Archive for November, 2009

I am old enough to remember the days when our family physician (Dr. Vinnicore) actually came to our home for house calls with his black bag and stethoscope.  He would spend as much time as needed to make sure that I was taken care of.  Fifty years later I have a business partner who, in the pursuit of always seeking to take care of me, found the 21^st century version of Dr. Vinnicore.

 Dr. D is called a concierge doctor.  For a yearly fee he is available to us 24/7.  I had my first visit with him at his office.  He personally interviewed me to capture my patient history.  It felt like talking with an old friend.  He was in no rush to get through the process.  In fact, he actually spent an additional hour with me in casual conversation after he had completed his diagnosis and treatment plan. 

In the event of some kind of surgical procedure, he would be present in the room while I was under anesthesia.  He would be my patient advocate should I ever be in the hospital.  He will send in a prescription should I need something in a different city while traveling. 

Dr. D inspired me to seek new ways to put extra service back into customer service.   I do not know of many doctors in the current health care industry that would make a follow-up call after a few days to determine if a prescribed medication was working and what side effects, if any, were experienced. In our fast paced world, getting things done quickly seems to be the primary focus.  The Dr. D’s of the world focus on getting things done well. 

I have always believed that “like attracts like” referred to by some as the law of attraction.   My business partner Burton and I have always intended to give our clients much more than they paid for.  In fact, in many situations Burton might have dinner at a client’s home and spend most of the evening connecting with our clients’ kids when he is off the clock.  Following the visit, Burton stays in contact with these kids and becomes a mentor, coach and friend.  Many of our clients have reported that their families have been transformed through Burton’s coaching – most of which was non-billable time. 

I used to get pissed at Burton for “giving away the farm” and not billing for all of the extra service.  Then one day it occurred to me that I do something similar in my own way.   The two of us are paid handsomely for what we do and we have learned that the more you give the more you have the capacity to give and the more open you are to the possibility of receiving.  

Because of our focus we have attracted people like Dr. D, who in their own unique way, share our philosophy of service.   Now, there is a downside to our approach.  We certainly leave some money on the table and are not as profitable as we certainly could be if we billed for all of these extras.  Yet, the reward the two of us experience for being a conduit for the transformation of families and organizations is far beyond the number of zeroes in our bank accounts.

Because my business partner and I are in the business of helping companies develop a high performance culture, we always keep an eye out for small businesses that exemplify extraordinary customer service.  You see, extraordinary customer service is one reference point of a high performance culture.

In my home town of Whittier I have not found many businesses that distinguish themselves in this way, so when I come across someone doing something extra special it stands out like a sore thumb.  Orchard’s is a small neighborhood grocer who is known for their meat, fish and deli counter.  Troy, one of the owners, employs young people who he personally trains and who are friendly, energetic and focused.  What I appreciate about Troy is that he treats each customer as if they were the only customer he had.  When I first started going to the store there was a wonderful protein bar that Whole Foods had carried and I had asked Troy if he could carry it as well.  Within two weeks it was in his store.  I have not had the same kind of responsiveness from the big boys (Vons, Albertsons etc.). 

They have an outdoor patio and about a year ago set up small tables outside in response to a few customer suggestions.  One customer asked Troy if they would consider having a grill outside so that people could purchase meat and have it cooked.  So Troy purchased a grill. I suggested that it would be really cool if they offered customers a service like the Whole Foods Market in Seattle; when a customer buys some meat or fish, the people who run the grill a few feet away can cook it to the customer’s desire and add a side for a modest price. Within a couple of months Troy added another grill, a smoker and a steamer.  On Saturdays it is becoming a tradition for people to hang out at the patio while Troy or one of his staff cooks their meat to order. 

I am on a new diet that requires me to have my last meal no later than 5:00p.m.  So, Troy and I set up an arrangement where I simply call the store at 4:00 p.m., order the fish and vegetable that I want, identify the time I would like it to be ready, and voila I show up at that time watching them take it off the grill, put on my plate, and then I proceed to have some of the best halibut I have ever had in my life with grilled asparagus.  Other customers have watched me order fish and now several people want to do what I have done.  Troy then acknowledged my role in helping him grow that part of his business and he waived the cost of the apples that I bought the other day.  I truly appreciate that Troy is always going the extra mile to create a memorable shopping experience for his customers.

