Everything Is Dynamic
June 30, 2010
There’s an old saying that “the more things change, the more they stay the same. And while I understand the sentiment behind the saying, I have to take exception with it, because in reality, nothing ever stays the same.
Time marches on, and with it, we continue to see advances in technology, medicine, and social attitudes, although there’s a debate whether changes in social attitudes are truly “advances.”
We’ve gone from writing letters to each other in my parent’s generation to sending e-mails in my generation, and now our kids simply text everything to each other. I recently saw four middle-school-aged girls walking alongside each other at the mall, cell phones in hand, and it seemed as if they were actually texting each other!
Some advances, though, are clearly beneficial. For example, my 87-year-old uncle – still in reasonably good shape mentally and physically – is alive today because of a heart procedure that had been performed on him about eight years ago. When he asked his doctors why they hadn’t done this procedure ten years earlier when he was first diagnosed with heart problems, they said that the procedure they were going to perform on my uncle wasn’t even on the radar screen ten years before.
This was unfortunate, of course, because my father – this uncle’s fraternal twin – had already passed away from a heart attack at the relatively young age of 54.
Similarly, my own experience with state-of-the-art medicine occurred five years ago, when a karate injury made it necessary for me to have a nearly six-hour surgery to repair both a torn ACL and PCL.
The procedure involved removing the middle third of the patellar tendon from each knee and using these to replace the torn ligaments (ACL and PCL refer to the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments.) In case you missed that, they were using tendons to replace ligaments.
And the amazing thing about it was that about three months after the surgery, the tendons actually transformed into ligaments – as if they’d been ligaments right from the start!
When I asked the doctor about how this worked, he said they weren’t actually sure, but that I was very lucky, because even five years prior to this, the procedure wasn’t even science fiction!
Everything around us changes at an incredibly fast pace. The people who survive and benefit from the changes are the ones who can see them coming and best anticipate how to utilize this knowledge to their best advantage.
What changes are waiting for you just over the horizon?
Have You Ever Seen This Before?
June 1, 2010
Back in April we took a mini-vacation to Washington, DC, to celebrate Lorie’s birthday, and to get together with some very close friends – two couples we’ve known for over 25 years.
It was the week of the Cherry Blossom Festival; the weather was perfect, and the trees were in full bloom. Wanting to explore and get some exercise at the same time, we went to a bike-rental shop near the Old Post Office, and rented some “hybrid” bikes for the day.
Since Cherry Blossom Week is one of the busiest tourist weeks in DC, there was a line to rent the bikes, but nothing really inconvenient. That’s because people were starting their rides at different times in the morning, depending on when they got up and made their way out of their respective hotel rooms.
Dropping off the bikes was a different story altogether, because with the exception of a few people who returned them early, everyone else was bringing them back at the same time.
Being a “process hound,” I couldn’t help but be puzzled at the very long line of people waiting to return their bikes, take care of the paperwork, and finalize the payments.
First, you handed your bike to one of the employees who took it from you into the building. There was no receipt, no checklist to make sure you returned your helmet or lock, and no way to prove that you had actually returned the bike. An unscrupulous person could have given the bike to a friend, gone on to the long return line, and later claimed that, “I gave the bike to the guy in the shorts.” There would be no way to prove otherwise.
Okay, now on to the line. When you finally got to the counter, you gave the person your name; they went rifling through a plastic file box until they found your receipt, and then processed your payment manually; whether by cash, check, or credit card.
As I watched this, all I could think was how inefficient this was – both in terms of their staff utilization, and, more importantly, the time they were making their customers waste standing in line.
They could have completely streamlined the whole process by asking themselves the simple question, “Have I ever seen this before?” In other words, is there any other situation like this where they might have a process I could borrow, adapt, or emulate?
Think about it for a minute yourself – can you think of a business that’s similar to this? Where you rent a vehicle for a period of time, and then return it and settle your payment? Of course! The car-rental business.
The process is very simple there: you pick up the vehicle; use it; and then bring it back to the lot. But instead of making everyone stand in line (a dicey thing to ask people to do when they have flights to catch) they have an attendant with a barcode scanner who logs in the vehicle, confirms that you’d like to pay for it with the card already on file, and then prints you the receipt…all in the span of about 30 seconds.
