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Pain is Inevitable – Suffering is Optional

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There comes that moment.  The plane taxis out to the runway, and it’s “no more cellphones or electronic devices, anything with an on-off switch.”

No more blackberry; Kindle;  iPhone-Kindle-enabled reader.  No more NYTimes online, google headlines, online magazines.   And of course I don’t bring a paper, or magazine, because, you know, I like to think I’m a wired kind of guy, and that just wouldn’t do.

So it arrives.  The moment I’ve been dreading.  The moment when all there is to read is the online flight magazine.  Great bars in Cuernavaca.  Plastic blondes hyping expensive matchmaking services.  Recipes for comfort food.

Then suddenly, everything changes.  Continental’s April issue, in “Sky High,” features Dr. Luanne Freer, an emergency medicine specialist physician, who has been donating time to the Sherpa population in Nepal.

She spent three and a half months in a Sherpa village at 14,000 feet, providing health care for both villagers and trekkers.  She says she developed a deep connection with the Sherpa people. ‘Some of them didn’t even own a pair of shoes, yet they were much happier than my neighbors in the US who have three cars in their garages.’

This is not news.  It surprised me, though—perhaps because it was in such an unexpected context.  I heard it as if for the first time.  And of course it’s true.

We are the architects of our own happiness–and of our own misery.  We all agree on it.  Yet we don’t seem to do anything about it.  Statistics prove it—the wealthier we get, the more happy we do not get.

There are cases where medication helps, though in aggregate we’re probably over-prescribed.   And for all those of us who don’t need chemical adjustment to color between the lines—what’s our excuse?  Basically, we have none.  We must do it.  Ourselves.

Prescriptions for Happiness

Me, I find it helpful to collect catch-phrases, one-liners, mnemonic devices.  Here’s a small collection.  There will not be a test at the end.

•    Pain is inevitable–suffering is optional
•    One foot stuck in yesterday and one in tomorrow means you’re probably peeing on today
•    Don’t rent space in your head to others
•    Cultivate an attitude of gratitude
•    There is a God—and you’re not it
•    Accept what you can’t change, change what you can; and learn the difference
•    No one can mentally hurt you without your permission
•    Don’t measure your insides by other people’s outsides
•    You can’t control anyone; but you totally control how you react to everyone
•    Happiness is an inside job
•    Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die
•    Find someone you hate; then say a prayer for them
•    Most interpersonal problems come from a tendency to blame, and an inability to confront (thanks Phil)
•    When in doubt, go find some adult supervision
•    Cultivate an attitude of gratitude

None of these require a pair of shoes.
 

When Service Companies Shouldn’t Talk about Products

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I like Continental Airlines. If you have to fly in the US, they’re best of breed. I go out of my way to fly them, and I fly a lot.

Which means I get many chances to hear Larry Kellner, Continental’s CEO and Chairman, do his recorded schtick on the drop-down TV screen at flight’s outset. I still miss Gordon Bethune (what a shame about the silliness that drove him away), but it seems like Kellner’s doing a good job.

Except for one thing. In his spiel, he talks about Continental’s fine “products and services.” And that just rubs me the wrong way.

I do get it, of course. If I were consulting to Kellner, I’d use those words too—in my conversations with him, that is. The abstraction that “P&S” provides is valuable for seeing patterns. Such abstractions are a consultant’s bread and butter, and I dished out a lot of that over my consulting career. I do get it.

But I’m not consulting to Kellner.  And while I am a million-miler, a platinum frequent-flyer for years, a President’s Club member since the days of Eastern and the shuttle, as far as I’m concerned, my main identity is–I’m a passenger on their planes.

I’m not a “frequent-flyer” first—I’m a flyer. I’m not a “customer,” much less a “consumer”—I’m a passenger.  I’m not buying services (and I’m sure as hell not buying a “product,” despite what I might say with my consulting hat on).  When I’m a flyer, I’m buying a plane flight.  And while I’m certainly buying an “experience,” I don’t want you to call it that—I want you to call it a flight.

