Slacker Manager
Happy Customer Service Week!
This week is Customer Service Week! It’s a great time to celebrate the customers who help your team tick. I’ll be sharing my favorite tips to celebrate Customer Service Week with your team all week. If you’re a manager who has customers your team serves, make time this week to make it extra special.
Today’s tip: Celebrate the customers your team serves.
First, know who your best customers are. If you need to look through the purchasing records, your calendar, your team’s notes, or even just your e-mail, you need to know who your best customers are. Best can be objective (most sales, most time) or subjective (favorite because they call on your team all the time, or favorite because they are the lowest maintenance).
Next, think about what you can do that’s memorable for your customers…and for your team. What would make your team stick out in your best customer’s mind? Would it be a picture of your team holding a sign that says “Thank you” that you post on your external website? Would it be some hand-baked cookies or other treats? Maybe it’s just you and other managers going to visit these customers, and offering a handshake and a warm thanks? If nothing else, a handwritten thank you note or a personal voicemail might make your customer’s day.
Last, do something! All the planning in the world is great, but if you don’t DO SOMETHING for your customers, then you’ve lost the chance to offer your thanks and to get even more sales, to make them even bigger fans of your team, or to recover from a bad experience in the past. Service recovery can be an even stronger way to build customer loyalty than doing things right the first time. Don’t let the opportunity pass YOU by!
What’s YOUR best tip for celebrating your customers during Customer Service Week?
PS Join me for a webinar this week Thursday as I share my tips on how to Recession Proof Your Customer Service.
cc licensed flickr photo by Crystl: http://flickr.com/photos/crystalflickr/190713106/
Post from: Slacker Manager
Sunday Six Pack 10-4-09
This week we’ve got some celebrations, some feedback, and more! So much to share and read this week, it was REALLY hard to just pick 6 of the best.
I hope you enjoy them, and that you’ll share YOUR favorites in the comments!
Kevin Eikenberry is celebrating 16 years of running his own consulting practice with 16 things he’s learned in 16 years. One of his recent learnings is a leadership primer on celebrations.
In talking with leaders over the years, I’ve noticed that most seem to struggle with celebrations.
Some struggle with when to celebrate. Some struggle with why they should. And some don’t have a struggle because they don’t celebrate at all. (Here the struggle is for those they lead!)
Unlike many other leadership topics, there doesn’t seem to be much of a consensus on the topic. People range from one end of the spectrum to the other – from we don’t need a reason to celebrate to we don’t have time to celebrate.
David Zinger is celebrating his 55th birthday (and 5 years of blogging) in grand style. This week’s 22 Awful Employee Engagement Mistakes is a great primer on what NOT to do.
Embracing our humanness. Engagement is a human endeavor. Humans are fallible. Let’s openly and honestly see our mistakes, do what we can to correct them, and learn from them as we move forward into new richer and healthier mistakes.
Dan McCarthy offers the 10/10 Technique for gathering feedback and improvement ideas.
A colleague of mine loves to teach managers a simple, yet effective way of gathering feedback and ideas for improvement. It’s so simple it only takes about two minutes to explain it to someone. Yet it’s so effective, it’s led to dramatic improvements in leadership capability. Really, I have the testimonials to prove it.
Once someone learns it, they become evangelists for it and can’t wait to share it with others.
Art Petty shares Leading in the Trenches: How Well Do You Know Your Customers?
Leadership is about driving the right results in the right way. We often focus on the interpersonal dynamics of leadership and the characteristics and behaviors of effective leaders. And while those issues are critically important to a firm’s success, so is ensuring that everyone is focused on the activities that create value. This inaugural “Leading in the Trenches” post will introduce an on-going series focused on applying effective leadership practices to improving critical organizational practices.
Jane Perdue brings it home with Lead Change with Grace and Compassion:
Hal is a senior executive at a struggling mid-size manufacturing firm. The company has a long and proud history of financial success, so poor business results are troubling at many levels. Staying in business requires multiple changes in how their business is run and staffed, with the expected turbulence in employee reaction and morale.
