Be Abundant

Phony Bologna Regarding Customer Service?

201227 Jan
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Posted inBe Abundant

Key Point: many organizations have great marketing spin about “customer care,” loving their customers, blah, blah, blah. It cannot happen in a sustainable way if people in organizations don’t treat each other that way first. Are you real or just another phony bologna part of the big BS and marketing spin in your company?

Customers do not care about what department people work in. In the extreme case, do you think the passengers desperate to get off the sinking Costa Concordia cruise ship (off the west coast of Italy) cared if they were being helped by customer service, engineering, or catering? Of course not. Products and services flow across departments and positions, and end up in the hands and heart of the customer. However, the entire customer experience will not be consistently and sustainably great without every person and process in the chain inside an organization working together. The point is – we have to sincerely care for each other first before we can achieve exceptional customer service. It takes huge amounts of personal energy and commitment.

Character Move:

Great customer care starts with you. Are you working in a tight link with your team in a way where you deeply care about each other and your respective processes?
It starts with what you do and how you do it. Depending on your position or role, you will have more or less power to influence your entire company culture.
And it starts by really listening and getting to know the people on your “left and right” and building from there. One day the customer experience crosses over from inconsistent offerings and marketing spin to real customers shouting out (through social media) about how great you are.

Together in the Triangle,

Lorne

Abundance – 2011 “Best of the Best”

201130 Dec
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As you look back on your experiences in 2011, I encourage you to reflect on how and where you better applied the three values of the Character Triangle: Accountability, Respect, and Abundance. How much have you consciously practiced? Have you recognize how it has helped?

Key Point: The following three blogs on ABUNDANCE are my candidates for “best of the best in 2011,” based on reader interest and feedback regarding the degree they stimulated thought and action. I hope you enjoy reading them again or if you missed any that you find them meaningful. Thanks for being part of the Character Triangle “Tribe.” I hope you will join me again in 2012 for a new and invigorating set of ideas and suggestions as part of the continuous journey of Character Triangle development.

Your Last 50 cents… What Would You Do?

Goddess of Wisdom and Goddess of Wealth

Two Cheetahs Could Like You Today …Really!

Character Move:

Read one or more of the blogs again.
Think about what action you took or will take as a result.
Give me your feedback as to which of the three was your 2011 favorite.
Share them with anyone who might value the message.

Best in the Triangle,

Lorne

The Astonishing Gift of Smiling

201120 Dec
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Posted inBe Abundant

Key Point: In this season of gift giving I want to remind you to give yourself and others a huge gift that scientifically is proven to generate emotional and even material wealth, yet is absolutely free: A SMILE.

Ron Gutman has written a book Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act. Please allow yourself 10 minutes to watch the following entertaining video by Gutman on this topic in TED talk. Share it with people you care about. Put in their digital Christmas stocking.

The facts are overwhelming. People, who genuinely smile a lot, live longer, are perceived to be smarter, have less stress, and just do better in life. If you want to review the wealth of studies and research that support this premise, read Gutman’s book. If you want a practical test, just walk around the building you’re in now and observe smiling. Think about the good feeling that is generated when someone just smiles at you. One fact that reinforced this for me is that little kids smile about 400 times a day; we adults a heck of a lot less (see our grandson, right, with his first ice cream cone).

Character Move:

Consciously think about smiling a heck of a lot more. It is free AND has a huge ROI! (Go check the facts if you think this suggestion is just mushy do da.)
Walk in your work area and smile at everyone on the way in the morning. Do the same thing when you leave for the day.
Do not take things so darn seriously. Even the most serious business/work issue is a candidate for a smile. It isn’t usually a life or death matter. So be a strong, tough minded, disciplined leader and just friggin’ smile.

Smile Power in the Triangle,

Lorne

The Rat Challenge this Holiday Season?

201113 Dec
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Posted inBe Abundant

Key Point: rats are proven to demonstrate conscious empathy. They work to help each other get out of situations where they’re trapped. It is the “rat like” thing to do. Why can’t we humans more consciously help each other out of situations where we’re trapped? Let’s choose helping each other versus seeking self gratification. After all even rats resist eating that chocolate chip cookie before helping out a fellow rat.

I read about this very interesting study in The Big Think blog. My reaction was, “Wow, if rats’ natural action is to behave this way certainly we as people are capable of more with each other.”

“Now this paper, out in last week’s Science, will make them seem even more human: it turns out that rats will take the trouble to free a trapped fellow-rat for no physical reward (though there may be a warm, fuzzy feeling). In fact, even when there was a reward (delicious chocolates for the taking, next to the trapped victim) rats in these experiments often freed their fellow-rodent and shared the food, when they could have kept it to themselves.

Rodents have been shown to feel “emotional contagion” (which humans demonstrate when, for example, they screw up their faces in a pained expression while watching someone else get hurt). But the paper, by Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason is the first to demonstrate that the animals will take action to help others in distress. As Mason points out in this video, that’s a pretty big achievement, because it requires that the Helper Rat overcome the fear it feels emanating from the Victim Rat.”

Character Move:

Recognize when someone including ourselves is trapped in a situation, we need to ask for and/or give help. We cannot accept being trapped as a given.
Take the “rat road;” be persistent until freedom from a trapped situation arrives. Stay away from that narcissistic “cookie;” it will only distract us. The reward comes from helping and getting out of that trap whatever it may be.
If we are “helper” rats we have to overcome the fear we feel emanating from the rat needing help. Just help. Just do it. Celebrate the freedom.

I recognize that this rat metaphor is taking license by applying the learning of this experiment to people. But if rats have this ethic… well, it just makes me pause and wonder (hope you do to).

Solid “rat moves” in The Triangle,

Lorne

Character Triangle

Our character is exclusively ours. We define it by how we think and what we do. I believe that acting with Character is driven by what I call the Character Triangle.

What, exactly, is the Character Triangle (CT)?

The CT describes and emphasizes three distinct but interdependent values:

Be Accountable: first person action to make things better, avoiding blame.
Be Respectful: being present, listening, looking again, focusing on the process.
Be Abundant: generous in spirit, moving forward, minimizing the lack of.