The fish rots from the head down.

My grandfather died when I was very young, yet I remember a handful of comments he made to me. I remember one in particular, as we left a store where a manager had been rude to us.

I must have said something about it because my grandfather's plain spoken response was: Son, the fish rots from the head down.

It sounded funny to me, so I remembered it. But now I understand what he meant: the quality of an organization's leadership is reflected in the actions and attitudes of its individual employees.

Ever walk into a store or office and immediate get a bad feeling, a bad vibe or whiff that something or several things just don't seem right? It could be a general sense of unease, an inability for employees to act with confidence, bad attitudes or a lack of attention to detail.

Whatever the symptom, that stinky smell means something is dead or dying at the top. No real passion for the business. No real commitment to employees. No respect for customers, beyond their ability to make leaders richer. Regardless, don't take it out on the employees, start by evaluating opportunities to re-engage, re-ignite and re-focus leadership.

The Unvarnished Truth?

Now there are sites where you can rate the people you know, rather than organizations, products or corporate brands.

The concept is not new (ikarma.com, unvarnished.com, Jerk.com) but Unvarnished has integrated tightly with Facebook to attract the largest pool of reviewers possible. This lets people who, supposedly, have worked with someone, post reviews about that individual.

From the site:

“Unvarnished lets reviewers share their true, nuanced opinions without fear of repercussions… Profile owners can manage and build their reputation, by receiving notifications of new reviews, requesting reviews from trusted colleagues, adding resume details, and responding to reviews.”

What do you think?

• Does this type of site encourage leadership or popularity?
• Will it require people to constantly manage their reputation? (or hire people to do so...)
  
• Could it evolve into a useful professional adjunct like LinkedIn?
• Or, will it devolve into a schoolyard filled with bullies and cynical reviews?

My Experience Scorecard
Here are three simple questions to pinpoint learning / leadership opportunities, with a focus on the customer experience:

1. Where is the best customer experience to be found in this organization?
(learning, leadership, sales, service, or some other operational area)


2. What seems to be the source of these unexpectedly great experiences?
(one individual, a particular team, a leader, a process, a tool/technology)


3. How could this type of experience be created in other areas/departments?
(better learning, better process, better leadership, better communication, better tool, other)

Authentic, Action Oriented and Accountable

William D. Green, CEO of Anderson Consulting, states the organization’s role succinctly when he tells his clients their focus should be less on an emerging leaders’ litany of accomplishments and more on the employee’s character, the way they respond to experiences and if they approach these opportunities with a confident work ethic.

Anderson measures a leader’s character and their work ethic with three “C”s: comprehension, commitment, compassion.

If you find yourself in a company that cares more about process than the 3 “C”s, your best recourse is to seek authentic leaders, people who understand their words and actions cause consequences, and that these consequences either help or hinder a team’s ability to create positive outcomes (profit) for both customers and the organization.

Here’s a $1.2 billion company and the leader that got the equation correct: putting people first creates better profits (www.deliveringhappinessbook.com)

Passionate learners, better performers.

Think about someone learning more about their hobby, like gardening, cooking or bicycle repair.

That person is not simply flipping through a manual. They are sponging up the knowledge they need, applying it immediately, and retaining it for life. They become more passionate about the topic as their comprehension grows. Over time, they discover new ways apply the learning, and their performance improves.

We want students to become better, faster. Short-term results (success or failure) lead to increased satisfaction, and higher satisfaction leads to a demand, or a pull, for additional learning. Our objective is not to push more content at them (check-in-a-box-training), but to help them achieve results quickly.

Find someone who is passionate about a topic or task and you will find a person who is or will soon become, successful at performing it.

A Rising Demand for Emerging Leaders

The IBM Global Human Capital study surveyed over 400 companies in 40 countries across North America, Asia and Europe. The findings? A lack of focus on leadership development means companies are increasingly unable to plan for the skills needed to remain competitive.

As the baby boom leadership retires, many companies will discover a generation’s worth of experience and talent has walked out the door, and remaining emerging leaders ill-equipped to fill the void.

In the study, the transfer of experience and information from one generation to the next is still relatively isolated by department and geography. Within traditional organizations, there is also a reluctance to advertise individuals as expert talent or allow them to act as internal experts. This occurs despite the fact that organizations first recruit a person based upon their unique talents, abilities and experiences.

However, once inside the organization, many traditional leaders tend to ignore or downplay a person’s experiences – the very reasons they were hired!

Collaboration between leaders, departments and employees is critical for future organizational success. Despite the prevalence of technology that can easily enable this type of sharing, functional silos, misaligned performance measures and work constraints inhibit the practice.

Without effective collaboration, an organization’s ability to identify rising stars, track and reward service champions and chances for improving operational effectiveness are severely limited.

