The Followers

Last week I found an article in LinkedIn (via Forbes), that struck me as interesting.  The article talked about how good leaders are created by their charges just as much as they create winning teams.

Oddly enough, I've never considered the fact that I may have contributed to my past supervisors or leaders.  My perception of not having contributed to their growth as leaders comes from the fact that very few of them show interest in how my story continues.  I'm usually the one reaching out to see how they are and what they are doing, and not the other way around.  Does that mean, according to Forbes contributor Mike Myatt, that my leaders of the past are missing the complete picture?

Maybe I'm taking this too far, but the co-author of the article, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Devine of the US Army, stated the following that led me to that conclusion:

In most literature leaders are openly encouraged to understand how their own traits, strengths, weaknesses and habits affect their relationships, decision making, style, etc. What I think is not addressed is the criticality of a leader’s ability to reflect and understand the impact that the people he/she leads has on his/her own personal development and growth.

In other words, for a leader to truly be great, he/she must accept and understand that the people they have the privilege to lead will indelibly shape the kind of person and leader they become. If you are good at the profession of leadership, then you habitually form close relationships with your team members. This inevitably causes you to internalize and incorporate the team’s traits as surely as the team will internalize your behaviors and disposition.

I can't say that I blame my leaders for the lack of follow-up; as Devine states, "the literature" teaches leaders to focus on what they bring to the table and not what the table brings to them, and maybe I don't warrant the follow-up in the eyes of those who used to lead me.  But for years I've thought of myself as missing something by wanting to know how the people I used to lead were doing.  I've been told by other leaders to let bygones be bygones.  But these people lent something to me, too, I inwardly respond, biting my tongue.

And maybe it's not a good idea to spend so much energy trying to focus my connections on just those who led me, but those who followed me, too.

*****

Since I left Grainger in April I have kept in touch with my former charges at Grainger in San Francisco, and with a couple of folks on Facebook at the Oakland location.  Two days before I left for Southern California I got a call from one of the employees at the Oakland office, and the phone was passed around from one former follower to another.  I was a big phone channel proponent at the Oakland office, and I asked about their stats.  Were they still working to lead the district in stats?

Yes, they answered me proudly.  We still lead the district.

Nine months after I left, I still had an effect on them.  I contributed.  Only a follower would have been able to tell me that.  And they called me to tell me that.

My Personal History of Customer Service, All the Rest

When I'm not working in customer service on a heightened and concentrated basis, I tend to notice it more than I do if I'm just passing through a traditional workday.  As is the tendency with any passion, if you're sitting on the outside, or if you are dealt the consequences of something you could have done better, then you instantly shift into backseat driver or Monday morning quarterback.

What I have been trying to do to be optimistic is a) look for the instances where there was exceptional customer service (and write about it somewhere so there's recognition to be found); and b) treat customer service providers in a way that if I would want to be treated as a worker.  I get the second part of that outlook from working in customer service myself, and the first part from being a manager.

Recognition is important.  All too often, front-line employees and middle managers aren't recognized by anyone, regardless of the challenge and the outcome, with one exception:  they are blamed if something didn't work for the customer.  Imagine hearing what didn't work all day and never hearing back when you exceeded your customer's expectations.  Sounds like the world's most abusive co-dependent relationship, doesn't it?

Throughout my experience as a manager my recognition of my employees has come about in a variety of ways.  Bring in baked goods.  Utilize them as mentors for the next round of new employees that are hired.  Even something as small as announcement acknowledgment works.  When I worked for Grainger I had a habit of saying "Thank you" to any radio announcements that employees made to inform other employees of crucial information.  It sounds way too simple, but I established such an expectation that when I would come back from lunch and no one thought I was listening, employees were acknowledging each other.  People like to know that they've been heard, that what they are doing or saying matters.  (You want proof?  Look at Facebook and Twitter on any given day and tell me there's no thrill in someone "liking" your status or retweeting a line of yours.  Even if it's small, it's gratification.)

Acknowledgment works for people who provide me with customer service as well.  A simple "thanks," a good write-up on Yelp or on other social networks (if you use the employee's name you can really make someone's day for thinking of them as memorable in a good way), or even sending a note back to the place of business thanking them is helpful (I did that once with a dentist; if you were like me in the dentist's chair, you would too).

