Dealing with Pinocchio

Last month I did a session of my How to Tell Anyone Anything program for a great group of people on the East Coast. Later, over lunch, one of my hosts posed a fascinating question to me: what do you say to an employee who isn’t doing his job well, and then lies about it when you try to discuss it?

I responded without hesitation with an answer that made everyone choke on their tuna sandwiches: validate the liar. People immediately had stunned looks on their faces as they turned to me and asked, “Really?”

Yes, really. But I'm not asking what you think. I am not suggesting that you agree with people who lie. Nor am I asking you to imply that lying is OK. I am just asking you to dispense with trying to "catch" the other person, at least at first, and validate (e.g. acknowledge) how they are saying they see an issue.

Just answer the following question, and then you tell me: Imagine the last time you told a white lie. What would have gotten a better outcome from you: someone catching you in this lie and making you squirm, or being a little more gentle and focusing on the real issue? I thought so. And guess what, the same thing is true with the people you deal with.

You see, one of the fundamental principles I teach in How to Tell Anyone Anything is that you can never successfully criticize anyone. The minute you start putting someone on the defensive or calling them out, you’re toast. That’s why my book focuses on starting in a safe place, asking questions, validating the other person, and then discussing even very tough situations factually instead of emotionally. It feels like sucking on a lemon for most people at first, but once people see in live role-playing how incredibly well it gets people to buy in and change their behavior, they’re hooked.

But even so, the idea of validating a liar seems a little wild to most people. So let's walk through a couple of scenarios:

Scenario 1:
Peter Pinocchio: I haven’t been able to get work done because my co-workers keep asking me to help them. (Note that his nose is growing longer.)
Supervisor: That isn’t true. I see you talking about sports all day with people, while everyone else is trying to get their work done.

Scenario 2:
Peter Pinocchio: I haven’t been able to get work done because my co-workers keep asking me to help them.
Supervisor: So you feel that you are getting interrupted a lot, and it’s keeping you from getting your work done. Given how important this project is, what can we do to make it easier for you to finish it?

Which of these two scenarios is more likely to help Peter meet his deadlines and build a productive working relationship with you? And which one is more likely to lead to sullen compliance, bitterness, and more excuses? Ring-a-ding-ding.

Now, are there times you really shouldn’t validate a lie? Sure. When they are big, fat lies that cross important boundaries , or when chronic lying is the issue itself. When someone lies about how much money is in the company account, for example, you have my blessings to dispense with strength-based communication, if not call the police. But for everyday white lies and performance issues, trust me on this one - you ultimately need to use lots of empathy and validation if you ever want anything to really change.

Meanwhile, do you feel stuck dealing with employees who won’t cooperate and won’t be honest with you? Get in touch with me at gallagher -at- pointofcontactgroup.com and let’s talk. I can help you – and that’s no lie.

Can't get enough of me?

Here are some new resources on communicating with customers and each other from yours truly - all of which are high-content, and some of which are free!

Porcupine now available as an e-book. My #1 customer service bestseller What to Say to a Porcupine is now available as an e-book from ebooks.com. Click here to order.

Free webcast on prickly customers. An archived version of my What to Say to a Porcupine webcast for Parature Software is now online. Registration is required, but it's worth it - this is as close as you'll come to a free workshop on dealing with prickly customers, and the live versions of this event drew nearly 2,000 registered attendees! Go to http://www.parature.com/res_webinars.aspx, click on my smiling face, and sign up to listen.

Free coaching white paper. Best Practices for Coaching Your Support Team to Handle Anything is a new, complimentary white paper I developed for Supportindustry.com. Here as well, registration is required but well worth it: Supportindustry.com and its sister site RecognizeServiceExcellence.com are, in my view, the best portals of free information on customer support out there. Click here to get your free copy.

Pre-order my new book. My new book How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com - click here to order. Coming soon in late May from AMACOM Books.

How to Tell Anyone Anything: the audiocourse. Finally, can't wait to read How to Tell Anyone Anything? The highlights of its companion training program - currently my most popular workshop - is now available as a CEU audiocourse, including an online workbook and test questions, from Briefings Publishing Group. Here's the link: http://www.briefings.com/audio640.asp.

Seeing people clearly

It happens to the best of us, especially at my age: every couple years or so, those darn road signs get blurrier and I need to go get a new pair of glasses.

This time, I decided to try my first pair of no-line bifocals, thinking they would make it easier for me sitting in front of my omnipresent word processor. In reality, the opposite is true: they give me tunnel vision, and I am constantly moving my head around chasing a small spot of clarity around the screen. So it’s probably back to regular bifocals for me.

Meanwhile, a busy optical store is a fascinating place to watch human nature and communication take place. Many people, when they try a new pair of glasses on for the first time, find it disorienting and complain about it. And the optical staff, being human beings, often react the same way our caveman ancestors did when confronted with a hungry saber-toothed tiger: they get defensive and start countering the customer’s arguments.

