Don’t Try to Help!

Try this with your colleagues at work: Tell them you got a phone call from your parents, saying that they need you to help them in their house this weekend, but that you have already agreed to help another friend move house. Then tell them that you have called your friend and changed the date, and they are fine with that. Before you explain this last fact, though, take a sip of coffee. By the time you swallow the coffee, you will have two or three solutions presented to you. Often, when people start to tell us their problems, we immediately start looking for solutions. This is the ‘default’ human nature, to instinctively try to help. This impulse is increased if we spend our time in work solving problems (and most of us do work with people, and so spend all our time solving problems!)
However, as with our experiment, most people have already thought about their problems in a little greater depth before they relate them to us, and so our automatic response can seem at best overenthusiastic, at worst, dismissive. When people tell us what has happened to them, we must first of all decide if they are in fact telling us about a problem. They may be relating an interesting story, or gauging our reaction, or perhaps even boasting, if they themselves have already worked out a genial solution. Until we know what is expected of us, it may be best to delay reaction.
How can we tell what the other person wants from us? Why not ask them for clues? “How does that make you feel?”, “Have you any idea what you will do?” “How do you think I can help?”. Questions like these will clarify the issue without being too aloof. You might also avoid volunteering to do something you don’t need to.

What Employees Really Want!

A few months ago I was present at a talk given by the Centre Manager of a Shared Services Centre based in Krakow. The Centre employed 350 people at the time, and had plans to employ a further 150 or 200. During the talk, the Centre Manager was boasting about the Centre's reputation as a good employer, and shared with us the results of the Centre's last employee satisfaction survey.

As you could guess, a lot of people mentioned bonus schemes and salaries, but although the Centre pays average or higher for the industry, this seems to be an easy area to complain about.

Apart from the subjects relating directly to money, the most important factor in employment satisfaction was communication. This was ahead of facilities, working hours, atmosphere, even development opportunities.

The Manager explained that almost every employee mentioned that they wanted to have more information, sooner, from their managers. They weren't only referring to information immediately relevant to them, either! Communication is vital for so many different reasons, and not just for the ones mentioned in leadership meetings.

Of course, there is a certain size where an organisation must divide itself into departments, projects or teams, in order to survive with some kind of structure. However, in accordance with the rule of 'divide and conquer', one of the effects of this division is that the people in one department no longer really know what's going on in any of the other departments. Of course, it isn't necessary for the Accounts Payable Team to know what the Accounts Receiveable Team are doing, but it helps us feel more like we're part of the big picture if we are aware that there is a big picture!

There is a story of a TV production company who was experiencing reasonable success, and so decided to build their own offices instead of renting. When the architect asked them about designing a kitchen, the directors saw this as a great opportunity, and ordered that no kitchen was to be built. With no other opportunity but to eat lunch at their desks, they reasoned, productivity would rocket.

In fact, after the company moved into its purpose-built headquarters, productivity dropped by 50%! The reason was the exact same one -there was no canteen. People were no longer able to mingle between departments, chatting and gossiping while waiting for the kettle to boil, or the microwave to ping, or while eating their pizza. And so, the television production company -a company very much in a creative industry- had made it almost impossible for staff to be creative at work! No longer would people overhear a problem, and remark that their colleague had had a similar problem, but found a solution. Gone were the days when people would call out "does anybody know how to fix this?" and expect an answer, or at least sympathy!

Human beings are social animals, and despite people complaining about financial gains, deep down, all we want, any of us, is to be loved. Give your staff the opportunity to systematically chat, gossip, ask for advice, offer advice etc., and they will feel much more comfortable. And despite our pride of living in the 21st Century, we are still much more fond of using prehistoric methods -the office intranet is not an outlet for social communication! Make sure your staff is happy to chat. Just make sure they don't suddenly go quiet when the boss walks in!

Main points: communication weak. (Dress code, pay also)

Think for those who don't

This morning I was proofreading an article for a physics graduate student, who had written about a photovoltaic circuit. He had described something that happened in both situations, when S=0(switched off) and when S=1(switched off).