In regards to the second aspect of my outlook--treating customer service providers in a way that I would like to be treated if I were doing their job--well, that comes from what I've tried to establish with every student or employee of mine.  Evaluations started with, first and foremost, asking the employee if they would have liked to have that kind of service.  Then we explored a breaking down of what could have been done better.  Then we made a plan of how to improve the next customer experience.  I do the same thing now when I greet a customer service provider as a customer.  Who's my favorite customer?  What could I do to make this person's job easier?  How can I be a better customer next time?  Being the best customer doesn't always mean spending the most money (although that works as incentive, don't mistake me there), but in little things like establishing clear expectations, addressing the person by name, and offering up a smile, to name a few.  I do this with Muni bus drivers, and they never see money from me with the transit card I use.  I say thank you when I get on the bus, and thank you when I get off the bus.  (I'm a better bus patron than dental patient, but it still pays to be kind.)

I may be independently employed at the moment in unconventional ways, but that doesn't mean I can't still follow establish practices of what works in customer service.

More on my passion, my foundation, next week.  Have a great workweek and a warm holiday.

My Personal History of Customer Service, Just the First Part

When potential employers and job boards ask me how many years of customer service that I have, I'm afraid I'm going to look really old.  This year, for instance, the count would be twenty-six years.

When I was thirteen, my mother opened a flower/vegetable/bedding plant/nursery business out of our home in Northwest Ohio.  We had fifteen acres of property on the corner of Williams County Roads C and 20, and the name of the business was Nancy's Gardens, named after my mother.  The hours, being home-based, were a bit on the funky side (open Tuesday and Friday afternoons, all day Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and closed on Sunday and Monday), and I was just beginning my teenage years.  Other girls my age were getting on the phone at all hours and finding ways to experiment with clothes, makeup, and dating.  I was doing my homework after dark, weeding, cleaning the cattails out of the water lily beds, and raising baby chicks.  We took our family vacations in the fall, because summer was the busiest time for the farm, and family vacations never extended farther than where we could drive to in a day.

I honestly didn't mind it much, save one factor--we lived in a small and friendly community, and my mother had a hard time with boundaries.  People who knew her hours came by anyway on Sunday and Monday because they insisted that "Nancy wouldn't mind," so there were never "normal" mealtimes or activities.  But, with a farm you don't really have that much anyway--that's part of the beauty of agriculture.  You have to give up free time to gain knowledge of how the world works.

You'd think that I would have been resentful, but I wasn't.  (Okay, it took leaving for me to admit that, but still...)  Agriculture taught me a lot about acceptance.  It taught me even more about customer service.  I learned to stay flexible, and ready.  When my mother was sick with cancer in 2001, I had to be nice for her.  I also had to be firm for her.  We had closed the business, we had put up signs, but so many people knew that "Nancy surely didn't mean them" when she meant closed.  I had to be understanding with these people, and firm.  It was a challenge, but the experience was also trying to teach me a lesson about work/life balance.

Agriculture teaches you a lot about process.  It teaches you to think on your feet.  I loved that feeling to the point that a few years after moving to Missouri (about the time I went to school for my Bachelor's degree) I worked on a ranch part-time, for FUN.  (This was in addition to going to school full-time and working full-time as a corporate trainer.)  Neither one of my forays into agriculture have been for money; one I inherited, the other one was because I was missing the first experience.  In Missouri, the time was spent on a beef cattle ranch, the dreaded task once a year in November was to vaccinate the cattle.  I say "dreaded" because everyone else dreaded it--the guy who owned the farm LOVED it, and I LOVED it.  We loved herding the cattle in, getting covered in mud, getting kicked, running from the bull--all of it.  I think the owner had a John Wayne envy working there, but mine was feeling useful, serving the cattle, serving others, taking me back to knowledge I inherited and could use again.  Everyone else who hated it hated what I loved about it, so I would try to do all the tasks so that everyone else would have a better experience.  At the end of the day I was worn out, but I felt like I had contributed.

My first customer experience was with a farm, serving a community.  When I came back to a ranch, that experience was with internal customer service, serving those who stood with me.