I trust my life to the insane belief that tons of metal can hang in the sky.  And when Newton’s law of gravity asserts itself, as it inevitably must, I want to believe in Sully, that guy who can float me down onto the Hudson River just like he was landing on a pillow. (And hey Larry–Sully works for that fershlugginer airline affectionately known as Useless Air—heir of predecessors Agony Airlines and SloHawk.  So Larry, I know you guys at my airline, Continental, must have dozens like him–even better!)

I don’t want a high net worth credit product, I want my Platinum Card. I don’t want the best value in the mid-size performance vehicle segment—I want my Ultimate Driving Machine, 5-series please. I don’t want to see the sausage made—I want my Jimmy Dean telling me how great it is, and sounding like Jimmy Dean when he says so.

Larry, I’m sure that when you and Gordon used to kick it back at the crib, you both talked about “product.” But I don’t recall Gordon using the p-word in public. If you’re going to seduce someone, you don’t do it by reading aloud to them from the book “How to Seduce Someone.”

If you’re going to sell me a “product,” just don’t call it that. Talk dirty to me, Larry; tell me about flying, the glory of sitting alone in the front of the bus at 30,000 feet, and about how I’m so, so special. Use your marketing MBA on me–just don’t tell me you’re doing it.

Unless, of course, you want to hire me as a consultant.

In which case, here’s some free consulting.  When the Friendly Skies get wired, treat cell-phone talking just like you treat smoking.  Smoking is not a "product" you choose not to offer.  Ditto cell phone calls.  

Call them both a sin against the glory of flying, and tell us you’re having none of it.   That’s marketing I can believe in.

 

Is it Stupid to Be Trusting?

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The ever-catchy Seth Godin  highlights an ad for the new super-exclusive Visa Black Card.  So rare it’s made of carbon.  So elite that it’s limited to just you, and 2,999,999 of your closest friends. It screams exclusivity right through the mass media it’s advertised in.  

Nicholas Kristof reported last month  on how reliably un-expert experts are.  Philip Tetlock, he reports, studied 82,000 predictions by 284 experts over two decades.  The results:

“It made virtually no difference whether participants had doctorates, whether they were economists, political scientists, journalists or historians, whether they had policy experience or access to classified information, or whether they had logged many or few years of experience,” Mr. Tetlock wrote. 

Indeed, the only consistent predictor was fame — and it was an inverse relationship. The more famous experts did worse than unknown ones.

Dr. Robert Cialdini, the reigning expert in the field of influence, has identified six basic drivers of influence in human beings.  The first is reciprocity—a mutual sense of obligation triggered by the actions or words of one. 

The second and fourth are scarcity (the Black Visa Card) and authority (Jim Cramer).  It is demonstrably stupid to believe that the Black Card is exclusive, and that Cramer is a better stockpicker than the next guy.  Demonstrably.  But we believe both anyway.  (Well, not you and me, of course.  But everyone else does.  The fools.)

In sales, any number of experts will tell you that people buy from people they like, or trust; that people buy with their heart, and rationalize it with their brains.

If you’re not buying any of this, review exhibit A, Bernard Madoff.  He masterfully combined all the triggers into one slick package.  An expert, likeable, you could get in on the deal if you were special (you and your 3 million closest friends), and so forth.

A lot of people I talk to about trust throw up their hands at all this and say, “Anyone who trusts is a fool and a sucker.”  I prefer to call it human.  Trusting is not going away anytime soon; it’s too deeply imbued in our genes and is, net net, too valuable.

We can, of course, get smarter.  But the most likely result of getting “smarter” is to stupidly avoid sensible risk-taking by following the "smart" advice of someone else. 

“Smart” is a vastly over-rated virtue in the human species.  I’ll bet my Black Card on it.
 

Success – and Measuring Success

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How do you measure how much a loved one loves you?

Maybe by the flowers they send. Or the attention they pay to you. Or the look in their eyes when they talk to you, or their curiosity about what you’re doing lately.