To halt the slide in employee confidence, Hal and his management team crafted leadership norms. These norms became their lighthouse for communicating and presenting a cohesive approach to managing the business:
Now it’s YOUR turn!
Did you read or write a great post this week? Please share it below.
Do you know someone who needs a little management boost? Share these links with them.
Post from: Slacker Manager
Technology Doesn’t Equal Management
Great article by Lance Haun about being effective in HR isn’t about technology.
He makes 3 great points that are applicable for managers and folks in HR. Here are his 3 points, and my expanded thoughts on them:
- Technology will not replace leadership – Everything starts with leadership. If you have great technology, if your leadership is bad, the technology will be bad too. Garbage in, garbage out.
- Don’t put the cart before the horse – Don’t buy a tool and expect it to create all these great processes for you. Take time to map out your processes and then find a tool that fits with what you’re trying to do.
- Execution is all that matters – In the end, you still have to get it done, and you don’t need technology to do it. Take time to do it right, and then leverage your technology. Don’t let your technology leverage you.
I’m living this right now, as we’re looking for a new tool to track tickets, map processes, and do change management, and we don’t have much process defined yet. Until we define process, any tool will be fine. I’m working to convince my team that mapping out process FIRST is more important than anything. I’ll let you know how that goes.
What are your tips for technology and management?
Broken robot image credit to plutor
Post from: Slacker Manager
Top Management and Leadership Twitterers
I follow almost 3000 people on Twitter, some of whom are in the management and leadership space. I took a little while to scan through the folks I follow on Twitter, and now I offer them for your following enjoyment 
Oh yeah…and thanks to Brock for prompting me to put this list together.
@wallybock – Wally Bock is an amazing person to follow. He is conversational, insightful, and shares great links because he reads a TON of blogs, newspapers, and magazines.
@steveroesler – Steve Roesler is another insightful leader. If you follow Steve just to get his own articles, you’d have enough information you would never go hungry. But Steve also shares a lot of other great stuff, and he keeps me thinking.
@rosasay – Rosa Say is someone who has taught me to look at management from a different, unique, encouraging lens.
@lisahaneberg – Lisa Haneberg has written many wonderful management books, and I love Lisa’s tweets for her insightful questions.
@michaelhyatt – Mike Hyatt is an amazing leader, and I follow him to watch how he uses Twitter as a communication tool. As the CEO of a large company, Mike is very transparent and it’s interesting to see the difference between a leader like him…and many other leaders who hide behind a corporate marketing and/or leadership department and have all their feedback sanitized.
@davidzinger – David Zinger is the employee engagement master, as well as a darn funny guy. David used to write here with me on Slacker Manager and now, in addition to running his own blog and business, he manages a 1500+ group of other managers and leaders on the Employee Engagement Network.
@mikemyatt – Mike Myatt is the CEO of N2 Growth, and he has wonderful quotes and finds great articles to share, and great topics of his own that he writes about.
@LeadWithHonor – John Ikeda does what he says in his Twitter handle; he leads with honor. He also Tweets with honor, and is very respectful in all he says.
@upbeatnow – Raj Setty is someone I respect a great deal for his ability to get involved in great projects, for his willingness to share everything he has, and for always having a great attitude. Raj is a must follow!
@royatkinson - Roy Atkinson is someone I met live for the first time last year. He is one of the most unique individuals I have ever met, and as a manager and leader, he has a very refreshing and honest style.
@edbrenegar – Ed Brenegar is a leadership guru. He is a thankful leader, and his Tweets remind me to stay thankful for all that I have.
@leadtoday – Steve Keating is another great leader. He shares insightful tips and tricks on leadership throughout his Tweets.
@starbucker – Terry Starbucker is a senior executive at a cable company. His positive attitude and willingness to share what he knows always puts a smile on my face!
@tnvora – Tanmay Vora is a quality and project management guru, and is another positive manager to follow.
@zanesafrit – Zane is a leader among leaders. His insights into leadership are outstanding, and he is willing to share whatever he knows about the topic, often interviewing great people to help us learn even more.