But when I go out of my way to be polite and upbeat about problems like my new bifocals, I notice an interesting dynamic: because I don’t challenge people, they go out of their way to validate my point of view and be helpful. They say things like “I can see why you react this way to them. Let me show you why this might be happening” instead of the usual “Well, you probably need to do X” response people give under pressure.

So here is my suggestion for you folks out there: next time you have a customer problem, be as charming and cheerful about it as you can. Even if you’ve been overcharged $70 or are returning a defective computer. And then see what happens. I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Kick it up a notch

I have been training groups for many years now, but each and every one teaches me something new - and what I learned from my most recent group was truly magical.

I was teaching a very engaged group of employees at a state university how to communicate with customers last week, and was talking about what I call the three "octane levels" of acknowledgement:

1) The first is observation, where you simply observe the other person's feelings: for example, "I can tell by your tone of voice you are pretty upset about this."

2) The second is validation, where you make it clear the other person's feelings are valid: for example, "No one likes to pay an extra fee for this."

3) The third and highest level is identification, where you personally identify with the person's agenda: for example, "I would be upset if this happened to me too."

The higher the octane level, the better the other person feels. You can't always use the highest octane level, of course: for example, when someone says, "I was so mad I smashed my fist against the wall," you can't respond with, "I often feel like smashing my fist too." But you can always say things like, "This situation obviously bothered you a great deal. Tell me about it." When you choose the right octane level, you start connecting with people with people instead of arguing with them.

So here is where the magic came in. Normally I ask people for an example of this, I get one, and we move on. This time, the audience was so engaged, people were building on each other's examples and making it better and better - as TV chef Emeril might say, they were kicking it up a notch.

I had thrown out a scenario for them where someone was trying to transfer their credits from an unaccredited Bible school to this fully-accredited university. Normally, of course, most people would respond, "I'm sorry sir, we can't do that." So first, someone raises his hand and gives a pleasant but mild acknowledgement like "I can see this issue is important to you." Next another person raises her hand and says, "You put in a lot of hard work to earn these credits."

Before long, people were really getting in the spirit of this and saying things like, "You clearly worked hard and learned a lot of new things. Now let's explore some options for turning that good work into an accredited degree at our school, such as testing and prior learning assessment." And you could feel the tension drain out of the room with a situation these people often struggled with in real life.

So the lesson for you - and me - is to take your own most difficult customer situations, get your team thinking about good acknowledgements for them, and start workshopping them as a group until they are polished and perfected - and then teach everyone to use them. And watch everything change about your customer relationships.

We're #1 and celebrating! (And you get the presents)

Who is more popular than Ken Blanchard and Dilbert? At the moment, yours truly. Following a very successful webcast for my friends at Parature Software yesterday, there has been a run on people purchasing my latest book What to Say to a Porcupine, and as of yesterday afternoon it ranked as the #1 customer service book AND the #1 business humor book in the United States on Amazon.com.

To celebrate, I am going to make the same offer to my faithful blog readers that we made for people attending the Parature webcast: purchase your own copy on Amazon.com, forward a copy of your Amazon receipt to info@whattosaytoaporcupine.com, and we will send you a free companion mini-course by return e-mail.

This complimentary mini-course will help you use Porcupine as a creative training tool, and includes a free sample fable, student and leader guides, a team exercise, and a PowerPoint presentation. And it will help turn your next team meeting into the most fun you have ever had learning world-class customer skills!

Thanks everyone for making this fable collection the top customer service book in the nation - and stay tuned for more great things in 2009!

The new book: a sneak peek

AMACOM Books has just released its spring/summer 2009 catalogue, including my next literary blockbuster How to Tell Anyone Anything - so now you can finally get a sneak peek at the cover, shown here. (I think they did a great job, as always!)

The book has a scheduled release date of June 2009. Can't wait to learn its secrets? Its companion training program has been in release for over a year and has become my most popular live workshop - visit my training website at Point of Contact Group for more details.

Meanwhile, stay tuned to http://www.howtotellanyoneanything.com/ for more information on a fresh, new approach to handling your most difficult interactions at work. Here is the catalog copy, courtesy of AMACOM:

How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work by Richard S. Gallagher

No one likes to be criticized. But when feedback is necessary—whether it’s with a boss, someone we manage, or another co-worker—it takes great communication skills to successfully get the message across with feelings and relationships intact.

Drawing from the latest in psychology on how best to connect with others, How to Tell Anyone Anything steers readers away from the common mistake of focusing on what’s wrong, and shows them instead how to provide clear, constructive, positive messages that create real behavior and performance change. Complete with illuminating examples and a unique step-by-step process, the book gives readers powerful insight into how we all react naturally to criticism—and how to transform interactions that might become verbal tugs-of-war into collaborative, problem-solving sessions.

