Sweet moments at our call center

 I have always hear many legends around what happens once in a while with a particular customer at a mobile operator call center. Many of these stories they become legends and they pass over the years as part of the company history or culture

When sometimes somebody in our team sends us one of these stories, it always touches you. Our customer care quality manager Terese Kanapiene share with us such a story today

I do my little translation to English and I keep the lithuanian orginal from her

"So an old lady called our customer care (Justina Sakalauskaite) wanting to get a phone (a prepaid one from Labas). However she is very old and could not pick it up from one of the locations. Furthermore she asked if we have a phone with big buttons as he has problems seeing clearly. Such a phone is not on our range but the team was touched and decided to make it ahppen. Our logistics team did find an old phone used for testing (don't know the model but I can remember the size of the first 3G phone from Siemens for example, it was huge!!!!) that was huge and had big buttons. One of our guys do live close to the lady and he offered to take the phone to her

When he come to her house she wanted to pay for the delivery and the phone. We told her that it was our pleasure, But somehow she managed to put the money on Arunas' pocket. He found out when he got home and our team offered to credit her labas card with the money she gave us. She told us "I forgave you to do such a thing. Get the money and buy something nice for the ladies in the team". So here we are, the team did go our a buy some cute blankets (see picture) ahead of the winter soon to arrive

Love you guys and love how we put our customers first

In Lithuanian

Turim tokią LABAS klientę ponią Jadvygą, kuri naudojasi mūsų paslaugomis jau 3 metus, jai sugedo telefonas. Kadangi maloni ponia Jadvyga jau su amžiumi ir atvykti i BITĖS saloną jai sunku, todėl paklausė ar galėtų kas nors atvežti jai telefoną į namus, bet tokį su didesne klaviatūra.

Arūnas surado telefoną iš logistikos nebenaudojamų testinių telefonų fondo ir nuvežė jį poniai Jadvygai. Klientė primygtinai siūlė pinigus ir nejučia įkišo pinigus į kišenę. Grįžus dar buvo mėginta klientei pasiūlyti įdėti pinigus į jos LABAS kortelės sąskaitą, tačiau ji kategoriškai mums uždraudė tai daryti.

Už ponios Jadvygos įduotus pinigus mes CC nupirkome 9 pledukus, kad galėtume šildytis šaltom rudens dienom.
Poniai Jadvygai nusiūsime padėkos laiškelį su mūsų nuotrauka 

A great article (INC. magazine) and after thoughts: When and How to micromanage

A while ago (probably almost 2 years) I wrote about how I found a magazine that could cover on my reading habits the departure (Closure) of Business 2.0, Inc. magazine. Unfortunately the magazine only gets print in the US, so I only get to read it 3 or 4 times a year (when I go or when someone from there bring it to me)
So I was reading the December/January number and this article caught my attention When and How to micromanage by columnist Joel Spolsky is the co-founder and CEO of Fog Creek Software in New York City, and the host of the popular and influential blog Joel on Software.

This is the part that got stuck on my head and I did underline it to write about

"...Doesn't micromanagement turn smart people into robots?

Yes, maybe. But here's my new theory: At the top of every company, there's at least one person who really cares and really wants the product and the customer experience to be great. That's you, and me, and Ryan. Below that person, there are layers of people, many of whom are equally dedicated and equally talented.

But at some point as you work your way through an organization, you find pockets of people who don't care that much. For them, it's a job. They just want to get through the day and don't find it upsetting that ...... (something important in your business not working right now) .
If you're lucky, none of those people are employed by your company. But the minute you begin to rely on outside vendors, you expose yourself to their people, some of whom inevitably just won't care enough or know enough or have the right skills to deliver the awesome experience you're trying to deliver."

I believe all entrepreneurs (past, present and future) are left with this problem. The more successful we become usually the larger our organizations (or relaying on vendors) and the more likely the problem is to appear.