@AnitaBruzzese – Anita writes columns for the Gannette newspapers, and has written a nifty book called 45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy.
@Brad_Isaac – Brad is a software developer and a goals oriented guy who can help you take your life to the next level as a manager, a leader, or as an individual contributor.
And I am @philgerb
Of course, because I want you to work smarter, not harder, I found a site where you can create a list and you can just follow everyone on my list.
7 Reasons Managers Need to Use Twitter
Twitter is a great communication tool. There are over 10 million people with Twitter userIDs, and many million tweets per day, from folks all over the world. As a manager, the time is NOW to sign up and get using Twitter.
7 reasons managers need to use Twitter
1) Communicate more succinctly – 140 characters is all you get to communicate your message. Are you up to the challenge? How long are your e-mails? Try to make them 140 or so characters. How? Keep things to 1 message, 1 main idea.
2) Learn from other managers – There are TONS of managers out there already using Twitter. Follow a few of them and learn from their successes and mistakes.
3) Listen to conversations – There are tons of people not managers talking about your industry trends, talking about management, and talking about how to deal with these challenging times. The more you listen, the more you learn!
4) Understand what’s being said and done by others in your firm – Search out others in your firm using Twitter. Follow them. Talk to them about how they’re using Twitter. Learn from them. Share your best practices and your biggest failings..
5) Keep up with new technologies – While Twitter may or may not be here forever, microblogging platforms are only going to get more and more prevalent. Learn now before EVERYONE gets on Twitter and everyone is skeptical of what you’re saying.
6) Others will see you as an expert – The more people you connect with, the more you share, the more people look to you to connect to other people and to share MORE information.
7) Have fun! – Yes, Twitter is fun. Learning is fun. Connecting is fun. Sharing is fun! Have a little fun and enjoy yourself. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and Twitter can be your best friend!
Connect with me on Twitter so I can learn from, and share with, you too!
What are YOUR reasons for using Twitter or for not using Twitter?
Photo credit to Phil Gerbyshak
Post from: Slacker Manager
5 Ways to Make Meetings Better
Recently I spent a few minutes with Anita Bruzzese, talking about how to make meetings better. I’d encourage you to check out Anita’s article as I’m not the only one who offered insights into how to make meetings better.
Of course, Anita didn’t use all of my suggestions (and I didn’t expect her to) so her editing is your gain
I spend over 25% of my work life in my meetings, and I’ve been to more than my share of good (and bad) meetings. There are some key things you can do and make YOUR meetings more meaningful.
Always have a written agenda and distribute it at least a day before the meetings. This gives all attendees the opportunity to prepare ahead of time, do any research, and ask any clarifying questions, BEFORE coming to the meeting.
Mark on the agenda who is mission critical, and who is optional, for the meeting, and reschedule if the mission critical attendees can’t attend a meeting (or if they don’t confirm their attendance 2 hours before the meeting. No meeting should happen without key decision makers present, or all you do is talk and don’t really DO anything. We use an asterisk (*) by key meeting attendees, and this works well.
Start on time/end on time – This is a pet peeve of mine. So many people show up late, or not at all, that we talk about “professional courtesy” like you’d give a college professor, 5 minutes late is okay for most folks, 10 minutes for executives. NOT OK! If you want to respect the folks that are on time for the meeting, start the meeting on time…and end the meeting on time so folks can make it to their next meeting on time. Even better: End 5 minutes early so folks can get to their next meeting on time.
Stick to the agenda – If it’s on the agenda, discuss it, and discuss it until a decision is made. If it’s not on the agenda, table it for the next meeting. Unprepared comments in a meeting, while they may seem useful, are often made without proper research or consultation of key decision makers.
Distribute meeting minutes (with action items) promptly – Before folks forget what was discussed, distribute the meeting minutes for all to review. Include non-attendees and others that need to be in the loop. Distribute within 1 day for max effectiveness.
What are YOUR best suggestions to make meetings better?
Post from: Slacker Manager
How to Silence Your Critics
If you’re a college football fan and you’ve been paying attention this year, you know the Oregon Ducks have had a rough time of things thus far. Expectations for the team were very high. Many thought they would win the Pac-10 conference or at least make a bowl game at the end of the season.
