Part of the solution or part of the problem?

Can you think of someone who seemingly has made it their life’s work to complain (or as I call it – ‘bleat’) every chance they get? These people are easy to spot, particularly in the workplace. When ideas are tabled or solutions to problems suggested, they are the ones who spend their time telling you why things won’t work. Their input revolves entirely around the problem – and never the solution. (Yes, it drives me mad too!)

However if you have someone in your organisation that is a perpetual bleater, firstly consider reasons why they might be doing it – it may provide some opportunity to reduce or even stop the bleating.

• They may have inherited it from their last workplace
• They may have got it from their parents
• It could be that they choose to hang around people who are also bleaters
• Perhaps they have not been asked one simple question persistently enough… ‘What will work?’

If you have a bleater in your midst, try changing your language to help them change theirs. When they focus on the problem, which means they are focusing on past events, move them to focus on the solution and the future. And be persistent. Ask them, ‘Ok, what will work?’ And if they reply with, ‘Well we’ve tried such and such and it didn’t work..’ or similar, push harder… ‘OK, but I asked what will work?’

If you still don’t have any joy, then perhaps do what some of our clever clients have done. They have a installed a ‘No bleating’ policy’. True! Essentially it says that you cannot complain or raise issues unless you are prepared to help with the solution. And if they don’t wish to help, or indeed there is no solution (i.e. it’s out of everyone’s control) then they cannot continue to bleat.

What they find more often than not is most people do have a positive side accompanied with real good ideas. They just need to be asked better questions.

Oh, and if you’re a bleater…please stop!!

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal Bunbury

Business Coaching and Training

Won’t don’t we deal with problems (gaps) in business?

If you see a member of your team doing something that is not to standard (or something that gives you the S#!t$) – and you choose to not address it; what are you inadvertently giving them? Permission to continue doing it…Right?

It often appears easier (less painful) to not address something and put up with the gap than it does to confront it – AKA ‘Avoid-Avoid Conflict’ where we are in conflict about which pain to avoid most!

But why do we avoid closing these gaps? It will likely be due to the reason we believe the gap exists.

Think of a reoccurring gap then tick the reason/s you felt it happened

1. They didn’t care enough
2. They didn’t listen
3. They were lazy
4. They weren’t too bright

If you ticked any of those, then that would be the reason you left the gap unaddressed. All those reasons state (or imply) that the person is the reason for the gap – and because the vast majority of us don’t like upsetting people, we choose to let it slide and then instead, bleat about it to others.

Here’s a solution. Change your focus from the person being problem, to the problem being the problem. The surest way to change the focus is to consider other (more likely) reasons the gaps exists. Use these as alternatives to the above 4

1. We didn’t make it important enough
2. We lead with answers, not with questions (we did all the talking)
3. We gave them permission to be lazy (we didn’t question it the first time)
4. We didn’t give them sufficient training or, we cut corners when recruiting

The obvious benefit of this focus is that you tackle the gap from both ends – yours and theirs. But perhaps less obvious is that this focus not only helps you close the gap for this person, it will inevitably help you find solutions that will benefit other / future team members from falling into the same gap.

Work to fix gaps – Not people

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal

Business Coach Bunbury

For the past 15 months I have been working with a new business partner. Kevin McDonald (otherwise known as Mack) and I had spoken about partnering on a project for sometime prior to that. However we both understandably, were very cautious about leaping into a formal partnership.

We have both seen business partnerships go horribly pear-shaped. After-all, a business partnership is not unlike a marriage. And before any of us (well most of us) rush into a marriage, there is considerable testing of the waters. There’s often the first dates, the meeting of each other’s friends, the allocation of space in an undie draw (Mack & I skipped that bit), the meeting of the parents, the moving in together, the engagement and finally the wedding. And OK yes; on some occasions that’s followed by the un-wedding…

The point is, a whole heap of compatibility checking takes place before locking into a formal agreement. Mack and I are only now formally partnering into Actual to Ideal™. We operated for the first year under a verbal statement of understanding, and part of that understanding was that we would openly and frequently discuss all the potentially prickly stuff. You know – the money, responsibility, expectations, intellectual property, assets, workload etc.… stuff. And following each discussion, we would make notes and confirm that we agreed with each other’s truth.

Whilst it can be difficult to talk about the difficult things, it’s far easier talking about them before they actually occur rather than dealing with them in the heat of conflict. The notes we took over this time are now forming the basis for our formal partnership agreements. And whilst we are not expecting our partnership to be without bumps along the journey, we have tried and tested each other sufficiently enough to be confident that we are on the same page, in the same chapter of the same book.

If you are currently in a partnership and you have not had some of those crucial discussions, go get your partner, sit them down and have a ‘how do we improve/save this relationship – before it’s too late’ type discussion.

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual To Ideal

Business Coach Bunbury

Good Customer Service? – It depends how you sing it

An experiment – Please sing the Eagles ‘Hotel California’ from the first verse (you may get some ‘what the…?’ looks if people are nearby). I’ll get you started… “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…” How far did you get before the words became a tad ‘ad-lib’? Please continue the experiment and get some of your team to sing it. How was their version? Were the words, harmony, tempo the same as yours?

