My perspective on artists, their dreams and our responsibility to keep them fulfilled.
Our Job is to Make Dreams Come True from Michael Chaffin on Vimeo.
Your Style Matters
If you consider that people always do their best work when they are treated fairly and with enthusiasm, why would anyone in a leadership position (boss or peer) treat someone any differently? How many times have we seen someone (or been someone) getting chewed out, diminished or made fun of? Treating people with a lack of dignity and respect is probably the single greatest threat to being successful...at anything.
If you can only spare enough time to make one adjustment...this is the one.
If It's Too Broken, Don't Fix It
Just because it's broken, doesn't mean you should fix it.
The U.S. Postal Service was invented in 1775. Of course there wasn't email, the internet, FedEx, DHL or UPS. If you wanted to get a message to someone, you either sent a telegram, wrote a letter or yelled really loudly. That system worked (more or less) for a long time. Now, it's been disrupted, to the point where staying the course will lead directly to mounting debt and degraded service. Making adjustments to something this broken is a futile undertaking. Especially when the alternatives are already in play.
Time to abandon and start over...or maybe just abandon.
Understanding the People You Lean On
What makes a person tick? What makes their needle spin? What dreams can you help them achieve?
These are the most important questions you can ask someone in an interview (both ways). Without knowing the answer you can’t make the employment relationship anything more than just a job...a transaction, you give me eight hours and I’ll give you $$. And, if it’s just a job, nothing remarkable is going to happen...and eventually you’ll be replaced, out of business, or at best be in a constant struggle to survive.
Who Am I?
Why don't you just talk to me?
Teach, Inspire and Learn= Enthusiasm
I become passionate about what I’m doing when these three things are accomplished. Otherwise, it’s merely a task...and it shows.
What drives your enthusiasm? A very important question which should be answered before taking on any sort of work.
Who Am I Going to Hire Next?
That’s what I focus on...every day. While there are a lot of distractions (many of them good), there’s nothing more important to me than hiring the right people. So, I always reserve time for this task no matter what. When I’m not interviewing prospects, I’m working on improving and preserving the culture that attracts them.
Back to hiring the right people. You hear this all the time...our secret is we hire the “right” people. I’ll define it further...I hire artists. Artists are people who are capable of and interested in producing more than the required tasks. They give you what Seth Godin terms...emotional labor. These are the people that will make your company alive with stories that spread...make you remarkable.
So, here’s what I focus on when I hire...precisely in this order.
- Are they aligned with your culture?
- Can I fulfill their dreams? (I figure if they’re going to give me their heart and soul, I should give them more than a paycheck)
- Are they competent?
This approach has worked for me for quite some time. Realizing there’s a lot that goes into each of those three items, the point here is that the technical part of the evaluation comes last...it’s the least important, at least in the sort of work we do.
I encourage you to worry less about the next big idea, how to change your product or how to market it. All of those things will sort themselves out quite nicely if you make hiring artists and preserving culture your first priorities.
I just finished taping this as a segment in my Art in Hospitality series...will be up soon.
Hospitality Matters Video Series
First in a series of video shorts, see what's going in inside my head...
Getting People to Spread the Word
You're chances of getting people to talk about you are much, much higher if you do something that matters. Building an ordinary hotel and selling rooms for a lower price isn't much for people to crow about.
You're on to something when what you've developed illicits...Did You Hear About...? Or, Did you See...? Or, You Just have to try...
Creating something meaningful that compels people to spread the word is your first order of business, whether it's for yourself or for your company. Without remarkable content, the rest of the road is much more challenging.
Clues
In hospitality we use clues to surprise people...we read them to help us deliver a memorable experience. But, it works the other way around as well. Customers use clues to make buying decisions. And not always the ones a business owner wants them to use. Case in point. The other day I decided to change my insurance company...not because of price or bad coverage...because they insisted on using a fax machine (or worse, the U.S. Postal Service). My decision was based solely on a seemingly trivial point of technology. But my problem wasn’t the fax machine. The fax machine was just a clue. A clue into how the organization thinks...how they approach business. Do they choose easy over right? Do they do the hard work that gives me what I want? Or, do they stay in safe harbor, expect me to jump through hoops and hope I won’t go away.
Starbucks on the other hand continues to earn my respect, not because they make the best coffee (they don’t), but because they learn, evolve and give me what I want. The other day I forgot my wallet in the car (probably because I was so frustrated about using a fax machine). No worries...Starbucks lets me pay via my smart phone. Pretty slick...saved me a journey back to the car. I also like that innovative idea of the little stoppers that go into the lids so you don’t spill the coffee all over your suit. It’s clear they do the hard work to figure out what their customers want. And I bet they don’t use fax machines.
The more choices, the more clues matter.
Art of Asking Questions
Almost no one seeks to understand a customer. Often, there’s an abbreviation, a stop short...it’s called good customer service. Walking by a table in your restaurant and asking “how was everything?” satisfies your requirement...we did our part. And the customer...”it’s fine”...they did their part. A very simple and pleasant exchange...feels good, good service. What if you went a step further? What if you wanted to know what they thought of the new risotto? How would you approach that? What if you learned they seemed interested in how it was prepared? What if you engaged and invited them into the kitchen? What if the chef took some time to share some insight into her approach to cooking? Once you make the investment in really learning something from people the pay-off is huge. They feel special and you get permission...to invite, to learn more, to add another one to the tribe.