RICHARD S. GALLAGHER (Ithaca, NY) is a popular corporate trainer and public speaker who specializes in the mechanics of workplace culture and communication. He is the author of several books including Great Customer Connections (978-0-8144-7308-5) and What to Say to a Porcupine (978-0-8144-1055-4).

A rare political blog entry

You’ve probably noticed that I never make political comments on this blog. There is a good reason for this. I respect everyone’s views of the world, and personally consider myself to be apolitical. To paraphrase my old high school classmate and social commentator Stephen Carter, my own views on specific issues are diverse enough that no political party would probably want me.

That said, this week we are not only about to inaugurate our first African-American President of the United States, but the first President since John F. Kennedy who stands out as a great communicator: someone who seems to have the knack of speaking to our interests, acknowledging diverse points of view, and connecting us with our nobler instincts, particularly in a very challenging economic time.

The ability for the words we use to get people to believe in something larger than ourselves is truly magical: I’ve seen it happen in the workplace, as a counselor in training, and now on a much larger scale as we welcome a new leader. And while it has been fascinating to watch this Presidential campaign unfold over the last year, it has been even more fascinating to deconstruct the way Barack Obama speaks to people.

At a more societal level, we have perhaps seen the country finally make a right turn away from an era where fear and negative campaigning determine the outcome of an election, from either party. Hopefully we are starting to learn that the partisans of either stripe that you hear on talk shows and cable news channels are never going to solve our problems, because it is hard to fix anything when you marginalize 49% of the people you are speaking to. Let’s hope for a new era of consensus building, and perhaps on a more personal level, a fresh look at how we speak to each other. Good luck and Godspeed, President Obama.

Raisin box psychotherapy

My raisins are talking to me.

No, don’t break out the butterfly nets quite yet. What I mean by this is that every morning, I open a box of Sun-Maid raisins and pour them into my oatmeal (click here for the culinary details), and it took me a while to realize that the flap of each box contained some amazingly germane advice to guide my day. In time I have come to realize that many of the lessons I have learned in life, and much of what I am currently learning doing graduate work in psychotherapy, is actually waiting for me every morning at the breakfast table.

Some of this advice mirrors what I heard growing up from my parents, including nuggets like “Do your homework first, play later” and “Work hard. Play fair. Sleep well.” Other tips speak to my nobler instincts, like “Help a friend” and “Keep your hands open, both to receive and to give.” And some of it is understandably raisin-centric, such as “A handful of raisins is like a bunch of smiles in your mouth.”

Drilling deeper into the human psyche, much of this advice actually tracks current trends in psychology, including cognitive-behavioral therapy (“Give it a try”), behavioral modeling (“Study those you admire”), family therapy (“Ups and downs are part of all relationships”), and even bibliotherapy (“Support your local library – take a book to lunch”). And occasionally there is a dollop of pure philosophy (“Both our buddies and our enemies can teach us about life”).

My wife, on the other hand, is a chocoholic who prefers the advice printed on the inside of Dove chocolate candies. The Dove sages are a little less Calvinistic than their raisin counterparts, tending toward advice such as “Give yourself a treat,” “You look good in red,” and “You deserve a bubbebath” – not to mention some occasional advice I would rather she didn’t follow, like “Wink at someone driving past today.” But while the Dove folks certainly get high marks in the feel-good department, I still prefer the raisin d’etre that greets me every morning.

So when I graduate and become licensed as a therapist, I think a career path is starting to emerge: I think I want to become a psychologist for the Sun-Maid raisin company. Do you think they could use another advice-giver on their staff?

A great honor

I was delighted to hear today that What to Say to a Porcupine is one of four finalists for 800-CEO-READ's 2008 business book awards, in the business fables category. Here is a link to the announcement:

http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/008608.html

It is a great honor to be in the running for this award, given the caliber of the other finalists - the 13-category field includes people like Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki, and Ram Charan, and my own category's finalists include bestselling author Daniel Pink as well as a delightful new fable Squawk! that I happen to be reading as we speak.

It is also an honor to be singled out by 800-CEO-READ, which in addition to being a leading on-line seller of business books, has a delightful blog that shows their love of the genre. (This summer they published a very nice review of Porcupine here.) It's nice to read the thoughts of people who really appreciate good books and their power to change lives, while having a good sense of humor in the process.

The awards will be announced December 15th. Keep your fingers crossed!

* * *

An update: I didn't win. The top honors went this year to New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink for his new book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, an imaginative Manga-fable turned business advice book. I think the judges made a good pick - congrats Daniel, and I was delighted to be one of the finalists.

