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Having everyone on the same page

Last December I wrote in this column about the importance of adopting a systems approach to corporate social responsibility, aligning and integrating it not only with the Sustainable Development Goals and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) issues but also with the overall organisational strategy. (This is despite concerns that neither the SDGs nor ESG incorporate a systems approach!)

More recently, I facilitated a workshop for the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) that wished to identify the linkages between the objectives in the five-year strategic plan it developed.

Good for them, as this systems-thinking approach is such a minority sport among strategy developers. Yes, they identify key objectives, along with the performance indicators, the who’s-got-to-do-what-by-when, the budgets, the risks and so on, but it’s rare that they worry about cause-and-effect relationships between the objectives.

APHRC is one of the few that apply a systems approach to how they operate. During our workshop, they identified linkages like those that will create more synergy between research teams; ensure deeper collaboration between their researchers and their advocacy and communications people; and accelerate the development of multi-disciplinary talents – within individuals and collectively.

The framework adopted for their plan was the Balanced Scorecard, first with the linkages between its four standard pillars of products, services and customers; our people; systems and processes; and financial sustainability.

The whole reason for the development of the Balanced Scorecard was to show how the “lead” factors in the first three pillars impact each other and the consequential “lag” factor in the fourth pillar, the financial one.Equally evident is that unless funds are available to invest in the lead factors nothing will happen. And so on.

Similar cause-and-effect relationships exist between individual objectives within and between the pillars, and the way to identify these is by developing a “strategy map”, a hierarchy of how objectives impact one another.

So, we placed financial sustainability at the base, with products and customers at the top and the other two in between.

Then alongside each of the four-pillar headings, the team placed the objective statements that had been identified within them.

Now the fun began: they drew arrows to map out the relationships between objectives. Then, whenever I and my colleagues lead this exercise we are amazed not only by the number of arrows that are drawn but also by the variety of directions of the arrows – sometimes both ways, as I mentioned above.

The consequences of defining these linkages are profound. For they show where collaboration must take place, and why silos are counter-productive.

Having representatives from all parts of APHRC in the room participate in the development of the strategy map was vital, as then everyone understood how and why these linkages are important. They own the linkages they authored, and are motivated to work together.

Collaboration becomes the norm, the culture of the organisation, “the way we do things around here”. Involving external key stakeholders is also important.

The spirit of collaboration is also embedded as a key element in APHRC’s performance management system, from the overall through to the individual level.

It is this mindset that is identified as systems thinking, ensuring that everyone’s on the same page – the opposite of those blindfolded folk around the elephant, each describing the part of the animal that they are touching.

Where this leaves the organisation’s leadership also becomes clear. They must be like orchestral conductors, bringing their players together as they help each section of the orchestra, each member, to contribute to the harmonious whole.

No gaps or clashes, with musical conversations between the players that appeal to the ear.

To help us appreciate the power of systems thinking is to appreciate how the brain relies on endless linkages between the cells to help us to navigate and to learn and adapt.

Are there elements that suffer as unsupported “orphans”? Are there under-used and uncoordinated enablers? Link, link, link.

The art of chairing great meetings

In my last article, I wrote about minute-taking, and it led me to think about that other vital skill that is even more significant in making meetings work well or otherwise: how they are chaired.

And just like some minute-takers write too much and some write too little, so some who chair meetings talk too much or too little. Of course, it’s not just the quantity of talking, but the quality.

You and I have been in meetings where the chair has added great value – indeed saved them from confusion and indecision, time-wasting and excessive protocol… and hence from frustration and boredom.

We have been in others where the one meant to be leading everyone else and bringing them together has lacked the skills to fulfil their role. Others are somewhere in between.

How does a chair perform at meetings we look forward to attending? First, there is the preparation prior to the meeting, not only ensuring that the purpose and agenda are clear and agreed upon but consulting one-on-one to understand participants’ positions and lay the ground for good progress within the meeting.