There was a time last year when I had an unpleasant shopping experience with a new employee at the deli counter.  I explained the situation to Troy and within a couple of hours he addressed the situation, used my complaint as a training opportunity for that employee and expressed his gratitude for my feedback by offering me a free salad.  The employee subsequently apologized and used Troy’s coaching to become better at his job.  High performing companies have a feedback rich environment and can calibrate very quickly when breakdowns in service occur.

Troy treats everyone with respect and dignity.  There is a guy who has a handicap and rides a bike around Whittier waving to people all day long.  Troy has offered to let this man come by twice a day for meals.  Troy knows that even though he is broke, the guy does not feel comfortable with free handouts so Troy constructed a couple of small signs with the store phone number on it so this man can feel like he is doing a service to Troy by riding his bike around Whittier and serving as a advertiser for Orchard’s. There is even a table dedicated for “the Bike Rider” on the patio. 

In a world where most of us are quite cost conscious right now and buying things on the internet is many times more cost effective than driving to a store and paying retail, it is refreshing to run across a business that has put the service back into customer service.  It is kind of ironic:  Troy could charge me twice as much and I would gladly pay it.  When I experience a business environment where there is a great spirit, amazing service and the customer experience is the primary focus, I am glad to pay whatever they charge.  Of course, what they charge is very reasonable.

When I go somewhere and the service is amazing, I can’t wait to share it with my friends.  It’s like going to Disneyland for the first time.  Do you tell everyone how much it costs or do you share all about the neat rides you went on?  When I come back from a shopping experience and the service was just ordinary, I tell everyone about the great deal I got and how much money I saved. Whenever I talk about Orchard’s, price NEVER comes up in the conversation. 

I want to be like Troy and his wife when I grow up.

I have been having many conversations with clients lately about individuating from their parents.  Many young people go through the individuation process in their early twenties when they begin to strike out on their own becoming truly their own person, having been influenced by their parents, yet defined by themselves. 

With today’s economic climate so many young people are forced to move back home with mom and dad.  It is difficult, at best, to be confident in your new identity while still being dependent upon your parents for survival. 

Then there are some of us who have moved away from home decades ago, yet still have remnants of individuation work to be done well into our 50s.   Now even though I have helped numerous clients over the years break free of the limited belief systems learned from their parents, I still have a couple of my own that I will fall back on if not conscious. 

My father was a true pioneer.  He migrated from Russia when he was 12 yrs. old speaking very little English.  He was, perhaps, one of the first truly homeless people back in 1906 in New York.  By the time he was 50 he was one of the leading fur manufacturers in New York.  

My mother, was the youngest of 12, and met my father while modeling.  She eventually modeled furs for my father’s business. 

The overriding message that I got from my father was:  “work hard”.  You have to work hard to survive.  He had had three heart attacks prior to my birth and it was a heart attack that killed him when I was 12.   The overriding message that I got from my mother was:  “worry hard”.   After my father died, and even well before, I would constantly see my mother’s face grimace over various situations.  She was a world class expert at worrying hard. 

The combined messages that I grew up with were:  If you are not working hard then you have got to worry hard.  It was being in a constant state of worry that would prevent me from enjoying whatever it was that I was doing. 

To this day, with time off, I can easily slip back to my “worry hard” mentality.  The challenge is to recognize when I am operating with those thoughts and seek to interrupt the process. 

I keep coming back to the realization that most of the time what it is I worry about rarely comes about.  In fact it is the process of worrying that produces more harmful chemicals in my body for a longer period of time than the actual situation in and of itself once I finally get there.  

This “worry hard” messaging is so pervasive I even started worrying about how I would finish this blog entry. 

There have been many beneficial traits I have proudly inherited from both my parents.  Within the “work hard” mentality I have cultivated a strong work ethic and the notion that every day is an opportunity to contribute my gift in the service to others.  My children have cultivated strong work ethics of which I am proud.    

The constant challenge is to make the distinction between what it is I am consciously choosing to do vs. what it is I am unconsciously driven to do.

