Real World

no refund, no credibility, no business

“I can’t give you a refund. I can only exchange it.”

Welcome to 1986, except that it’s 2013. Remember when things were difficult to return for a refund? You had to have the receipt, there were forms to fill out, and you had to deal with someone who was too bureaucratically rigid to do government work. And it had to truly be defective. You wouldn’t dream of attempting to return something simply because you (or your spouse) decided you didn’t want it.

All that changed when more and more stores realized there was a real long-term advantage to having you come to the store to return things. After all: 1) you were in the store and likely to buy more; 2) it created good will that made you want to return; and 3) the few that might abuse the return policy are more than countered by everyone else.

That’s one of the real secrets to Zappos. Make it easy to return or exchange items. Reduce the perceived risk of purchasing to almost nil. Never make the customer feel bad or stupid about their purchase. Actually, that’s not a secret at all. It’s right on display for all the world to see. And to ignore. And to wonder why Zappos is doing great while other businesses flounder.

In a rare family trip to the mall this weekend, my daughter purchased a curling iron from one of the booths in the middle of the mall. The salesman had curled a bit of her hair as a demonstration and she’d liked the results enough to make a purchase. But, it didn’t work as promised and over the next hour, the curl came out. We went back to return it and were told, “No refunds”. In fairness, there was a sign declaring “no refunds” and it was also stamped on the back of the receipt. Buyer beware.

Except, so what. Let’s look at the much bigger picture:

  1. Malls are struggling – that’s not opinion, that’s business article fodder.
  2. My pre-teen daughter is just a few short years from having a job, disposable income, and needing a safe place to meet friends.
  3. She now sees the mall as a place where businesses don’t stand behind their products. And that’s my nice way of putting it. I suspect she sees the mall as a place where businesses can rip you off.
  4. She already likes Amazon.com and is in the habit of buying books with her Kindle. It’s a small jump from books to other items.
  5. She is not alone.

That last one is the most important point. Dwell on it for a while. This isn’t about her, it’s about a pattern. It’s about establishing and building credibility and reputation or allowing it to be whittled away. It’s about missing the steady drip, drip, drip that becomes a river of movement away from an already troubled business model. Thinking about it, I’m actually pretty surprised that the anchor stores and the mall management allow smaller shops to do anything that might hurt their overall credibility and reputation.

Sure, the bigger stores can fairly and logically argue that they have nothing to do with the little booths. Except, so what? It’s guilt by association. Purchases are made with emotion, not logic.

Will anyone miss the malls when they are gone?

 

 

[Note: this may seem like a lot about one stupid curling iron. Except it’s not. It’s about bigger patterns happening in the world right now. It’s about Human Resources, sales, and customer service. It’s about retail, not-for-profit, and restaurants. It’s about business and humans. The world is changing quickly and reputation matters. Being right isn’t nearly as important as your credibility and the feelings your customer has toward you.]

 

good enough vs good enough isn’t

If the 80/20 Rule holds up, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. Seems accurate enough. Getting something to 80% good takes much less time than the final 20%. And that final bit can easily take 80% of the total time spent.

Take the 80/20 Rule to heart and two distinct philosophies emerge:

1. Get it to good enough and move on. Focus on getting things to 80%. It’s good enough and frees up a tremendous amount of time, allowing you to get more done. Get it rolling and correct as you go. This gets to the heart of the idea that imperfect action beats perfect inaction. However, there is a fine line between “good enough” and “not good enough”. End up on the wrong side of that line and you’re sunk because you’d have been better off not doing it at all than spending just enough time and effort to make it useless, incorrect, or wrong.

2. Good enough isn’t. Cranking out mediocrity more and faster is hardly a win because it’s the final 20% that really sets your product or service apart. The risk is that the final 20% causes delays, isn’t valued by the end user, or prevents focusing on higher priority work.

Of course, real life isn’t either/or simple. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Sometimes good enough isn’t. The trick is knowing the difference.

