Monthly Archives: February 2013

Undercover Boss May Make Good TV, But It’s a Lousy Way to Keep in Touch With Your Front Line Team

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On Undercover Boss, the brilliant CEO goes undercover on the front lines of his company to learn just what’s going on, and how he is going to make it better.

Fail.

In the shows that I’ve seen, it’s more like a Three Stooges comedy from my childhood, only this time there’s only one stooge – the Boss.

Without fail, the Boss learns that he lacks the skills, intelligence, and experience required to keep up with his tasks. His coworkers and supervisors, though clearly frustrated with him, try and try again to train him.

The end result? Big Boss CEO, now humbled by his front line, vows to make changes to the policies and procedures which will improve his team’s working conditions, performance, personal lives, and, by the way, maybe even his bottom line.

I’m not too cynical of Undercover Boss – just thinking there has to be a better way for the CEO or senior leadership team of any organization to find out just what’s happening on the front lines.

If CEOS and senior leaders don’t create routines for understanding customer needs through the eyes of frontline workers, they run the risk of creating strategies that can’t be put into operational practice. Building a business model that is aligned with customer needs is only the beginning – once these needs are identified, the leadership team must work backward from the moment of truth when their team is face to face with the customer.

Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy, writing in Judgment on the Front Line, show just how to make that happen. They don’t advocate that CEOs try to do the jobs of their front line workers (like Undercover Boss). Instead, DeRose and Tichy think that leadership teams must design and build a front-line focused organization. They begin at the top:

Five Responsibilities of Leaders in a Front Line Focused Organization

  • Define a Customer-Based Vision – set the vision and define the strategy based in part on observations, feedback, and learnings from the field
  • Develop a Front Line Focused Culture – create a culture of front line focus with a deep respect for the needs and experience of the front line
  • Obsess over Talent – while deeply respecting their entire organization, leaders know they will win only by having the best talent and right kind of leadership at the front line
  • Define the Judgment Playing Field – leaders ensure that front line teams are equipped with the right resources to make good judgments on behalf of the organization and in the interest of the customer
  • Live on the Line – leaders need to go where the action is, a reality check at a deeper level than just an annual fly by appearance

Now isn’t that better than any episode of Undercover Boss?

My name is Herve Humler and I am the president of Ritz-Carlton… and I am a very important person. But you are more important than I am. You are the heart and soul of this building.

– Herve Humler, addressing hotel staff shortly before the grand opening of Ritz-Carlton’s Hong Kong property

ChurchWorld Frontline Facts

Strong leadership is required to unleash the front line

  • Senior leaders use their authority to create the architecture and support systems
  • The organization’s top team must stay directly connected to those in the field
  • Information from the front line should be used to define and refines strategy

Building a front line-focused organization is a process

  • An integrative framework is needed to replace a collage of initiatives
  • The process helps whether starting from scratch or rebuilding a decades-old institution

Part of an occasional series translating the best of Customer Experience in the Corporate World into Guest Experiences for ChurchWorld

Adapted from Judgment on the Front Line, Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy

The Frontline Innovation Factory

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If you’ve spent anytime on Amazon, you are probably familiar with their recommendation feature – you know, the bar of products across your screen with the title “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”…

It has been very successful to say the least – many shoppers, having found what they are looking for, are delighted to look at other items that compliment their find. (Especially me, when it comes to books!)

When the engineer who developed the idea, Greg Linden, developed a prototype and took it to his boss, he was expressly prohibited from proceeding further with the project.

Wow – Talk about a missed opportunity!

In the vast majority of other, larger, older organizations, the idea would have been killed right then and there. But, as we all know, Amazon was (and is) different.

Customer centricity has been deeply ingrained in Amazon’s culture from the outset. Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos has been known to leave an empty seat open at a conference table to remind all attendees that they should consider the seat occupied by their customer, “the most important person in the room.”