Trader Joe’s on a Saturday morning is not the place to go shopping if you are in a hurry.  The place is mobbed.  It’s like a Wal-Mart crowd on a special sales day crammed into a space 1/100^th the size. 

There are 10 cash registers open with about 10 people in line for each one.  I quickly scan the number of items in each basket among the waiting customers.  I quickly assess how efficient each cashier is and then, combining the two pieces of information, I choose a line.  While in line, I always second guess my choice.  The other lines always appear to be moving faster than the one that I choose. 

Normally I just wait it out, suck it up, and live with my choice.  But today was going to be different.  I saw a line that suddenly only had one customer.  I quickly jumped out of my line, since the lady in front of me had two giant carts filled with food, in back of the guy with just three items. 

Well just as the cashier is ringing up the customer in front of me the cash register stalls.  I have never seen a cash register lock up and just not work.  I have been witness to many a computer crash however never a cash register crash.  Well there is a first time for everything.  After about five minutes of fiddling with the damn thing he says that he will open up at a new station.  The two of us meander to the new cash register, wait for him to get logged in, and then proceed to get checked out. 

The lady who had been in front of me with two giant grocery carts full of food was long gone.  In fact when I finally reached the parking lot to find my car she was already driving off in her Lexus meaning that she had finished checking out long before me since she had enough time to load all of her groceries into her car. 

There are those times, when I am not in a hurry, that I simply enjoy the process of discovering what new items are at Trader Joes, I leisurely get in line and when I am not in a hurry it seems that the lines move much faster.  It’s the old lesson that apparently I have not fully embraced:  When I can let go of my attachment as to how things ought to be life moves much easier.  When I get invested in a particular result it seems that I make the process more difficult for myself.

The tools we use in coaching our clients are pretty cool.  I always marvel at how, at times, my clients are able to use some of the tools I provide more effective than I do.  In fact their growth inspires me.

One particular client has transformed his relationship with each family member and his leadership team.  He recently reported having a breakthrough occur in the relationship with his daughter.  Typically upon visiting home she would constantly complain, be defiant, disrespectful, and on edge in her communications with my client and his wife.  In the past they would immediately react (become triggered) with behavior that would be characterized as controlling, mean spirited, or angry at which point his daughter would then react to their reactions with more disrespect – a vicious cycle.

This last visit was quite different:  This time neither my client nor his wife reacted in any way.  They both recognized that their daughter was engaged in a “racket” that had been practiced for many years and had nothing to do with the current circumstance.  As a result of not taking her behavior as a personal assault and recognizing it for what it was within two days of their daughter returning home she realized how much she has missed her parents and expressed a desire to see them more often.

The lesson for me from this example is to remember not to “buy in to “ other people’s triggered states.  Continue to be loving and respectful even in the face of what appears to be other people’s disrespect knowing that they are probably in pain about something that has little to do with the current situation.

My youngest son Nicholas builds water features.  He and his boss several years ago, transformed our back yard by building a giant pond with two waterfalls and streams and lots of big rocks that remind me of Yosemite. 

Ever since the pond was built our backyard has been transformed into an ecosystem.  There are more birds and bugs even ducks that visit our pond than I even knew existed.  Lately we have hundreds of bees. 

One of my favorite hobbies is to wade in the pond and remove the dead foliage from the various lilies and other water plants.   As I am wading in the pond I notice that the bees are swarmed on the rocks close by.  As I am plucking away, the bees are flying all around me, swarmed by the hundreds within a few feet of me and yet I feel totally safe and at peace. 

Normally when I am having lunch at an outdoor café and a bee lands on our table I am terrified.  Why is it that while wading in my pond I can be surrounded by an entire colony and feel at peace? 

My best guess is that the pond in my backyard is a slice of nature.  All of the critters, me included have a place.  There are no restrictions on who is invited, even though I sometimes have a problem with the hawk the dive bombs into our pond for a Koi sandwich.   It’s as if we are all a part of something special.  I recognize that the bees have just as much right to be there as I do.  Is it really my pond?  Or is it a part of nature that I have the privilege to take care of just as the bees are helping to eliminate some of the algae and take a sip of water in the process. 

