Learning Society – DNC-Consulting

Revisiting No Neutrality – Today is a Day of Choosing, Tomorrow a Day of Action!

On 01 July 2021, I first wrote an article regarding how there are no more safe paths, no more neutral zones, no more areas of peace to rest upon. After the last 15-days, the world has witnessed this reality, and I revisit this topic to issue a plea. Today, make a choice. Tomorrow go to work implementing that choice.

In mentioning the following, I am not discussing religion but social history. The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints holds sacred “The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of JESUS CHRIST” as holy scripture. The book contains a record of a civilization ruled by kings; then, the king proposes a society ruled by judges where their own conscience and written laws govern every person. Both systems of government worked well. The reign of the judges ends in chaos when the chief judge is murdered, and the people break up into separate tribes. That is a couple of hundred years of history boiled into a few brief words; however, the pattern holds true for several other societies not recorded in books considered holy scripture. I find the following fascinating as a template for the current time the world finds itself facing.

Why do societies fail?

Most societies fail because leaders have violated the core fundamental principles those societies were built upon. The people have lost the way to hold the leaders accountable to the fundamental principles that originally built the society. In modern societies, these principles are codified laws from founding national documents, and holding the leaders accountable would involve lawyers and judges, as well as time and other leaders committed to holding together the system to ensure those who broke the system are held liable and accountable before the law, and not a mob.

Pick an empire, Rome, Greece, Israel, Egypt, Nephite, etc., all of them suffer the same fate as they crested the height of their time and slid into failure and ruin. The leaders failed the people. The government decided they did not have to perform their only job, to look out for the safety and security of the people, and the people died, and the government fell into ruin. What have we witnessed across the globe, governments not listening to their people, refusing their people, and denying rights and liberties to their people in the name of personal power, wealth, and highly temporary fame.

Australia and New Zealand, the COVID measures are so beyond the pale horrific, and totalitarian that the government is doing more harm than the disease the government proclaims to be fighting. China has blatantly broken the treaty with Hong Kong. Nobody outside of Hong Kong appears to care enough to issue strong demands, let alone support Hong Kong’s citizenry in reclaiming that which is their right by treaty. North Korea continues to vacillate and sway to whatever music China plays in the hopes of catching scraps, as their people suffer and die from malnutrition, disease, and neglect.

Head into the Middle East, and that powder keg is going to blow again real soon. Terrorists in Afghanistan never stay in Afghanistan, and now with a pipeline to China, money, and weapons from America, and new ways and means to launder money, how soon before the Middle East becomes a free-fire zone, the European mainland becomes a terrorist free-for-all shootout to rival America’s Wild West, and Africa descends into more tyranny and villainy?

Where are the leaders of government? Where are the government representatives? Our globe has changed since 2000; the hoped-for peace from the end of the last century has turned into a blood bath of terror on a global scale fed by low-intensity conflict (LIC). Just as major international conflicts dominated the previous century, this century is being dominated by small brushfire LIC conflicts. Our modes of war must change, our governments must adapt, our societies must change, and we are 20+ years into the new century. The government still thinks this is 1995, money is free, music is 1980s good, and the future is bright and happy!

The Decisions for Today

What do you want most? What government is most important to you? Is your government system sufficiently powerful enough a motivator to propel you to action to save it and pass it along to the next generation? America has had leaders who have been quoted as saying something to the effect of, “The blood of current generations must renew the tree of liberty to remain free.” What will you sacrifice for liberty today, for your children to experience freedom tomorrow?

LIC is here to stay. LIC will be the “gentlemen’s war” of this century. Where the wealthy pool resources and purchase mayhem and destruction for their pleasure. If society does not change, all representative governments will be lost in the turmoil created by these “children having fun.” Worse, those little fracases could become full-blown international conflicts with nuclear weapons very easily — all based on the WWI model of human ineptitude and our human weakness for killing ourselves.

The decisions are yours, and yours alone to make. Collectively, your choices will move you into one of two groups, those fighting for representative government and those opposed to representative government. Truthfully, do not expect to experience peace; there are no safe paths, no routes through tulips and rainbows on gossamer wings of spun sugar plums. The enemy is awake; the enemy has prepared a legion of useful idiots and ivory potentates to give orders.

But, the decisions must be made, and the sooner the decision is made and communicated, the easier life becomes, for then you know your purpose!

The Actions for Tomorrow

Act with haste, prepare with confidence, and move with speed. Get loud! Stand like a rock! I was told standing is not an activity. The person proclaiming that has never stood still and faced down an enemy, or they would know just how arduous standing can be! Seek learning through study, discussion, questions, and faith. Seeking learning through faith means that you will actively believe until you can prove otherwise, even if it means waiting patiently for a while to learn more.

I learned this principle in the US Army. I fully did not expect to learn this lesson, but learn it I did. I believed in the chain of command. Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training did nothing to dissuade that the chain of command needed to be accepted, supported, and obeyed unquestioningly. Then I got to my first duty station and began learning my role in the chain of command as an active participant. First, I refused to believe, then I believed in faith, then I tested and learned, then I acted above and beyond my rank and got swatted down for breaking the chain of command. Always the same counsel, you are a great soldier/sailor, but you make decisions above your paygrade, and this rubs higher ranking people wrong. My response, how am I responsible for the choices and consequences of those higher in rank choosing to be offended?

Everyone is now in the same boat; the chains of command cannot be trusted. We must each think and act for ourselves for the betterment and security of our country, families, homes, freedoms, and the next generation. We must each choose to throw off the shackles of the past, learn the lessons of history not taught in school, and then act to save the best in our societies before the wolves of terrorism steal everything. We each must become the sheepdogs of war!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

Employee Engagement

Knowledge Check! Recently this topic was raised in a town hall style meeting, and the comments from the leadership raised several concerns. It appears that employee engagement is attempting to become a “buzzword” instead of an action item, and this bothers me greatly. Worse, many people lead teams with vague ideas about what employee engagement means and then shape their own biases into the employee engagement program, making a pogrom of inanity and suffering out of a tool for benefiting and improving employee relations.

When discussing employee engagement, we must first begin with a fundamental truth; employees do not work for a company, do not work for a brand; they work for a manager. An employee might like a company; they might enjoy having their professional brand aligned with a known branded organization. The employee might feel pride in associating with other employees under that brand. When the road gets difficult at the end of the day, an employee works for a manager. The relationship between a manager and an employee is one of trust operationalized and honed through shared experiences.

Employee Engagement – Defined

Problems According to several online sources, the definition of employee engagement is, “Employee engagement is a fundamental concept in the effort to understand and describe, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the relationship between an organization and its employees.” If you believe this definition, you will miss the forest for the bark you are fixated upon! Employee engagement is fundamental; it is not a concept, a theory, or a buzzword. Employee engagement is a relationship between organizational leaders and the employees, but employee engagement is not about collecting qualitative or quantitative data for decision-making policy-based relationship guidance. At the most basic level, employee engagement is the impetus an employee chooses to onboard because of the motivational actions of the manager they report to.

Employees must choose to engage; when they choose not to engage, there is no enthusiasm in the employee, and this can be heard in every action taken by the employees on the company’s behalf. Is this clear; employee engagement is an individual action, where impetus leads to motivated and enthused action. While organizational leaders can and do influence motivation, they cannot force the employee to engage! Thus, revealing another aspect of why the definition found online is NOT acceptable for use in any employee engagement effort! Leadership Cartoon

Employee engagement is the actions an employee is willing to take, indicating their motivation to perform their duties and extra-duties for a manager they like. Employee engagement is the epitome of operational trust realized in daily attitudes, behaviors, and mannerisms of employees who choose to be engaged in solving problems for their employer. While incentive programs can improve employee engagement, if the employee does not first choose to enjoy the incentive, the incentive program is wasted leadership efforts. The same can be said for every single “employee benefit.” If an employee cannot afford the employer’s benefits, those benefits are wasted money the employer needs elsewhere. Hence, the final point in defining employee engagement is the individualization of incentives and the individual relationship between managers and employees. Stop the one-size-fits-most offerings, and let’s get back to talking to people. Anton Ego 4

Reflective Listening

Listening has four distinct levels; currently, these are:

- - Inactive listening – Hearing words, seeing written communication, zero impact mentally. Mainly because your internal voices drown out the possibility of communication.
  - Selective listening – Hearing only that which confirms your own voices, opinions, and biases. While others are speaking, you are already forming your response.
  - Active listening – Show the other person you are paying attention to, engage with meaning in a reply. You are focused on removing barriers to get your point across.
  - Reflective listening – Paying attention to intent and content, reducing emotion, two-directional as both parties are engaged in achieving mutual understanding.

Chinese Crisis Inactive and selective listening can be heard through phone lines, instant messaging, text messaging, and easily observed during face-to-face communication. Worse, active listening launches trust, and when faked, destroys credibility, ruining relationships. Reflective listening can only achieve mutual understanding when both parties are choosing to listen intently and with the purpose of reaching mutual understanding. The most powerful tool in an organizational leader’s toolbox for quickly rectifying employee engagement is reflectively listening.

Communication occurs in two different modalities, verbal and non-verbal. Good communicators adapt their message to the audience using reflective listening and careful observation. Adapting the message requires first choosing, determining who the primary and secondary audience is, and then focusing the message on the primary audience. Next, adaptation requires prior planning, which includes mental preparation, practice, and channels for feedback. Finally, adaptation requires listening to achieve mutual understanding, careful observation, asking questions designed to lead to mutual understanding, and clarifying what is being said to achieve mutual understanding. The pattern described can be the tool that begins employee engagement but is not an end-all solution all by itself. Anton Ego

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative inquiry is a growth mechanism that states that what a business organization needs, they already have enough of, provided they listen to their employees. Appreciative inquiry and common sense tell leaders who want to know and change their organization and how and where to begin. Appreciative inquiry-based leadership is 6-continuous steps that start small and cycle to more significant problems as momentum for excellence permeates through an organization. But the first step, just like in defeating a disabling addiction, is admitting there is a problem.

Here are the six operational steps for appreciative inquiry:

1. 1. Admit there is a problem and commit to change.
  2. Define the problem.
  3. Discover the variables and stay focused on the positive.
  4. Dream BIG!
  5. Design the future and outline the steps to that future.
  6. Destiny, create the destination you desire.

