Lead From Any Seat

Lead From Any Seat


According to the tiny digital clock in front of the mayor’s seat to my left the time was 5:58, two minutes to go before the gavel would shake our audience of citizens and staff to attention. In a hundred twenty seconds or so the Council members, five including the mayor would sit up straight and shift their weight in their high-backed chairs in anticipation of standing for the opening prayer followed by the pledge of allegiance.

We’re small town America and we can still do such things as offer a public prayer for Divine guidance and remind our friends and neighbors that we owe allegiance to the flag and the republic. Heck, Buns even bakes cookies for anyone who can’t resist… the mayor is a sucker for oatmeal-raison.

At one minute to go I shuffled my papers, adjusted the monitor on my notebook computer, and traded my regular eye glasses for a cheap pair of “cheaters.”

The one-term city council member sitting in the chair to my right leaned in my direction and in a stage whisper asked, “Are you running for mayor?

“No. Why?”

“Well, you’re out front on the Arcadia Theatre project, the River Trail project, you’re pushing a branding initiative… I just figured you’re running for mayor.”

Whamm!

Our mayor is anything but subtle when it comes to wielding the gavel. He loves that gavel.

Had the mayor not been such a stickler for staying on schedule I would had time to tell my council colleague that ‘you can lead from any seat.’

You don’t have to be the mayor or the general, the boss or the president. You don’t have to be the chief resident or the charge nurse. You can lead if you are a citizen, a patient, a customer, and I’ve even seen young children lead their parents, sometimes in a good way!

If you really can lead from any seat why don’t more people do it?

First, let’s recognize that there are many people leading from unlikely places. Almost every group has at least one informal leader. These are the ‘popular’ kids in school, the respected old hand at work, the volunteer who sometimes keeps an entire organization walking on egg shells lest she be offended. (I didn’t say all leadership was good leadership!)

I suspect that there one big reason why more people don’t lead from the chair they are already in: It’s just not their nature to lead.

There has to be more to it than that but I think the nature of the individual is the dominating factor. If there is a second most important controlling factor it is the situation. People who by their nature are inclined to go with the flow and let others lead can, if the situation demands, take control.

Take my wife. Please! (My apologies to Buns and to Henny Youngman.) Buns can, when the situation demands it, be a total take-charge and take no prisoners battlefield leader. But it’s not her nature to lead. She is, in most situations, the world’s greatest support person.

Another reason why some folks don’t take formal leadership is fear (sometimes doing a stand-in for intelligence… it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that the first to the front is the first to get shot at!) Stand-up, be counted, get clobbered!

If you are leading a team, here are a few things to think about:
Do they ever influence your behavior without you being aware?
(How long has this been going on!!)
Who are the informal leaders on your team?
In what situation are they likely to lead?
Will they have more value to the team if left to lead informally?
Could they make good leaders if promoted?
Which leader, the formal or the informal, has the most power?
(Power defined as the ability to make things happen…or not!)

There is one thing that makes informal leaders different from the CEO selected by the search committee: informal leaders are selected by those who follow. So the final question to consider is this: what do you have to be among the chosen few?


Next time: Children of the Corn, a real-life example of motivating a youthful workforce!

High-Kaflootin

High-Kaflootin

My Gran was… different. She was by her own admission a Kentucky hillbilly. A sixth grade education and a tough childhood left her more than a tad short in the sophistication department.

Gran helped the family make ends meet by waiting tables in downtown Cincinnati and every night she would climb off the No 6 Rosedale bus, walk the short walk home, and then collapse on one of the white enameled wooden chairs that crowded the tiny kitchen.

“Ohhhh, my dogs are barking, “ she would say as she pulled one shoe off followed by the other. Then after rubbing her aching feet she would dip into the pockets of her white uniform and scoop out coins by the handfuls. The quarters were first to be stacked in stumpy silos of ten. Then the dimes and nickels and finally the pennies. This was the 50’s a dollar tip was a huge deal so the crumpled singles were always last. These were brought to the table with a little ceremony that involved smoothing them across the table’s edge.

From the numbers of stacks I could tell that Gran was a very good waitress.

Gran was also the best when it came to telling tall tales as we rocked gently back and forth on the porch swing so perfect for warm summer nights.

But what Gran did best was to love me unconditionally. I could do no wrong… in her eyes.


So it should be no surprise that while on a business trip to Cincy, I wasn’t going to miss a visit with Gran.

“Scott, we’re all going to dinner… we’d love for you to join us.” The client called nearly the instant I entered my hotel room.

“I’d love to but this is where I grew up and I can’t miss a chance to visit my grandmother.”

“Bring her along!”

So, I did.

