|
Tuesday 24-March-09 Us and them and learned helplessness in change
In working for many years in business change, I've found change 'agents'
often indulge in grumbling about the targets of change. And indeed, they often
have good reason to complain. Change is not easy and early success can soon slow
as operational priorities become useful excuses to drag heels.
A problem with all this occurs where the people working on the change start
to expect serious resistance. I have been in change meetings, for example, where
much of the time is spent complaining about a lack of management understanding
and support. Beyond the waste of time, this can have a serious effect on how the
change agents think and behave.
A defeatist position known as 'learned helplessness' can become entrenched
when people feel unable to make a difference. When working elephants in India
are being trained, they are chained to a deep stake with a strong chain. Before
long, they learn that pulling on the chain is painful and futile and so give up.
After that, only a light chain or even a rope is needed. When faced with strong
resistance, agents of change may start avoiding difficult tasks and excusing
either themselves or their subjects with thoughts of 'It won't work' or 'They're
busy at the moment'. And so the change agents become ineffectual and helpless.
The change thus fails, with the subjects happy to sustain the status quo and
change agents pointing at organizational commitment whilst perhaps secretly
happy that their tentative plans were never tested in the real world.
Friday 26-June-09 Starting to read minds
One of the things we do as humans is try to read the minds of others.
Although we are not always as good at it as we think we are, we still can be
surprisingly accurate. We make much use this 'theory of mind' when deciding on
what we will say and do (and in doing so build a workable society).
So when do we start to read other people's minds? Researchers Amanda Brandone
and Henry Wellman investigated 8+ month-old babies' assessment of the intent of
others by watching the attention the babies paid to several prefabricated
situations.
They first showed the babies videos of a person reaching for a ball in
different ways (one way per baby) and with varying success at grasping the ball.
They then showed them other videos of babies reaching for a ball. The babies
paid most attention to the videos where the person was reaching in the same way
as they had seen before.
The implication is that babies as young as 8 months can understand intent,
indicating a remarkable sophistication from an early age.
Reference: Brandone, A.C. and Wellman, H. (2009). You Can't Always Get
What You Want: Infants Understand Failed Goal-Directed Actions. Psychological
Science, 20 (1), 85-91.
Friday 19-June-09 Why music?
What's the point of music? It's something that I've worried about for ages,
so a recent radio programme on the subject held me spellbound.
Psychologist Steven Pinker sees little value for evolution in it, although
the venerable Charles Darwin, who defined the original evolutionary lens,
considered it to be important, along with its close partner dance. The ideas is
that it is valuable in mating displays where the male effectively showing his
ability to understand and use complex patterns.
An interesting fact about music is that we can hear a tune in a different key
and different timing and yet still recognise it. We are, above all, pattern
experts.
One of the things we know is that learning to play an instrument increases
cognitive ability across a range of other subjects. Doing music, it seems,
reaches the parts of the brain that other activities do not reach.
On a related note, another recent radio programme pointed out that it takes
10,000 hrs of practice to reach true expertise, and even Mozart only achieved
his early peak through an extremely focused childhood.
So why music, indeed? Whatever the evolutionary cause, the bottom line for
most of us is that it makes us feel good. And in changing minds, good feelings
are jolly handy things to be able to elicit. Which is why careful use of
background music ('atmospherics') is an ongoing tool for many persuaders.
Your comments
Many might say that songbirds introduced us to music. However if any
researcher manages to precisely translate the "lyrics" birds use the practice
may not always be so social.
For several generations that have come of age since the introduction of the
radio, popular music has become the soundtrack of their youth. We may not know,
much less understand all the lyrics or remember the artists but the melodies
become more magnetic with time.
Thus, strangely, many "establishment" Corporations now pay royalties to their
former rivals -the rebellious minstrels - to sell their products and services.
The music then must play a role in exercising ones memory, not to mention
recollecting and processing the blur we sometimes call adolescence(?).
-- Peter
Sunday 14-June-09 A Virgin failure (and recovery)
What do you do when you experience a service failure? Many people do nothing,
which is sad, because it means many more people will be affected. I've just had
a rather dreadful experience at the hands of Virgin, a company I have previously
admired. I've send a copy of this blog to the CEO.
