World Changers: A book review by Bob Morris

World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business as We Knew It
John A. Byrne
Portfolio/Penguin Group (2011)

Exemplars of an opportunistic mindset and acceptance of risk and potential failure, as well as independence and control

John A. Byrne is chairman and editor-in-chief of C-Change Media Inc., a digital media startup that is launching a network of websites for the global business community. C-Change currently has two highly successful sites, Poets&Quants.com and Poets&QuantsforExecs.com. Little more than two years old, P&Q generates more than one million monthly page views and boasts a book imprint division which published its first title in 2012. World Changers is his first book in ten years since the publication of his collaboration with General Electric Chairman Jack Welch. Straight from the Gut (2003). His other books include the recently published It’s All About Who You Hire, How They Lead…and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader (2013), co-authored with Mort Mandel, a self-made billionaire and highly successful entrepreneur in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds. Also, Informed Consent (1995), The Whiz Kids (1993), Chainsaw (1999), Odyssey (1987), and The Headhunters (1986).

Years ago during an annual meeting, GE’s then chairman and CEO, Jack Welch, explained his reasons for admiring entrepreneurial companies: “”For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy.”

Byrne observes, “I’ve been flattered to have had General Electric CEO Jack Welch, an intrapreneur of there ever was one, ask me to work closely with him on his memoir – a collaboration that resulted in my spending more than a thousand hours with him. I envy that unique opportunity as well as Byrne’s conversations with 27 entrepreneurs whose 25 companies did indeed “change business as we knew it.”

Two of them co-founded Home Depot (Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus) and another pair (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) co-founded Google. During the conversation with Blank and Marcus, Marcus recalls when they “threw GE out” and purchased their light bulbs from Philips. Welch responded, “Why would you do that to us? We’re friends.” Marcus’ reaction? “He was full of crap. His thing was bottom-line oriented and ours was customer oriented and it just didn’t match. It didn’t work. We bought a few things from him, including refrigerators. But he never got the bulb business back. He didn’t deserve to get it back.”

Byrne provides a brief but remarkably informative introduction to each conversation. However different the entrepreneurs may be in most other respects, all of them “share a set of common behaviors and attitudes. Ernst & Young’s own research identified what it calls the essence of an entrepreneur. It is, if you will, the shared DNA of people who are using their life’s work as an expression of self.” There are three core attributes that every entrepreneur shares: An Opportunity Mind-set, Acceptance of Risk and Potential Failure, and Independence and Control.

“To these three core strands, entrepreneurs bring drive, tenacity, and persistence. They live what they believe, building success on the basis of a strong culture and values. They seek out niches and market gaps. They are the architects of their own passionate and focused vision. While being non-conformist, they also are team players. And they are voracious networkers, building an ecosystem of finance, people, and know-how.”

Here in Dallas near the downtown area, we have a Farmer’s Market at which several merchants offer slices of fresh fruit as samples of their wares. In that spirit, I now share a few brief quotations from Byrne’s abundant orchard.

John Mackey, Whole Foods Market: “I do think we have a disruptive business model. But we don’t think about it in those ways. We are not a bunch of business school graduates who are trying to come up with a disruptive business model. We are a purpose-driven business, which is attempting to fulfill its mission. (Page 13)

Howard Schultz, Starbucks: “There was no efficiency at Starbucks. We were flying high without instruments. I say that with a smile but we shouldn’t be proud of that. But growth and success cover up a lot of mistakes. It’s hard to look in the rear-view mirror when you’re looking forward all the time.” (59)

Jess Bezos, Amazon: “The balance of power online moves away from the merchant toward the consumer. This is because customers have been information online. Comparison shopping is just a click away.” (67)

Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines: “The business of business is people. In a lot of companies you have to surrender your personality when you show up for work…We never felt that way. We always felt that if you allow people to be themselves at work, they will enjoy what they are doing. They’ll be more productive as a consequence of enjoying it.” (75)

Steve Jobs, Apple: “Picasso had a saying: `Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. Part of what made the Mackintosh great was the people who were working on it were musicians, poets, artists, historians, zoologists, who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.” (88)

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn: “The old paradigm of climbing up a stable career ladder is dead and gone. No career is a sure thing anymore. The un certain, rapidly changing conditions in which h entrepreneurs start companies are what it’s no like for all of us fashioning a career. Therefore you should approach career strategy the same way an entrepreneur approaches starting a business.”