‘Picked Gran up right on time, offered her a wing (arm) and helped down the front steps. (It was an ‘occasion’ and ‘occasions’ require the use of the front door.) And she was pretty in pink…. Polyester. Food stains no doubt from the previous ‘occasion,’ nylons rolled as far up each leg as she could reach, near-blue hair that had been sprayed into submission, and enough perfume… we’re talking both quantity and variety… that I knew it would be windows down no matter what the weather.

“Do I look alright?”

“You look gorgeous.”

“You know, I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of all your high-kaflootin friends… are you sure you don’t want to go alone? Where are we going?”


We went to a wonderful restaurant aboard a former river boat now docked on the Kentucky side of the brown Ohio river. As we left the car with the valet, Gran grabbed a wing, pulled me close, and with teeth tightly clenched muttered, “Oh, lordy! This really is high-kaflootin. I think I’ll just wait in the car!”

Once inside I introduced Gran to my client causing her to hug my arm even closer. She did let go long enough to look at the menu whose prices started at “This is more than I spend for groceries in a week!

There was a “tall Tom Collins followed by a second and it seemed as if one could get used to the high-kaflootin lifestyle. Gran was a geriatric Cinderella, not thinking about midnight. When ‘the ladies’ excused themselves to the powder room Gran was towed along in their wake.

Back at the table, Gran appeared even rosier beneath her already heavy rouge and powder. But it wasn’t the powder nor was it the Tom Collins making it’s appearance.

It was something else.

Gran pulled close and through once again clenched teeth said, “I’ll tell you when we get to the car.” And that was all she said until I tipped the valet and launched the rental car towards Rosedale.

“You’ll never guess what was in the ladies restroom!” Gran was reared back in her seat proud to be unveiling a deep, dark secret. “It was man (pronounced with a minimum of two syllables!) And all he was wearing was a little black thing no bigger than a napkin and bow tie! Nothing else! He was handing out towels!”

My Southern Baptist upbringing was sounding an alarm which turned off the instant she finished the though: “So I gave him a tip! Put it right there in that little black thing!”

And then she roared. Almost all the way home. At times she was barely able to catch her breath. She was trying to tell me something but it was blocks before she was able to wheeze…”I think I’ll invite my Sunday school class to have lunch there after church! And wait till they go to the ladies room! Won’t that be high-kaflootin?

• What could you do to wrap a high-kaflootin experience around doing business with you?
• And on a personal note: who do you love unconditionally?

© T. Scott Gross 2007

Customer Service: Repo Man

Customer service comes in many forms. Here's an unexpected lesson I learned one night in Las Vegas... (all names except mine have been changed.)

Repo Man

Santos Davila wears a Wal~Mart vest complete with nametag on the front and a box cutter in the right side pocket. Mrs. Santos, Melissa, writes in neat, feminine cursive remembered from grade school. Cassandra gets good grades as attested by the report card found in the console of the Davila’s Suburban. I know because I helped steal their car last night.

Well, we didn’t exactly steal it. It was more a matter of stealing it back.

Santos hadn’t made a payment since he drove the aging suburban from tiny Mission, Texas where everyone knows nearly everyone to not so tiny Las Vegas, Nevada where, in the words of the illiterate who come for jobs and dreams, “nobody knows no one.”

I found a prescription for Albuterol under the front seat and guessed that the littlest Davila has asthma and maybe a reason for leaving a large Mexican family and the familiarity of one desert for the promise of another. Santos, like so many young and foolish men had swapped the tires and rims native to the aging Chevy for fancy rims and a set of well-used low profile tires considered cool. The springs had been cut short, the shocks replaced and now the old gray boat sails low to the ground looking squat and slow. A stereo had been added and the windows tinted all the while the important things like making the payments were neglected.

Lonnie and I searched the map jousting for fading sunlight and focal distance, two white guys juggling drug store reading glasses in an attempt to find Sabroso Street and the Davila home. A few minutes earlier we had been cruising Wal~Mart in hopes of finding Santos on duty in the garden department while the low gray tank waited for us in the parking lot. But there was no tank. Our 95% chance of getting lucky turned to a 100% chance of no luck at all.

But our luck improved when we turned past Sierra Ridge rolled past Cady and turned down Sabroso.

I drove past the tank slow enough for Lonnie to be sure but not so slow as to attract attention. On the second pass I stopped short and Lonnie hopped out. While I waited he walked up the street. He looked out of place even to me. A middle-aged white guy with but a fringe of hair moving on foot at dusk through a neighborhood of young Hispanic families. He would not be mistaken for Tio Sanchez visiting his newlywed brother.

