Monthly Archives: December 2014

Favorite Books of 2014, Part 2

Posted on by

Yesterday I introduced my first 7 books on my favorite books published in 2014; you can read it here.

Here are the remaining 7 books:

Curious about these books? Read on!

InnovatorsThe Innovators, Walter Isaacson

The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens.

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

This is the story of how their minds worked and what made them so inventive. It’s also a narrative of how their ability to collaborate and master the art of teamwork made them even more creative.

AMoreBeautifulQuestionA More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger

In this groundbreaking book, journalist and innovation expert Warren Berger shows that one of the most powerful forces for igniting change in business and in our daily lives is a simple, under-appreciated tool—one that has been available to us since childhood. Questioning—deeply, imaginatively, “beautifully”—can help us identify and solve problems, come up with game-changing ideas, and pursue fresh opportunities. So why are we often reluctant to ask “Why?”

Berger shows, the most creative, successful people tend to be expert questioners. They’ve mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking—and finding powerful answers.

WhosTheLeaderofTheClubWho’s the Leader of the Club, Jim Korkis

Acclaimed Disney expert Jim Korkis tells the stories of what Walt did right, what he did wrong, and how you can follow in his footsteps. Drawing upon his unparalleled knowledge of the Disney Company and its legacy, Korkis distills the essence of Walt Disney’s leadership principles into an exciting narrative of popular history and self-help.

You’ll read not just about what Walt did but why he did it, and how you can apply the lessons to your own life or your own enterprise.

DoodleRevolutionThe Doodle Revolution, Sunni Brown

What did Einstein, JFK, Edison, Marie Curie, and Henry Ford have in common? They were all inveterate doodlers. These powerhouse minds knew instinctively that doodling is deep thinking in disguise—a simple, accessible, and dynamite tool for innovating and solving even the stickiest problems.

Sunni Brown’s mission is to bring the power of the Doodle to the rest of us. She leads the Revolution defying all those parents, teachers, and bosses who say Stop doodling! Get serious! Grow up! She overturns misinformation about doodling, demystifies visual thinking, and shows us the power of applying our innate visual literacy.

Doodling has led to countless breakthroughs in science, technology, medicine, architecture, literature, and art. And as Brown proves in this inspiring, empowering book, it can help all of us think and do better in whatever fields we pursue.

With passion and wit, Brown guides you from the basic Doodle all the way to the formidable “Infodoodle”—the tight integration of words, numbers, images, and shapes that craft and display higher-level thinking.

MythsofCreativityThe Myths of Creativity, David Burkas

We tend to think of creativity in terms reminiscent of the ancient muses: divinely-inspired, unpredictable, and bestowed upon a lucky few. But when our jobs challenge us to be creative on demand, we must develop novel, useful ideas that will keep our organizations competitive. The Myths of Creativitydemystifies the processes that drive innovation. Based on the latest research into how creative individuals and firms succeed, David Burkus highlights the mistaken ideas that hold us back and shows us how anyone can embrace a practical approach, grounded in reality, to finding the best new ideas, projects, processes, and programs.

LifeAnimatedLife, Animated, Ron Suskind

Imagine being trapped inside a Disney movie and having to learn about life mostly from animated characters dancing across a screen of color. A fantasy? A nightmare? This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife, Cornelia. An autistic boy who couldn’t speak for years, Owen memorized dozens of Disney movies, turned them into a language to express love and loss, kinship, brotherhood.The family was forced to become animated characters, communicating with him in Disney dialogue and song; until they all emerge, together, revealing how, in darkness, we all literally need stories to survive.

HowStarWarsConqueredUniverseHow Star Wars Conquered the Universe

In How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, veteran journalist Chris Taylor traces the series from the difficult birth of the original film through its sequels, the franchise’s death and rebirth, the prequels, and the preparations for a new trilogy. Providing portraits of the friends, writers, artists, producers, and marketers who labored behind the scenes to turn Lucas’s idea into a legend, Taylor also jousts with modern-day Jedi, tinkers with droid builders, and gets inside Boba Fett’s helmet, all to find out how Star Wars has attracted and inspired so many fans for so long.