As an aside, when I suggested this to the manager on duty, she mumbled something about how much something like that would cost, and said to send her some information.
I didn’t bother to follow up with her, because (1) she was going to be more concerned with what it cost instead of total return on investment, (2) she didn’t seem to understand that the current situation was problematic, and (3) she lacked the imagination to see something that was working in a “parallel” industry could be adapted to her own.
When faced with a problem, the first thing you should ask yourself is “Where have I seen this before?” There’s rarely a need to start from scratch and “reinvent the wheel” – someone has been there before you, faced a similar issue, and discovered a solution you can use.
A little research, a little initiative, and a little imagination can go a long way towards getting you the results you want!
Have a Process, But Have a Brain…
May 27, 2010
We recently attended the grand opening of the new building recently completed for a local art museum. This was a major undertaking for them, taking several years to complete.
The celebration was a two-day event held over the weekend, with bands, hands-on exhibits, and food, in addition to all the new art being displayed. It happened to be a particularly hot day, so we naturally brought our water bottles with us. And everything was fine until we actually walked in to see the new building.
One of the guards stopped us as we walked in; pointed at my empty water bottle, and said, “Sorry, you can’t bring that in here.” Since the bottle was clearly empty, I was curious as to why. This was our conversation…
Me: Oh, I understand that we can’t bring in food or drinks, but this bottle is empty.
Guard: It doesn’t matter, you can’t bring it in.
Me: Can I ask why?
Guard: Because that’s the rule.
Me: Sorry, I wasn’t clear – why is that the rule?
Guard: Because it’s an “object” and it could damage the exhibits.
Me: But that woman is carrying a very large bag over her shoulder that could do more damage.
Guard: Bags are allowed; bottles aren’t.
Me: But you didn’t search her bag – she could have three full bottles of water in there!
Guard: We don’t search bags.
Me: And that guy is pushing a very large stroller with kids swinging all over it near the exhibits.
Guard: Children are allowed.
Me: So these things – all more potentially dangerous are allowed in and an empty bottle is not?
Guard: Yes sir.
Sometimes when you come face to face with an immovable object, it’s best to move on and deal with it later. “Later” came about a week later when I called the director of operations of the museum and explained the situation to him. To his credit, he was appalled, and apologized for the guard being overzealous and putting a damper on our visit to the museum.
Then he said words that were like music to my ears: “Yeah, sometimes these people get so caught up in the procedures that they forget to use their brains.”
Processes are important, but when the process just doesn’t make sense, you have to question it, review it, and make the changes necessary to produce the desired outcome without causing unnecessary conflict.
Take a look at your processes – are they delivering what you want them to?
Two for One!
May 14, 2010
A few days ago, I stopped by our local Bruegger’s Bagel shop to pick up some breakfast on my way into the office.
A big fan of process and efficiency, I couldn’t help but notice the actions of an employee I hadn’t seen there before.
He called up the first customer and asked her what she wanted. “Whole wheat, toasted, with light cream cheese,” she said. He dutifully selected the bagel from the bin, sliced it in half, and put it into the toaster – an industrial model that took the bagel halves on a conveyor to be toasted, and then, about 30 seconds later, dropped them through a chute onto the counter.
But rather than wait idly by as the bagel was toasted, he did something so simple and obvious that it was almost elegant in its correctness: he asked the next customer for her order. Since she also wanted her bagel toasted, he cut hers, and put it behind the other one on the conveyor.
No sooner had he done this than the first bagel dropped down; he applied the cream cheese, wrapped it up, and handed it to the customer. He then took the next customer’s order, cut that bagel, and put it in the toaster – just in time for the second person’s bagel to exit the toaster.
Now I know I’m easily amused, but in a week where incompetence seemed to be attacking me from every corner, this was like a ray of sunshine. By taking a simple and obvious step, he was able to nearly double the throughput of the bagel shop – preparing two bagels in the time it normally took to make just one – especially important as the morning crowd starts arriving and the lines became longer.
Are there any obvious steps you can take to streamline your own business?
