Red Shoe Scrolls

Link: http://randymorgan.com/Newsletters/employee%20first.pdf

 What was old becomes new again

I am just reading Employees First, Customers Second, by Vineet Nayar.   This seems like a bold and audacious idea, but like a 70s hairstyles what was old becomes new again. 

In 1992 I read The Customer Comes Second: Put your people first and watch them kick butt; by Hal Rosenbluth CEO of Rosenbluth Travel.  Hal had guided his company to an unprecedented 1500% growth in the previous 10 years.  His unique approach to putting employees first began on their very first day.  Instead of mundane details new employees spent their first day with a senior leader being introduced, celebrated and acclimated to the new environment.  Within the first quarter, all new employees came to world headquarters in Philadelphia or London to learn about the company and more importantly have fun. 

New employees not only learned about the company's history, philosophy, goals and objectives, but they experienced service in an afternoon tea served by officers of the company.  New employees were allowed to ask any question they liked and participate in skits and games to learn how to create a positive story from every service experience.  Their goal was not to move service from bad to good or good to exceptional, but from exceptional to outstanding. 

These success stories were music to my ears as I had created my own version of the process I branded "Service Camp" while working for the Coeur d'Alene Resort when it was named the number one travel product in America by Condé Nast magazine.  Service Camp was designed to be an experience instead of training.  Music rocked as the big screens flashed images of both team members and guests creating "moments to remember".

Instead of the typical employee handbook - that most barely read and is remembered by few - new team members were given old-fashioned flash cards highlighting not only the Resort services and activities, but surprising facts about the community and its history.  This wide range of information not only helped break down interdepartmental barriers, but gave team members the tools to interact with Guests in meaningful and memorable ways.    More importantly, the immediate and self testing feedback (remember how you used to make a pile of cards for the answers you knew and those you didn't) made new team members experts at information that had previously taken "experience" to attain.  This not only enhanced the experience for the Guests, but it gave Team Members tools to help them feel good about themselves in the process. 

The power of this one idea should not be underestimated.  It is the difference between pushing employees and creating experiences that pull them.  What tools, skills, resources, and freedom do you give your employees that make them feel special in their interaction with your customers?  If you don't know, ASK.  If your employees can't think of anything "off the top of their heads" you have a wonderful opportunity.

I just saw an interview on Sunday about Zappos.  One thing they did to make their employees special was to NEVER restrict the amount of time an employee can spend on the phone with a customer (the record call length was five hours and twenty five minutes).  Employees are encouraged to "be themselves" and enter into the shoe buying experience with the customer.  I wish these guys weren't so good.  If they keep this up I may have to rent a POD just to store all of my wife's shoes.

Best of all we rediscovered the power of play.  By creating a playful learning atmosphere, we reminded each other of the importance of taking ourselves lightly and our jobs seriously.  We believed that the way our Team Members served our Guests was a direct reflection of the way they treated themselves.

See how transparency and "reverse accountability" rocketed HCLT to the number one spot on India's best employer list. 

Link: http://randymorgan.com/Newsletters/transparency_hclt.pdf

We may never be in the kind of hot seat that BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles is in, but the lessons about transparency are relevant to all, too little, too late, too bad.

Their biggest problem is not leaking oil, but bleeding trust.  According to Patrick Lencioni in Five Dysfunctions of a Team, this is the critical failure plaguing organizational performance.  This entire event may have been one tragic accident with no one at fault but no amount of born again transparency is going to replace what was lost.  Real transparency must begin BEFORE the water gets murky.

Contrast this with the HCLT recognized as the 2008 the "Number One Best Employer in India" by Hewitt Associates and Business Week.  Propelled by a leadership style described by Fortune Magazine as "The World's Most Modern Management" CEO Vineet Nayar has been singled out by the London Business School as "the leader of organizational Innovation".   Mr Nayars commitment to transparency begins at the very top sharing his own 360° evaluation with all 55,000 employees and 3800 managers inspiring a culture of trust, openness and honesty. 