Bait & Switch Follow the instructions on a shampoo bottle, “Wash, Rinse, Repeat.” The appreciative inquiry model can be scaled, repeated, implemented into small or large teams, and produce motivated members who become the force to create change. Allow yourself and your team to learn, this takes time, but through building motivation for excellence, time can be captured to perform.

Of all the steps in appreciative inquiry, it must be stressed that focusing on the positive is the only way to improve people. Even if you must make careful observations to catch people doing good, do it! Focusing on the positive provides the proper culture for engaging as many people as possible. Criticism, negativity, aspersions, and insults all feed a culture of “Not my problem,” and when the employee claims, “not my problem,” they will never engage until the culture changes.

Organization

Andragogy - LEARN Employee engagement requires structural changes to the organizational design. Employee engagement is going to bring immediate change to the organization. If the leaders, directors, managers, supervisors, team leaders, etc., are not prepared for and willing to change, employee engagement will die as an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. As a business consultant, I have witnessed the death of employee engagement, and the death is long, protracted, and disastrous to the entire business. Worse, individuals refusing to change stand out like red dots on a white cloth as employee engagement dies.

Thus, the first step in employee engagement belongs not to the employee, but the employer, who must answer this question: “Are we a learning organization willing to change, or are we a knowing organization who does not need to change?” How the leadership answers this question will speak volumes to the employees closely observing and making their decisions accordingly. Depending upon how that question is answered will depend upon whether the business can move onto the second step or remain stuck on the first step.

Andragogy - The Puzzle The second step in employee engagement is training the organization to accept change and failure as tools for learning, growing, and developing. A toddler learning to walk will fall more than they stay up before they can run. The same is true when initiating employee engagement. Guess what; you are going to fail; can you as an organizational leader accept failing? Are you willing to admit you failed, made a mistake, and publicly acknowledge the blame and consequences? Are you willing to allow others to accept the praise for doing the right thing? Will you as an organizational leader accept change? How you answer these questions also speaks volumes to the employees you are trying to engage. Depending upon how you individually and collectively as a team answer these leadership questions will decide if you fall back to step one or advance to step three.

The third step in organizing employee engagement is total commitment. Are you onboard? Are all the leaders onboard? Being onboard means 100% commitment to the organization dreamed in the operational steps to appreciative inquiry. If not, do not launch an employee engagement program, for it will fail spectacularly! Never forget the cartoons where a character has one foot on a boat leaving the pier and one foot on the dock; they get wet and left behind!

Have FUN!

Semper Gumby Engaging with employees should be fun, it should be an enjoyable experience, and it should bring out the best in you! All because you want to see others engage, grow professionally, learn, develop, and become. Your efforts to teach engagement lead you to learn how to engage better. Seize these learning opportunities, choose to grow, but never forget to have fun. My best tool for engaging with employees, dad jokes! Really, really, really, bad dad jokes! For example, when Forrest Gump came to Amazon, what was his computer password?

1F@rr3st1

When you get that joke, laugh; but wait for others to get it as well! Employee engagement is fun, exciting, and can be the best job you ever had as a professional. Just believe in yourself, believe in and invest the time in appreciative inquiry, organize yourself and your business, and always reflectively listen. Never Give Up!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

NO MORE BS: The Rule of Law – A Primer

Apathy All advanced human actions, the weather, the natural world all operate on the law. Understanding the rules of that law enables all the sciences, arts, music, and advanced human action the world has witnessed as humans have gained and lost civilization throughout history. The following is a primer on the rule of law, a concept oft mentioned in these articles, to advance our collective understanding and provide impetus towards correcting the government.

Consider electricity; it exists in nature in uncontrolled ways and means. Static electricity, lightning, other discharges exist when electrons get free and need to be grounded. It took millennia for man to understand and harness electricity in the crudest of manners and methods. It took another millennium for man to understand the laws of electricity, create, harness, and purposefully use electricity to improve the human condition. Ancient examples of electricity exit in Egyptian tombs and other sites of antiquity that amaze and mystify us in the current history of man, for we do not understand the why behind the ancient uses and make guesses as to why electricity was used.

The critical part in our discussion of electricity is discovering and then living obediently to the rules and laws governing electricity. Without exception, if you abuse the power of electricity, harm occurs, and death is ever-present. I have witnessed surges of electricity start fires, throw people across rooms, and stop hearts as effortlessly as I type. Speak with an electrician or engineer, and you will hear tales of inexperienced, uneducated, or fool-hardy people breaking the laws of electricity and the amazing results that transpired. Speak to these same people, and you can see the advantages and blessings of obedience to the laws of electricity and the power of electricity to improve lives, heal the sick, and raise the dead; all, because the rule of law is adhered to by practitioners and electricity, is safely harnessed and used according to the understood laws.

Image - Quote Poltics is Dirty Tesla understood electricity’s laws and rules better than any other person in history and died too soon for his knowledge of those rules to be both accepted and applied to the human condition. Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla had a unique and troubled history and relationships. Due to the desire to make money on delivering electricity, Tesla’s Tower for providing electricity through the air without a delivery network of wires, substations, and generators, was forced to be suspended, and Edison and Westinghouse beat Tesla into obscurity almost. Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla’s relationship is not the topic; although highly interesting and an excellent example of capitalism working to destroy people, the rule of law and obedience to the understood rules and laws is the topic.

Consider the internal combustion engine. I have heard it postulated on more than one occasion that after gravity, the internal combustion engine is continuously being researched and debated by engineers, physicists, and other scientific people in an attempt to improve human understanding. Electricity remains on this list as we are learning more laws and rules that expand knowledge, which then develops human applications. Hence, when we speak of the rule of law, we speak of current law, future discoveries, and historical application. The historical applications of laws and rules often lead to insights into everyday situations and predict where the future may lie on a particular topic.

The Duty of Americans Some may complain; I am speaking only about natural laws, and man’s laws, as applied through government, are different from natural law. To those who suggest this, I say, unequivocally, “Hogwash!” How did man form the government; they watched the natural order and created a mimicry of the natural order into society, and then began working to improve that social order to achieve what nature, or the natural world, does automatically.

Consider the starlings, little birds, that fly in concert so intricately and beautifully, acting in a harmony of motion that appears to defy the social order and government of bird flight. Yet, the starlings’ rules and laws allow for their society to fly and mystify humans. Deer, Elk, Moose, Mice, and so many other animal societies have been mimicked by humans into a form of government and social order, bringing with it rules and laws that apply, strictly, to that society.

Editorial - Educational Truth America has a lot of rules and laws. In an attempt to capture the width and breadth of laws and rules in America, the following statement is made, “Congress has enacted approximately 200–600 statutes during each of its 115 biennial terms so that more than 30,000 statutes have been enacted since 1789.” A more straightforward explanation is made on a different source, “Nobody Knows!” The first and most fundamental law is the US Constitution and US Bill of Rights. Under the rule of law, the judicial and legislative branches of government are expected to follow and closely adhere to these fundamental documents when creating laws and rules. However, the legislative branch has abdicated its role to the judicial branch. The judicial branch has become infested with activists and militant and mutton-headed pillocks from both current political parties’ extremes until the law has become defiled, and American Society suffers.

The same pattern has been observed in every democratic society across the globe, with the United Kingdom, France, Greece, and Germany, leading to diminution of the understanding and governance of law. Hence, according to just laws and rules, the social orders that used to mimic natural orders have become lost in the morass of bias and opinions forming a legal quagmire where even obeying the law has become too difficult no one knows the laws sufficiently. Even though the legal premise remains, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

Patriotism America, consider the number of “Executive Orders” written by the current and fraudulent president? The UK, consider how long it took to leave the EU and the bureaucrats who continue to thwart the people’s will? Israel, how many elections will it take for you to have a stable government again? German, you get the same question as Israel, and we all know how France and Greece could not form a cohesive government even though their lives depend upon a functioning government.

Citizens of Democratic governments, and America, a Republic, must understand the basic role and functioning of government to not cradle-to-grave care for a citizen, but to protect the national boarders and do as little harm as possible. That is the government’s entire function; look at any social order in the animal kingdom, and this truth becomes evident very quickly. Yet, humans continue to try and shape government into an instrument to beat and betray their fellow men in the name of plastic terms like “fair,” “equity,” and “New,” among many others.

What does a citizen of these governments do?

I have some suggestions, but the leading and most crucial request is to understand and then act. We must fundamentally shift our understanding of, and then actions of, the governments that have grown beyond control.

1. 1. Observe natural order and consider your current government. If they do not match, you have a problem. Acknowledge that problem exists!
  2. Understand the role of the “Rule of Law.” As the natural order goes, so should human government.
  3. Without a doubt, when natural laws are broken, death follows. Governments are dying because they have disregarded this simple principle. Awake and arise before the globe enters another World War; because we all know how those turn out!
  4. Once you know, ACT! Vote! Raise your voice! Disclaim that in no uncertain terms, you are refusing and refuting the government’s power to rule you!
  5. As you learn, teach, so you may learn more succinctly, thus empowering your ability to train more powerfully. Your neighbors need this same information so you can act in concert. Consider the starling; how fast will a starling die if they do not fly in formation properly; not bloody long.

Never Give Up! Remember, this is but a starting point in changing government, but we must start! Embrace a “Liberty FIRST Culture,” and let us citizens act, for we own the government, not the other way round! Never stop trying, learning, and reaching out. When the government breaks the natural order, death becomes a real possibility, either through war, rebellion, or simply anarchy as government dies.

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

NO MORE BS: Assimilation: A Plea to All Immigrants and Americans!

America continues to open its doors to a large group of new immigrants from countries worldwide, but especially from war-torn and ravaged lands. Welcome; I am glad you are here! A Mayor of London previously came to America and derided, denigrated, and demeaned America for asking immigrants to assimilate. Yes, America will ask you to assimilate; yes, this request includes those legal and illegal immigrants; yes, assimilation is hard, but the effort is worth it.

What is Assimilation?

Assimilation is only taking the best of your old culture, ideals, values, and beliefs and adding them to the best America has to offer. America is not a perfect country; we ask for your help to improve our country by adding the best of your experiences to our best experiences and building America into a greater nation. Why does America ask you to assimilate, even though it is hard; the answer lies in the principles of unity, responsibility, and achieving the “American Dream.”

What is the “American Dream?”