Plus coaching weaker participants on how to contribute more effectively and with greater impact. Reviewing how meetings unfolded is also important.Within the meeting, the chair must nurture a culture of keeping time, so that they begin and end when they should, with the agenda covered and the most significant topics allocated appropriate space, and the overall purpose achieved.

The chair is responsible for this time and agenda management, and ideally with a light touch rather than a big stick.

The skill of managing meetings is, however, not merely the mechanical one of clock-watching and directing the verbal traffic, agenda item by agenda item.

Chairs must go beyond the purely “efficient” to knit a smooth flow that everyone follows easily, and generate a lively pace that keeps the energy and the engagement high.

They must generate conversations that build momentum within and between topics, acknowledging and linking contributions.

The chair must also be sensitive to the balance of contributions, so that no more senior or more naturally vocal members dominate, and no more junior or otherwise humble ones are left silent.

They themselves should not rush to express their views but introduce the topic and seek inputs from others before making their contribution and summarising the situation, with the proposed way ahead.

The term I like for chairpersons is that they are “facilitators”. Or, as we express it in my consulting firm, for everyone “to have a good time doing good things”.

The way the chair behaves should generate a feeling of psychological safety, where the participants are comfortable expressing their opinions openly and without fear.

The chair must at the right times seek ways of building consensus through encouraging a spirit of give-and-take, guiding those who disagree on negotiating to win-win outcomes.

Some years ago I explained in a column that how we interact relates to suggestions and described the different ways of contributing.

The first category is seeking suggestions from others – the role played by a leader. Then comes making a suggestion, and also building on a suggestion that someone else had made.

Next – the negative category – we might either criticise a suggestion, ignore it or replace it. Finally, there’s just remaining silent.

Are you one of the many who listen not to build on someone else’s suggestion, but to criticise or replace others’ ideas, to only find flaws, to start each sentence with a “but”?

And if you are chairing a meeting, do you encourage others to build on the positive – the result of open listening – rather than listening just to show faults?

As in all aspects of leadership, chairing meetings requires both technical and non-technical skills.

At the technical level, the chair must understand the essence of the subject matter, and manage purpose, agenda and time.

And at the non-technical level, they must ooze emotional intelligence, knowing how to get the best out of everyone so they reach good decisions that they own and leave the meeting happy they had been part of it – with much thanks to how the chair played their role of co-ordinator, conductor, integrator, aligner.

Making minutes count after a meeting

Writing minutes of meetings offer interesting challenges. They must be neither too long nor unduly brief, just capturing the objective essence of what happened.

We usually don’t need to know who said what, for they are not transcripts, but we must record who is to follow up on what and by when. Sounds quite straightforward, yes?

Not necessarily. For instance, when I am the chairman of a board or of a board committee I often find I need to offer guidance to the minute-taker.

They will be very formally trained legal people, with equally formal company secretarial qualifications… all absolutely necessary.

However, what I often see is that they have been taught to be so focused on being technically compliant with good governance, applying standard structures and styles, that they can miss out on the spirit of a meeting.

Sure, they record who was present and who gave their apologies, tell us we confirmed the minutes of the previous meeting, identify the decisions we took, show the date of the next meeting… all those obvious elements.

But what about when someone praises an individual or a group, for instance?

In my experience, too many stiff-upper-lip minute-takers feel that’s too frivolous, too human, to include.

Chances are they even switch off listening, convinced it’s not part of their job to record other than hard facts and figures, decisions and actions.

Forget the soft stuff, keep to the point. This is not story-telling, they would protest. We are not there to entertain or to educate, just to inform.

No smiling, no frowning, we are mere dispassionate observers seeking compliance with our professional best practice.

And yet, and yet…surely it’s OK where appropriate to switch from being a robotic technical recorder to becoming a more relaxed and informal reporter – or “rapporteur”, as recorders of other events such as conferences and workshops are called.

So particularly when I am chairman of a meeting I observe when the minute-taker is and is not writing or keying in what is being discussed.

If I feel they have not been doing so and in my view, they should, I will prompt them to ensure they do.