We Need a Photo Id!
April 14, 2010
It’s tough to make time for everything, and more often than not, work takes priority over other important areas, including personal fitness. So when I find the time to work out, I try to squeeze it in, sometimes racing out the door to make a class.
Unfortunately, once I left so quickly that I grabbed the wrong set of keys, and along with them Lorie’s club ID card instead of my own. No problem, I thought, as I realized what I had done, I’ll just explain it to the guy at the front desk.
As I walked into the building, he greeted me by name and reached out to take my card so he could scan it into the system. When I explained what had happened, and that I didn’t have my card, he asked me for a photo ID.
Having run out of the house so quickly, I also forgot to bring my wallet, so I didn’t have that either. He then got a very nervous look on his face and walked into the manager’s office to see if he could get special permission to let me in. They did, but “just this time.”
As I was on the bike in that early-morning spinning class, it occurred to me that they had taken my picture when I joined the club, and that I vaguely recall that the picture was displayed on the computer screen when they scanned the bar code on the ID card (which, by the way, does not have the photo on it).
On the way out, I asked the guy about this: “I’m guessing that the reason you go through the check-in process is that you want to make sure that everyone entering the building is who they say they are, and that their memberships are all current, right?” He confirmed that this was the case.
“So,” I continued, “overlooking the fact that you know me and greet me by name when I come in, couldn’t you just type in my name, bring up my record, verify that my membership is current, and look at the photo on the screen to confirm that it’s really me?”
“Yes,” he answered, “and that would make perfect sense. Unfortunately, that’s not the process from headquarters, and If I don’t follow the process to the letter, I could get fired.”
And this is a real issue in most companies: people blindly following processes that fail to accomplish what they’re supposed to, or do so in a way that completely and totally inconveniences the very customers they’re supposed to be helping.
As we discussed last week, processes are important, and processes are good…but only when they help you in delivering the highest level of service to your customers.
Why Can’t We Bring Cameras?
April 8, 2010
I had to travel up to New York City a few weeks ago to sign some papers about the estate of my mother who passed away last November. It was a quick trip – up on Sunday, lunch with my uncle, a visit with my sister and her family, and an early-morning drive into the city.
Once we got inside the building, we had the best customer service I’ve had from any government employee, but we had to experience something very puzzling to get to that point.
You see, when we entered the court building, we had to go through a metal detector, just like at the airport. Mind you, this was the Civil Court building – not Criminal Court. Because I was going directly to the airport from the courthouse, I had my computer bag with me – the same bag I take with me whenever I travel.
I know what sets off the alarm and what doesn’t, and still the machine kept beeping every time my bag went through. Finally we found the cause: my Kodak Zi8 video camera and Olympus OM-1 digital voice recorder.
Turns out, you can’t bring video or audio recording devices into the courthouse. But while they were checking and vouchering these two items, I watched in utter amazement as literally hundreds of people entered the very same building carrying iPhones, Blackberrys, and other devices, each fully capable of shooting video and recording sound.
When I asked the supervisor about this, she said, “Yeah, we know that’s a hole in the system, but when we tried to hold everyone’s phone, it just got too crazy.”
So it’s a major security breach to allow recording devices into the building…unless it’s too much of a hassle to enforce the rule because most modern cell phones have recording devices built in. I get it. Okay, maybe not so much. Okay, not at all.
Look, processes are good. They help you present a consistent face to the customer. But when the process causes more problems than it solves, is inconsistent, or is simply too difficult to enforce, then it’s time to find another process. Anything else, and you might just be found guilty of bad management.
Please Take Me to the Airport
April 1, 2010
Training new employees is a difficult but essential part of any business, but not everyone gets it right.
I was returning from a trip, and had just boarded the shuttle to take me to the off-site lot where I park my car. Normally, there’s just a single driver who helps load the bags and collects the parking stubs that indicate where in the lot the individual cars are parked.
This time, though, there was a second employee on the bus. It turns out that the driver was new, and the second person was “training” him on how to do the job. I included the quotation marks because I’m not sure I’d actually classify what I saw as training.
