The Culler Curse

The Culler Curse

Disaster!

Off and on all day yesterday, I puzzled over what to write this week. Some weeks the words flow like a fast stream onto the screen.

Then there are those other times, when Billie says, “You know, none of your subscribers will show up at the door if you miss a week.”

RETIRED? Isn’t that how you spell it? Why have I turned my avocation into a job with DEADLINES?

So yesterday was one of those days where I struggled with not being able to decide what to write and being anxious about it, and rereading everything I’ve posted in the last three years so as not to duplicate.

Then, OMG, It’s 5:30! I’m cooking tonight, and I can’t remember how to cook the shredded chicken with gravy. I’m late, and I haven’t defrosted the chicken, and now Pip, old black lab with diabetes and a UTI, needs to go out.

Now that’s done, where’s the recipe, oh yeah, tucked into the front cover of Lynne’s cookbook. I reached for the shelf in the cabinet to the right of the stove. . . .

Brrrraaaangcrraceenkrashareenkingrakingingingtinkletinkle! An explosion. Glass everywhere, everywhere, glass shards, slivers, and splinters all over the counter, and the floor, and the table across the room.

“What was that?!”    

“Broke the spare coffee pot . . . no wait, both, coffee pots.”

We store the spare Melita pour-through pot next to the cookbooks and I had evidently pulled it airborne when I snatched the cookbook and it had tumbled onto the part-full coffeepot below, breaking off the spout and rim.

“I know just what you did. Culler Curse!” said Billie as she went to order new Melita pots and I went for the broom, dustpan, and vacuum cleaner.

Thanksgiving

Things to be grateful for:

I wasn’t cut, or hurt in any way. No one else was in the kitchen, so no picking glass out of the dog, or the wife, or grandchildren’s eyes. Miraculously, the part-full coffee pot on the counter only lost its rim so no mopping or repainting the walls required. Melita coffee pots are replaceable, even if they won’t be delivered till Friday. I hadn’t started to cook dinner yet, so no throwing away a glass littered half-cooked meal.

We are all still alive, mostly vertical, and as healthy as late seventy-somethings ever are -technically the dog is in her human-year eighties, and is showing her age, but is no worse for the glass-splosion in the evening kitchen, caused by the Culler Curse.

The Curse

It was my eldest sister’s late husband, also called Alan, who observed that “Culler’s are all clumsy.” We did tend to trip around my brother-in-law, and bump into door frames, and drop breakables. He would laugh, shake his head, and mutter, “Claaah-um-see!”

I began to wonder how much of our ineptitude was endemic and how much was the anxiety produced by Alan’s ever-present judgement. Were my sisters and I, and my children just performing up to his expectation.

At family gatherings though, when the subject would come up, we’d find that “the curse” showed itself in all our lives at various times even when my brother-in-law was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s just that you’re kinetic,” my kind wife tells me. “You have an energy about you. It’s why electronics so often malfunction around you. And your body is always moving, sometimes in ways that bear no relationship to what you are doing at the moment.”

I don’t know who coined the name the “Culler curse,” but it clearly stuck. The curse is passed down genetically. Not everybody has it or at least has it equally. Most agree that my great niece, Lauren, Alan’s granddaughter, has the curse, but her brother and sister not so much.

My children have the curse, though in varying degrees. My late cousin Jeannine, who sailed around the South Pacific, said “it visits me occasionally and with a vengeance when it comes, but the curse isn’t always there.”

The curse comes in cycles. Today I talked to my sister, Lynne, who told me, “We have a coffee pot that doesn’t fit the maker because, I have broken not one, but two recently, setting them down too hard on the counter. I also talked to my youngest daughter who regaled me with the story of the burn on her hand, injured because she decided she didn’t need the hot water she’d just boiled to mix with her espresso, but then reached for her coffee placing her hand into the steam stream from the kettle.

I remember my mother asking, ”Alan where did you get that scratch on your leg?”

“I dunno”

“Oh Alan, Honey, you need to pay attention.”

