Stepping up to the challenge

Steve Jobs redefined the digital landscape. Linus Torvalds galvanized a movement which enables much of the Internet to exist. Terry Fox attempted to cross Canada on one leg. How can you rise to such a challenge?

 

Have a powerful "Why." If you read about people who have accomplished great feats, when they were not forced to do it, it always boils down to the reason. Whether it be Terry Fox, Steve Jobs, Linus Torvalds, or someone trying to stop smoking or to lose weight. All have a powerful reason to accomplish what they set out to do. Without a powerful reason, the challenge will best you.

 

Plan and prepare. If you are going to run a marathon, you can't simply show up on the finish line and hope to finish. You must prepare in advance, whether it be running longer distances than usual, changing your diet or getting the proper running gear.

 

Start. It's fine to get ready and to plan, but if you don't actually start, nothing will happen. The first step is often the most difficult. You can either start slow and pick up speed as you go along or start with a bang and ride the momentum. The latter is best because once you get a good start, it becomes harder to simply give up since you've done so much in so little time.

 

Measure. How will you know close you are to your goal? If you can't measure your progress, it is difficult to know if your are moving in the right direction. Eventually this can become disheartening and can cause you to simply give up.

 

Have a support system. The harder the task, the more you need one or more people to support you along the way. Let them know how you are progressing. That person (or those people) must be people who believe in you and will encourage you when you face the inevitable roadblocks. Stay away for people who live to criticize and put people down.

 

Celebrate. The end goal shouldn't be the only thing to celebrate along the way. There should be various milestones to celebrate. Celebrations make the entire process more enjoyable and increase the chances of success. Beating yourself over the head won't have nearly the same effect. Celebrate, have fun, and enjoy the ride.

 

Back in May, I decided that I wanted to participate in this year's National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to complete a 50,000 word novel in one month. That's an average of almost 1,700 words per day. To put it in perspective, if you type 30 words per minute, which is not that fast, you have to type without interruption for one hour every day for the entire month. My average, so far, is about 500 words per day. Completing the novel will be quite a challenge!

 

I'll let you know how it went in December.

Starting the day with a smile

Some people have no sense of humour. This morning I was heading to town in the train, and a man entered with his toddler. After a few minutes, the child became a bit agitated. He began chirping and making noise, like a toddler would. I noticed that  people around him were smiling or laughing at his antics. All except one woman, who got up and stomped out in a huff. As I looked at her face, I could almost hear her thoughts: "How dare he bring that */*"%?& kid in my wagon?"

I wonder if she had a nice day?

Because We Can

As I was returning from Rhode Island to Canada on a Friday evening, things were quite different at the border. Normally, you go directly to the Canadian border, answer a couple of questions and on you go. But this time, I saw flashers on the US side, and part of the road was blocked.

I patiently waited in line, wondering what the problem was. When it was finally my turn, a young man asked me for my passport, with authority. He asked me a barrage of questions, barely leaving me enough time to answer one before he blurted the other. I answered diligently and he hand me my passport.

Before leaving, I asked: "I come here often and I've never been stopped like this before. Is it because of the swine flu?"

The young man replied: "No, it's because we can."

I stared.

An older man, who clearly was not as enamoured with his newfound power, explained that it's something they do once in a while, that it was part of their normal field operations.

This morning, I was reading an article in the Globe and Mail about changes in the stores. In the comments section, many people complained that some stores had abysmal service, with clerks who are barely willing to help. Why? Probably because they can, since their employers can't, or won't, do anything about it.

A place where kids can be kids?

I've never been to Chuck E. Cheese but I've been to a number of McDonald's Playhouses. With three kids, my wife and I sometimes cave in to all the whining around when we pass in front of a restaurant around mealtime. I've never thought twice of it, except for the bad habits associated with fast food. But that's a whole 'nother discussion!

What prompted this post, however, is the following article from the Wall Street Journal:

Calling All Cars: Trouble at Chuck E. Cheese's, Again - WSJ.com

The article mentions a number of altercations at Chuck E. Cheese locations, where police needed to get involved in order to break things up. What really got me was this quote: "... in some cities, law-enforcement officials say the number of disruptions at their local outlet is far higher than at nearby restaurants, and even many bars." Holy kiddie brawls, Batman! In a restaurant for kids?

At first, I was surprised. But when you think about it, it fits neatly in our current society. Anyone heard of soccer fights? Or hockey brawls?

