TEC Resource Center

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Alignment – Good or Bad?

Alignment – A case study (Actually 2 cases)

How could being in alignment with your team ever be bad? Let me share 2 case studies….

Case #1

We recently visited Vancouver,  BC. From the moment we arrived at our hotel, we felt a sense of welcoming. Our room wasn’t ready yet, but the desk clerk informed us that he had a nice upgrade for us and would give us a call when our room was ready. When we walked into our huge suite (I originally booked a standard harbor view room) it looked like the front of a cruise ship with panoramic windows overlooking the beautiful harbor, without the rocking or cheesy draperies.

At dinner that night, as we were walked to our table, 2 separate people welcomed us to Vancouver. We experienced this type of hospitality literally everywhere we went.  You could see everyone in the hotel was in alignment. I felt like I knew their mission—tourism is our lifeblood, so treat the tourists like gold so they keep coming back and spending money here.  Everyone was in alignment, good alignment.

Case #2

Just bought a new hot tub!  They told us we should have it in about 4 weeks. 6 weeks later, after numerous calls they called to schedule delivery. We told them we would be home on that Friday anytime EXCEPT between 12:00-1:30. They called around 11:30 and said they would be there at 12:30. Really? We reiterated that that was precisely when we would NOT be there. They arrived at 11:59. I am not kidding. We were now late for an appointment.

They were just the delivery company so they could not even help us with starting up the tub. Now we had to make another appointment with the hot tub company for an in-service and startup. We called the company.  “Sure, we’ll be there in 2 weeks.” Are you kidding? We’re 2 months out from our original order date now! No matter who we spoke to at the company, it was the same story….we’re very busy….this is our busiest time of the year…why didn’t you call sooner?… Just fill it up and follow the instructions on the startup kit….. Of course there were no instructions or manual provided with the tub!

That’s what we eventually did since we didn’t want to wait 2 more weeks to use the hot tub.  We received error messages upon starting the tub that they could not explain  on the phone and therefore waited two weeks for their technician to come out.

Since we are in a service business ourselves we decided we should call the owner of the company and share the experience we were having with their store.  Surely he would want to know.  It took about 2 minutes to understand why their staff behaved the way they did.  They were in perfect alignment with the owner.  He literally had an argument with my husband, a very calm guy I might add, and said everything his staff told us was correct.  Several minutes later his wife called…ah, the voice of reason.   Not really.  She started out asking what the problem was, but as soon as we told her the tub was not functioning and we really didn’t want to wait 2 more weeks to use the tub that was already several weeks late, she gave the party line, “Well, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.  We’re very busy.”  It seems everyone was in alignment after all.

Alignment is a powerful thing.  When everyone is rowing in the same direction, the mission and vision of the company is more likely to be achieved.  Alignment is key to the success of an organization.  Business owners and managers have to do more than talk the talk.  They have to walk the walk.  People emulate what they see.  Are you modeling the customer service philosophy you want your team to have?

We have placed a Company Alignment Assessment on our website training page (https://tecresourcecenter.com/tec-training )that will help determine where your company stands in the alignment process.  Feel free to download a copy today.  Getting your team aligned with your vision and values will empower your employees, energize the entire company, and put a smile on the faces of your customers.

 

Thoughts……..

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Are You Ready for the Future?

We have all heard the expression that “A dream without a plan is just a wish”- Katherine Paterson.  Obviously if we had a dream of taking a trip to another state or a foreign country we would have a plan on how we were going to get there.  Whether we were going to fly or take boat or car, what would we do if the weather delayed the trip or something unexpected caused us to take an alternative route?  In fact we might take weeks, months or even years planning the perfect agenda to be sure we maximized the enjoyment we would receive from the journey.  After all, planning the dream vacation takes careful research and planning.

In business we often forget we are on a journey because it becomes too much like a job.  We lose sight of the fact that we have been dreaming of owning our own business for so many years.  Dreaming of the financial security it would bring or the legacy we would leave behind.  Business owners get caught up in the day to day of the business and forget to work on the growth and strategy of the business.