The “American Dream” is to realize freedom, all the benefits of liberty, shouldering all the responsibilities of freedom, and achieving these freedoms through work, education, and self-discovery. Many Americans need to be reminded that the “American Dream” has nothing to do with acquiring stuff. The “American Dream” has nothing to do with spending money, although great freedoms are found in earning money and spending that money according to your desires. The “American Dream” has nothing to do with purchasing a home, even though owning property is a cherished freedom. The “American Dream” is realizing freedom in all its glory and all of its reality.

The “American Dream” means failure, struggle, hard work, loss, gain, understanding value, and so much more. The “American Dream” has tragedy and heartache, misery, and the ultimate joy of achievement. Some of the hardest struggles in understanding the “American Dream” are found in sending loved ones marching to war and not seeing those same loved ones marching back home, and it is the “American Dream.” Understanding and embracing freedom, to see the best and worst of humanity and realize that freedom through a constitutional republic is still the best form of government available, even through all the imperfections. The “American Dream” means unifying around a single standard.

What is the single standard to rally around?

The US Constitution and the American Flag are the standards to rally around. Does rallying around this standard mean suddenly easy street, riches, and smooth sailing; absolutely not! Rallying around this standard means unifying, dropping the labels, the hyphenations, the separations, and realizing that we are better together than we are separate. Again, the “American Dream” is all about understanding freedom in all its glory, majesty, and terribleness.

The principles of unity are many, but also very few. Unity is all about choice; having a choice is all about freedom. Freedom is all about shouldering the consequences of making choices to become more unified or less unified; simple and complex, easy and difficult. Unity is not a paradox; unity is a learned principle. Consider the young child. Being a child is challenging, learning a language, culture, basic education standards, and growing. The same is true for immigrants. Many come here and are overwhelmed. Like children, simply asking for help becomes a great challenge, and many times that challenge is because immigrants do not realize that support is available and merely requires asking for help. Hence, the responsibility is all on you, not everyone else; this means the consequences for asking or not asking are also all on you; this is freedom.

The principles of unity are found in a common language and based upon the “Rule of Law.” America is the only country on earth where you can keep your tongue, and the national language, American English, can be a second or non-primary language. Yet, the choice to learn American English has consequences, and those consequences come with a cost. Learning American English is hard, requires work, and will not make sense until time and experience are added to learning. Not learning American English is harder and restricts freedoms: the ability to enjoy all America has to offer and forces you to forever remain outside America’s embrace.

Like language, the “Rule of Law” has consequences that allow more freedom or constricts freedom, all based upon your individual choices and how you evaluate the consequences. For example, break the law in coming to America, and you are not welcome even though many politicians will say differently to abuse and use you. Come to America legally, and you are expected to assimilate to become a citizen. Come here temporarily, as, on a visa, we will expect you to adhere to the “Rule of Law” and eventually return to your original country. Fail to return to your original homeland, and you are here illegally, which has consequences.

The principles of unity include understanding, learning, and choosing to plot your own path. No one is going to run your life for you. Choosing to run your own life requires learning, understanding value, and shouldering the consequences of good or ill choices. In America, you can choose to be homeless, and this is perfectly acceptable. You can choose to chase money; acquiring great riches is possible and completely acceptable in America. Acquire those funds legally, and America rewards them greatly. Acquire those funds illegally, and eventually, American Justice will prevail, and those funds will be lost in a very public trial. Again, we see unity combined with choices, leading to coming together under the same standard and enjoying positive consequences or refusing to come together under the standard and enjoying negative consequences.

The principles of responsibility go hand in hand with the principles of unity—many of the principles of unity overlap with responsibility principles. For example, fail to rally under the US Constitution’s standard, break the law, and watch how quickly the consequence leads to being forced to shoulder the responsibility to yield to unify affects you personally with the full weight and scorn of the American people. Do illegal actions, and you may sometimes not get caught and punished. Eventually, all of society will know how deplorable you are, and justice gets served in myriad different ways.

Consider dishonest politicians. Sometimes they do not get caught and exposed to the harsh reality of the American justice system. Still, they lose all the respect of voters, lose their title, and remain outcasts and pariahs in American society through the media retelling their stories, through a loss of income, and American society continually chastising them for their misdeeds. American culture can be very harsh for those choosing not to assimilate because the refusal to assimilate means a refusal to unify under a single standard, which requires everyone to do their part to make America better.

Making America better is not a job that can be neglected, evaded, shirked, forgotten, ignored, or refused. America is all about working together. Work requires sacrifice, learning, and correctly using freedoms to achieve more freedoms. Working together requires a common language; the common language signifies a common bond amongst those striving to achieve freedoms as a symbol of desiring more freedoms. Please, take the best you have, add it to the best America offers, and assimilate into America. Unify with us in a beautiful patchwork quilt of diversity and togetherness.

Diversity should never be sacrificed for unity, and unity must never be sacrificed for diversity and individuality. It takes both diversity and unity to make America. It requires sacrifice and responsibility to make America. It requires a willing mind and open heart to achieve freedom and understand that more freedom is possible with assimilation than without assimilation. The choice is yours, and the consequences are yours, choose carefully.

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

Leading the Call Center: Flavor of the Month Philosophies

Having just completed a project that saw me leading a team in a call center, I want to make something clear; quick fixes and flavor of the month philosophies do not work. I cannot stress this enough; yet, the practice continues to the detriment of call center employees and the organizations served by call centers. Flavor of the month philosophies is the latest bestseller to fix the problems in business. We have all seen these programs including, FISH, WAIT, Strengths Quest, and so much more. These ideas are good ideas, and they possess value, but when changed monthly, these programs, never do more than briefly mark the surface intellect of the call center. I am not disparaging these ideas in the least; let me elaborate as to why the flavor of the month idea fails.

The project previously mentioned when concluded saw the call center director very much converted to a program of definite value in and using one’s strengths entitled Strengths Quest as presented by Clifton, Anderson, and Schreiner (2006). The culture of strength promotes unity, and by extension, organizational power, when combined intellectually, becomes the corporate culture. Integration in business, especially in call center operations, remains crucial to bottom-line health. The call center director invested a lot of organizational resources to capture everyone’s strengths, publish these advantages, and use this information to measure the call center. The problem was the staff has no idea why they are investing company time in completing the “Clifton Strength’s FinderÒ (CSF),” and many completed this assignment while taking calls and distracted. How verifiable is the data if the attention of the person completing the task is diverted?

My assignment, as a call center supervisor, included gauging the employees in the call center about their strengths. Of the 10-employees in the call center, two had forgotten and blatantly said they do not care. Three expressed a desire to retake the CSF to more fully focus on the task instead of completing it between calls. Four employees asked why and what is the purpose of taking the CSF. Finally, all the employees, when asked how they use the CSF data in their daily actions, expressed the same answer, I do not know.

Let’s be clear; there is nothing wrong with the latest flavor of the month programs to improve an organization, provided the leaders understand change, embrace change, train and teach “the what” and “the why,” and then remain committed long after the excitement over the bright new object fades. I had the misfortune of working in a call center where the entire corporate culture was expected to change with every fresh flavor of leadership, and the organization is a mental mess. What is a leader to do when each new flavor-of-the-month is presented as a potential fix for organizational dilemmas? I suggest the following as a launching point for corporate discovery and leadership support.

If the organization is going to invest resources in a particular program, do not change for a set period, which includes pre- and post- measurement and evaluation. If the organization does not know where they start, they can never know what happened or where to go in the future.
Organizational change must be more than surface polish or potential money (Blue Money) is lost, never to be recovered. Organizational change needs to fundamentally affect the organization and be allowed to produce measured results. Does this mean that if something is not working, we keep at it? No! It means to provide sufficient time and measurement to gauge the application and the organizational change. Many times beta-testing the proposed change can identify the processes, procedures, and other trouble points to be mindful of, or correct in beta-testing, to ensure full organizational change may occur with a higher chance for success.
Get everyone involved, enthused, and a willing advocate for the change. Getting everyone involved is not producing marketing materials and desk references. Getting everyone involved requires explaining why and detailing what in the organizational change. Getting everyone involved means there will be feedback, pushback, and rebellion. Expect pushback, but never allow pushback to derail reform. Pushback is a healthy activity that provides essential opportunities for the leader to explore solutions, answer questions, and evaluate the results.
Teach and train; train and teach. Learning should be a constant and desirable outcome of organizational change. Teaching is not training, training is not teaching; but, both are critical skills needed for leaders and learners. Teaching is helping someone else acquire knowledge. Training is teaching a behavior or ability. Teaching is usually one-way communication using measurement tools, e.g., tests to gauge knowledge learned and retained. Training should be two-directional communication, is completed through experience in closely monitored environments, and includes 360-degree feedback to improve the training environment. Never allow teaching and training to become the same confused term; while the words are closely related, they are not the same action.
When was the last time you discussed what you are reading with front-line employees? When was the last time you engaged a front-line worker about what they are reading, thinking, and ask for suggestions to improve? When was the last time you asked to be trained on a process, procedure, or organizational action by those who do it all day? If recently, did you ask why, a lot? I promise you will be surprised when you have these conversations, especially since they open up opportunities to explain and expound, learn, change, adapt, and engage with those you lead.
Organizational change requires enthusiasm from all parties to begin to engage and deepen the shift from surface polish to fundamental culture adaptation. Enthusiasm takes many shapes, sizes, and colors, including the loyal opposition of followers, opinions, and feedback. The leader must exemplify and honor, or support, the enthusiasm around them as a tool for succeeding in changing the organization.
Clarify intentions. Clarify processes. Clarify procedures. Clarify by asking follow-up questions and reflectively listen to obtain mutual understanding. Clarification remains one of the most critical tasks in organizational change. When confusion rears its ugly head, respond with explanation and follow-up, as detailed in two-directional communication. When the comprehension is doubted, ask for feedback as an opportunity to increase clarification. Clarification is both a tool and an opportunity; do not waste this opportunity and tool by neglecting those needing clarification.
Organizational change needs a mechanism for gathering data from many sources, including the employees affected, the vendors, the suppliers, and the customers. Open the valve for data to flow back. One of the most horrific organizational changes it has been my displeasure to witness was increased because the leaders operated in a vacuum and never allowed data flow that was contradictory to the previously agreed upon results. The leaders in this organization worked hard to refuse hard data, which contradicted their bias, and this ruined the business, the employees, and the customers.