I think about both farms a lot these days as I make my way around the Bay Area on mass transit or in rental cars.  There's a constant need to be kind and considerate to each other on mass transit, or in California traffic.  What I find really amazing is how rare it is, and I often have to take the bull by the horns (pardon the pun), and be the one who is kind and considerate, even though it pays me nothing at all. That's how it all began--someone interrupting my dinner for water lilies, and now to someone asking for directions on BART.  I feed off of my foundation.

 More on my passion, my foundation, next week.  Have a great workweek.

Innovation

When I hear the word "innovation" on the job boards, I think of two things immediately:

• The latest techie invention
• The best way to answer an interview question

Now, I'm not saying to lie when asked an interview question. I'm saying that the interview question should be asked with the intent to find out how much innovation the applicant possesses. "Given the following scenario, what would be your first course of action?" is a great interview question exploring innovation.

The latest techie invention is probably what everyone thinks of--innovation brings to mind iPads, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. But innovation exists on every level. Given the fact that I have a shortcoming or opportunity here, how do I make the most of it?

Think of Starbucks.

I went into Starbucks over the weekend with my environmentally-conscious "personal" cup, and ordered a grande mocha. For those readers who don't know how a mocha is made--chocolate is layered into the bottom, and espresso and steamed milk are poured on top. The entire thing is stirred with a spoon, and, in some cases, topped with foam or whipped cream.

The barista making my mocha was stumped--the only spoon she had in her hand was the wide, flat one used for dishing out foam from steamed milk, and she had no idea how to mix the ingredients. I told her I'd take care of it, and did--I stirred it with the wooden sticks they keep at the napkin station. Such a simple move. She might have been new, I suppose, but she had never stirred coffee in a Starbucks cup, and might have fooled me and gain self-confidence if she had possessed innovation.

Number 15, Or, Looking Out For Your Team

This past week was the annual MLB trade hoopla, and something that I have a hard time following even in the easiest of years. What I usually try to do is wait for the storm to pass and then see who's still there when the smoke clears.

I'm a San Francisco Giants fan, and one of our first trades was for Carlos Beltran. I'm a big fan of Beltran, so I was pleased when the Giants' acquired him, despite the fact that he's still getting his sea legs. However, there was a story even better than Beltran's acquisition behind the scenes: Beltran's jersey number.

It matched the number of manager Bruce Bochy.

While Bochy has had the number for the number of years that he's been with San Francisco, his sentiment was this, and I'm paraphrasing: that number has been benched long enough. Bochy wanted to make his team comfortable, every last one of them, if it meant giving up his jersey number. These numbers get retired, and they are important to players. Bochy recognized this and acted on it.

And kept his team happy.

Mentorship On Both Sides of the Gender Coin

When I was in college, my women's history professor gave us an assignment to interview and write a paper on our female mentor--a professional woman that we looked up to. My college advisor was a man, my best friend--while older than me and working outside the home--didn't consider herself a professional, so my mother was the default. Actually, my mother was my first choice, but I had to present the argument that she had no choice but to be interviewed by me for this paper. My mother owned a business--what they call in Ohio a "truck farm" for its rural and agricultural wares--and she operated it out of her home. When people ask me how long I've been in customer service, I have to count back to when I was thirteen, for I was helping her customers at that age.

A "truck farm" is one that sells bedding plants, fruits, vegetables, and sometimes livestock or livestock products (such as eggs) to customers right on site, instead of providing it to retailer. A business of this nature often requires devotion of long hours, of being available to customers outside of posted business hours, and easily detracts from challenges in weather, road conditions, etc. My mother's decision to start this business was not only seen by others as a challenge, but at times she was considered to be slightly crazy, since she started it when she was forty years old.

I knew very little about the nuances behind her decision when she started the business, but by interviewing her and writing that paper, I learned so much that I don't think she would have shared with me otherwise. Since that paper I've graduated college, she became ill with cancer and passed away in 2002, but I've taken a lot of factors of her decision into play when I decided to leave Grainger and set out to find another position. Recently, on a trip to southern California to visit my brother, I caught an article in The New Yorker that reminded me of what my mother shared, an article about Sheryl Sandberg's transition from Google to Facebook, and how women are viewed as leaders in the Silicon Valley. In the article reporter Ken Auletta talks about privilege, challenges, and power in Sandberg's inspiration to move up within the ranks in Silicon Valley. I was struck and delighted by Sandberg's approach to new opportunities in her career and the careers of women in the Bay Area--how most women had a "hangup" about the word "power," and the drive that makes men "bang down the door for new assignments...the next thing that stretches them," while women have to be "talked into it." She talked about the challenges of having a male mentor and what that mentorship looks like to colleagues in her field. Her "aha" moments in her career path reminded me of my mother's challenges and in mine in working on projects that I passionate about. It was re-affirmation of what I feel I can offer to customers and to employees.

