A Remarkable Learning Event

Last week I attended the 2007 Author Pow Wow sponsored by 800-CEO-Read. At the end of the two day event the participants were asked to share a single word that encapsulated their feelings and thoughts about our time together.

Words included: fun, invogorating, energy, relationships, genersoity, memorable, learning, and fattening (that was right on Ben). I chose the word Remarkable. The group chuckled at my choice, but it truly is the best word I could have chosen.

Consider this - a highly creative and fun environment thanks to The Catalyst Ranch in Chicago, over 20 business authors working to hone their craft and learn about the publishing and marketing of books, along with experts and gurus from across the expanse of publishing, as well as the 800-CEO-READ team. This group included:

The Authors

Erika Andersen - Growing Great Employees

Greg Alexander - Topgrading for Sales

Jose Castillo - an incredibily smart and creative guy.

Phil Gerbyshak - 10 Ways to Make it Great

Joanne Gordon - Be Happy at Work

Jackie Huba Creating Customer Evangelists

Joe Heuer - check out several of his books, including Business Daffynitions

Mike Kanazawa - Big Ideas to Big Results

Alexander Kjerulf - Happy Hour is 9 to 5

Steve Little - The Milkshake Moment

Ben McConnell - Citizen Marketers

Pamela Miles and Jack Mitchell - Hug Your Customers, and soon, Hug Your People

Robert Mintz - The World According To You

Susan Quandt - Sudden Impact on the Job

David Meerman Scott - The New Rules of Marketing and PR

Michael Stallard - Fired Up or Burned Out

Dan Roam - The Back of the Napkin

John Rosen and AnnaMaria Turano - Stopwatch Marketing

Rajesh Setty - Life Beyond Code

Bill Welter - The Prepared Mind of a Leader

Steve Yastrow - We - The Ideal Customer Relationship

The Gurus

Ray Bard - Bard Press

Mark Bloomfield - Harvard Business School Press

Shelley Dolley - Leap7

Barbara Cave Henricks and Dennis Welch - Cave Henricks Communications

Mark Fortier - Fortier Public Relations

Nick Morgan - Public Words

Gerry Sindell - ThoughtLeaders INTL

Les Tuerk - BrightSight Group

Susan Williams - Jossey-Bass (my inital editor for Remarkable Leadership)

The 800-CEO-READ Team

Jack Covert
Melinda Cross - Concepts Content Copy
Sally Haldorson
Jon Mueller
Kate Mytty
Joy Panos Stauber - Stauber Design Studio
Todd Sattersten
Aaron Schleicher
Dylan Schleicher
Rebecca Schlei

I want to thank everyone involved - the efforts of everyone form the staff at the Ranch, the the 800-CEO-READ team, to the speakers and gurus, to my fellow authors. Each one helped to create this amazing learning experience. All of my expectations for the event were met and surpassed thanks to everyone else.

The lesson here for everyone?

When you have a chance to hang out with and learn from other cool and smart people, make sure you do whatever you have to do to make it happen - it the experience will expand your thoughts, infuse you with energy and change your life if you let it.

A Customer Service post script - the staff and facility at The Catalyst Ranch is amzing - yes, the facility is fun and refreshing, but it wouldn't work without an incredibly customer focused staff. If you are ever having a meeting in Chicago, consider The Catalyst Ranch.

Words Matter

That was the title of the sermon J.K. Jones gave at Traders Point Christian Church yesterday. While in this post I won't include the scripture references, I believe the five points he made are extremely relevant to all of us as leaders, team members, and professionals (and as human beings).

He suggests asking these five questions regularly:

Are my words true?
Are my words helpful?
Are my words inspiring?
Are my words necessary?
Are my words kind?

If you take the first letter from the key word in each question: true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind; you get THINK.

Asking these questions, and adjusting our actions accordingly will make us better communicators, better team members, better leaders . . . and better at just about anything else you can think of.

In short, words matter, so THINK.

We are All Accountable to Make a Difference

I have a new hero - Denny Flanagan. Denny is a pilot for United Airlines and was the focus of a a front page article in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. You can read the article here.