A door opened and a young man trotted out and got into a car parked just across from the tank. Another man stepped from the shadows garden hose in hand and took up what must be a desert summer ritual. And Santos, much to our unhappy surprise, opened his door and stepped into his tiny side yard.

Lonnie quickly crossed the street, turned back to the north and then crossed again before slipping into the back seat of my rental car.

“Man! All of a sudden the neighborhood came alive! Let’s go. We’ll try again later.”

And later we did indeed try again. The neighborhood was sleeping or at least dozing when I pulled up alongside the tank. Lonnie stepped into the shadow between the two vehicles. The key fit. The engine cranked and then coughed. The tank sounded like one and for a moment there was the possibility that the tank would not start but that the neighborhood would and in an instant we would be contending with an angry Santos and maybe, if he did not understand, a pistol or worse.

But it did start and Lonnie shifted into drive before the engine warmed, before he located the headlight switch, before Santos could know that the tank and the Wal~Mart uniform and the baby seat and little Cassandra’s report card were all gone.

Santos meant to make the payments but there were bills to pay that were owed to closer faces. Someday he knew he would make good on the payments or, maybe not. Maybe the owner would forget. Someday seemed long in coming and the owner grew impatient instead of forgetful.

So we slipped into the night triumphant but unsure. Certain we had the vehicle and certain that no matter how the law defined the act, Santos is a thief. But we were also certain that Santos would have a tough time getting to work, that Melissa would be angry at him. She would question his position as head of the family and certain that the baby would need the car seat we had taken along with the Suburban.

In the morning we would leave the seat and the Wal~Mart vest with the nice lady in the Garden department. We would slip a five-dollar bill in little Cassandra’s report card along with a note to “keep up the good work” and an unspoken prayer that a family would heal even as the faded gray tank sailed back across the desert to Texas.

Swimming Blessings

Swimming Blessings


“Pops.”

The doll-sized voice was barely audible over the sound of the waterfall at our pool. Pops. That has to be my favorite word especially when it is spoken by a princess. Well, not ‘a’ princess, The Princess. Only four short letters on paper but sometimes several syllables long when the Princess smiles that little smile and says… Pops.

“Pops, it’s time for my swimming blessings.”

“Your what, sweetheart?”

“My swimming blessings. You said you were going to give me swimming blessings… and I’m here!”

I suppose that at four years old or so it would be easy to confuse the word lessons with blessings. And as it turned out, blessings was the better of the two. The Princess was blessed to be taught to swim and Pops was blessed to have been the teacher. Learning to swim, like driving a car is one of those lessons in life that you never forget how and when you learned. And you never forget the one who taught you, who brought a gift of knowledge that would never run out.

As it turned out, it was I who was about to receive a ‘blessing.’

We kept the lessons short, just ten or so minutes. Little people don’t always have much span of attention. Our first lessons were spent learning to hold our breath under water. As a reward the Princess got tossed into the air, making a big splash just like her bubba. (Texan for ‘brother.’)

Bobbing to the surface our little brown granddaughter would push her hair away from those blue, blue eyes, giggle as only a little one can do, and then say, “Do me again, Pops! Do me again!”

And so we had our afternoon swimming blessings until one late afternoon the Princess seemed to have lost all sense of focus. She wanted to blow right past her blessing and head for deep water.


“Watch me, Pops! Watch me!” The little sprite with the pointy pink lips motioned for me to step aside.

“Come on, Princess! Let’s go over what we’ve been studying and then I’ll watch you do whatever you want to do. But right now we need to focus.”

“No, Pops. Watch me! Watch me!”

“Okay, fine. What is it that you want to do?”

Without a word my bullet shaped Princess dove into the water and swam right past her amazed, amused, and yes, even mystified Pops.

I don’t know how she learned to swim although in later years it was me who taught her. And hopefully her recollection will be the same. But just between you and me, I’ll remember the whole story about the day that Pops received a swimming blessing of his own. And now I will share that blessing with you: sometimes the best thing a teacher or parent or boss can do is to get out of the way and let the blessing come to you.



(488 words)

When Customers Talk

When Customers Talk – Survey Results
Price Is Not As Important As Service


Complete the sentence: I’d walk a mile for a…

If you said ‘Camel’ two things are true: a.) you’re old and b.) chances are you are not a retailer.

Retailers, especially small businesses, don’t believe a customer would walk a mile for anything.

Well, nowadays they may not actually walk anywhere but they will drive.

Our research shows that for the right combination of price, quality, and believe it or not, customer service, they’ll drive quite a way.

If you are in business, small or large, you probably get beat up over price on a regular basis.

Most of us who stand on the business side of a cash register believe our customers would kill over a nickel.

Not true!