And it was a gentle reminder of the strong mentor I hope to be one day, to men or women.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: Bass Pro Shops

By the time I left Bass Pro Shops in 2002, I had worked there for a total of seven years, if you count the first time that I worked there. I started out there as a customer service associate answering phones in the new call center that opened on the north side of Springfield, Missouri in the mid-90's, left at the end of 1996 to spend just over six months with my family in Ohio, and returned in the third quarter of 1997 to go back to the phones. At one point an opening for a training instructor on the evening shift came up, and I was moved to that position.

I had never taught a group of people before that position, but I was a voracious student, and after I started teaching I discovered that I loved it in a way that I was born to love it. Loving my position was an excellent opportunity in more ways than one--not only did I have lots of people to train, I had lots of people to train alone. The day shift of training instructors had two instructors and an average of 25 people in classes on any given day; I was the only instructor on the night shift and had an average of 75. I learned to improve my time management skills in a hurry, not to mention my patience and my ability to develop talent within the groups that I taught to help teach each other.

Bass Pro had three levels of training during that time in the 90's:

• Order Training: A 3-week course with an introduction to call centers (many new hires were new to the industry) and tutorial, lecture, and practical application of taking calls around sending customers free catalogs and placing orders for them
• Non-Order Training: A 1-week course that the employee completed after having 60 to 90 days of experience in order training with their teams on the phones. Applications involved taking problem calls and finding lost orders for customers
• Specialty Training: A 1-week course that the employee completed after having 60 to 90 additional days of order training and 60 to 90 initial days of non-order training. Applications included taking Australia and New Zealand orders, and processing sports licensing for select states across the country

When I first began teaching, I taught from a list of topics that the training department had found appropriate for that level of teaching and conveyed the topics in the order suggested because it "had always been done that way." After a few sessions of training and playing with the order a little bit, I was able to come up with a curriculum that would not only cover the topics needed but enabled the student to learn the most effectively for what was being covered. Over time, I was able to convince my manager and the day training staff to utilize this curriculum so that training would remain consistent across the board and so that if schedules required, students could take a class during the day for one day and be taught the same information that they would have been taught in the night class. Over the course of my tenure at Bass Pro I developed similar standard curriculums for the non-order and specialty sessions, as well as assisting the quality assurance department with reviewing calls of agents for supervisors.

Bass Pro was my favorite work experience of any that I've had in my career. I was empowered to make changes to improve the experience of those in my care, as well as encouraged to utilize my creativity to improve the performance of everyone, regardless of whether they had been trained by me or not. I worked independently since the rest of the training staff, management staff, and quality assurance staff worked during the day, and I thoroughly enjoyed the concept of teaching because of the wide variety of things that it taught me as a person. I had to leave Bass Pro due to financial reasons (my mother had been recently ill and I needed to find a job with greater compensation, which I was not able to gain, even upon inquiry at Bass Pro), but I believe the company and the position contributed the most to my growth above any of the employers that I had the privilege of working for.

In my next post I will explore my higher education (beyond high school) and how it contributed to my experience as a manager and communicator.

Resume Parts & Pieces, Work Experience: Alltel Communications

Alltel was my experience in retail and my last work experience in the Midwest. The company was spread out in several call centers at that time in the Midwest and Southeast, with limited coverage in the west, and I worked as a customer service representative for customers who had questions about their contract and pre-paid billing statements. I also assessed cell phone bills from customers and made recommendations on products and services that Alltel offered that might help the customer make better use of their cell phone or getting better value for their usage.