I cannot guarantee following all these points will make organizational change succeed, roses bloom, bottom lines inflate, rainbows dance, and all of life fall into organized lines leading ever upward. I can guarantee that without these points, organizational change that promotes an environment of learning will never be more than polish. Consider the axiom, “Lipstick on a pig.” The lipstick is not bad, the pig is not bad, but placing lipstick on a pig is out of place and does nothing to improve the pig. Flavor-of-the-month changes are lipstick on a pig, not bad, but out of place until the entire organization is on board and enthusiastically supporting the move, and proper measurements are in place to gauge, measure, and report the change.

Business theorist Chris Argyris put forth a model, later discussed by Senge (1994) explaining our thinking process as we interact with the world. This seven-step method is called the Ladder of Inference; according to this model, as we move up the ladder our beliefs affect what we infer about what we observe and therefore become part of how we experience our interaction with other people. Organizational change can be plotted along the same model or ladder of inference.

Organizational change begins with information output; then collect data, preferably through listening and observation while doing the work; interpreting the data includes obtaining data, evaluating meaning, deciphering intent, and understanding value. Please note, the assumptions should not be made in a vacuum and could be wrong; thus, always return to the data producers and ask questions to ensure mutual understanding. Once conclusions are mutually understood, they become beliefs; but, don’t stop until beliefs become actions.

If a model is needed, please benchmark Quicken Loans and Southwest Airlines, both organizations are doing a tremendous job with the ladder steps, especially moving organizational beliefs into motivated organizational action. Remember, one does not climb a ladder to view the horizon and scenery, they climb a ladder to begin working, carrying the tools needed to perform the work, and possessing certain knowledge that the work can be accomplished. Climb the ladder of success with the intent to work, achieve, and move forward.

References

Clifton, D. O., Anderson “Chip,” E., & Schreiner, L. A. (2016). Strengths quest: Discover and develop your strengths in academics, career, and beyond (2nd ed.).

Senge. P. M. (1994). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday.

The images used herein were obtained in the public domain, this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

14 Rules on Leadership – Gen. George Washington: Shifting the Leadership Paradigm

General George Washington wrote “Rules on Civility” (1887) and helped to mold and model a growing social environment in America. These 110 rules for civility also encapsulate good advice to leaders applicable still today and fourteen of them are discussed below as they bear direct application to the current societal ills. The hope remains that in pointing out these rules leaders may become more of an example, business improves, and American Society as a whole begins to lift itself up to a higher level of performance.

Rule 19:

Let your countenance be pleasant but in serious matters somewhat grave.

I worked with a manager who made the following statement about the director we both answered to, “I never know whether he is joking, jesting, or simply being serious.” This is a failure of leadership and can cause disharmony, chaos, and no end to trouble. Model and exemplify pleasant emotions. Never try to confuse your audience, never adopt an emotion without a purpose, and never make your audience to think or wonder about your emotional state or demeanor. More importantly, looking pleasant builds confidence in those around you to act with pleasantness and harmony; so smile, speak softly, and generate pleasantness.

Rule 25:

Superfluous compliments and all affectation[s] of ceremonies are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be neglected.

This speaks to offering sincere praise, showing gratitude, and returning credit to the source for things that are progressing well and accepting failure when poorly. I had the displeasure of working with an officer who gave insincere praise making a great ceremony out of giving that insincere praise and then laughing at the person being singled out for the praise for not knowing how to proceed correctly. The morale of the unit was disastrous and deadly. Several members of that group held a deep desire for a “friendly fire incident” involving this officer as the victim. The same problems arise in business and if left to fester potential is wasted, and money follows lost potential.

Don’t forget to limit ceremony, pomp, and procession to the level needed to honor the awardee without allowing the ceremony, pomp, or procession to exceed the degree of the award or the awardee’s comfort level. Know the audience and limit the service to the comfort of the audience. Thus allowing those being awarded and those in attendance to celebrate in a manner conducive to the award and their individual comfort level.

Rule 35:

Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive.

We have all heard, and many live by the axiom, “Time is money.” This rule from Gen. Washington speaks to the need for comprehension, timeliness, and specificity. Limit the words, tone down the tone, restrict the emotional content, and get to the point; thus saving the audience’s attention and exemplifying respect for the other person in the communication.

Rule 39:

In writing or speaking, give to every person his due title according to his degree and the customs of the place.

Did you work hard for your title, yes; thus, reflect the respect for your title to others. I met two different people in authority, 180-degrees apart from each other that saw this principle from opposing extremes. One manager refused to use titles calling the whole thing meaningless while demanding respect for their personal rank and title. 20-year employees who had obtained great honor and respect amongst their peers received no respect from the leader who demanded respect. The other leader cared a great deal for their title because of those who had held that title before them and respected others who had earned titles for the same reason. The second leader had higher morale, less behavioral problems, and loyal people who achieved greatness. The first leader had nothing but trouble, never could reach goals and objectives, and passed the failures to produce onto others.

In our global working environment, knowing the culture where titles and showing respect is critical to creating success. More importantly, if you as a leader have not already cultivated respect for titles, the ability to show genuine respect for those of titles will place you at a disadvantage and harm the businesses you represent. Make time to learn and practice showing proper respect for those with titles.

Rule 44:

When a man does all he can, though it succeed[s] not well, blame not him that did it.

How many times has success been snatched from the hands of those trying and the leader then berates, castigates, and derides those who tried? Since measuring individual effort is not possible, first presume everyone did their best, then promote a spirit of learning from failure and build people. Even if the actions were thought to be malicious and vengeful, praise and support people, you never know and in not knowing, do not assume! I would also interject the following thought, Juran’s Rule details that when problems arise, 90% of the time the process is failing and only 10% of the time are people failing. Thus, look to the processes, the procedures, the methods of work for answers, employ training, and only blame people as the ultimate last resort; this includes blaming yourself.

Rule 45:

Being to advise or reprehend anyone, consider whether it ought to be done in public or in private, and presently or at some other time; in what terms to do it; and in reproving show no signs of cholar but do it with all sweetness and mildness.

(Please note, the term “cholar” has had a spelling update and is now spelled “choler” and is defined as showing irascibility, anger, wrath, or irritability. From Latin is the origin cholera.)

There is great truth hidden here; this rule mimics another axiom, “Praise in public and reprimand in private.” While speaking to timeliness, this rule allows the leader to select when and where praise and reprimand occurs. Do not forget Rule 19 emotion is a leadership tool, not a weapon; tools guide and instruct, weapons destroy and demoralize. Use emotion wisely or choose to not use emotion at all per the rule above, but make emotion a conscious choice!

Rule 48:

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, — for example is more prevalent than precepts.

During my military service, I had a mid-level officer that hated and punished severely those who slept on watch, for a good reason. The problem, the officer regularly slept on watch. The example was more prevalent than the precepts taught and destroyed morale. Rules 19, 45, and 48, all discuss powerful leadership principles along with a general theme and should be considered both individually and collectively to make the lessons more powerful. First, know yourself, then know those you aspire to lead, and finally lead well.

Rule 49:

Use no reproachful language against anyone; neither curse nor revile.

In the world today, many confuse reprimand (rebuke or admonition) with reproach (finding fault, upbraiding, blaming, censure, disgrace or discredit) and this has led to a lot of confusion in communication. More to the point, the language of leaders has coarsened, hardened, and plasticized or transitioned into bluster and buffoonery instead of calm and controlled. I know a brilliant person, photographic memory, incredible mental ability, no people skills, no technical expertise, and there is great pride in not having these skills. This person was promoted to the level of senior officer in the US military. Who, during an inspection, wept uncontrollably when the plan went to pieces, machinery broke down, and the inspection failed. This brilliant person could not speak to inferiors without an attitude of superiority cursing and reproach everyone and anyone. Leaders, especially those placed in command through rank, must understand this communication principle and the power of this principle for good and ill. Failure to communicate remains the sole variable upon which organizational cancer metastasizes into a full-blown case of organizational chaos leading to destruction (Dandira, 2012).

Rule 58:

Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for ‘tis a sign of tractable and commendable nature, and in all causes of passion permit reason to govern.

The above “rule” is a choice, rather two options. The first choice is choosing to speak without malice and envy as a sign of your personal nature. The second choice is to restrict passion. Leaders only show emotion as a tool, not a weapon. Conversation requires restricted passion to convey to the audience logic and confidence in the leader.

Rule 59:

Never express anything unbecoming, nor act against the rules before your inferiors.

I used to think this was common sense, and then I met two Chief Petty Officers (CPO’s) in the US Navy and discovered that common sense is not very common. These two CPO’s remarked upon everything they saw, verbally spewing whatever occurred between their two ears, and were always examples of what not to do and how not to act. Feeling their rank and position secure, these CPO’s then punished those who did not act in their manner severely and those who replicated their actions were rewarded and protected from the consequences. With the result being that the followers exceeded the examples displayed by the CPO’s with noticeable results for morale, good order, and discipline.

Rule 65:

Speak not injurious words neither in jest nor in earnest; scoff at none although they give occasion.

I worked with a brilliant and incredible person who took a little time to learn and was very clumsy. Once the topic being taught was then known, this individual knew that task and performed it in an exemplary manner. Because of the clumsiness and time, it took to learn, this person was always the butt of his command’s jokes, jibes, insults, and was on every single petty detail possible, and performed those tasks poorly. When respected, honest and sincerely praised, this person performed incredible feats. The difference amazed and shocked his command and division, but did not silence these voices of derision to the detriment of the quality of work performed. Did my friend give occasion to be laughed at, certainly! Did he deserve to be laughed at, certainly not! Leaders need to be doing better at controlling themselves and exemplifying the behaviors they desire to see in others.

Rule 67:

Detract not from others, neither be excessive in commanding.

While much of this rule can be considered to be part of Rule 65, detracting from others goes beyond verbal haranguing of Rule 65. Detract is to reduce in value usually with the intent of making yourself larger. Managers detract from their workers by taking credit for all the good and passing off all the blame. Leaders attract the blame and detract the praise to the source.

The final aspect of this rule is necessary to understand, excessive commanding. Commanding with excessive commands is nothing more than dominating in an authoritarian manner to the destruction of others. Even commanding without excessive commands but with an attitude of domination can destroy. Commanding well is an attitude of servitude coupled with a desire to build, grow, and develop people to meet their individual potential and doesn’t generally need commands, but always needs guidance or if you prefer, coaching. Consider the life of a tree planted in good level ground. The tree spends the first 10-15 years of life with a guide wire to help the tree grow straight. Not a command and forced growth, but a guided growth into growing straight and true. People are like the tree; the leader is like the guide wire, build people through guidance or coaching, not commands.