Dr. Ron Davis, 1956-2008

The world just lost a truly incredible person this past month. Dr. Ron Davis, a lifelong public health crusader who was most recently president of the American Medical Association, lost a very courageous and public battle with pancreatic cancer at the young age of 52.

I first “met” Ron as part of a teleconference discussing a National Cancer Institute monograph that I was working on as a science writer, a publication series that he was once editor of, and was struck immediately by how high his standards were. Not knowing him beyond this phone call at first, I imagined him as a demanding perfectionist. Later, meeting and working with him in person for several days in Chicago (he is the tall man in the blue shirt on the left), I discovered these high standards were combined with a warm and accessible man who was described accurately by his colleagues as “the nicest person in the world.”

During that meeting last year, he shared with us that he had just been elected president of AMA, and while he probably had the smallest personal ego of any person ever to hold that office, his pride was unmistakable. He clearly relished the opportunity to have a soapbox for the next year as an advocate for the nation’s health, and used it skillfully.

For those of you who don’t know Dr. Davis’s legacy, he was one of the world’s foremost experts on tobacco control, who founded its main professional journal of the same name, and played a key role in public health interventions that have saved tens of millions of premature deaths. As AMA’s president, it was Dr. Davis who delivered their formal apology to black physicians for their past exclusion, tirelessly advocated for better public health (at one point delivering an hour-long lecture from on a treadmill), and set the medical industry further on a path toward universal health care coverage.

On a personal level, it was a treat to listen to someone with Ron’s rare blend of expertise and humility, and I cherished the opportunity. For example, one night at dinner at a Chicago bistro, I started having trouble breathing after eating my appetizer – an issue that would later be diagnosed as food allergies – and started to panic. I soon recovered my bearings again without anyone being the wiser, but remembered my only thought being, “Oh no – I am having a medical crisis and I am sitting next to the president of AMA. What do I do now?” But above all, it was a pleasure working with a truly great man.

Perhaps his greatest final act was making us all part of his illness and its lessons. He shared a very detailed summary of his treatment with friends and colleagues on a blog, encouraged people at risk to have genetic testing for this illness, and kept up a full schedule of speaking and publishing. As his illness advanced, he appeared before the AMA for one speech – now bald from chemotherapy – and spoke in a calm, clear voice that “Our existence, compared with the history of the earth, is quite fleeting. So whether we are ill or well, we should not waste any of that time before figuring out how to leave our mark on this planet.”

Just two weeks before his passing, he still tried to chair a medical conference in his native Detroit, and when the gravity of his condition prevented it, he dictated a message to his colleagues that read in part, “Some of you remember me as a young medical student just beginning my journey. That energetic medical student committed to public health is still a part of me ... You have designated me as a leader, but I tell you honestly that in many ways you have led me. Your concerns and your friendship have guided me through the years. Now I must complete my “circle of life” and go with God.” Vaya con Dios, Dr. Davis.

Hello Asia!

Just a quick note - I was very pleased to get word this weekend that What to Say to a Porcupine is going to be published in a Korean edition in 2009 through CREDU, an educational division of the Samsung Group.

My books have been published in six languages so far, but this one means a lot to me. Even as an English-language book it has been very popular in Asia so far - for example, this week it is one of the top 15 business humor books in Japan on Amazon, as well as #21 on the customer service chart - and globally, it has been a top 10 business humor book throughout the English-speaking world.

So I'd like to say hwan-yŏng-ham-ni-da (a special welcome) to all of my new friends in Korea! And, of course, looking forward to teaching you all what to say to a porcupine.

We're number two!

Last week was very special for me – my latest book What to Say to a Porcupine became the number 2 selling customer service book in the United States on Amazon.com, as well as one of the top 10 business humor books worldwide, following a record-setting webcast sponsored by Supportindustry.com and Parature Software that drew nearly 500 people! Thanks to everyone who attended and purchased the book.

Now I’d like to return the favor by making the same offer we made to people who attended my webcast last week: purchase a copy of What to Say to a Porcupine on Amazon.com (click here to order), and receive a complimentary mini-course that will help you use this book as a training tool in your organization.

Featuring student and leaders guides, a PowerPoint presentation, and an electronic copy of one of the book’s fables, you will have all you need to turn your next team meeting into a fun and productive learning event. To get your free copy, simply forward your Amazon.com receipt to info@whattosaytoaporcupine.com.

P.S. If you missed the webcast, tune in anytime to the archived presentation at http://www.parature.com/res_webinars.aspx. Enjoy!

The Whipped Cream Diet

What does going on a diet have to do with communications skills? Bear with me for a moment, and I'll explain.

Earlier this summer I decided to go on a diet, with a goal of losing 25 pounds and getting back to my high school weight. I am now halfway there, as the before-and-after pics below show. But how I got there struck me as having a lot in common with how we communicate in difficult situations.