Mr. Nayar's process of reverse accountability added another window for improvement, after viewing the honesty and transparency of people using Facebook.  Instead of following the typical chain of command employees are encouraged to record their ideas, and post them on the company intranet.  This is brilliant!!!   Here are ten fifteen highly engaging benefits just because everybody can participate in everything.

• 1. Employees are highly motivated to do their best.
• 2. Managers are inspired to pay attention.
• 3. Everyone is encouraged to participate.
• 4. The organization benefits from the creativity of the masses.
• 5. New ideas are generated by the collaboration.
• 6. Cultural and departmental biases are ameliorated.
• 7. Learning is expanded because everyone becomes both a teacher and student.
• 8. Communications skills are enhanced for everyone in the process.
• 9. Feedback is immediate, diverse and apolitical.
• 10. Personal agendas, "lies of omission", and organizational positioning are all subject to enhanced scrutiny.
• 11. Leadership is encouraged from every layer of the organization.
• 12. You create and organizational knowledgebase searchable by keyword and historically accurate.
• 13. The every prevalent "nobody tells us anything" is replaced by "what have you done to know or contribute?"
• 14. Alternate career paths may be explored through exposure to other departments, ideas and projects.
• 15. You enhance the sense of community, inclusion and the opportunity to be a part of something special.

On hiring Mr. Nayar sounds more like the HR Department at Southwest Airlines than the CEO of an international technology company.   He said "I like to hire people who have the desire inside them because I can't create it. I can help you find your desire, but I can't create it."  I have always found the most effective way to screen for desire is to try to convince a prospective new employee that they should choose something else.  If they don't fight back and stand up for what they believe in I know they will eventually choose another path.  Using this same style process Mr. Nayar finds that 90% are unsure of what they really want, they've not found their "true north."

 Another key question he uses is   "What do you want to do next?"  He wants learners not teachers.  His interview style focuses on intent not just content.  He likes questions like; What excites you most? What depresses you most?

 As the final leg in a lengthy interview process he likes to turn the tables by putting the interviewee in the hiring seat.  If you were the one hiring today and you had a choice of hiring any of those who interviewed you today.  Who would you hire and why?  The answers he says reveal their ability to spot strengths and weaknesses.

My friend Rick Powers is a brilliant interviewer.  He likes to interview people in groups asking unusual questions like; If you were a vegetable, what kind of would you be.  I always thought this was a wonderful way to test their creativity and authenticity under pressure.  Then he told me the real secret.  What he was looking for was not from the individual being asked the question, but from those observing the process.  Those who were supportive and encouraging got the jobs while the self absorbed, petty and indifferent got to bring down somebody else's business.

"Troubles are a lot like people-they grow bigger if you nurse them."
(Author unknown)

Take a tip from the diet experts and start with a smaller plate.  The average size of a dinner plate in the 1950s was 9 inches across. By the 80's it had grown to 11 inches and today the average dinner plate is a whopping 13 inches.   Our appetite for information seems a direct reflection of our eating habits in both size and quality.  While the number of fast food establishments was measured at almost 304,000[i] in 2009, a Google search for "internet news" earlier today returned 489 million results.  If you want to know anything, you have to stop trying to know everything.

"I haven't purchased a newspaper in five years" said Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Work Week.  He probably wrote that line lounging on a beach in Buenos Aires while gazillions were being direct deposited into his account from a business he built "not to bother him".

I like the simplicity of Seven Habits guru Steven Covey's approach.  Draw two circles representing the sum total of your attention and notice where you "spend (meaning it will never come back again) your time".  You are given 20,000 moments[ii] each day to spend as you choose.  Au contraire you say, my boss chooses what I pay attention to or you could blame it on your children, volunteer activities, latest celebrity gossip or the undeniable need to know the latest scores of your favorite curling team.  No matter where you place your attention these are all still your choices.  You might also interject the requirements of law enforcement as in following the obligatory "rules of the road".  Speed limits, stop lights and especially school zones (I know this from recent personal experience) all "demand" your attention.  But then again you are the one who chose to drive instead of taking the bus.  You are also the one who chose to live where you live.