Rule 73:

Think before you speak; pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and distinctly.

I was raised in a home where pronunciation and annunciation were as critical to speaking as spelling, grammar is to writing well, and the rules included proper and logical thinking, before speaking. The process of communication is aided and abetted by properly pronouncing and announcing your words when speaking, after carefully thinking and crafting your desires into coherent thoughts. In the US Army, I did not have trouble with my upbringing interfering with communication. In the US Navy, I had nothing but problems with how I was raised interfering with communications. One day, I spent 45-minutes being verbally upbraided by a second-class petty officer that choose to speak with no regard for the rules of the English Language, no understanding of grammar, and no logic, where Ebonics were displayed as a symbol of pride intended to confuse the receiver. I was then referred to the CPO for not listening and being disrespectful. I explained I could not understand what was being said and was told that my understanding of language is not his understanding of language and that I am in the wrong for not working harder to show empathy to a higher-ranking person. Remember, the second-class petty officer chose, while on duty, to speak in a manner that intentionally could not be understood and always spoke in an understandable style when off duty. If placed into a position of authority, managerial or leadership, that role comes the expectation of communication using logic, common rules of English pronunciation and annunciation, and proper grammar to ensure mutual understanding has the potential to be achieved. When confusion in language occurs, it is the leaders, or managers, job to then rephrase and change language to meet the understanding of the listener.

These rules as mentioned form the bedrock upon which long and fruitful careers of leadership are built upon. If weak in a particular rule, choose to obtain training and counsel in how to improve. Find people exemplifying these rules and support them in their good works. Train and develop those not employing these rules into better people, and our entire society improves.

References

Dandira, M. (2012). Dysfunctional leadership: Organizational cancer. Business Strategy Series, 13(4), 187-192. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17515631211246267

Washington, G. (2009). George Washington’s Rules of Civility (and decent behavior in company and conversation). Retrieved December 30, 2016, from http://www.digireads.com

Man’s Inhumanity Towards Man: Shifting the Leadership and Customer Service Paradigm

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Recently, I was asked, “What does customer service mean to you?” The question continues to reverberate in my mind. Drawing upon several recent experiences, let’s discuss why customer service continues to be useless, debilitating, and demeaning. Finally, let’s imagine a way forward, a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between people as human beings, customers, and employees, who all deserve the best customer experience we, the professional customer-facers, can provide.

For the record, my wife considers the first example a genuine customer service success and remains a pleased customer. Since the first example concerns both of us, I see the customer service provided as a fail and will explain in greater detail below. According to my wife, this example is a win because of the treatment and ease of concluding her part in the customer service example. This separation of beliefs highlights another reason why voice-of-the-customer surveys (VoC) should not be a knowledge performance indicator (KPI) for service professionals. Service delivery is ambiguous, and as the disconnection between my wife and I represents, service value is in the eye of the beholder.

The first example begins with Amazon.com. The end user received their order for a product (the customer was served), which also contained two items not requested, not ordered, and not paid for (an additional hassle for the customer). The customer service department, at Amazon.com, was consulted and the agent informed the customer, “Since the cost to return the products did not justify shipping the products back to Amazon, the customer could keep the products” with Amazon’s blessing. This is not a good customer service experience for several reasons:

The customer now has to dispose of new products not needed or wanted.
The only justification for not returning the products was the cost, e.g. inconvenience, to Amazon.
The underlying problem, receiving parts not requested, did not come with a solution that served the customer; nor, did the option to keep the parts improve the customer experience.

While the customer-facing agent was kind, considerate, and per the company guidelines acting in all good faith to the customer, in the interests of the company the customer was not served even though a solution was generated and the customer went away. Consider the person who was supposed to receive these parts. They will have to call and either receive a bill credit or the parts need to be shipped, thus delaying the other customer as well as not serving that customer by respecting their time, resources, and honoring the customer’s commitment to using the retailer Amazon.com. With both customers not being served, how can Amazon.com, or any business organization, dare refer to these customer interactions as “service.”

Regarding the next two examples, I am purposefully vague about the entities committing the customer “dis-service” at this moment, for a reason. I do not want distractions, e.g. reader bias, to interrupt or interfere with the focus upon the incidents by naming the organizations. The second example comes from an infamously poor government office that has a reputation for providing poor service to their customer base. The third example comes from a truly infamous retailer who is already struggling but generally has much better customer interactions. The second and third examples’ names will be provided later in this article.

While dealing with a large government entity, both in person and over the phone, three separate and divergent answers to the same problem were received over the period of five different opportunities to assist the customer. By stating this experience happened with a government entity, many people already are presuming the experience was bad. It was, and this is an acceptable and reasonable policy for bureaucrats to exemplify. I disagree most heartily that any government office can produce poor customer interactions and skate by blithely. Since all governments cannot operate without forced taxation, the government entity should be providing better, not worse, customer interactions than those found in the private sector and the need to hold the government to a higher standard is sorely lacking. More to the point, the original problem remains unresolved more than 15-days after the problem was promised a solution within 5-business days. What amazes me the most in this affair is the nonchalance, non-interest, and forthright noncommittal that government employees are allowed, nay encouraged, to get away with in customer interactions with those same taxpayers, who both need help and pay the taxes to keep the government employee employed.

Third, a recent example occurred during this now past holiday season; a customer approached a company representative for directions; the company representative did not have any pressing duties to occupy his/her time and can leave his/her assigned post to aid customers in improving the customer experience. I know this, as I checked with the manager and witnessed the customer service provider playing on a cell phone moments before being asked a question. The company representative gave a broad hand, and arm gestures yelled at the customer and appeared in all appearances to be inconvenienced by the customer’s request for directions. The company’s policy states the company representative is to walk the customer directly to their desired destination and await the customer’s pleasure to return to their original post as the only method to handle this type of service request. When this was brought to the manager’s attention, the manager acted shocked in front of the customer raising the complaint, and then took no action, as the additional action was deemed “not warranted” per the manager’s murmured comments to other employee’s in the vicinity. More to the point, the manager took the opportunity to bad mouth the customer raising the complaint and presented the complaint to other employees, who “snickered” at the language the manager used to describe those making complaints, while falsely thinking the customer who is raising the concerns was not paying attention.

Finally, a recent example from a major fast food franchise, while Burger King as a corporation should not be held accountable for the work the franchise performed, the customer service example remains priceless in showcasing the uselessness of serving the customer and the need for training customer interaction professionals. While using coupons, the customer became confused in the “legal print, ” and the order took longer to place and pay for than normal. The cashier at this point does three things: 1. Assumes the confused customer cannot hear; 2. Bad mouth the confused customer to the next three customers who were waiting patiently; and 3. Blames the customer for taking too long to order their food. Later, the cashier approached the confused customer, blamed the incident on him, offered a faux apology, and walked off muttering about stupid customers not understanding the reality of fast food restaurants.

In the third example, do not be distracted by the poor leadership being presented by the manager. Focus instead on the customer interactions: two different customer experiences, both deemed “acceptable customer service” by the powers that control the experiences. Neither customer was served nor was the problems solved. The first customer found a more helpful company representative who followed the company policy, and the second customer interaction with the manager only strengthened the customer’s resolve to continue to avoid the retailer. Two opportunities to grow a new relationship, enhance a new paradigm upon the customer, and promote goodwill and loyalty with the local customer base were missed. Customer interactions can and should be held to a higher standard, and the following defines my position that focusing solely on customer service is useless along with steps to improve.

Focusing solely on “serving the customer” is useless as all the customer receives is a meeting of their stated needs. In the third example, the customer received directions; thus, the customer’s need was met, and service was provided. In the first and second examples, the customer needed information and a plan of action to overcome the situation experienced. Even if the work resulted in the customer needing to take more action, the customer was “technically” served. In the fourth example, the confused customer received his food, was able to use a coupon, and was thus “served.” Is it apparent that merely serving the customer is useless?

The service to the customer, while technically meeting the customer’s needs, remains not just poor but pointless; all because the focus of the organization is honed to simply provide “service” or meet the customer’s stated need at the lowest cost, the fastest interaction, and the least amount of effort for the company and those employed to provide customer service. Sometimes all that is wanted by the customer is to resolve the problem quickly and efficiently and courteously and move forward with their lives. This is yet another reason why freedom is needed in customer interactions to serve as needed for each customer making contact. Customer facing professionals deserve better from their leadership than simply “providing service to customers.” Customer facing professionals need leadership, guidance, and freedom to develop the rapport necessary to shine their personal, professional pride into the customer interaction, all with the intent of not merely “serving a customer’s needs,” but providing opportunities for the customer to be motivated to brag about their unique customer experience.

In practice, the following steps should be the underlying governing principles to move from service to professional pride.