What thinks you?

real world mission statements

What would happen if company mission statements were a summary of how the company actually operates instead of the all too common collection of socially acceptable phrases strung together by a committee? Perhaps we’d see more like:

  • We leverage short-term relationships to extract maximum value from customers.
  • Myopically focusing on quarterly results at the expense of long-term stability.
  • All of our decisions and actions are based on a simple premise: If you don’t own stock in this company, we don’t care about you.
  • We sell cheap crap. You should buy lots.
  • Boldly facing the future by continuing to do what worked in 1978.
  • We say we value diversity but vehemently oppose people and ideas different than our status quo.
  • We fear change and are lobbying hard to enact regulations that will limit our need to adjust to new business models.

What did I miss?

[Thanks to David D’Souza (@dds180 and ddsouzadotcom.wordpress.com) for inspiring this post and starting the list!]

authenticity and vulnerability

On my mind this morning:

  • Is there a difference between authenticity and vulnerability?
  • What’s the line between the two? Can you have one without the other? Can you be authentic without being vulnerable? Can you be vulnerable, but not authentic?
  • Why are both considered so important, yet both seemingly so rare (or did I just answer that question?)?
  • If they are rare, does that mean we are operating most of the time from a point of defensive falseness?
  • How does this fit in with the concepts of honesty and integrity? Few would define themselves as liars, but how many can say they are fully authentic? How do we account for that gap?

What thinks you?

 

real world champion

What I do today matters. What I do every day matters more. Our reputations, our relationships, our lives are the sum total reflection of every decision, action, and event.

Observation shows it’s pretty easy to live an OK life. Get to work on time, pay your bills around the due date, say “please” and “thank you”, give other people the respect and courtesy you’d like to receive, don’t commit felonies, etc. Nail the basics and an average life is yours without too much effort. You probably won’t have a fulfilling life but you won’t be too miserable either.

The jump from OK to fantastic appears much more difficult. When we look at those we admire, words like “focus”, “discipline”, “integrity”, “unique”, “dedication”, “enthusiasm”, “responsibility”, “honor”, “vision”, and “purpose” start coming to mind. No one creates excellent results in any aspect of their lives with a mediocre mindset or average actions.

Interestingly, few people declare that what they want most in the world is to be mediocre. Few dream of average. Seldom do children hope to grow up and become dull normal. What if we stopped thinking about just getting through life and started thinking about becoming champions in our lives?

It probably feels weird to even answer. Seriously though, what does “champion” mean in the areas of life most important to you? What would it take to be a champion parent, spouse, or friend? What does being a champion salesperson, manager, HR pro, teacher, etc. look like? How does becoming a champion change how you think about your day?

Moving beyond ordinary requires asking better questions of ourselves. “How can I find a job I like?” is a much different question than “How can I become one of the best in my field?” “How can I argue less with my kids?” is not the same as “How can I build a close and enduring relationship with my kids?” Likewise, “Why am I fat?” produces different answers than “What do I need to do to get fit?”

Being champion requires applying what we already know (and learning all we can as we go along) with consistent, focused effort. It means risking failure – oddly if we give it our all and it doesn’t work out we tend to think of that as more of a failure than if we don’t try at all (LIE!) It means breaking free of the herd and finding our own vision and our own destiny. And that probably doesn’t fit in well with those content with marginal.

Champions design their lives so every aspect supports what they are creating. One of the biggest challenges you will face in being a champion is simply that most of the effort isn’t very sexy or fun. In the movies we see a cool three minute montage with an upbeat song when the hero takes control of their lives and turns thing around. In real life, it requires continual, unceasing effort. It means getting up when you don’t want to get up, taking action when it would be easier not to, having uncomfortable conversations that you’d really rather avoid, and standing out when you’d rather fit in.

So we try in fits and starts, but one effort, one time, one day doesn’t do much for us. Johny Hendricks, one of the very best mixed martial artists summed it up: “If I’m going to be a champion, I’ve got to act like a champion every day.”