Sir Richard Branson
Virgin Group
The School House
50 Brook Green
London
W6 7RR
14 June 2009
Dear Sir Richard
Ever since I bought Tubular Bells whilst a student in 1973 I have followed
the admirable development of Virgin. As a later student and practitioner
in business I have also read your books and admired your inspirational
leadership. It is therefore with regret that I must report a lamentable
and repeated lapse in service by Virgin Balloon Flights. My faith in this
company has been so shaken, I am writing to you directly. Some of the
failures below may seem small to you, but they were all instrumental.
My wife bought me a balloon ride as a special present, which gave me
months of delighted anticipation before I decided to book the flight this
month. I phoned the number in the letter and got through to someone who
told me that the booking people were busy but someone would phone back.
Nobody did. (First failure). I consequently
found the website and was able to book online, so I thought it would be
ok.
It was rather worrying that when booking the flight, there was no
indication of flight time -- only AM or PM (Second
failure).
In the information after booking and in the identical email received,
there was an instruction to phone 'from 11pm the night before your
flight'. Please note the 'from' and the omission of 'between' hours. (Third
failure).
Now I work long hours, getting up early for a 2 hour commute into London.
By 10pm and often earlier, I am out for the count. I worried about the
ambiguous instruction but resolved to get up early to find the flight
details. I rose before 6am and called the number, only to find that I was
supposed to be in Henley, about 20 minutes away, for 6am. I called the
emergency number given, only to get a message saying that this was an old
number and telling me to call another number, which I did, only for it to
ring and ring with no answer (Fourth failure).
As you might guess, I was very disappointed by this. It was a perfect
morning. I am a keen photographer and the light was just right.
I called the main Virgin Balloons number to find that it opened at 10am. I
called back then and told my story to the person, only to be cut off as I
completed it. I called again and spoke to somebody else, who persisted in
telling me things that I should have done, like phone after 11pm. This is
a dreadful method: when a customer is unhappy, telling them what they
should have done will only make them more unhappy (Fifth
failure).
She told me that she would investigate, but warned that I would lose any
future opportunity if the pilot confirmed that the flight took place. I
had already told her it was a beautiful day and this only served to
frustrate me further, though I bit my lip and just asked her not to tell
me all the things I should have done, but to tell me what she was going to
do about it. She said she would call back the same day and I gave her two
numbers for this, asking her to leave a message at my home number if she
couldn't get through on the mobile (I had by now gone out for the day to
cheer up). By now, I was not surprised that when I got home there was no
message. (Sixth failure).
Will they get back to me? Experience says no, and my faith in Virgin
Balloon Flights has so completely shaken, I am writing directly to you.
I have wondered if any of it was my fault. The service representative told
me that there was indication of times in the brochure, which I later found
to be true. But consider the customer journey here. I read the booklet
last Christmas, but when booking the flight only referred to the letter
enclosed with the booklet and the information I saw online and received in
the subsequent email. In no place along this recent route was there any
indication of actual or potential flight times.
In 'Business Stripped Bare' you state as your proposition that 'we
offer our customers a Virgin experience, and we make sure that this Virgin
experience is a substantial and consistent one, across all sectors of our
business'. I believe you. I believe this is what you intend, and that
my experience with Virgin Balloon Flights is an exception. I will ask
three things of you to demonstrate this:
- That I get the sunny flight that my wife intended for me.
- That you fix the failures listed, so others will not suffer
likewise.
- That you fix the system that led to these failures.
In this, I would ask that your service representatives are not punished,
but that they are properly trained in handling unhappy customers. I would
also suggest that you do a detailed process review, examining in detail
the customer's experiential journey, particularly when things go wrong.
Customer experience design is critical for many modern businesses, along
with the process, technology and organisation that create this. As a core
element of your brand, I do hope you have a strong and deep competence in
this area.
Many thanks for you kind consideration and I await your response with
interest,
|
Coda
Virgin did a decent recovery, which is good. I didn't speak to
Richard Branson but I think it was someone high-up, who called to thank me for
my suggestions, saying they agreed with many of these and would be
implementing them. And of course I would have my balloon flight reinstated.