When given the choice between house size and commute time, most will choose the longer commute failing to consider the time cost of the attention required.  A recent study found that when a person travels more than one hour in each direction, he has to make 40% more money to be as "satisfied with life" as the person with a shorter commute.  3.5 million Americans spend more than three hours each day traveling to and from work. [iii] I would suggest that this "Communal Commuting Commiseration" (The Three C's of traffic) is not the result of our chosen mode of transportation or where we locate our home, but where we locate our attention.

My cross country commutes are often long, arduous, and increasingly unreliable.  They are also my greatest sources of new material.  As I look in the back of the book I just referenced I see notes I had written about my new friend Gayle.  We shared adjoining seats on Horizon flight 2593, the Friday evening flight from Portland to Boise.  She was on her way from Salem to spend time with her grandkids, which she did without fail every other weekend.  In our ensuing conversation I learned that she had been a life-time special education teacher and (as opposed to most teachers I know) she loved it.  When I asked why she enjoyed her chosen profession she replied that she liked "being a part of children's lives" throughout their elementary years, unlike other teachers who have kids for just one year or class.  When I asked for an example she told me about being approached by a coworker earlier that week to help with a young first grader.  We will call him Zander.  Part of her role was to be a resource for troubled children throughout the school and not just her own class.  The teacher had noticed that Zander had recently become very depressed, sullen and withdrawn, even sharing that he thought his parents didn't like him.

Gayle shared that their community had been hit hard by the recession.  Those that didn't have much to start with now had even less.  It put a strain on everyone.  The two teachers decided to focus on where they could make a difference, their circle of influence.  They would use every opportunity to recognize and appreciate Zander by putting their observations on index cards.  Three days after starting this process Zander was asked to meet his teacher in the hallway where 28 cards had been lined up end to end forming a line extending toward the principal's office.   Zander read every card as his teacher reminded him of the moment she observed each particular behavior.  The cards praised things like participating in class, holding the door for another student, or one I might have earned - coloring "mostly" on the page.  When he reached the very last one his teacher told him "when these cards reach all the way down to the office we are going to have an ice cream party with the principal and all the office staff."

Gayle was quick to remind me that this was just the beginning and they could not lose sight of the process even when they began to make progress.  (Re-read that last sentence and ask yourself; how often do you lose sight of the process when you begin to make progress?)  Who do you think benefitted most from those cards?  Was it the student who received them, or the teacher who took her time, focused her attention and found reasons to write them?  What if you applied this idea to your next commute?  Not the writing the card part, or you may experience why texting causes three times more impairment than driving under the influence[iv], but the looking for reasons to appreciate the process.

I like to run.  Sometimes it is easy, effortless and over before I know it.  Other times I would rather be chewing broken glass.  Every step is an effort and my feet feel like they weigh 20 pounds each.  The problem is not the cold, lack of sleep or advancing age, but misdirected attention.  There are many motivations that keep me on the road.  In fact I thought this morning, May 21, 2010 when it was a balmy 35° as I stepped out the door at 5:45 AM, that I would like to print shirts featuring a giant 120.   120 is the approximate age we should aspire to live if, like animals, our life expectancy is five times the length it takes our body to mature.  My life expectancy should actually be longer since I was close to thirty before reaching puberty.  Unfortunately the chronological advantages are most likely counterbalanced by the psychological damage of my prolonged prepubescense, but I will save those stories for another time.

Additional tools I use to stay motivated are my Garmin 305 GPS watch, BlackBerry Storm and Bluetooth headset.  The BlackBerry allows me to listen to books on tape and answer important calls, while my Garmin tracks speed, heart rate, elevation, route and calories which are all downloaded to my computer for totals and comparison.  I have listened to many of my audio books dozens of times and they continue to stimulate new ideas and the Garmin reports quantify the benefits of my daily excursions.