Since the first film’s release in 1977, Taylor shows, Star Wars has conquered our culture with a sense of lightness and exuberance, while remaining serious enough to influence politics in far-flung countries and spread a spirituality that appeals to religious groups and atheists alike. Controversial digital upgrades and poorly received prequels have actually made the franchise stronger than ever. Now, with a savvy new set of bosses holding the reins and Episode VII on the horizon, it looks like Star Wars is just getting started.

An energetic, fast-moving account of this creative and commercial phenomenon, How Star Wars Conquered the Universe explains how a young filmmaker’s fragile dream beat out a surprising number of rivals to gain a diehard, multigenerational fan base—and why it will be galvanizing our imaginations and minting money for generations to come.

That’s it for 2014. My reading list for 2015 is already underway – Amazon is making a delivery tomorrow, and I’ve just received an email from the library – a book I’ve got on hold just came in.

What will you be reading?

Favorite Books of 2014, Part 1

Posted on by

It’s time to close out the reading year – just in time to start a new one!

A quick review of the numbers:

  • Purchased or review copies of books – 93
  • Library books checked out – 91
  • Kindle books downloaded – 55

That’s 239 books read in 2014, averaging over 4 a week. I’m not a speed-reader per se, but I do read fast – and I don’t read everything in every book.

Of course, reading is a big part of my role as Vision Room Curator at Auxano, so that gives me a definite advantage! Reading is also my main hobby, so even my “down” time often finds me with a book in hand.

In no particular order, here are the first 7 of my 14 favorite books published in 2014.

You can read the rest of the list tomorrow.

I realize this is a very arbitrary list, and has several books that may not seem like leadership books. No apologies there – I happen to believe that leaders in organizations of every size and type have a LOT to learn about their customers (all organizations have customers – we just call them different names). I also believe that all organizations need leaders who are creative and innovative in all areas. Finally, I believe that organizations need leaders who understand the power of simplicity.

Curious? If you’re interested in more than just the title, read on!

WhatGreatBrandsDoWhat Great Brands Do, Denise Lee Yohn

Some business leaders think of brands only in terms of messages and marketing tactics because that’s all they know. Others want a quick fix and would rather change what they say about themselves rather than actually change. Still others understand the full business value of a brand but lack the tools and methods to realize it. What Great Brands Do by Denise Lee Yohn will educate the first group, persuade the second, and equip the last.

MomentsofImpactMoments of Impact, Chris Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon

Great strategic conversations generate breakthrough insights by combining the best ideas of people with different backgrounds and perspectives. In this book, Chris Ertel and Lisa Kay Solomon “crack the code” on what it takes to design creative, collaborative problem-solving sessions that soar rather than sink.

CreativityInc2Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation—into the meetings, postmortems, and “Braintrust” sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture—but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”

EssentialismEssentialism, Greg McKeown

The Way of the Essentialist by Greg McKeown isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done.  It is not  a time management strategy, or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.

46RulesofGeniusThe 46 Rules of Genius, Marty Neumeier

There’s no such thing as an accidental genius. Anyone who’s reached that exalted state has arrived there by design. But simply wanting to get there is not enough. A would-be genius also needs a theoretical framework, a basic compass, a set of principles to guide the way forward.

Marty Neumeier, acclaimed author of The Brand Gap and Metaskills, has compressed the wisdom of the ages into the first “quick start guide” for genius—46 glittering gems that will light your path to creative brilliance. This is THE essential handbook for designers, entrepreneurs, marketers, educators, artists, scientists, innovators, and future leaders in every field.

BriefBrief, Joseph McCormack

Author Joe McCormack tackles the challenges of inattention, interruptions, and impatience that every professional faces. His proven B.R.I.E.F. approach, which stands for Background, Relevance, Information, Ending, and Follow up, helps simplify and clarify complex communication. BRIEF will help you summarize lengthy information, tell a short story, harness the power of infographics and videos, and turn monologue presentations into controlled conversations.

HowTheWorldSeesYouHow the World Sees You, Sally Hogshead

You already know how you see the world.
But do you know how the world sees you?
How is your personality most likely to impress and influence the person sitting on the other side of the desk or boardroom?

Once you know what makes you valuable to others, you’re more authentic and confident, and more able to make a positive impression. It all begins with understanding how the world sees you—at your best. How the World Sees You by Sally Hogshead gives you the step-by-step method to describe yourself in just two or three words. This short phrase is your Anthem, the tagline for your personality. Your Anthem guides you like a mission statement, helping you to build your team, write a LinkedIn profile, or captivate an audience.

