Live from the General Mills Parkway

In all my travels, I had somehow never made it to Minneapolis before. This month, I ended up visiting twice in the last two weeks, training at two great companies there.

So one night, I was driving around this beautiful city on my way back from dinner, and found myself on the General Mills Parkway. Since public highways are rarely named after companies, my first fleeting thought was how ironic it was that a war hero had the same name as a big cereal company - and then, a few minutes later, that thought was disabused as I drove past the General Mills headquarters building.

This got me thinking. For years I've stared at the phrase "General Mills, Minneapolis, MN" on the back of my box of Cheerios and if I've thought anything about it, it was just a passing nod to another faceless corporation I purchase products from. But now I'm looking out my windshield at an actual building in suburban Golden Valley where lots of real people come to work every morning - not just Betty Crocker - and it's a change in perspective.

This same change in perspective can help your communications skills, particularly when you are a customer. When we are unhappy about something, we tend to approach it with a mindset of dumping on a faceless corporation. And somehow, if we push hard enough, that faceless corporation will somehow react to us.

In reality, the person on the other end is, well, a person. Someone who drove in to work this morning on the General Mills Parkway after eating his Cheerios and sending his kids off to school. And if we address this person as a person, with respect and dignity, we are much more likely to get what we want. So next time you deal with a company, pretend they are your neighbor down the street and see what happens.

* * *

P.S. I was pleased to see this weekend that What to Say to a Porcupine was still a top 10 business humor book on Amazon, more than a year after its release, and its corresponding Kindle edition was ranked #6 in customer service. And my new book How to Tell Anyone Anything is now showing up in bookstores nationwide and starting to climb the charts as well. Thanks everyone!

Just released: How to Tell Anyone Anything

When your last book was a national #1 customer service and business humor bestseller, and a finalist for 2008 Business Book of the Year, what do you do for an encore?

How about a groundbreaking new book that teaches you how to confidently say anything at work? How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work has just been released by leading business publisher AMACOM and goes on sale on Amazon.com today - and I have a special free offer with lots of goodies for everyone who wants to order it this week!

Using the latest principles from strength-based psychology, this new book teaches you the same techniques top coaches, crisis negotiators, and psychologists use to deal with situations like these:

• How do you get your boss to stop yelling at everyone?
• How do you tell an employee that he needs to shower more often?
• How do you tell your co-worker that you would like more help from him or her?
• How do you let someone know their performance is putting their career at risk?
• How do you motivate people to strive for excellence?

In these situations and more, I take you by the hand and lead you through a step-by-step process that replaces the knot in the pit of your stomach with confidence - by teaching you how to structure a painless conversation that never puts people on the defensive, even with your toughest issues, and gets results!

Originally piloted with one of the nation's leading social service agencies, the techniques in this book have now been taught to over a thousand people from coast to coast, to rave reviews. As one person said in their evaluation, "there is now hope for humanity after all!" And consistently, over and over, people describe the results of this approach as game-changing.

So now for the freebies! Click here to order the book on Amazon.com this week, e-mail your receipt to free@howtotellanyoneanything.com, and get a free downloadable customer service library including several full-length books as well as a free sample from my #1 customer service book What to Say to a Porcupine. And here's to a new, confident you at work who can truly tell anyone anything!

P.S. Want to nibble a nosh for free? Visit http://www.howtotellanyoneanything.com/ and sign up for a free two-chapter sample!

Live from Parafest

Today I am writing from Las Vegas, where the great folks at Parature Software invited me to kick off day 2 of their Parafest ’09 conference with a workshop on what to say to my favorite prickly mammal. It was a fun talk with a very engaged audience, whose ranks included some of the best minds in the customer support profession.

This conference was interesting for me beyond the speaking gig, because as many of you know I am a veteran of managing call centers and implementing CRM myself. So it was refreshing to see how far things have come in my old profession in ten years: today’s customer support environment is more automated, integrated, and global than ever. We are now in a world where agents can handle over 20 chat sessions simultaneously, agents pop up automatically when you are filling out a form, and your support center can be integrated with Twitter – or even, in one case, a virtual world.

Once in a while I can read people’s minds, and I can read some of yours right now: you are thinking that in many cases service is worse than ever today. But not at this conference. I was very impressed with the fresh ideas I heard from Parature’s customers, and – given the long faces I remember from many CRM users years ago – what a bond there is between “Paraturians” and their customers. And Parafest’s choice of speakers - service culture legend Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com, motivational speaker Shep Hyken, and even little old me – underscores their focus on how service starts with great customer experiences.