Amazon’s overriding respect for the customer gave Linden the freedom to proceed with his trial – even over the objections of his senior vice president. The results were so clear and irrefutable that the feature was fast-tracked, and shopping cart recommendations, as we know them, were born.

That’s the power of the Front Line.

In my experience innovation can only come from the bottom. Those closest to the problem are in the best position to solve it. I believe any organization that depends on innovation must embrace chaos. Loyalty and obedience are not your tools; you must use measurement and objective debate to separate the good from the bad.

– Greg Linden, former developer and engineer, Amazon.com

 

ChurchWorld Frontline Facts

The front line is the richest untapped source of ideas and innovation

  • Those closest to the Guests most often understand their needs best
  • Frontline leaders have the know-how to solve operational problems

Winning organizations embrace the paradox of creativity and control

  • Leaders control by setting context and boundaries
  • Leaders creatively unleash their front line by teaching them to make judgments

 

Part of an occasional series translating the best of Customer Experience in the Corporate World into Guest Experiences for ChurchWorld

Adapted from Judgment on the Front Line, Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy

 

What Can You Learn from Your Front-Line Team?

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Cross-Utilization (Cross-U) is a Walt Disney World program that operates during the Spring and Winter holidays (their busiest seasons). It gives Cast Members from various parts of WDW a chance to work the front lines and interact with Guests.

With so many Cast Members of WDW working behind the scenes, Cross-U offers a wonderful opportunity for Cast Members to participate in one of the cornerstones of the Disney enterprise: Guest Services.

Participants in Cross-U witness the collective effort it takes to create the great Guest Experience. Regardless of where behind-the-scene (or off-stage) Cast Members work, there is no better way of understanding the impact of magical Guest Experiences than watching kids and their parents enjoying a favorite character or attraction.

According to Disney executives, getting ready for Cross-U takes months of planning, thousands of details to monitor and an untold number of checks and balances.

Is all this trouble worth it?

The answer for Disney is a resounding Yes! In addition to providing much-needed front-line help during busy times, the feedback from participants after their shifts is invaluable. They talk about making a difference with Guests and assisting Cast Members.

In other words, they get it – they understand the critical importance of front-line staff in Guest Experiences. And it’s just not head knowledge – it comes from direct interaction with Guests.

How valuable would that be in any organization that serves Guests?

More importantly, how important would a process like Cross-U be in ChurchWorld?

The Basic Four of Leadership: # 4, Accountability

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When I make a mistake, I’m recognized 100 percent of the time; when I do something great, I’m not recognized 99 percent of the time.

 – employee in the hotel industry

A 200,000-person study by the Jackson Organization confirmed that managers who achieve enhanced business results are significantly more likely to be seen by their employees as strong in the Basic Four areas of leadership:

  • Goal Setting
  • Communication
  • Trust
  • Accountability

Authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton used that study as a foundation in their book The Carrot Principle, adding on the accelerator of frequent and effective recognition to illustrate that the relationship between recognition and improved business results is both highly predictable and proven to work.

As in all good things, you must start with the basics – and here’s # 4:

Holding People Accountable

The employee quoted at the top of the page brings the issue of accountability into sharp relief: there’s a fine line between mistakes and failures, and it takes a great leader to know the difference.

Many well-known organizations have developed awards for intelligent mistakes. They realize that in an atmosphere of speed and innovation, team members need to feel safe to adapt, innovate, and experiment. That means, of course, that some mistakes will be made – and that’s all right. In these cultures, part of holding people accountable is celebrating mistakes that were worth being made.

In a culture that has equilibrium between accountability and celebrating success, recognition is frequent and meaningful and reinforces the notion of accountability. Keep in mind that great leaders don’t just hold their people accountable in formal ways – in many cases, you might not even know you’re being held accountable.

It’s just that you don’t want to let your leader and the team down.

That is a home run in accountability.

