Mickey

One of the best things I ever did was join Wasatch Lodge No. 1 in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a Mason, I’ve had the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the best men in the state. One of those men is the current “President” of our Lodge - that is, the senior officer, called the Worshipful Master (it’s old English - it means something more like “Honorable Master” of the Lodge.)

On Tuesday, we initiated three candidates at the Salt Lake Masonic Temple. During one of the breaks in the Initiation Ceremony, I visited with our Worshipful Master. While we spoke, I noticed and admiring his beautiful (and very expensive) Mickey Mouse Watch. I’m such a sucker for a well-built watch, a fine pen or a leather bound book. And I am a huge fan of Mickey.

Mickey is a symbol of one of the most innovative men who ever walked this earth. It is a symbol of the kind of experience every customer ought to have every time. Mickey also reminds me of one of my favorite vacation destinations.

Our Master, Leon, is a well-respected local attorney, having argued several cases before the Utah Supreme Court. While I admired his “everyday” Mickey Watch, and proudly showed him my Limited Edition Citizen Eco-drive, he told me he had an Eco-drive with a Gold Mickey in the Twelve position.

Leon then told me that years ago, he’d represented the prestigious president of a large local corporation before the Utah Tax Commission. In his office and just before the hearing, the president handed Leon a very nice, conservative watch and told him to change his watch because his Mickey Mouse watch looked, well, Mickey Mouse.

Now Leon is a bit of a maverick. He knows who he is and he just doesn’t compromise. It is one of the many endearing qualities that most people like about him. He is authentic. You get it straight from him, but he is also exceptionally kind, so tough things are delivered straight and compassionately.

An angry Leon told the Overblown Ego that he had two choices, head over to the hearing with his pretty watch in hand, and represent himself; or they - and Mickey - could go on over together. The president pushed him - was this his “lucky piece?” “If you have to think it is my lucky piece,” Leon replies,” then it is.”

So Leon wins big! Later he gets one of those nice “thank you” notes that also included a termination of his services to the corporation. Leon is a good and ethical attorney. He shared the story but not no more detail than I just did. I don’t know who the man was, the particulars of the case, dates, or the name of the corporation. But the story was instructive.

Any man that would hire an attorney to handle a sensitive and potentially expensive matter based on his expertise and reputation and offend him trying to change his image isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He was powerful and obviously understands power. And he understands and wields a good bit of influence. But he’s not real bright despite his power, influence, and career success. Why?

Well, if you are worried about the image and potential success of an attorney, you don’t retain him.

If you do hire him, you don’t offend him just before you need him to be at his absolute best for you.

And, if a genuine courtroom brawler beats the opposition “big” then you don’t fire him because he wouldn’t take Mickey off his wrist because you insisted. You keep him around for the next issue.

Lastly, if he couldn’t understand Mickey is a symbol of innovation, excellence, and great experiences, he probably doesn’t understand enough to treat employees well - especially those who deal with his customers. And he isn’t creative enough to solve unusual problems or cases he didn’t study in B-school.

Mickey says something about an attorney, a product manager, film-maker, or customer service representative. That well-dressed, powerful, and influential stuffed shirt didn’t get it. Do you?

Technical Fouls

The three topics guaranteed to build animosity are Religion, Sports and Politics. While I write often about politics, public policy and community affairs, I just won’t write about religion here (though I do so in my own personal notebooks.)

Sports are a different matter. I’m a die-hard USC fan despite not being good enough to earn a scholarship to go there (either for my running or my grades.) I used to support the Rams, until the Devil (her first name was Georgia) took them to St. Louis. And despite a short malaise after Shaq left LA, there just hasn’t been anyone but the Lakers ever since Wilt, Happy Hairston, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor were stars.

And yes, I AM enjoying the NBA Finals.

But, I am not enjoying them as much as you might think. Why? The Referees, that’s why. As I get older, more experienced, more socially aware, I recognize in them all the traits of petty tyrants.

It is not so much that they don’t call everything on the other team and leave my perfect Lakers alone. It is that they are ruining the game with their inconsistency and unwillingness to reverse even the worst of calls. The League’s efforts to police them are ineffective and impotent.

The quickest way to help them mend their ways is a form of instant replay that becomes an avenue of appeal to their most egregious acts. What I want to say today, however, has nothing to do with Instant Replay.

I’d like to make what will be a largely unheard appeal that the league take away one of the last vestiges of the plantation. Please get rid of those awful and inhuman technical fouls given for arguing a call or for passionate outbursts on the court.

We all agree that the best players bring passion to the game. We also all agree that there are bad calls and there needs to be some way to appeal them.

The inconsistent application of “Tees” for arguing, celebration or taunting always makes it a joke when they are called.

In the Eastern Finals I saw a home team player repeatedly pound his chest after a game changing play without a call, while in another game a visiting team player was “Teed” up for a fist pump over a similar play. Different refs! Different players! Different towns! All wrong.

