Mike has his own unique style. He draws on more than 27 years experience. He has worked most positions in the service industry and feels at home in more major cities than most people.
We kicked of Module 3, on our 3 year 6 module Service Management training this week. Seventeen energetic and ready-to -go ’students’ worked for the days getting to grips with marketing of services and the role of loyalty and satisfaction.
Four students hosted 4 workshop on developing the focus for their action learning question – the question they will work on for the next 16 weeks and that will form the basis of their final written assignment in December. The Proaction Cafe was hosted by Kathrine Procter who is the Program Manager on this module and works with structured questioning in three rounds. Each round has 3 new expert help the host develop depth, perspective and action items on the chosen question.
The feed back afterwards was awesome – not only did the 4 hosts declare that for the first time did they have a clear focus on their assignment at a very early stage but the other participants also felt that they had learned a lot about how they could approach their learning question.
An unexpected bonus that we had not thought of was that participants felt that working in the ProAction Cafe format also gave them a great opportunity to recapitulate the learning from the three previous days as they wove these topics into the problem solving discussion at the tables. It does not get much better in my world.
I have been an AVIS fan for many many years – ever since I read Warren Avis book.
I rent cars from them where ever I go. 10-15.000$ worth a year. Have done for years and years. I love the “we try harder” and I have always felt they do.
But I think they lost me yesterday. They did nothing seriously wrong they just did not care.
I use the same office regularly in Copenhagen. Monday morning I returned a people van that I had rented for the weekend – rolled into their garage as I always do and a guy in a ‘we try harder’ T-shirt shouted to me: “Hey you can’t park there!” “Sorry” – I said “just returning the car.” “Not here – can’t you see the sign out there?” he pointed through a wall at some area that must be the other side of the wall. Ok, I got in and drove out – went around the block – and yes, there was a parking lot with no spaces left so I left out side the demarcation lines. On my way back I met the guy again – and I said to him: “Hey don’t you think you are wearing the wrong T-shirt today?” But I don’t think he got the joke.
In the office they were not happy – they had obviously downsized, cause there where not as many desks as usual, and the atmosphere was less than cheerful. The man I normally rent from tried to avoid me by a cheerful smile and when I waved a hand: In the hey I’m back sort of way, he just pointed at another agent and nodded in that direction – I got the point. For the past 3 years he has always got up and come across to shake my hand. They must have lost a lot of business. I wonder why?
Well not my problem is it? – There are lots and lots of people out there who I am sure would love to rent me a car from time to time.
Maybe it is more than a buzz – maybe it is a fundamental shift..
It started out some years back as just a murmur or a slight rumbling from the initiated. But lately is has slowly risen in volume and my prediction is that before too long it will have gathered further momentum to become an unavoidable roar.
The shift is the call for ‘Purpose’
In a world with limited natural resources, huge inequality, and financial scandals galore, it is no longer comme il faut to do stuff just for money. That applies not just to companies that produce goods and services but is increasingly demanded by individuals as well – a job is no longer just for the money.
A new generation is emerging (see the generation M manifesto). They demand that we do stuff for a reason and it better be a good one – and just in case you are in doubt money is an outcome not a purpose.
The first time this was brought to my attention was 4 years a go sitting on a tree stump in the Rocky Mountains with my friend Lothar Friis. We were having a profound talk about life, business, gigs and all that. And Lothar said “you know in the end it all boils down to one thing: Purpose. If you have a clear purpose you will almost always bee successful in what you do.” That chat stayed with me rumbling around in my subconscious and I started becoming more aware of purpose as a concept.
A conscious business seeks to promote the intelligent pursuit of happiness in all its stakeholders. It produces sustainable, exceptional performance through the solidarity of its community and the dignity of each member.
In the book he says: “People do not consider Business an area to demonstrate their values .. Why not?”. Kofman asks you to think about a person you admire. Why do you admire that person? List the traits on a pice of paper (try it now by the way) What are the values on that list – probably words like integrity, honesty, caring, love, selfishness, you go on… Is that how business and work relations are run – probably not in most cases. Why not ?