You see, most diets involve depriving yourself. Instead of having burgers and fries, you eat things like carrot sticks, skim milk, and thin gruel. And then after a week or a month of this kind of dietary torture, you go off the wagon and balloon back to your previous weight. This is what happened to me last year when I tried a commercial diet plan, I did great as long as I followed the plan, except that I stopped following the plan.

So this year I am doing things a little differently. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so I am having the most scrumptious breakfast I could imagine – hot oatmeal with milk, raisins, and a big dollop of whipped cream. Yum! Most people don't realize that a big spoonful of whipped cream is only about 40 calories, or about as many calories as I spend scratching my nose.

That yummy breakfast leaves me feeling full, and more than happy to have big salads and small portions the rest of the day. Best of all, I don't feel deprived at all. To the contrary, I feel like I am eating better and enjoying my food more than ever before. Which leads me to how we communicate with people.

When we aren't happy about something, we usually lead with the verbal equivalent of the carrot sticks. We take corrective action, hold people accountable, tell people to get with the program, yada, yada, yada. And we usually get about as far as I did last year on my diet. Because – surprise – no one lays awake at night rapturously pondering your "corrective action."

I say break out the whipped cream. Find out what motivates the other person and help them get there. So when someone is coming in late too often, for example, put it in the context of how they can develop as a leader, not how they can avoid getting written up for disciplinary action. When you use a strength-based approach built around incentives, I find that people's resistance to change melts away as fast as my pounds do.

Think critically about all of the people you have ever worked with who had behavioral issues on the job. Did any of them ever change in the long term because of pressure and disciplinary action? I don't know about you, but in my quarter-century-plus career, those few people who really turned it around did so as a result of someone believing in them, and getting them to believe in themselves. Everyone else - the ones who were simply "held accountable" – either stayed the same or got canned eventually.

My next book for AMACOM, entitled How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work, explores the mechanics of this approach in detail, along with its roots in the growing field of strength-based psychology. If you'd like to be part of my advance team as a potential reviewer, drop me a line at info –at- howtotellanyoneanything.com. This is going to be a very exciting book release.

So with a dozen or so pounds to go, I'm stocking up on more whipped cream. Now, what do you plan to say to someone the next time you want them to improve?

Using Storytelling to Supercharge Your Customer Service Training

Think back to when you were nine years old, and your mother told you to behave better. Did you listen with rapt attention? Did you run off full of enthusiasm to improve yourself? Perhaps most important, did you actually change your behavior?

The reason that you answered "no" to all of these questions holds the key for how to breathe new life into your customer service training. When you stop telling people how to behave and start stirring their creative juices instead, there is no limit on how far they will lead you.

Most of us immediately get defensive and self protective when someone tells *us* to improve – no matter how quote-unquote correct the other person is – because this is a basic survival instinct we all share. But when we hear a story about someone else's foibles, we listen and learn from it. This is because of a well-known principle of behavioral psychology known as "modeling," which holds that we primarily learn by observing other people.

This principle lies at the root of how we started telling stories. Over 2500 years ago, Aesop's fables were created to teach people life lessons, in the form of funny stories about animals and people. A generation ago, Popeye cartoons helped children to want to eat their spinach. And today, approaches such as narrative psychotherapy help people examine their own life stories and make positive changes.

So how does this apply to your own customer contact team? Simple. Stop telling them what to do better, and get them to work scripting stories about how other people handle customer situations. You'll be amazed at how much energy and creativity they will have in doing something all of us do extremely well: stick our nose in other people's problems and try to solve them.

Nowadays, when I teach a customer skills course, I often follow a three-step process. I share a humorous fable about a customer situation, teach some of the skills that these characters could use to make the situation better, and then turn everyone loose to complete stories of their own. Here are some examples:

1) Once upon a time, there was a fire-breathing dragon who was rude, demanding, and angry– and if anyone ever dared to stand up to him, tongues of fire would shoot from his mouth! But this dragon was also very sad and lonely. No one ever wanted to talk with a fire-breathing dragon, and people would cower behind their desks and counters whenever he came in to buy anything. So one day, you came to the village and said, "I have a great idea for how to deal with this dragon in the future! My idea is ______________"

2) You and your business partners have just pooled your life savings to create your dream job: starting a new garbage dump. But not just any garbage dump. Your goal is to give people the very best garbage dump service experience possible! What can you do to create an excellent service experience for people dumping their garbage?

3) Take the worst customer experience you have ever had. Turn the person who waited on you into a fictional character, and then write your own fable about how this character learned to do things better. Have fun!

This last exercise is particularly important, because no one wants to hear about improving their own attitude or courtesy, but when they start examining bad experiences from the other side of the counter – and put their problem-solving skills to work – a valuable learning moment takes place. So try using stories yourself to put the creativity of your own team front and center in your training. Soon you will find that story time isn't just for grade school anymore, and more important, you will watch your performance soar.