So is the solution micromanagement? Probably for key aspects or key moments of a week, a month or a sales-cycle the answer is YES. The good news, if you have done good recruiting and you are lucky (because you need luck), somebody in your team understand as well as you the importance of that particular event and he or she is micromanaging it as we speak



Read Joel's ful article on INC.com here

Ciao

CAM

Very interesting "10 skills leaders may have to thrill on the crisis" from Eduardo Navarro

I just have the opportunity to read an article (better said an excerpt from a book), of Eduardo Navarro, socio director (managing partner) of Improven (LINKEDIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/enavarrotandemcapital) a firm focused on helping companies on crisis situations. He has a new book just being published

I found his 10 skills leaders may have to thrill on the crisis to be interesting and worth always a reflection for many of us leaders of small and medium companies which have been facing a very difficult overall economic environment in the past 2 years

Here you have them translated (below you have a link to Eduardo Navarro's full post (in Spanish) and his company site)

1. Analyze the situation with some distance and accept the new reality
   
2. Take great decisions firmly
   
3. Focus your time and your efforts on the key issues
4. Transmit sense of urgency: speed even above precision
5. Be obsess about short term results, its planning and follow up
   
6. Transmit "positive realism" to your team
7. Get your team committed
   
8. Go back to austerity and effort
9. Be truthful: always tell the truth even if it is hard
10. Never forget your corporate social responsibility
    
    
    Read the full article from Eduardo Navarro (in Spanish)
    
    

Reflections from today's office day - Listening to our employees thoughts

We tried to get together with the entire team (although sometimes we miss getting Tunc from Turkey here) one day a month and discuss the developments of the company. Also since this year we did tie a portion of the salary to the overall fulfillment of the BP (revenues and EBITDA) we have started sharing with the team these numbers. This initially poised different challenges starting with explaining the concepts behind those financial terms, how we have build the business plan and so far so on

Usually I really put a lot of effort on preparing these events. However it is also true that is difficult to have the team truly engaged and interative and sometimes it is difficult to generate questions from the team.
So after we finished today we have a little session of Q&A with the usual results. I decided at some point then to ask the team one question: "when you look at the slide of the results, define in one word what you feel? I was really grateful that people did share their minds in that sense to us even if some of the words did surprise and even dissapointed me as I internally I was hoping to get better words

So hear is what I did hear and the actions I believe we can do around those words and individuals to try to turn around those words:

- "not relevant for me" - should I leave this individual alone and just focused on his day2day job (in which he is really good) or should I ty to engage him one more time. Or should I ask him would anything work for you to engage on this part of the business
- "negative" (2 votes) - Will just improving the numbers turn their word into positive, is there something else?
- "Blurry" - Is this blurry as lack of trust on our direction or lack of understanding of the picture
- "Uncomprenhensible" - I need to sit down with this person and ask him what it is not undertable in the numbers. I am sure there is a more simple way to present the numbers
- "Transparency" - well this is one of the key objectives of doing this exercise
- "Challenge" - Indeed lots of things to do, even more important to do better things than doing more
- "Optimism" - Indeed there are a number of facts / events that invite us to be optimistic
- "Most important thing" - Indeed at the end we need to reflect all our actions into numbers

It will be interesting to reflect on a similar exercise after talking to some team members individually, change a number of things and have another quarter under our belt

Avoid being tactical with your employees goal setting - Using SMART objectives framework

A problem that the current crisis is forcing upon us is short term focus. while this is key in order to ensure survival it could create what I call the "kiss of death" effect if we forget to keep innovating and getting ready for next 18 month ahead not just the quarter ahead

One area that can suffer big time this way is people development. And within that area discussing with employees their goals per half year is key to avoid just being tactical and also to give them a sense of sustainability

When talking to my employees about setting both objectives and then the measures for the H2 2009, they are struggling. In order to provide some guidance I did give them some reading on SMART objectives setting methodology

Here is one of them that I like from George Ambler's website "the practice of leadership"

"Nothing happens until we plan and good plans have goals and objectives. Setting goals and objectives correctly provides the necessary support and aids in there achievement. Before we dive into how to go about setting SMART objectives, it’s important to understand that there is a world of difference between goals and objectives.

• Goals relate to our aspirations, purpose and vision. For example, I have a goal of becoming financially independent.
• Objectives are the battle plan, the stepping stones on the path towards the achievement of my goal.