He has a point why can’t we run our business with the same set of values that we would like to see in our local community. Well, five year ago you would be told that that is not the best way to maximize profits, but now it seem it just may turnout to be the only way to maximize profits – read on.
Then I read Peter Block’s “The answer to how is Yes” This opened my eyes to the need to ask ‘why’ before we ask ‘how’. The penny dropped. When we ask ‘Why’ we are looking at purpose (If you have not read it please do – it is a very important book.)
“We too often ask “How?” which focuses too closely on the practical way of getting something done and is actually a subconscious expression of society’s emphasis on control of people, time, and cost. Instead, our concentration should be focused on “Why?”. In other words, we need to pay attention to what really matters to us personally, from heart-felt commitments in our private lives to the creation of projects in the workplace. To be able to act on what matters, explains Block, we must reclaim specific qualities, such as intimacy and idealism. Then we can tackle purposeful work as if we were social architects seeking engagement and change.” (Amazon.com)
“Conscious Capitalism is defined to have three elements; that companies should have a purpose transcending profit maximization, are managed for the benefit of all stakeholders and led by evolved, conscious servant leaders.”
By and by purpose has come out of the shadows of idealism and is going mainstream – obviously the financial meltdown of 2007/2008 has help this thinking a lot and contributed to more people have asking the crucial question: Why do we do what we do?
At TED 2010 Simon Sinek presented his ‘Golden Circle’ and showed that the way to the consumers heart starts with ‘why’ and not ‘how’.- Not as new a concept as he would like us to think but he deliveries the message in a very elegant and convincing way. Sinek has also written a great book on this called ‘Start With WHY‘ that I can highly recommend.
“Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success”
And finally this summer Dave Ulrich – not exactly a tree hugger – is out with a new book: The why of Work. Arguing in essence that if your employees don’t understand what you greater purpose is and how they can contribute to that they will be less motivated.
“Alex Bogusky, advertising Dadaist, postmodern media manipulator, pop-culture Houdini, daddy of 21st-century advertising, and now a seeker of meaning on the dirt path of life “ .. “ I guess I just don’t aspire to corporate legacy. I’m convinced that the greatness that matters more is the greatness people achieve through helping each other, through collaborating, more than the greatness that’s achieved by grabbing all you can or getting all you can or building all you can”
If you haven’t heard the cry for purpose – you are not listening – and very soon your customers (and your potential employees) are going to be asking you: “What is your purpose by the way?”. And if you don’t have a compelling answer, they will find someone else who does…
We have spent the past 3 days checkking out the location for our next Time Out – Tucked away high up in the mountains above Nice in the beautiful Parc du Mercantour.
You can just spot the hotel in right hand part of the picture. The road winds its way up from the village of Belvedere a distance of about 10 k’s and ends here at the entrance to the Parc. Once you reach this spot there is no longer mobile phone cover and the locals smile overbearingly and shake their heads when we ask for a high speed internet connection. No chance in this part of the world.
We all need to see the world from 2800m from time to time – it gives a different perspective and that is the whole idea behind this project
The surroundings are breathtaking and I am convinced that this setting will give our participants the opportunity to participate in a reflective process while at the same time getting to enjoy a series of physically challenging outdoor activities that we have planned – which is why we call it: Time-Out.
We shall be publishing more details on this event in the weeks to come – if you are very impatient drop me a note and I will tell you what I know at this point in time.
Learning by discovery and collaboration once again proved its value.
This week we spent time in Oman working with COWI Gulf. Together with their finance department we developed a 2 day training on the ins and outs of running a project from the financial point of view.I.e. are we on track financially, does this tally with our budget and that sort of stuff
The challenge here is always: how does one make a subject fun and engaging when it is already considered drab and dull before we even get started.
The traditional approach is of course to arm yourself with a large deck of power-points outlining the does and don’t of financial management.
That may be how you teach finance – but that is not necessarily the best way to actually learn finance.
So instead we created a scenario that very much resembles their day to day situation, with the problems and pitfalls of real life and had them work through that in teams of 3 – if they got stuck they could ask questions – but essentially they worked it out between themselves – collaborative learning in full bloom – what a pleasure!