I have a background in languages and linguistics, and I have both feet firmly in the humanist camp, so it quite often happens when I read a scientific text that I ask the author to explain passages to me. I guessed that he had made a mistake when typing, and had wanted to write 'on' instead of 'off' at least once. But when?

When I asked my colleague if he was sure it was correct, he read the sentence and said it was correct. He is a physicist, though, and I thought that he may have just read the equations. In this case, I asked him to tell me if when S=0, the circuit is on or off. "Off", he answered. Next, I asked him if when S=1, the circuit is on or off. "On" was the reply. I crossed out the relevant "off", and wrote in "on", and asked him if it made sense now. He laughed when he realised he had read the piece three times and hadn't noticed.

Often, when we read or listen, we start to lose concentration, and our brains 'fill in' any information we don't pick up, by understanding what should be there. The other side of the coin is when we concentrate too much on the concept, and stop concentrating on what is being said or written. To see this is action, the next time you are in a restaurant, and the waiter asks in passing "Is everything alright?", answer in a pleasant tone of voice, "No, thank you, I'm not at all happy". Most probably, the waiter will smile, reply "That's fine", and walk off. Of course, this fact can be very useful at times.

The solution to this is quite easy, and is simply to ask the other person to repeat back what you have said, or to repeat what they have just said, in the form of a question. "So, if S=1, is the circuit off?" would be an example of checking to see that someone is listening to what they are saying. To check if the waiter was listening to you, the question might be "Is it fine that everything is not alright?"

The thing to remember, though, is this: If you're going to check that someone is paying attention, you had better be paying attention yourself!

What to Take Away from the Chinese Restaurant

Today, for the first time, in my blog, I want to recommend a business.
On Saturday, we decided to order our lunch from a Chinese restaurant. My wife, who was returning from the centre, would collect the food from the restaurant and bring it back. This is one of the benefits of this restaurant, we are able to phone in our order, and then it is ready when we collect it. But this is not why I want to recommend them.
This was to be our younger children's first experience of Chinese food, so we made sure we could order different -but not too exotic- choices for lunch. The restaurant's menu is varied, and everybody can find something they like. We ordered Sweet and Sour Pork, Beef Chop Suey and Crispy Chicken, with three portions of rice, and a portion of prawn crackers. This was more than enough for the five of us, as our restaurant is generous with the portions. But this is not why I want to recommend them.
My wife came back with the food, and as we unpacked the bags, we realised there were only two main courses there. We checked the bill, and saw that we had, indeed, paid for three. What happened next is why I want to recommend them.
My wife telephoned the restaurant and asked if she had left the third main course there. I heard her give our address, and then she said thank you and hung up. She said that the restaurant were sending the food right away.
Five minutes later, there was a knock on the door of out fourth-floor-without-a-lift flat. When I opened it, the manager of the restaurant was standing there, breathless, holding our missing Sweet and Sour Pork, together with a complimentary carton of juice and an apology.
This kind of service is becoming more common in Krakow, but it is far from normal.
Once, we ordered a pizza that should have taken 30 minutes, and took two hours to come. When I complained to the delivery person, he shrugged, and said "Traffic". I told him that the time was unacceptable, and asked him what he could do to compensate. Again, he shrugged his shoulders, and said "if you don't want it, don't pay for it, and I'll take it back". I asked him to wait while I phoned his manager. I called, and said I had placed an order two hours before, and they had delivered the pizza 90 minutes later than they had said they would. The manager said "yeah, traffic". I asked him if he expected me to pay the full price for the pizza, and he said "well, if you don't want it, tell the driver to bring it back."
We have not ordered from that pizzeria since this event. This is not such a problem, as there are many pizzerias in our area. Anyway, I think we'll be ordering Chinese more often.

