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Chief Listening Officer

I continue to be impressed by the sum and power of knowledge that staff have and would like to share in organisations. And I continue to be disappointed by the lack of opportunity to share this knowledge both inside and outside organisations. Why do I come up against this mismatch so often?

In part I think it is because the further people advance up the old fashioned hirearchical org chart, the more they seem to be trained to believe the hype. Their hype and the hype of people around and often above them.

So to all you CEOs, FDs, HRDs I would like to say this. Please stop assuming that we all want to hear from you all of the time. You have two job titles. The one on your business card and this one: Chief Listening Officer. Stop broadcasting, start conversing, and be prepared to be amazed at how smart our staff and customers are.

Leaving It All On The Ice

Neil Peart drumming the Rush song Freewill

As regular readers will know, I’m a fan of Canadian rock legends, Rush. I love their music and their teamwork. I appreciate they are not everyone’s cup of tea, you have your own freewill – you choose.

I recently watched an interview where drummer Neil Peart was talking about how he feels at the end of a Rush concert performance. For those who don’t know, when Rush play live they are on stage for almost three hours, it’s one helluva performance. In the interview Peart told us that when he comes off stage, physically he hurts. ‘I like to leave it all on the ice’, he says. Neil Peart is 59 years old and in great shape, and you’ve gotta love his attitude to his work.

Although my daughter has a drumkit and occasionally lets me have a go, I’m no drummer, but like Peart I love my work. Tomorrow I’m off to Newcastle for a couple of days to help some people make work better. I’ve prepared and rehearsed because I love to give my best when I’m with other people. Of course I can’t be sure of a virtuoso performance but I can be sure I will give the best that I can. And from my experience, that in turn seems to help others give of their best too. And come Wednesday evening I am confident I will be exhausted, and that I will ache, and that I will have left it all on the ice. I’m grateful to my customers for motivating me this way.

When will you next have the chance to leave it all on the ice, and will you take that chance?

 

 

Johnsons Revisited

Many moons ago I used to be a customer of Johnsons Dry Cleaners but their service wasn’t great, and then they famously mucked two of my friends around something rotten. I wrote a song and blog about this and my friends shared it with Johnsons and they chose (as is their right of course) to ignore the song and my friends requests for help. And I chose to unsubscribe and take my business elsewhere. Since the song went online I’ve had a steady stream of visitors to my site searching for things like ‘Johnsons poor customer service’, but aside from that, peace has reigned for some time and all has been well.

Earlier this week, this arrived in my inbox.

Johnsons unsolicited email

 At the top of this email it says: ‘At Johnsons we never send out unsolicited e-mail  communications’

I didn’t ask for this email – it is therefore unsolicited. I admire Johnsons seemingly persistent ability to do dumb things to customers. And I guess I should thank them too. Why? Well I figured they’ve given me a reason to bring their song around one more time.

Taken to the Cleaners by Johnsons