WISDOM FROM FRIENDS: BABY STEPS

This is the second of three offerings of wisdom in honor of a New Year and Decade.

 

This insight sprang from our family’s holiday tradition in our family of giving books we think our loved ones will find meaningful and useful. Our daughter gave us a book by Robert Maurer called One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. It is a short, easy-to-read guide with practical advice on how to begin life’s longest journeys — with the proverbial single step.

 

Maurer is a psychologist and consultant who believes that the Kaizen philosophy of small, continuous improvement help our brains shortcut fear and the “fight or flight” reactions inspired by big change.

 

One of the suggestions we found particularly useful was the idea of “visualizing” your way to positive change. For example, we often hear from people who tell us they want to engage in authentic conversations at work, but are stymied by the traditional organizational cultures that reward manipulation and compliance as a means of getting along and getting ahead. Speaking the truth, especially to those who we see as having “power” over us, feels too risky. Consequently, even though people can see the business benefits of telling the truth with goodwill, owning their own contribution to a problem and raising difficult issues, the fear of doing it keeps them stuck.

 

One of the ways to make the change feel less daunting is to spend only a minute or two each day imagining an authentic conversation with a colleague, peer or supervisor. These mental mini-rehearsals are safe, and kick start the brain into a new habit. In one minute, you can imagine what you might say or do differently in specific situations, and reflect on how outcomes might be different if you do.

 

The next step might be equally small, yet powerfully effective. Think about one small action you could do each day, or even a few times a week, that would inch you along in your desire for authentic conversations. For example, you might vow that at least once a day, you will tell the truth as you know it, with compassion and goodwill, in a situation where you might once have kept silent instead.

 

Maurer says these tiny, incremental steps trick the brain into thinking, “This is such a small change, it’s no big deal. Nothing to be afraid of here.”

 

And it is in these small changes that big transformation slowly unfolds.

‘HOLDING OTHERS ACCOUNTABLE,’ AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY

One of my Google alerts led me to a Huffington Post blog by Robert Brand, which asks two questions I found provocative:

• Before the start of any project, do you ask yourself, "Are my team members held accountable?”


• “Do they feel a personal responsibility to deliver the goods?"

 

The first question reflects a traditional view of accountability, and in reality, actually erodes individual commitment and true accountability.

 

Brand outlines steps for ensuring accountability with reminders and consequences. It speaks to an underlying assumption that if someone wielding authority didn’t “make sure” workers were following orders; work would grind to a halt.  This creates a parent-child environment and sets a default standard of compliance. By definition, compliance requires conformity, which squelches qualities such as diversity of thought, creativity, critical analysis and independent decision-making that could serve and strengthen the organization.  Compliance won’t get you commitment, and commitment is what fuels true excellence.

 

The organizational myth of “holding others accountable” is strong and persistent. In reality, how does one person really hold another person accountable against his or her will?  And think about how much time and attention is devoted to figuring out ways we will hold them accountable. When this is the topic of another meeting, the focus at the beginning of a project, or the goal of a performance evaluation, it becomes a distraction to the task at hand. This thinking and the associated actions exemplify what University of California professor Phil Tetlock calls the “falsity of the conventional wisdom — often born out of frustration at irrational, insensitive, or lazy decision-makers — that accountability is a cognitive or social panacea. ‘All we need to do is hold the rascals accountable.’ “

 

The second question, “Do people feel a personal responsibility to deliver the goods?" is more relevant, and has more potential. It gets to the heart of how people contribute at work. An even more potent question would be:  How can conversations about accountability be framed so that they make visible the critical importance of individual contribution to the business?




Accountability is essential to the survival and success of any endeavor. It’s almost impossible to imagine any kind of consistently good result that doesn’t have accountability at its core. But accountability is always a choice people make, and talking about “holding others accountable” obscures this fact. Many modern thought leaders have shown how organizations benefit when leaders let go of the illusion of “control” and begin developing a workforce characterized by self-direction, autonomy, and learning. This fosters engaged, committed employees. It is the antithesis of “holding others accountable.”

 

Robert Brand writes: “When you establish accountability, it leads to great benefits to you, such as being able to trust in your team, freeing up time to concentrate on strategy, and getting to lead a team that is confident and motivated.”

 

All true. But it’s the HOW of establishing accountability that will help you reap those rewards.