I also encourage them that when they are uncertain as to how to record something, they should feel free to seek guidance from the rest of us during the meeting.

And if I sense that what has just been handled is not so obvious as to how to write it up, I will ask them to share how they propose to, so they and we can feel relaxed that all is well.

It’s vital that minutes be written and circulated as soon after a meeting as possible, and not only so that those actioned with follow-ups can be reminded to get going with their obligations in good time, but so we still remember clearly enough what happened at the meeting and can confirm the accuracy of the minutes.

It’s good too to circulate a draft in advance, at least to the chairperson, who then can act as a quality controller.

I like it when minute-takers key straight into their laptops during meetings rather than write on paper and transcribe their notes later, as it’s then more likely their product can be shared promptly.

And here’s another thought: as some do, have two columns on the right-hand side of the page, one for the “By whom” and one for the “By when”.

Plus, if by the following meeting the action has not been fulfilled and should have been, add a revised “By when” date – identified as having been updated.

On one board where I presently sit there’s a good practice I’d like to share with you: just before the next board meeting the minutes of the previous meeting are again circulated, but now with one-liner updates under each of the actions agreed at that earlier meeting, shown in a different colour and telling us whether the intended action has or had not been fulfilled, or if is in progress. Very helpful.

In other than board, board committee meetings, AGMs and additional official events, ones that are less formal and do not require the legal/secretarial skills of a minute-taker I often suggest it should be a revolving function, giving more people the opportunity to develop this important skill and to become more sensitive to other minute-takers in future. (I also suggest the chairing could revolve, for similar reasons.)

So, there being no further business, I declare this article closed. Date of next column: a fortnight from now, on chairing meetings. Please confirm attendance.

Feeling the customer’s pain

When I was in hospital for several weeks with Covid in 2021 I experienced the whole spectrum of service quality, from the outstanding to the adequate and occasionally down to the unacceptably poor, and I wrote something about it in this column – including referring to that wonderful book, If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9½ Things You Would Do Differently.

Unfortunately last year I went through another challenging time with my health, but it allowed me to gather more case studies on how customer care works or doesn’t work in a hospital environment… which leads me to share this story with you today.

I lay quietly in my room as I awaited the summons for my lung scan, and on time Samuel the porter arrived with his wheelchair. What a gentle carer he was.

Once at the radiology department I hardly waited at all before being ushered into the scanning room. Great. Except that now the radiologist had to go and get the dye to inject into me.

It took forever, the very antithesis of just-in-time Kaizen, very challenging for me as I sat in my uncomfortable wheelchair.

Finally the radiologist returned and injected his dye into my arm before placing me on the scanning machine.

Now it was the usual, being told to put my arms above my head, against the plastic support, and my knees over another plastic support, where both felt increasingly awkward as the 20 minutes went by… a long long time for motionlessness, never mind with persistent and increasing discomfort.

The machine twisted round doing its thing, and I endured it all in silence… till it pressed down on my right arm to the extent that I worried it would crush it.

I adjusted somehow, but then the same thing happened with the left arm, but worse. So I shouted out, and fortunately he heard me.

“Oh, you should put your arms by your side now,” he informed me casually. Otherwise nothing from him, as he was totally focused on the technical aspects of his job.

To help me pass the time I began thinking about how this radiologist approaches his job and decided to have a word with him after we were done to share my perceptions.

To my surprise, after all the silence, right before the end he did mention that this was the final session and that it would take two minutes.

When we were done he called in Samuel, but I asked him to leave us for a while. “What’s your name?” I asked the scan man – as he had not introduced himself when I arrived, or said anything beyond the instructional.

“Amos Makau,” he replied (that’s what I’ll call him here). “Amos, would you mind if I give you some feedback about how I have found your interactions with me?” I continued, and as he readily agreed I launched into a coaching session on how to go beyond being a mere technician to being a carer with empathy and compassion for his patient – like Samuel (not his real name either) was.

