought after change catalyst and a pioneer in transformational learning. He is the author of the acclaimed book SYNERGY as well as the newly released and much awaited, TIMELESS LEADERSHIP.
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