My faith in Virgin is thus restored. It doesn't take much to recover a
customer, even a very unhappy one. All you need to do is show that you care,
listen intelligently, and do the right thing.
Wednesday 10-June-09 Hard sales at Sainsbury's
A problem for supermarkets is how to sell more. They have studied precisely
how we buy. They have adverts and offers at critical points throughout the
store. But many customers are 'sleep shopping', wandering the store, missing all
the advertising. Only 7 words are read during the shopping trip and 80% of our
shopping is done subconsciously.
I'm watching a fascinating TV programme about UK superstore Sainsbury's and
how they are doing a daring experiment by putting 'ordinary' people on the
supermarket floor to talk to customers and see if they can generate extra sales.
The star of the show is Barbara, a new employee, who convinces her manager to
let her try out her idea.
She acts as a 'store host' who wanders floor demonstrating products (she
often pushes a trolley with goods in it). She calls it 'taking the store to the
customer.' She sometimes also takes a roving microphone to announce offers and
interview people about their purchases.
Worryingly, she was given sales targets for a single product (400 packets of
hot cross buns). She wandered around saying 'go on, have a little squidge --
feel how fresh that is'. Great sales technique, of course, and once customers
have touched the product, they are far more likely to buy. She's very good and
has been in direct sales for many years -- and it shows, as she doubles daily
sales of the product.
Within 4 months of joining Sainsbury's word reached the top and she was in
direct conversation with the CEO, impressing him with her friendly patter,
pushing the sale just enough and telling how she backs off easily if the
customer isn't interested.
Given the task of taking the idea to the next base, she looks for recruits
from within Sainsbury's staff who can replicate her style. The examples we see
are a bit robotic and lack the easy style of the direct selling professional.
Sainsbury's also openly voice their concerns, that customers might be put off
by the hard sell. It's difficult to tell when people silently don't come back.
Research tells that 2 out of 3 just want to be left alone. The corporate maven
holds a focus group from the store where Barbara did the initial experiment, and
the results are mixed, with some saying they just want to be left alone.
The bottom line for Barbara's idea is a two week trial across three store
that measures both sales and customer perception. What it looks like is that the
recruits are either are a bit too heavy handed or back off too much. Even
Barbara begins to crack under the pressure of daily sales targets and the
pressure of the experimental spotlight.
After much debate, Sainsbury's decide to take the next step and try it in 20
stores. They're very cautious about getting it right and do recognise that they
need the right people, trained right and with a significant focus on helping
customers rather than blindly pushing products. I thought they'd bottle out, but
good for them: they're trying to make it work!
Friday 05-June-09 We're more like others than we think
Quick: how would you feel if there was a change in local government where you
live? How about if you won a holiday? Or if you had a car accident? Or you were
infected with measles?
Whilst we can guess how we might feel in any situation, we are often poor at
getting it right. In predicting our emotions we often over-estimate,
particularly for traumatic events. We may also hopefully underestimate how we
will free.
Professor Daniel Gilbert and his colleagues did a number of experiments
around this with students that included getting them to share dating experiences
and sharing personality data in story formats.
What they discovered was that how others feel about something is often more
accurate a prediction than how we think we will feel about it ourselves. A
reason for this is where we think we are unique and quite different from others
and so take a polar position. This can be seen in conversations where we take
exaggerated positions and stretch the truth to make ourselves more special. The
reality is that we are more like others than we think.
Reference:
D.T. Gilbert, M.A. Killingsworth, & R.N. Eyre (2009). The Surprising Power
of Neighborly Advice. Science, 323, 1617-1619
Tuesday 02-June-09 Creating a successful website
I was asked recently how I developed the changingminds.org site. The site has
been reasonably successful and it's a subject I ponder from time to time. I
could have written more but one of the rules is 'keep it simple' so I kept it to
ten points.