Absence of Mindfulness

My mother called me “accident prone,” and said the many minor scratches and cuts that I got as a child were from “not paying attention.” She was right.

If we look at this example, I grabbed for the cookbook, oblivious to the fact that the spare coffee pot was next to it. I was anxious, about not writing, about being late, about not remembering how to cook the dish. I was in my head, and that part of my head was out of touch with the part of my head controlling my body.

I needed to not be on autopilot, to pay attention to what I was doing at the moment, in short to be mindful. The absence of mindfulness sets the “Culler curse” free. When the curse is free, however, it can do things that cause people to say “what are the chances?”, like tumbling one coffee pot out of the cabinet and hit another on the way down.

“You couldn’t do that again if you tried.”

“Yep, Culler curse.”

Of course, we could also look at anticipating the Culler curse. I use the cookbooks, so maybe find a new place for the spare coffee pot.

One more thing to be grateful for. I didn’t break the entire second pot. Coffee is very important in this household and the replacement isn’t coming till Friday. (See the second pot repaired with duct tape above.)

Now what could go wrong with this picture?

“Yep, Culler curse.”

AI “Personalization:” Everything Old is New Again

AI “Personalization:” Everything Old is New Again

By Bob Musial and Alan Culler

Alan Culler and I are comfortable calling ourselves “old sales guys.”  Recently, we each watched a video where a consultant described how a company could connect with its customers using information that they already had, “personalizing” the customer experience.

The young man wasn’t a great presenter, but there was nothing wrong with the content he presented:

  • Don’t ask people to give you the same information over and over again, as an Urgent Care did to him.
  • Don’t try to sell a dishwasher to someone who just bought one from you.
  • If you know a person’s dog died, stop sending them treat ads.
  • Use some common sense screening. If something doesn’t fit a buying pattern – a cane bought buy a thirty-year old – maybe it was a gift. Don’t send the hearing aid ad.

He advised his audience to be careful about how and when you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) because you can make the customer’s experience “personal” or not-so-much.

“Well, Duh,” said one of us to the other. It seemed like customer relations 101 to us.

We then regaled each other with some of our very own worst marketing experiences as customers:

“Dear, <<FIRST NAME>> That’s how I was addressed,”” said Bob. “This is a simple error of connecting to the “first name” column on an Excel flat file, but failing to make the link to column content. The real problem is no one looked at the resulting email mailing to catch the mistake, so no matter how targeted the content was [it wasn’t] it gets deleted. (Oh yeah, it was sent by a self-professed ‘sales guru.)”

Alan described his frustration with ordering books online. “I typically read historical or science fiction, but my recommended books immediately fill up with whatever I ordered last. This is especially bad after Christmas when I buy the grandkids books. I have five columns of early readers and Where’s Waldo.”

We then went on to described our best most personalized customer experience.

“Hong Kong, 1997” said Alan. “The hotel clerk took me to my room to check me in and my bags magically followed. She took my passport and credit card and noticed that my birthday was the next day. Starting with a 7 am wake-up call, everyone I met in the hotel wished me ‘Happy Birthday.’ My breakfast was comped  and the cab driver the doorman called wished me Happy Birthday as I left his cab.”

Bob said. “I grew up in a small town. I’d pick up stuff at the local grocery for my Mom. The butcher would know what my mother ordered so if I couldn’t read the list or forgot, he helped out. I always got to pick out two penny candies.”

So, what does all that have to do with AI and personalization?

As a society, we are moving towards a seamless electronic sales and service process. Banks, tech companies, on-line booksellers strive to take the costly human being out of the transaction. Some hide call center phone numbers and direct people to online chat-bots. In those cases, the interaction between humans and AI may quickly deteriorate, leading the customer to utter the four most-dreaded words of request, “Speak to an agent.” When you do get to a real person, it soon becomes apparent that call centers measure customer service representatives on metrics like average call handle time, cross-selling on service calls, and not on call resolution or customer satisfaction, not a happy experience.

Now we want technology to “personalize” the customer experience.

At the core of the word personalization, is . . .  “person.”

