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Are You Asking the Right Questions?

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (0)

29 Apr

Question Are You Asking the Right Questions? “We find … it’s much more important and difficult to ask the right question. Once you do that, the right answer becomes obvious.”
~Amory Lovins

If you want to know more about why people do or don’t change, then ask more questions.

When working with organizations and teams, it is important to first listen and understand before building plans and developing programs for them. For organizations that do not have coaching as a mainstay offering for their leaders, they may be surprised to hear it is those coaching methodologies that open the door to understanding. For a large company, it is definitely worthwhile for key individuals and leaders within the organization to be coached, and for those in charge of organizational development (OD) to have some coaching training behind them.

There is a generalized stigma around coaching that can be hard to shake and it’s often referred to as that ‘airy-fairy’ soft-skills stuff. There is nothing soft about coaching!

If you remember being figuratively pinned to the wall as a teen in high school as some wise adult helped you learn to stand up and take responsibility for your own actions, you can easily recognize the value for coaching in any environment. Through great questions, a coach can dig deep enough to get to the root of why you choose your current thought patterns and reactions, helping you better understand where you fit among the dynamics of a multifaceted team of individuals. There is nothing soft about it. The secret to a coach’s success is the training they receive within two areas:

learning how to ask questions and

the right questions to ask.

This is why people in Change Management (CM) are also effective coaches. One who seeks to understand the stakeholders and the stakes involved in any change initiative is best served by first knowing the right questions to ask. Great questions return great results, further creating introspective reasoning for the individual who is providing the answers. The people being asked begin to think a little more about what they do and why they do it, eventually getting to the heart of why, within a change initiative, the stakes are so high for them.

This doesn’t mean the stakeholders are all in an ‘organized coaching program’, but rather, through a varied series of meetings, one-on-one discussions, facilitated group sessions and other forms of analysis and risk analysis, the CM professional is able to dig deep to the heart of any challenges that may inhibit change.

Change is inevitable, but change as a push mechanism is rarely successful. Change initiatives that take into consideration all stakeholders and build a plan for change that motivates and inspires people to move forward from resistance to desire find greater success. It is my experience that there is usually a lot more to resistance than what is initially shared, and a little coaching methodology can certainly loan itself to finding the greatest resistance and helping the people within an organization work through it.

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Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.

You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323

Idea Sessions | Change Management | Executive Coaching | Team Building

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Categories : Communication, Conflict, Culture, Human Resources, Leadership, Management

Tags : Asking the right Questions, Change Management, Leadership, Organizational Development

Policies, Procedures and the Leadership Team

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (2)

12 Feb

Whether you have 10 people walking in the door for work or 1000, they all bring with them their dreams, hopes, values, frustrations, problems and their desire to make their career the best it can be. People bring with them every experience they have ever had, and their perception of what that experience has meant to them, good or bad. Most of them will react to everyday situations based on those experiences, putting a wrapper around the situation based on what they believe it means to them.

Witnessing the human dynamic can be both awe inspiring and difficult, depending on what is playing out at any given time within the organization. You will have motivated and non-motivated employees, you will have great leaders and managers who are biding their time. There will be people with good intentions and the odd one with not-so-good intentions.

And this is why every company needs to have policies and procedures in place with strict adherence to them.

For the routine actions and for the unusual actions that will occur in any company, a set of guidelines for both employee and employer provide clarity and help avoid miscommunication.

First, the best place to start is to look at your Provincial or State labour standards or code. These are the guidelines you as an employer must uphold, it is the law in the place where you live. It is also the job of every manager in your company to know what these are; are you helping them? Small companies without a solid HR presence will especially need to know what the rules are.

Second, you need to protect the company and your employees from harm. Harm includes law suits, security issues, labour problems and safety. There are clear guidelines in all of these areas as well. Do your homework, make sure you know what your rights are and make sure you know the rights of your employees. A company handbook can include some of these items.