I was also very heartened to see a company draw record crowds to a live event, particularly one that started not that many years ago as a bright idea among Cornell graduate students in my home town of Ithaca, NY. And particularly at a time when the Las Vegas economy could use more successful events like this. Well done, Parature, and thank you.

* * *

Speaking of speaking, I am proud to share that I have been just been accepted as a member of the National Speakers Association, which is the fraternity for professional speakers.

Joining NSA requires that you do lots of speaking engagements and/or make lots of dedicated speaking revenue, and I‘ve done plenty of both this past year thanks to a growing national platform as a communications skills author. So look for the NSA logo on my website soon – an honor that I consider as the beginning, not the endpoint, of my journey as a professional speaker.

The best ten bucks you'll ever spend

Some of you know that one of my favorite musicians was (and still is) the late Hiram Bullock, an electrifying jazz guitarist who passed away last year. I was hooked ever since his heyday in the late 1980s, and owned everything he ever put out - my tribute to him is here. Many of you haven't heard of him, but you have probably heard him, through his session work with artists like Billy Joel, James Taylor, Steely Dan, and many others.

Late last year 40 of the top musicians in jazz held a tribute concert in New York for Hiram, faithfully playing 30 songs of his best music - names like Bill Evans, John Tropea, Letterman show bandleader Paul Shaffer, former Tower of Power lead singer Tom Bowes, and many others.

Organizer and legendary bass player Will Lee and Hiram's longtime partner Jennifer Armstrong originally put together a 2-DVD set of the show as a "thank you" for the musicians who took part. Now they are offering this to the community for the ridiculously low price of $10 plus shipping, as a non-profit gesture to all his fans.

It's great music - often played with the same studio musicians who recorded originally with Hiram - together with interviews from the people who knew him best as well as a slideshow. (The latter is a small claim to fame for me, as the picture they show of him at the 2002 Rochester Jazz Festival was taken by yours truly.) Order it today while it lasts at http://www.hirambullock.com/.

Bad bosses

I just got through reading another one of those "bad bosses" articles that seem to crop up regularly - and the nearly 60 comments that followed, most with horror stories of their own bosses.

So let me ask you a rhetorical question: where do all these bad bosses come from? Is there a subculture of mean people that wakes up every morning dreaming of ways to make people feel stupid?

Here is my own view: I think it's a little like drivers and pedestrians. When you are behind the wheel of your car, you get frustrated by all these slow, careless pedestrians that dither in front of your car while you are driving. And then you step out of your car, and get frustrated by all the thoughtless drivers who don't slow down and whiz by two feet from you. And then you step back in your car and the pedestrians suddenly get stupider again.

Over my own three-decade-plus career, I have had just about every shade of boss imaginable. More important, for much of this career I have been both an employee and a boss at the same time. If I could sum up many of those years into one neat package, the same driver-pedestrian dynamic applies. Bosses often frustrate employees and employees often frustrate bosses.

But here is what is even more important. Most of the time I respected my bosses, and was respected in turn by my employees. Was I lucky? Perhaps so, reading some of these horror stories. But I also think that how you communicate has a lot to do with how these relationships turn out.

You see, most of these "bad bosses" articles recommend self-defense and subterfuge, with advice ranging from staying under the radar to complaining to the boss's superiors. And since every action usually has an equal and opposite reaction, these approaches are often about as effective as stepping on the boss's foot. Taking it a step further, it was telling that the vast majority of people posting comments had quit, been fired, or worked in a state of ceaseless warfare.

There is only one effective way to *really* deal with bad bosses, and it feels about as natural as drinking pickle juice. First, you have to acknowledge their agenda. Whether they are insecure, demanding, have a short temper, or are pickier than thou, you have to acknowledge what they want and need. Second, you have validate what they say every time they open their mouth. Listen carefully: I did NOT say agree with or kiss up to them. I mean let them know that you understand how they see the world. Finally, tell them what you want in a way that benefits both of you. Compare these two approaches:

Not so good:
Peter Picky: This report is missing a comma! I keep telling you that I want perfect English on these reports!
You: Look, it isn't physically possible to have no typos on a 100 page report. You are always getting in my face!

Will Mr. Picky apologize profusely and be more accommodating forthwith? I didn't think so. So now try it my way:

Better:
Peter Picky: This report is missing a comma! I keep telling you that I want perfect English on these reports!
You: I respect that you have high standards for what goes out under our name. I'd like to learn what went wrong here.
Peter Picky: We *always* use the serial comma here - this line should read, "Lawrence Welk said, 'And a one, and a two, and a three."
You: That makes sense. And I certainly want to be a team with you on these reports. I also don't want to live in fear of constant criticism, because if anything that makes me even more mistake-prone. What could we do to work together better from here?