Starting today.

new ideas wanted, creativity not allowed

Good and bad is rarely as black and white as movies depict. Simple distinctions make for easy storytelling, but miss the sloppymessines of humanity. Strengths and weakness are rarely opposites – it’s not one or the other, but one with the other.

I recall reading a sci-fi book as a teenager where humans had crated enormous self-contained and mobile cities – rolling fortresses. For protection and law and order, the computers controlling the cities had been programmed to expel undesirables. Convicted criminals were expelled first, then those with criminal tendencies, then those who might be commit crimes under the right circumstances (say, stealing bread to feed their starving children), then… Soon the cities were empty of all people.

Life is mostly grey, rarely black and white, and insisting on clear divisions carries consequences. The other day, Max Mckeown (@maxmckeown) noted this on twitter, saying: Removing troublemakers may also squeeze out idea creators… There is a lot in that simple sentence. The line between troublemaker and creator is blurry at best. Under the right circumstances creators are often considered troublemakers – they ask questions (sometimes very inconvenient questions), reject the status quo, suggest other solutions, ignore politics and power base, have little regard for tradition and legacy, etc. They can be a real thorn in the sides of those who like things just so and it would be easy to expel the useful with the counterproductive.

It’s a brilliant and important reminder that us humans don’t all fit into neat shinyhappy boxes and our strengths can come at a cost. In his book Dangerous Ideas, Alf Rehn (@alfrehn) noted that many companies say they want creativity and innovation, but they really don’t. Sure, they want the benefits of designing the next hit product, but they aren’t prepared to deal with the idiosyncrasies of creative people. It’s as though “creativity” is viewed as a skill that can be produced on demand and then put away when not needed rather than a completely different perspective and thinking process.

I suspect that often, leaders are excited about bringing really creative, innovative, daring, visionary people on board. Early on, they produce some really great ideas so we ignore their quirks, but after a while their eccentricities and unwillingness to be confined to the neat and tidy “employee” box stops being cute and starts to hurt their careers. So the leaders who were so excited about having creative, idea generators on board are soon expelling them. Or the creative folks get tired of rigid walls and move on. Either way, the company is left more dogmatic, less creative, less innovative, with fewer and fewer ideas. They now offer more of the same with nothing to distinguish them from the competition.

Remember the timeless advice: Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

announcing my book: “what thinks you?”

WoooHooo!!! I’m very excited to announce that my book what thinks you? a fool’s eye view of human resources is now available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions.

Intended more as firestarter for discussion than an answer book what thinks you? is a compilation of my 65 most HR focused blog posts. It captures the humor, drama, pathos, and cognitive dissonance of my hopes, dreams, and fears about where HR is and where it could be. (Ok, clearly there is a reason I’m in HR and not marketing.)

Why buy a book of something that’s already freely available on my blog?

  • Doug Shaw did the cover art and Joe Gerstandt contributed the forward. That combination right there makes it worth getting even if you never read the other stuff.
  • You’re in HR and want a quick reference (Actually, don’t get it for that. I’m pretty sure I edited all the facts out, leaving only questions and personal opinions).
  • Books are cool – you have a preference for reading from paper.
  • Read it anywhere without having to drag the entire internet along to access it (etherwebz are heavy and don’t fit on airplanes very well).
  • You don’t have to wade through my other ramblings to get to the good HR stuff.
  • Easy to share, give as gift, or just leave lying around so people can see how cool/smart/plugged in you are.
  • It’s cheaper than a morning trip to the coffee house. Because the content is free on my blog I’ve priced it as low as CreateSpace (the publisher/printer) will allow. $5.49 for the paperback and $0.99 for the Kindle version. Bargain.