All of that was dashed after the first game. After the first game of the season ended, Oregon’s star running back was suspended for the rest of the season for punching an opposing player, after a 19-8 defeat at the hands of Boise State.
OUCH!
So one unhappy fan took the coach to task, and send him an e-mail saying how he didn’t asking for a refund of all travel expenses for this game. Oregon alum Tony Seminary said “The product on the field Thursday night is not something I was at all proud of, and I feel as though I’m entitled to my money back for the trip.”
What would you do if one of your customers told you they wanted their money back for a service you’d provided?
Would you be like Coach Kelly…and give the guy his money back?
Amazing…and it shut Tony Seminary up.
“As a sales guy, it’s really hard to shut me up,” Seminary said, according to the Web site. “When I received that check, I was literally speechless.
“I think of Coach Kelly as a totally different person now,” Seminary said, according to the Web site. “I have a different bond with him now. … Let’s just say he lost every game as an Oregon coach. You would never hear me calling for his head. It just wouldn’t happen. The guy showed an incredible amount of class.”
You can read the rest of the story over at ESPN.
In a related note, unranked Oregon beat #6 (and highly favored) California 42-6 in this weekend’s college football action.
Have you ever done something so unexpected that it silenced your critics?
Go Ducks??? courtesy of Crnkmnky
Post from: Slacker Manager
Sunday Six Pack: Week of 09/27/09
Happy almost October! I can’t believe we’re into fall and looking at another year winding down. How’s your year going?
This week Sunday Six Pack brings us tips on getting work done with H1N1, a podcast with 2 really smart guys, stopping harassment in the workplace, a frustrating sign for managers, and what to do when you hate your boss.
Cali and Jody bring us: ROWE and H1N1:
If your definition of work is in a building during core hours, then you’re going to be in trouble.
If your definition of work is a series of actions executed by individuals and a group who collaborate to deliver specified outcomes, then you can get through anything.
Cranky Middle Manager and LEAP! with Rick Smith is worth a listen. It’s a 25 minute interview with Wayne Turmel and Rick Smith, author of LEAP!
So what are the three myths that hold people back?
- I have to fix myself… that I have to change inside. What you really have to do is become more of who you really are
- You don’t need to go it alone…. Big selfless ideas attract a supportive team that will help you
- You don’t need to take dramatic risks…
Terrence Seamon DAREs us Take the Lead and and Stop Harassment in the Workplace:
No one should ever have to suffer the pain and humiliation of workplace harassment.
Simple Rich offers Thanks Mgmt…ARGH!:
If I sign my signs “Management” they won’t know who I am or feel like they know me, or feel that connection that is so important for a sales people to make with customers, especially in small town retail. (I say small town because the store I “grew up in” has a population of around 25,000. It’s not exactly a village, but it’s no city either, there’s a definite small town feel to it, and part of that feel is when customers know their store’s managers by name.
Scot Herrick brings it all home with 3 Things to do if You Hate Your Boss:
In a world where your manager changes more often than your address, at some point in your career, you will end up with a manager you hate. Hating your boss has all sorts of side benefits. Like making your life miserable, adding to your stress, and probably lowering the quality of your work.
The situation is ugly. But, it’s real. What’s a Cubicle Warrior to do?
Happy reading! Please share your favorite articles from the past week in the comments below.
Six Pack photo credit to Dr. Keats
Post from: Slacker Manager
Lessons from the Hyatt Firings
Have you heard? Last week, three Boston area Hyatt hotels fired 98 housekeepers and replaced them with out-of-state (read: less expensive) workers. The worst part? They tricked them into training their own replacements.
Wow!
The public backlash against this has come from a number of unlikely sources:
- Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has talked to the Hyatt CEO.
- Taxi drivers have threatened to boycott the hotels.
- Massachusetts Teachers Association President Anne Wass has even written a letter to corporate, imploring Hyatt to re-think their position. Wass’ letter makes a great point about the ridiculous “random acts of generosity,” that gives a random guest something nice when they can’t even perform “consistent acts of decency.”