What to Say to a Porcupine: A global hit!

It has now been a little over a month since the release of What to Say to a Porcupine, particularly in overseas markets, and I am proud to report that this week it reached the top 10 on Amazon's business humor list in the United Kingdom. This combines with a top 20 showing on the US business humor list, and rave reviews from thought leaders in industry.

For example, the influential Peppers and Rogers Group recently noted on their blog that "With a fairly high chuckles-to-learning ratio, Porcupine is easily one of the more charming business books out there at the moment," and 1-800-CEO-READ declared that "This book is great for any company that needs a little kick-start or even a reminder of how customer service should be like. It's thought-provoking in a very interesting way! I hope when you get a copy - or even copies for your whole staff - you'll enjoy it!"

Also, this week marked the first live training program for What to Say to a Porcupine, and it garnered rave reviews from everyone who attended. Here are just a few of the comments:

"I've attended and taught customer service techniques in many settings, and Rich is a vast recourse with fresh, genuine information! Let's do this program over and over - what a great avenue down the path of success!"

"Acknowledging, validating, and paraphrasing customers' feelings are my new goals and mantra"

"Rich Gallagher is an excellent facilitator, and the workshop was fun and enlightening."

"I would recommend this workshop to anyone who is a customer service representative."

This book - and training program - was designed from the ground up to dramatically change your team's customer skills, using the latest principles of human communications, in the most fun and enjoyable way possible. In the near future, a companion training kit (see the postcard above) will be released and promoted nationwide. And of course, I am delighted to come speak and train for your team - and guarantee you will never look at prickly customers the same way again!

To nibble a nosh for free, visit WhatToSayToAPorcupine.com for a downloadable sample chapter, and stay tuned for a free mini-course in the very near future. Enjoy!

Thoughts on the Beijing Olympics

It has been fascinating to watch this year's Beijing Olympics so far - not only the games themselves, but the spectacular opening ceremony and the media run-up about what it is like in modern China today.

Whatever you may think about China politically, it will always have a warm spot personally in both my heart and my family's history. Not long after China first took its first tentative steps toward the West with ping-pong diplomacy and Richard Nixon's visit over a quarter century ago, my late father was part of one of the first US scientific delegations to China, and soon afterward I took a sabbatic from my software job to teach at a Chinese university as part of World Bank development project.

As someone who grew up during the Cold War hearing about the evils of Communism, I went behind the Iron Curtain with a mix of excitement and trepidation - after all, this was a country that sent many academics off to forced labor during the Cultural Revolution, and still denounced my homeland as a bunch of imperialists - and the trepidation part didn't get any better my first morning in Beijing (Peking back then), flinging back the drapes of my hotel room and seeing a massive sea of people in identical "Mao suits" commuting to work on their bicycles.

At the same time, it was tremendously exciting to be part of what I felt was a wave of history. To go in the first place, we had to undergo a lengthy approval process from both governments and study State Department briefing materials. And to stay there, particularly as a visiting professor, I had to show a great deal of respect for a country that was very different from our own. Except for the occasional faint BBC broadcast on my shortwave radio, it was an immersion in a totally different culture.

This trip was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and it reaffirmed the obvious but often unappreciated fact that people are people everywhere. Our hosts could not have been more gracious, people came up to us frequently to get to know us and practice their English (even at times grasping at my clothes to see what I wore), and we could not step on a bus without every Chinese soldier jumping to his feet and insisting that Colleen take his seat. Most important, I got to know a great many Chinese as warm, welcoming people who cared about us at a personal level.

My sabbatic was a flurry of lectures, meetings, impromptu tourism, and a different way of life. For example, we were packed off in tour vans every Wednesday because power was shut off at the university, our laundry was laid out to dry on a grass courtyard by old Chinese ladies, and one afternoon I even watched brand new IBM PCs being loaded off a horse-drawn cart. But what I will remember most were the people who treated us like old friends, and were as curious about us as we were about them.

Perhaps my fondest memory was my "Elvis Presley" lecture. Every morning they taped my classes, and played Western elevator music on the cassette recorder beforehand thinking it would make me feel at home. One day I decided to show them what real American music was like, and brought a cassette of Heartbreak Hotel. As I explained the lyrics and the vagaries of American romance gone bad, everyone burst out laughing, particularly as I described Elvis and wiggled my hips to demonstrate.

Afterward they wanted a tape of my music, and I agreed on one condition - that they give me a tape of their favorite music in return. What I got was a tape of the sweetest, most poignant Chinese opera I have ever heard, with the admonition that "whenever you listen to this, to always remember your friends in China." Today this music, and memory, still brings a lump to my throat.

