Catch Omar Khan's upcoming article called 'Confessions of a Global Coach' in the July/August issue of ACROSS THE BOARD Magazine. Published in the US, ACROSS THE BOARD is a premier magazine for CEO's, Chairmen of the Board, and senior leaders, with commentary from top global business leaders and thought leaders.

VIEWS FROM THE ROAD

Unlike most of our newsletters, this one is a 'confection' of experiencesand musings from the road. While individually valuable, you may find that that their conclusions nevertheless intersect at certain epicenters. Let's see.

"We only give out one key. It's for security."

My wife and I arrived at the Sofitel Central Plaza in Bangkok for a week of client work. My wife is also my business partner and with the variety of client work and practise management requirements between the two of us, our daily schedules aren't always similar. Even leaving that aside, our personal biorhythms sometimes mandate different activities, not surprisingly. As a practical matter, we therefore always ask for two keys.

This well known property in Bangkok however, demurred. They had done well up to that point. We had been whisked from hotel limo to a separate check-in desk. All formalities had been completed in the blink of an eye. But now we were at an impasse. A manager was called who told us that the hotel doesn't give out multiple keys, for security reasons.

Challenging assumptions on behalf of clients is what I do for a living, so I asked him to kindly explain the security 'reason' to me. Well that flummoxed him. This was clearly one of those corporate inanities that had become confirmed as gospel and not been scrutinised.

I tried to help out, pointing out that this policy was probably intended for single guests who asked for multiple keys. I could see a security issue if that guest started handing out keys to unregistered guests for example. But when there are two occupants of the same room, duly registered?

I also pointed out that they had a security elevator which requires you to put your key in for access to the Club Floors. Since were going to be on one of the Club Floors, I asked him to consider the sheer insanity of their policy. If my wife and I were out at different locations, and one returned earlier than the other and went up in the elevator with the key obviously, the other person couldn't get the elevator activated to go to the requisite floor, as you need a key for that!

Or if we were having dinner, and I chose to linger in the bar, and my wife opted to go up earlier, one or the other of us would need to find a hotel employee to get the elevator to even go up to our floor, even if we could count on each other not to have the temerity to be in the shower when the doorbell rang!

Anyway, after this primitive flexing of logic, and my even more primitive farenheit 'spike' made an impact, we were allowed to sign a hotel log, and get our precious 'contraband': the extra key.

Here is a prime example of what happens every day in businesses. You create a policy for one reason (no multiple keys for the same guests on security grounds) and that mutates into 'one key only' even for families or multiple guests despite a key-activated security elevator which requires a key. Moreover, all the staff can do is continue to recite monotonously: 'It's for security,' without being able to explain at all HOW this makes anyone more secure!

This compares with some of the other 'gems' I've heard in this regard. On Singapore Airlines (my overall favourite airline by the way), I was told when asking about the lack of availability of more than 'small' size for their First Class Sleeper Suits on a particular flight: 'We usually have more than one size on board sir.' I kept waiting for the NEXT line. I politely enquired why they didn't have more than one size on THIS flight, and if perhaps we could ensure feedback was given based on the source of the problem.

The same line was parroted: 'We usually have them sir.' I couldn't quite grasp how this was at all responsive to my question and concern. That they usually have them is a wonderful bit of trivia, or perhaps psychologically reassuring relative to my 'chances' in this regard on future flights, but does little to explain what went wrong this time, such that they could provide appropriate feedback to the necessary people.

While continuing to recite this mantra, they even offered to mail me a larger size sleeper suit! While charming, it's an example of being willing to solve the wrong problem, rather than step out of the corporate recital. I thanked them, but assured them that at home I could make my own arrangements, the need was actually now.

Also comparable was when in Dubai I was trying to pay my phone bill at Etisalat via their payment machine using cash. It kept rejecting the cash. When I finally got the wandering attention of the representative at the facility, he said: 'Hundreds of people have successfully used that machine.' I told him I cheered their good fortune, but it was scant consolation as I could not join their ranks because the machine was currently NOT functioning, and therefore would he mind helping?

He shook his head dismissively: 'Hundreds of customers...' I asked him if he would mind demonstrating how they had coaxed this machine into fulfilling that statistic. With several groans and bodily convulsions, he leveraged himself up, only to confirm the machine was indeed dysfunctional. And then glaring at me with what seemed like substantial annoyance, he 'condescended'to accept payment directly. You'll note the pattern again here. However many hundreds have been previously successful doesn't in any way respond to the current distress of this customer!