Third, you need to understand what processes you as a company wish to work within, basically; “What are my manager’s supposed to do and what are they allowed to do within these walls and how do I want them to accomplish it?” AND “What are my employees supposed to do and how do I want them to accomplish that?”

Many companies are unaware of how important their own policies and procedures are.

Executive team, not everyone ‘works like you and thinks like you.’

I know a lot of companies are weary trying to keep up with the legislated pieces and want to apply more of the budget to operations rather than HR. However, HR, when given the right direction and authority, have the ability to save the company many dollars in the long run.

From vacations to stress leave, from benefits to complaints, without a solid set of procedures to access and the guidelines of what to do, your employees will be scrambling for answers and wanting support. In most companies employees want their immediate manager to have both the answers and the authority to make a difference for them. Have you prepared your management team to handle all they will need to handle when they encounter a difficult situation or event, a budgetary shift, a grievance? Have you prepared your HR team to take on what the manager cannot? Have you outlined the differences in their roles? Are you tracking attrition, complaints, costs of transition, and more? Have you outlined the overall ‘behavioural intolerance level’ your company will not accept and what happens when they arise? If not, you have some work to do.

It is easy to make the assumption your staff understands how you want the company to run, after all, you are there every day and you are showing them how to do it. Be cautious, leader, these people need things clearly laid out, eliminate as much opportunity for misinterpretation of your desires as possible. Empower your staff to make decisions without you because the policy or procedure is spelled out in a way that supports your teams and protects your organization. But be aware, this is not a quick task or a two month answer, you will need facilitation and direction through about 18 months to two years of development if this is the first time you have embarked on such a task and you have more than 20 employees.

Give your Managers and HR department the tools and the power to make a difference for you and for your staff. Develop a company where everyone knows what support looks like and your teams are empowered to shine.

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Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.

You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323

Contact us here to book for Idea Sessions, Change Management, Executive Coaching or Team Development.

Idea Sessions | Change Management | Executive Coaching | Team Building

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Categories : Communication, Culture, Human Resources, Leadership, Management, Training

Tags : Employees, employment standards, labour laws, Leadership Guidance, Policies, Procedures, Training

Why I Can’t Be Hired

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (0)

05 Feb

Be willing to do the work, not play the victim of circumstance

Working in Organizational Development (executive coaching and change management) is my passion. I love situational, character and behavioural development within an organizational environment. I personally study hard to build my programs and I take neuroscience, anthropology and psychology research into account for all jobs involving people. I have done this self-study for almost 20 years regardless of where I have worked – I am fascinated by people. What really charges me is when I am asked to come in and work with teams for greater collaboration and communication.

To determine if I am a good fit for the consulting contract, I ask the following two questions:

How much action and change is the executive leadership willing to take on in order to make my efforts worthwhile for the company?
What kind of support will be available from the top in order to make positive change happen?

The one statement that leads me to decline a consulting role with a company is this:

“I just want you to come in and fix ______________.” (This statement is rarely associated with actions of the executive leadership.)

First, your people don’t need fixing. Second, I am powerless to ‘fix this’ because as the consultant that is not my job, as the leader it is YOUR job. Third, I am hired to guide you and lead the way, the work involved belongs to each and every individual within the company STARTING with the top level leadership and supported through to the front lines.

When a problem exists, the first step is for the leadership to be able to admit there is a problem, but they cannot stop there. They must be willing to admit the actions they have been taking thus far are not working and something needs to change. It needs to change first at their level.

I have been known to decline any job whereby the hiring individual is unwilling to do what it takes to turn around the morale or working relationships within the company. I will also turn down coaching jobs with any manager who is not willing to take the action necessary to make change at their (leadership) level.

Coaching and consulting are about providing the assist, but we don’t come in and score the goals for our client, that is their job. They must be willing to do the work – not play the victim of circumstance.

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Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.