So how do you think it would sound if you all got together and tried singing it at the same time with different words / harmony / tempo? Not pleasant I’m guessing. The problem is, all you had to work with was a song title – albeit a very popular song title (for anyone over 35 that is).

Here are some other very popular ‘song titles’. Customer Service – Safe work practices –Good work environment. They are all very popular (i.e. we hear them frequently) however I bet you are dealing with the gap of these songs being ‘sung’ in often very different ways by different people. And what happens when customers experience varying levels of service, or not all the team contribute to a good work environment?

A more fitting word for these ‘song titles’ is Standards. And the key to getting greater consistency in the delivery of these Standards is to provide your team with more than just the title. Instead of just telling team members (new and existing) that they need to provide ‘great customer service’, give them sufficient detail / examples / coaching etc. so they begin to understand how this song is played here. Otherwise the only reference point they will have is how they were allowed to play it at their last workplace.

Our clients are very clever – they document all their Standards and then have their teams regularly review, challenge and improve them. And when these companies sing, it truly is music to their customer’s ears…

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal

Close the Gap

“There are no good people to hire!”…. Bull$#!t!!

This month I was invited to speak at a state conference in the Kimberley. The topic was one of the most contentious facing virtually every employer, in particular those in regional and remote WA… ‘How to attract and retain the right people onto your bus’.

Those attending were delightful people, but they did not hold back with their beliefs of ‘There aren’t any good people out there!’ They were however quite open to my reply ‘Of course there’s good people out there! They are just on someone else’s bus…’ Their next concern was equally as common as their first – ‘But how do we attract them when the resource sector offers so much money?’

I had them complete a short survey where they each prioritised a list of 10 employee motivators. The list included money, security, work environment etc. and was taken from research that has been conducted repeatedly over the past 50 years.

The room was made up predominantly of management. And predominately they listed these as their top 4

1. Money
2. Job Security
3. Career advancement
4. Good conditions

However what the research shows and what my experiences reinforce, is that this is what employees want most

1. Appreciation
2. A feeling of ‘being in on things’
3. Sympathetic help with personal issues
4. Job security

(Money ranked 5^th) The question I posed to them was this – ‘Can you provide the 4 things employees want most and support that with a good income and opportunities for them to be paid what they are worth?’ (e.g. KPIs tied to bonuses) Overwhelmingly, they agreed.

If ‘colossal incomes’ is a battle you can’t win, why fight it? Particularly when you may not need to fight that battle to wind up with a win – for all concerned.

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal

Close the Gap

Are your messages Sufficiently Sticky?

Why is it that most people can remember stories, anecdotes, fables and gossip – often from many years ago, but seem to quickly forget a crucial mission statement, or a detailed sermon about customer service from the owner of a business? As Dan and Chip Heath point out – it’s all to do with the message’s level of ‘stickiness’

In their book ‘Made to Stick’, the brothers Heath highlight and address one of the biggest frustrations I hear from business owners – “My team just don’t listen or remember what I tell them!” What the book confirms is when information is forgotten, it has more to do with how the message is delivered.

Repeatedly when we want our team to remember something significant (e.g. why customer service is important) we set about telling them in great passionate and logical detail, backed up by compelling statistics, the reasons why we should look after customers – However, unfortunately what your team may be hearing is something akin to the Peanuts cartoon series muffled trumpet sounds used by Charles Schulz to portray the voices of adults.

The authors of ‘Made to Stick’ highlight a formula that makes messages far stickier. They’ve fashioned it into a simple (albeit a bit cheesy) acronym – S.U.C.C.E.S. Simple. Unexpected. Concrete. Credible. Emotional. Story. Essentially they rightfully suggest that to make messages stick – you should use a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story instead of a longwinded, data-heavy, logical rant!

An example for the ‘why customer service is important’ conundrum might be to gather your team together and offer this succinct proposal – ‘The reason we all get out of bed and come to work is because of  our customers. They are the only reason we exist’ Then ask them for their viewpoints on that. It’s likely to be a very memorable discussion.

Yours in profitable and enjoyable Business

Jeff Austin
Actual to Ideal
Bunbury Business Development

5 better ways to close Gaps

A Gap is simply the difference between what you’re Actually getting and what you Ideally want. And although some gaps might be big and seem insurmountable – virtually all of them can be closed.

Unfortunately, just about all of them can be made bigger, if your gap closing approach isn’t quite right. Here are 5 common mistakes and 5 better approaches.