Oprah Winfrey, Harpo, Inc.: “How do you know when you’re doing something right? How do you know that? If feels so. What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life. When you’re supposed to do something or not to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know. The trick is to learn to check your ego at the door and start checking your gut instead.” (159)

Larry Page, Google: “We didn’t start out with a search engine at all. In late 19945, I started collecting the links on the Web, because my adviser [at Stanford's Graduate School] and I decided that would be a good thing to do. We didn’t know exactly what I was going to do with it, but it seemed like no one was really looking at the links on the Web – which pages link to which pages. So it is a huge graph. I figured I could get a dissertation and do something fun and perhaps practical at the same time, which is really what motivates me.” (199)

Phil Knight, Nike: “In the early days, when we were just a running shoe company and almost all our employees were runners, we understood the consumer very well. There is no shoe school, so where do you recruit people for a company that develops and markets running shoes? The running track. It made sense, and it worked. We and the consumer were one in the same.” (240)

Great stuff can be found within all of the 25 conversations. I feel obliged to point out that Byrne is an active participant, indeed an erudite contributor rather than someone who merely tees up questions to which others respond. I hope this brief commentary of mine makes crystal clear that John Byrne was uniquely well-qualified to conduct interviews of 27 entrepreneurs “who changed business as we knew it.” What they reveal and Byrne’s brilliant analysis of their revelations provide a wealth of information, insights, and wisdom in this single volume, published by Portfolio/Penguin Group (December 2011). These exemplars of entrepreneurism do indeed possess an opportunistic mindset and acceptance of risk and potential failure, as well as independence and control.

When Values Are Strategic: A book review by Bob Morris

When Values Are Strategic: How the Basic Values of Procter & Gamble Transformed Leadership at Fortune 500 Companies
Rick Tocqigny with Andy Butcher and the P&G Alumni Network
FT Press/A Pearson Imprint (2012)

A brilliant examination of the power and impact of core values that can transform individuals as well as organizations

With regard to the title of this book, I presume to suggest that core values always have strategic implications, for better or worse. If those values tolerate and thus condone incivility, for example, they will have a profound, negative impact on an organization’s efforts to achieve its strategic objectives. The reverse is also true. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company offers an excellent case in point. At every opportunity, it not only affirms but demonstrates each day that “we are ladies and gentlemen who are privileged to serve other ladies and gentlemen.” With regard to Southwest Airlines, retired chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, expressed its core values best when observing, “We take great care of our people, they take great care of our customers, and our customers take great care of our investors.”

With Andy Butcher, Rick Tocquigny provides a wealth of information, insights, and counsel when explaining “how the basic values of Procter & Gamble transformed leadership at Fortune 500 Companies.” As is true of all other outstanding business books, this one is driven by research…but with a clever twist. More than 1,000 P&G alumni and current employees were surveyed. The detailed results are provided in section 9 of the Appendix (Pages 242-252). A total of 36 of the respondents are also quoted extensively within a narrative framework that consists of six Parts. In fact, a separate chapter is devoted to each contributor. The titles of the Parts correctly suggest recurring themes: sustaining industry leadership, applying core values for capability, core values and teamwork, core values drive vision, doing what is right [as well as doing it right], and changing lives.

The book concludes with the last theme and that is eminently proper, given the fact that core values can transform people who embrace them…and those people can then transform an organization, sometimes even a country. As former P&G chairman, president, and CEO, A.G. Lafley, explains in the Foreword, “The stories in this book celebrate the gift we were all given – core values that really work. And they show how robust focus on core values adds great enterprise value and value to your personal life. Core values at work can bring out more engagement, more fulfillment, better work-life balance, and long-term business and financial success for your organization, yourself, and the communities in which h you live and work.”