You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323

Contact us here to book for Idea Sessions, Change Management, Executive Coaching or Team Development.

Idea Sessions | Change Management | Executive Coaching | Team Building

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Categories : Communication, Culture, Leadership, Management

Tags : Getting hired, hiring fit, who doesn't hire me, why people hire me

The Three E’s of Hiring

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (0)

19 Sep

Untitled 3 The Three Es of Hiring Do not be fooled by assuming that education = expertise.
Do not be fooled by assuming expertise = results.
Do not discount experience.

The HR hiring departments of many organizations seek qualifications, expertise and experience when trying to fill a position.

Paper tells very little. The person can tell/show you a lot.

Start with experience – it is the practitioners who do the work regularly and on a continual bases who know what results look like.

Experience is: hands on doing, maturity in the industry and holds the foundational knowledge leading to the role.

Next, vet their expertise – some gain it by reading, some by doing; some both ways.

Use the interview to clarify if the expertise is that which they ‘tell’ you they know or if it is actual knowledge pertaining to the role.

Let education be the last thing you look for, not the first. Use it to select the candidate from your short list of practitioners.

Remember: You want to hire people who can DO the job, not look impressive. Your role is to decipher who those people are and then determine if they are a good fit for the values and goals of the company and team for whom they are being recruited.

Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop
Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership
through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.

You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323

Contact us here to book for Idea Sessions, Change Management, Executive Coaching or Team Development.

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Categories : Human Resources, Leadership, Management

Tags : Education, experience, Expertise, hiring, Human Resources, recruiting

Business IS of the Heart

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (0)

14 Feb

…When Cultures Collide in Mergers and Acquisitions

Business consultants tell entrepreneurs to know their exit plan, and many focus on a merger or acquisition market as they build their businesses. This is especially true in the technology or engineering space, where valuations are done of a technology which may be attractive to larger firms looking to grow their offering.

When a valuation is being performed on a company prior to merging or acquiring it, that valuation is usually based solely on the financial side of the business. A careful calculation of the assets and liabilities, the varied business market, the intangible assets like trademarks or patents, financial reporting and more. A company does their homework before any merger or acquisition, and typically if a sale goes through, they feel confident they’ve made the right move.

But there is one thing that is rarely done… and that is a careful study of the differences between the company cultures. Culture is about shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that make up the “personality” of a given company. Personalities are important. Imagine, if you will, two people discussing getting married and they both have children and homes.

Of course ‘marriage is of the heart and this is business’, you say?

Well, two companies coming together needs to be treated like a marriage. If you were considering marrying someone, you do need to consider your partner’s financial health and see if it matches yours, but is that all you would look at? I would think you should see if there is compatibility of the values, attitudes and practices. How you raise your children and how they raise theirs may be so far removed from one another, you could be creating Armageddon rather than a loving, caring blended family. It could be that you are sending a child or two on a run-away spree, or will be forever burdened by being the nasty, horrible and wicked step-parent no matter how hard you try.

image courtesy of Presentation-Process.com

This little analogy is very apropos for M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) and cultural evaluations are starting to make headway in some M and A analysis of companies. Why?

Because after you buy the company and by the time you ask a consultant to come in and help with the messy change management of the two cultures, it can be too late.

It is imperative the company buying takes a careful look at the culture of the company being purchased and consider this in their valuation. A company purchasing a heavily creative and innovative group whose mandate it has been to focus on the customer may find their new family clashing with a process driven conglomerate whose focus is global spread and, trust me, that can be disastrous. In fact, in technology, the key component to a wise purchase is in determining how to retain the knowledge held by the employees. Your software is only as good as the people writing it, and you want them to stay.

I am not saying it cannot be done or to avoid the purchase, what I am saying is, you better already have a great plan in place for merging not only the technology or the company, but the cultures too. Doing your homework needs to be holistic, not finance specific, know what pitfalls and roadblocks you will suffer if culture is left out of the equation, or that beautiful valuation sheet may very well be worth far less once the knowledge has walked out the door.