No matter the method for customer interaction, make the time to show genuine interest in the customer. This will require making conversation, employing reflective listening techniques to ensure mutual understanding of the customer’s position, and representing the company with professional pride. For the customer-facing employees to show pride in the company the company leaders need to ensure the “What” and the “Why” is known to the employees’ so the employee can exemplify the “What” and the “Why” to customers. Leadership is key to communicating with a purpose and promoting the spirit of reflective listening in an organization. Make the connection of mutual understanding and most of the customer problems shrink in size.
1. Active listening is good, but it doesn’t make the grade anymore.
2. Reflective listening is all about making sure mutual understanding has been achieved.
3. Mutual understanding provides one interaction resolution, goes beyond simple servicing needs, and displays the pride and professionalism of the company’s commitment to customer interactions.
4. Reflective listening can be employed in voice, email, instant message, and face-to-face customer interactions and reflects an easily attained step up from only actively listening.
Promote the customer experience by not differentiating between external and internal customers, treat them all as valuable customers deserving attention, focus, eye contact, and validation that their concern is justified and worthy of attention. Act in a manner that the customer deserves the best, and the spirit of customer interactions will infuse all the customers with a commonality of desire, hope, and professionalism. As a customer interaction professional, how much better do you offer superior interactions with customers when you, receive excellent customer interactions from the company you spend time representing?
Remember to make the human connection in human interactions. Using reflective listening, focus on the clues, the body language, the tone of voice, and acknowledge these communication streams through competent action. For example, if the customer is perceived as stressed and is speaking in a clipped and hurried manner, respond kindly, but through accurate and speedy action acknowledging the customer’s stress and meeting the customer’s need by respecting their time. Human interactions are improved through human connections that reflect respect and that embody this principle in every human interaction, and the customer-facing employee becomes a customer’s hero. Using the information above, are we not all customer-facing employees; yes, we certainly are!
Freedom to think and act in the interest of the customer, based upon sound critical thinking skills, is exemplified at the time of the interaction without second-guessing after the interaction. This happens more often in call centers, but every customer-facing employee has had this occur to them. At the moment, the decision appeared the best course of action, but after the interaction/interference of a manager or a quality assurance (QA) employee has second-guessed and provided “advice” that does not provide value to future customer interactions, doubt is planted removing confidence in acting appropriately in the future. Does this mean allowing poor judgment to survive? Absolutely not; it does mean that the “advice” needs to model and reflect value for future decisions, not cast aspersions upon the previous decisions.
SMART Training. Everyone knows the axiom for SMART Goals; training should also embody the principles of and reflect SMART, “Specific, Measurable, Applicable, Realistic, and Timely.” If the training does not meet SMART levels, the training is not valuable to the persons receiving the training. Make the training SMART, and the potential for improving professionalism in customer interactions grows exponentially.
Never stop learning, never stop reaching, and never stop growing. How often does training cease for employees after the new hire training concludes? How is a new employee supposed to meet the demands of a constantly changing customer population without ongoing training? More specifically, should managers, team leaders, directors, VP’s, and the C-Level leaders also continue to learn and receive training in their positions, roles, and company? If the front-line customer-facing employees need constant refresher training, then every customer-facing employee needs constant refresher training that meets the SMART training guidelines and provides value to the individual using that training.
Stop wasting resources on unproductive goals, e.g., serving customers with excellence. Serving customers, even with “excellence,” remains a useless and wasteful activity; eradicate the term “customer service” from the company vernacular and memory. Begin by realizing the opportunity provided in customer interactions to grow the business, supporting customer interactions through reflective listening where mutual understanding is the goal, and by acting upon the mutual understanding achieved.

We, the professional customer-facing providers, can and should be able to onboard these principles and lead the eradication efforts to remove customer service from our focus and professional labels. The importance of not serving the customer, but elevating the customer interaction, cannot be understated. The customer experience needs to be elevated with reflective listening and prompt action to mutual understanding and a sense of mutual growth as partners in using the company’s products and services. The customer is too important to continue to waste resources only to serve. Make the opportunity to deliver and elevate, and the bottom-line will take care of itself abundantly. The organization in the second example is the Department of Veteran Affairs. The organization in the third example is Target.

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The 3-E’s of the Employee/Employer Relationship: Is your Organization Practicing all Three?

The 3-E’s, early, eminently, and equality, thus forming the fundamental principles of the employee/employer relationship. Too many times only early is practiced, and the problems emanating result in reduced employee morale, purposeful negative actions, and disruption of the business by both customers and employees acting in a resentful manner. In order to fully understand the power of combining the 3-E’s, we must first detail, define, and describe.

Early is often considered as akin to new, fresh, and initial; yet, the better application for this topic is in timeliness, punctuality, and promptness. For example, when a problem occurs, the earlier it is addressed the faster and less damaging the problem becomes to the business as a whole. Not taking precipitous action leaves the problem festering and infecting eventually leading to organizational cancer (Dandira, 2012), low employee morale, and managerial inertia slowing business processes and increasing the damage. Hence, prompt, punctual, and timely action to address a situation early enough to affect positively the outcome remains the order of the day and the strongest power business leaders can take with the 3-E’s, but early action is not enough.

Eminent is often considered as akin to celebrity, paramount, and superior; yet a more preferred definition for this topic is often conspicuous and influential. When an eminent action is taken, the action tends to supersede current policies, procedures, and overlaps or drowns normal work. Overlaps and superseding are dangerous actions leading to increased costs, lost work, customer complaints, and a general lack of trust in business leadership to properly prior plan and produce positive performances from the business structure. These thoughts are fed with celebrity-like marketing on new policies, business leaders, and changes, which are not fully understood and appreciated by the employees most affected. Hence, the need to be frequently engaged, seen being influential in the lives of employees, and known as a person who cares remains the key leadership quality developed by eminent action; yet eminent actions, even if conducted early, are insufficient to properly influence and meet the demands of business.

Equality is often considered as sameness, fairness, and uniformity; yet, all of these definitions fail to capture what equality truly is and the power of equality. For this topic, consider the following: equipoise, parity, and concurrence. Employees are individuals. They might have similar job titles and responsibilities, but the individual approach to the position provides power and separates the individuals and does not collect, compress, and concentrate into carbon copies. Hence, the same approach of uniform application is not meeting the needs of the employees nor is it meeting the definition of fair. Thus, the employee needs equality that treats them as individuals concurring in practice, but are individual in approach, and brings parity into treatment as an expression of equipoise. While early is good and early mixed with eminence is better, but without early, eminent, and equal combined into an action, the employee and the employer suffer in an environment of disaster fed by chaos, corruption, and cancer as detailed by Dandira (2012).

Consistency remains key to employee/manager relationships. While the principles of 3-E’s are important, all the work of the 3-E’s can be wasted if consistency is not honored and observed by the employees. Consistency requires flexibility, firmness, and fungibility to meet the demands of creating success in using the 3-E’s appropriately. The main factor in employee/employer relationships continues to be the individual nature of each employee, not the requirement to make all employees the same carbon copy of another employee or an “ideal” of the desired employee.

Putting these principles into practice requires asking questions, such as “Are employee communications being expressed early, eminently, and equally?” “Are actions taken by business leaders being perceived as meeting the 3-E’s?” “Do the trend lines in application indicate consistency or inconsistency?” While employee perceptions can and often remain hidden, except through properly capturing actionable data in key performance indicators, the answers to these questions and more are evident. Look at the employees, who show up to work excited, enthused, and enthralled. Ask them why they possess these qualities. Then, ask those employees not possessing them and hone in on the differences. Will employees change from day-to-day; probably, but the answers continue to be important indicators as to whether communication in the organization is occurring.

Sinek (2009) offers that asking why and truly listening to the answers being returned remains the most effective question and action series employers can take from day-to-day as the pulse of the organization. Gitomer (1998) adds that leaders after asking “why” should ask “what” to empower change and drive motivation. Consider for a moment, an employee is asked “why” they feel the way they feel, then “what” would that employee like to see changed to aid in feeling differently, and project the employee’s reaction to having been heard. Project that employee’s reaction if they see the changes they offered implemented into business practice.

Are all employee suggestions implemented; no, this is not feasible and the employees know this when making suggestions. Yet, when employee suggestions are implemented, this changes the employee dynamic for all employees. Ask yourself, when was the last time an employee suggestion was implemented and marketed to the other employees? If the time is longer than 6-months, the program is not consistently being implemented and there is a problem with using the 3-E’s.

Steenhuysen (2009) reported on research discussing the power of praise. Where praise is offered genuinely, praise has the power to change, and the research supports that the power of genuine praise operates on the same reward sections of the brain as cash. Anecdotal evidence shows many employees appreciate genuine praise, sometimes more than cash. As a business leader or employer, ask yourself, “When was the last time I caught someone doing good and offered praise?” If the answer was not yesterday, there is a problem with the 3-E’s, and consistency will be needed to rectify this problem. Are you setting the goal to not leave the office without offering genuine praise? Remember, Steenhuysen (2009) is reporting that praise is its own reward. The research and anecdotal evidence present praise as being as good as cash to the brain. Hence, praise is its own reward; can objects be added to potentially increase the reward, yes. But start with praise, honestly provided and employing the 3-E’s.

Case in point, I have worked with a VP of Customer Service Operations who carries with them yellow and purple post-it notes. The purple are for catching people in the act of good. From simple actions to amazing calls, they all get recognition on purple post-it notes as a very noticeable action the business leader can take to catch and praise the good. The yellow post-it notes go to the team leader when training is needed. Consistent action over the years has developed a spirit of competition to earn and be caught doing an act of good. The yellow notes are not remembered at bonus time; more serious infractions have a set process to follow, and the less serious yellow post-it notes are simply a means of providing timely feedback employing the spirit of the 3-E’s. Upon starting this program, almost a full year passed before the employees caught on and the word of this action spread. Let consistent action be seen, not marketed, and let the word spread by enthused employees.

The best part of the program from an employee perspective is the highest earners of purple post-it notes eventually began earning additional non-cash rewards also presented in a quiet manner. The rewards ranged from leaving an hour early with pay, longer lunches or breaks with pay, to movie tickets and dinner cards. These extra steps were implemented when trends reflected some employees were taking extra efforts to be caught thus necessitating a need for other levels of reward to keep the interest of the employees in acting and performing to a higher level. Never are these employees recognized openly, e.g., at a company meeting, marketed to other employees, e.g., in a company newsletter, and receiving the purple notes is not a competition.

These purple post-it notes are an expression of gratitude from a person in leadership to an employee working hard. Quiet, consistent, application of the 3-E’s provided a failing business unit new life in employee interactions with each other and the external customers. The actions taken here should not be rare or the exception in employee/employer relationships, but the standard and personalized to each business and business leader. What can we learn here to apply to all business units and organizations?

Whatever is done consistent action remains critical.
Simple, quiet, and direct remain key to affecting positive results on a personal level. Be brave! Be honest! Be courageous! Be seen acting as you would see all employees act. These will provide an impetus for others to emulate actions taken and good will develop.
Know the 3-E’s, whether you are currently an employee or a business leader of hundreds or thousands. The 3-E’s are a two-directional action possessing power for positive results. Use this power to drive a solution that can be consistently applied.
If what is being tried is not working, do not act abruptly. Quietly adjust until positive actions can be seen and verified through trend lines. What is being done currently might simply need more time or more quiet publicity to be discussed by the employees. Make small adjustments and act for the interest of individuals; the whole population will catch on.
A word of caution. Never use this program for self-aggrandizement; this will kill the program faster than a bullet to the 10-ring. Do not enter into this program and offer non-genuine praise or false and ambiguous words and canned phrases. Be specific and capture the incidents exactly, ask questions if needed, but be genuine and specific.

References

Dandira, M. (2012). Dysfunctional leadership: Organizational cancer. Business Strategy Series, 13(4), 187-192. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17515631211246267

Gitomer, J. (1998). Customer satisfaction is worthless – Customer loyalty is priceless. Atlanta, GA: Bard Press.

Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Steenhuysen, J. Praise as good as cash to brain: study. (2009, February 26). Reuters. Science. Accessed from: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2343219520080424?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

Customer Call Center Leader – Part 6: The Role of Technology in Creating a Culture of Adaptability

The role of technology is to act the neutral part in the human work relationship. Technology is a tool, like a hammer, designed for a specific role embodying potential for good or ill, delivering a specific role, and serving a specific function. Technology is not positive or negative and possesses no value matrix beyond addressing the concern, “does technology fill the role it was designed for or not” (Budworth and Cox, 2005; Ertmer, 1999; and Ropohl, 1999). Technological philosophy, detailed by Ropohl (1999), provides greater details into the underlying core issues leaders and organizations face daily when merging technology and people together. Yet, always in application do we find managers attempting to make technology more than what technology can ever be, the neutral variable in the human technology work relationship while thwarting culture and other organizational changes.

The automatic dishwasher is an example; if the dishes go in dirty and come out dirty, the blame is the technology instead of the human interaction in the technology work relationship. I was on a call to customer service recently and heard no less than five times in a 10-minute phone call, the “system is slow,” the “computer is not working right,” or some other similar excuse from the agent not being able to answer questions from the customer. How many times has human resources heard, “the car wouldn’t start,” “my GPS gave me wrong directions,” or my personal favorite, “the alarm clock failed.” The technology is not at fault as the neutral variable; human interaction with the technology is where the fault lies.

Application of technology to leadership and organizations may be summed by Wixom and Todd (2005) as they quote Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) for the specific principle espoused by Trist (1981) and applicable here, “For accurate prediction, beliefs and attitudes must be specified in a manner consistent in time, target, and context with behavior of interest” (Wixom and Todd, 2005, p. 89). Virtual and non-virtual teams are connected by the specific behaviors of those being led; the attitudes of the users predict beliefs and flow into production, especially into call centers and other front-line/customer-facing positions. Technology brings leadership into possibility, but the potential cannot be realized unless the leader knows how to harness negative beliefs, core out the actual problem, address user concerns, and then redirect the negative into either neutral or positive productivity.

The answer to leaders needing to harness user beliefs is found in proper communications aided by technology, as detailed by London and Beatty (1983). Empowering the users with 360-degree feedback, empowering the leader with another channel for 360-degree feedback, and operating a third channel for the organization in 360-degree feedback places the user in the driver seat to improve their technology beliefs and attitudes. Ropohl (1999) and Omar, Takim, and Nawawi (2012) combine to complete the puzzle in addressing how technology applies to leadership and virtual teams by underscoring the people element in the technological equation. Omar, et al. (2012) claim,

“…Technological capability refers to an organisation’s [sic] capacity to deploy, develop and utilise [sic] technological resources and integrate them with other complementary resources to supply the differentiated products and services. Technological capability is embodied not only in the employees’ knowledge and skills [combined with] the technical system, but also in the managerial system, values and norms” (Omar et al., 2012, p. 211).

As the image reflects in the convergence of the three channels of 360-degree feedback, the power of communication is enhanced by the technology employed as a neutral variable in the human technology work relationship. If technology fails, the relationships in the channels remain and the relationships are not separated or closed. When discussing flexibility and adaptability in organizations, clearly understanding the roles of technology and communication empower the combined user, leader, and organization relationships.

The leader and organization need to understand and develop these principles to harness the innovative power of the human element where technology interacts with the human work relationship. If technology, especially technological improvement, is not thought through, planned, discussed, and elevated, Dandira (2012) claims the result is ‘Organizational Cancer.’ The power of technology as a force multiplier to unleash the power of humans cannot be understated, but the flip side of the technological coin is that as a force multiplier, if technology is not handled correctly, the negative aspects are as large as the positive aspects. Toor and Ofori (2008) detail how leaders need to understand and embody the differences between managers and leaders to contribute fully to the technology implementation and daily use in production. If leaders cannot lead physical teams, they will never understand virtual teams where technology must be understood more completely, and managers need not ever apply as the mindset is not conducive to creating success in the human technology work relationship.

A recent technological change was heralded, marketed, bragged, and positioned to the stakeholders in a company as akin to being better than “sliced bread.” The new system was discussed for three years before images of the new system began to be floated. Everything was prepared to have the technology play a more flexible and vital role in the organization. The problem was managers and programmers implemented the technology instead of users and leaders. User interfaces were ungainly, illogical, and made no sense in the completion of user work processes. More specifically, the impact for every single process and procedure in the current technology was not considered and revamped during the rollout of the new system. The result was chaos among users, failure to deliver the promised products and services, and a customer service disaster. Early in the rollout of the technology, managers directing the rollout were alerted that processes and procedures needed to be revamped, and the user was being left behind in how the system was “supposed to work” resulting in compounded chaos, increasing customer dissatisfaction, and further diminishing the company reputation. The managerial response was to “sit and wait” for the programmers to finish building the system and changing the technology to “fit.” Where a leader was needed, a plethora of managers existed and they actively worked to make the problems worse for the end user, the customer, and the other managers.

Creating a culture follows a basic set of principles, namely, the example of the leaders, including their words and actions, followed by repetition, and the passage of time (Tribus, n.d.). Tribus (n.d.) specifically places the core of culture in the example of the leaders regardless of whether the organizational leader is a leader or a manager as evidenced by action and word. To create a culture specific to adaptability, several other key components are required, namely, written instructions, freedom, and two-directional communication in the hierarchy (Aboelmaged, 2012; Bethencourt, 2012; Deci and Ryan, 2000; and Kuczmarski, 1996 & 2003). Two-directional communication has been warped into 360-degree communication. Regardless of name, the input from the workers and the customer is more critical than the voices of managers to organizational excellence.

Alvesson and Willmott (2002) add another component to this discussion. As the organizational culture takes hold of an individual employee, the employee begins to embody the culture, for good or ill, in their daily interactions both personally and professionally. This hold becomes an identity adding another level of control from the organization over the employee binding them to the organization. The identity control becomes a two-edged sword because the employee will form loyal opposition that can be misinterpreted to be intransigence, and the loss of that employee causes other employees to question their identity and the organizational culture. More to the point, the changed employee becomes habitualized into the current culture and then hardens into intransigency when changes are needed to help the organization survive.

Creating a culture attuned to adapting, the organizational leader needs to communicate, be seen exemplifying the organizational culture, and building that culture one employee at a time; until the changed employees can then begin to sponsor other employees into the organization’s new culture. The organizational leader must set clear goals, define the vision, and obtain employee buy-in prior to enacting change, then exemplify that vision after the change (Deci and Ryan, 1980, 1985, & 2000) while remaining open to the possibility of a need to change direction if indicated. Key to this process is Tribus’ (n.d.) [p. 3-4] “Learning Society” vs. “Knowing Society.” The distinction is crucial. The organizational culture must be learned and the process for continually learning honed and promoted to protect the culture while adapting to variables both internal and external. Learning societies know change occurs because of new thinking and inputs and remains adaptable to that change as a positive force in improvement. Knowing societies remain afraid of changes due to the fear of losing perks, benefits, or personal power and actively thwart change at every turn, usually while preaching the need to change.

To be clear, technology is a neutral force and can neither be a positive or a negative in an organization. The need for leaders cannot be overstated as the driving force in organizational change, or simply day-to-day leadership. Leaders must be seen and heard living the organizational culture. If, and when, changes are required, leaders must listen to user, customers, and the managers, but the weight and value are not the same and should never tilt in favor of the managers. Finally, if the organization needs to adapt, the organization must provide employees in front-line/customer-facing positions with freedom to act and the technology to record the actions, which are supported by back-office processes and procedures that respond to the front-line, not the other way round.

With the “.dot com” bubble burst in 2000, the world of business changed dramatically. As more baby-boomers leave the workforce and are replaced with millennial workers, the business culture is going to change more. To adapt, the engaged and determined business leader needs to embody a spirit of freedom and adaptability into the business culture, into the processes and procedures that define “work,” and into the customer relationship (internally and externally) or the business will continue to fail, struggle, and breed chaos.

References

Aboelmaged, M. (2012). Harvesting organizational knowledge and innovation practices: An empirical examination of their effects on operations strategy. Business Process Management Journal, 18(5), 712-734.

Alvesson M, & Willmott H. (2002, July) Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal Of Management Studies 39(5):619-644. Available from: Business Source Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed July 27, 2014.

Bethencourt, L. A. (2012). Employee engagement and self-determination theory. (Order No. 3552273, Northern Illinois University). ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, 121. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1294580434?accountid=458. (prod.academic_MSTAR_1294580434).

Budworth, N., & Cox, S. (2005). Trusting tools. The Safety & Health Practitioner, 23(7), 46-48. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/201021810?accountid=458

Dandira, M. (2012). Dysfunctional leadership: Organizational cancer. Business Strategy Series, 13(4), 187-192. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17515631211246267

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1980). The empirical exploration of intrinsic motivational processes. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39–80). New York: Academic Press.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 227–268.

Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first- and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 47(4), 47. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/218016186?accountid=458

Kuczmarski, T. (1996). What is innovation? The art of welcoming risk. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 13(5), 7-11.

Kuczmarski, T. (2003). What is innovation? And why aren’t companies doing more of it? What Is Innovation? And Why Aren’t Companies Doing More of It?” 20(6), 536-541.

London, M., & Beatty, R. W. (1993). 360-degree feedback as a competitive advantage. Human Resource Management (1986-1998), 32(2-3), 353. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/224341530?accountid=458

Omar, R., Takim, R., & Nawawi, A. H. (2012). Measuring of technological capabilities in technology transfer (TT) projects. Asian Social Science, 8(15), 211-221. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1338249931?accountid=458

Ropohl, G. (1999). Philosophy of Socio-Technical Systems. Society for Philosophy and Technology, 4. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4_n3html/ROPOHL.html

Toor, S., & Ofori, G. (2008). Leadership versus Management: How They Are Different, and Why. Leadership & Management in Engineering, 8(2), 61-71. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)1532-6748(2008)8:2(61)

Tribus, M. (n.d.). Changing the Corporate Culture Some Rules and Tools. Retrieved from: Changing the Corporate Culture Some Rules and Tools Web site: http://deming.eng.clemson.edu/den/change_cult.pdf

Trist, E. (1981). The evolution of socio-technical systems: A conceptual framework and an action program. Occasional Paper. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from: http://www.sociotech.net/wiki/images/9/94/Evolution_of_socio_technical_systems.pdf

The Call Center Leader Part 5 – Tacit Knowledge Combined with the Power of 4-C’s Produces Competitive Advantage

Tacit Knowledge, as a competitive advantage, remains a highly misunderstood topic in business due primarily to the difficulty in spotting, acknowledging, and then measuring this form of knowledge. Because managers, who preempt application, see tacit knowledge as a threat, leadership is required to implement its benefits. Tacit knowledge relies upon people implementing daily processes and procedures. Tacit knowledge as a competitive advantage requires freedom to improve those processes and procedures of daily work to understand how to improve. The principles of tacit knowledge are discussed and enhanced by Ambrosini and Bowman (2001) providing excellent discussion material for leaders to contemplate.