Some players can argue a foul without a Tee while others simply look disgusted and draw one. And God help you if you are perceived as a “Bad Boy.” You’re getting one every time you open your mouth.

Fans love the passion. And we live with the injustice of silly calls because the game still adds something to our life. But “Teeing” up a player because he had the audacity to question a call you just made is like allowing me to fine everyone – including customers - who disagree with my opinion or decision because I have some authority at work.

We think it is tyranny in a home, business or government, but somehow it is okay in a courtroom or on a basketball court. It is inhuman because it asks players to become robots. And it just reminds us of our basic training sergeant or the plantation overlords who wouldn’t allow any questioning of their authority or expressions of emotion.

And just in case you think that I think or am calling for an allowance of fighting or hurting referees, fans, players or coaches – I AM NOT. But the power to change a game needs to have some checks and balances and in the NBA, there are none.

Power is corrosive. And if it is unchecked, power always turns into tyranny. Just look at any NBA game between any two teams and you will see what I am talking about.

So, Commissioner, let’s get rid of this silly left-over from pre-Civil War times and allow some passion and humanity on the court. Believe me, you'll have a better "product."

With apologies - more on service

At one of my favorite book sellers, I recently heard an employee on the floor saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over again to the same customer. No action was taken to remedy the wrong. The employee was just very sorry.

Suddenly it hit me, I’ve been in several retail outlets recently and heard that phrase from tellers, cashiers, floor personnel, sales people and managers over and over.

I’ve looked on-line to see if I missed some new tip or trick from an overpaid Customer Service Guru, but it appears that it is happening quite spontaneously.

If you have to apologize multiple times to most or every customer, something is very wrong with your retail operation.

What most retailers call Service is nothing more than common courtesy – being a human being. Service has to do with quality in all its forms, and courtesy is only the tail end of that process.

If you don’t do your job right, or the systems make you hard to do business with, or policies are written to stop the crooks and just anger your honest customers all the courtesy in the world won’t save that customer from a good competitor.

It dates me to tell you, but I remember “Love Story” by Erich Segal (the book and the movie!) I thought it was sappy and stupid to think that “Love means not ever having to say you’re sorry.” Just show me one perfect person or relationship! But it is plain to the mature Lon that this is an ideal, perhaps impossible for a human to attain, but certainly worth the effort.

Maybe it is too much to say that Service Excellence means you never need apologize to your customer, but it ought to at least be harder to say it. “I’m sorry” ought to accompany some action to fix the problem or some extra to ease the sting.

If you need to apologize to a customer, by all means do so, quickly, sincerely, and then make it right or add something extra. But if you have to apologize too often, or to too many customers, something else is wrong and should be fixed, quickly, and permanently.

Otherwise, “I’m sorry” means absolutely nothing.

La Caille and the Secret of Life

La Caille is “contemporary French cuisine in a 17th century chateau on an idyllic 22 acre estate complete with vineyard, fountains, peacocks and swans,” [1] nestled in a beautiful and peaceful setting at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. It is one of those places you go for very special occasions or celebrations.

During a recent meeting the owner, Steve Runolfson described himself as a “gentleman farmer who works at night in the kitchen.” I can assure you he is much more. For starters, he is one of the few people who understand how to consistently deliver “Old World Service.”

The purpose of the meeting with Steve was planning for the upcoming Celebration of Learning with the five of us who compose the Finance Committee of the Scottish Rite Learning Centers. Steve taught us how to make this gala event a huge success.

During the meeting, we were very surprised at just how willing Steve was to add extra value to every part of the planning and execution - every touch-point- and not just the event. He was offering so much more than just a beautiful environment, great food and drink. He showed over and over that he is a generous and community-minded man.

Close to the end of the meeting, Bob Shupe, probably the most generous man I know expressed to Steve our surprise and gratitude. It was here that Steve shared with us a very memorable thought. While he held up his right hand, holding his thumb and forefinger roughly an inch apart, Steve told us, “I’ve learned the secret of life. It is to give just this much more than you take.”

I later shared this thought with my son, and he replied, “Karma.” I corrected him. That is not Karma. In popular usage, Karma has come to mean what you give comes back to you, or “what comes around goes around.” Karma is really “the effects of a person's actions that determine his destiny in his next incarnation.” [2]

Steve was not talking about Karma. He was not talking about future incarnations of life. Steve was talking about this life and specifically, he was talking about the secret of a happy and fulfilled life.

This reminded me of a similar thought expressed by Emanuel Swedenborg, the 17th Century Swedish Christian Mystic. Swedenborg taught, “Real joy, which comes from loving to do good things without wanting to be repaid, is the reward that lasts forever.”

Steve’s thinking is very different from the usual negotiation where the parties vie for supremacy, trying to wring every ounce of value for the minimum return, and leave nothing on the table for the other party. It is the complete antithesis of Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is Good,” mantra.