So how did it all start? I'd been writing for a number of years and wanted
a hobby that would hopefully become a career. I'd been wanting to write a
book on persuasion for years and the first 'big idea', ten years ago, was
to create a 'category killer'. Just like Toys'R'Us, if I could cover all
the bases, then people would not need to go elsewhere. Two rules, then:
1. Start with a big idea.
2. Be the best.
I then just got my head down and got on with it. I researched and read
endlessly, which is something I really like. So two more rules:
3. Persist. Write every day.
4. Build a big research library.
The site grew organically. I write what I find and where I am studying
at the time. For example I'm doing a M.Sc. in Psychology at the moment so
there's lots of pages from that. I recently bought another book on Sales
so I'll scan that for new ideas. I often synthesize across readings, so
one page may have many sources.
I've managed to get up the Google rankings on a lot of subjects mostly
by playing the rules. You can find more of the principles I used here:
http://changingminds.org/webmasters_adsense_secrets.htm. In particular, I
focus one page on one narrow subject. So:
5. Focus each page.
I believe in what I'm doing. I've worked on the principle of 'build it
and they will come'. So
6. Have faith in yourself and what you can do.
The site is written with an old verion of FrontPage. It's simple, flat
pages for the most part. I taught myself HTML and enough Javascript and
PHP to get by. I designed the layout myself and improve it from time to
time. I keep an eye on who's looking where. For example lots of people go
to the body language pages so I've extended that section.
7. Keep it simple.
8. Learn and evolve.
And finally you need to promote the site endlessly. I'm writing this on
the train into London and just gave a demo to the lady sitting next to me.
I have an RSS feed and use Twitter to tell the world about updates. I've
also written a 'book of the site' which is quietly doing quite well and
will continue to add products.
9. Sell the site!
10. When you have attention, sell other things.
|
Tuesday 19-March-09 Goodhart's Law
Have you ever noticed how government 'indicators' hardly ever seem to provide
an agreed and accurate measure of the subject? How they are set up in a fanfare
of openness and promise then degenerate into confusion, mismanagement and
accusation?
This is a principle that was defined in 1975, in a paper by chief economic
advisor to the Bank of England Charles Goodhart. It became particularly popular
for explaining the problems in the 1980s when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
defined assorted metrics for managing monetary policy.
This principle is also true in business and other organizations. You define a
'success' measure but when it comes around to assessing success it doesn't seem
to be that effective. There are several reasons for this. First, the world is
not a simple place. To paraphrase a popular quote: 'For every problem there is
answer that is simple, elegant and wrong.' Secondly and very significantly, when
you set up a metric by which people are rewarded or punished and they will act
to optimize that measure, including in ways that detrimental to other important
things. As a salesman once told me: 'Tell me how I am measured and I'll tell you
how I'll behave.' Well-meaning performance metrics easily lead to sub-optimal
performance.
There is also a Reverse Goodhart's Law, which says that if a government's
economic credibility is sufficiently damaged, then its targets are seen as
irrelevant and, bizarrely, the economic indicators regain their reliability as a
guide to policy. In the wake of the Thatcher years, Prime Minister John Major's
stumblings had this effect.
So what should you do? Perhaps the best idea in recent times is the principle
of the balanced scorecard, where measures act as checks and balances for one
another and too much attention to one measure damages another.
For more, see the ChangingMinds Blog! Archive or
the Blogs by subject. To
comment on any blog, click on the blog either in the archive or in the column to
the right.
Best wishes,
Dave
|
|
Click below to view & comment on any blog
Jul-09
01-Jul-09: Us and them and
learned helplessness in change
Jun-09
26-Jun-09: Starting to read
minds
19-Jun-09: Why music?
14-Jun-09: A Virgin failure
10-Jun-09: Hard sales at
Sainsbury's
13-Jun-09: We're more like
others than we think
02-Jun-09: Creating a
successful website
May-09
19-May-09: Goodhart's Law
15-May-09: Better team
decisions
08-May-09: Extremist
persuasion
01-May-09: Trafalgar Square
T-Mobile Flash-mob Karaoke!
Apr-09
24-Apr-09: Creating
commitment
16-Apr-09: Set up to fail
07-Apr-09: Extraversion,
introversion and eccentricity
03-Apr-09: Expression,
emotion and botox
Mar-09
24-Mar-09: Jury duty
17-Mar-09: Neurogenesis and
the edge of science
12-Mar-09: Why sports?