 

Here’s the description from Amazon:

In the crush of computerization, standardization, quantification, industrialization, information, and regulation, we often forget that it’s actual humans that create business results. Business gets done through, by, and for people. Period. The pages inside are a collection of posts from the blog fool (with a plan). I wrote them as an outlet to connect, explore, and play with ideas at the intersection of business and humans. This isn’t HR 101 or a how-to guide for new leaders, and you certainly won’t find any help within on demystifying employment laws and regulations. There are a lot of really great books offering legal, moral, ethical, and spiritual advice, but there’s none of that here. There may not even be any actual facts. What you will find are thoughts, questions, ideas, and more questions around this fool’s perspective of what HR is and what it could be.

You see, I’m foolish enough to firmly believe that Human Resources can: rehumanize work. … make a crucial difference in company performance. … be a strong corporate presence, not just a bystander. … be a source of strategic innovation. … change business. … lead.

What thinks you?

 

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the book. Hit me up in the comments, email me, or just post a review on Amazon.

fair warning

“To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.” ~ Carl Jung

“Anybody who courts the mainstream deserves everything they get.” ~ Hugh MacLeod

that’s why they pay you

You know the drill. Someone complains about how tough their job is or how much they dislike their work and the immediate response is: Duh! Of course it’s not fun. That’s why they pay you. They know you wouldn’t show up otherwise. We snicker and think: Yeah. Get back to work, slacker. You’re not paid to have fun. Suck it up and cash your check on payday.

What a load of bassackwards crap! (to use the technical term)

On the surface it sounds right and it’s kind of humorous and I’ve certainly bought into it before. Dig deeper and we see it’s a kneejerk response that gets everything backwards and wrong.

It is true that if we didn’t pay people they wouldn’t show up. But it’s not because we’re compensating them for the opportunity to inflict misery on them. It’s because of opportunity costs. People need to feed, clothe, shelter, and take care of themselves and their families and they have only so many hours in a day to do it. Waaaayyy back when, they did all this themselves through hunting, gathering, and whatnot. Today people provide specialized skills in exchange for money to trade with others for the goods and services they need. Even if they absolutely loved, loved, loved their jobs we’d still have to pay them. Otherwise, they’d have to: 1) learn to hunt and gather; 2) starve; or 3) find someone else who will pay them for their skills.

We don’t pay people to endure us, we pay people because they bring knowledge and skills that we can repackage and sell through the products they create or the services they provide. In effect, the company becomes the middle man between the employee and the consumer and hopefully adds some value along the way by combining the talents of the employees to produce more/better/faster than they could do on their own.

If it were true that we pay people because we knew they wouldn’t do the job otherwise then the most miserable jobs in the worst working conditions should (by this logic) earn the most money. So, people become fieldhands and work in slaughterhouses for the money??? Um, no. Conversely, how often have you heard of someone getting a cut in pay because they are too passionate about their work?

The idea that pay and misery are directly correlated makes no sense yet we cling to it. How many employees think that their mere presence is enough to justify a paycheck? How many managers think that their employees would be happier and more productive if they could only pay them more? How often do we justify subjecting employees to unnecessarily rigid work conditions, nanny policies, or toddler-tantrum leaders with a dismissive, “Well, they get paid…” At best, it’s a lousy excuse for pathetic, apathetic, lazy leadership and really bad business decisions.

And employee engagement is down? People are dreaming of working elsewhere? We’re afraid of what they might say about us on social media? Huh, weird. Probably just coincidence. I once heard someone say, “People don’t leave because it’s difficult. They leave because it’s not worth dealing with anymore.” Seems pretty true from my experience and observation.

People aren’t compensated for occupying desks, their difficulties, or as a license to abuse them. People are paid for the value they provide through the problems they solve and the results they create. That’s not revolutionary, just too often forgotten by both employees and the company.

So why do people keep showing up for work? Hopefully, they’re getting appropriately compensated for working on the problems and results they enjoy, find fulfilling, and inspire them to do their best. Ultimately, leaders need their employees more than employees need their leaders. Over time leadership gets the employees they deserve.

What thinks you?