Asking the right questions takes the relationship to a more meaningful place...a place of caring and trust. Asking the wrong questions leaves you with the rest of the pack...just another place...forgettable.
Recruiting Changes When...
you have a compelling story and a loyal tribe of raving fans. At this stage, you don t post ads on HCareers and hope for a good bite. Instead, you do what Sasha does at Acumen. You let your audience spread the word and impose a deadline taking advantage of the principle of excess demand over limited supply.
Your goal is to go from push to pull.
If You're Going to Shout...
The Battle for Engagement
I've been in a battle...for a long time. Sometimes the battle is with co-workers, sometimes with bosses, sometimes with myself. Nevertheless it's a battle...to overcome tradition. All my marketing professors, virtually all of my peers and every marketing firm I've ever hired have spent a great deal of time trying to convince me that I'm somehow flawed in my thinking that engaging with people should take precedence over shouting at them.
My argument is based on a simple notion...you have a better chance of practicing art when you're engaged with someone than when it's a one way conversation. Engaged, I have a better shot at making someone feel comfortable, cared for and welcome. Engaged, I have a better chance of building a loyal audience of raving fans. And far less of a chance to annoy them.
Here's the problem...there are serious counter forces at work. Traditional marketing (specifically promotions) is simply easier and safer to do than engagement. There is a huge body of evidence (albeit outdated) and countless pundits that will convince you that banner ads, tv and radio commercials, billboards, email blasts and table tents are the answer to generating more customers and more sales. Generally speaking, this old way of doing things doesn't require much in the way of meaningful content as long a you have a big ad budget. Of course, most of us don't have that...a big marketing budget. Even so, we find our way to tradition somehow, some way. And the paradox continues...in the absence of remarkable content and engagement we're left with the only option...to shout and hope for a favorable response.
For every dollar and minute you spend hanging on to tradition, you rob yourself of the opportunity to engage and build a relationship with a customer, to inspire front line staff to do meaningful work...to do something that matters. I encourage you to begin replacing traditional marketing with engagement activities, perhaps slowly at first. But, later as you gain momentum and the word begins to spread, you'll find yourself measuring referrals, evangelist incentives and rewards instead of click through's and 800 number counts. And, you'll find yourself in a happier place.
Legacy work isn't born from tradition, it's born from hard, meaningful work, done by heretics that often scare others away.
We're So Glad You Called
Hospitality matters because it takes up where service leaves off. After the phone is answered on the third ring, after the operator uses the appropriate, scripted greeting. After the call is politely transferred to the next person. After the technique, comes the art...how we make someone feel.
If you aren't making people feel like your damned excited to see them, overjoyed that they chose you instead of the other guy, glad that they called you five minutes after closing...shame on you for proclaiming how good your service is.
Don't over focus on the script...spend more time on the art.
Hard Work...
is what separates great ideas from meaningful outcomes. It's what stands in the way of producing remarkable products and experiences. Without hard work, ideas go nowhere. And, that's precisely why most suggestion boxes don't work.
It's far easier to have a thought and give it to someone else to work on than to see it through on your own. In fact, we've been taught and conditioned to believe that making great things happen is reserved for the select few in high places. And if you want to contribute, you should stuff your thought in a box or send an email, and then hope yours gets chosen. Of course, that convention is seriously flawed because those people only have so much time...and they have their own great ideas they're already focused on. So, the alternative is to do the work yourself.
The upside to taking initiative is that you're more certain of the outcome. The downside is that you could discover that your idea isn't that good. Either way, you win. If the idea gets used, you get credit and the purpose is fulfilled. If it fails, you've avoided resentment by wasting someone's time.
A lot of people have a lot of seemingly great ideas. Great ideas are not scarce. So, on their own, they're not worth much. But, people who take the initiative to slog through the hard work, get organized, do research, build a case and present to the right audience...those people are very hard to come by and have tremendous value.
The best advice I ever received on this subject...worry less about surrounding yourself with people with great ideas and more about building a team of people who can see them through.
One Click Wins
These guys get it...
Amazon, iTunes, Highlight Cam, 360 Panorama, Cat in the Hat
They understand that in a world of instant gratification, the company that makes things easier for the user gets the sale. They understand that anything that bogs down the experience causes them to lose customers.
Why ask a repeat customer for their address? Why ask a caller for an account number when they entered it while they were on hold? Why ask someone to upload their videos to a computer, open a program, edit and then transfer the project to Youtube? Seemingly minor inconveniences become annoyances. Annoyances scare away customers and prospects. You can't eliminate them fast enough.
Work on making it easier for them...not for you.
You Should Self Publish Because...
you actually get to sell your idea to the right audience...the reader.
There's No Perfect Time...
to start something. There's always a reason not to go, to present the idea or change the plan. The indecision of decisionmaking is what holds us back time and time again. And therein lies the subject matter of Seth Godin's newest work, Poke the Box.
Poking, starting and shipping something...it's a simple idea that's brutally hard to execute. Along with the book is a free downloadable PDF workbook...which you can get here. I hope you enjoy and find the materials as useful as I did.