It was more like, “Oh yeah, right there on the right, that’s where you should have stopped to see if we had any people waiting there.” Or, “Right – where we just passed? That’s where you call into the dispatcher to let him know your location.”
There was no training manual, no checklists, and no formal procedures. And I’m guessing that the turnover rate for shuttle drivers is pretty high, making this training a fairly regular occurrence.
I’m sure the world won’t come to an end because of this spotty training effort, but I might find myself stranded one day as the van drives right by me as it misses the stop.
What would be the impact of someone not being properly trained in your organization? A little planning, a clear set of processes, and a definite plan will make sure you don’t miss the bus!
Backup Recording
February 11, 2010
There’s a lot to keep track of when you run a business or manage one. Details upon details upon details. Being organized can help. Having processes can help. Having a backup plan is essential. Let me explain…
As part of our Business Self-Defense™ Inner Circle Gold Coaching Program , we include a monthly live webinar on a specific marketing or business growth topic. We record these interviews and then have them edited so we can make them available on our web site.
The process involves making a recording of the screen, a separate recording of the audio portion of the call, and then merging them together.
Normally, we use a Skype add-on called “Pamela” to record, but just to be sure, I also use the recording feature of our conference-call provider to make a second recording. And good thing: a few weeks ago, my A/V guy e-mailed me to let me know that the audio I had sent was actually from a different month’s program.
At first, I got a little scared. Then I remembered the backup recordings. With just a little apprehension, I went to the conference-call web site and… there it was – a clean copy of the webinar audio.
Crisis averted!
It’s not possible to have built-in redundancy for every single thing you do, but it’s a really good idea to have backups for your important processes.
Watch Out for Moving Parts
February 3, 2010
I was talking to an old “office neighbor” – the guy who had the next office from us where we used to be located. He owns the master franchise for North Carolina for the “Anytime Fitness” chain, and we were talking about the complexity of operating all the units he has throughout the state, in addition to the new locations he’s constantly opening.
The key, he said, was to try and avoid “moving parts.” Puzzled, and wondering if perhaps he was suffering from oxygen deprivation as a result of working out too hard himself, I pointed out that virtually every piece of equipment in every one of his locations was chock full of moving parts.
He smiled, and pointed out that the key to managing an enterprise of this scope is to have as much of it on “autopilot” as possible. Yes, there are a lot moving parts in the machines themselves, but he isn’t personally responsible for maintaining them – there was an outside group he hired to do that. There is a person (sometimes more than one) at each location who is the on-site person for registration of new members, personal training, etc., but he didn’t do that either.
What he did was to create systems and processes which could be duplicated and deployed as he opened each new unit, effectively reducing the number of “moving parts” he had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
By creating a set of well defined processes, you can also free yourself from the overwhelming burden of having too many small details to take care of. It can make your life at work a whole lot easier, and give you enough free time to do something fun…like visit Anytime Fitness!
Say “Hello!”
January 14, 2010
Sometimes the little things say a lot about a business. Last weekend, we went to a free wine tasting at the Angus Barn restaurant in Raleigh. This is a local institution of sorts, and is one of only 72 restaurants to hold Wine Spectator’s Grand Award.
The wines we tasted were okay, not great, but the highlight was the tour of the restaurant’s 30,000-bottle wine cellar. To get to the cellar, you had to walk right through the main kitchen, and pass by the teaching kitchen where Iron Chef winner Walter Royal was giving a demonstration.
The interesting thing was that everyone we passed in the kitchen and in the back hallways – from the chefs to the waitresses to the dishwashers, stopped as we walked by, smiled, and greeted us. “Hi!” “How are you today?” “Thanks for coming in!”
Clearly, they had been trained to do this, but it wasn’t just one or two people – it was every single employee we passed!
Creating that kind of culture – and seeing it play out in “real life” means that everything else about the place is going to be done right. That’s why they’ve been around for 40 years, and why it’s the local institution it is.
Do you have similar processes in place in your company? Do your employees – even the ones who don’t have regular customer interaction – know what’s expected of them and how their work ultimately does impact the customer?
Figure out how to make that happen in your organization and you’ll have a good reason to celebrate the new year!