You could, in fact, measure each one of those things. Some are easy, like flowers. Others, like curiosity, need decomposing into second-level indicators – how many questions they ask you, the operative pronoun in those questions. The point is, you could do it.

But would you?

Would you ever mistake the measure itself—roses, say—for the love they purport to measure? Of course not. It seems silly to equate the two; the poor sucker who does so is sadly self-deluded and likely unlucky in love.

Roses may be the measure of love–but are not love itself.

Now switch to business. How do you measure success in business? How about by the profits you make? After all, if you create great products that meet real needs in the marketplace and add real value in a customer-delighting manner—well, you’ll get rewarded for it, in the form of profits.

Profits are to business what roses are to love–measures.

So, would you ever mistake the measure—profits—for the success they purport to measure? Do profits really equal success?

Unlike love-and-roses, all too often our answer is ‘yes.’ Yes, we say, the whole point of business is to make profits. Success consists of making money. It seems silly, we say, to differentiate between the two–the poor sucker who does so is sadly self-deluded and likely to get fleeced by sharper competitors.

In amore, we know the difference between love itself and pale trailing indicators of its recent presence. But in business, we confuse the yardstick with length itself; we’ve lost the ability to distinguish maps from reality.

When did profit move from being a measure of success, to being iconized as success itself?

Thinking that the point of business is to make money is like thinking the point of living is to eat. Profit is a byproduct of doing great business—an indicator. Not a goal.

If all you focus on is roses, you’ll at least have flowers at the end of the day; but you’ll fail at love. In business, if all you focus on is profits, you won’t even get that. Because, simply, we don’t trust people who are only in it for the money.

Incenting Good Behavior? Or Insulting Customers?

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I got my hair cut today by Diane.  Who is great, by the way.

We talked about how good hair stylists are often great trusted advisors.  Their patients confide in them in ways that lawyers, accountants and consultants can only envy. 

And they do it through executing trusted advisor basics.  Listening.  Being concerned about the client—soliciting preferences, and only then offering suggestions.  Letting the client do most of the talking.  Practicing discretion.  And yes, doing a great job on the hair.

But this isn’t about Diane; it’s about what happened to Diane.

She went to an orthodontist.  A new one, a dentist with whom she’d had no prior experience, and therefore about whom she had a mild wait-and-see attitude.

She got a late start, traffic was busy, weather was bad, and she took a wrong turn.  She called to say she’d be a little late.  In the end, she got there about 8 minutes after her scheduled appointment.

The dentist was young, and had a modern-looking office, including a computerized check-in station, toward which the receptionist motioned her.  She input her information and hit enter.

The computer screen confirmed her information, and then—in large letters, having matched her scheduled appointment time against the computer’s internal clock—said:

           You’re Late!

Diane’s reaction was one of quiet shock.  “I really couldn’t believe they did that,” she said.  “I mean, I guess I don’t mind myself; I know they need to run a business, and I was late and that’s my responsibility. But I’m an adult.  Suppose a kid came in and their mom let them log in, and they got that in their face.  It wouldn’t be their fault they were late.  To put that embarrassment and shame on a kid, that’s just not right.”

Diane is a generous person.  I’d have been a bit more peeved.

Is there a case for the dentist?  Sure. Perhaps it was meant as a mild reminder to patients that they share some responsibility for keeping the scheduled patient flow going during the day.  It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a trend of patients being late, and this guy is doing his best in a humorous way to help shift behavior.

But I’m not buying it.  To me, it comes off as a heavy-handed move by some customer-phobic techno-dweeb in love with what he imagines to be others’ view of him. 

I doubt Diane’s going back.  I wouldn’t.  Would you?
 

Can Advertising Avoid Being Cynical?

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I saw a TV ad the other night that intrigued me. 

It showed a mother who had clearly been called to the police station about her son, who apparently had been hauled in for street racing in the family car.  The kid was clearly remorseful and ashamed, not wanting to talk about what had happened.  She was emotionally there for him, but also firmly asking him to tell her exactly what had happened.