Read more on George Ambler blog

Inspiring quotes

It happen that today there was a post in Linkedin group "On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs" around negative thinking
This opened up the door to a number of people in the Group to send some interesting and inspiring quotes. I copy some of them and the person in the group who wrote them (aka I don´t know the original sources, please forgive me):

"The voice inside your head is known as your self-talk, and can direct the way you think and behave. Negative self-talk undermines you, and makes you believe that you cannot achieve, whereas positive self-talk gives you the confidence to take up new challenges, and believe that you can succeed.
Click here to learn more:
http://www.channelconnect.com/RecognizingNegativeThinking/tabid/730/Default.aspx "
Shawn Grant, Corporate Training Guru :o) helping people create positive working environments

"Come to the edge
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
Come to the edge
And we fly"

Nathalie Grosshenny, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Artistes du Globe

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it."
(Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, (121 AD - 180 AD)

The difference between leaders and managers.... for your reading pleasure (Seth Godin´s Tribes), a recommendation from my CTO

I got an email from my CTO Pedro Domingues that promises to talk about the difference between leaders and managers. The reference comes from a blog entry from Nati Shalom´s blog
Link to Nati Shalon blog post on Seth Godin tribes' book

Nati refers about the book tribes, from Seth Godin. SETH is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. Godin is author of six books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. Godin latest book (and the reason for Nati to write his post is "Tribes, we need you to lead us"
Also I find his blog quite provocative
Link to Seth Godin blog


I have not read the book yet but I am going to after reading the summary and quotes on Amazon.com (How much has amazon.com change they way we handle book reading? an interesting question for another blog, isn´t it?) and also on Nati's post which leaves you with some pearls. Here are some of them but click on the link about to Nati´s blog and take some time to read. Really right on the spot on my opinion

"Management is about manipulating resources to get a known job done,..leadership is about creating a change that you believe in.Movement have leaders and movement makes things happen. Leaders have followers Managers have employees. Managers makes widgets. Leaders make change"

"Leaders use passion and ideas to lead people, as appose to using threats and Bureaucracy to manage them"

"Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later"

Men I would love to have more time and more spare attention to do some reading (at the moment I am reading a great book by Andrew Mango "The Turks Today", fascinating)

How the business culture and negotiations are changing because of email

Many years ago having dinner in Paris with a friend of Andrea, this person was working with an INSEAD professor on a book about the change of the way negotiation are handle by email. I don't know if she ever finished the book (I should do a bit of research I know) but I keep this idea in my mind and I have been both going back at the assessment of the particular topic and making sure my teams did not make some mistakes around this topic.

Email is making people less and less prompt to call or organize meetings. Yes email can save time and give you answers on particular topics, but it does not replace human interaction, it does not give you context in many situations and it is not the place (virtual) to have a discussion or for you to bent frustations. These days I don't carry my BB when in the office, and it is amazing that while we get 200 emails or so a day we may only get 10 calls max (and yes I make many more than 10 calls a day)
Many people will comfortably sit on the chair or in the office and just rely purely on email. This DOES NOT WORK and it does not make things happen. People is not going to feel force to pay an invoice because you send them an email, you need to call them and they need to feel how you are feeling and that you are there. Your customer is not happy about a delivery? Don't email him, first call him, make him understand the context and the reasons and then maybe send an email to summarize the points. I always told my team in Czech, if you have soemthing important to say, get up, pick up the elevator and go sit by the person you need to give the message to. Then the important message will be deliver for sure and you may understand how the other persons thinks

BTW I do think messanger (yahoo, skype, MSN) is more efficient than email as at least it offers a channel for real time interaction but again it is an information exchange it can't go beyond that

More to come on this topic

what makes companies successful: a nice chat in slovenia

I had last week the chance to enjoy dinner with my client in Slovenia (Music Manager Anita Petrovcic, http://www.linkedin.com/in/anitapetrovcic) and my colleague Marc Rose. We did enjoy very different topics of conversation (life-work balance, motivations, etc..) and at some point talking abut respect on the workplace we discussed about which qualities of their personal make companies successful. Marc did emphasize about trust and honesty, which I consider great to have among a team but still not enough to be successful. Then him and Anita mentioned vision, which I think it is really important but still not enough. My take: ambition *understood as everyone's need to improve and grow themselves every day* and passion (to succeed, to have fun, to enjoy yourself and create value)

what is your take?