Wasn't that easy? You're right, it wasn't. You are probably biting your lip so hard there are teeth marks in it. But if you get in the habit of validating every single thing your boss says while sticking up for yourself, I am betting you will get a lot more of what you want and a lot more respect.

Don't just take my word for it. Baseball manager Joe Torre, a perennial champion who lasted more than a decade working for George Steinbrenner, an owner who previously went through managers like Henry VIII went through wives, wrote about a similar dynamic in his book Ground Rules for Winners. And I take the mechanics of difficult conversations like these and practically beat them to death with a stick in my new book How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work, now available for pre-order. Try taking a fresh look at how you talk with tough bosses, and see what happens!

The secret life of excuses

As I write this I am sitting in first class on a United Airlines 777, on my way back from training over 350 great people at Cal State Fresno (with deep appreciation to my brother John, an alpha frequent flyer, for the upgrade). So I'm having a rare chance to stretch out, literally and figuratively, with my thoughts for a couple of hours.

So where are these thoughts taking me? Right now, to an interesting exchange with some of CSF's key service leaders, a very talented group, during this morning's coaching skills program. Among other things, I had a role-playing simulation where one person who chronically comes in late to work holds forth with every excuse in the book, while the (poor) other person is asked to do nothing but acknowledge and validate what the other person is saying.

The late person, ably played by CSF's associate director of financial aid, weighed in with a truly world-class litany of excuses while the other person gamely acknowledged everything he said. ("You're right, children sometimes do take a long time to get ready to leave." "I hate it too when I get caught in traffic and then get a flat tire.") Then the first person closed in for the kill by saying, "And worst of all, my boss is always getting on my case about how often I'm coming in late. I don't see why it is such a big deal." Finally caught off guard, the other person could not bring herself to acknowledge this directly - which is exactly what I wanted to show people as a teaching moment.

You see, I will validate people all day if I need to - even when they make statements like this one. My response would have been something to the effect of, "No one likes to feel they are constantly being criticized." I would have taken direct aim at the other person's concern - which, by the way, I violently disagree with - and hit it right between the eyes. This person would see that I knew exactly how he felt, and that it was safe to talk about it.

This exchange stirred up some great questions from the audience. For most people, talking like this to someone who comes in late - or is rude to customers - or makes a pain in the anatomy of themselves - feels like drinking poison. To the uninitiated, it feels like you are being a buddy with someone who is behaving badly and accommodating them. But you aren't. Instead, you are gaining power in a situation where most people have very little power.

The reason lies in how we process language. Each of us has an instinctive friend-versus-foe reflex that is an instinctive survival trait. So when you criticize people who do bad things, you almost always get an equal and opposite reaction. But when you acknowledge and validate them every time they open their mouths, they process this language on the "friend" side of their brain and can't argue with you. Which completely takes the wind out of their sails when you finally set expectations with them. Compare these two exchanges:

Most people's approach:
Larry Latecomer: Wow, the traffic was so bad today, there was no way I could make it in on time.
You: That isn't good enough. You are expected to be here on time each day.
Larry Latecomer: Look, you have no idea what it's like to commute from where I live in East Timbuktu. Or be a single parent and get three kids off to school. Or have a sick dog. Or ...

My approach:
Larry Latecomer: Wow, the traffic was so bad today, there was no way I could make it in on time.
Me: That sounds terrible. Traffic is often hard to predict, especially with a long commute.
Larry Latecomer: Sounds like you've been there before.
Me: I have. And I respect how hard it is in situations like this. Meanwhile, here's what were dealing with: most people come in late, on average, once a month. You come in late roughly three times a week. And I can't have different standards for people, or it would impact morale. Where can we go from here?

Which of these two people are more likely to get Larry to actually change his behavior, instead of just getting defensive or "yessing" you with no performance change? I'll betcha that I do. All you have to do is change how you respond in a way that, for most people, feels about as natural as hanging by your thumbs. But once you see how well it works, you'll never, ever go back to the old way.

I didn't just make this approach up. It's based on concepts of strength-based psychology that are sweeping the way we communicate, all the way from psychotherapy to major league coaching. If this example whets your appetite to learn more, check out my new book How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work, available for pre-order now at all major online retailers. Meanwhile, I'm about to land - talk again soon!

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.