“You need to talk with us, encourage and support us, recognise how hard and uncomfortable it is to lie there still for so long and so uncomfortably,” I explained, and I then asked him if he had ever experienced what we are being asked to. He had not.

“You should,” I suggested, “then you’ll understand so much better what we endure and how we need to be handled delicately.”

I did all this in a friendly way, not complaining, not hammering him, but offering him a new insight into what happens repeatedly in that room each day and how he can transform the way he interacts.

Amos got it, and he and I developed an excellent rapport. He told me he’d “work on” what I had suggested, leading me to urge him to just move in one go from not showing empathy and compassion to doing so.

We then called Samuel, who took me back to my room… where I told him he was not a porter but an angel.

OK, so that’s an example from the healthcare environment. But as I concluded in my earlier article, the lessons are for elsewhere too.

How many techies, accountants, engineers, you name it, overwhelm their clients with their jargon while remaining oblivious to the extent to which it is being absorbed, never mind comfortably?

How many coaches inhibit the talent they’re meant to be nurturing by not putting themselves in their shoes? So many questions, always the same answer: empathy and compassion.

Good, bad world and my way

My colleague Frank Kretzschmar and I recently hosted another of our leaders’ circles, where participants tell personal stories around a theme we select.

Regular readers of this column may remember articles I have written about earlier such events, including one titled Now more than ever: sustainable living with heart and mind and another, Holding on to optimism – we can set an example.

This latest one invited us to balance the positive and the negative, through our theme of Good world, bad world… and my way in it.

We asked those in our circle to share with us how they were dealing with the uncertainties and contradictions that emerge out of nowhere and confront us all, and to tell us whether they were able to remain positive in spite of the troubling global and local situations in which we live.

While those present were generally still doing fine, how were they touched by the desperate plight of so many people around them?

And to what extent were they going beyond empathy to compassionate action that was making a difference?

As always, before our meeting Frank and I searched for quotes to display around the room that could inspire our storytellers, and among those we chose for this theme was one from the Dalai Lama, who reassured us that “compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength”, and another from Barack Obama, who commented that “empathy is a quality of character that can change the world”.

Those we invited were not selected at random. Defying diversity and inclusivity, they did not include rabble-rousing politicians or criminal gang leaders or tenderpreneurs, ones who would have sneered at the very thought of worrying about the plight of others.

Rather, we heard from men and women who were concerned about building a better and more sustainable world – this while at the same time being realistic about the “bad” around us.

Taken together, should we be more optimistic or pessimistic about the direction in which we are heading?

The negative consequences of climate change and Covid, of the war in Ukraine and the increase in authoritarianism, of inflation and inequality, can easily lead us to be overwhelmingly gloomy, to conclude that the bad is outpacing the good, we heard from some.

But we were also reminded that much good is with us too – however underplayed by the media, which always emphasises the bad and the ugly.

Life expectancy has been rising in many countries, while global poverty has reduced, and there have been breakthroughs in treating cancer and other health issues.

“It’s a matter of perspective,” one participant suggested, adding that “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”.

Much of how they were actualising their compassion was taking place quietly, and not least among the peace-builders in the room – for here success often depends on behind-the-scenes engagement.

Everyone was very realistic, accepting that even “doing small things in small ways” is fine, while they “did the right things in the right way” to make the world a better place.

They acknowledged that we all do what we can within our generation, while also being aware of its consequences for future ones.

Here we heard a brilliant quote from Thomas Jefferson, who told his people that “we will be soldiers, so that our sons can be farmers, so that their sons can be artists.”

Not gender-sensitive by today’s standards, but point made.

The subject of values kept cropping up, for it is the promotion of healthy ones that enables good people to thrive rather than evil ones.

And while this issue hovered over us throughout the afternoon, our time limits did not allow it to be aired fully.

In their closing reflections, several appreciated how they had been greatly encouraged by hearing the positive stories of those around them, leading them to feel more cheerful and optimistic than when they had arrived.

Write your autobiography

A few months ago I wrote a column about the benefits of writing a journal, including providing raw material for a possible future autobiography.