When I started at Alltel I had just resigned from a training instructor position at Bass Pro Shops, and my primary reason for resignation was compensation. I had the opportunity to receive greater compensation at Alltel as a front-line associate on the phones than I had received in a position of leadership at Bass Pro, and I had full potential to move up within Alltel to a similar position of training or leadership that I had exercised at Bass Pro. Indeed, the first few months that I was with Alltel I adapted their company vision and processes so well that I was asked to help train and mentor new associates, even though I was a relatively new associate myself. It was gratifying to me as a trainer of the industry and empowering to me as a new associate to know that my efforts mattered.

It was at Alltel that I honed my skills in a call center setting and truly understood the fundamentals of call center performance in relation to customer satisfaction. Alltel's scheduling process was such that we shared call volume with one or two other centers across the south, but only if something overloaded systemically or if call volume inexplicably went up. We knew when to expect more calls and when to expect less, we learned how to budget our day so that customer plan changes and documentation could be completed within the day without down time and without overtime. And we learned that learning these lessons of efficiency would reward us. For instance, tenured employees with Alltel often received the highest pay and the longest amount of vacation time, but the best performers received vacation WHEN they wanted it and had the opportunity to bid quarterly on vacation requests and schedule preferences. Incentives for better plan correlation and feature usage on a customer's plan would grant employees prizes that they selected from a catalog of products ranging from writing instruments to fine leather products to furniture (I received a Coach wristlet as one of my prizes, and a hammock chair as another). Better performance also gave me more opportunities to coach others and to guide others to better performance in coaching sessions, classes, and filling in as a back-up team lead on occasion for the call center associates.

My reason for leaving Alltel was an opportunity to move to California and live closer to my family. If I hadn't had this opportunity, I would probably still be with Alltel to this day, and, by my best estimate, in a position of leadership. In my next segment I will talk about my favorite job experience that I ever had, with Bass Pro Shops as a swing shift training instructor for their call center.

AD HOC: What Every Recruiter Should Know

Ah, the news all over my Twitter and RSS feeds today: Dow Below 12,000 for the First Time Since March. And, from a week ago: Unemployment Rises In May.

I am the last person to tell any corporation how to run their business. The advice that I'm about to bestow is for when the employer is ready to hire again.

If you utilize a hiring agency, be sure the recruiter handling your account has basic written communication skills mastered.

I say this because:

1. I'm a communication professional. The opening line of my resume states just that.
2. It's good business sense, regardless of whether you're a recruiter, a hiring manager, or the receptionist answering the phone.
3. Anything less than a mastery of basic written communications skills ruins your opportunity for quality talent.

Since I've been actively looking for a job (starting this spring), I usually receive an a kind of inquiry from a headhunter about every other week or so that could be mistaken for an adolescent text message. This doesn't anger me so much as disappoint me--I'm not even going to read that job offer, no matter how sweet it may seem, due to the poor use of language in the e-mail. (And if the recruiter is not composing the message on e-mail but on an application of an e-mail program, that practice could be leading to the problem.) My understanding is that recruiters receive incentives for getting the right people in the right positions, but communications skills can make or break that determination. Consider my most recent offer, which contained the following syntax errors:

• Use of "U" instead of "You"
• Wrong application of "You're," meaning the writer should have utilized "Your" (Actually, it was spelled "u're," which troubled me twice)
• Improper spelling of the word "believe" (no spell check?)
• Little or no use of the article "a" or "an"

That was just the beginning. Normally I'm not a stickler for grammar (I don't walk around with a red pen), but how am I to take this job offer seriously and not think of it as spam? And, what's worse, how can the company hiring the recruiter possibly expect any productivity from this recruiter?

I'm not sure if we are in an employer's market or a candidate's market, but either way, candidates and recruiters alike should make sure they are sending out the right message. Talent could be missed or developmental growth could be lost due to either party deciding that communication skills are not important.

Accessorizing

This week I was coming back from a trip to the South Bay via Caltrain, which is my favorite mass transit agency in the Bay Area. The ride is quiet and comfortable, you have the opportunity to sit alone in the upper deck, and at the Fourth & King station in San Francisco there are great places to eat before you depart or when you return.

