“New Lows In Customer Service: The Art Of Malicious Compliance.”

As I travel around the country, the epidemic of indirectly hostile behaviours, directed toward consumers/customers, becomes more and more apparent. These are behaviours that say, primarily non-verbally: “I will do what I’ve been trained to do; say what I’m supposed to say; provide you with what you practically want from my company; but not make this interaction either pleasant , nor positive. In addition, it will be hard for you to confront me, since I’m not doing anything overtly rude or offensive.”

An example: I recently arrived at a hotel around 11:00 pm, suitcase and briefcase in tow, and approached the front desk. The young lady on duty started out the interaction on the wrong foot, by asking me how she could help me. I’ve always been puzzled by this question. What else would I be interested in doing at that late hour, suitcase in hand, other than checking in to her hotel? (In the last year, I’ve taken to occasionally saying that I’m selling suitcases, and would she be interested in looking at the model I have with me.)

Let’s back up a bit. As I approached the front desk, the young woman had a look on her face that could cut glass. Even though I see it more than I’d like to, it’s hard to accurately describe. There is no smile, no animation, and no range of feeling tone. But it is by no means neutral. It says, very strongly; “I don’t like being here; I don’t like my job; and I don’t like you.” I understand, intellectually, that it’s not about me personally. I simply represent an intrusion and an irritant in her life. (The gate agents at the Atlanta Airport have taken this look to its absolute zenith. They’ve made it an art form.)

After we determined that I was there to actually spend the night at the hotel, she started going through the motions of doing what she was trained to do. Here is the exact dialogue, word for word:

Front desk

Clerk: “Last name?”

Me: “Shechtman – S,H,E,C,H,T,M,A,N”

Clerk: “How’s that spelled?”

Me: “S,H,E,C,H,T,M,A,N”

Clerk: “First name?”

Me: “Morris”

Clerk: “Method of Payment and Form of Identification?”

Me: “It should be billed to my client’s credit card. I stay here

every month.”

Clerk: “It doesn’t indicate that in your reservation. Oh, wait,

now I see it.”

(I am not abbreviating or altering anything. This interaction had all the panache of a police interrogation.) At this point, I had had it. The following dialogue ensued:

Me: “Am I interrupting something?”

Clerk: (Somewhat flustered) “No, I just need to ask you these

questions.”

Me: “I don’t mind the questions. I do mind your attitude.”

At this point, an awkward silence ensued. Then, the most amazing thing happened. Her whole gestalt shifted. Her face filled with softer feelings, she engaged me in a brief conversation about why I come there every month, and she found the kind of room I preferred (which was not in my reservation).

What happened here? First, I established my boundaries and my expectations. Second, I set limits and boundaries for her (that she couldn’t set for herself) and that gave her a sense of safety and a feeling of being cared for. Why is this important? Because 95% of the time we miss the opportunity to grow and develop people, by ignoring irritating and inappropriate behavior. You see and feel exactly what I see and feel. The difference is in what we choose to do about it.

I am not suggesting that you become the “feedback police” and build your whole life around confronting people and being a royal pain in the ass. I am suggesting, that you pay attention to your gut, and share with people exactly how they’re impacting you, and how damaging that can be to their future. Most career-compromising behavior is not dramatic. It subtlety drives people away, and neither party really understands what has happened. All they know is that they no longer want to deal with that person. If you truly want to help people, personally and professionally, you owe them the dignity of a genuine and caring response to their self-limiting actions.

“Pretty Woman Syndrome: Helping Good-Looking People Overcome Their Handicap”

A few weeks ago, I was facilitating an accountability group with eight financial services professionals. As people came into the room, I couldn’t help but notice a very attractive young woman, dressed in a manner that was designed to draw attention to her. What was most noticeable, though, was the look on her face, and the general aura of her non-verbal communication. Her face radiated disdain – a look and feel that dripped disinterest and dismissal of everyone in the room. She took her seat at the conference table, looked straight ahead, and acknowledged no one.