So, today, I want to follow up with an encouragement to you to get going on that autobiography – whether you have been keeping a journal or not.

And here I am not just appealing to older readers, as whatever your age it will help you with self-discovery, introspection and reflection. It can also act as therapy and self-counselling.

I have been keeping a detailed daily journal for quite a long time, conscious of these trapping memories for reference.

But I was not expecting to get going on my autobiography for several years given how busy I was… until I came down with some health issues and took a flight to London to be assessed at a hospital there.

I was confined to a stretcher throughout the flight, so I asked myself how I was going to spend all that time lying flat.

The thought occurred to me to reflect on the flow of my life, as a first go at developing the content and sequence of chapters for my autobiography.

It was, as it is called, the “initiating incident” to my writing, as since then in the hospital and now back home I have been hard at it, making excellent progress – although with a long way still to go.

I have also been an initiator for others to begin writing their stories. I’ve helped edit the autobiographies of some of my friends, and I was recently invited to contribute an introduction to the one by James Foster, written for his family.

Our life story can be more about personal, and emotional issues, to do with relationships between us and family and friends (Prince Harry!), or more about our professional life.

It all depends on what moves us and to whom we want to appeal. Is our goal to titillate with a “kiss-and-tell” series of revelations about intimate encounters, as some such stories reveal?

Not mine, and most likely not for most Business Daily readers. To amuse and entertain? To inspire and educate? Some combination thereof?

Do we see ourselves as uninhibitedly frank, and relaxed about revealing a “tell-all” account of our life? Or, at the other end of the spectrum, do we unduly need to always be uncritical and positive, not offending anyone by omitting delicate issues?

Somewhere in between, maybe. And how do we deal with negative episodes that risk us being sued for libel by the bad guys we have had to deal with? (They’re the most gripping stories!)

Next, how do we avoid appearing to be bragging? For that’s how life stories started, with the self-promotional Egyptian pharaohs of 3,000 years ago in their tombs… and how they continue today with characters like Trump.

If that’s the idea, then better have a biography written about us! While a memoir is not meant to be an extended sales brochure or CV – except for politicians as preludes to their campaigning – it’ll hopefully boost our self-esteem, with me as the hero of my story.

My suggestion is that you just start writing elements you can get going with easily and enjoyably, without inhibitions or worry at this stage about the quality of the writing.

Feel free to rant and rage; jot notes about topics; capture memories as they reveal themselves.

Initially, at least, you can be writing just for yourself, just for the grandchildren, or already for a wider audience.

And there can then be different versions for different audiences.

Ask yourself about your life’s shape. What is your story, told through a pattern of events, so you and then others get to know what your life means?

What do you believe in and why? What is your purpose in life? What were your triumphs and setbacks, crises and breakthroughs? What were your dreams fulfilled and unfulfilled; opportunities grasped and missed; moments of fun and hilarity?

Most importantly, why would anyone want to read what you have written? What will they learn from it and do differently as a result?

Who would want to publish your story and why? Who is your audience and who are you not interested in writing for?

Finally, talk to your previous generations for background before it’s too late – or you’ll regret not having done so.

How to agree without giving in

A few weeks ago I was invited to run a workshop on negotiating skills for a group of senior engineers who sell capital goods for a well-known European multinational, and it took me back to the last century when I was an account manager offering large IT solutions using mainframe computers.

It reminded me of my library, where I knew I had some material on the subject. I found more books than I expected, including some which I don’t remember ever reading!

Undoubtedly the best known among them is Getting to Yes – Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William Ury, together with Bruce Patton of the Harvard Negotiation Project. The second edition, the one I have, was published in 1991, and I strongly recommend this classic.

Here’s the essence of the “principled” negotiating laid out there, which has you neither too soft nor too hard. If you are too soft you end up the exploited loser, while if you are too hard you fail to develop a relationship and are likely to restrict yourself to a one-off transaction, as the other party won’t wish to deal with you again.

(This was the case with Trump, during his time as a wheeler-dealer in the New York real estate business, as we learned in “his” book, The Art of the Deal.)