BIGresearch

For nearly four years BIGresearch of Dublin, OH has been asking customers how they feel about the treatment they receive from retailers and what they said was… amazing.

Each month 10,000 shoppers are asked how they like to shop, how they like to be served, and what it takes to make them open their wallets.

What they said turns out to completely explode some of our most deeply entrenched “common knowledge,” the stuff that “everybody knows” about how customers like to be treated.

Survey Results: Would you walk a mile…?

We asked:

“How far out of your way would you drive to get excellent service?”

Here’s what they said:

Less than a mile 7.2%
2-3 miles 12.0
4-5 miles 19.0
6-10 miles 25.4
11-15 miles 10.3
16-20 miles 9.2
More than 20 miles 16.9

Less than 20% of shoppers wouldn’t drive an extra 5 miles for great service.

But more 80 percent are willing to drive four or more miles to get excellent service.

Nearly half of those would drive ten miles or more.

American shoppers are not the finicky, price conscious bargain hunters they have been made out to be! Consumers will pay for good service with both their cash and their time.

The Service Issue

But there’s a problem. How do you define great service?

Answer: It depends!

Great service depends on the product, the store, and the customer. At Wal~Mart you don’t expect elegant service so you aren’t disappointed if when you ask a clerk where to find the boxers he or she smiles and suggests “aisle 12.”

At Nordstrom that level of service would never fly.

While customers may be willing to drive a little further for great service, woe unto the business that fails to make the extra trip worth the effort.


Survey Results: What does it take to get you to change…?

We went back to the consumer and asked:

How many instances of poor service does it take to make you change service providers?

Here’s what they said:

1 16.9%
2 40.6
3 28.0
4 or more 14.3

Except for the masochistic 14.3% it’s one, or two, or three strikes and you’re out!

For retailers these numbers are scary. And they beg for further investigation:

Survey Results: What do you really want…?

So we asked

“What do you as a customer really want?”

Here’s what they said:

Fast finish 4.5
Convenience 8.8
Good value 18.3
Friendly staff 27.0
Knowledgeable/available staff 41.4

While a customer is making the buying decision they are looking to be treated well and they want knowledgeable, available assistance. ‘Sounds about right… but there’s more.

Getting it Right - The Lessons Learned

”What customers want most from a shopping experience is knowledgeable sales people who are available when they want them! When they are “just looking,” customers want to roam freely without hovering sales staff.

Customers want to be served by staff who know the product inside and out but they also want that staff to be friendly. Customers love to be served by sales staff who value customers more than the sale.

And customers want more than low price. They want value. And surprisingly, customers place a high value on information!

Make it easy! Customers want merchandise that is well organized, attractively displayed, and easy to find. That’s how today’s customers define convenience and the easier you can make the shopping, the more money you’ll be lugging to the bank.

When customers are shopping, deciding to buy… or not, they are working on our time. But once the buying decision is made get out of their way because now you are working on ‘customer time.’

At the cash register there is no time for making additional suggestions or, God forbid, delaying checkout while the cashier wraps up a personal conversation.

Customers hate that! (They told us that in a dozen different ways.)

Give them what they want, the way they want it, and follow through with a fast finish and you are much more likely to see them again!

Let's Get Small!

More than ever big business is trying to act like small business. The small business owner has the advantage over the big box boys when it comes to micro-markets and as technology allows us and fragmented media forces us into ever small niches… the little guy is his own best weapon. And the big guys know it.

So, Big Guy, what are you going to do?

Survey

First, in typical big business fashion, you must survey your customers to find out how they feel about doing business with you. Don’t settle for the usual “rate our customer service” question. Ask what you could do to make doing business with you even better. And while you are at it, ask questions that reveal customer migration patterns. If you could know, (and you can), which customer is about to leave you for the competition you’d probably be making changes in a big way. (See When Customers Talk, Dearborn 2005 for more about migration.)

Walk around the counter.

One advantage of the small business owner is the ability to walk around the other side of the counter, shake hands with the customer and say in true Ed Koch style, “How am I doing?”

More big business operations chiefs should be out amongst them… shaking hands on the other side of the counter.

A client of mine recently paid several million bucks to a consultant to tell them that their employees weren’t engaging the customers. They need less time in the puzzle palace and more time wearing out shoe leather.

Build MicroBrands

Many of you know that Melanie and I own a sports-themed restaurant. We operate on the theory that a customer would rather meet a dumb owner than a sharp manager. We spend most of our time at the restaurant loving on our guests.

Smart big business helps their managers build strong personal brands so when they shake hands on the other side of the counter it will have some of the impact of dealing with a true stakeholder.


Truly the path to getting big is to get small!