A few days ago, Sean Avery was handed a six game suspension for an off-colour comment about his ex-girlfriends. This from the same league that handed Tom Kostopoulos a scant three-day suspension for a hit that cost Mike Van Ryn "a broken nose, a broken finger, a gash on his forward, some lost teeth, and a concussion." The same can be seen in little league where some parents encourage their progeny to duke it out with the other children, in a bid to establish their "superiority."

A few years ago, I coached my son's soccer team. He was only 7, but before the season started, league officials had all coaches attend a meeting where they clearly laid out the disciplinary rules for the season. It seemed that the previous year, there had been some nasty altercations between parents, as well as some parents taking it out on young children on the field. Last year, I saw some inklings of this behaviour from the parents of our nine-year old kids.

So is it any wonder that in a place designed for kids, but where they serve alcohol (duh!), adults would be so badly behaved?

In business, similar behaviour can be seen, but in more subtle ways. I will pass on the many instances of disgruntled employees who have gone over the edge, and focus on more subtle behaviours. These behaviours include intimidation, sabotage, and gossipping.

All of these behaviours can be devastating to the victims, to the teams, and to the companies involved. And whether you like it or not, it's not a problem with the employees. It's a problem with their manages.

Intimidation, sabotage, and gossipping cannot continue unless it is implicitly endorsed by management. How do you implicitly endorse such bad behaviour? Easy: don't do anything about it, lay blame on the person who complains, and don't give them an opportunity to seek help.

Not every one is well-equipped to deal with these types of work-related problems. Yet, when a manager tells an employee to "figure it out himself and not act like a baby," the results may not be what is expected.

An employee may choose to stop talking and not do anything, instead of confronting someone that he/she perceives as stronger and more powerful than he/she. This will affect his/her productivity. If the problem affects more than one person, then an entire team can be demoralized because of one individual. Tempers can flare, and people can easily fly off the handle.

I've seen teams go bad when one person caused problems for other team members, but management did nothing to intervene and stop bad behaviour. Eventually, overall productivity declined until the offending individual was let go.

What would I recommend to Chuck E. Cheese?  I would start by removing alcohol in all locations. Then, I would publicize that event because the fact that I am blogging about it (and I've never been there) is an indication that Chuck E. Cheese is probably getting a lot of negative publicity.

After removing the alcohol, I would take a look at the numbers to determine whether the incident rate goes down. With every incident, I would look for a common pattern and address the root cause, until Chuck E. Cheese, indeed, becomes a place where "a kid can be a kid."

Honesty in sales

Yesterday my wife stopped to gas up the car at a local hardware chain. As she was waiting for the tank to fill, watching the numbers go by faster than the price of a barrel dictates, she was accosted by a woman flashing a large smile, and the conversation sounded like this:

"Madam, today is your lucky day. We are going to give you a $10 coupon which you may apply to your next gas purchase. Isn't that great?"

"Yes it is, thank you."

"Great, all I need is a bit of information to be able to send you the coupon by mail. What is your name? Address? How many children? How much money do you make? When did you get married?"

At which point my wife, spotting a logo at the bottom of the woman's notepad, interrupted to ask: "Are you registering me for a credit card?"

"Yes, I am. So if you'll give me this information I can..."

"I'm not interested," my wife firmly replied.

"What?" was the incredulous answer, "you don't want $10?"

"Sure, I'll take the $10 but I don't want the credit card. Besides, I don't live around here so this won't be of any use to me."

"Ma'am, I'm sure there is a store close to you. Where do you live?"

My wife was flabbergasted. As the woman walked away, she watched her attitude as she coached a younger salesperson doing a similar job. This woman's approach was highly aggressive and she had a derogatory attitude toward anyone who didn't want to buy her credit card.

There are several things wrong with this scenario. Number one: are these people reading the news at all? We have a phenomenal financial crisis on our hands and a lot of it is due to the high level of indebtedness of the general population. Regardless, they are aggressively pushing people to add more debt to what they already have.

Number two: the woman's approach was deceitful. Under the guise of wanting to give a gift, she was only interested in selling a credit card. If my wife had not asked, I am not sure she would have told her what was happening. This lack of honesty is the main reason people dislike salespeople.

Selling is about relationships. If you don't like a person, you will not buy from him or her. Furthermore, a bad salesperson tarnishes your image and it makes people not want to return and give you their business.

When people have bad experiences, they will talk about it much more than if they have a good experience. I would not have heard about this incident if it had not bothered my wife enough for her to tell me about it. And I suspect she will tell other people around her also.