I’ve seen that look before. It says, without uttering a word – “I am beautiful and compellingly attractive; I know it and I’m aware that you see it; and I have no time, or interest, in relating to average looking people.” Having spent over twenty years working and living, part-time, in southern California, I have experienced thousands of women (and men) with that look and that persona. I also see it regularly in my travels, and have had many clinical clients with that aura, in my prior private practice.

What’s particularly noteworthy is that these individuals are often, in one form or another, in a people business. And further, they are often struggling and underperforming, frustrated by results that are considerably less than they would like, and way under their capacity and potential.

So, what’s going on here? First, we need to understand what’s driving this behavior. These attractive and handsome women and men are battling with what I’ve come to call the “single characteristic curse”. The key people in their lives have focused all their attention directed to these people, around one characteristic – their physical beauty. They become, then, their looks. They begin to believe that who they are, fundamentally, is this attractive, noticeably beautiful person. The problem is, that this is all they think they are. This limited identity is scary – sometimes terrifying – and leads to a variety of dysfunctional behaviors, all in the service of protection. Whether it’s disdain, arrogance, withholding or opaqueness, the goal is the same. To keep from being hurt and diminished (by being treated like an object), or even worse, to discover their secret – their belief that there is nothing else of value within them, other than their beauty.

It’s important to understand that when we reduce a person’s identity to a single characteristic – beauty, intelligence, athletic prowess, we undermine self-esteem and sow seeds of self-doubt. Instead of building confidence, it erodes and destroys it.

It is hard to be helpful to people battling with this curse, primarily because it requires one to take a big risk. The risk is to muster one’s courage, cut right through the armor of disdain, and tell the person how it feels to be around them. How it feels to be dismissed, controlled (by the lack of any connection) and completely shut out. And lastly, how their distancing armor discourages people from wanting to engage in a meaningful relationship.

Almost every time that I’ve taken the risk, the reaction is amazing. The facial stiffness melts away, and a look of recognition replaces it. The look is an unusual combination of an embarrassed smile (“you’ve found me out”) and a deep sadness, reflective of staying hidden for so long.

When I confronted the young lady in our group with the feelings about her impact on me, she said an interesting thing: “I know that I do that, but I don’t know why.” Helping her understand her behavior can change her whole life, and create opportunities for great success.

"The New Normal - Unending Unpredictability"

For a number of years now, I've heard people talking about how unpredictable business has become; with the implied assumption that one of these days, the unpredictability will finally end, or at least, level off, and we'll return to a generally predictable environment.  Well, from everything I see and experience, that ain't ever going to happen.  Unpredictability is here to stay, and the implications are sobering.


First and foremost, is the fact that we have unequivocally entered the Age of Self-Doubt.  I have never, in my professional life, worked with and encountered so many talented, highly skilled, and successful people, who are haunted by self-doubt.  People, who prior to these times, made one decision after another, with a great sense of clarity and certainty, now second-guessing almost everything they do. 


Everyone, at times, has some doubts; but now the experience seems to have become endemic and epidemic.  It has become a part of our daily lives and our ongoing personal and professional experiences.  So how do we deal with and come to terms with it?  First, we need to realize that we are not alone with this feeling.  It is shared by all of us, and has become a part of the global consciousness. 


Second, we need to look at and assess our inventory of life skills to determine what personal assets we have that will help us do well and flourish in this environment, and what deficits we're going to have to work on.  In terms of the skills, here are some of the most important:
We need (and we need to surround ourselves with) people who can live in and perform in, the moment.  We can no longer accommodate colleagues who live in the past, or are always anticipating the future.  This requires the ability to grieve well – to be able to say goodbye to what we used to do, and who we used to be – and the ability to realistically assess the present and come to terms with what it is, not what we'd like it to be.  In other words, we need to give up our "hope trips."


We need to be life-long learners and come to terms with the fact that we'll never be "finished' with working on ourselves.  To be able to do this, we need to be open to feedback, and open to constantly increasing our self-information.  One of the things we need to stop doing is to defend our position, and act like we're on trial.  We need to get a lot better at listening to the feedback we get about who we are; and to ask ourselves if what we're hearing makes sense, and how we can use it to improve ourselves.