Could this be a metaphor for other areas of life?  Instead of being upset that there are too many cars on the road, consider the perspective that everyone who is there has received the same invitation to be part of the dance.  Instead of using borders as lines of discrimination what about the possibility that everyone has been invited to the dance they just choose to wear different costumes.  What about ideas that are different than mine?  Instead of being positional we could look for an underlying thread that bridges differences or honors the differences that enables greater possibilities.

I remember the first time I attempted to lease a car.  It was truly a disheartening experience.  I selected the car that I Iwanted with all of the options.  They even had the perfect color.  Then they ran my credit and to my dismay I was not credit worthy.   I felt embarrassed, worthless, inadequate, and helpless.  

Fast forward to yesterday.   I am a month away from the termination of a lease for a car that I have enjoyed driving.  The leasing company is offering me some incentives to get out of the lease early and into a new car.  

My business partner, Burton, who thinks very differently than I do (thank goodness), suggests to me that “I am in the driver’s seat”.  I should not settle for their offer and should shop around to see what is available.  When I called the dealership to have them give me their best offer they indicated that I would keep the same monthly payment for a new 2010 model yet I would have to come in with $1500 down.  That seemed reasonable to me yet unreasonable to Burton. 

He mentioned to me to practice going into a variety of dealerships from a mindset that (they need me more than I need them).  You see when I first leased a car “I needed the car for self validation”.  I had associated who I was with the car that I drove.  Now I simply needed a car for an enjoyable ride in the process of taking care of my need for transportation.  The car I chose to drive would no longer define who I was. 

For the first time in my car buying experience it was really fun.  I went to several different dealerships.  After sitting in the car to ensure I had sufficient leg room, listened to the stereo, checked out the navigation system,  I said put your best deal together and I will call you back in 20 minutes. 

Then the real fun began.   When I got home I called Burton for some coaching on the negotiation process.  Together we made three way calls to the fleet manager at different car dealers that carried the model I had wanted.  At one dealer we discovered that they would actually eliminate the $1500 drive off fee and keep the same monthly payment.  I was thrilled, yet Burton advised me to be patient because we were not done yet. 

By the time we were done with the process I went back to my original dealership and re-negotiated an amazing deal with no money down and actually paying $50 less per month.  I then told them that I did not want to go through that long laborious process of filling out all of the paperwork since I was preapproved by the leasing company.   Pretty cool huh?  When I needed approval I could not have it.  When I did not care about being approved, I ended up being preapproved. 

I actually took command of the whole process.  I filled out a few forms, found out that the financial guy was busy, so I left the dealership and went to dinner mentioning to them to have everything ready upon my return so I could sign the rest of the forms and split.  I told both the financial “closer” and my sales guy that I did not want any extra warranties nor please do not attempt to sell me anything else like Sirius, etc.  I just wanted to drive my car as is and get the heck out of there.  When I returned from dinner everything was ready to be signed.  I was given some in-service training on how to program my cell phone into the system, how to use the upgraded navigation system, and off I went into the sunset.  The whole process took 1 ½ hrs including going out to dinner. 

I have seen pictures of the 2011 model which has not yet come out yet.  In fact I was told that I bought the first 2010 that they had available.  My intent is to fully enjoy the process of driving this car until which the 2011 comes out and then enjoy the process of negotiating an early termination from this current lease and easily and joyously drive off in the 2011.

The other day my son invited me to join him and a couple of his friends to play doubles.  It was 90 degrees in the shade yet I could not pass up the opportunity to have precious moments with my son.

Two of his friends, who were on the same team, are very competitive.   My son plays tennis occasionally while the last time I played tennis was two years ago.  While we were engaged in some very competitive sets, I could see that each person seemingly had a different motivation for playing, each finding joy in unique ways as part of the experience.

My son especially enjoyed the verbal banter back and forth.  One of his friends enjoyed winning points.  The other friend loved the long rallies.  I on the other hand just loved the whole experience of being part of my son’s “gang” for a couple of hours.  I actually started getting into the strong desire to win yet for me the real victory was the memorable moments shared.