That’s the first 7 of my 14 favorite books published in 2014. Tomorrow I will list the final 7.

Reading the Year Out

Posted on by

Leaders are readers.

Today and tomorrow’s posts are an annual tradition at 27gen – all about reading and my favorite books of the year. Here are a few links to previous year’s posts – click and follow the link for a few thoughts on the importance of reading – and how to read!

Reading 101

Getting the Most Out of Reading

Put Down the Duckie

Read to Lead

When You Find a Leader, You Find a Reader

Thomas Edison on Reading

Reading Requires Deliberate Practice

I Read to Cheat Old Age – What About You?

I’ve been a reader of books since, well, before I can remember. My father was an avid reader, and he passed that passion along to me at an early age. Even though he worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, he often spent several hours reading at night. He and my mother insisted we go to the library in the next town and check out books – every two weeks. I would get the maximum number of books, take them home, and read them – usually in the first day or two. Then it would be an impatient wait till the next library trip.

Reading is a passion I treasure, and one that I am thankful to my dad for.

I enjoy books as a multisensory experience – you not only read the words on a page, you feel the binding and turn the pages, hear the crackle of a very old book being opened for the first time in a long time, and then there’s that “book” smell – a combination of age, dust, maybe a little dampness – but all telling you an adventure is waiting.

For books connected with my role as Vision Room Curator, I use the margins to have a conversation with the author – writing comments, questions, and references to other books. I also use Post-It notes to mark certain sections. Marking in books was definitely a “no-no” in school, but I have found the practice to be a great help to me in experiencing the book.

Although I’m an early adopter in almost everything else, it’s just that “experience” that has kept me from moving into the eBook world all the way. I’ve been dabbling in eBooks for several years, moving ahead with a Kindle, and I’m glad I did. Having a library at my disposal in one volume has been very rewarding – but I will always be a “book” guy at heart.

So in wrapping up 2014 and looking forward to 2015, you’ll find me with a Kindle in my backpack – and several volumes of traditional books as well!

Next: my favorite books of 2014.

12 Days of Christmas Guest Experiences

Posted on by

For all the Connection Pastors, Guest Services Directors, Guest Services team members, and everyone in your church who want to provide a WOW! Guest Experience…

12Days1

On the first day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 1 Word that Says it All

On the second day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 2 Feet that Matter in Guest Experiences

On the third day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 3 Actions to Build a Guest Experience Organization with Clarity of Purpose

On the fourth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 4 Guest Experience Core Competencies

On the fifth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 5 Expectations of Disney Service

On the sixth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 6 Disciplines of Guest Experiences

On the seventh day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 7 Guidelines for Guest Services from Disney

On the eighth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 8 Ways for the Introvert to Serve on a Guest Team

On the ninth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 9 Principles of Innovative Guest Experiences

On the tenth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 10 Commandments for Guest Services from Mickey Mouse

On the eleventh day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 11 Reasons to Smile

On the twelfth day of Christmas Guest Experiences…

>> 12 Principles of Guest Experience Leadership

Tonight, Christmas Eve services are a tradition for many churches. Other churches had special worship services or musical events over the past week.

One of the common threads among all of the events is that churches had the opportunity to welcome Guests, regular attenders, members, and family and friends of all these categories.

Your actions and words have a chance to lower defenses to the Gospel, remove barriers to relationships, and establish an expectation that God is with us…

…make them count!

 

12DaysGE1

1 Word That Says It All

Posted on by

Here’s a challenge for you: a single word will change your mind-set on this topic.

When it comes to ChurchWorld, more often than not we have visitors.

It may be a little thing to you, just a word, but I think it’s actually a powerful first impression that needs to change.

Do you have Visitor parking? Visitor packets? A Visitor’s Center? Do you welcome your visitors during the worship experience? And on and on…

The first step in creating a WOW! Guest experience is to remove the word visitor from your vocabulary, never to be used again.

It’s a little thing to be sure. But it’s a mindset change that will really impact how you create the rest of the experience at your church.

12DaysGE1

 

On the first day of Christmas Guest Experiences, you Guest Experience peers give to you:

The 1 word that says it all: Guests.

You are expecting Guests this weekend.