We need to develop an emotional compass that allows us to stay centered and focused, in the face of ambiguity, uncertainty, and unpredictability.  That is, the ability to stay with the task at hand, knowing that there are no guarantees in the near or distant future.


We need to look at our need for control, and our level of trust; and work to establish the best ratio between the two.  In an Age of Self-Doubt, the temptation to increase control is heightened, and the tendency to lower one's trust is increased.  What we need, however, is just the opposite.  High control and low trust dramatically inhibits our ability to grow and increases anxiety and tension.  Low control and high trust allows us to mediate in this "new normal," without driving ourselves crazy.


We need to be able to talk about our feelings, in real time.  Especially when those feelings are about our worries and concerns.  It's hard to convince people (especially business people) that talking about things that worry us, or situations that suck, helps us get through them, and defuses the anxiety associated with them.  We don't need to always fix or change things that bother us; but we do need to talk about them, in order to feel better and get things done again.  Complaining is fine; as long as that's not all you do.


Arleah has a saying in her practice:  "You don't need to always get your way; but you do need to always get your say."


We need to talk about and face, with the people closest to us, our doomsday scenarios.  Businesses would get through a lot more of their problems if they trusted themselves, when they're facing hard times, to talk about the worst case outcomes.  Verbalizing the worst possible outcomes, dramatically decreases the anxiety and tension surrounding them, and frees up an amazing amount of energy tied up in circular worrying.  It allows you to identify the really important things in your life, and put the worries in perspective. 


A number of years ago, I was talking with a client in southern California, about the challenges he faced in the work he did.  We were driving around (in his Rolls Royce) looking at some of the shopping centers he was involved with.  What he did, was guarantee, through surety bonds, that immense construction projects would be finished by a date certain.  If they were not, he would be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.  I asked him if he had any trouble sleeping at night, knowing how much he was on the line for.  He responded, without any hesitation:  "I sleep like a baby.  I'm worth close to a hundred million.  After that, there's no more to get out of me.  The worst thing that can happen is that I end up poor.  I'll live through it."
I have never forgotten his words.  Arleah and I often talk about where we started our journey together.  We still remember that we got our first TV by selling the puppies from one of our dogs first litters.  It gives us some perspective when we get caught up in worrying.

"The Lost Art of Connecting"

It’s become clear to me, these days, that we’ve lost the art of connecting – both in business and in our personal lives.  What I mean by “connecting,” is the ability to listen to other people’s feelings, understand their importance to them, and create a direct and impactful link, that shows that you care about them; not simply their problems.  Connecting is the art of getting beyond task management and problem resolution, to the establishment of a relationship, quickly and deeply.

I’ve had two experiences lately that reinforced my belief that connecting has gone out of style.  The first involved a hotel stay at a Midwestern property where I was doing some presentations.  I had encountered a couple of problems during my stay, and had indicated so on the electronic evaluation sent to me.  My remarks had obviously been passed on to the hotel assistant manager, since I received an email asking me to call her, to discuss my troubled experience. 

I called her; she answered; and there was silence on the line (after I had introduced myself and told her that I was calling in response to her email about my survey responses).  She said nothing to connect with me, or segue off of her inquiry or my remarks.  I had to literally lead the conversation, or it would have not gone anywhere.  Her responses to the problems I had encountered (keys that didn’t work, and my room vibrating for five or ten minutes) were without emotion, and mechanical at best.  I had to volunteer the explanations I was given, at the time, and she responded with a tepid apology and a certificate for a free night.  She had no particular response to the hotel’s dryer shaking rooms all the way up to the third floor, or to the supposed dynamiting at a local quarry, about a half mile from the hotel (the engineer’s  explanation).  We could just as easily been talking about the absence of a newspaper at my room door in the morning.

It was clear that the only goal she had was to end the conversation, “solve the problem,” and get rid of me.  She could have empathized with how weird it must have felt to have the whole room vibrating (the TV almost hopped off of its stand); or how frustrating it must have been to check into the hotel at midnight, schlep all my stuff up to my room, and be standing in the hallway not being able to get in.  She did neither.  She had no interest in my feelings, or in salvaging a relationship that was bruised and battered.