So what's the larger pattern? Corporate or individual self-absorption. The creation of a policy, a system, or a response, that pretends as if being human and open is too great an imposition when interacting with customers who have fluid needs and 'annoyingly' legitimate desires or requests that don't 'colour within the lines' of our system. The system gets the idolatry. And even though it is allegedly designed 'for the customer', when it fails or flounders the company shows that what it actually values is 'efficiency' certainly not 'customer engagement'.

Consider the assinine policy of American Express (again usually a service brand I admire and enjoy utilising) when we returned to live back in the US after having been overseas for a decade. I wanted to shift my American Express account back to the US. They told me that was impossible, as my card had been issued in Asia, and that was a separate division. I told them how they carved up the world was irrelevant to me, and the fact of different geography was surely irrelevant in a networked and wired world.

In that smug way that only those bred in the swamps of customer apathy can manage, the lady raised her voice slightly and said: "You're not listening to me sir, I can't help you, that's a separate system.' Again, a restatement of an internal reality that made no market sense in terms of being able to get business for her organisation in the US.

I asked if they could issue me a NEW card. She looked into it and told me 'no', because I had been so long away from the US, I had no credit history there. I pointed out that I had an Amex card for 10 years, with staggering amounts being dutifully cleared each month (as I use that card for my business travel and expenses as well). She repeated the catechism: 'It's a separate division sir, they have nothing to do with us...'

This was freakish! 'Credit history' means a known pattern of being credit-worthy. Yet this was the same business which had 10 years of statistics on me! I tried to point out that 10 years of patronage IS a credit history, and whatever their internal arrangements, they are BRANDED the same way and ARE the same global organisation in P&L terms ultimately. Though we were on the phone, I could almost 'hear' her eyes glazing over as she sighed with as much exasperation as she could convey.

To this day I'm fascinated to understand how it is sane to ignore your loyal customers and disregard a decade's credit history established with your own organisation, even if in another region? Does crossing the Atlantic supposedly erase your personhood? I understand it does so in their system apparently, but WHY?

Again, what was probably first created for FOCUS (in terms of divisions that focus on markets that have distinctive needs), and because different credit criteria are relevant in each country when you first sign up (and therefore this was likely an attempt to customise application procedures on behalf of the customer) has now morphed into a mindless impediment that makes the alleged 'seamlessness' of our digital era a joke.

Mentality always impedes or enables technology, it always has and it always will, because 'possibility' is born in the mind and heart, and only eventually in the keyboard. Note again, a common feature, 'the system' rules even when it forces you to ignore someone's loyalty with your own brand and company.

Just as we were hanging up, she even said: 'Thank you for calling American Express sir, we are dedicated to giving you world class service.' I should have suggested they say instead: 'Thank you for calling American Express, we're dedicated to giving you world class service if you happen to fall into our geographical area or accounting division, otherwise you don't exist no matter how much money you've spent with us globally and we'd be grateful if you'd drop dead and not upset our carefully constructed universe.'

Needless to say, this is all only worth sharing, because you and I doubtless do the same. We write 'policies' and 'systems' and give our people 'scripts' because we want our customers to have a predictable, reliable and rewarding experience. However, we all-too-often create all this from OUR perspective, not theirs. We don't look at the key 'moments of truth' and reward our staff for reporting absurdities (however inadvertant and unintended) at any and all touchpoints . We don't stop to ask what the policies were FOR, and apply an 'ends' test, ie. are they fulfilling the real 'end' or purpose for which they were created.

Ask your team to nominate, either relative to internal OR external customers (ideally both), at least 3 such items for the annual 'corporate insanity' awards. Eliminate 2-3 each half-year AT LEAST, and watch the surge of customer delight and employee excitement as a result. Just try it. I promise you'll be hooked!

How do you know what you'll be in the mood for 3 months from now?

As my wife and I travel almost incessantly, we create rituals and routines in various cities that we frequently land in to make ourselves feel 'at home'. As I was leaving one of my favourite Four Seasons hotels, I left my restaurant bookings for 3 months hence, when we were scheduled to return. I do this quite regularly, and this proactive 'eccentricity' of mine tends to produce some amusement and titters among the concierges in various cities who become my accomplices and co-conspirators.

This lady concierge who I've known for some time, just couldn't resist: 'But Mr. Khan, we do this for you every time, and I've been dying to ask, how do you know what you'll be in the mood for 3 months from now?'