Business like a Swan

The other day I received a letter from the electricity company regarding our energy supply and possible changes. I wanted to ask a question, and so I called the telephone number on the letter of the woman who was named as 'handling the case'. When she picked up the phone, I introduced myself and started to explain why I was calling, only for the woman to interrupt and ask me to wait "literally 30 seconds, because I'm standing at the printer". I waited, and when she had obviously collected her printout, walked from the printer to her workstation and sat down, she asked me to provide her with a reference number.
I will say that the service was very good. My questions were answered professionally and clearly, and the woman's tone was polite, friendly and helpful at all times (this is a rare occurence, but that is a topic for another blog entry!). What I didn't like was her revelation that she answered the phone while on the move.
Someone once provided me with an image of a business as a swan on a lake. Above the water line, everybody sees a graceful white bird moving effortlessly, gliding through the water. What nobody sees, however, under the water, are the black, webbed feet pushing, pulling and paddling about like crazy, working the whole time to move the swan like in a romantic story.
Everybody likes their suppliers to be professional, graceful, competence, in control, omniscient. We don't need to know they are run by humans, too. When I telephone a contact, I'd like to be told that she will call me back when she is available, not that she has gone to the toilet. If I ask for some details, I'd rather be told that you will refer the question to your manager than to be told you don't know where the information is.
One of my clients called her agent and asked about a report she had originally asked for two weeks earlier. The agent sadi that she had not been in the office recently, as she had fallen and hurt her knee, and so she had been lying down for two weeks before going in to have knee surgery, and was only back in the office now. Five minutes later, she revealed that her colleague in the office was handling her cases until she got back on her feet. While I like the idea of being natural when talking with business partners, I also feel one should present a professional, competent, businesslike persona at all times.
So remember the swan, and the image that we want to present to the public. Make sure that you only let people see below the water line if you don't mind them seeing how fast you are paddling.
On the other hand, the next time you are intimidated by someone's smooth, polished business image. Remember that their feet, too, are below the water.

A Tale with Two Morals

Last week, I was working on a document for a project team of which I am a member. I had agreed to send it to my colleague so he could give his comments, and then we could send it to the entire team the next day, at the latest. I sent the document as an attachment, and went back to my work.
The next afternoon, I received an urgent e-mail from my colleague, which was forceful in its tone.
'Keith, (my colleague wrote), I am still waiting for his document. Let's not lose momentum on this. I would like to send this out to the project team as early as possible.'
I wrote back immediately that I had sent the document as an attachment in my previous mail. In case my colleague had a problem with attachments, I copied the text from the document and included it in the mail.
My colleague wrote back apologising, saying that he had somehow missed the attachment.
Originally, I had thought that he was obviously better with technology than me. This is an opinion I have about everyone. I am really bad at things like text messages, e-mail, etc., in fact I only have a very basic knowledge of any computer program. I still prefer to use a flipchart rather than Powerpoint. What is important, however, is that I know I'm useless. This is really a very important difference. I make it very clear to people what I am able and unable to do. This is why nobody is surprised when I send an e-mail with no attachments and only the text 'FYI' in the body. This is also why people will give me a copy of information in a way that is easy for me to take in, as they know that any other way increases the risk that I will not be able to talk to them about their offer later. To my knowledge, nobody thinks I am stupid. I try to improve my skills, but if I do, I keep it a secret!
Somebody who I'm reminded of in this aspect is Warren Buffett. First of all, I am in no way saying that the billionaire investor and I are similar in any other way (the difference in the number of zeroes in our bank account balances should convince anyone of that), but when I read the article on the swampland blog regarding Buffet's part in the fall of Lehman Brothers' Bank.

"Buffet was hurrying to a social event when he received a call from Bob Diamond, the head of Barclays Capital. Diamond was trying to buy Lehman Brothers and rescue it from oblivion, but he was having trouble with British authorities. So he had come up with another plan, one in which Buffett would provide insurance that might make it all work. It was all too complicated for Buffett to take in in a quick phone call, so he asked Diamond to fax him the details. Buffett got back to his hotel room around midnight and was surprised to find ... nothing. Lehman went under, and within days, the world was in a full-blown financial crisis.