The second interaction involved a staff person at the fitness center I use.  I went to the office of the center to renew my membership and to cancel Arleah’s.  I sat down at one of the desks and got a shallow, barely audible “hello” and then, nothing.  I waited a few seconds and then, when it was apparent that the staff person wasn’t going to say anything, I told her that I was there to renew one membership and cancel the other one.  She said nothing in response to my statement, and pulled out a pad of paper and started writing.  I asked her if she was going to ask me any questions, like which membership I was renewing, and which one I was canceling.  She didn’t like my question, got quite defensive, and the rest of our interaction was infused with a cool, awkward politeness.  She never thanked me for renewing my membership, and she handled the whole interaction with the impersonalness of buying gum at a convenient store.

I had the polar opposite experience at another hotel where I had a meeting scheduled with the general manager (part of a consulting project with a new client).  While I was waiting, at the front desk, for the GM to come over, a young lady behind the counter, asked me what I had around my neck.  (I wear a device that controls the volume and programs for my hearing aids, and links them to my cell phone.  It’s hard not to notice it, although very few people ask me about it.)  Her question lead to a discussion and interaction that was full of information, spontaneity, and shared feelings.  In literally minutes, she had engaged me in a dialogue that felt genuine, caring, and reciprocal.

What’s the difference?  Curiosity and risk.  No connectedness occurs without either one.  The problem is that we rarely recruit for curiosity, or reward for risk.  Remember, that the greatest risks we take are not financial or physical.  They involve being honest, direct, and unplanned in relating to others. 

I was at a political fundraiser a few days ago and was introduced to a couple that had just arrived.  The man was almost immediately pulled away by the candidate.  I had noticed that neither the man nor the woman was wearing a wedding ring, so I asked her if they were a “couple.”  She could have told me, right there and then, to buzz off and mind my own business.  Instead, my question lead to a rather involved conversation about how difficult it was for middle-aged folks to have a committed relationship, without being married, given the tax implications, the social mores, family pressures, etc.  The man joined us shortly, and we all had a fascinating conversation about aging, intimacy, and the changing culture we live in.

As we parted, both of them said that this had been one of the most interesting conversations they had had in years, and the gentleman asked if I had a business card.

When you’re developing yourself or others, the primary question to always be asking, is – “Am I willing to take the risk of truly engaging with others, and what would happen to me if I offend someone?”

What's Your Interpersonal Impact?"

There are a lot of things that business people learn about and focus on – management, sales, finances, succession. But it is rare for them to pay much attention to their interpersonal impact.What I mean by that is captured in a question that I often ask my clients: “After people meet you for the first time, what do they think about who you are, and how do they feel about you? Do they think you’re pretty smart; not so smart; pretty congenial and friendly; not so approachable; a real professional; or a rank amateur? And do they feel good and positive toward you, and look forward to getting to know you better? Or do they feel like there’s a huge impenetrable wall up that they could never surmount?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, for a couple of reasons. First, because the most recent research on first impressions, is really sobering. According to a number of studies, you have around 118 seconds to make an impression and impact on another person. This applies to both personal and work relationships. That’s not a lot of time. And it certainly blows apart the old homily about how it takes a long time to get to know someone. In our culture, if it does take you a long time to get to know people, you probably won’t know many. You may dislike this shift in the culture at large, and certainly in the business environment, but not paying any attention to it, can limit your opportunities, and your adaptability to changing modes of communicating with people. Just look at what’s happened with webinars. We’ve discovered that most people lose interest in the typically structured webinar, in under a few minutes; and start fiddling with their favorite form of technology, or start daydreaming.