Each of these examples is an exercise in attention.  If you want to control your life you first have to control your attention.  Be brutally honest.  The next time someone asks you how you are doing, avoid the temptation to regurgitate the obligatory "great, never better" bull.  Instead tell the truth, I have been wasting my life ticked off about things I'll never change and excited about trivia that makes no difference.   If you are afraid this tact may leave you friendless and alone, you are probably right.  Most people are so immersed in their delusions that real honesty will seem like a foreign language.  If you prefer a more subtle approach you can continue to play "pretend" with others while being honest with yourself.  Honesty is NOT judgment.  There is no benefit in judging another especially yourself.  The search for honesty is simply a quest for more accurate awareness.  We will never arrive in a land that lacks all delusion, but the journey is amazing.

Nothing can stop a man who is willing to be honest with himself, about himself.
( I can't find the author, but I love the phrase)

Ideas in Action

1.      Stop feeding on mental junk food.  Turn off the news, cancel the paper and politely refuse to listen to the complaints of others.

2.      Watch your mouth.  This is one of those "mother told you" things that you can control.  In the Four Agreements Don Miguel Ruiz uses the phrase, "Be impeccable with your word.  Don't use your words against yourself or others."  This alone WILL change your life.

3.      Notice your self-jabber.  Nobody talks to you more than you do.  Remember you feel the way you feel because you think the way you think.  If you want to feel differently, think differently.

4.      Develop your own system for recognizing and encouraging others.  Steven Covey used the example of putting ten dimes in your front pocket and moving one dime to the opposite pocket each time you catch someone doing something well.

5.      Treat your attention like an endangered species.  If you don't take control and "manage your moments" they will be exploited by others.

6.      Awareness is the answer. Don't jump up and try to act differently.  Simply becoming aware of where you are "investing your attention" will help you be different.  Lasting transformation always comes from within.  Doing something for someone for someone else or because of someone else is at best temporary and at worst fraudulent.

7.      Make more mistakes.  Our education system rewards achievement when it should be rewarding effort.  The ONLY way you ever learn is by making mistakes (How We Decide, Jonah Leherer).  As Tom Peters says in step eight, Fail, Forward, Fast.

[i] IBIS World, Industry Code: 72221, Apr 16 2010,

[ii] Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Khaneman

[iii] How We Decide, John Lehrer Page 145

[iv] Australian News, September 19, 2008

How We Decide, Jonah Lehrer

Do you think praising your children for their ability is a good thing?   See page 52 Shopping for a house?  If your commute is going to be more than an hour each way (the largest growing segment of commuters) How much more money will you have to make to be "as satisfied with life" as a person with a short commute? Page 145
When is it best to trust your feelings and how are we mis-wired for mistakes?

The Four Hour Work Week. Timothy Ferriss

Are you W2W, working to work?  Whether you are a budding entrepreneur or would just like to control your time, this book will rock your boat.  It is PACKED with step by step instructions for inverting your life.  DON'T WAIT until you retire.  Redesign now!!  The only thing stopping you is you.

The Starfish and the Spider: Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
Are you prepared for leader-less organizations?  Discover what the Apache Indians, Wikipedia and Skype can teach you about engaging the drive and creativity of the masses.  If you are operating from a "Position of Power" THIS BOOK IS A MUST.  Learn why "hybrid" organizations are out to eat your lunch by reaping the benefits of both centralized savings and decentralized drive.

We all want to be part of something with lasting meaning and profound significance. Pulitzer Prize winning author Ernest Becker in his book Denial of Death described the nobler side of purpose; "Man will lay down his life for his country, his society, his family. He will choose to throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades; he is capable of the highest generosity and self-sacrifice. But he has to feel and believe that what he is doing is truly heroic, timeless, and supremely meaningful. The crisis of modern society is precisely that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up."