Is really managing talent our biggest managerial challenge? I don´t think so

I was having lunch with a couple of good friends of Saturday, he (Juan Villalobos, Juan Villalobos Linkedin profile )is a former CMO in the internet banking and insurance sector and now thinking of doing something more Entrepreneur and she (Silvia Diaz-Montenegro, Sylvia Diaz Linkedin profile ) used to be a former CTO of an internet bank and now manages her own and successful company
We were chatting about what we did learn about management and our principles and we all refer what we learn by working on consulting firms for our first career years, managing talent.

The key challenge on our managerial lives was supposed to be nurturing, coaching and making sure all the talent around us will grow. well we will discussing about the dramatic change we have seen around us in the workplace, the lack of ambition of the new generations, the lack of compromise and we question if there was a lack of talent and if so how to deal with it. Was really our biggest challenge just managing mediocrity? I really hope we don´t but we have to be open about it

Like to leave you with this quote I read on a blog today
"Did you ever think about……..

If one trains at the limits of ability, never trying to push the pace beyond current capacity and never exposing the body to an overwhelming stimulus, improvement does not occur. Even worse, ability slowly travels in the other direction, gathering speed on the gradual slope of suckdom."

Christopher Frey

Link to Christopher Frey blog

Simple gestures to boost employees morale

The last part of the year has been rough for all of us and although we are all excited about what is coming up, we will all of us in mmCHANNEL face a number of sacrifices
Within my management style, maintaining the morale high and making small gestures to make sure our employees feel we value them and they are an important part if not the most important part of our project is key

A good friend of mine just sent me this post from Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the famous HBS professor and strategic management guru, called "A simple gesture to Boost Morale". Totally subscribe those thoughts.
Link to Rosabeth Moss Kanter post on simple gestures

It does remind me of my little "Great Job on" post-its that I bought last year during Christmas in Chicago and I have been using them for a year. Although some of my employees think I am very "american, I do believe most of them do like I take the time to write them and leave them on their desks after they have done a great job

Inspire by my team in difficult times

As I mentioned past weeks as every other responsible start-up / growing company, we have been debating at the board and within the management team how to ensure we keep our cash for longer than originally planned just in case some of the more optimistic scenarios in terms of clients and revenues don't materialize. I did in fact share a link with you of the communication from Technorati (Link to past blog entry) which I believe was very well done and a good explanation of the how times are affecting even successful growing companies

Obviously this decision did past by cutting costs and fairly significantly. But it was clear to us that laying off people was just short term thinking therefore killing our most precious asset which is talent, aka our team. After many brainstorming sessions and discussions we found a way to make it happen but it will need all our employees to be aligned and to share some of the paint and agree one by one to these measures. In order for this measure to be effective and not just the only way out for employees we did engage the team and disclose a lot of financial information which we haven't disclose before - as for example during the monthly office meeting we share ongoing updates on client, business and product development but we have not shared company financial information neither present or forecasted.

Well the response has been phenomenal. We have had a couple of town hall meetings, lots of questions, but I have seen a huge level of commitment, interest and maturity. I always trusted this team but now I have been very proud of their reaction and I am very optimistic about the future and very excited to keep developing ourselves as a team. It is obvious that next quarters will demand more than 110% from each of us but we are going to have fun and build a better future

Interesting enough I was having a discussion today with Andrea and a friend of us Julia Cluett (Link to linkedin profile) which works as a change management consultant. We were talking about employee loyalty and specifically about which actions, incentives, programs could increase that loyalty beyond stock options (which in my opinion in WE have very little effect and they do only under very specific conditions). We talked about paid training (aka MBA paid by the company) as being one of those options which work. Well I exposed that taking measures as the ones we have where we can achieve a similar cost reduction while not going/using the lay off route (if this is possible as I am well aware that sometimes it is the only option), could impact very positively long term and on a sustainable way the relationship employee / company (for the better of course)

Motivating people: the power of being nice

You may have read in one of the old postings some reflections from my partner Carlos on his experiences on employees and his view on how the relationship between management and employees should. I have a very different view, which my friend and my former #2 guy in CZech NAcho Arrizabalaga described as "tough on facts (he called toughest on my case), soft on people". I do agree with that view. I may have said that with time I have grown to appreciate Carlos view because I understand much better now where he comes from and sometimes I feel temporaly the same way

However wanted to share with you some of the reflections that Jack Mitchell (a famour taylor in the US and CEO of a very successful family business) have written in terms of employee management. His book is called "hug your employees" and well you may guess his opinions