There are things you can do to prepare in advance:

bring someone in who understands how to evaluate cultures and
work at building a plan of action toward a healthy merger or acquisition, upfront.

It behoves you to do so, because business is of the heart, and shouldn’t be about wasting money or losing talent.

Patti Blackstaffe works with people and organizations to develop

Happy Workplaces world-wide guiding them toward mastery and leadership

through consulting, advising, coaching, speaking, and delivering training.

You can reach Patti at 1-855-968-5323 | contact her here | book her to speak

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Categories : Business, Culture, M&A, Management

Tags : Acquisitions, advising, company culture, consulting, Corporat Culture, cultural differences, cultural evaluation, culture, Mergers

Encouraging Others

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (0)

02 Mar

Strategic Sense made a commitment this year to highlight some of the remarkable authors, leadership professionals and business people we have had the great fortune of meeting and working with over the last 3 years. On Wednesdays, you will see guest-posts from some of these folks. All are leaders in their field and will have solutions to some of our biggest workplace issues. As with Marlene Chism‘s post last week that encouraged us to Stop Complaining today’s post helps us remember to Encourage…

Today’s Guest Post is by Kevin Eikenberry, from The Eikenberry Group. His blog Leadership and Learning has been a mainstay in our weekly reading and he has worked for years with organizations and individuals in helping them improve their leadership. You can get a copy of his latest book here From Bud to Boss and follow up on the review we gave on this blog last week.

image courtesy of Davide Guglielmo, Italy

And now, here’s Kevin:

In certain situations we all understand and value the importance of encouragement.

Take, with kids for example. When they are learning to walk and talk, there is tons of encouragement from every adult around. We know that if they keep at it they will succeed.

Take, our friends as a second example. When our closest friends are down or in pain, we all have provided encouragement and support, knowing that our encouragement would help them through a difficult time.

In both of these situations we realize the other person needs greater courage – either to take another try at a step, or to move past the pain or disappointment they might be feeling. To encourage literally means “to cause or create courage”.

Isn’t courage sometimes lacking at work too?

People lack the courage to try something new.

People lack the courage to do the right thing for the Customer.

People lack the courage to change the work process.

People lack the courage to share a new idea.

(need I go on?)

I talk with leaders all the time that want their team members to “be proactive” and “keep growing”. All too often the biggest barrier in people’s way is fear (of failure, of chastisement, of political suicide, or ridicule, to name a few).

And as we intuitively know, one of the best antidotes for fear is the strong, vibrant, continual and authentic encouragement of others.

If you want people to do more, take on more, and grow; encourage them.

If you want people to try new things, encourage them.

Amongst all of your coaching competencies and fancy coaching models, remember one of the most powerful tools you have.

Encouragement.

Ask yourself, who can I encourage today?

Kevin Eikenberry is a two-time bestselling author, speaker, consultant, trainer, coach, leader, learner, husband, and father (not necessarily in that order).

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Categories : Leadership, Management

Tags : boss, Encouragement, Leadership, Management, managers

Traveling Your Journey ‘From Bud to Boss’

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (1)

10 Feb

Book Review:

Everyone is a leader, from the guy helping out at the sports game to the teacher, to the person who answers phones at the dentist office. Every part of our jobs involves leadership skills in one form or another. Just navigating your way through the chaotic and ever-changing world we live in requires a myriad of leadership skills.

In all of the chaos and fluctuation we seek to find a voice of reason and a calm guide to help us work our way through and it’s especially challenging when we have most recently been promoted to a management role and are moving “From Bud to Boss”. Well, you can make a stop on that journey of searching and take more than a peek at a new book of just such a name by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris. From Bud to Boss – Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership is more than just a book, it’s a journal of steps and strategies that will bring you closer and closer to your goal of being a leader people choose to follow.