Common approach and Common result

1. Spend large parts of your day putting out spot fires. Usually fixes symptoms, not causes
2. Send underperforming team members off on a training course or a ‘Gee-em up’ session. If the problem is systemic, training can make the problem bigger
3. Talk about problems in meetings – Talk about problems in meetings – Talk about… (you get the picture) No one takes action so you just do it yourself
4. Use a carrot and/or stick approach to motivate people to lift their game. Rewards & punishment achieve the same result – short term compliance
5. When standards are not being reached, ignore it because it seems too hard. You give people permission to continue

A Better approach for a Better result

1. Use a process (e.g. ‘5 whys’) that unearths the root cause and apply the right fix. Close the gap permanently
2. Look for gaps in your systems and your communications before trying to ‘fix’ people. You close the gap for current and future team members
3. Ask better questions – “What didn’t go well last week?” “What needs to be done better?” Get team members to implement their solutions
4. Be a referent leader who demonstrates integrity, consistency, fairness, openness. Develop lasting motivation that comes from within people (intrinsic)
5. Document and discuss (audit) company standards often. Close gaps regularly by being hard on problems – not on people

This short space doesn’t allow the opportunity to provide great detail on ‘how’ to go about the above approaches. However rest assured that it is all achievable. I spent the first 8 1/2 years of my business life completely in that left column. And if I can make the change, there’s hope for everyone!

Yours in profitable and enjoyable Business

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal
Bunbury Business Development

WhoDunnit? The Cause of Much Conflict

To get any benefit whatsoever from this month’s article, please watch the following video clip first – otherwise this artcile will make no sense (or less sense than normal)

So before reading any further, please watch this 2 minute video – Go on. Stop reading… You’re still reading!

OK. So how many changes did you see on the first viewing? Did you come anywhere close to seeing the 21 things that changed? Initially I (like many others) saw nil!

Why is that? What does the video demonstrate? There are several key messages here that tie into some of the gaps you may be experiencing with team members / customers / suppliers

• It’s easy to miss something you are not looking for
• Just because you don’t see it happening , doesn’t mean it isn’t happening
• The way you see something isn’t an exclusive viewpoint – it’s just your view point.

An example would be an argument about the colour of the detective’s coat. If you said it was grey and I said it was tan, who’d be right? Yes, both of us, but both would likely be very passionate and steadfast about our truth.

And as we’ve discussed in the past, there is frequently more than one truth. Our individual truths are based on the lens we look through. The conditioning we’ve had. Past experiences and the assimilation that creates. These points may help

• Consider that a person’s different truth might actually be right
• Lead with questions. Ask for other’s viewpoints
• Understanding someone’s truth doesn’t obligate you to agree with their truth
• Any if you find that people just don’t listen to you, could it be because you’re not listening to them!

The video reinforces the case for open-mindedness. And given that ‘differing truths’ is the catalyst for most conflict, it appears to be a case worth considering

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin
Actual to Ideal
Bunbury

Talk about pay and avoid the broken backs

Here are a couple of options for things you could do right now. Please choose your preference.

1. Confront someone about something that you are quite certain will turn into an uncomfortable discussion
2. Anything else

For those that chose option 1, you can stop reading. The rest of you please stay with me. It’s no secret that the majority of us would rather do almost anything that initiate conflict. And one of the sure fire ways to get emotions running hot is to confront someone about money…right?

So is it fair to assume that it is generally confronting for your team members to talk to you about their pay rates – that is until they are almost at breaking point. They might bail you up and blurt out something like “I can’t cope with this rate of pay. My friends earn much more than me. If I can’t get a rise I have to look for another job because I work hard and I heard that Julie in accounts earns more ….”

So what’s the simplest way to avoid confrontational conversations?

Have them frequently so they are not topics of conflict. Talk about pay rates (formally) at least every 6 months. Make it a safe and regular discussion. Try asking team members this simple question – “Do you feel you are being paid what you are worth?” (The key word there is ‘worth’) There are no dangerous answers to that question.

To remove virtually all conflict out of pay discussions you simply to need to install ‘proof’. That is, provide your team members with processes that give them the proof that they are, or equally are not, worth more. And if they have proof they’re worth more, pay them with a smile on your face because you will have won 5 fold. If the proof shows they’re not, help them put a plan into place to prove otherwise.

Yours in prosperity and fun

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal
Business Coach

Impressionable Impressions and Memorable Memories

After 2 ½ weeks holidaying in our North West I come back with memories that will likely last as long as I do. These recent memories will travel down my hippocampus and will be stored in my prefrontal cortex (yes, I looked it up!) and will be recalled upon whenever the appropriate trigger is fired.

Similarly, we all have entrenched memories of our experiences dealing with business. I’m confident that you can easily recall a particularly bad or unpleasant experience as a consumer. Equally, or perhaps with a little more effort, you can remember an exceptionally good or enjoyable one.  These good and bad experiences often start from the first point of contact and spiral upwards or downwards from there.

The key is that ‘normal’ is rarely memorable. Giving customers an OK, average, and satisfactory experience is a safe way of avoiding being filed in the bad experience brain folder, but equally you will not wind up in the folder of great experiences customers will tell others about.

And because there is so much ‘normal’ going on out there, you don’t have to go to extremes to be different and memorable. From a different greeting – e.g. “Hi, thanks for coming in. How can I help you today?” Through to sending a note and small gift a week after a purchase thanking the customer for their business. It costs very little to be different and memorable and I have proof that the payback is worth it.

And yes, I know customers can make things difficult at times. Just yesterday I received the greeting I love to hate of, “Are you right?” and being the professional smartarse I am, I responded with “No, but my doctor told me that the pills would help”. And the experience went downhill from there.

Cheers!

Jeff Austin

Actual to Ideal
Close the Gap