Principled negotiators are in between: reasonable and fair, aiming at mutual benefit. They build and preserve relationships, assuming the other party is a partner and not an opponent. Put briefly, it’s a win-win approach to interacting, the one I adopted right from when I launched into the capital goods marketing business in the late 1960s.

What kind of attitude makes for an effective negotiator? Here, let me turn to another of the books I pulled down from my shelf, The Negotiator – A Manual for Winners, by Royce Coffin. It was published in 1973, and I inherited it from my father, who in those days was a management consultant as I am now.

Coffin advises us to be self-confident and optimistic, so we can be relaxed, creative and bold. He then suggests not rushing at talks.

Rather, be patient, and take time to understand and to build trusting ties. And do so by being friendly and cheerful, and applying a light touch. If necessary, pause to review and reflect, and consult with others.

From The Negotiating Game – How to Get What You Want, by Chester Karrass (published in 1970, and also inherited from my father), I learned about the “negotiator trait clusters”.

First is task performance, involving planning, problem-solving, initiative, product knowledge, reliability and stamina. Next comes aggression (or, as I would prefer to call it, assertiveness). Here he identifies power exploitation, competitiveness, team leadership, persistence, risk-taking, courage and defensiveness.

To a softer trait now, socialising, meaning personal integrity, being open-minded, tactful, patient, compromising and trustworthy, plus displaying an acceptable appearance.

Being an effective communicator is also key, with verbal clarity and good body language, focusing on listening, generating warm rapport, plus skills in debating, role-playing and coordinating.

A final duo: first self-worth, involving self-control, self-esteem and dignity, enabling one to gain the other party’s respect – and even to risk being disliked; and possessing high ethical standards. Plus gaining the boss’s respect, and being identified with a sufficiently senior organisational rank.

Last but not least, one’s thought processes: general practical intelligence, education, insight, analytical ability, decisiveness, negotiating experience, broad perspective, and clear thinking under stress.

The last publication I’ll refer to is my Summer 2008 edition of the Harvard Business Review, whose theme was Great Deal Making – The Art and Science of Negotiating, and rereading it vividly reminded me of the lessons I learned when I was in the game, ones I now share as a consultant.

I can’t resist ending by saying that I was recently with one of the workshop participants and I asked him if what we covered had made a difference. He confirmed it had with the recent signing of a major order.

Influencing upwards for growth despite volatility

In my consulting work, I engage with staff at all levels, from those who occupy the chairperson’s seat in the boardroom to those who work on the shop floor and in the fields. As I converse with them and study them I see a whole spectrum of diameters in their circles of influence — not necessarily related to their seniority.

Some chairs act merely as “traffic police”, guiding who should speak next while not adding significant value; while some of the very young and very junior can be making an impact on their environments that is way beyond what is expected.

Partly it is a function of how active and creative their minds are; much depends on their communication skills; and, a key component is confidence and boldness — the willingness to share what is on one’s mind, imagining that others will be interested in one’s thoughts and be keen to hear them.

We each develop our reputations, some for just quietly getting on with our tasks as narrowly defined in our job descriptions, others for restlessly and relentlessly championing new and better ways of doing things.

The latter may well be inconvenient disrupters, so here the challenge is to make one’s point in ways that others find possible to digest. And this brings me to the specific theme of this article: influencing upwards, often the most difficult direction in which to generate change.

Let me take you back to the time I was facilitating programmes on “Leadership for Influence” as a faculty member of the Aga Khan Graduate School of Media and Communications.

Among them was a series of events for groups of branch managers of a large nationwide organisation, where as I encouraged them to talk about their communications challenges the one that emerged time and again, and so strongly, was being listened to by their seniors.

What I heard was that theirs was a company where strategies and objectives were set at higher levels than theirs, and then communicated downwards. No one was interested in their voices, they felt. I found this quite puzzling, as it was their bosses who had brought me in to help them with their communications skills.