If you could have a map for dealing with the significant change from an employee to a boss it would be within the pages of this book. Charting a course through that change, the critical components of your own leadership style and how you communicate physically, emotionally and verbally is not always easy. Self evaluation is a big part of growth and Eikenberry and Harris provide ample ways to take a good look at yourself, much like holding a mirror up to you and showing you what other people see.

Why is that important? Because until we see ourselves as others might see us, our willingness to grow is hindered by a limited view. That limited view provides limited direction.

“But now the world is different, and your perspective must, necessarily, change”

With a clear guide through the transition From Bud to Boss Eikenberry and Harris offer you what they call “Remarkable Principles” that, when read alone, provide a great template for remembering the lessons in the book – grab a highlighter you’re going to want to have these as road-signs on your map to leadership.

“Change is a choice. People don’t resist change, they resist being changed.”

With every “Remarkable Principle” comes both explanation and hands-on, real-life strategies you can take with you and utilize immediately. This is a workbook, a book for a person who has a great desire to take the journey to remarkable leadership. Each exercise applies to you – not some generality you must work hard to apply to your own circumstances.

Throughout the book you will find a “Bonus Byte” a hint or tip for applying the exercise to your own leadership, your team efforts or for simply taking a look back at the steps you have taken and re-assess.

Everyone needs a stepped plan, a place to start and support in getting there. “From Bud To Boss” gives you all that, in addition to a plethora of resources you can tap into in reaching your goals of making a difference as the leader you were meant to be. In addition to all the resources, Eikenberry and Harris help you define a vision for your leadership, your relationships and grow a relationship with yourself.

Not sure why you would bother? It is this writer’s opinion that everyone has room to grow, no matter how successful a leader we are, we always have room to learn more, be more and do more. Take this journey and discover the total cost of not adopting change as the authors walk you through the steps and the path of discovering what happens when we stagnate while change swirls all around us and we live romanticizing the past that we ‘think’ has served us best.

If you were to step yourself through the rugged path of leadership, without a guide, without an understanding of what lies in your path , it is going to be a slower journey. Everyone wants some indication of how to deal with the pitfalls, the roadblocks, the trees in the road, and while one cannot possibly give warning of everything – this book addresses a good many of the critical factors in leadership and creates a map worth following.

“Most people communicate in the way that is most comfortable to

them. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this tendency, it

does present a bit of a challenge to you as a leader.”

None of us are on this journey alone, if you’re the boss – you have a team and an organization you must communicate with, not to mention meeting the expectations of your own boss. Follow the information in the Communication chapters to more effectively influence, support, and provide memorable meaning to what you say and how you say it and then begin to understand the deepest and most relevant skill your team needs – you, listening.

Whether it’s adjusting to change and communicating effectively or coaching and evaluation, ‘From Bud to Boss’ offers a comprehensive workbook and leader-journey to support the key to accomplishing great things… and that is collaboration. They walk you through healthy and unhealthy conflict showing you the difference and give you steps to successfully deal with both so that you, the leader, can set – work toward and achieve your goals.

I don’t know Kevin Eikenberry or Guy Harris, but I get Kevin’s newsletter and read it weekly – that newsletter is always packed with content and valuable information. No fluff there, so when I heard he teamed up with Guy to write a book– I found out how I could get an advance copy to read. Thanks to Kevin and his generosity, I have the privilege of adding a valuable manual for leadership to my bookshelf. It is a book I will reference frequently and that offers more than just words on leadership, it offers actionable steps, resources and a touch-base of follow-up support for the leader who chooses to change, grow and develop with and for the people he/she is privileged to lead.

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Categories : Business, Leadership, Management

Tags : Book Review, From Bud To Boss, Guy Harris, handbook for leaders, Kevin Eikenberry, Leadership

2010 Asked Us To Engage; 2011 Suggests We Evolve

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (2)

30 Dec

Year in Review & Global Evolution – 2010 brought with it a strong awareness in global online communities and two words truly stood out for us.