I returned on Caltrain at around 9 am, so I swung by Philz Coffee first, and then backtracked to Panera Bread for a bagel to go with the coffee. One sees this a lot between these two businesses--people come into Philz all the time with Panera sandwiches and go into Panera with Philz coffee cups. The lovely folks at Philz were hard at work that morning--there was a line out the door and to the corner of Fourth & Berry. I wasn't on a time budget, so I was fine with taking the time to wait in line. When I got to Panera there was no line and I walked right up to a counter staffed with four people and ordered a bagel with cream cheese to eat there. From the moment that I began speaking with the Panera clerk I got the impression that he wanted to shake me--he started out by asking me if I wanted coffee, which seemed a bit odd with coffee in my hand. I hadn't yet stipulated the "to go" or "for here" part, and he asked me quickly "To go, right?" before I was finished with my order, something that I hadn't remembered saying. No, I corrected him, it's for here. He gave me my total and disappeared while I pulled out my wallet and prepared to pay. He reappeared a moment later with an art deco plate with bagel, spread, napkin and knife on it. I paid for it and realized on my way to a table that the slicing and toasting of said bagel was probably not a given, but I didn't want to create a hang-up in the customer flow that came in behind me (I had started that morning's trend of going to Philz's first and then Panera), so I went to sit down and destroy the bagel on the plate.

I've worked at three different companies now that required front-line employees to offer accessories to what the customer purchased. At all three the computerized ordering system generated suggestions for what the customer might also need but either isn't aware of or might be forgetting. The practice of putting said items on a prompt can give the employee offering it the feeling of loss of control in a transaction: "I have to do this part of the transaction in case someone's watching or so that I meet my numbers." The customer and employee feel the employee feel the employee is utilizing some sort of script, with the sole purpose of squeezing even more blood out of a turnip, more or less.

Reversing motivation works as a better incentive than driving to meet a number. The cashier at Panera could think of the process as an offering of thinking for the customer, or giving the customer every opportunity to have a great experience with them. True, this requires some significant amount of imagination in approach, from the standpoint of the employee, or, if that employee is hitting a wall, from the point of view of the person of leadership who is trying to utilize the employee to improve the customer experience. If the employee can can fathom picturing themselves in the customer's shoes, suddenly that portion of the transaction loses its scripted quality and achieves a tone of empathy and subject expertise offering advice. This approach requires some finesse--the end result, however, is a grateful customer with options, instead of a dull knife and a thick, stubborn, cold bagel.

When I trained and coached employees on phones during my tenure at two of these aforementioned companies, I would establish the empathy piece up front by asking the employee if they felt like running errands after work. "Imagine you have to go to the grocery store to pick up everything you need for dinner," I began. Then I would ask the employee if they could have someone greet them at the door and listen to what they wanted to make--say, lasagna--and then walk the store with them and pick out everything they need, so that they, the customer, wouldn't have to remember everything alone, wouldn't they choose that? Most employees agree that this would be the favorable interaction (those that don't usually have a spouse or parent taking care of their errands, but that's a rare scenario). Because the employee can't dispute this level of service, it makes sense, and starts the employee thinking that offering an extra item or service to the customer isn't something to get through but is more about the operative part of the transaction, like obtaining payment or verifying the item or service needed.

Does this approach make for a longer transaction? At first, yes. But the alternative could cost more time. The customer may wonder why they have to call back/return to the line when the employee could have reminded them of the need in the first place. Doing something over almost always takes more time than taking more time with the transaction in the first place. Worse, the lack of suggesting the "extra" may cost you a customer--since I didn't get the option of slicing and toasting, I could either go back and demand that the item be sliced and toasted (a "do-over") or I could just swallow the pain and go to Specialty's next time the opportunity comes up (another bakery on Berry). If I'm not the only one who has this type of transaction, then half of the transactions take twice as long and the other half never happen again. So long, business growth.

Sadly, you can also scare an employee into this practice by letting them know what the lack of offering eventually costs, as in the scenario above, but I prefer to build on the foundation of empathy with the possibility of praise directly from the customer. I was happy but tired that morning from the train ride and the lack of breakfast, and if the cashier would have thought of everything he would have had my gratitude. Not everyone will offer him gratitude, to be sure, but you can bet that the next place I buy my bagel from will be held against a standard of asking me if I wanted it sliced and toasted. The next bakery will go a long way to keeping me if they squeeze in the offer before I remember that I have to make the request. It's all in the timing of making sure that the customer has a favorable experience, the employee has a favorable experience, and that nothing is scripted out of fear.