The tag line was something like, “Responsibility.  Liberty Mutual.”

Not your everyday ad. 

Now, I like to think I’m as cynical as the next guy, but I have to say, my first reaction was not cynicism.  Instead, I thought, ‘Well that was gutsy.  I wonder if they can back it up?’

Turns out the ad is part of a broader campaign highlighting the notion of individual responsibility  , which in turn is the 2009 version of the company’s broader campaign several-year campaign about responsibility, begun back in 2006 and run by Hill Holiday.    It comes complete with website, www.responsibilityproject.com, which has had several million visitors since opening in 2008.

Without having looked deeply into it, I have to say I like this.  It’s a relevant issue.  It’s an issue they’ve done a nice job of framing, without overtly anchoring it to a particular political point of view.  And while they do say they’re about responsibility, it still has the flavor of sponsoring a dialogue, rather than of wrapping themselves in the flag. 

Business being business, some idiot had to muck it up a few years ago by buying google adwords related to an advertising exec’s suicide.  

And, my viewpoint is not shared by at least one critic, Jack Shafer at Slate, who calls it pandering on the scale of Chevron’s quasi-environmentalist ads.  

I’m glad Shafer is upholding the virtues of suspicion while I take a day off from it.  Still, at least Liberty Mutual doesn’t address me as “America” and  claim “that’s why we at [PickYourBigCo] is doing something about [PickYourBigIssue]. 

I give them credit.  A dialogue about the concept of responsibility at the individual and social level?  As long as they stand back and let the dialogue roll, I think they deserve the credit they get by associating their name  with it.  
 

Interview Like a Trusted Advisor

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Recently I had coffee with a group of newly unemployed professionals in my community. Most of them haven’t had to interview for a few years, and they were looking for an edge.

I thought about it and realized – many interviews are conducted on both sides by people who really don’t know how to interview. The interviewer asks questions, presumably to assess fit, and the job hunter tries to impress. That can be seen as over-confident or desparate, in either case, without regard to whether the job hunter is truly right for the job.

I suggested another approach: The real goal of both parties ought to be to determine whether there is a fit on all levels. Change the dynamic of the interview itself to a collaborative discovery. It may not be easy. Interviewers may not be skilled and veering off the prepared questions and format may be difficult. Job hunters want to show that they have what interviewers want, and may be afraid to acknowledge where they fall short.

Changing this dynamic requires both of you to take the risk of thinking unconventionally. If you can move the conversation to what’s really at stake for both parties you can truly distinguish yourself.

How can you collaborate wth the interviewer? Here’s what I suggest:

1. Explore the job requirements together. Understand what is needed and why. Discuss the specifics of what needs to be done, how it’s been done in the past, and why there’s a need to fill this job now. Don’t be afraid to discuss whether it makes sense. Better to address the job now, than for the employer to discover two months from now that the need was different than originally thought.

2. Discuss the ideal candidate. Ask what type if person would be perfect for the job and why. You may agree or have input. Find out what got you in the door – what intrigued someone enough to interview you. Ask what qualifications the interviewer thinks you have, and those he or she thinks you lack. Discuss those qualifications openly.

3. Sell by doing, not by telling. Make it easy for the interviewer to see how you might approach a situation in the job. Your exploration of the job requirements might uncover something that your role might address. You might have enough information by now to talk about how you would address the situation.

4. Understand the decision-making process. Ask the questions that will help you understand how a hiring decision will be made. And it’s not a bad idea to ask about the other talent they are interviewing. If you bring up the subject in a collaborative rather than competitive way, it will be heard with the genuiness you intend.

5. Be open and clear about whether you believe you are right for the job. Express whether you think you are and note your concerns. Don’t be afraid to refer to what got you the interview in the first place.

Notice there is absolutely nothing in these steps that says you should try to dazzle the interviewer with your credentials and your brilliant ideas. Nothing that talks about you selling yourself in the traditional way. Being transparent and collaborative in an interview requires that you are not arrogant (usually a sign of weakness), and certainly does not give the impression that you are desperate for a job.