Engagement and Authenticity.

newyear sm 2010 Asked Us To Engage; 2011 Suggests We Evolve

image courtesy of Madhavan M - India

Some of what we observed:

Social media transformed from geek-fun to mainstream as online communities grew at rapid rates.
News of natural disasters arrived on our desktops and mobile devices in real-time, thanks to Twitter, Facebook and other online community sharing.
Customers felt comfortable sharing their good and bad experiences with thousands of online connections as companies discovered their carefully thought-out and executed customer service departments failed in customer service satisfaction.
YouTube grew as the #2 search engine running closely behind Google, sending the message that visual is important to consumers.
Small Businesses discovered a global audience online as they stumbled through figuring out how to leverage new online tools and software expanding their reach to potential customers.
Politicians and Large Corporate discovered people want truth, action and disclosure – in several uncomfortable ways – Wikileaks being one of them.
Slow growth and less disposable spending ushered in a call for creating greater levels of consumer satisfaction – on a grand scale.

The repetitive word was ‘Engage’ and engaging with authenticity and integrity was the theme we heard loud and clear in all areas, both online and in person, especially from employees.

If Engage was the word for 2010 we believe Evolve will be the word for 2011

Evolve for flexible change in transformational times.

Companies who focus on culture and build a team excelling in co-creation, collaboration and sharing will begin to own their markets. Here are some ways smart companies will evolve in 2011:

Through partnering in unique ways to create exciting projects and connect employees, vendors, developers and customers.
Utilizing experts through virtual services and building a transparent model of collaboration.
Leveraging the diversity of knowledge using the crowd, transforming top-down leadership organizations into flexible and collaborative decision making companies.
Developing software with open development practices and shared knowledge.

We believe engagement and authenticity will drive this evolution of engagement in the coming year, and the push to change will come from the crowd, rather than organizations themselves. We are witnessing transformation on a global scale where the everyday citizen’s voice is now more powerful because of the collective gathering of ideas and thoughts enhanced with so many new technologies and platforms. Companies who evolve to meet the challenges offered them by that collective will be the winners – changing the face of leadership entirely.

Patti is a strategic advisor in Leadership, Customer Service and Cultural integration through Mergers and Acquisition. You can book her to speak at her personal page.

Need Strategic Sense for your business? – hire us for Leadership Development of individuals, teams, group training and company strategy. Happy Workplaces Succeed, take the path to get there. (403) 201-8512

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Categories : Leadership, Management, Training

Tags : co-creation, collaboration, crowd sourcing, partnering, smart teams

Going for Advancement

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (1)

08 Dec

Advancement only comes with habitually doing more than you are asked. ~Gary Ryan Blair

Advancement, if this is one of your personal values for your career, your job is to understand how you are evaluated, then exceed it.

The criteria on which you are evaluated are the criteria by which your company defines career advancement. These criteria may or may not match your values, working toward your values and ignoring evaluation criteria is not the path to advancement. Your job is to decide if you can work where you feel conflicted, or if you can still maintain your values while still exceeding their criteria.

Many companies fail to recognize disconnects between what they say they want for a culture and what they actually evaluate. What gets evaluated is what they build. If a company seeks collaborative and innovative – then what they measure needs to match those criteria.

For a company to say they want a fun and invigorating culture, but only measure margins and ignore behaviour and intangibles is equal to a brain wanting weight loss and going straight for the double-double chocolate cake. One does not equal the other.

Patti is a strategic advisor in Leadership Development, Customer Service and Culture through Mergers and Acquisition. You can book her to speak at her personal page.

