Tag Archives: covering the basics

Posted on

Question #1: Who are you really?

Along side the great philosophical questions such as “why are we here?” and ” does the stool really exist?” the question of personal identity ranks right up there as one of those we stumble across, answer briefly, live some more, answer again, then ask if we can change our answer, shrug, take a third pass, etc. etc.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about perceptions lately. Not the, “am I comfortable in my own skin”, kind of questions but questions more along the lines of, “how accurate is my understanding of how others perceive me, and, in parallel, how I perceive them”.

Case in point. About a week ago I drove my 16 yr old son Ian over to meet some friends to play tennis. (He get’s his license in another month or so then I won’t have to chauffeur to tennis any longer.) As I was driving away I had a picture in my mind of a kid playing tennis, probably a much younger kid than 16 followed by an almost visible flashback.

Suddenly I was 16 leaving the courts with my friend Dave H. after tennis. We played long hours of tennis that summer. Dave was tossing me the keys to his Triumph TR7 and saying “Hey, you wanna learn to drive stick?” It prompted other conversation we had that summer like deciding we’d start being gentlemen and opening doors for girls, a habit that has stuck ever since.

I remembered the oft times serious, life-shaping decisions we made that summer and as I came back to the present I realized my picture of my 16 yr. old son was probably inaccurate in several ways. This isn’t a young kid going to smack the ball over the fence as often as over the net. This is a young man chiseling out the shape of his future in conversations with his good buddies.

Wow.

That made me turn the mirror around. How did I perceive myself in relation to my kids, my wife, my coworkers? How do THEY perceive me? Is there ANY similarity between who they think I am and who I think I am? Try this one on for size:

Pick any adult you interacted with regularly as a kid, could be a parent, a coach, a youth pastor, a teacher…now try to recall your perception of them. If you could wrap up the package of experiences how would you label them? Next put yourself in that same role, as parent, coach, teacher, etc. Do you think the kids you’re around perceive you the same way you perceive that person from your past?

Now think about the fact that as adults we have a LOT more experiential ammo to draw from than kids do. Those mixed perceptions have even more options and potential for confused images, all leading back to the question, Does the way I see myself and the way others see me match up?

As a starting point to sorting all that out ask yourself these three exploratory questions:

What have I  heard others say about me?

I’ve been told on several occasions that I am “manipulative and physically intimidating”. I laugh when I hear that. ( although I think I have secretly come to love it!) I really don’t see myself that way at all. But if others DO why is that?

What would I say about myself if I were describing me as a third party?

The descriptions people generally use are only a couple words in length: “He’s a good dude, always there when you need him”, or “She’s awesome, a really good listener”, or “He’s manipulative and physically intimidating.” How would you phrase your description as if you were talking about another person?

Would others guess correctly?

I you took that phrase you came up with to describe you and went to a friend with that phrase and asked them to guess who you were talking about would they say, “Well, that sounds like you…”? I might be comical to see how many guess they took BEFORE they guessed you.

Experience shapes perception, our thought processes cement it. We all would like move and grow in some ways from where we are to where we’d like to be. We can’t begin the change process well unless we know the point from which we start.

When you look in the mirror do you see you or someone else? How close does your self perception match others perception of you? Would you be willing to try that little experiment above?

Posted on

What if you treated your boss like a customer?

Composite photos courtesy of marmaladepip and kirilee and deviantart.comLast week we looked at what it meant to be ready for creating “more than satisfied” customers a.k.a. Disciples.  I suggested that the three essentials that had to exist in order to be ready to make Disciples were:

(You can find them here in the original post)

  1. You need to be prepared to serve.
  2. You need to be prepared to give
  3. You need to be prepared to nurture

It struck me a couple days later. What if I treated my boss like that?

If you think of a customer as someone who pays you money in exchange for goods or services doesn’t your boss fit into that category rather nicely? But somehow we treat the boss like he or she owes us. We did the work so they owe us the money. Because, after all, we get paid AFTER the work is done.

But what if we flipped all that on its head and started thinking of the boss as a customer. Someone we were prepared to serve above and beyond, all the time. Someone we were prepared to give recognition  and appreciate. Someone with whom we were ready to nurture a relationship. Rather than expecting to BE served, BE recognized, and BE nurtured?

I freely confess I am terrible at managing upward. I have even scoffed at the notion in the past when confounded by managers who could manage up well enough but couldn’t manage downward worth a lick. I always figured it had more to do with the color of their nose rather than any particular skill. But all of that aside I wonder what would happen if I started treating my boos like a customer. Same expectation on delivery, same anticipation of need, same attention to service. What might happen?

What do you think would happen if you started to treat your boss like your most valued customer?

 

 

Posted on

Good food + Bad service = bad blog review

Our family went out to dinner the other night to celebrate our son Ian’s 16th birthday.  He had chosen the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs.  (Compare this to the choices his siblings made this past year, California Pizza Kitchen and Johnny Carino’s) We showed up a bit early for our reservation but they got us right in and seated. We had informed them that it was Ian’s birthday and they had offered, for a mere ten dollars, to take a picture and give it to us in a commemorative frame, we said, “sure, why not.”

Our waiter was a decent enough fellow just finishing his premed degree, who welcomed Ian by name, wished him a happy 16th birthday, gave him a birthday card signed by the staff, and deftly explained the menu options. After all three of the kids choked back whispered shock at the prices we settled in to the routine of a meal out which, at the Melting Pot, consists of four courses: cheese fondue, salad, meat fondue, and chocolate fondue.

The first bump in the road came when our waiter, who shall remain nameless, only brought four instead of five plates with the cheese course. He apologetically ran off to get another plate. After he got the table sorted he asked if we thought we might need more of any of the dipping items: bread, veggies, fruit etc. and we told him we’d definitely need more bread. This turned out to be bump two since his, “Bread, gotcha.” turned out to mean, “I’m not bringing any more of anything.”

Bump three hit when we had to sit through the entire course panting into empty glasses awaiting refills. When the very pleasant bus person came to help clear the first course she also welcomed Ian by name and wished him a happy sixteenth birthday.

Bump four came with the wrong number of plates again on the third course. (We must have confused him when only four of us had salads on the second course.) Bump five was another parched twenty minutes between refills, during which time the manager came by, wished Ian a happy 16th birthday, by name, and said he’d be back to take our picture when they brought out the chocolate course, apologizing for our empty glasses as he dashed off. He must have said something because another server came by to refill our glasses and guess what. She wished Ian a happy 16th birthday! By name!

Bump six, we took our own picture so the candle wouldn’t melt ALL the way down AFTER it had caught the stem of the maraschino cherry on fire, bump seven, they finally got around to taking their picture when we were clearing the plates…but the person who came to take the picture DID wish Ian a happy 16th birthday, by name!  And bump eight, the final jolt, came when they forgot to bring back the printed version of the picture they’d taken. We had to ask for it on the way out. The person who tracked it down smiled as she put it in the frame and wished Ian a happy 16th birthday, by name.

At the end of the experience, which my son Nathan pointed out lasted three hours, we felt like we had had some really good food, and some of the worst service we’d had in a long time.

Moral of the story:

You can add all the little niceties you want but if you don’t cover the basics the niceties just seem cheesy. Pun intended. If you want satisfied customers, who can later become Disciples, you MUST cover the basics.

When you serve your customers are you putting more effort into the “nice to have’s” or are you making certain that you provide solid service on the “must have’s”?