In detailing an operational definition of tacit knowledge, Ambrosini and Bowman (2001) designed a definitive definition for tacit knowledge as “context specific, … [generally] acquired on the job or in particular situations.” Proceeding further, Nonaka (1991) reiterated that tacit knowledge is “… deeply rooted in [both] an individual’s action and commitment [to] a profession, product, market, work group, or team.” Tacit knowledge contains elements of “practical knowledge” and remains “difficult to describe” unless the knowledge is described as a “process” to perform work. Taken together, tacit knowledge is a person’s commitment and knowledge gained in experience to understand processes and improve the same.

Let’s use an analogy to drive this point home. John works for call center A; Mark works for call center B. The leadership in call center B is very demanding, but rewards those who meet the challenges and provides freedom for front-line personnel to meet customer needs. Call center A does not demand much from front-line personnel except to perform their jobs as dictated, and managers are in place to ensure the job is done and nothing more. Both call centers have high employee churn numbers, both call centers are matrix driven, and performance is measured in seconds; both call centers compete with each other for the same customer base.

Because Mark has freedom and call center B is willing to reward, Mark has been focused upon improving daily operations and customer support. Mark sends several ideas to his manager and onto senior call center leadership. Several of Mark’s ideas find their way into organizational change and are implemented.

John has a personal desire to see call center A succeed and develops ideas to improve customer support while decreasing organizational inertia. John’s manager sees these ideas, discovers the ideas are good, and decides to take them as their own. John is pressured to leave call center A over the next 8-10 months; by this time, the ideas are practically worthless and cannot be implemented due to shifts in business conditions.

Tacit knowledge was at play in both scenarios. Call center B employed tacit knowledge to compete. Call center A employed tacit knowledge to thwart and denigrate. Herein also lies the leadership challenge and the need to understand and implement the principles of combining competition, collaboration, compromise, and cooperation, also referred to as the “Principle of 4-C’s” (4-C’s). Thomas (1992) extols the virtues of combining competition, collaboration, cooperation, and compromise as a tool to achieve success in conflict resolution, organizational improvement, and people development.

The continued application of all four principles, cooperation, collaboration, compromise, and competition, provides fertile ground for resolving problems and advancing organizational objectives. These 4-C’s must work together with no single principle more important than the other. Like the four-legged stool my grandmother used to reach high cupboards, the stability of the stool depended upon all four legs to ensure strength and flexibility to work exactly. Compromise and competition do not work without collaboration and cooperation. They are all interconnected, and the business leader, wanting to lead well, would remember this relationship.

Collaboration is strengthened by cooperation, compromise, and competition. Competition must end in collaboration, cooperation, and compromise; in fact, competition will breed collaboration and cooperation to reach a compromise, before those being competed against provide collaboration, cooperation, and compromise, and remain attached and honored as successful means to reach the desired win-win agreement. The fires of competition are crucial to purifying those collaborating, compromising, and cooperating into a single honed unit that can more effectively work together. Cooperation can do nothing without the shared responsibilities of collaboration and compromise; when competition is added, the cooperation is strengthened. Compromise without cooperation or collaboration is ineffective, and competition is an added value to ensuring stronger compromise. None of these can stand alone without elements of the others to support, edify, and multiply; along with the stated relationship comes the knowledge that if the agreement is not win-win the agreement is a straight lose scenario.

The inherent discussion above is condensed from Thomas (1992), who advocated this combined approach to organizational design as a masterstroke to getting people working together. The same basic philosophy can be seen in the writings of Goldratt and Cox (2004), Lencioni (2002), Lundin, Paul, and Christensen (2000), Boynton and Fischer (2005), and Boylan (1995), among many others. Notably, these principles have been understood throughout time. Jucius (1963), in speaking of the broader issues in personnel management, understood the combined power of collaboration, cooperation, compromise, and competition and wrote extensively about how to use these effectively in the organization. Cruickshank and Davis (1958) understood these principles to be a combined and more effective tool than separate strategies of the same general direction and strove to ensure business leaders understood the practical application and inherent need for the organization to adhere to these principles as a combined effort of all organizational members. McNichols (1963) endeavored to keep these items combined in the minds of executives; thus, empowering them to discover solutions employing all the strengths in the consolidated collective use of competition, collaboration, compromise, and competition. The empowerment felt combining these tools elevates the individual focus into a collected focus, and the solutions for an organization are improved dynamically.

Examples of the combined efforts of collaboration, competition, compromise, and cooperation are found in the writings and research of Collins (2001 & 2006), Collins and Hansen 2011), and Collins and Porras (1994). These books contain many organizational examples of companies employing the combined strategy as outlined and collectively harnessing the power in cooperation, compromise, collaboration, and competition to make the long-lasting change from “Good to Great” organizations. Collins (2001) discusses Walgreen’s transformation and employs the combined power into the new highly successful Walgreen’s store model. Mitchell (2003) discusses the same principles as CEO of Mitchells/Richards Clothing Stores. By embracing the combined power contained, this CEO has kept the family business growing. Both organizations, Walgreen’s and Mitchells/Richards, embraced the energy of collaboration properly supported by compromise and collaboration and invested in internal and external competition to drive the needed organizational changes. What Collins proves is that the collective power is not particular and rare, but available to all who choose to combine not separate, collect not disburse, connect and retain not divide, partition, and mutate. Leadership demands higher practical performance than management (Robinson, 1999; Punia, 2004; and Mintzberg, 1980).

The ability to rise higher must include all the attributes, strengths, and collective power found in collaboration, competition, cooperation, and most especially compromise. Having standards does not mean compromising personal or organizational standards for collaboration. Having standards is the discovery of common ground in collaborating for a common goal, enhanced in the fires of competition.

How does a leader begin to take tacit knowledge and combine it with the power of cooperation, competition, collaboration, and compromise, to achieve positive results; the answers are quite simple.

Allow and encourage idea submission. As a small business consultant, I am continually amazed at how many ideas are already in the minds of current employees to improve the organization. Open lines of communication in the organizational hierarchy for ideas to percolate. Train the employees to use these lines of communication. I cannot count how many times I have heard frustrated employees say, “I do not know who to submit my ideas to.”
Train people to think and improve. Quality control is not just for the quality group to monitor. Quality assurance is a minute-by-minute process every employee should be engaged upon to help the company improve. Train this principle from day one with new employees and revisit this idea at least quarterly and every time idea submission drops.
Competition is for external forces, but the 4-C’s principle is for everyone internally. Why have customer service teams competing against each other creating division and chaos inside the company? While sometimes healthy, many times petty in-house competition does nothing but destroy, denigrate, and deride already stressed and harried people. Stop tearing the company down in the front-line; cease the petty competitions between teams.
Rewards and awards must contain value to the individual or they are meaningless. I worked with an employee who had an award from a previous employer on his desk. The award was a horse’s rear-end in bronze, and the employee was exceedingly proud of having been part of the team that won that particular award. The employee had not worked for that company in 20-years, but remains proud of that award and the reward that came along with it. I was also part of a call center that handed out awards that went into the trashcan before the end of the award ceremony. Rewards and awards must be valuable to the recipient. To make this happen, choose to build people by showing the award and reward. Why is the Stanley Cup in the NHL so coveted? Individual teams and players are inscribed permanently as a reminder of greatness; more importantly, everyone in the NHL sees the cup. This is a pattern that can be and should be replicated in the call center; just do not let the competition become chaotically competitive or meaningless and petty. Remember, many teams in the NHL have never won the Stanley Cup.
Tacit knowledge has value. Cherish this knowledge as the genetic power of the company to thrive. Ask questions, listen to the answers, and remember the person providing input. Too often the person providing input is not recognized, and this failure to recognize contributions does tremendous harm to morale, dampening desire to contribute, and removing further access to potentially amazing results.

Finally,

5.5 Let the tacit knowledge and award/reward systems live. Tacit knowledge has a life cycle as sure as every product, service, work process, and daily procedure. Allow change to live, allow knowledge to live, and allow the freedom to change to meet new needs. This is probably the most important point in this list of actions leaders can take to employ tacit knowledge as a competitive strategy. Recognize the life cycle of ideas and stop being afraid of employee freedom and change.

References

Ambrosini, V., & Bowman, C. (2001). Tacit knowledge: Some suggestions for operationalization. Journal of Management Studies, 38(6), doi: 0022-2380

Boler, J. (1968). Agency. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 29(2), 165-181.

Boylan, B. (1995). Get Everyone in Your Boat Rowing in the Same Direction. New York, New York: Barnes & Noble.

Boynton, A., & Fisher, B. (2005). Virtuoso teams: Lessons from teams that changed their worlds. FT Press

Collins, J. (2001). Good to great: Why some companies make the leap…and others don’t. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

Collins, J. (2006). Good to great and the social sectors: A monograph to accompany Good to great. London: Random House Business.

Collins, J., & Hansen, M. (2011). Great by choice: Uncertainty, chaos, and luck: Why some thrive despite them all. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Collins, J., & Porras, J. (1994). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. New York: Collins Business Essentials – A Collins Business Book: An Imprint of Harper Collins.

Cruickshank, H., & Davis, K. (1958). Cases in management (2nd ed.). Homewood, Ill.: R.D. Irwin.

Goldratt, E. M., & Cox, J. (2004). The goal: A process of ongoing improvement. (Third Revised ed.). Great Barrington, Massachusetts: North River Press.

Hickman, G. (2010). Leading organizations: Perspectives for a new era (Second ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.

Jucius, M. (1963). Personnel management (5th ed.). Homewood, Ill.: R.D. Irwin.

Lencioni, P. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Hoboken, NJ. John Wiley & Sons.

Lundin, S. C., Paul, H., & Christensen, J. (1996). Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results. New York, New York: Hyperion.

McNichols, T. (1963). Policy making and executive action; cases on business policy (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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