Nowadays as I watch the Olympics, I barely recognize a country that now has five-star hotels, gourmet food, and a growing middle class that drives cars, buys houses, and uses their credit cards like we do. A country that is now one of the largest markets for McDonalds and Buicks. A country whose energy and talents, in my mind, transcend whatever geopolitics are talked about on television. And above all, a country with many people I consider friends. I wish them a great Games.

Hiram Bullock 1955-2008

Colleen and I have literally thousands of albums, tapes and iTunes tracks between us, but there are only two artists who are so incredible that I buy nearly every thing they have ever done. One is Tower of Power – see my post here about them – and the other is a guitarist most of you have never heard of, by the name of Hiram Bullock. I just heard the sad news today that Hiram passed away this past week.

Hiram Bullock was, quite simply, the most electrifying jazz guitarist ever to grace the planet. In his early years, his high energy kick-in-the-afterburners guitar solos would practically melt your speakers. Later, his forays into straight jazz, funk, and R&B had an intelligence, texture, and even wit that you rarely find in a solo artist.

I first heard Hiram’s music nearly 20 years ago, on a jazz countdown show, doing a version of Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” with a piercing guitar solo, a three-foot-thick bass line, and Al Jarreau on vocals. I was hooked instantly, picked up a copy of his album “Give it What U Got,” and proceeded to have it blasting away on my car stereo for months. Later on a business trip to Pittsburgh, I saw him on stage for the first of many times, and never saw so much energy coming out of one guitarist.

What made Hiram what he was, however, wasn’t just raw power but intelligence and complexity. His music was textured with incredibly tasty chord sequences, clever intros and outros, and sidemen who fit him like a glove. Listening to his music was like biting into a seven-layer brownie with lots of treats inside. If he wasn’t a musician – and he noted proudly once on his website that he spent his entire life making his living in music – he probably could have been a rocket scientist for NASA.

So why wasn’t he more famous? Perhaps because he was a mutt. His body of work had enough jazz, funk, rock, and R&B to be part of each of these genres, and yet never be fully one of any of them. He had no lack of credentials, being the barefoot guitarist on the David Letterman show for years, and a respected sideman whose credits were a mile long. But in a world that speaks in hushed, reverent tones about jazz guitar purists like Pat Metheny, and rewards hip-hop artists with multimillion dollar contracts, Hiram’s music was a refreshing oasis that defied both convention and airplay.

None of this mattered to me, of course. I eagerly devoured everything he ever put out – often ordering autographed copies from the source itself – and went to shows that rocked with so much energy that I thought the stage would explode. (And, as you can see above, I even got to meet Hiram and get a picture with him at the Rochester Jazz Festival a few years ago. Some of my other pictures from that show now grace his website.) According to another blog comment, he was apparently still playing - and rocking the house - the week before he died, and I can’t believe he’s gone. Rest in peace, Hiram.

Midlife crisis resolved – for now

Faithful readers of this blog may remember that I wanted to spend my “author” income on a proper midlife crisis, specifically a down payment on a white sports car. My first choice and the car I’ve wanted since childhood, the Ford Mustang, was a no-go because its curvy windshield gives me a headache after about an hour behind the wheel.

Since then I’ve been too busy to think about cars, until now, because the lease on my Honda Accord was coming to an end – and as the drumbeat of end-of-lease letters and even phone calls from Honda were starting to increase dramatically, things were getting to the point where I had to buy *something*, even if it was my old car. So I finally managed to squeeze out from behind my desk with the missus and look at cars last weekend.

My first stop was a BMW dealer, and to my surprise, I wasn’t impressed. Short, hard seats in a heavy car that indeed goes way too fast, for way too many Euros. Then came one just for fun, the Chevy HHR, a car I’ve rented and enjoyed before. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t want to be driving around in something that looks like a 1940s milk truck for the next five years. We even checked out another same old same old Honda Accord, like I’ve been driving for much of the last two decades, and its great new styling for 2008 unfortunately couldn’t overcome a passenger seat that was a hard as a park bench. (I spend a lot of time in the passenger seat of my own car, writing on my laptop on business trips and weekend jaunts while my sweetie drives.)

So finally, I went to a Volkswagen dealer and tried out the Jetta for the first time in many years, and – wow – it was love at first sight. Slot-car handling, a nice firm ride, supremely comfortable seats, and its SE model is loaded with everything I ever wanted in a car: heated leather seats, sunroof, satellite radio, MP3, ABS, a zillion air bags, and a 10 (!) speaker premium stereo. Its 170 HP engine, based on a Lamborghini design, zips around nicely in traffic. And it is a beautiful white car, just like I imagined.