Great question! And it gave rise to a very personal meditation on this subject. There was a surface answer of course. When you love something, as I love cuisines and dining out, 'mood' often has very little to do with it. In other words, in New York I'm always 'in the mood' for lox and bagels, or cheese blintzes, or Papaya King Hot Dogs, or the Beijing Duck House. In Venice, the mood always takes me to Harry's Bar. In Paris, baguettes and beignets, foie gras and the 'secret sauce' at L'Entrecote beguile my waking dreams. In Singapore, it's Hainese Chicken Rice and Laksa and Lychee Ginger Ice Cream from Haagen Daz. In Pakistan, Biryanis and Karahis and Halwas. You get the idea... The mood is shaped and influenced by the genius of the place we're in. I wouldn't want to be victim to a mood so capricious as to be miserable for great pastrami in Istanbul for example.

Now, we all get 'cravings', and international hotels and truly international cities can often satisfy a variety of temporary whimsies -- for example my 'home town' of New York City is particularly fertile in this regard, where you can get both first-rate pastrami as well as top-notch Turkish kebabs say. But by and large our moods have to be stimulated and channeled, not just capitulated to, in this as in so much else in life. Let me take two primary examples, leadership and love.

Imagine someone wanting to know, 'How do you know you'll be in the mood for leadership next month when this key change initiative is launched?' Or, how about, 'How do you know you'll be in the mood for both empathy AND igniting change when tomorrow's coaching session rolls around?' Well, the answer is, because my 'mood' has to flow finally from my passion, my purpose, my conviction. If those things can't help me transcend the vagaries of my personal chemistry that day or my situational reactions to bumps on the road of life that I may encounter, I should get out of the leadership business.

We have to 'lead' our state of mind and heart, we have to care enough to 'extend' ourselves despite a funk. We have to take a stand where our convictions and commitments tell us it's needed.

It doesn't mean we can't admit, in exceptional situations, that we're depressed, or down, or need some time. That's being human. But leadership is not about a temperature reading of flitting moods, it's about the dynamic equilibrium that comes from our purpose, passion and focus.

Take love. I was counselling a couple the other month, and they regretted the fact that their marriage had reached a plateau, where neither were as excited as they once had been. They worried about their occasionally listless conversations and the missing 'spice' in their romance. I pointed out to them that love is NOT about 'feeling lovingly' all the time. That's the unspoken secret that never gets out.

We all believe that if we're not feeling 'over the moon' all day, every day, we've failed somehow. And of course we can't share our boredom or ennui, because the other person will feel threatened. Why? Because they'll think we don't really love them, love being defined in this daffy way as a form of permanent intoxication.

When this couple accepted the fact that love is a verb and proven by being present for each other in all kinds of ways, that they were agonising over this because they DID love each other (a parent yelling at a child to be careful near an open fire isn't 'feeling' love at that moment, but their agitation comes from their love as a state of 'being' ), they had a eureka.

When love was redefined by them as also including, trusting each other enough to share what they each were feeling, and 'showing up' for each other in conversations and interactions at times whether they 'felt like it' or not, something wonderful happened, and a positive shift occurred.

They realised they could even take 'time out' from each other and not threaten the other. This if the 'time out' was to re-energise themselves, and therefore the relationship. Love, they discovered, could be abundantly present, even if ecstasy in every particular moment wasn't. Love, like leadership is also about the confluence of our passion, our purpose and our freely given commitment.

Don't get me wrong, certainly we have easier days and harder days. There are days when everything flows and we feel like virtuosos in our work life and personal life. And other days, we feel we have cement shoes on. But the test of leadership and love is whether we care enough, have enough courage, to come through, as best we can, on both types of days. As we do, the feelings we seek flow once more and surge!

Despite Hollywood's desire to showcase heroism as something that happens in one life-altering dramatic occasion, real life is invariably more subtle. The real heroism, in leadership and life, happens day by day, moment by moment, in all kinds of quietly important, often unsung ways. That's the crucible in which who we are gets forged.

Thank you Dale and Leo

I called a past client who has now retired and works with us on occasion. I was upset about a challenge at his past company. It was late at night in the part of the world I was in, and quite early in the day for him. As the line connected, he said in the most welcoming voice: 'Omar!'

Wow! It was just what I needed, it was truly rejuvenating. I let off some steam, we consulted together, we had a laugh, and I felt immeasurably better.

Thank you my friend.

Some months ago, we were setting up a business in a new country, and I called a dear friend who was going to be a local Director. There was some additional paperwork the local authorities had just 'discovered' and given my upcoming visit, we had to get this done right away or face further delays and costs. I called her late at night, feeling quite guilty to disturb her. After greeting me, she said simply, 'It's not like you to call this late. How are you? What can I do?"

With a response like that, how can you be cynical about this world? She handled it for us the next day, indicating that shifting her schedule to do so would be no problem at all. I suspected otherwise, but was heartily grateful to her for making it so easy to receive her generous attention.