I won't say the name of the company at fault because I don't know if the problem is a bad salesperson, an unscrupulous third-party credit card company, or if it is the company itself.

All I know is that they left a bitter taste in my wife's mouth, and that's never a good thing in business.

Sometimes, being good just isn't enough

I am comforting my wife who is lamenting the loss of Will on "So You Think You Can Dance." The general sentiment is that Will was the best dancer of the lot, and many (including the judges, I believe) expected him to win the competition.

Yet tonight, he was kicked off the show. His talent, his grace, and his good looks did not save him.

Personally, I think it's a shame because I thought he was much better than Mark. But that's just me. Evidently, I was the minority. Plus, I didn't vote.

The results of the show are a mirror of what occurs in a number of situations in real life:

• the most competent person is not necessarily the one that gets the promotion;
• the one with the toughest job doesn't have the highest salary;
• the one with the most talent doesn't have the most recognition.

It's just part of life. But when it happens to us, we become angry, we become upset, we blame other people, we carry a grudge, and so on. The result hurts us and affects the people around us also. The solution? A change of attitude. Instead of blaming and getting upset, focus on what you can control.

At one my son's recent soccer games, we were saddled with an incompetent referee. He made many bad calls and, surprise, surprise, the calls went against my son's team. At some point, the parents became loud and began yelling and cursing at the referee. He had to interrupt the game to let us know: "If you keep yelling, I will stop the game."

We had no control over what was happening on the field. We had to make a choice: if we kept complaining, the kids' game would be stopped and the coach would be fined. If we shut up, the situation would probably not change but the kids would be able to play their game and the coach would be off the hook. We shut up.

To some, such an attitude is a sign of weakness. To some, we should have continued to voice our disapproval because "the ref was wrong."

This response shows that the wrong criteria are used to evaluate the parents' reaction. The right criteria is: what is best for the kids?

You may have heard this before: you can be happy or you can be right. Too often, our ego gets in the way and we try to be right just for the sake of being right. Sometimes, it's worth the battle but sometimes it's just a waste of energy.

In business, the person who gets the promotion is judged on criteria tat may have nothing to do with their current job. The person who has the highest salary is probably bringing more value to the company, even if the job may not seem as hard. The person with the most talent probably doesn't have the best marketing vehicle.

In "So You Think You Can Dance" the votes didn't go toward the most talented dancer, probably because the criteria used to vote was something other than "best dancer," however you define it.

Some people have decided to stop watching the show because they disagree with the voting. Meh. I'll still watch it when I can, because I enjoy dancing and I think the kids on the show dance very well.

Plus, I gotta see it this is going to end up being a train wreck.

More telemarketing

Today I received another call from telemarketers. Yes, I know I can get on a no call list, but as long as it gives me material to write about...

This call was different. I realized, from the start, that it was a sales call but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She did a lot of things right:

• She asked me "How are you?" Seems innocuous enough, but it can turn out to be a very important question. That question triggers the consistency and commitment response that Robert Cialdini explains in his book on influence. Simply put, if you ask someone how they feel, and the answer "fine" or "good," that alone increases your chances of closing a sale;
• She pronounced my name correctly.
• I gave her two minutes to make her case. After that time, she told me "It's been two minutes, may I go on?" Nice.
  
• When I told her why I wasn't going to buy, she actually shut up and let me speak for about two minutes. The last time I had such a discussion with a telemarketer, the woman at the other end constantly tried to interrupt me to let me know how wrong I was.

At the end, she asked me if I was satisfied with the way she handled the call and I had to say yes. It was, in fact, an enjoyable call because even if I disagreed with her, she worked professionally and she treated me with respect.

Late night drive-thru

As we were coming back late from an event, a colleague and I decided to stop and get a bite to eat a the drive-thru of a fast food chain. We came to the mike and placed our order.

I asked for a sandwich. The reply came briskly: "We don't have any bread." The voice did not sound enthusiastic at all.

So I tried again: "Do you have the wraps instead?"

Answer: "Not at this time."

Not only was I not able to get what I wanted, but on top of that, the person at the other end sounded like he wanted to be anywhere but where he was at that particular time.

My colleague asked what was available. By the tone of his voice, I felt that the person coming from the speaker was thinking: "Who are you and why are you bugging me for food at this time of night?"

We finally placed our order and proceeded to the pick-up window. When we got there, the only thing we could see was the skull on his black T-shirt.

Fitting.