The other reason I’ve been pondering this, springs from a recent encounter I had with a politician in one of our national bodies. We both spoke at a meeting and had some time to interact with each other. Most of the positions he takes I have no problem with. But as a person, I was very put-off and even repulsed. At this point in my life, I’m quite used to political superficiality (someone talking to you, while they’re sizing up the room with their eyes). But this fellow didn’t even make an effort to be superficial. And, in addition, everything about him, non-verbally, reeked of mean-spiritedness. So even though we may be strategically aligned, I wouldn’t vote for him if he were the only person running in a one candidate election. And the saddest thing is, that I’m fairly certain that he is clueless as to his impact on others.

So, I have a question for you. “What do you want to accomplish when you meet with someone?”And I don’t mean, here, tactically or task-wise. I do mean, what kind of person-to-person bridge do you want to build, and what kind of feeling tone do you want to create? You’re already doing this unconsciously and automatically. What I’m suggesting, is that you take conscious charge of this process, identify exactly the impact you’re having on others, and ask yourself if that’s what you want to accomplish. If you’re unclear about the impact you have, ask the most significant people in your personal and work life – they’ll have no problem identifying what it is. If part of your work is developing other people, the greatest gift you can give them, is honest and direct feedback on how they impact you and how you feel about that impact. Nothing else will come close to the value of that kind of information, in helping them grow, develop, and succeed.

“Is Your Personal Life Screwing Up Your Business?”

On a recent flight, I had a most interesting conversation with my seatmate. (He had a fascinating job – costing out massive infrastructure projects all over the world. He had a unique take on the turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East – that it would be a boon for Western countries because it would create billions of dollars of projects in underdeveloped countries.) We were discussing what each of us did, and at one point, he said, “Business can really screw up your personal life.” In my own inimical fashion, I heard myself saying, “No, you’ve got it backwards. Your personal life can really screw up your business.” He looked kind of quizzical and asked what I meant. I then had to quickly figure out what I did mean. (As I’ve said, on a number of occasions, I don’t plan what I say, very often. It’s almost always what I mean, but I figure it out after its released from my mouth.)

I don’t think, in the last thirty years, that I’ve seen a time in which so many people and so many relationships have melted down, and created crises in the workplace. Well, you might say, look at the economy for the last three years – that’s your answer. That may play a role, but I think that it’s far from the complete answer. I believe that the economy has been a catalyst for personal and interpersonal dysfunction, but not the fundamental cause. I see the economy serving the same role as alcohol for alcoholics. Liquor does not create addicts. Addicts abuse substances (or food, or sex, or people, ad infinitum) to dull their pain. The substance sparks the addiction and helps make it worse. So, I think, does the economy.

For some time now, I’ve become convinced that at least half the population is personally unhappy and unfulfilled, and has chosen personal, intimate relationships that are massive compromises. I don’t mean by this that the relationships are intrinsically bad and beyond hope. I mean that both parties, at some level, have decided that their relationship sucks less than not having one at all. This results in a decision, almost always unconscious, to lower their expectations, put up with what they don’t like or respect in their partner, and toss in the towel on ever getting their emotional (or, often, their physical) needs met. All the lousy economy does, is bring to the surface, serious, unattended to, personal and interpersonal issues that have been well camouflaged by better financial times. As we say in business, profits can hide a multitude of sins.

This shows up, in the workplace, as escalating irritability, passive-aggressive behavior (I’ll tell you what you want to hear, to your face, and then I’ll go off and do whatever the hell I want to), hostile zingers coming out of nowhere, the inability to focus, constantly missing targets and goals, and a poisonous and corrosive cynicism. An important point here: Work does not have the power to create chronic dysfunction and unhappiness. Only our personal lives can do that. Anyone who stays in a lousy, unsatisfying, and mean-spirited job, for an extended period of time, has the same thing at home.

So, what can you do, when you see any of these dysfunctional behaviours? First and foremost, don’t get tactical. It is insulting and patronizing to start telling people to just do some things differently and everything will be fine. It is equally insulting to tell people, directly or indirectly, that they have no reason to feel the way they do. Invalidating people’s feelings, at best, strengthens their resolve to act poorly; or, at worst, creates an escalating hostility, rage, and need for retribution.