Goal setting, communication, trust, and accountability. These are the Basic Four of effective leadership. Alone, each one can move you quite a way toward good results, but when a leader is even somewhat competent with the Basic Four and then adds the accelerator of Recognition and Honor to each, leadership effectiveness soars.

And that will be the topic of a future post!

Adapted from The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

Part 5 of a series

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The Basic Four of Leadership: # 3 – Trust

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The moment a leader recognizes someone on their team for a contribution, the trust meter shoots off the scale.

 – Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

A 200,000-person study by the Jackson Organization confirmed that managers who achieve enhanced business results are significantly more likely to be seen by their employees as strong in the Basic Four areas of leadership:

  • Goal Setting
  • Communication
  • Trust
  • Accountability

Authors Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton used that study as a foundation in their book The Carrot Principle, adding on the accelerator of frequent and effective recognition to illustrate that the relationship between recognition and improved business results is both highly predictable and proven to work.

As in all good things, you must start with the basics.

Building Trust

Trust is often viewed as more of an interpersonal quality than a leadership skill. That’s a mistake, since it turns out that trust is a central concept in organizational health and growth.

In an organization where leaders are trusted, there is a greater level of team investment. When an employee believes a manager has his best interest at heart, it motivates him to give his bet to his work and the organization, which creates overall higher commitment.

Louis Barnes, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, describes the trust phenomenon as the theory of reciprocity: in short, people respond in kind to the way they are treated. For leaders who want to build trust within their organization, this means respecting and listening to team members, treating them fairly, and worrying about the success of their team more than their own success.

A leader who is trusted displays the following characteristics:

  • Publicly owning up to his mistakes
  • Keeping her word and commitments
  • Surrounding himself with people who can be trusted
  • Consistently taking the high road
  • Refusing to participate in any level of deception
  • Actively contributing to the positive reputation of the organization

This is an impressive list of qualities – maybe even a little intimidating! A good place to start the process of building trust is by becoming more visible to your team. Experience has shown that the single act of getting out of your office and mingling with team members is a simple solution to a very common trust problem.

Trusting relationships with your team can begin with leaders’ being more visible and available. It’s a place to start – something that will be noticed and appreciated by the people on your team.

Next: Accountability

Adapted from The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton

Part 4 of a series

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Why True Collaboration is So Crucial NOW

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No organization is immune to the shifts set in motion by current global tides. Its ripple effects have shaken the very foundations of how business is being conducted today, continually reshaping our view of how leaders, teams, and customers react. Our core challenge is to acknowledge where and how to embrace true collaboration as the centerpiece of this new ecosystem.

Thomas Edison knew this in the late 1800’s.

Sarah Miller Caldicott, great grandniece of Thomas Edison and author of the book Midnight Lunch, believes that the notion of a collaboration ecosystem linking innovation, strategy, and value creation stood at the heart of Edison’s laboratories as well as his manufacturing empire.

Caldicott believes that there are three major forces to be aware of in designing an effective approach to collaboration today: complexity, metalogue, and reskilling.

The Rise in Complexity Due to Massive Generation of Data and Real-Time Synthesis: The accelerated pace of technological change has erased familiar industry boundaries, opening the way for rapid formation of new markets. A tsunami of data can now be consumed – and generated –by individuals armed with mobile phones and other smart devices.

Although operating in a different technological era, Edison embraced complexity as a fundamental component of collaboration itself. Embracing complexity rather than sidestepping it represent a hallmark of Edison’s true collaboration process.

The Rise of Metalogue as a Tool for Creating Purpose and Connection: Feelings of fragmentation yielded by economic and technological shifts have depended the need for connection and common purpose across large groups of people. Communities, organizations, and governments face an imperative to hear the opinions of diverse constituencies that now can generate influence outside of traditionally recognized channels of decision-making or authority.

Edison’s true collaboration process recognizes the central role of collegiality and team discipline as crucial components that lay the groundwork for dialogue – and ultimately, metalogue. He maintained a high level of team coherence even when pressures mounted by grounding his teams with an understanding of how debate and conflict could be constructively harnessed.