I recently met a young business owner, he and a friend had discovered a unique niche opportunity while working for a repair company in high school.  They quickly took advantage of this opening and grew their company to $5.5 million in two short years.  During our conversation we spoke about the journey they had taken and how the business was larger now with employees.  They were busy developing processes that would better control the flow of work through the company and struggling to understand the people management process, never having managed employees before.  Having been a CEO of my own business for more than 30 years I of course had more interest in where this young business was headed.  I was impressed by these young guys and wanted to know more about growth projections, margins, and competitors. When I began to ask them about their strategic plans for the future I quickly discovered they had lost sight of the future because they were completely engrossed in the business itself.

These young guys are not alone.  More often than not in my interactions with business owners I find they spend far too many hours working in the business and not enough time working on the business’s future.  In a five or ten minute conversation with my young friends I discovered margins were shrinking due to an onslaught of new competitors entering the market, in turn driving prices down.  The secret they discovered two years ago was out and everyone wanted in.  They had a huge jump on the competition but if they didn’t work on a plan and implement it quickly this advantage would soon be gone and they would find themselves in a defensive position.

In this case they hadn’t planned for the journey at all.  They saw an opportunity and they jumped on it and what a great job they did.  Without a road map for the company they were lost and hadn’t stopped to ask for directions.  I asked them if they wanted to enter the working world once the demand for their product had subsided.  You can imagine the confused look I received.  I asked if they thought this market dominance would last now that competitors were swarming to the table.  Quickly they both agreed that it wouldn’t.  So what’s next is the question I posed.  Not having experienced the planning process before, I sent them back to the office to consider the question and encouraged them to call me for coffee when they had put some thought into it.

For years as a young CEO I understood that we needed to plan, but our so called strategic planning meeting each year turned out the same old hockey stick growth projects with little or no real strategic planning going into the front end of the process.  Each department head told me what they thought I wanted to hear and I bought it.  Later on I discovered the value of planning, I mean really planning, all year long so that the strategic planning meetings were not only productive but eye opening and lead to some of the greatest growth opportunities the company had ever seen.  When the team understood that we needed to become focused as a group on the journey and not just the day to day operation they were empowered to bring forward the good, the bad, and the ugly news about what was going on in the industry as well as our own company.  With this validated information in hand we were able to clearly map out what the future looked like (Vision) and the initiatives that would get us there ahead of our competitors.  Answering the hard questions built into the planning process allowed us to:

  • Better understand our competitors
  • Better understand the trajectory of the industry
  • Build a better value proposition
  • Increase customer satisfaction and
  • Measure our progress on the journey

We have placed a Strategic Planning Readiness Assessment on our website planning page (https://tecresourcecenter.com/planning) that will help determine where your company stands in the strategic planning process.  Feel free to download a copy today.  Don’t find yourself in the position so many others have in the past with decreasing sales and or margins and no real plan for the changes ahead.

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Sorry, we’re all out….

guy at desk

 

I was recently traveling to Maine and stopped at a lovely hotel on the way, in Portsmouth, NH. As I unpacked I realized I forgot my hair brush. Yikes!!! The weather was very hot and humid therefore, this was going to be a big problem for me. I remembered that the front desk staff had been very helpful upon arrival, so I stopped there on my way to dinner. I asked if there was a CVS or drugstore around where I could purchase a hair brush. The girl at the counter said, “Oh boy, not really in walking distance….. and we don’t have any here at the desk. I’m so sorry.”

Needless to say, panic started setting in. I guess the other gentleman working at the desk sensed my distress and softly said to the girl, “I wonder if there is a salon close by that might sell brushes.”

He quickly googled and made a call. He put me on the phone with the person at the salon, which he had already confirmed was open until 8PM and sure enough, they had a brush that would get me through my trip. A block and a half walk and I was all set.

The first representative didn’t really do anything wrong. She answered my question and apologized for my inconvenience. I think she really felt bad. But the second representative did so much more. He was a star. First of all, he looked for a solution to my problem, beyond what they could do at the hotel and then he didn’t embarrass the other representative. He helped her with a smooth gentle transition.