Steve’s a man who has been wildly successful at his business for more than four decades, and he puts a lot more value than he has to on the table! I believe this philosophy has brought Steve his long-term success. And I suspect he has more than his share of joy.

[1] LaCaille.com
[2] Wordnet, Princeton.edu

"It's the Experience, Idiot!"

In March, the brilliant and talented CEO of Granite Federal Union appeared before the Board of Directors and asked us to find a new CEO. In February, it was discovered that the “cold” he’d had since last summer was in reality an aggressive form of cancer in stage four. His doctors told him he had roughly nine painful months of life left.

While he dealt with first radiation and then chemotherapy, we began a rather longish search for a replacement. Tuesday, we came to the end of our search. But this blog post is not a tribute to the outgoing CEO or crowing about what a good find we have with the incoming CEO.

This post is about something that was reinforced (or re-discovered) while we looked for a new CEO. That something is the myth of the credit union “service advantage.”

We (you and me) hear it all the time. Credit Unions are better than banks not because the customer is a member of a Co-Op, or because the fees are much lower, but because they are community-based, and the service is “down-home” and makes you feel special.

Banks are big, bad, and treat you like an idiot.

Unfortunately, none of that is particularly true anymore. And even more unfortunately, because it is generally believed, no one pays any attention to it.

That lack of focus is the problem.

I remember well my first brush with Credit Unions. I was 16. I was finally making enough money from my paper route and mowing lawns that I needed a place to save it. Growing up, I almost always lived on an Air Force base, and since Dad was assigned to a Fighter Wing, and fighters tend to be very noisy jets, we always lived away from “civilization.”

That meant that the only stores, banks, theaters, sports and recreation close were on base and quite limited. There were two viable banking choices for me: Bank of America and Keesler Federal Credit Union.

My Mom took me into Bank of America. There we sat for waaaaay to long while the new accounts lady and one of the managers dealt with a “pain-in-the-ass” Lt. Colonel (never met one that wasn’t!) Finally, my Mom decided we’d waited long enough, and we went next door to Keesler.

The folks at Keesler didn’t really note my longish hair; my lack of an officer’s uniform and rank, or even that I was with my Mother. They just took care of me as if I were actually important to them.

I’d like to say that I never went back to a bank because the credit union experience was so good, but that isn’t true. After moving to Utah, there was no Keesler FCU. There was, however, a bank that appeared to be “The Bank” for Mormons – after all, the Statue of Brigham Young in downtown Salt Lake had his left hand out as if to say, “This is the Place.” I fell for that and opened an account there. After less than a year of poor experiences, I left for another and more, poor experiences.

Eventually, I found Granite CU. And it was such a difference from my banking experiences. They didn’t yet have checks – they were called Share Drafts in those days, but they did it all quite well for me. I’ve been a fan of the CU Movement since then too, having learned my lesson.

But over the years, Credit Unions have really become banks. They are getting bigger and they’ve lost track of what made them great. But it is not just “big” that has caused that loss of focus. Our lost direction has come because we have heard the hype for so long, decided it must be true, and we no longer think we need to do anything to support the propaganda.

There is so much more to good service than being able to greet 20 customers by name. In fact, if you think good service is in the teller line, at the new accounts desk, or in the manager’s office, you haven’t a clue. What happens there is simply common courtesy.

Good or Great Service is about the Total Experience. It is about Quality. Total Quality. Courtesy is simply the tip of the iceberg. It is the continuation of the total quality of the organization. Or not.

If the “back-office” people, processes and systems that support the transactions and services aren’t of a pretty high quality, then smiling, calling me by name, and asking about my kids won’t help. In fact, if those people, systems and process produce poor quality, it is going to be next to impossible to keep that genuine smile on the teller’s face for very long!

Credit Union management, volunteers and employees need to get out a bit, shop the competition, set up an account somewhere else, and compare the total experience. The gaps will be apparent. Only then, can we come together to bring that mythic service back to the CU experience.

If not … well, we’re just smaller, “down-home-friendly," Bad Banks!

Better is Good Enough!

My friend and colleague, Christa, is a tireless contributor and a creative product manager. Like me, everyday she faces dozens who tell her why "it" cannot be done. Like me, she also gets the impossible done every day.

The "Resistance to the Different and New" can drag all of us down from time to time. I'm no exception, and neither is Christa or any of my other colleagues in Product Development and Management.

Since we are often quite alone and completely outnumbered in our fight against product "me too-ism," poor customer experience and process mediocrity, all of us work to keep the spirits of our fellow "Product Transformation Artists" up. The other day, it just happened to be my turn to assist. Christa (who is also a prolific and talented writer!) posted one of my comments from our email exchange on her blog along with her own insightful thoughts about incremental improvement.

Her blog post is worth reading (and not just because I am quoted.) Frankly, I read what she has to say quite often, and you ought to too.

A link to her blog post is right here: http://tinyurl.com/o6ogac