Government leaders – taxi drivers – teachers. All standing up for what’s right and sharing their displeasure. Truly inspiring!
So what can we learn about this fiasco? Are there any lessons we can learn to prevent this nightmare from happening as manager?
Lessons from the Hyatt firings
Be up front with employees about problems you’re having. Give them the choice to take a pay cut BEFORE you fire them. If you treat employees well, and you ask for their input, you may be surprised at the things they do to help you make ends meet. This is probably harder to do in a union environment, though not impossible.
Create a solid onboarding program. Instead of tricking employees into training their replacements, take the time to map out each critical skill, how to teach it, and create a program you can be proud of so if you do need to bring in a whole new staff, you can train them.
When you make a mistake, admit you made a mistake. Sometimes you make good decisions, sometimes you make bad decisions. When you make a bad decision, admit it. It’s already been a week since this decision was made, and there has been no public apology that I’ve seen, no righting of the wrongs, so the bad taste is lingering, and folks (like me) are still talking about it. Better to own the mistake, apologize, and FIX THE PROBLEM then to let this fester like an open wound.
What can YOU learn from the Hyatt firings or from other big mistakes of this magnitude?
Hyatt photo from ell brown
Post from: Slacker Manager
How to Be a Great Manager (guest post)
Note from Phil: What follows is another helpful (and short) management article from Slacker Manager reader Jim.
Do What You Say You Will Do
One of my first managers would say, “I have an open door policy and I’m open to meet with any of the team at any time.” He always said this in group settings or while walking around. However, any time someone needed to talk one-on-one with him, they found his office door shut and quite often locked. When we asked one of the administrative staff about his availability, they always said, “he’s unavailable.” It became a internal joke and sad commentary that our manager had a “closed and locked” management style and mentality.
One Tip to Be a Better Listener
Over at Your HR Guy, Lance Haun reminds us “You Don’t Need 15 Tips To Be a Better Listener,” you only need 1:
Shut Up!
I think this is great advice. If we would just stop talking and LISTEN to the other person, I mean really LISTEN, we could be much better listeners.
…though I also agree with Lance that it is VERY hard to SHUT UP.
It’s hard to shut up because:
- Multi-tasking is expected, so you need to anticipate what the other person might say before they finish saying it
- Going meeting to meeting to meeting means little time to prepare for real dialogue, and instead you barely have time to react to what someone else is saying, much less create a good response or offer real insight
- Employees expect an answer RIGHT NOW so problems go away
- Managers expect employees to fix things themselves more and more, so any question needs to be turned around into an answer FAST
How do we improve? Lance has some really good suggestions at the end of “You Don’t Need 15 Tips To Be a Better Listener.” I don’t have any better ones right now.
I’m going to shut up now…and let you share YOUR best suggestions on how to be better at shutting up.
No more words photo credit to Katie Tegtmeyer
Post from: Slacker Manager
Be the Hero: Interview with Noah Blumenthal
Recently I received a copy of Be The Hero, a short leadership fable by Noah Blumenthal. Though I haven’t completed the book yet, I am traveling next week and can’t WAIT to dive into this book. Everything I read about this book tells me it’ll be well worth the wait!
So when Noah’s PR go-to gal Jen Gould asked me to interview Noah, I jumped at the chance. What follows are just a few questions about the book and about Noah to whet your appetite so you go buy the book, and so you stay tuned for a full book review soon. Enjoy!
Sunday Management Six Pack: Week of 09/20/2009
This week brings you 6 great articles from all around the blogosphere. I’m sharing an article about reconnection, women and leadership, some employee engagement statistics, the wrong questions, and last but not least, all about how managers add value.
Take 5 minutes now to sit back and enjoy a can or two from the Sunday Six Pack!
Leading off is 10 Ways to Reconnect Your People from Watson Wyatt (put together by Brian Amble) over at Management Issues:
Job cuts, endemic uncertainty, too much change too quickly – it’s little wonder that so many people feel pretty alienated from their organisations at the moment. So here’s some very sound advice from consultants Watson Wyatt about the steps you can take to reconnect employees.
