Relationship Lessons from Another Language

In the April 2006 issue of Fast Company, there is an article about Dan Mintz, an American who has become a very successful businessperson in China. (You can read the full article here.) Early in the article a Chinese word is introduced - guanxi (pronounced gwan-she). According to the article, it is literally translated as "relationship building", but in practice it means "carefully cultivated clout, a culturally calibrated measure of respect, influence, and honor." The article goes on to say that it is a personal as well as political form of capital.

I've long been interested in learning words from other languages because it is through language that we create understanding. It is no coincidence that our vocabulary and our intelligence are closely linked - the more words we have in our mind the easier it is to express our thoughts and to think in new ways.

Guanxi is a word that does this for me - it expands my thoughts about relationship building. Relationship building is an important part of our lives in many ways - within the last two weeks I have had conversations or done training where relationship building has been discussed connected to Customer Service (even in very short relationships), consulting, leadership, facilitation, and sales. I'm sure you could expand this list and it doesn't even yet include our personal and family relationships.

So here are two questions for you: In the relationships you are working to build now, how would the components of guanxi - respect, influence, and honor - influence your behaviors and choices? Do you think about those factors when building a relationship?

I encourage you to think about those components in the coming days. Recognize that if you want to gain respect, influence, and honor, you will do best by focusing on giving those things first.

Build relationships by putting the other person first - respect them at higher levels, influence them not for your gain but for theirs, and honor them highly.

The dual lesson in this post for me is both the power of the insight gained by adding a new component to relationship building and that these insights came from a new word I learned from another language. I encourage both to think about the lessons of guanxi - both in terms of relationships and vocabulary.

Resistance and Change

In consulting and working with organizations regarding change, a major concern surfaces when I hear questions like:

"What do we do about the resistors?"
"How do we lower the resistance?"
"What if people don't buy-in?"

It is our natural inclination to deal with resistance by combating it, "pushing back" or in some other way getting defensive. We know from our experience that rarely works. And while we know those approaches don't work, we resort to them anyway.

In my experience you will only change your response to the resistance when you view the resistance differently. We encounter three basic initial responses when sharing a change with others:

- Acceptance
- Resistance
- Apathy

Assuming you'd pick acceptance as your first choice, let me ask you a question - would you prefer resistance or apathy? While you might be tempted to think apathy - after all in the moment of conversation that might be easier - in the end you know you don't want apathy either.

When people are apathetic they don't care. When people are resistant, they are engaged, just not sold.

The next time you encounter resistance, remember this mathematical equation,

resistance = engagement

then respond to the resistance you encounter hopefully, openly and eagerly. Your new response will not only be more pleasant, it will be more successful.

Customer Service Made Simple

On Saturday I was delivering some Customer Service training to the parking, gates and security staff for the 150th Indiana State Fair. Whenever I work with groups on this important topic, I try to find ways to help them see that it is the Customer who writes their paycheck.

In both sessions, after thinking I had already made this point clearly, I tried again, by asking this question:

How would you treat each Customer if you knew that their full $6 ticket price was going into your pocket?

In the morning session, I heard, "I'd say thank you. Thank you VERY much. And please come again."

In the afternoon session, I heard, "I'd treat them like gold."

There it is. Most everything we need to know about Customer Service emanates from those two answers: thank them and value their business, and treat them like gold.

It is easy to treat "nice" and "pleasant" Customers this way. It is our job when serving Customers to treat them ALL that way (even when they are mean, grumpty and irrational). We may not get their full $6 ticket fee, but without them we don't get any check at all.

ABC's of Customer Recovery

We all make mistakes - including with Customers. We will upset them, overcharge them, mess up their service, or wrong them in some other way. Not because we want to or mean to, but because it happens.

One of the truths about exceptional Customer service is that the story isn't over when we make a mistake. The story doesn't have to end there. If we recover gracefully and successfully, we may have a more loyal Customer than we did before we made the mistake.

If you want some great suggestions on Customer Service Recovery, read this post on the The Business Management Blog Resource. It contains 26 suggestions - one for each letter of the alphabet to help you recover more successfully.

