Previously I wrote a post about the rock band U2 and how the band members’ value one another as human beings rather than treating each another as human doings.  I explained how this value contributes to the band’s extraordinary success.

Another factor that contributes to the band’s success is its participative, consensus-oriented decision-making approach.  The members of U2 argue relentlessly over their music, which reflects their passion for excellence. Bono has stated that this approach is frustrating at times but that U2 feels it is necessary to achieve excellence. The key here is that the band’s members appreciate each other’s strengths. Bono has said that although he hears melodies in his head, he is unable to transfer them into written music. Because he considers himself a “lousy guitar player and an even lousier piano player,” he relies on his fellow band members and recognizes that they are integral to his success.  To Bono, U2 is “the best example of how to rely on others.”

As human beings, we tend to overvalue our strengths and contributions and undervalue the strengths and contributions of others.  Don’t make that mistake. For each individual you regularly work with, take the time to learn how he or she thinks, his or her temperament and character values.  I recommend applying the thinking styles identified by Robert Stenberg at Yale University, the Kiersey Temperament Sorter to test and understand temperaments, and the character value strengths identified by Martin Seligman. If you (1) invest the time to understand thinking styles, temperaments and character values, (2) assemble teams with diverse strengths required in light of tasks the team mush accomplish and (3) apply a participative, consensus-oriented approach to making decisions, your teams will consistently outperform the teams of leaders who do less.

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Michael Lee Stallard coaches and teaches leaders to increase strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation. He is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm, and the primary author of the bestselling book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity. For more: www.MichaelLeeStallard.com

On March 24, I’ll be moderating a panel at the Conference Board’s annual Customer Experience Management Conference in New York City. I was delighted to hear that Robert Reiss, conference chairman, host of The CEO Show and a Forbes.com columnist, subtitled the conference  “building customer connections.”

The panel will address several case studies about building the exceptional customer experience. The companies represented on the panel all have reputations for outstanding customer experience and yet they are very different organizations.

FedEx is known for its reliability.  Who can forget Tom Hanks playing Chuck Noland, the FedEx efficiency expert in the movie Cast Away.  Nolan’s tenacity and intelligence are extraordinary. FedEx the organization has that same character.  It is obsessive about meeting customer requirements.  Its values and processes reflect this.  Each day it measures and constructs a service quality index based on 35 critical touch points. Local offices can view reports daily.  Managers view them each week and an enterprise-wide report is prepared monthly.  Just to make certain it’s always measuring the right touch points, twice each year FedEx reviews market and customer requirements.

Amica, the mutual insurance company, is a perennial award winner for its customer service.  What stands out about this firm is its passion for treating people well and helping its primary customers: families.  When a catastrophe occurs, even local representatives around the country make calls to customers in the impacted zip codes to ask if they are ok and whether they have any claims. When was the last time your insurance company called asking you for claims?  This really is a different kind of insurance company.

One difference is that Amica goes beyond sympathy to empathize with its clients. Sympathy is understanding an individual’s loss.  Empathy is standing in an individual’s shoes and feeling their pain. On one occasion a family’s house burned down before Christmas and everything was lost, including Christmas presents. Amica employees went into action.  To the family’s great surprise, a replacement tree and presents were in place on Christmas morning.

Another customer experience champion is Novantas, the rapidly growing  financial services consulting firm.  Where Amica emphasizes emotional connections with consumers, Novantas emphasizes rational connections with corporate clients.  It applies advanced mathematics and modeling to help its clients deliver extraordinary experiences to the client’s customers.  Novantas specializes in a data-driven “customer science” approach to crack the code on customer purchase and usage behaviors, as well as the underlying customer values you must address to attract, retain, grow, and profitably service customers.  Everything about the company supports this mission –how it organizes itself, its compensation, even its conference rooms, named after great mathematicians like Kuhn, Pascal and Ockham.

Who doesn’t know Ben and Jerry’s, the final company on my panel? Like its founders, Ben and Jerry’s is comfortable in its own shoes.  It’s fun and irreverent.  It professes love for its customers, for producing the best all-natural ice cream money can buy, providing a fair return to its shareholders and for bringing about social and economic justice in the world.  Now that’s ambition!  Ben and Jerry’s wears its passion on its sleeve but let me assure you that is one factor all of these companies have in common.  They have a passion for excellence, for customers and for employees – a passion, energy and enthusiasm that customers are drawn to and competitors envy.