The book’s subtitle emphasizes leadership and that includes but is by no means limited to occupants of the C-suite. On the contrary, values-driven leadership is urgently needed in any organization, at all levels and in all areas of operation. As Tocquigny and most of the 36 contributors indicate, P&G’s basic values (e.g. honesty, fairness, tradition, trust, work ethic, mutual respect, and integrity) are embedded in its employees as well as those who relocated to other organizations where those same values also have had a beneficial impact. That is, these organizations were transformed by the vales-driven leadership of P&G alumni, regardless of their official title.

Although P&G is one of the largest and most complex companies as are most of the companies by which most of its alumni were later employed, almost all of the material in this book is relevant to almost any organization, whatever its size and nature may be.  Because human beings are involved, no organization is perfect and none ever will be. That said, only human beings can bring core values to life and invest them with profound meaning through their behavior and, especially, in their relationships with others. I want to reiterate what I said earlier: Core values always have strategic implications, for better or worse. What do they say about your organization?

The CEO’s Role in Talent Management

Here is a brief excerpt from an article written by Halley Bock for Talent Management magazine. To check out all the resources and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and/or Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.

*     *     *

Don’t just tell your employees they’re your most valuable asset — show them. And get your CEO involved in talent management efforts to drive home the message.

Most organizations widely publicize the fact that talent is their most valuable asset — and that’s often true. But when employees see a disconnect between such claims and what actually happens behind closed doors, there are bound to be repercussions in engagement and retention. To avoid this, organizations must show, not tell, their people how they’re valued — and this can start at the top with the CEO.

[Halley offers three specific suggestions. Here's the first.]

Create a people-first culture. While there are many responsibilities a CEO can delegate, setting and reinforcing the culture isn’t one of them. Herb Kelleher, famed former CEO and co-founder of Southwest Airlines, understood this to a degree that many leaders still struggle to comprehend. By placing utmost importance on defining the culture and ensuring it had everything to do with his employees, he created one of the most successful airlines in history. Kelleher’s motto was, and continues to be, “You have to treat your employees like customers.” By treating them right, he could be assured that they, in turn, would treat the customer right.

Creating a people-first culture has more to it than just coming up with a catchy motto. A CEO must be committed to the employees at the deepest level. This means addressing their needs through increased flexibility in corporate policies, caring for the employee’s family by extending inclusive benefits and investing in their future by prioritizing promoting from within.

*     *     *

To read the complete article, please click here.

Halley Bock is the CEO of Fierce Inc., a leadership development and training company that drives results for businesses by improving workplace communication. She can be reached at her firm.

Nine Do’s and Don’ts for Dealing with the Disgruntled

Rosabeth

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Rosabeth Moss Kanter for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

*     *     *

In a volatile world, anxiety and uncertainty make people a little testy.

Cranky people can drag everyone else down by spreading negativity and sowing seeds of doubt just when leaders need commitment. And when everyday crankiness is exacerbated by performance problems, then the merely grumpy can become disgruntled former employees out to do damage to the team.

Early in my career, when sharing a vacation house with a group of friends, I learned an important lesson from a classic book by anthropologist Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: It takes a lot of people cooperating to keep things neat, but it takes only one disgruntled dirt-monger to mess things up. The task for everyone else is not to let them.

This has become a favorite management insight as I advise bosses and boards. In one recent case, the chief financial officer of a small company was fired for possible expense account violations, and he was also seen as a poor strategist and weak team player. The former CFO did not go quietly. He consulted a lawyer, then went to a second and a third when the first one said he didn’t have a case. He rallied friends who sent emails to prominent customers about his grievance. Meanwhile, the CEO and new CFO had to raise capital and revenues to make up for the shortfall, which the disgruntled former CFO blamed on everyone else. His loud voice and tale of mistreatment threatened to topple the entire enterprise.