Having moved back to New York, we were looking for some medical specialists there. Travelling as much as we do, it's challenging to have enough time to set up the 'infrastructure' of life so to speak. A life-long family friend is a famous surgeon and I hesitated intruding upon his time when I needed a recommendation for a medical need. He made a personal intro., took time out to provide some reassuring medical advice, and hearing we were to be off again the next day said simply: 'Come back soon.'

Two more things happened in quick succession recently along this line. At The Mandarin Oriental in Manila, their Club Floor is graced by some charming and highly service-minded managers. I asked them if I could possibly get my complimentary use of meeting facilities extended beyond the daily hour that day and have the overall allowance 'lumped together' as I needed the meeting room only that day, rather than over my entire stay. The Club Floor Manager thought for just a nanosecond, flashed a brilliant smile, and said without an iota of fakeness: 'How could we say 'no' to you Mr. Khan?'

Flooded with appreciation, a sense of well-being, and of course skyrocketing loyalty to them, I restrained myself from saying, 'Well if you want education in saying 'no', there are many companies I could introduce you to!'

Finally, a Sensei colleague and I met after a long time and shared a cup of coffee. Soon after the meeting, he called me. I wondered if he had forgotten something. He told me he just called to let me know how much he had missed me, how energised he felt by our exchange, and how I was a 'front row' person in his life no less now that we weren't working as closely together or as frequently.

His gracious and emphatic 'gift' of sharing, kept a smile on my face for several days thereafter. I hadn't felt particularly energising or important during the meeting, but I certainly felt affirmed in the aftermath.

Why do I share these? I want you to know these exchanges made me feel very fortunate to be alive. I am not a 'natural' when it comes to socialising with people. I flee parties as much as possible. I can, at times, be antisocial almost to a fault. My idea of fun, is peace and quiet with a few loved ones, the fewer the better. I'm highly impatient around social banter, I'm frequently garrulous relative to niceties, and the moment I'm done saying 'thank you' to my clients after sessions, I literally disappear, unless they need me. I've had colleagues panting to make my 'getaway vehicle' if they've asked for a ride from a client session.

As a youngster who grappled (often unsuccessfully) with all this, I was fortunate to come across Messrs. Carnegie and Buscaglia. From Dale Carnegie I learned about getting interested in other people as genuinely as possible and being 'lavish with praise and hearty with approbation'. From Leo, who I corresponded with for several years, I learned about celebrating people's magic and 'being there' in the best sense when interacting with them. I learned to say 'yes' to life AND its representatives!

While I guard my time and energy carefully, one thing I have learned, is to be fully present when I AM there with people: in sessions, interactions, dialogues, even momentary exchanges -- to offer as fully as I can, the gift of attention.

Each of the people I've cited I've had 'special moments' with. With some over long periods, with others, fleetingly. Thanks to Dale and Leo teaching me that the best way to enjoy life and others is to get out of myself and into the wonder of others, I think each of the people I've mentioned have felt valued, seen, heard, experienced, connected with and significant to me.

If I can do it, anyone can. And this world needs everyone to do this to each other, for each other, with each other, to the best of our ability. Everything works better for everyone, at work and otherwise. This becomes a spirit, a culture, everyone's 'mood' is generally better (a la the second musing), and we become more than our rote and systemic responses (right back to the first musing).

We have to help each other fulfill our potential to be our best selves. What else is leadership finally about? In another context, Thomas Friedman says we have to imagine a better world, and then act on that imagination every day. This is how.

So how does this all come together?

We need as organisations and as individuals to get out of ourselves and into our customers and their true value experience. Our systems have to be provisional, corrigible, and treated as 'emergent' not fossilized.

We have to not make everything about transitory feelings, but rather about the sustained feelings that have to do with our visions, our values, our loves, our passions, what matters most to us. We liberate how we feel most of the time by the consistent actions and interactions we engage in.

We all need each other, to lead, to add value, to perform, all of it. Fortifying ourselves away from each other, looking past each other, listening superficially, not emotionally making room for each other, estranging ourselves from those we come into contact with, starves us of hopefulness and support.

Leadership is about connecting outwards and as well as reflecting inwards, it is about 'calling forth' our feelings not just succumbing to them, and it happens when we discover the true synergy of genuinely 'valuing' others over time or even in transitory exchanges.

So, no ready-made unifying wick perhaps. But a lattice-work of meditations. For a month of reflection, I think they're quite valuable each in their own right.

I hope you agree.

Have a month rich in truly satisfying others, energising yourself to fully engage, and letting people know how much they matter. All the things you're to achieve will benefit as a result. That's a promise!

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