Three New Summaries to Win Your Biggest Battles

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Leaders contend with a number of hardships but some difficulties seem constant. Growing your customer base while improving your relationship with existing customers is a challenge. Finding a better way to manage meetings is tough when you need to schedule a meeting to search for a solution. Soundview has three new Soundview Executive Book Summaries that tackle the above two common frustrations as well as the correlation between struggle and leadership itself.

by Bob Garfield and Doug Levy

Can’t Buy Me Like by Bob Garfield and Bob Levy. Today’s brands face an apparent choice between two evils: continue betting on their increasingly ineffective advertising or put blind faith in the supposedly mystical power of social media, where “likes” stand in for transactions and a mass audience is maddeningly elusive. We’ve entered the “Relationship Era,” where the only path for businesses seeking long-term success is to create authentic customer relationships. Authors Bob Garfield and Doug Levy show you where these authentic customers relationships come from, what they look like, and how to build them.

by Martin Murphy

No More Pointless Meetings by Martin Murphy. Wasting time in pointless meetings is the one thing that never seems to change. Martin Murphy, however, has helped a “Who’s Who” of corporate clients transform time-sapping meetings into breakthrough sessions that are measurably productive. His strategy is not simply to make meetings more palatable; instead, he reframes the entire concept of collaboration and introduces four “Work Sessions” that replace meetings to get more done, faster than ever before.

by Steven Snyder

Leadership and the Art of Struggle by Steven Snyder. For author Steven Snyder, adversity is precisely what unlocks our greatest potential. Using real-life stories drawn from his extensive research studying 151 diverse episodes of leadership struggle, Snyder shows how to navigate intense challenges to achieve personal growth and organizational success. He details strategies for embracing struggle and offers a host of unique tools and hands-on practices to help you implement them. By mastering the art of struggle, you’ll be better equipped to meet life’s challenges and focus on what matters most.

Each Soundview Executive Book Summary is available for download in multiple digital formats. Confront your biggest leadership challenges with these great titles.

What to Say to Defuse Even the Worst Customer Situations

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries

THE CUSTOMER SERVICE SURVIVAL KIT

CONTROL YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE EMERGENCIES

Customer service people are doomed to face what customer service expert Richard Gallagher calls “uh-oh” moments: those moments when visibly (or audibly) angry customers let you know exactly how they feel about your product or service and demand a response. The problem, Gallagher writes in The Customer Service Survival Kit, is that many if not most customer service personnel don’t know how to respond in the most effective way.

One of the first reactions of customer service personnel in front of angry customers is to defend themselves — either by explaining policies or procedures or explaining that the situation is exceptional and not typical of the company’s results.

The second choice of customer service personnel is to respond to the complaint, which may seem a logical choice but is also often ineffective.

What, then, are customer service people to do? In The Customer Service Survival Kit, Gallagher, a former customer support executive and a practicing psychotherapist who has written a number of books on customer service, provides precise, step-by-step responses for dealing with the most difficult customer service situations.

Lean Into Criticism

Gallagher’s first piece of advice is for the customer service person to “lean” into the criticism of the customer. Instead of trying to make excuses — what Gallagher calls “leaning away” from the complaints — customer service personnel should plunge headlong into the person’s grievances. “Be right there with every bit of anger and indignation he is feeling,” Gallagher writes. “And then watch what happens.”

What happens, according to Gallagher, is the customer realizes that you “get” him, and that realization is enough to diffuse the customer’s raw anger.

Of course, leaning in is not as easy as it sounds. Gallagher offers four steps for leaning in. First, hand the complaint back to the customer. If a customer complains about a horrible kitchen painting job, the customer service person should say, “It sounds like this paint job did not work for you at all. Tell me more about what went wrong.” The next step is to use “wow” words, as in “That’s awful!” The third step is to “steal their good lines” — for example, telling the customer who wants the super-popular Christmas toy that is sold out, “I bet you drove all the way here just to get this.” The fourth step is for customer service people to never defend themselves first, even if the customer is wrong.

Leaning in is just the first of a variety of techniques, tools and responses covered by Gallagher. Other topics include using the four-step ladder of acknowledgment, avoiding trigger phrases (e.g., don’t say “I understand,” even if you do), delivering bad news in the safest way possible and reframing the message around the customer’s interest. Many of the chapters end with “putting learning into practice” exercises to reinforce the techniques of the chapters. In the final section, Gallagher addresses specific situations, including the threat of a lawsuit, or responding to criticism in social media. The Customer Service Survival Kit is a practical manual that will help even the least experienced and least courageous customer service person survive the next shakingly angry customer.

Design and implement the ideal customer experience

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Wouldn’t it be great to know what your customers need before they do? This is especially true in the era of social media, where customers voice their opinions on your company and products in ways that can hurt or help your company directly.

Bill Thomas, co-author of Anticipate, claims to have the methods to make this happen. In his own words Thomas promises “proven guidance on how to design and implement a customer-focused journey that moves beyond the transaction and satisfied customers, to a relationship and culture that creates and leverages loyalty – and the profitability that comes with it.”