When faced with cranky, grumpy, or disgruntled people, these Do’s and Don’ts can be helpful.

[Here are five of the nine. To read the complete article, please click here.]

1. Don’t give them power. Don’t let their claims occupy disproportionate time and management attention. Have one person manage so that everyone else can continue the real work.

2. Do keep telling your positive story about the organization’s purpose, mission, goals, and accomplishments. Remind everyone about the big picture.

3. Don’t adopt an angry tone. Stay calm and professional. Don’t stoop to their level by telling juicy stories. Recent studies show that badmouthing makes the tale-teller look bad, in a boomerang effect.

4. Don’t tell their story for them. Don’t start meetings or conversations by rehashing the situation. Stick to a simple statement or two that acknowledges your sorrow that there are complaints. Don’t sound defensive. Don’t lend credibility by providing your answers to things that audiences might not know or care about.

5. Don’t assume that being right is enough. Having the facts on your side might be enough in a court of law, but it is not necessarily enough in the court of public opinion. Other people are convinced by your actions. They need to see that you operate by principles. They will judge your authenticity and consistency.

*     *     *

Above all, do what’s right for the mission and stakeholders. Even in a volatile world that requires tough decisions, the best way to counter crankiness is through an inspiring, energizing purpose.

[Note: I cannot resist citing again what Herb Kelleher, former chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines, said when explaining the airline’s spectacular success: "We take great care of our people, our people take great care of our customers, and our customers take great care of our shareholders."]

*     *     *

Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Confidence and SuperCorp. Connect with her on Facebook or at Twitter.com/RosabethKanter.

Demand: Another book review by Bob Morris

Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It
Adrian J. Slywotzky with Karl Weber
Crown Business (2011)

How to create a demand-creating culture

Many books published in recent years offer excellent advice on how to create and then sustain what I call a hyphenated culture: quality-driven, customer-driven, innovation-driven, results-driven, etc. The given objectives are eminently worthy and I have no quarrel with any of them, nor does Adrian Slywotzky. The fact remains, however, that an organization must have compelling appeal to those on whom it depends for success: employees at all levels and in all areas with talent and skills as well as character and commitment who create great value for customers. That’s precisely what Herb Kelleher always stressed when asked to explain the extraordinary success of Southwest Airlines: “We take great care of our people, our people take great care of our customers, and our customers then take great care of our shareholders.”

Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want Slywotzky’s latest book is a “must read” for business leaders in organizations that are struggling to answer any/all of questions such as these:

• “How can we get our customers to buy more of what we sell?”
• ”How can we convince more of our competition’s customers to buy from us?”
•  “How can we convert fence-sitters into buyers of what we sell?”
• “How can we attract, hire, and then retain the people who will create the greatest value for our customers?”
• “Meanwhile, what must we do each day to improve the quality of life in our workplace and increase the appeal of what we produce there?”

In each instance, the challenge is to create and then sustain demand.

Whatever its size and nature may be, every organization must be led by what Slywotzky characterizes as “demand creators,” people who “spend all of their time trying to understand [begin italics] people [end italics]…They try to understand our aspirations, what we need, what we hate, what gives us emotional charge – and, most important, what we might really love…They seem to know what we want even before we do. They wind up creating things people can’t resist and competitors can’t copy. Yet they almost never succeed on the first try…These demand creators recognize the huge gaps between what people buy and what they really want – and they use those gaps as the springboard for a process of reimagination that you might call the demand way of thinking.”

There are hundreds (thousands?) of books now on sale that offer advice on how to increase sales, how to market with “a bigger bang for the buck,” how to improve customer relations, etc. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book – certainly one that is most cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective – to explain “how to create what people love before they know they want it.” Dozens of real-world examples are provided to illustrate key points. They also suggest all manner of practical applications. It should also be noted that the wealth of information, insights, and recommendations that Slywotzky provides are relevant to almost any organization, whatever its size and nature may be. Moreover, after reading and then (preferably) re-reading this book, almost anyone can become a highly effective demand creator.