This is the kind of consistent service world class organizations provide. Some people are a natural at it, while others need help. But when the culture is one of service, everyone is thinking, “HOW CAN I HELP?” That’s when the true transformation occurs!

Thoughts……

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What kind of hitter are you?

What kind of hitter are you?

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” —Mother Teresa

Sometimes it can be very frustrating when we have these great ideas and it seems like nobody is paying attention. We want to have this giant impact on our organization; we want to hit that homerun, but it’s important to remember how many games are won with base hits.

Joe was a marketing major in college who couldn’t find a job in his field when he graduated college. After 9 months or so, he decided to go back to school to become a biomed tech. He landed a job at in independent service organization and thus began his career in biomed. He really loved the work and the company.

The company underwent a rebranding process. They put together a presentation for the staff. In small groups, they educated the employees on the new brand and how they could be brand ambassadors. Over the short time Joe had worked there, he had noticed, with his trained marketing eye that the PM stickers the company was using were very hard to read and that the logo they had on them did not really convey the name of the company. He had mentioned this to his supervisors and really anyone who would listen but no one seemed to react to it. He was convinced that if they redesigned the logo, it would really have a substantially positive marketing effect.

At the branding meeting, Joe thought it would be a great time to bring this up again, since he had an audience he did not usually have access to. Joe suggested redesigning the logo to include something that would be more identifiable to the users of the equipment. Similarly, the people running the meeting thought he had some good ideas, but didn’t seem willing to adopt them.

Joe became frustrated and eventually left the company because he thought they were the kind of company that just wouldn’t listen to good ideas. What he didn’t realize was that the changes he was proposed were huge. The company just spent a large sum of money with an outside firm to rebrand themselves. The new logo was just adopted and to change it again would be too costly.

Instead of becoming frustrated and disengaging, if Joe could have used his marketing experience to work with what they already had and proposed a small change instead, it may have been the catalyst to a similar result and the improved visibility he envision for the company. Change is difficult. It takes time, and when you refuse to be flexible and convey the message that your way is the only way, the more people will resist or resent it.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. When the big ideas don’t sell, break it down and start hitting the base hits. They can have a tremendous impact on the game!

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

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I’ve got the proof right here in this email!

I’ve got the proof right here in this email!
How many people like to be proved wrong? I’m guessing you don’t. Nobody does. Yet so many times we can’t resist the urge to prove we were right by proving someone else wrong.

When I have a difference of opinion with someone, I hate when they are so absolute about something. No, you never sent that! No, you didn’t tell me that! You know what I am talking about? It’s why we have all gotten so good at covering our (selves) though email. I know I always like to have a trail of what I discussed with someone so there can be no confusion later. But that’s different than using it as ammunition to say, “I told you so.”

We know the customer is not always right, but they always think they are. And where does it get us to prove them wrong?  As long as you have the documentation to make sure you don’t get held responsible for something you did not do wrong, you need not use it in your discussions with your coworkers, boss or customers. Here are 2 different responses to the same example:

You know you wrote an email to a coworker about following up with a customer on a work order. In the response email the coworker said that she would contact the customer to give them the update. She is now insisting that you were supposed to give the customer the update. You go back and forth about it for quite a while and then…

1. You whip out the email and show her where she said she would contact the customer.
2. You stop the madness and say something like, “We obviously have a difference of opinion here. The most important thing is to get back to the customer. Would you like me to contact them?’

What’s the upside to response #1? You win, but your coworker is embarrassed or mad, and the customer has not been attended to.

What’s the upside to response #2? The customer wins, and no one walks away mad.

Clearly if this is a chronic issue with your coworker, you need to address it, but it’s usually not best to address it in the heat of the moment. Go back later and summarize what has transpired in the past and brainstorm about better ways to communicate in the future. Perhaps email doesn’t work for her. She will be able to accept her mistake easier if you are in private and you approach it from a “how can we do better” standpoint.

If you really need to prove you were right, prove it to yourself, and keep it to yourself. No need to rub someone’s nose in it.

Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com

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