04-Mar-09: Cars are not
cars
Feb-09
27-Feb-09: Brilliant
business spam
25-Feb-09: Four degrees of
separation that help simplify work
17-Feb-09: Be
conscientious, live longer
13-Feb-09: Obama, history
and hope
03-Feb-09: How to get
teenagers to tidy their room
Jan-09
29-Jan-09: Gifts, guys and
gals
21-Jan-09: The Coffee
Effect
14-Jan-09: Obama and the
mouth clamp
08-Jan-09: Justice and the
mendacious ape
02-Jan-09: New year,
tradition and superstition
Dec-08
23-Dec-08: Lifting spirits
18-Dec-08: Changing a
politician's mind?
17-Dec-08: Sausages, sizzle
and sensory stimulation
11-Dec-08: Sick
opportunities
04-Dec-08: Spam tricks
02-Dec-08: Testing times
Nov-08
26-Nov-08: War and Peace
20-Nov-08: Christmas,
crisis and bargains
18-Nov-08: Do something
amazing
11-Nov-08: Doors and ads
06-Nov-08: Guilty secrets
and confession
04-Nov-08: Getting in the
votes
Oct-08
31-Oct-08: Cults and abuse
24-Oct-08: The public
grovel
21-Oct-08: Blagging
17-Oct-08: Sweet Dreams
07-Oct-08: Contributions --
one person at a time
01-Oct-08: Voices of
failure
Sep-08
24-Sep-08: Short-term
thinking, long-term thinking and economic impact
19-Sep-08: Religion and war
12-Sep-08: What makes a
good tune
03-Sep-08: Words, pictures
and stories
Aug-08
29-Aug-08: The necessity of
celebrity
27-Aug-08: Interpreting
dreams
15-Aug-08:Ten thousand
emails
13-Aug-08: Sensory
deprivation on the BBC
08-Aug-08: Cruise dues
Jul-08
25-Jul-08: Religions and
abuse
23-Jul-08: Don't fire your
bad customers!
18-Jul-08: The price of
wine
11-Jul-08: Speed dating
09-Jul-08: Influencing
politicians
04-Jul-08: Micromanagement
02-Jul-08: (Not) good
enough thinking
Jun-08
27-Jun-08: Blind motivation
20-Jun-08: The activist's
trap
18-Jun-08: Sharpe's Way
13-Jun-08: Getting your
website noticed
11-Jun-08: Coaching
euphemism
05-Jun-08: Seeing
photographs
May-08
23-May-08: Taxi tipping
21-May-08: Teenage
turnaround
16-May-08: Go Large
14-May-08: Nelson's Way
09-May-08: How to succeed
as an academic
07-May-08: Possibly
persuasive emails
02-May-08: Be a shade
braver
Apr-08
30-Apr-08: Preying on
sympathy
25-Apr-08: Planes, teens
and matriarchal society
23-Apr-08: Marathon madness
17-Apr-08: Service hazards
11-Apr-08: Growing pains
09-Apr-08: Words of wisdom
02-Apr-08: Fancy footwork
Mar-08
28-Mar-08: Management
tampering
21-Mar-08: Do not read this
blog
19-Mar-08: Tourist
confusion
14-Mar-08: Just giving,
just getting
11-Mar-08: A weekend's
entertainment
07-Mar-08: Magical
misdirection
05-Mar-08: Communities and
the magic 150
Feb-08
27-Feb-08: Acting memory
15-Feb-08: Buying beds
13-Feb-08: What not to wear
08-Feb-08: Medical
priorities
06-Feb-08: Spring and
renewal
01-Feb-08: Holiday taxi ads
Jan-08
30-Jan-08: MBWA
25-Jan-08: Coercion, cause
and effect
23-Jan-08: Eccentrically
light reading
18-Jan-08: Looking for God,
extremely
15-Jan-08: Famously fair
11-Jan-08: Retail
experiences 2
09-Jan-08: Retail
experiences 1
04-Jan-08: Sale talk
02-Jan-08: 2008 and all
that brainwashing
Full archive
2008
2007
2006
2005

|