Thomas’ 10-point framework was created to guide companies in charting a customer-focused journey that matures, anticipates and delivers increasing levels of loyalty and profitability with their customers, and across their broader value chain.

As one example he sketches out the typical strategic planning process, versus one focused on the customer. The plans speak for themselves:

Fiscal Budget –> Existing Capabilities –> Strategic Goals –> Customer Actions

Customer Needs –> Strategic Goals –> Needed Capabilities –> Fiscal Budget

If you’re looking for a more thorough customer strategy, then you’ll want to join us on June 19^th for a conversation with Bill Thomas at our Soundview Live webinar, Knowing What Customers Need Before They Do. Bring your questions for Bill as well, which he’ll answer during the event.

Book Review: Changeology

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries

by John C. Norcross, Ph.D.

An inability (or unwillingness) to change can present a formidable barrier to personal and career success. A more heartbreaking scenario is an individual who makes repeated attempts to change only to fall prey to the same stumbling blocks each time. John C. Norcross, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Scranton, has spent more than three decades researching and working with people to overcome behavioral challenges. His new book Changeology: Five Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions makes a bold claim by stating, “Unlike 95 percent of self-help books, the Changeology plan has a documented track record of success.” Leaders have an opportunity to put Norcross’ work to the test. Changeology is now available for download as a Soundview Executive Book Summary.

While the summary can be read in about an hour, executives will need to commit a minimum of 90 days to help a behavior change take root. Norcross describes research that demonstrated 75 percent of people stick with a change behavior for one week only to fall back into their old patterns. For those that work on a new behavior for 90 days, “the probability of relapse after that is modest,” Norcross writes.

Changeology provides readers with five steps to execute a change. The steps (Psych, Prep, Perspire, Persevere and Persist) are described in detail and matched to particular segments of the 90-day timeframe. For each step, Norcross provides exercises or instructions that give the Changeology method more structure than other personal change books that give a loose framework and rely on the reader to fill in the gaps.

One of the strongest sections of Changeology is Norcross’ deconstruction of five “self-defeating” myths about change. By attacking frequently named barriers, such as reliance on willpower and genetic inability to overcome certain behavior issues, Norcross gives readers a head-start on the mental journey to successful change.

How to Create a Culture for Market Dominance

Posted on June 6, 2013 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries

UNRELENTING INNOVATION

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT WITH INNOVATION

In the excellent 2001 book Will and Vision, Gerard Tellis of USC’s Marshall School of Business and co-author Peter Golder of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business documented how latecomers to an industry can successfully attack and knock off entrenched incumbent companies, no matter how large and successful they might be. In his new book, Unrelenting Innovation, Tellis looks at the other side of the coin, explaining how successful incumbents can avoid losing the leadership of their industries. After years of research, Tellis has identified three traits of a company’s culture that ensure continued success: the willingness to cannibalize successful products, embrace risk and focus on the future. In Unrelenting Innovation, he details these three traits, then explores the three practices — providing incentives for enterprise, empowering product champions and encouraging internal markets — that create the innovative culture based on the traits.

Who Wants to Be a Cannibal?

In an early chapter of the book, Tellis quotes Howard Stringer, the former CEO of Sony: “Love affairs with the status quo continue even after the quo has lost its status.” Sony invented mobile music with the Walkman, only to let Apple and its iPod take over. The problem facing incumbents is even more complex because, to use Stringer’s terminology, the quo doesn’t visibly lose its status until it’s too late.

Tellis proves convincingly that only a company whose culture enables the cannibalization of successful products will stay on top. Unfortunately, there are myriad reasons why cannibalization is difficult. Kodak is a simple and sad case: It didn’t move into digital photography (which it had already developed!) so that it could continue selling film. Sony’s case is a bit more complex. It was clear that MP3 was the future of mobile music, but Sony had also through joint ventures and acquisitions become directly involved in music publishing and movie production — industries in which piracy is a threat. Sony included safeguards against piracy in its MP3 players, making them less user friendly. Consumers went elsewhere.

With equal depth, Tellis explores in the other two traits of innovative companies the nuances of what might seem as clear-cut directives that in reality are complex and often hampered by not always apparent biases.

Three Practices

In the second part of the book, Tellis describes the three corporate practices that can engender the three traits of innovative companies. The first practice is to provide incentive for enterprise — once again a seemingly simple and clear directive hampered in the real world of business by what appear to be logical considerations. It does make sense, after all, that a very successful company with a large and happy customer base would design its incentives around customer loyalty. Such incentives, however, are not going to spark the innovation and creativity that truly keep customers. Tellis advocates “asymmetric” innovation incentives: strong rewards for success and weak penalties for failure. Understanding the psychology of incentives is equally important. Subsequent chapters cover fostering internal markets and empowering innovation champions.

Each chapter in Unrelenting Innovation is carefully structured, with an explanation of the topic, a series of supporting case studies and a final concluding section. The framework that Tellis has created is an insightful and valuable map for those companies looking to emulate such star names as Apple — or to avoid the fate of Sony, the once-admired innovator that Apple tumbled from its perch.