Although Ben and Jerry’s will surely guard its secret ice cream recipes, later this month I hope to get Walt Freese, the company’s CEO, to give up the goods on its successful culture.  At the conference, we’ll look deeper into the secret cultural sauce of each of these great companies to identify what helps them fire up employees an consistently delights customers.

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Michael Lee Stallard coaches and teaches leaders to increase strategic alignment, employee engagement, productivity and innovation.  He is president of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm, and the primary author of the bestselling book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.  For more: www.MichaelLeeStallard.com

Jason Pankau and I will be presenting in the Wisdom Webinar series organized by the South Bay Organizational Development Network.  The webinar will occur from 9:00 AM until 10:00 AM PST on April 13.  You can register to participate at this link.

A few hours ago, Goldman Sachs acknowledged in an SEC filing that mounting criticism in the press is a risk to the firm.  Goldman should be concerned.  A firm’s reputation affects employer brand, employee engagement and employee retention.  In the past Goldman employees were proud to say they worked for the firm.  Not so today following a long string of articles where Goldman has been referred to as a blood-sucking leech in the economy that cares only about its bottom line.  I cringe when I read such reports because I have several good friends who work or have worked at Goldman and without exception I trust and respect each one.  That said, having worked on Wall Street for most of my career, I know that people get caught up in thinking what they do is a game the score of which is determined by  how much money they make relative to others.  This mindset encourages imprudent risk-taking and behavior that may meet the letter of the law, but not the spirit. (Note: the gamesman profile was first described by Michael Maccoby in his book The Gamesman.)

I advise leaders that they must clearly communicate a set of virtuous values and keep them in front of employees.  The most effective leaders do this by celebrating the stories of individuals who exhibit the right values and getting rid of employees who don’t.  Absent a clear focus on virtuous values, an organization’s members will eventually stray into ethically questionable behavior that can destroy the firm.  And with organizations such as Goldman that are interconnected to many companies and countries via derivative contracts,  they can take the economy down with them.  That’s one reason I agree with Paul Volker and others who support effective regulation of financial services organizations.

Take a look at this article about Ursula Burns, the new CEO of Xerox, and her efforts to alter Xerox’s culture.  Anne Mulachy, the former CEO did a remarkable job pulling the Xerox family together to save the company when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.  Mulcahy is a tough act to follow but I’m pulling for Ms. Burns to take Xerox to the next level.  One way to look at  Ms. Burns challenge is that she needs to frame Xerox’s success as being rooted in achieving both task excellence and relationship excellence.  When a culture sacrifices truth to being nice (or more accurately to avoiding conflict) a company’s performance eventually suffer.  Ms. Burns is performing a delicate dance.  If she comes off too strong, people wil ear to spaek he truth.  If she does nothing, it seems that the desire to avoid constructive conflict may eventually sabotage the companies performance.

If I were advising Ms. Burns, I would say “make it clear to your Xerox colleagues that we must be intentional about achieving BOTH task excellence AND relationship excellence in order to thrive.  Sacrifice either and we will risk managerial failure for reasons I’ve written about in Fired Up or Burned Out.

In Fired Up or Burned Out I wrote about “high five moments” that are celebrated at Cranium, the games company.  It turns out that new research reported in a New York Times article by Benedict Carey entitled “Evidence That Little Touches Do Mean So Much” shows there is a correlation between touch and performance.  Reading the article immediately made me think of the twin Jensen brothers who dominate men’s doubles in tennis.  They must give each other a hundred fist bumps a set!

Like the Jensen brother in tennis, Craniun is a force to be reckoned with in games.  Here’s what I wrote about them:

Day 19: High-Five Moments

In 1998, with $100,000 of their own money, Richard Tait and Whit Alexander, two former Microsoft employees, decided to create a new board game.¹ Tait came up with the idea when he and his wife were playing games at the home of their friends. The couple easily won Pictionary and were trounced at Scrabble. Pondering how he felt as the winner of one game and loser of another, Tait thought it would be ideal to play a game that involved different skills so that everyone had a chance to shine. That type of game would be more fun, and it would bring people together rather than alienate them in a winner-take-all battle. Tait persuaded Alexander to join him, and together they created the game Cranium.