I would suggest that this lack of heroic purpose is not confined to our youth, but to a vast majority of our workforce as well. I also do not believe we have to risk life and limb or shed the blood of others to qualify. I have experienced heroics at every level. From a city sanitation worker who struggled with me (unsuccessfully) to find a clogged line to a junior ticket agent for Frontier Airlines who "ran like the wind" to keep me from missing an important flight. These people were and are heroes in my book. When was the last time you met a taxi driver, grocery checker or housekeeper who truly felt heroic in their roles? It is not that we lack opportunity, it often seems we feel if we raise others up we will somehow be diminishing ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

During my time with the Coeur d'Alene Resort I had the privilege of working with some amazing people, including a pair of twin sisters - Leah and Lanai.  They may not have been top of their classes or queens of the prom, but they would light up any room they came into with their laughter. These two literally giggled in stereo.  You might expect this from the "popular girls" who like to show off for attention, but this was not Leah and Lanai.  It did not matter who they were around, what others might think or the fact they had already cleaned a dozen rooms that day. They simply found it preferable to have fun and were always on the lookout for new opportunities to share their contagious cheer with others.

On one warm summer afternoon Leah was gathering fresh linens from her cart at the Coeur d'Alene Inn.  It was nearing the end of her day and she needed to get home to her kids when she heard a faint call from one of the long hallways.  The Inn was built in a classic U shape around a central pool, and a little elderly lady in orthopedic shoes, slowly pushing a walker, had entered the wrong door.  She had been dropped off by a family member who was obviously more interested in "unloading grandma" than making sure she was in the right place.  Instead of a short walk to her weekly bridge game in one of the small meeting rooms, she was on the far end of the wrong hallway.

The sound could have easily been ignored, and rescuing this errant senior citizen was not in Leah's job description; but then little of what made either of the twins remarkable was in any description.  Leah left her cart and headed down the hall which, considering her towering height of just over five feet, took some time.  Upon reaching the end of the hallway she found her misdirected matron both tired and more than a little confused.  With a plaintive cry she said; "where's the bridge?  Leah said it is way down there, pointing down the seemingly endless hallway.  Grandma looked down at her walker, purse hung over the side and muttered "oh no" as if summoning the energy to begin the long trek.

Leah would have none of it.  She said "stay right here" and used her pass key to enter the adjacent room, returning with a heavy wooden desk chair.  "Have a seat" she said; "I will be right back!" and she headed back into the room to call for reinforcements.  Reaching Kayoko, alone at the front desk, she asked "do we have a wheelchair?" Kayoko placed Leah on hold and darted around the corner to the bell closet where the sometimes resident wheelchair was kept.  She returned to the phone, No, the wheelchair was gone, but she did have a desk chair with wheels on it - would that help?  Yeah Leah said, bring it.   Kayoko found someone to watch the desk and half ran down the hundred-yard hallway, pushing the desk chair with all four plastic castor wheels rattling to beat the band.

Kayoko returned to the front desk, leaving Leah to handle grandma, one aluminum walker, one tilting, swiveling, armless secretary chair, and the longest carpeted hallway you have ever seen.  Undaunted Leah transferred her newest friend to the chair, threw the walker over her shoulder and headed off down the hall.  Now have you ever tried to push anybody even a few feet in a one of these chairs?  It is darn near impossible.  The chair acts like it has a mind of its own.  The back wants to go one way, the seat another and all four wheels have ideas of their own.  It's like mutton busting at the rodeo.  When recounting the story to me later, Leah said she had to stop halfway down the hall and apologize to the lady for breathing so hard on her neck!

That could be the end of the story but instead it was the beginning.  That story became part of our tribal culture in Coeur d'Alene.  Every new employee and a great number of the guests heard this story of truly Astonishing Service and I have shared it with thousands since.  You don't have to cure cancer or land on the moon to be a hero.   All you have to do is to put others' needs above your own.  In doing so you will find these simple acts of self-lessness are the most self-gratifying of all.