Captain Denny does a variety of things for his passengers - and none of them are in the United employee handbook. Here are just a few examples:

- he takes pictures of people's pets in the cargo area and show them to passengers.
- when there are long delays he buys McDonald's hamburgers or fruit for all the passengers.
- he hand writes notes to passengers in first and business class, thanking them for choosing to fly United.
- he calls the parents of unaccompanied minors on his cell phone if there are delays.

The article states that the airline reimburses the pilot for his expenses for these unique services, and I'm sure they would do it for others as well.

Captain Flanagan is taking personal responsibility for his Customers. Captain Flanagan is leading, without a leadership title. He is making a difference for hundreds of passengers everyday.

And guess what?

Because of his proactive approach, I'm sure Captain Flanagan enjoys his work far more than most of his colleagues.

All of these things are a choices this pilot, who lives on a farm in Ohio, makes everyday. These are choices that are making a difference for his company, his co-workers, his customers and himself.

You don't have to be a leader to make a difference; Captain Denny Flanagan proves it.

And that is why Captain Flanagan is my hero.

Rental Car Customer Service and The Remarkable Leader

Diane Brady, in a recent Business Week blog post commented on a Customer Service horror story. She recounts how on trying to return a rental car 10 hours early, they (Avis) attempt to charge her an almost 50% premium on her rates!

While she did negotiate those rates back down, it leaves me thinking about what I would do if I was the leader at Avis and at the counter at that location. Maybe more to the point,

What would a remarkable leader do?

Before we answer that question, read the post for yourself.

There are issues at at least three levels here:

Policy level
Empowerment level
Customer Mindset level

These levels are intermingled, but let me unpack a couple of thoughts for you.

Perhaps there is a policy in place to handle these situations (however inane it sounds). If so, a Remarkable, proactive leader would be working to change, abolish or remove this policy. Yes, even if that leader is the night counter manager in Newark - a policy that makes no sense and is detrimental to customers requires change!

Since in this case, the charges were changed, it is clear that even if it was a policy, the person at the desk had the ability to use their judgement and change it. This is an empowerment issue. While Diane had to wait too long and work too hard to make this happen, some "justice" was done. As a remarkable leader it is your job to empower people to make those decisions, based on organizational goals and values. As importantly, to make those decisions quickly when working with Customers, which leads to the third level . . .

Remarkable leaders set the pace in creating a mindset that is focused on Customers and meeting/exceeding their needs. If leadership had created the right mindset, Diane wouldn't have had a blog post to write, and neither would I. What is the mindset in your organization in relationship to Customers. Is the end of Diane's story ("hey, she got the rate changed") good enough?

All of us have these Customer service horror stories. The question is, as a leader what are you learning from them?

Lean Towards Your Customer

While reviewing a new program from Charthouse Learning called Leader Fish! (a program for leaders based on the Fish! philosophy, I heard a phrase used by Southwest Airlines people on the DVD. They talked about leaning towards the Customer.

This comment was made talking about encouraging people to try new things and not to be afraid of making mistakes. The comment was that no one will ever get in trouble for a decision if they are leaning towards the Customer.

Which led me to some questions . . .

Did I lean towards my Customers today?
Did I encourage my team to lean towards a Customer?
How can we lean tomorrow?
How can we lean next week?

Leaning towards Customers. It obviously works for Southwest. There is every reason it can work for you too.

Go ahead...

lean towards your Customer.

Speaking Their Language

To be the most effective as a communicator, it is our responsibility to communicate in ways that work for the other person. We must become adept at seeing the other person's perspective, their skills and their style. One of the best short pieces I've read recently on this truth was written by Guy Harris (who calls himself the Recovering Engineer) this week.

This communication truth applies to us in all areas of our communication - in working with Customers, leading others, being a part of a team and more.

His article really hit home for me, and I believe it will for you too. It is titled Speaking Their Language, and I highly recommend reading it.

Customer Loyalty Guaranteed!

I had the distinct pleasure of reading a pre publication copy of Chip Bell and John Patterson's new book entitled Customer Loyalty Guaranteed. This book comes out this fall and I encourage you to put it on Amazon wish list today. The book delivers on its promise on helping you to create, maintain and lead for Customer Service and it's a book that you want when it is published by Adams Media in September.

How did I get to read a draft of the book? I was asked to give a testimonial for it, and here is what I wrote:

"Read this book, and put the ideas into action and you will do exactly as the title suggests, you'll guarantee customer loyalty. If you have customers, read this book."