An except from his website http://www.hugyourpeople.com/

“Motivating the workforce and employee retention are huge global challenges no matter what business you’re in.” writes Jack, “Business leaders are eager for a detailed yet easy to follow blueprint that shows them how to assemble a happy and effective workforce that doesn’t desert them the minute the business across the street offers $10 more a week and an extra vacation day. As he says, “An engaged, enthusiastic workforce who work well together engages repeat customers.” Jack offers exactly that in an easy-to-read and take-away format using five core principals:

Nice - How you treat one another at work is the basis for how you will treat your customers. Make it a practice to know something about each of the people you work with, their likes or dislikes, so your interaction with them has a personal component.

Trust - Having faith in your employee’s ability is one of the most important factors in building relationships. Trust your employees and they will bring that confidence into every interaction with their customers or clients.

Pride – When people’s welfare and well being is implicit in the company’s mission statement and they have the environment, tools and education they need to do their jobs well, the result is company pride and employees who have pride in themselves.

Include - Reach out to your employees for input on business decisions in areas where they are particularly gifted or experienced. Take their suggestions into account when making changes or starting new initiatives. It’s important your people feel listened to.

Recognize - Take the time to celebrate victories, big and small, by your staff or team and find out how they’d best like to be recognized – whether it’s a congratulation at a staff meeting, a delivered vase of flowers or tickets to a local show. Taking time to personalize rewards is a thoughtful and meaningful gesture—it means you really care. And that’s the best kind of HUG there is!

Jack’s principles are based on fifty successful years of daily use in real-life leadership. When used throughout an organization, they help attract and keep talent, lower marketing costs, maintain high gross margins, build long-term revenue and attract new business. More than that, it makes for a great workplace where people look forward to being everyday.

And that’s a HUG for everyone!

Growing Middle Management into our company

As founders, shareholders and managers of our current business we have an obligation to look for short-term growth but also for mid and long-term sustainability. For both objectives it is fundamental to acquire, retain and grow our middle management structure.

Likely we will find that we have the capability and attractiveness to hire even more experienced/older people than the current management team which could give management different views, experiences and also challenge our opinions and strategy. In my view constructive challenge is the best way to improve strategies and many times you find that for new people is easier to ask “Why we do that or why we do that thing such way”, which is the beginning of thinking about what we do and why we do it and see if there are different or better ways to approach the future

Lately we have hired 3 people with such profile. Experienced, older than the current management and eager and attracted by our culture, future and way of working while having fun.
Now we need to make sure we create an environment where middle management can grow and find themselves useful and bringing value to the business.
As one of them put it to me over coffee last week “There are the magic four (aka the owners and management team) and the rest and this was fine for the business until now but in the future it needs to be different”. From now on it is necessary that the magic four not become the magic secretive four (where all business decisions are taking by us four in a room)”. This is key, as we need to open up business decision making to the new managers on their respective areas. Obviously there will still be upper management decisions but when that is the case we should be able to communicate openly (which we do already) but probably more often about such decisions. This will allow the business to grow and offer scalability as more activities and decisions can be made on any given time and keep senior and capable middle management motivated and eager to stay within the mmC family

People is your legacy

I spent this past weekend with my friend (and his family) and former colleague of mine Ignacio (Nacho) Arrizabalaga.
Nacho and I have been friends for many years and in fact he was kind of my mentor until my MBA so to say. Life reserves you a lot of surprises and at some point there was an opportunity for him to join my team in Prague and he did. He took the risk to jump into a complete new sector (he used to work in manufacturing and FMCG) and also to take a position junior to his experience. But I think the risk paid off and 3 years later he took several director roles after I left Oskar/Vodafone and recently he joined a regional cable operator in Spain as Director of Operations and a future CEO replacement candidate
Why I am talking about this? Well I did have an interesting conversation with one of my partners past week. There I was mentioning that my management style reflects my thoughts that people is your legacy. Nothing makes me happier and prouder that seeing how Nacho did evolve when I left Oskar/Vodafone, how 3 or 4 people in my team have been promoted to manager and/or director afterwards and clearly they have taken something of you and your style with them. And I hope to see similar things in mmCHANNEL people in the future, that is the results of investing on coaching people and letting them take into responsibilities little by little