Instead, give them feedback about two things: First, how their behaviour impacts you personally. Do not bring in any other people! (Literally or figuratively.) Keep it between you and them. (People stop listening and get more pissed off, when you depersonalize the feedback.) Second, tell them, in the simplest possible language, how their behaviour impacts your desire to have a relationship with them. For example, “When you put down everything we do here, and act like everyone is an idiot, other than you, I want to get away from you as quickly as possible.” Then the most important thing – a question: “Is that what you want to accomplish?”

This almost always leads to a dialogue, the focus of which is that the counter-productive behaviour under discussion is methodically destroying relationships that keep the person connected to the organization. I’ve never met a person who then can’t understand the logical extension of this relationship-killing behaviour. This, you may be thinking, sounds like a threat. That’s because it is. It is intended to begin a process of presenting the person with some tough choices, the first of which is whether he wants to start changing his behaviour, or leave the organization.

The next set of choices involves the person looking at the connections between his poor actions at work and his life outside of work. This is catalyzed by a challenging assignment - “I want you to think about why you act the way you do, and come back and let me know what you discovered. For the purposes of this first discussion, you can’t bring up anything about work. I’ll be glad to listen to suggestions about improving things around here, but only at a later date.”

The last key point. This assignment will typically lead to a discussion of a personal dilemma or problem. Your response is critical, and always in the form of a question: “What do you think your options are, and which one are you going to exercise?” Don’t ever answer the question – “What do you think I should do?” Once you do, you relieve the other person of any responsibility for managing their life; you participate in an informal adoption; and you lay the groundwork for litigation. My response for the last thirty years, has always been the same: “Beats me.”

By the way, up to this point, you have not violated any knee-jerk liberal law about employee privacy, nor are you in danger of the HR police coming after you. The “protected areas” are, ironically, irrelevant to the conundrums people create for themselves, and telling people what to do with their lives is about the most useless and counter-productive thing you can do.
I have had people ask me if this methodology is not tantamount to putting undo pressure on people who are already under immense pressure. My response is – absolutely! I call it, the “Kick’em When They’re Down” theory of change. People only change when the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of staying the same. The best time to initiate change is when the pain trajectory is on the upswing.

If you want to be genuinely helpful to people, the last thing you want to do, is remove the source of pain and discomfort in their life that is driving their dysfunction. You may feel a temporary sense of pride and beneficence, while they slide deeper into their self-destructive and illusory world.

Morrie

High Accountability of Micromanagement

With superheated competition and a comprehensive examination of everyone and everything in business, these days, the question often asked me is: “How do I know when I’m being a high accountability, very effective manager; or being a micromanaging harasser?” In fact, I just had a conversation about this today, with a good friend and client, Jim Tierney.

Let me answer it this way. Everything of any importance deserves to be monitored. The only question, is how? The high accountability manager, in concert with direct reports, sets specific dates and times for assessing progress on work toward the accomplishment of certain goals. In addition, it is made quite clear, that it is the responsibility of the worker being held accountable, to notify the manager, immediately, of any circumstance that has occurred, that could interfere with the timelines that have been established. It is not the manager’s job to be poking around in anticipation of a failure to achieve results. This poking around, and “checking up,” outside of previously established monitoring meetings, is what I define as micromanagement. (Another good friend and client – Damon Shelly – introduced me to the term “pester management,” which really captures the essence of micromanagement.) It is low trust, disabling, and depreciating. It is assumed, also, that clear consequences for the achievement, or lack of such, have been articulated and understood, by both parties.

Micromanagers do unto others, what was done to them. As soon as the possibility of failing at something looms on the horizon, they are drawn to pestering and harassing, like addicts to meth. The low trust they grew up with kicks in, and it becomes next to impossible to let others struggle, fail, and ultimately, learn. It is important to realize, that micromanagement is the purest form of unlearning. If you want to avoid it, look hard at how you view failing at something, and see what it means to you. Is it an opportunity to learn something new (albeit not a fun experience); or a complete condemnation of who you are as a person? Discovering the answer to this, will prove a lot more fruitful than applying some hackneyed tactics.