As Slywotzky explains, “Demand creators have a hidden advantage. Many of their rivals are ‘anti-demand’ organizations – organized in disconnected silos. Focused on meeting yesterday’s demand, and often remarkably immune to the signals that customer behavior is trying to send us…Great demand creators are special, in part, because they understand that the things we buy and the things we actually want aren’t always the same…Great demand creators eliminate or reduce the hassles that make most products and services inconvenient, costly, unpleasant, and frustrating.” With relatively minor modifications, these attributes of demand thinking insofar as marketing and customer relationships are concerned could also be said of recruiting, hiring, and training the talent needed as well as of creating what Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba characterize as “customer evangelists.” It is no coincidence that employees of the most highly admired organizations, “the best to work for,” are also their evangelists and refer to themselves as such.

Adrian Slywotzky has written a book in which all this is explained so well that the reader is well-prepared to become an effective demand creator. Then, after reading this book, I think that one of the first tasks at hand is to convince one’s associates to develop a sense of urgency about knowing whatever is required to help create “what people love before they know they want it.” Demand creators cannot do that alone. They build and excite great teams that effectively reach thousands or millions of customers. And by doing so, they seem to have a lot more fun in their business than many of their rivals do. Meanwhile, highly-valued workers do not leave; on the contrary, they are among the primary reasons why other peak performers and high potentials are eager to work with them.

The culture of engagement: 13 core elements

Over the years, I have probably read and then reviewed about 65-70 books in which their authors discuss one or more aspects of organizational culture. A few address employee engagement. Hopefully, a high percentage of those who share a workplace — at all levels and in all areas of operation — are positively and productively engaged. In fact, according to recent research by firms such as Gallup and TowersWatson, the average percentage in U.S. workplaces is less than 30%.

"We are Beryl!"

In my opinion, Beryl Companies offers the single best example of a company that continues to possess, indeed celebrate its culture of engagement. To learn more about Beryl, I highly recommend a book written by its founder and CEO, Paul Spiegelman: Why is Everyone Smiling?: The Secret Behind Passion, Productivity, and Profit.

What follows hardly qualifies as scientific research with definitive analysis. I have selected a baker’s dozen of what seem to be the essential elements, based on what I have learned from dozens of primary sources, including Paul and his company:

1. The power of one: Each person matters. Check that, each person really matters.

2. The power of team: “Together, we know much more and can do much more than any one of us can.”

3. Solution orientation: Each person is empowered to solve problems or obtain the help needed to solve problems.

4. Trust, honesty and transparency: These are the core values by which everyone lives and labors.

5. Celebration of learning: Each failure as well as each success is a precious learning opportunity, with lessons shared.

6. Development and training: These are twin processes by which to achieve personal growth and professional improvement.

7. Clarity of communication: Everyone knows what they need to know; also, the intended meaning of whatever is communicated is identical with what the recipient thinks has been communicated.

8. Embracing all kinds of diversity: The “melting pot” metaphor is all wrong. Think in terms of a salad or a symphony. Each single part is essential but no single part is sufficient.

9. Be customer-driven: Peter Drucker said it best, “Without customers, there is no business.” However, as Southwest Airlines’ retired chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, suggests, “If you take great care of your people, they will take great care of your customers, and your customers will then take great care of your shareholders.

10. Networking and connectivity initiatives: The primary objectives are sharing, helping, supporting, giving, encouraging, protecting, etc. those in need, both within and beyond the given enterprise.

11. Time to think, dream, and create: Time is the only resource that is not renewable. Ample time is set aside time to renew mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual energy, energy that should be committed only to what is most important.

12. Ownership empowerment: Those who have earned the respect and trust of their colleagues are expected to take ownership of questions to be answered, problems to be solved, opportunities to be seized, etc. Over time, others who provide the support needed will also earn the respect and trust of their colleagues. Ideally, all members of an organization are equal owners. In reality, that is a journey rather than a destination.