Guests come to your place, looking for a warm greeting, a smiling face, and an experience designed to make them feel like, well, Guests. Nothing phony, manipulative, or in-your-face; just welcome them as guests with the most sincere, energizing, and loving experiences you can.

The Disney organization is known for creating a vocabulary designed to support a culture dedicated to Guest service. Other companies have followed Disney’s lead and adopted this term over the years, but they don’t always understand its meaning. When Walt Disney started using the word “Guest” to refer to Disney customers, he did so because he believed their customers were like guests in your home and should be treated as such. That practice is still followed throughout the Disney organization around the world.

Do you treat everyone who comes to your church like guests in your home? Do your team members understand why that’s important?

Can we agree to start with a simple change that conveys a powerful image, one that will be reflected through your church?

No more “visitors” – you have Guests!

Over the past several years, in conversations with hundreds of church leaders on the topic of Guest Experiences, that one word has been like a light bulb being turned on – it’s like “Wow – I get it!”

I hope you get it!

Tomorrow night, many churches will be offering Christmas Eve worship opportunities. Together with services last Sunday, these two time periods will comprise one of the largest attendances of your year. Many of the people who come are family and friends of your members and regular attenders…

Will they be your Guests?

The Most Important 2 Feet in Your Guest Experience

Posted on by

It’s the space between your Guest and your front-line Guest Experience Team member.

The interactions that take place in those 24 inches are rich with expectations – and can also be filled with missed opportunities.

In that space your front-line team members have become the face and voice of your organization.

12DaysGE1

On the 2nd day of Christmas Guest Experiences, your Guest Experience peers give to you:

The Most Important 2 Feet in Your Guest Experience

There is an idea-generating and innovation factory that remains untapped in most organizations simply because most leaders do not know how to connect the experiences and insights of their front line to solving Guest problems. – Chris DeRose, Judgment on the Front Line

How they represent themselves, what they do (or don’t do), what they say (or don’t say) – that’s the powerful human “first impression” your Guest is experiencing – and will remember.

How does that make you feel?

inspired by What’s Your Green Goldfish, by Stan Phelps

What's Your Green Goldfish

3 Actions to Build a Guest Experience Organization with Clarity of Purpose

Posted on by

Clarity of purpose regarding customers and how to translate the mission operationally is usually very murky in most corporate organizations.

Jeanne Bliss, twenty-five year veteran of corporate customer focus and founder of CustomerBliss, a customer experience consulting firm, highlights this in her book Chief Customer Officer.

There is not a universal and clear understanding or belief that the customer experience is pivotal to the success of the organization. If there is, the clarity of what the experience should be, what the brand stands for, and the point of differentiation to customers has multiple interpretations throughout the corporate machine. 

Beyond the pie in the sky stuff, people around the building can’t consistently cite the true value the brand brings to customers, the one or two things delivered that clearly make that point and what keeps them on track with what they do.

In order to correct this, Bliss encourages organizations to act in 3 specific ways.

12DaysGE1

On the third day of Christmas Guest Experiences, your Guest Experience peers give to you:

3 Actions to Build a Guest Experience Organization with Clarity of Purpose

  1. Establish your priority bookend customer experiences (and always be reliable in them)
  2. Get rid of legacy industry practices that make you look “vanilla”
  3. Hire “memory makers” not just functional experts

Poor alignment across the organization stems from lack of clarity on the customer mission and how that translates to accountability and actions. – Jeanne Bliss

ExperienceBookends

What are the Guest Experience bookends at your organization?

inspired by and adapted from Chief Customer Officer, by Jeanne Bliss

ChiefCustomerOfficer

4 Guest Experience Core Competencies

Posted on by

Last year the Temkin Group published an update to one of their reports defining one of their fundamental frameworks, The Four Customer Experience Core Competencies. This report lays out the building blocks for customer experience success. This topic is so important that they are giving this report away for free – download it here.

Research by leading customer experience consultant Bruce Temkin shows that customer experience is highly correlated with loyalty. While any company can improve portions of its customer experience, it takes more than a few superficial changes to create lasting differentiation.

Organizations that want to become customer experience leaders need to master four customer experience competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Employee Engagement, Compelling Brand Values, and Customer Connectedness. To gauge your progress, actively use Temkin Group’s Customer Experience Competency and Maturity Assessment found in the free download here.