Not to say you shouldn’t put your best foot forward. Or help the interviewer see what you can do – and how that might benefit the company. But do so only after you learn as much as you can about the job, and only as part of a mutual exploration into whether you might be the right fit. If you are, after a single interview you’re well on your way to earning their confidence and their trust. Then you will both understand that the interest and enthusiasm you’re expressing by the end of the interview are genuine. With the beginnings of trust established you’re bound to find your odds of landing the job substantially improved.

Do you have other tips for interviewing that build trust? Please share them as comments here!

Operating Transparently

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The article Is Transparency Always the Best Policy? appears this week in Harvardbusiness.org. The article is about Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the answer to the blog’s question, based on this sample of one, would appear to be a resounding ‘yes.’

In matters great and small, Levy has simply made it an operating practice to behave transparently. His great results may surprise many, but they make a great deal of common sense.

Transparency is one of the four Trust Principles I describe in my own work. The other three are other-focus, collaboration, and a medium-to-long term perspective. Here’s the business case for transparency.

If you are transparent about your activities, you are saying you have nothing to hide. If you have nothing to hide, then people trust what you do.

If you are transparent about what you say, then you don’t risk saying one thing to one person and another to another. You don’t appear to be two-faced; you appear to have integrity—you say the same thing to all persons. (And, it’s a lot easier to remember what you said if there’s only one version).

If you are transparent about what you think, then people can observe your thinking, and see that you are not editing what you say. They feel you are available to them, that you are not segmenting them off.

If you are not transparent in your actions, your words, and your thoughts, then people wonder about your motives. Why are you doing what you’re doing?

What is it you really mean when you say something? And what are you really thinking when you’re thinking?

Suspicion about motives colors ever aspect of trust—it affects your credibility, your perceived reliability, and the degree to which people confide in you. The antidote to a bad case of suspicion is transparency. It’s as true in the financial and regulatory world, in the world of negotiation, and in the world of accounting, as it is interpersonally.

With all the obvious advantages that transparency conveys—why aren’t we all more transparent more often?

There are a thousand answers, varying in particular, but with some common threads in general. At the root of it, I think, is fear.

Fear that others will take advantage of us. Fear that we will be misunderstood, or shamed. Fear that others will see the true inner “me” and thus steal the faux power we foolishly think we maintain by being opaque.

Transparency is both a result of lowered fear, and a cause of lowering fear. Sharing information with another encourages another to share with us. Disclosing information within a company—as Paul Levy did so frequently—begets teamwork and lowers suspicion.

The willingness to be transparent in negotiation helps the other party figure out what it is that you want—so the paradoxical result of taking a risk is that you increase the odds of getting what you want.

Transparency is an invitation to collaboration and connection. It lowers fear, it increases trust.

It feels like taking a risk, but it’s really risk-mitigation in disguise.

Operating transparently isn’t just a hospital procedure.

 

April Carnival of Trust: the Best Yet?

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This month is the 22nd Carnival of Trust.I take nothing away from the other editions by saying that the bar has been raised yet again; this particular Carnival stands out.

Hosted by James Irvine and Trip Allen of Egyii (think "edgy’), out Singapore way, what intrigues me so much about this edition is the case that Allen and Irvine make for trust as one of the most pervasive elements of doing business in the new milennium.  I defy you to read this Carnival and not come away sold that if you’re engaged with trust, you’re not doing business right in today’s world.

For those of you who may not be following, a Carnival is a collection of blogs.  The Carnival of Trust, however, is special, and not just becausd it focuses on trust.

The Carnival of Trust is hosted on a rotating basis, and each host picks the Top Ten–no more, no less–trust-related blogs from the past month, from the fields of Strategy, Economics and Politics; Leadership and Management; Sales and Marketing; and Advising and Influencing.  Not only that, but the hosts weave them together with succinct commentary that adds its own value.

What you, the reader, get is intelligent selection, thoughtful content, and incisive commentary.  Beats any search engine going. 