13. Physical space: Everything in a physical workplace has been eliminated that wastes human energy, discourages interaction between and among people, and creates discomfort and distraction. Here’s a key question: “What can we do to make our physical workplace more appealing in terms of the five senses: what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell?”

40 Business Lessons to Learn from Southwest Airlines.

Here is an excerpt from an article featured in the July issue of Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine. These are the first five business lessons and the last two. To read the complete article, a “must read,” please click here.

*     *     *

Whether you’re founding a company or just want to look brilliant, take some cues from this airline.

1. Keep the idea simple enough to draw on a napkin.

In 1966, Rollin W. King sat with his lawyer, Herb Kelleher, in San Antonio’s St. Anthony Club and drew a triangle on a cocktail napkin. And lo, the napkin begat an airline. Rollin, owner of a money-losing commuter airline, wanted to start an intrastate carrier so the airline wouldn’t fall under the aegis of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Hence the triangle. He labeled the corners “Dallas,” “Houston,” and “San Antonio”—The Golden Triangle of Texas.

2. A legend is an asset.

That cocktail napkin became a whiskey-stained version of the Magna Carta. It summed up the infant Company’s personality: informal, pragmatic, and a little bit naughty. Imagine if the airline had been formed by a dozen lawyers
in a Manhattan boardroom. Not the same thing. More important, Rollin and Herb recognized the drama. Here was the stuff of legend. Now all they had to do was form the most successful airline in history.

 3. Hire a good lawyer.

The good news was, they already had a top-notch lawyer in Herb. A graduate of Wesleyan University and New York University Law School, he kept a law office in San Antonio. Herb was no stranger to litigation, which was a very good thing: he was about to face the litigation storm of his life.

4. Raise more money than you think you need. Now double it.

The partners—now four men, including Rollin’s brother-in-law and a businessman-politician named John Peace—figured they needed a quarter-million dollars just to start the Company. Herb decided to raise twice that amount. That was prescient; the lawsuits would ground the airline for another four years.

5. Crazy is no liability.

Not always, anyway. If an idea immediately sounds good, chances are someone—many people—thought of it already. Rollin had no idea how to raise the capital for his new airline. “Rollin,” Herb said, “you’re crazy. Let’s do it!”

39. Never rest on your laurels or you will get a thorn in your, um, butt.

We stole that almost verbatim from Herb. (Being Herb, he used spicier language.) Southwest continues to take that wisdom seriously. The just completed $1.4 billion purchase of AirTran gives the combined airline a powerful presence in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world’s busiest. The acquisition also expands Southwest’s operations at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, New York’s LaGuardia, as well as in Charlotte and Memphis. Plus Miami, Des Moines, and Wichita. Southwest will enter 38 new airports, and is working to open AirTran’s international routes to its network.

The merger will fly more than 100 million Customers each year to more than 100 airports.

So much for resting on laurels.

40. It’s OK to be unprofitable for a year.

Just be sure to be profitable for at least the next 39.

Wired and Dangerous: A book review by Bob Morris

Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About It
Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2011)

A comprehensive road map for the new landscape of customer relationships

After carefully identifying the “what” of a customer relationship in Part One (Chapters 1-5), Chip Bell and John R. Patterson devote the remainder of their book to explaining how to formulate and then be guided by a comprehensive road map for the new landscape of customer relationships. (Those who think it is not a new landscape are no doubt cherished by their competitors.) I agree with Bell and Anderson that there is a new “normal” insofar as customers are concerned and even then, generalities about the new criteria for normality are more perilous than ever before. For example:

1. Customers now control the decision-making process. Even the most effective marketing (i.e. creating or increasing demand) can only influence it.
2. They are better informed than ever before.
3. They have more and better choices than ever before.
4. Social media have five times the impact of traditional advertising.
5. Therefore, “word of mouse” has at least five times the impact of word of mouth…and probably much more.
6. As for customer service, perfection is break-even.