The Need for Reskilling Workers in the Innovation Age: The broad availability of smart devices paces new emphasis on what people can potentially create rather than what they already know. Skills linked to knowledge sharing, such as effective communication, adaptive thinking, and cross-generational leadership, are gaining new prominence in realms where functional expertise formerly dominated.

Edison’s four phases of collaboration offer a unique platform for embedding collaboration as a superskill in your organization using discovery learning and hands-on engagement rather than tired classroom-style approaches. Instead of pushing lectures to teach creativity and problem solving, Edison’s experiential approach engages the reskilling process by activating creative centers of the brain and thereby developing large neural networks that drive learning more deeply than task-based or fact-based approaches.

The underlying mechanisms of Edison’s true collaboration process are a crucial priority for every organization. Organizations that engage true collaboration as a backbone for their innovation, value creation, and team development will remain thriving and nimble in the face of constantly shifting economic and cultural forces.

Collaboration is not just a nostalgic look into the past or a hoped-for future aspiration – it is a necessary organizational survival skill needed now.

This has been a multi-part series being reposted in honor of Thomas Edison’s birth February 11, 1847

Edison’s Four Phases of Collaboration

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As noted in yesterday’s post, I’m learning a whole new definition of “collaboration” in my role of Vision Room Curator at Auxano.

Webster’s defines collaboration as “the act or process of collaborating” – meh.

According to Sarah Miller Caldicott, great grandniece of Thomas Edison and author of the book Midnight Lunch, Edison viewed true collaboration as a value creation continuum. If one were to find a single notebook entry capturing Edison’s definition of true collaboration, Caldicott believes it would read something like this:

Applying discovery learning within a context of complexity, inspired by a common goal or a shared purpose.

True collaboration for Edison operated like an invisible glue that fused learning, insight, purpose, complexity and results together in one continuous effort.

Translating Edison’s decades of groundbreaking practices into language for the 21st Century leader, Caldicott has developed a four-phase model of the collaboration process.

 How do we create the foundation for true collaboration to flourish?

Phase 1 – Capacity: Select small, diverse teams of two to eight people who will thrive in an environment of discovery learning and collegiality.

 How can our collaboration team reframe the problem at hand, driving the greatest range of creativity and breakthrough solutions?

Phase 2 – Context: Focus the outlook of the team toward development of new context that broadly frames the problem or challenge under consideration. Use a combination of individual learning plus hands-on activities to drive perspectives for potential solutions.

 Can the collaboration team stay the course and continue forward despite disagreements?

Phase 3 – Coherence: Maintain collaboration momentum, creating frameworks for progress through inspiration, and inspirational leadership even though disagreements may exist. Newly discover, or re-emphasize, the shared purpose that binds the team together.

How can our collaboration team leverage internal and external networked resources nimbly and with speed?

Phase 4 – Complexity: Equip and reskill teams to implement new ideas or new solutions using internally and externally networked resources, rapidly accessing or managing complex data streams the team must navigate. Leave a footprint that contributes to a broader collective intelligence.

Edison leaves us a legacy we can return to over and over again as we newly shape a future that embraces the highest and best of our collaborative spirit.

If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.    –Thomas Edison

Go Ahead – astound yourself…

A multi-part series being reposted in honor of Thomas Edison’s birth February 11, 1847

Innovation Competency # 5 – Super-Value Creation

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One definition of innovation is “the process of creating and delivering new customer value in the marketplace.” Thomas Edison’s philosophy of value was “bringing out the secrets of nature and applying them for the happiness of man.”

Authors Michael Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott, writing in Innovate Like Edison, call this approach super-value creation.

Why “super”? Because it suggests creating value above and beyond your competitors. It is the ultimate innovation competency. Edison knew of “no better service to render during the short time we are in this world.”