In this Carnival you’ve got articles connecting love and profit; profit and new social media; branding; and the economics of giving away.  All connected by some very insightful commentary by the egyii folks. 

Like to see past Carnivals?  Like to enter your own blog piece into the funnel for the next month’s Carnival?  Visit the Carnival home page; and submit material for the next Carnival here. 

Give this one a read.  And drop a note to thank James and Trip for the great work they did here.  Just click on April Carnival of Trust, and enjoy.

The Open Letter Main Street CEOs Should Write to Wall Street

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Dear Wall Street CEO:

You’ve been taking it on the chin lately. On the other hand, the only CEO Obama has fired recently came from my side of town–Main Street—so maybe you’re not so bad off.

I have a proposition for you. For both of us, actually.

I, a Main Street CEO, am going to show you, Wall Street, how to create some real value out of “thin air.” I know, you think that’s your schtick, but hear me out.

From here on out, I propose to tell the truth about our earnings.

It’s that simple. We tell the truth about our earnings–warts and all. You come to believe it. You then no longer shave your estimates of our quarterly earnings, because we will no longer smooth them by moving things offsheet, or by tweaking policies from our financial subsidiaries.

Call it the “truth factor.” It really isn’t, though. It’s simply reversing the “suspicion factor” you’ve always had in place. Remember “quality of earnings?” Well, we’re going to provide the highest quality of all; not conservative accounting, but transparent accounting.

That’s the kind of financial value creation I know you understand. But let me go further—this policy is also going to create real value—as in higher productivity, lower costs, greater customer retention, high quality, better customer service—all that good stuff that actually drives business. Here’s how.

This morning, I’m going to announce company-wide that we are no longer including short-term incentives in our performance assessment plans. Here’s why.

Every sentient businessman knows that the dumbest way to run a business is to change plans every 3 months. The smartest way to run a business is to develop a long-term plan, based on long-standing business principles and policies and on core values. Then execute on it.

It is long-term plans, executed well, that produce the best short-term results—quarter after quarter after quarter.

But somehow, in my firm and nearly all others on “Main Street,” we lost track. It started out by our saying, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it,” and “what gets measured gets managed.” So we started measuring everything quarterly (OK, I admit–way shorter than quarterly).

Maybe we got that from you guys.

Now, it pains me to admit this, but somehow—I know, it sounds crazy—we just flat lost track of the simple idea that long-term management produces the best short-term results. And we started thinking that because we were measuring short-term, we had to manage short-term. After a while, nobody would take a 3-week risk. Or honor a 4-week deal. Or sign up for a 6-month customer plan.

Like I said, dumb. But it’s the truth. It’s what we did.

But no more. From now on, we’re managing for the long-term. That doesn’t mean we’re giving up on metrics—precise metrics are critical for all kinds of things, like trend analysis and trouble-shooting. It’s just that using them like a steel cable linking to performance pay and quarterly earnings is not going to be one of those uses.

Our CFO is going to stop focusing on quarterly numbers within and without the firm. Internally, we are going to very clearly explain the long-term basis for performance assessment and goal-setting we will be using. After that, anyone found to be rewarding behavior solely for the sake of short-term numbers will be hauled before the management committee and asked to justify it in strategic terms, or to explain, "What part of long term management for performance do you not get?"

And mark my word, our earnings will go up. Because long-term management fosters relationships, trust, continuity, efficiencies, effectiveness, scale economies, customer loyalty, and employee engagement. And that makes money the old fashioned way–by creating real value.

Externally, you and yours are going to have deal with greater earnings beta from us. The quarterlies are going to be more volatile. But we’re done interpreting numbers for you.

From now on, you have to be good enough at what you do to discern the underlying pattern and explain it (hint: it will be generally NorthEast). We’ll tell you up front our policies, and show you over time how we live up to our pledge of transparency.

So my question to you, Mr. Wall Street, is do you have the guts to play the new game? My cards are on the table, as of this morning. Where are yours?