These are sobering realities that suggest the meaning and significance of the title of Bell and Anderson’s book: customers are “dangerous” because they are “wired” into almost anything they need (e.g. information) and what they are considering (e.g. purchase decisions). As Bell explains, “they are edgy as well as connected with the Internet-enabled capacity to rapidly gain insight on a particular product or service and to quickly do great harm to the reputation of service providers” who fall short of their expectations.

Readers should view this book as a hardware store in which Bell and Anderson, co-proprietors, provide a guided tour during which they explain which tools are available, what their functions/features/benefits are, and how best to use each. More specifically, provided in Part Three, tools for

•  Calming customer crackpots, bullies, and militants
•  Serving when customer pain must be involved
•  Giving great lateral service
•  Service leadership in turbulent times
•  Crafting a really cool service vision
•  Making a great emotional connection with customers
•  Conducting a truly focused focus group
•  Surviving as an expert”
•   “Serving in the dark” like a partner
•  Firing a customer
•  Conducting customer forensics
•  Determining if your service process is unwell
•  Adding decoration to the service experience
•  Designing a survey your customers will actually complete

My own opinion is that Bell and Anderson’s discussion of these tools (Pages 165-210) all by itself is worth far more than the cost of the book. I agree with them that customers today “are picky, fickle, and vain” but that great service is not rocket science. “It is simply making your customers matter deeply and carefully managing all the details important to them. It is earning their respect as you nurture their loyalty, never taking them for granted. It is always being a [person who is passionately committed to] maintaining a laser focus on being really good on behalf of customers.”

I presume to suggest even the best customer service  “tools” in the world are of little value unless entrusted to skilled people who possess highly-developed emotional intelligence. As former chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, explained years ago, “We take great care of our people, they take great care of our customers, and our customers then take great care of our shareholders.” Amen.

Wired and Dangerous: A book review by Bob Morris

Wired and Dangerous: How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About It
Chip R. Bell and John R. Patterson
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2011)

A comprehensive road map for the new landscape of customer relationships

After carefully identifying the “what” of a customer relationship in Part One (Chapters 1-5), Chip Bell and John R. Patterson devote the remainder of their book to explaining how to formulate and then be guided by a comprehensive road map for the new landscape of customer relationships. (Those who think it is not a new landscape are no doubt cherished by their competitors.) I agree with Bell and Anderson that there is a new “normal” insofar as customers are concerned and even then, generalities about the new criteria for normality are more perilous than ever before. For example:

1. Customers now control the decision-making process. Even the most effective marketing (i.e. creating or increasing demand) can only influence it.
2. They are better informed than ever before.
3. They have more and better choices than ever before.
4. Social media have five times the impact of traditional advertising.
5. Therefore, “word of mouse” has at least five times the impact of word of mouth…and probably much more.
6. As for customer service, perfection is break-even.

These are sobering realities that suggest the meaning and significance of the title of Bell and Anderson’s book: customers are “dangerous” because they are “wired” into almost anything they need (e.g. information) and what they are considering (e.g. purchase decisions). As Bell explains, “they are edgy as well as connected with the Internet-enabled capacity to rapidly gain insight on a particular product or service and to quickly do great harm to the reputation of service providers” who fall short of their expectations.

Readers should view this book as a hardware store in which Bell and Anderson, co-proprietors, provide a guided tour during which they explain which tools are available, what their functions/features/benefits are, and how best to use each. More specifically, provided in Part Three, tools for

•  Calming customer crackpots, bullies, and militants
•  Serving when customer pain must be involved
•  Giving great lateral service
•  Service leadership in turbulent times
•  Crafting a really cool service vision
•  Making a great emotional connection with customers
•  Conducting a truly focused focus group
•  Surviving as an expert”
•   “Serving in the dark” like a partner
•  Firing a customer
•  Conducting customer forensics
•  Determining if your service process is unwell
•  Adding decoration to the service experience
•  Designing a survey your customers will actually complete

My own opinion is that Bell and Anderson’s discussion of these tools (Pages 165-210) all by itself is worth far more than the cost of the book. I agree with them that customers today “are picky, fickle, and vain” but that great service is not rocket science. “It is simply making your customers matter deeply and carefully managing all the details important to them. It is earning their respect as you nurture their loyalty, never taking them for granted. It is always being a [person who is passionately committed to] maintaining a laser focus on being really good on behalf of customers.”