Our solution? Structure leadership development programs to clearly define the challenges emerging leaders are meant to solve (in partnership with customers and employees), let them work on these challenges soon after being hired, and measure that employee’s ability to perform and make decisions, all while providing significant incentives that reward the right behavior.

Engage your Customers Through Learning Moments

Very few customers walk into a grocery store prepared for class when they shop for cheese. Not many people look up “pest control” companies online expecting to learn about mice, when they need an exterminator. (Get it: mice, cheese?). But both of those scenarios is an opportunity for your team to engage customers in learning moments.

Delivered the right way, customer education won’t feel like education. It will feel more like a great interaction with a concerned, compassionate and committed team member. Learning can happen anytime–as part of an online information search or an in-store personal visit. Let’s see how you can add learning moments as part of your customer service philosophy. These opportunities motivate team members (they can make work feel a lot less like…work) and provide a great experience for customers.

1. Define Your Audience Needs

Cover the “how, when where, what and why” of learning. What do they want to know or need to know? (not: what do you want to tell!). Our best advice? Observe them, ask them.

Design your learning through questions like: “How much information do your customers already have?” “Is what they know usually correct or “urban myth?” Next, determine if they want an informal experience (your team just happens to engage them at the store…) or something more instructional, like a illustration explaining the habits of field mice and how to keep them out of the house? Answering these questions will determine whether you design team member prompts, a very basic class, or technical or in-depth instruction for budding experts.

2. Define Some Learning Objectives

What do customers need to know? What will customers be able to do (differently) after they engage in the learning moment? Example: buying cheese. A good learning objective might be: We want guests to be able to recognize, through sight and smell, the differences between hand-crafted cheese and factory-produced cheeses. This helps you create a more informed consumer, and allows your team to offer their expertise on a topic.

Two very important objectives for every customer learning moment: 1) Keep it light. You want these moments to be engaging and fun, not a return to calculus class. 2) Keep it real. You want customers to see how your team, and the value they offer through this interaction, is far superior to the competitor's.

3. Tell A Great Story

This is a great way to check your research and any assumptions. Jot down images or thoughts as to how the learning might occur. Invite your team members to design the story with you. You can envision this story being told: 1) by an associate in your store, 2) through an illustration on your website, 3) via an online learning module, 4) as part of an in-store video... there are many, many options. Worry about the story now, the delivery method in Step 4.

Draw the process on a napkin or tablet. Keep those learning objectives in mind as you or your team sketch the story. If the story you create doesn't address the learning objectives, that’s an indicator that you included some “nice to have” information versus the “need to know” content. You should probably leave any unrelated content on the napkin, or create a second course that focuses on another topic.

4. Engage Your Customer

Different people learn in different ways, so include actions and prompts that target the visual, auditory and kinesthetic (activity) learners. In an aisle or showroom, your team members can explain the differences between two cheeses (auditory), provide a handout (visual) and quickly let the customer compare the two by tasting (kinesthetic).

Need to squelch an urban myth by providing consistent, clear communication? You may find that an online interaction is the best way to get the right information out to customers quickly. Want more ways to engage customers in your store? You can help employees by providing them some quick coaching and prompts that help them tell the story, as they engage their customers through conversation.

5. Establish a Relationship

Don’t hit them over the head with a sale–that feels too much like a setup. Most customers don't respect that kind of entrapment. Remember, this type of learning moment–where your associate is positioning themselves as a trusted advisor–is a customer's first step toward a long-term relationship with your organization, not a quick-close sale.

In this situation, allow your customers some autonomy to call the next shot. Is this something they are passionate about, or are they just curious? Are there other topics they can explore? Are there additional opportunities (like a class or demonstration offered by your team) available to them? Would they like to bring in something they discovered online or recommend a similar product you should carry? Engage your customers - don't pressure them. And, if they really, really enjoy the topic, perhaps they might have a future working for your team...

The more you think about customer service as an education process, the more likely your team will begin to find meaning in their interactions, while uncovering previously hidden opportunities for additional sales and service. And don't forget, those materials you develop to educate customers can be repurposed as training tools for new staff, and vice versa.

10 Questions to Ask Your Learners

Creating a great learning experience begins with a systems approach to course design - looking for ways to structure the total learning experience (before, during and after an interaction).

Ask your audience these basic questions to quickly spot some opportunities:

1. How did you hear about this training? What were your expectations?

2. In general, how do you feel about this course?

3. Were you able to demonstrate your skills before this class?

4. What else do you need to learn about ___?

5. Are there opportunities to learn (resources) outside our training curriculum that you would like to include?

6. How could we create more informal and social learning?

7. Would it improve your experience if we invited customers to assess your performance?

8. Can you see yourself having to address any of the scenarios or customer-driven situations we offered?

9. How could we create even more meaningful challenges for future students?

10. Do you think our leaders support the learning through their behavior?