Within the workshops I had them write and perform short plays which began with a problem, either internally with a colleague or externally with a customer and reached a tipping point as a result of which the problem was resolved and a win-win solution emerged.

Many of their playlets featured a dissatisfied client, and I noted that without exception almost immediately on hearing their complaint the script had the client-facing staff take the complainant to their branch manager for them to resolve the issue.

Why were the scripts written this way? Were they not empowered to resolve issues themselves? Did their managers hold back from delegating authority? Did they not trust their people? Were they just timid, unwilling to make what would be perceived as the wrong decision? What could have led to the staff member holding back from such consistent instant escalation?

We discussed all this, and also the question of how the communication between the branch managers and their seniors could be improved. Yet when I proposed that as an output from their sessions with me the participants should seek such dialogue they were hesitant to do so.

Influencing upwards, they felt, was not something that would be appreciated. It was not in the organisational culture.

Through those who had hired me for the workshops, I did suggest that escalation and delegation management was a topic that needed airing, but I never got to know if anything was done as a result of my intervention.

How is it in your organisation? Do you actively seek the views of your juniors? Do you listen to their voices? Do you develop their competence and their confidence to make responsible judgments on behalf of the organisation — providing adequate guidelines and guardrails, and accepting that sometimes your decision might have been different?

Do you trust them to do the right thing? Or do you micro-manage them, making them feel they must delegate upwards, for fear of being hammered for taking a “wrong” approach?

The larger the organisation the more important this issue becomes. Those who will prosper in these uncertain and volatile times are the ones who encourage influencing upwards.

Are you generating good customer experiences?

In a recent article about that wonderful book Influencers, I mentioned an example of influencing that reminded me of my hospital experience earlier this year.

A large medical centre’s service quality scores had been steadily decreasing, I wrote, as patients and their families felt they weren’t being treated with care, dignity or respect. So a team was formed to locate those among them who scored highly, to see how they behaved in ways that resonated with their customers.

The good behaviours the team found among the high scorers were: smiling; making eye contact; identifying yourself; letting people know what you are doing and why; and ending every interaction by asking “Is there anything else that you need?”

A strategy to influence the behaviour of the other staff was initiated, resulting in the centre’s scores rising significantly.

Splendid. And yet I now have an update on this, emerging from a conversation I had with the CEO of Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, Robert Nyarango, who introduced me to the book If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9½ Things You Would Do Differently, by Fred Lee, a former hospital executive.

On Googling the book, I came across a link to a TED talk on the subject by Mr Lee, one of the most engaging speakers I’ve encountered in a long time.

In the talk, he refers to the exact list of five positive behaviours displayed by the best carers as quoted in the book I’d read… insisting this is far from sufficient to generate the kind of “customer experience” that is possible – and that is offered by organisations like Disney at their Disneyworld sites. (No wonder they call those who visit them “guests” rather than “customers”.)

So what should carers do more than smile, make eye contact and so forth? Mr Lee takes the deliberately mild example of a nurse taking blood for testing, where the patient still may feel unduly anxious about the prospective pain and the complications that may arise.

Where there’s anxiety, he explains, the blood pressure rises and so the pain threshold falls.

We hear from Mr Lee about a study that related the lower pain levels felt by patients whose blood was taken by nurses who received only compliments from patients: the positive consequences of feeling psychologically comfortable with the person inserting the needle.

To distract from patients’ anxiety, carers make small talk, like asking if they live nearby, or getting them to talk about their family. Then, they mention how expert and experienced they are, displaying a reassuring combination of competence and confidence – this with a light touch.

Mr Lee quotes that famous line from W. Edwards Deming, about only managing what you measure, but he adds the far lesser-known additional thought from Deming that being satisfied cannot be measured or scripted, as it only comes from the heart – like wanting to deal with the person again.

The approach to patients by the former hospital executive was transformed by reading the 1999 bestseller The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, who described this new way of thinking about connecting with customers and securing their loyalty through offering positive experiences beyond good service.