ChurchWorld leaders may not think of the term “loyalty” in relation to their Guests, but it is a very relevant concept.

12DaysGE1

On the fourth day of Christmas Guest Experiences, your Guest Experience peers give to you:

4 Guest Experience Core Competencies

  1. Purposeful Leadership: Operate consistently with a clear set of values.
  2. Employee Engagement: Align employees with the goals of the organization.
  3. Compelling Brand Values: Deliver on your brand promises to customers.
  4. Customer Connectedness: Infuse customer insight across the organization.

Here are some tidbits about each of these competencies, adapted slightly to apply to Guest Experiences in ChurchWorld. Be sure to download the entire report – free!

Purposeful Leadership

Just about every church has vision and mission statements floating around their hallways, website, and print materials. But when it comes to making decisions on a day-to-day basis, these documents are nowhere to be found. They play no role in how the organization is actually run.

Instead, organizations make decisions based on individual goals and objectives, a handful of hard metrics, and by making compromises across conflicting team agendas. And that’s the best case scenario! Usually decisions aren’t coordinated at all. That’s why churches need to (re)introduce a clear purpose for their organization that speaks to why they exist and what sets them apart from 10,000 other churches.

Employee Engagement

Engaged team members (both paid staff and volunteers) are valuable assets. They trigger a “virtuous cycle” driving good Guest experience and superior overall results. Temkin’s research shows that engaged employees try harder, engage Guests, and drive positive results. The essence of this connection can be seen in this quote by Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines:

I never had control, and I never wanted it. If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don’t need control.

Compelling Brand Values

True brands are more than just marketing slogans—they’re the fabric that aligns all team members with Guests in the pursuit of a common cause. They’re what you believe about your organization. As Howard Shultz, president and CEO of Starbucks, once said:

Customers must recognize that you stand for something.

Customer Connectedness

In most companies, decisions are made with woefully little Guest insight. People often rely on their “gut feel” or outdated anecdotes about Guest needs, desires, and feedback. But any organization that wants to improve its Guest experience needs to embed deep Guest insight in every aspect of its operations.

Interested in measuring your organization’s progress,? Temkin Group created its Customer Experience Competency and Maturity Assessment. You can download a free copy of Temkin’s complete report, including the assessment, here.

How do you measure up?

inspired by and adapted from The Temkin Group, Bruce Temkin

The Temkin Group

5 Expectations of Disney Service

Posted on by

Having spent 5 days during 3 trips to Disney World in the last 18 months, mostly in the Magic Kingdom and behind the scenes, it’s appropriate that I turn to another former Disney cast member, Bruce Loeffler, for some thoughts about Guest Experiences.

Writing in One Minute Service, Loeffler brings his years of experience with Disney and presents a helpful reminder that organizations of any sizes – including churches – can improve their level of Guest services.

Loeffler served in many capacities while at Disney, and it shaped the development of his current company, Enspiron, and the services it provides.

Taking the Guest perspective, Loeffler defined 5 expectations that Guests have. Although they are not taught as such to cast members, he believes they are the five basic ingredients that most Guests want when they visit Disney – and I agree.

I also happen to think they describe the expectations of Guests coming to your church this weekend.

WD Guest quote DI

 

On the fifth day of Christmas Guest Experiences, your Guest Experience peers give to you:

The Five Expectations of Disney Service©

  • Excellence – Guests want quality service from you. They want to know your organization strives for excellence and its team members are providing their best effort.
  • Experience – Guests want their visit to be enjoyable and fun. They want to be treated as someone special and to leave with a positive experience.
  • Expediency – Guests want knowledgeable team members who are efficient and able to facilitate their needs with ease and in a timely manner.
  • Enthusiasm – Guests want team members who are out-going, friendly, personable, courteous, and who truly enjoy helping others.
  • Empathy – Guests want team members who can respect and relate to them and will take ownership to resolve problems quickly when they occur.

There is no magic formula for why Disney is so effective. But from my experience, it is successful because Disney creates a model and an image of what excellence should look like; establishes high standards for cast members to aspire to; and then trains each cast member to achieve those expectations.   – Bruce Loeffler

Do you know what your Guests are expecting this weekend?

inspired by and adapted from One Minute Service, by Bruce Loeffler

One Minute Service