Thanks to Bud Bilanich for pointing me to this great post.

6 Ways to Create More Play at Work

Last year, on the 6th of May (the day after 5/5/05) I made a note to post something special on 6/6/06. And thanks to additional prompting from the fabulous Rosa Say, I'm sharing six ways to create more play at work.

When Rosa suggested that topic for today, I loved it. Specifically, Rosa challenges us to think of 6 ways to put more play in our lives. I've taken her good idea and extended it to work. Since we spend such a large percentage of our time doing it, we should be consciously looking for ways to make work more full of play too. It is a topic worth exploring and it is a topic I care about.

Here then are six ways to bring more playfulness into the workplace.

• Put a candy bowl on your desk.
• Place a toy on your desk, or put some toys in each of your meeting rooms.
• Put clay or playdough on the tables for the next training you attend (whether you are the trainer or not!)
• Laugh more often, and encourage laughter around you - remember that business is too important to take seriously.
• Make sure to do some of the things you are best at each day. (See this post for more thoughts on this idea.)
• Stage a monthly celebration - whether for birthdays, successes, or whatever - do something to celebrate regularly.

Some of these are easy and can be implemented by anyone, starting today. Others might take some influencing, and some while they can be introduced by anyone will need more support throughout the organization. Regardless, you can take action towards any of these today.

Take one of these ideas specifically, or do something else that you think of.

Use this day, whenever you read it, to remind to you put playfulness into your work.

Give Me the Choice

Any restaurant spends significant time creating a wide and varied menu, because they know their Customers want choices. They select a wide variety of beverages, perhaps even concocting their own new ones, again with the purpose of giving their Customers choices. They also train their wait staff to talk about the daily specials, make suggestions and in general to provide options.

The investment in inventory, menus, creativity and training required to do all of these things is sizeable.

And yet, far too often we as Customers don't have the choice on something that would cost them nothing.

The wait staff provides you great service and checks in on you several times during your meal. They even come by and begin clearing plates. . . . but they don't leave the bill.

If I have the bill and want to stay and visit, I have the choice. But if I am in a bit more of a hurry, I don't have that choice, until they bring me the bill or I flag them down.

I know, some people may not bring the bill because they don't want to rush people, but that can be alleviated with a quick comment. "Feel free to stay and visit as long as you'd like, I'll leave the bill for you and I'll take care of it whenever you are ready."

The same courtesy that is shown throughout the meal can be shown now, and I as the Customer can have the choice.

Perhaps no one else feels as I do about this, but I do know, that this is one of many things we can do to improve Customer Service without implementing a new program or spending a bunch of time or money.

This message is for more than those who own or manage restaurants.

Think about the choices you offer your Customer. Think about that throughout their experience from the very beginning all the way to the very end. As important as a first impression is, the final experience will be long remembered as well.

A Shuttle Ride and a Customer Service Lesson

I got on a rental car shuttle bus at Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport on Wednesday evening, and noticed that the shuttle driver helped people load and stow their heavier bags onto the bus. At the time I thought that was pretty great, and realized tat I hadn't seen that very often lately on rental car shuttles. In the "old days," when each rental car company had their own buses, you would see that sometimes. But now, with buses taking everyone to the common rental car areas, it seems another loss of a Customer Service touch.

I didn't think much more about it until yesterday morning, when I rode the shuttle back to the terminal. There where three of us getting on the bus and the driver helped each of us. Great, I thought. Then we got to Terminal A and the driver, gets off, and sprints to the back door to help the first two passengers with their bags.

He sprinted. And as he walked back to the drivers seat, he made eye contact and smiled at me, making sure I was going to the correct terminal on the next stop.

He sprinted.

He smiled.

He gave great Customer Service.

The lessons?

• There are opportunities for great Customer Service everywhere.
• Customers will notice, even if what you are doing could, should, or used to be the standard.
• Little things make a difference.
• And it appears to me that someone leading the rental car shuttle bus drivers in Houston is doing a great job.