Executives are customers too. So, why the perception gap on what influences brand, reputation and trust?
January 28, 2012Is social customer care a good form of the ‘tail wagging the dog’?
February 4, 2012
photo credit: colinwhite
Just under a couple of weeks ago, I posted a guest piece from Jon Gordon: The Greatest Customer Service Strategy The following post is the second of a series of two guest posts that I agreed with Jon. What I really like about his style and thinking is that it is very straightforward, practical and pragmatic, can be applied to smaller and large businesses and can be applied straightaway, especially in the areas of customer complaint handling, employee engagement, motivation and business culture. So, let me present to you a guest post from Jon Gordon, the Wall Street Journal and international bestselling author of a number of books. You can find out more about Jon via the links below.
The No Complaining Rule
……..and how this One Simple Rule is Having a Big Impact.
I didn’t invent the rule. I discovered it—at a small, fast growing, highly successful company that implements simple practices with extraordinary results.
One day I was having lunch with Dwight Cooper, a tall, thin, mild-mannered former basketball player and coach who had spent the last 10 years building and growing a company he co-founded into one of the leading nurse staffing companies in the world. Dwight’s company, PPR, was named one of Inc. Magazines Fastest Growing Companies several times but on this day it was named one of the best companies to work for in Florida and Dwight was sharing a few reasons why.
Dwight told me of a book he read about dealing with jerks and energy vampires in the work place. But after reading and reflecting on the book he realized that when it comes to building a positive, high performing work environment there was a much more subtle and far more dangerous problem than jerks. It was complaining and more subtle forms of negativity and he knew he needed a solution.
Dwight compared jerks to a kind of topical skin cancer. They don’t hide. They stand right in front of you and say, “here I am.” As a result you can easily and quickly remove them. Far more dangerous is the kind of cancer that is subtle and inside your body. It grows hidden beneath the surface, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but either way if not caught, it eventually spreads to the point where it can and will destroy the body. Complaining and negativity is this kind of cancer to an organization and Dwight had seen it ruin far too many. He was determined not to become another statistic and The No Complaining Rule was born.
The fact is every leader and business will face negativity, energy vampires and obstacles to define themselves and their team’s success. That is why one of the most important things we can do in business and life is to stay positive with strategies that turn negative energy into positive solutions. Thus the goal is not to eliminate all complaining; just mindless, chronic complaining. And the bigger goal is to turn justified complaints into positive solutions. After all, every complaint represents an opportunity to turn something negative into a positive. We can utilize customer complaints to improve our service. Employee complaints can serve as a catalyst for innovation and new processes. Our own complaints can serve as a signal letting us know what we don’t want so we can focus on what we do want. And we can use The No Complaining Rule to develop a positive culture at work.
About Jon Gordon:
This post is a guest post by Jon Gordon. Jon is the Wall Street Journal and international bestselling author of a number of books including The Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work and Team with Positive Energy, and his latest, The Seed: Finding Purpose and Happiness in Life and Work. Learn more at www.JonGordon.com. Follow Jon on Twitter @JonGordon11 or Facebook www.facebook.com/jongordonpage .
14 Comments
Jon,
I would have to double tick on your advice. Personal experience of running a business is that the naysayers have a corrasive effect on morale if not tackled. It is of course worth pointing out to folk that they are paid to find solutions rather than explain wjy things can’t happpen.
Trouble is that mindset is a deeply held one. Maybe we should be filtering at recruitment stage for these half empty folk.
Martin
Hi Martin,
Thanks for your comment. I have asked Jon to comment too. For my part, I think recruitment is only part of the equation and the culture and management of an organisation plays a big part in how we deal with complaints whether inside or outside. I think everyone has a tendency to complain from time to time but it is how we deal with that on a day to day basis that really makes the difference.
Adrian
Jon,
Very interesting post, though I disagree.
Shouldn’t it be the “complain like crazy but do something about it” rule?
James
Hi James,
Thanks for your comment. I have asked Jon to comment too. I think that what Jon is pointing to does agree somewhat with your point. For me, yes we should look for complaints and agree with you that we should then do something positive about it. However, complaining for complaining’s sake does not help anyone.
Adrian
There is the way our minds want the world to be and there is the way that the world is. The difference means that the mind is always complaining in one way or another. It is busy in the past hashing/dealing with past complaints. Or it is firmly planted in the future to get away from the ‘complaints about the present’.
Complaining is built into our DNA. Our parents complained about us and to us. Our teachers complained about us and to us. Our brothers and sisters complained to us and about us. Our fellow students did the same, so did our work colleages and especially our managers.
Yes, you can drive out the verbalisation of complaining by creating an environment where that is not permissable. The bigger challenge is to create a context and an environment which brings forth complaints in a way that leads to discovery, responsibility, ownership, learning, community and performance. That is no easy task which might explain how few have managed to do that.
Maz
Hi Maz,
I agree that creating such an environment is not easy and explains why few achieve it but as you suggest it is something to aim for.
You also talk about bringing forth complaints and that reminded me of something I wrote about in Are You Not Getting Many Customer Complaints But Are Still Losing Customers? which talked about a phenomenon called a complaints iceberg. It’s not just the spoken complaints that we need to worry about it’s the unspoken ones whether inside or outside our businesses. Much much harder to do but as you say we need to create and environment and context that allows all complaints to be brought forth.
Adrian
I obtained that which you intend, saved to my bookmarks , very decent website .
Thank you 🙂