On the Job – Page 4 – GOOD FOR THE SOUL

Knowing Your Customer

I was having a conversation with a new member of a senior team who has been with her organization just a couple months now. We were talking about several initiatives designed to make the organization more efficient. Many of them were not large, expensive changes, but rather, small improvements designed to make daily work faster and easier. One of the things we were talking about was the organizational phone list. A seemingly simple enough tool designed to help you reach one of the hundreds of employee who worked there. The issue, however, was that the phone list was organized by department and title.

A phone list organized by department is great if you know you need to contact someone in accounting about your new paycheck and may not know who, but less helpful if you’ve been pointed in the direction of Catherine Wemette, but don’t know her department. It’s also incredibly challenging as you’re getting to know these several hundred new people and you can’t remember Catherine’s last name after you were told you should talk with her.

Surely the goal of the phone list was to be helpful, but the customer had been lost in the development of the product. Sure, as someone who has been with the organization for a while, a departmental phone list probably makes perfect sense. However, taking the process one step further and thinking through all the possible customers would have perhaps resulted in the same list organized three different ways – department, first name or last name – or a dynamic directory that was searchable in a number of ways.

This is just one example of the need to put ourselves in our customer’s shoes to deliver what they really need. And if we don’t know, it’s okay to ask. What could you be doing just a bit differently to provide your customers with what they need, maybe even before they know they need it?

Survival Skills – Facilitation-style

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of co-teaching a course at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE), which is an old stomping ground of mine. It was great to be back and teamed up Libby Bingham to present “Facilitation Essentials: Effectively Managing Conversations.” We had an exceptional group of folks, and they were great about staying with us as we moved between information sharing, exercises and small group discussions. I thoroughly enjoyed our time together and learned as much from them as I hope they learned from us.

We talked about the skills needed to be a strong facilitator, and one of my favorites is often overlooked. It’s common to talk about active listening, the ability to draw people into a conversation, and how to manage conflict in a group. While all these skills are critical, there is one that can help with any situation: the ability to improvise. For anyone who has ever been at the front of the room in any sort of capacity, you know the only thing you can count on is the unexpected. Despite all our preparations and best intentions, there is always something that catches us off guard — technology woes, a rowdy audience member or an extensive question in 7 parts. Improvisation is something created without preparation, typically a piece of music, drama, etc. I would absolutely argue that facilitation done well is an art form all its own, and there will always be opportunities to create an experience, a lesson or a memory without preparation. So the next time you’re presented with the unexpected, you can view it as a pain or take advantage of the opportunity to practice your improv skills. You never know when or how those moments will present themselves, and the more comfortable you are simply going with the flow, the better the chances are that your improv will leave them laughing and wanting more.