Need Strategic Sense for your business? – hire us for Leadership Development of individuals, teams, group training and company strategy. Happy Workplaces Succeed, take the path to get there. (403) 201-8512

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Categories : Leadership, Management

Tags : advancement, Business, Careers, evaluated, Executive, promoted, promotion, self leadership

Make YOUR company a Cirque Du Soleil

by Patti Blackstaffe · Comments (5)

24 Oct

This evening I had the pleasure of celebrating my birthday a little early by attending KOOZA by Cirque du Soleil, a gift from my kids (thanks kids). What a show – between the antics, the acrobatics and the feats of amazement, I could not help thinking about how all our companies could learn a thing or two in both customer service and leadership.

Here are a few of my observations:

1. Not just any old circus

The quality of each and every act is superior to any show I have witnessed. Painstaking detail goes into every costume, all the makeup, the lighting, the sounds and especially safety. With the maintenance of equipment, upkeep of fabrics for costumes, and the polished shine on the metal parts to catch the light, it is all miraculously new-looking and beautiful, despite hundreds of previous shows. NO cutting costs for cheaper fabrics that don’t stretch with the body, cheaper makeup that runs when you sweat, low-cost equipment – nope, because this is a class act.

There will be no oil leak at this Cirque!

2. Everyone is a star in this gig

If you are a trapeze artist, there’s a good chance you will be moving sets and removing items from the stage. If you have some other talent in your past that would be beneficial like massage therapy or plumbing, you may be asked to provide that as well.

There are no headliners or heroes. Everyone is a star in this gig – you have talent, well, chances are you were gifted with more than one and your job is to not only contribute those talents but also support the talent of others in every way possible by pitching in on everything you can.

Get over yourself – get into the team.

3. Don’t show the customer the cogs, give them what they came for

We went to Cirque du Soleil to be entertained, and entertained we were. There are a ton of mechanical, technical and physical adjustments between acts, but we were barely aware they were taking place because of the high-energy, excitement going on all around us. The clever distractions and crazy antics kept us highly entertained and laughing the whole way through. And then suddenly, we became aware that they’d put together rigging right there out in the open for the next act, and we barely noticed its arrival because we were so caught up with the fun of the show.

This is how the best of the best make your life happy as a customer, they make your experience seamless and fun. You don’t notice how hard they are working in the background to deliver your product and you don’t have to care.

Getting great service or a great experience should be just that, great!

4. Surprise EVERYONE

This is the third Cirque du Soleil show I have attended and I never grow weary of them. Why? I am always pleasantly surprised. They don’t do this with any one thing; it is the combination of things that offer me continual enchantment, so much so I forget to blink in the event I may miss something. There is action happening at every level, every corner of the facility or tent to keep me in amazement. I have a hard time finding anything at all to complain about because of the perpetual activity that astounds me.

If you have one department that truly shines above all others according to customer response, then learn from these folks, because EVERY department needs to shine and surprise. This means learning how to become a company that always exceeds customer expectation rather than meeting it.

Think Apple.

We cannot all be Cirque du Soleil, but we can certainly learn a lot about business and leadership by being one of their customers, I recommend you attend and while you are there, observe, learn and figure out how you can implement.

Patti is a strategic advisor in Leadership Development, Customer Service and Culture through Mergers and Acquisition. You can book her to speak at her Speakers Page.

Need Strategic Sense for your business? – hire us for Leadership Development of individuals & teams, group training and company strategy. Happy Workplaces Succeed, take the path to get there. 403-201-8512

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Categories : Business, Customer Service, Leadership, Management

Tags : Action, Cirque du Soleil, customer experience, Customer Service, keep customers happy, Leadership, work together

“Patti has given to me such wonderful advice in many areas of my life and challenges where I have needed expert advice. I would highly recommend her services to anyone – you will be extremely grateful and find her advice most beneficial. Patti is very educated and knowledgeable with the ability to analyze and see objectively all aspects of a situation. Given such insight, this enables her to advise you with both the positive and negative effects, such that one is able to achieve a more desirable outcome. I am most grateful for her mentorship and caring attitude.”

Shirley Petersen
Telvent Canada