Tipping Sacred Cows – Jake Breeden

Jake Breeden starts us off with concepts from his recent book Tipping Sacred Cows. At our webinar on June 25^th Jake will discuss the 7 virtues of Balance, Collaboration, Creativity, Excellence, Fairness, Passion and Preparation. By helping us see the dark side of virtues like these, Breeden will reveal hidden traps that lie between good intentions and great results, clearing a path for leaders — and anyone in the workplace — to finally realize their full potential.

As an educator, author, and keynote speaker, Jake Breeden gives you new ways of seeing your world. Breeden teaches as part of the Global Faculty for Duke Corporate Education – the world’s top ranked provider of custom corporate education. He has taught, coached, challenged and provoked leaders at Google, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, OppenheimerFunds, Starbucks, Sprint, Deloitte and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

A Revolutionary Approach to Success – Adam Grant

Our Soundview Live webinar on June 27^th will be with Adam Grant, author of Give and Take. Grant takes a different view of virtues in the workplace. For generations, we have focused on the individual drivers of success: passion, hard work, talent, and luck. But in today’s dramatically reconfigured world, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. Grant illuminates what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common.

Adam Grant is the youngest tenured professor at Wharton. He has been recognized as Wharton’s single-highest-rated teacher, one of BusinessWeek’s favorite professors, and one of the world’s 40 best business professors under 40. Previously, he was a record-setting advertising director at Let’s Go Publications, an All-American springboard diver, and a professional magician.

So plan to join us for these two events, to hear the provocative views of these authors on virtues in the workplace. We guarantee that you will come away with a fresh perspective on how to work with others and be successful.

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.

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.

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.

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.