Next up is Yvonne DiVita Thinking about Women and Leadership Again over at Lipsticking:
Here is today’s message: Do not believe the writers who say women still have a long way to go. In truth, we arrived long ago. Just ask one Mary Kay skincare consultant.
David Zinger offers some good news in the form of some important statistics in US Employee Engagement Levels on the Rebound:
- Modern Survey has once again indicated in their survey work that employee engagement has returned to the level it was 2 years ago and fully engaged employees have risen from 12% to 15%.
Rosa Say authored “Paper or Plastic?” Wrong Question, which is a very powerful post…with great added value in the comments!
I have a very simple leadership challenge for you this week: Listen for all the wrong questions you’re still asking your customers. Wrong questions give terrible impressions, and we can do better.
Last but not least, Lisa Haneberg offers a simple list of How Managers Add Value (which is too short to excerpt anything from it).
Six Pack photo credit to Dr. Keats
Post from: Slacker Manager
10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be a Leader
In a recent article about You Shouldn’t be a Manager commenter (and my real-life neighbor) Clint Laskowski shared some powerful leadership imperatives. When I saw him today around the the neighborhood, I told him I’d share his 10 leadership imperatives.
10 Reasons you Shouldn’t be a Leader
1. If you can’t influence others to accomplish the mission, you shouldn’t be a leader.
2. If you have no mission, vision, strategy, goal, or deadline, you shouldn’t be a leader.
3. If you can’t communicate effectively, you shouldn’t be a leader.
4. If you can’t set the example, you shouldn’t be a leader.
5. If you can’t get out of the way when appropriate, you shouldn’t be a leader.
6. If you are not visible or prefer to hide in your office all day, you shouldn’t be a leader.
7. If you can’t build trust and respect, you shouldn’t be a leader.
8. If you can’t see the big picture, you shouldn’t be a leader.
9. If you must be led, you shouldn’t be a leader.
10. If you can’t envision a better tomorrow, you shouldn’t be a leader.
And new friend and commenter Julie Hoffmann shared a brilliant #11.
11. If nobody is following you, you’re not a leader.
What would you add to this list?
Leadership Training USMC Style photo credit
Post from: Slacker Manager
Just Make a Decision
I read somewhere that great leaders make decisions when they have 60% of the information.
Any more information, and you’ve waited too long.
Any less information, and you haven’t taken enough time to do your homework to make a good decision.
My best advice for new managers: Just do something.
Don’t get analysis paralysis, just make a decision.
Then make another one.
And another one.
It doesn’t have to be a decision about the problem you’re working on.
It just needs to be a decision.
Get used to making decisions now, and the harder ones will be easier in the future.
Example: I have 10 people on my team. I occasionally buy them lunch for a job well done, because we’re short staffed, whatever. The question comes up: Should I buy the team Chinese or pizza for lunch? I send out an e-mail to the team, and 7 people respond: 5 with Chinese and 2 for pizza, and to get the food delivered by noon, I have to place my order in 5 minutes.
What do I do?
I order Chinese, and let everyone know we’ll get pizza next time (if that’s what they want). Nobody’s hurt, and it’s good practice in decision making. Is it the right decision?
Does it really matter?
Free food is free food, and getting food when folks are HUNGRY is more important than getting folks the right food. Sure, if I had any dietary restrictions on my team I might behave differently, but they don’t, so I just make a decision.
When I started managing, I worried a lot about making everyone happy, so I’d wait on a decision. I’d wait for everyone to weigh in before making a decision.
And it crippled my team and me. We’d wait until we had more information, and people would be upset because we didn’t share what we thought the problem was. My manager would be annoyed because I didn’t share what we found, and we couldn’t move into action to fix things sooner.
Making the little decisions about silly things like lunch have helped me gain the confidence to make the bigger decisions about hirings and firings, about what to do about emergencies, about a lot of things.
Now, I wait for 60% of the information and then I make a decision.
That’s my encouragement to you!
Just make a decision.