Fast forward 10 months. Buffett, who admits he never has really learned the basics of his cell phone, asked his daughter Susan about a little indicator he had noticed on the screen: "Can you figure out what's on there?" It turned out to be the message from Diamond that he had been waiting for that night."

Later, when asked if Diamond's proposal would have persuaded him, Buffett admitted that it was a possibility.

For me, there are clearly two morals to this tale.
Firstly, we are (unfortunately) very definitley in the 21st century now, and part and parcel of this century's business in the fact that the main communication tools are e-mail, cellphone (including sms text messages), and voicemail. This is how business is done today. Many businesses no longer even have a fax. If someone carries a mobile phone, he or she should really be prepared to receive calls. If he or she does not answer every call, voicemail is inevitable.
The second moral is much more important, as it relates to my own technical skills. It is also one which many people are ignoring, and it is this: If someone asks you to send a fax, you send a fax. You assume that they have asked for a fax for a specific reason. They may prefer to receive faxes, or may not have time to listen at the moment, but a fax can be read at any time. Perhaps they don't have access to their computer, and don't know how to use voicemail.
A corollary of this rule is: If trillions of dollars may be at risk because of a vital part of the world merchant banking system is at risk, send a fax, leave a voicemail message, send an e-mail, send a letter by courier, and follow Warren Buffett to wherever he's going.

Anglik z Anglii

My friend is an Englishman who has been living in Krakow for some time. He keeps this very amusing blog which he describes as "him writing to companies and asking for things". Under the disguise of Anglik z Anglii, he complains about various things such as spelling mistakes (a can of tomatoes with 'peeled and choped' on the label), hygeine (a shop assistant picking up chocolate from the floor and placing it back into the display cabinet) and even the cultural ignorance of Polish musical institutions (the name of the group IRA having terrorist connotations in English)
Quite often, however, Anglik z Anglii complains about the kind of things we all complain about. Anglik would like to find apple-flavour yoghurt without cinnamon, he would like to buy biscuits that look like the picture on the packet. He would like to be able to buy a certain brand of beer that has stopped selling. He would like his teapot to stop making tea tasting of plastic.
Anglik z Anglii's blog is funny, lighthearted, clever and entertaining. What is interesteng for me is that it shows how far the gap can be between the UK and Poland in business-consumer relations. It's true that we don't all write to every company about everything, and I wouldn't write to a cinema about not getting free cornflakes, but there is a general rule in existance that when a customer complains, the customer is rewarded for making the effort. This is an unwritten rule, which companies use to encourage customers to provide feedback. However irrelevant it may be, there is almost no other opportunity for a company to get first-hand quality control information so easily. To paraphrase a business guru, if your customers aren't complaining, you should be really worried. Any effort should be made to get any kind of feedback.
My mother used to write to every company that dared to lower its standards. She complained to Cadbury that there weren't enough nuts in her whole-nut bar, she warned Kelloggs to check that there was a free gift insde every pack of Cornflakes, and when Nestle bought Rowantree, she asked if they had changed the chocolate used in KitKats, as she detected a drop in quality. Each time, she received a letter thanking her for her effort, and for providing the company with important information (actually, Nestle said that they had not changed the recipe, and suggested that her tast-buds were over-developed), together with a collection of chocolate bars, cereals, crisps, clothes with company logos, books, etc.
While I'm not suggesting that Anglik z Anglii is doing his best to get as much free food as possible (he does that for himself), it is nteresting to see that, at this time, to companies from around 15 have written back to him. Both of them have written excellent letters which thank Anglik for writing, and assure him that, if action has not been taken over his letter, at least it has been read carefully.
Again, looking at the follow-on effect, Our English Customer is satisfied after the fact, and a story about a company who he would never trust again becomes a story explaining why he would recommend this company to his friends. All for the price of one e-mail -and perhaps some free 'choped' tomatoes.