Cranium became the fastest-selling independent board game in history, selling more than either Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit had in its first year. The company (also named Cranium) went on to shatter industry records by creating games that won the Toy Industry Association’s Toy of the Year game award four out of the last five years. It has sold more than 15 million games in 10 languages and 30 countries. In 2005, while the toy industry’s unit sales were down 6 percent, Cranium’s sales were up 50 percent.

To help fund Cranium’s growth and increase distribution, Tait and Alexander persuaded CEO Howard Schultz of Starbucks to invest in the new venture and to distribute the game through Starbucks locations. Schultz liked the tie-in with Starbucks’s mission to create community. Cranium brought people together, and it increased the connection among them by making everyone feel like a winner.

Tait and Alexander designed the game based on Harvard professor Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner has identified at least seven forms of intelligence ranging from musical and linguistic to logical-mathematical. Cranium incorporates challenges that favor each intelligence in hopes that everyone will win part of the game and experience a high-five moment.

Connection is the key to Cranium’s success. Take, for example, Cranium’s Conga, a game that gets players to learn more about each other, including silly things such as how many marshmallows fit in someone’s mouth. One New York Times reporter observed, “When Tait describes the Cranium mission, he often sounds less like a game maker and more like a sociologist diagnosing the ills of an atomized society.” Inc. magazine opined that “in their minds they weren’t selling a game but a social experience.” In the words of Tait, “we [want] everyone to high-five their teammate at least once each game . . . I know that’s not a very scientific metric, but that’s what we’re going for.” Alexander adds, “We want people to leave a game feeling enriched and better-connected.”

Cranium is equally passionate and intentional about increasing connection among its employees. Cranium’s inspiring identity is to bring people together in a world that has less free time and more distractions that inhibit connection. Another aspect of Cranium’s inspiring identity is that the company gives back to the community, frequently donating games to people in need. In addition, every employee gets ten games to give away to family members and five to donate to charities. Cranium employees are proud of their company, not only for its reputation as an innovator but also for its worthwhile mission and its heart.

Always the passionate leader, Tait reads two hundred customer e-mails and letters on an average day and shares some of them with employees. Celeste Welch wrote about the fun her family has had playing Cranium’s games after her two-year-old daughter, Valerie, was diagnosed in 2005 with a brain tumor. Even during the difficult times, Cranium’s games Cariboo, Hullabaloo, and Balloon Lagoon kept Valerie, Celeste, her father, and three sisters laughing and smiling. According to Celeste, “[Our kids] never really went through a time of crying or confusion. Really, it’s our faith in God that’s getting us through. But the Cranium games kept that laughter in the house.”

Human Vvalue is present in Cranium’s workplace culture. New employees go through an orientation program to learn more about Cranium’s values, including its goal to produce every Cranium toy or game to meet the CHIFF standard (that means it is clever, high quality, innovative, friendly, and fun). The company throws a Gong Party for new employees. The company pays 100 percent of employee health, dental, and vision care premiums. All of the corner offices with nice views are unoccupied so that everyone can enjoy them. Each employee chooses his or her own title. Tait’s title is Grand Poo Bah, and Alexander’s is Chief Noodler. Other fun titles include Edgar Allen P. O. (the head of purchasing) and Head of the Hive (the head of public relations who creates buzz about Cranium’s products).

In a culture such as Cranium’s, knowledge flow is high. The approachable and unpretentious Tait and Alexander exemplify leaders who are more interested in “getting it right” than personally “being right.” The collaboration and informality they encourage make people more likely to share their knowledge with decision makers.

The high degree of connection that is fostered by Cranium products and in Cranium’s workplace culture contributes to its superior performance and industry leadership. “What Cranium did was it rewrote the rules,” says toy industry analyst Chris Byrne. “There’s a warmth . . . from the interpersonal interaction that comes from Cranium. People are hungry for that kind of connectedness.” I couldn’t agree more.

Review, Reflection, and Application

In the words of Cranium cofounder and Chief Noodler Whit Alexander, “we want people to leave a game feeling enriched and better-connected.” Would you be inspired to work for a company that aspires to bring people together? Does your organization have an inspiring mission or values? Are your colleagues proud to work for your company? If they are, why? If not, is there some aspect of the company they should be proud of?