The one and only twinge in my decision was whether I should upgrade to the turbocharged Wolfsburg edition of the Jetta, giving me near-BMW performance for only a grand or so more. (Remember, this is supposed to be a proper midlife crisis.) Unfortunately, it has a couple of gotchas. First, it requires premium gas, adding a few hundred more a year to my car expenses. Second, and more important, it only comes in dull colors that seriously need more Prozac – grey, black, and silver – as well as a garish fire-engine red. The dealer was kind enough to let me take one home, and looking at it in my driveway, the thought of driving a dull grey car for five years was a showstopper. I’ve already been through the dull grey car phase of my life, thank you.

So now I have my white sports car – sort of. I love it. Now, back to writing.

Customer satisfaction - moving the needle

I wanted you, my friendly blog-readers, to be the first to know about a very special workshop coming this October in Las Vegas for anyone who manages a customer service or support team.

My friends at the Service and Support Professionals Association (SSPA) have invited me to teach a preconference workshop entitled Moving the Needle on Customer Sat Ratings for their 2008 Services Leadership conference. This workshop will explore training, coaching, measurement, and team leadership methodologies that create real, substantial changes in customer satisfaction levels, morale, and turnover for any customer contact operation.

I am particularly excited about this workshop because it gives me a chance to open my entire playbook from a career of dramatically "turning around" the performance of customer contact operations - including helping one firm grow from a startup to a major NASDAQ firm as its director of customer services, and later leading another 24/7 call center operation to near-perfect customer sat levels and near-zero turnover.

Above all, you will learn that high customer sat levels are not just a lofty goal on a mission statement, but a real, achievable process that you can learn and execute with your own team. And today, with higher-than-ever performance and productivity pressures on customer contact centers, these lessons are more timely than ever.

It is also great to be partnering again with my friends at SSPA, the leading professional society for customer service and support managers. Two years ago at their 2006 Services Leadership conference, my presentation Creating Leadership in Every Cubicle was one of its most highly attended and highly-rated sessions, and I fondly remember speaking to a standing-room crowd that cleaned me out of every single book and business card I had.

Finally, if you work with customer contact professionals, this is the networking event of a lifetime. The last time I spoke there, it was a highly senior crowd that read like a "who's who" of support leaders from major organizations. This time, SSPA is joining forces with its sister organizations Technology Professional Services Association (TPSA) and Association For Services Management International (AFSMI), the world's leading field service organization, to create a single blockbuster event for anyone who works with the public.

Best of all, if you attend my workshop (currently scheduled from 8 AM to 2 PM on Monday, October 20), you don't even need to book any extra travel days: the opening session of the conference starts an hour later the same day at 3 PM.

This will be a real-world, high-content workshop that delivers what the title promises: you will come away from this workshop with a practical game plan for making real, substantial changes in your customer satisfaction levels, and leading a customer support team that looks forward to coming to work every morning.

SSPA is still finalizing the speaking program, but I know from past experience that this conference will equip you with the latest best practices in our field, straight from the minds of industry thought leaders. For early bird registration, visit the conference home page online at http://www.thesspa.com/conferences/lasvegas2008. Hope to see you this fall in Las Vegas!

The Mitford Wives

I just had an interesting conversation with my darling wife Colleen.

She just purchased a book called the Mitford Cookbook, a book of recipes inspired by characters in the Mitford series of novels. Neither of us have ever read the novels – apparently heartwarming pastiches of neighborhood life – she just thought it was an interesting comfort-food cookbook on sale.

So I looked through it, turned toward my budding-novelist spouse, and exclaimed, “How cool! Wouldn’t it be great to have your novel characters be so popular that they have their own cookbook? What a great idea to extend your ‘brand’!”

Colleen replied, “Yecch. I would never want my characters to have a cookbook. And the idea of using the word ‘brand’ in conjunction with a piece of literature makes my skin crawl.”

You see, Colleen’s novel is probably never going to about flowers, teddy bears, and domestic bliss like this Mitford series. Her books would be much more likely to examine the dark night of the soul, in characters that seethe with rage and anguish, but never actually talk constructively to one another as years and generations go by. People who, in my view, should be rushed by ambulance to one of my communications skills training programs.

I love being in Colleen’s life, but I would hate being in one of her novels. And the more I think about it, if her characters ever wrote a cookbook, it would be about whatever angry intellectual deconstructionists prepare for their dysfunctional families. And I agree that, in hindsight, they probably wouldn’t make for good stuffed animal tie-ins.

Which brings me to a much deeper point. How much do you appreciate the differences in your own family and workplace relationships? I am a pretty sunny, happy, straightforward, extraverted kind of guy. But I didn’t marry someone just like myself. I married someone whose tastes lean toward late nights, brooding novels, beautiful art, and unsolvable mysteries of life. And that is probably why I am still madly in love after all of these years. She makes my life interesting, and I make hers run smoothly. We ground each other, even if it means that I had better not ask about “branding” the characters in her novel.

So, do you appreciate and cherish the differences around you? And use those differences to learn how to speak to other people? I am still learning, and so should you.