As I have been doing from time to time since my release from hospital earlier this year, I will again relate to my own customer experience while a patient. The gentleman taking my blood each day was a very jovial fellow, and of course, I wouldn’t have minded were it not that his visits were at 5 am.

He would enter my room with a loud greeting and switch on the light, shocking me into premature wakefulness. I would dread that daily pre-dawn knock on my door by the man I came to call my Dracula, and his high-energy entrances made me feel so uncomfortable that after a few days I requested him to tone down his whole performance, which happily he did.

Here I have been describing how to generate the best possible customer experiences in stressful hospital environments. But as you have been reading I hope you have extrapolated to your own situations.

You have your customer experiences, both positive and negative. But how do the customers of your organisation experience their interactions with your staff?

Do your people know how to put your customers at ease and make them feel good about having interacted with them? Can they hardly wait to deal with them again?

How to offer and receive feedback at workplace

In a recent coaching session, my client and I were discussing his initiative to improve the ways in which feedback was being given and received in his work environment.

As we shared how each of us approached doing so ourselves and how we encouraged others to offer and absorb suggestions, we emerged with a list of do’s and don’ts that he and I felt would be helpful to share with you here.

What makes us more or less receptive to feedback? It’s a mixture of, on the one hand, how it is offered and by whom, and on the other hand our openness to changing how we feel, how we think and how we behave. Are we into learning and growing by experimenting with new approaches?

Or are we so convinced of the rightness of our existing ways that there’s no need for listening to what others think? Maybe we feel so insecure about venturing beyond our comfort zones that we need to hold on to where we are, however good the idea that’s being offered?

However receptive we are to feedback, much of our reaction has to do with how it is offered. Too many do so in ways that make us feel we’ve been under-performing and that we are inadequate.

It comes across as criticism rather than as a way of improving a situation, thus making it harder for us to be anything other than defensive.

Such people also tend to focus exclusively on feedback regarding what isn’t going well, while taking the positive for granted – like the exception reporting in appraisal interviews or school reports. (Your child might have done well in all subjects except one, but that’s the only one that receives a comment – “Must do better in mathematics.”)

At the other end of the spectrum, we also have those who restrict themselves to only offering positive feedback, perhaps worried that suggestions for improvement may give offence and only lead to pushback. Having said that, it’s usually good to start with acknowledging successes, along with celebrating the supportive strengths that enabled them.

This puts the recipient in a more relaxed and confident state of mind, and with heightened self-esteem, they can then more easily handle tougher inputs coming their way.

During our conversation, we talked about the benefits of role-playing and rehearsing feedback-offering sessions to develop more effective techniques that can lead to the desired impact. Much has to do with emotional intelligence, with choosing the right words and tone, including appropriate body language and maybe a light touch here and there.

This is how high-trust relationships are built, ones that allow for what would otherwise be difficult conversations, where the one offering feedback has a reputation for doing so only to see the recipient be at their best. Then, however inconvenient the input, it will be evaluated more constructively.

Soon after that coaching session, a friend of mine was complaining to me that her suggestions as a board member to management were rarely greeted positively. Why were they resistant to what she felt were helpful ideas?

What could she do differently, as the default blocked mindset she perceived has led to her being more reluctant to make her suggestions? As we talked we felt it would be good for her to go beyond offering suggestions informal meetings but to float them one-on-one in less formal settings, like over lunch with the CEO.

In such a setting, even before getting into the specifics, it would help to explore why her suggestions were rarely pursued. So I encouraged her to exchange offers and requests with the CEO and his colleagues in order to bridge the gap between them. “If you would do more/less of this, it would be easier for us to react positively,” the CEO might propose.

And my friend could offer to continue sharing her suggestions provided she felt more motivated to do so by not feeling she was speaking to an intrinsically unreceptive audience.

The ability to offer feedback in ways that make a difference is a valuable skill, whether with subordinates or peers, never mind with superiors, and perhaps most importantly of all within families. And being open to feedback from others is also something to cultivate, within organisations and from other stakeholders. Oh yes, and from coaches too.