Once he had gathered information about openings in the market and the needs of the consumer, Edison analyzed how his observations meshed with what his laboratories could deliver – or could learn to deliver. He then calculated how much it would cost to go after the market –or markets – he had in mind, creating an innovation plan including commercialization options. Finally, he placed the finish touch on his products: the mystique of the Edison brand name.

Edison was a master at anticipating trends and spotting gaps in the marketplace. His approach used both analytical and intuitive tools to help determine market size and the best target audience.

Thomas Edison drew customers to his products with sophisticated branding techniques plus a wide array of media and communication tools. Using Edison’s ideas of super-value creation as your guide, you can learn how to design a business model that is best suited for your ideas, or for your organization and its innovation endeavors.

Read on overview of Edison’s Five Competencies for Innovation here.

This material adapted from Innovate Like Edison, by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott

A multi-part series being reposted in honor of Thomas Edison’s birth February 11, 1847

Next: An introduction to Sarah Miller Caldicott’s book on innovation, Midnight Lunch

Innovation Competency #4 – Master-Mind Collaboration

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What happens when you combine the talents of a British textile merchant, a Swiss watchmaker, an American mathematician with a master’s degree in physics, an Irish electrician, a German glassblower, and African-American electrical engineer, and a partially deaf telegrapher?

For Thomas Edison, the result was a world-beating team of collaborators who churned out hundreds of commercially viable patents and products.

Although Edison was an incomparably brilliant independent innovator, he understood and valued the importance of working with others. He knew he needed a trustworthy team of collaborative employees who cold illuminate his blind spots and complement his talents.

The word “collaboration” comes from the Latin root collaborare, meaning “to labor together, especially intellectually.” The term “master-mind” was introduced by success expert Napoleon Hill to refer to a very high level of collaboration. He defined it as a “coordination of knowledge and effort in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.” Hill emphasized that when people come together with their passions aligned with common goals, they can multiply their individual intelligence in an expanding framework of positive, creative energy. Hill witnessed the living expression of this idea in the laboratories of Thomas Edison.

Contemporary sociological and psychological studies demonstrate consistently that the collaborative, open model developed by Edison optimizes the confluence of creativity, strategy, and action.

Edison’s approach to master-mind collaboration allowed his teams to be exceptionally productive in generating, developing, and testing his innovations. Edison always understood, however, that the ultimate purpose of all their efforts was to crate exceptional value for their customers.

Next: Super-Value Creation

Read on overview of Edison’s Five Competencies for Innovation here.

This material adapted from Innovate Like Edison, by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott

A multi-part series being reposted in honor of Thomas Edison’s 166th birth February 11, 1847

Innovation Competency #3 – Full-Spectrum Engagement

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When you are overworked and stressed out it’s very difficult to focus effectively on innovation. How can you successfully manage a massive workload, like Edison did, without succumbing to exhaustion and burnout?

Time management isn’t the answer.

Edison understood that although time on the clock was limited, the wellspring of creative inspiration was boundless. He drew on a seemingly endless source of energy and he had a remarkable range of expression.

No matter what he was doing, he was fully engaged, living life in the present. His ability to move freely, efficiently, passionately, and creatively through a day’s many activities and roles was a critical aspect of his success method. Edison discovered an optimal rhythm to facilitate amazing stamina and high performance.

Authors Michael Gelb and Sara Miller Caldicott, writing in Innovate Like Edison, call Edison’s approach full-spectrum engagement. It is a competency that you can cultivate to access the same boundless energy that fueled Edison. His approach balanced work and play, solitude and collaboration, concentration and relaxation.

Edison knew the value of how to discover simplicity and clarity in the midst of ambiguity and complexity.

Next: Master-Mind Collaboration

Read an overview of Edison’s Five Competencies for Innovation here.

This material adapted from Innovate Like Edison, by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott

A multi-part series being reposted in honor of Thomas Edison’s 166th birth February 11, 1847