HEALTHY BOTTOM LINES START WITH BUSINESS LITERATE EMPLOYEES

Under normal circumstances, would you pay your customer $460 to purchase a $40 product?

Not if you want to stay in business. Yet that sort of business practice happens more often than people realize. I happens because employees with the most customer contact often have the least knowledge, resources and authority to make decisions that serve the business. Unless organizations begin change that, we guarantee it will continue to have a negative effect on quality, profitability, cycle time and unique response.We’ve had this point driven home by several negative customer service experiences, including a recent incident with a large, well-known company.

Due to a misprint in a catalog, the wrong product was shipped to us — twice. Over the next few weeks, we spent nearly seven hours with call center employees and/or their supervisors trying to get the order corrected. At times we were left on hold for up to 20 minutes. We dogged the issue until we got a second-level supervisor on the phone. After repeating our saga for the umpteenth time, she apologized and arranged to have the coffeepot we wanted shipped express – at no charge to us. It took six weeks to satisfy our order even though the product had been in stock the whole time.

While we appreciated the resolution, by our calculations, a mistake that could have been quickly resolved with one phone call ended up costing this company:

• Shipping costs for three regular deliveries and one express delivery


• More than six hours of employee time (minimum of $100 based on online salary estimators)


• $99 for the coffee pot we were finally sent, at no charge to us


• Additional time for the employees working in the warehouse, accounting and other related departments


• Opportunity costs — employees dealing with us could not be serving other customers


• Serious erosion of customer loyalty and goodwill

This company spent at least $500 – for a $40 mistake. That’s a serious problem for companies where employees have thousands of customer contacts a week.

Often these employees earn the lowest wages, are given strict protocols to follow, have no decision-making authority and lack a clear understanding of how what they do contributes to business success. Sometimes they are treated like children who can’t be trusted— we have been in call centers where employees are required to ask permission to use the bathroom!

Imagine if these front-line employees had the same knowledge and decision-making authority as second-level supervisors, and understood how what they did contributed to the success of the whole. They could grant exceptions to satisfy a customer in the moment.

Do they have to understand the difference between fixing a $40 mistake and a $500 mistake? Absolutely. That is why business literacy is essential. The upfront investment in helping employees understand the business will pay bigger dividends than the back end cleaning up of a customer service mess.

WILL YOU CHANGE YOUR ORDER, PLEASE?

The diner’s menu touted its mac ‘n’ cheese, World Famous since 1929! Jamie decided he had to have some — for breakfast.

No doubt the waitress was a little surprised. It was 10:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and most people were slamming down waffles, fried eggs or omelets with a side of bacon. But Jamie really wanted the World Famous mac ‘n’ cheese.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t serve mac ‘n’ cheese until lunchtime,” she said regretfully. “And that doesn’t start until 11:30 a.m.” Jamie looked crestfallen. “Really? I had my heart set on the mac ‘n’ cheese,” he said. “I guess we need a few minutes to order then.”

This story could have ended with two eggs over easy, ham and home fries, but a few minutes later, the waitress returned.  She’d asked the cook:  He would make Jamie mac ‘n’ cheese. For breakfast.

It got me thinking about my short-lived career as a waitress, long long ago. It never would have occurred to me to ask the cook to deviate from an established work process when a customer came in with a unique request. In training, I had been drilled: No substitutions. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were circumscribed by specific times on the clock. We operated by the rules, policies and procedures. And it made perfect business sense — the kitchen needed to be set up in a way that allowed cooks and servers to efficiently deliver meals to large numbers of people.

So on that Saturday morning, we applauded the waitress and the obliging cook for “breaking the rules” and transforming a disappointed and grumbling man to a grinning extremely satisfied customer.

But let's just imagine, for a second, if restaurant policy had required our waitress to ask the assistant manager if the cook could change a work process to make mac ‘n’ cheese for breakfast.

And the assistant manager had to call the manager….

And the manager needed to get permission from the regional manager….

And the regional manager had to submit a request for approval from the corporate Vice President….

By the time a decision was made, the opportunity to quickly and easily satisfy a unique customer request would have gone up in frying pan smoke.

Did the waitress and cook need to understand what it would cost to deviate from a work process in order to satisfy the customer? Absolutely. If Jamie had wanted something more complicated — or something not even on the menu — the answer would likely have been “no.” But thanks to two business literate employees, the waitress got a big tip, the restaurant won a special place in our hearts, and Jamie had plenty of carbs to burn on his bike ride home.