I presume to suggest even the best customer service  “tools” in the world are of little value unless entrusted to skilled people who possess highly-developed emotional intelligence. As former chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher, explained years ago, “We take great care of our people, they take great care of our customers, and our customers then take great care of our shareholders.” Amen.

The Thank You Economy: A book review by Bob Morris

The Thank You Economy
Gary Vaynerchuk
HarperBusiness (2011)

Business begins with making people feel appreciated…and goes nowhere unless they do

In recent years, an avalanche of research data generated from marketplaces throughout the world reveals that when asked to identify what is most important to them, workers and customers identify “feeling appreciated” as being either #1 or #2.

Re-read that sentence and you will understand what Gary Vaynerchuk has in mind when observing “we have entered a new era in which developing strong consumer relationships is pivotal to a brand or company’s success.” The challenge is to create at points of contact with each consumer “an emotionally charged interaction” because the cultural changes social media have ushered in “are already having a big impact on marketing strategies, but eventually, companies that want to compete are going to have to change their approach to everything, from their hiring practices to their customer service to their budgets. Not all at once, mind you. But it will have to happen, because there is no slowing down the torpedo-like speed with which technology is propelling us into the Thank You Economy.”

Long ago, Southwest Airlines’ then chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, explained his company’s sustained success this way: “We take good care of our people, they take good care of our customers, and then our customers take good care of our shareholders.” In the “Thank You Economy,” appreciation is the coin of the realm. The aforementioned “emotionally charged interaction” involves two components: an employee who appreciates a customer or (yes) another employee and the person who feels appreciated.

Throughout his lively and eloquent narrative, Vaynerchuk inserts a number of insights that caught my eye. Here is a representative selection:

On his use of exaggeration: “I’d rather shock you into paying attention, and admit later that business rarely requires an all-or-nothing approach, than take the chance that you won’t take the situation seriously enough.” (Page 7)

“Right now, I’d say that social media is a bit like a kidney – you can survive with only one, but your chances of making it to old age are a lot better with two. Eventually, though, I think social media will be as important to a business as a strong heart.” (80)

“Creating a Thank You Economy culture will become easier and easier as you begin hiring people who share your commitment to caring. It will be easy to spot the people already on your staff who can’t adapt or just don’t get the concept, and as they leave you will replace them with those who share your DNA.” (102)

“Developing a powerful emotional connection could be all it takes to convince [consumers] to consolidate their spending with you. Plus, now that purchasing decisions are directly affected by consumers’ relationships to the people they communicate with on their social networking sites, staying aware of who your consumers know and who they talk to regularly [i.e. those by whom their preferences and purchase decisions are most influenced] will become increasingly important.” (196)

“Care – about your customers, about your employees, about your brand – with everything you’ve got.” (233)

I selected the title for this review (“Business begins with making people feel appreciated…and goes nowhere unless they do”) because I realized decades ago that I could not accomplish much of anything in my life unless I cared, really cared, about what I wanted to do and really cared about those on whom I depended for help to achieve my objectives. I also realized something else that proved to be even more important: Really caring about helping others to achieve their own objectives. It is easy enough to incorporate a company and obtain a license to do business. What happens next depends almost entirely on how much you care about who you are, how much you care about what you want to do, and how much you care about those with whom you will be associated. If you care enough about all three, you’ve got a shot. Otherwise, don’t bother.

In the Thank You Economy, the “winners” will be those who care the most…and are cared about the most. If you are determined to be among the “winners,” this is a must-read. In fact, it is a must re-read.

Think about it: If you don’t care, why should anyone else?