Jason Pankau and I recently spoke at Vistakon, Johnson & Johnson’s Vision Care group. J&J has an inspiring identity that is expressed in its Credo. Our definition of an inspiring identity is that it exists when everyone in the organization is motivated by the mission, united by the values and proud of the reputation.

Take a look at the J&J Credo by clicking here. As you study the J&J Credo ask yourself if its mission and values are inspiring. After you study the J&J Credo, turn your attention to your organization’s mission and values and ask the following questions:

• Are your mission and values clearly expressed and widely communicated?
• Do you have a portfolio of stories that help people understand your organization’s mission and values?
• Do people in your organization periodically take time to consider their decisions and practices in light of consistency with your organization’s values?
• Does your organization’s reputation reflect it’s values?
• Does your organization’s employer brand benefit from its inspiring identity?

J&J does a marvelous job on the Credo section of its website.  Take a look at it by clicking here.  In preparation for a book I’m writing, I’ll be interviewing Kathleen Fitzpatrick, J&J’s Director of Credo and Workplace Engagement, and posting portions of the interview on this blog.

Have you seen expressions of corporate identities (mission, values, supporting stories or practices) that have inspired you?   If so, please post them here or email me at mstallard [at] epluribuspartners [dot] com.

Looks can be deceiving. At first glance, Do More Great Work by Michael Bungay Stanier looks like yet another small, simple, beautifully-designed book. Oftentimes, books of this sort lack anything new or insightful. A few pages in, however, I realized this book was an exception. Do More Great Work gets to the heart of the work each of us should aspire to do — work that makes us feel fully alive and brings us joy. The author, who was named Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006, walks the reader through a series of maps and questions that provide valuable career guidance. As a result of reading this book, I made a change to my business so that I would do more great work and devote less time to merely good work. That’s the measure of a valuable book: it changes the reader in a positive way. I’m happy to report that Do More Great Work met that standard for me and, as such, I highly recommend it.

Note: There is a bonus if you buy the book by this Tuesday, February 23. Michael has an eBook Be Courageous (regularly $25) which he’s giving away with proof of purchase. If you’re curious, you can check it out just by sending a blank email to:
becourageous@domoregreatwork.com. For additional information click on this link.

Who could be more rational than a neuroscientist with a doctorate from Harvard? Dr. Amy Bishop, who has the aforementioned credentials, is accused of shooting and killing three of her faculty colleagues at the University of Alabama because she felt slighted. You can read about the case in this article entitled “For professor, Fury Just Beneath the Surface.” It is alleged that Dr. Bishop’s actions were set off when she discovered that her colleagues had decided not to award her tenure.

This is yet another example that shows how emotions affect behavior, even the behavior of individuals who have learned to appear rational at times on the surface. In our work, we implore leaders to be intentional about developing both task excellence and relationship excellence. Measurement, accountability and intervention are necessary elements of a process, a system, that brings intentionality to developing relationship excellence. No organization drifts toward relationship excellence so intentionality is essential. Systems that help develop relationship excellence make it less likely that individuals with mental health problems — e.g. narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathology — go unnoticed and unaddressed.

Yesterday I wrote about the incivility and indifference low status workers experience and how it contributes to today’s widespread employee disengagement. Mawi Asgedom is a friend who I admire in part for his passion to connect with people regardless of their status. Mawi graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1999 and was voted by his fellow students to be one of the Harvard’s four commencement speakers.

Standing before an audience of 30,000 Mawi gave a remarkable speech entitled “Of Snakes, Butterfies and Small Acts of Kindness.” He went on to write the story of his journey in life in the best-selling book entitled Of Beetles and Angels: A Boy’s Remarkable Journey from a Refuge Camp to Harvard.  Don’t miss reading Mawi’s commencement speech. I hope you’ll read the book too. After you read it, consider becoming an intentional connector to look for the disconnected who live among us and make an effort to connect with them? You’ll find disconnected people in the workplace, in your community, in your neighborhood and perhaps even in your family. There are many reasons people become disconnected including the indifference of others. We may not be able to help every disconnected person but we can throw them a lifeline with our words and actions that demonstrate we see them and that we care. I’ve found that reaching out to the disconnected usually has a positive effect on their lives, and always has a profound effect on my own.