Persons listen to other people. They hear what is important to the other person (customer). The “seller” offers products or services of value based upon what is important to the customer.

“Personalization”, whether AI enabled or not, is data driven.

In the past, a person might have taken notes about a spouse’s name or a favorite sports team, because it was the basis of a shared “personal” moment, a connection that embodied our shared humanity that gives me, “the seller,” permission to reconnect to learn more about you, “the customer,” to meet your need.

That sales person might have kept a client file, or a notebook. Later that information might have been transferred to a spreadsheet and then Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software like Salesforce.com.

Marketers might have tracked advertisement response rates and purchase history in handwritten documents, then spreadsheets, then ad tracker software.

The key to success of data-driven personalization, whether notebook or software, is keeping the data up to date, and knowing when to use it, and not abuse it.

Unfortunately during the process, “common sense” frequently takes a back seat to technology.

AI can automate data collection and mimic intimate interactions of years past. Computer code, an algorithm, can take the notes, remember the purchase history, recognize patterns of response to certain words, and “personally” recommend a product or service. This technology can dramatically shorten the time required to gather and analyze data from multiple sources to create targeted, meaningful communications.

AI also can portend disaster, ever-faster poorly targeted, even insulting marketing communications that drive customers away rather than attract them.

As you begin the AI or non-AI personalization journey, plan for data accuracy reviews, empathy, and judgement, in short, human insight and oversight. AI programmers and marketers must talk to each other, as the cartoon above illustrates.

Thie AI journey requires detailed knowledge of the customer demographics, and psychographics and the judgement to know when to use it. In the past a customer might have shared a spouse’s name and a savvy salesperson had the judgement to know when and how to inquire after the spouse without sounding creepy.

As AI develops can we trust it to respect privacy, i.e., not be creepy?

The software engineers who develop artificial intelligence are driven by the questions “What’s possible? What can we do?” Marketers must represent the business question, “What  makes sense to generate customer acquisition and retention, revenue and profit? And someone must look at “What should we do? What’s right?”

It is a delicate balance between Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and human Soft Skills like communication, critical thinking, creativity and empathy.

Clients and prospects will appreciate receiving well-timed, personalized communications, messages that make them feel that their business is valued. When done well, it will also help to contribute to positive word of mouth referrals.

However, when not done well . . . word of mouth works both ways.

 

 

About Bob and Alan

with piercing blue eyes Bob Musial

Bob Musial helps clients with business development that encompasses a wide spectrum of disciplines and industries. He frequently uses personalized humor (like the cartoon in this article), to set the stage for conveying a message in a relatable and memorable manner. Bob has a long history of personalized communications built from conversations with contacts, storing “likes and dislikes” information in a custom database designed to deepen relationships. He is the author of Soft Skills, Hard Returns.

 

 

Alan Culler is a retired strategic change consultant and author who worked with multi-billion dollar global companies to help them innovate, integrate, and improve processes, productivity and profitability. He is the author of Traveling the Consulting Road and has a new book coming out soon, Change Leader? Who Me?

Good Grief

Good Grief

Here, in the United States of America, we just had the quadrennial shouting match we call our presidential elections. We are a very divided country. We have been divided since our founding according to how much government we want and where the locus of power should reside, federal, state, or local. Now we are also divided by the character of our neighborhood, rural or urban, by education and whether we work primarily with skilled hands or knowledge and keyboards. We are also divided by race, religion, gender, and how recently our ancestors immigrated to these shores. (This is not a complete list. ☹)

Despite these multi-vectored bifurcations, our republic is primarily a two party system. Sure there might be four or five parties on a ballot, but they never garner enough votes to be anything other than a spoiler in a close election. This was a close election, not as close as 2000 or even 2016, but close, and there may be some whining about spoilers, but mostly the election is over.

The emotions of one party can be described with “E’ words: endorsed, elated, enthusiastic, ebullient. Emotions on the other side could be described with ‘D’ words: disappointed, dismayed, distraught, depressed.

On Wednesday morning, roughly six hours after the race was called, a Life Coach LinkedIn connection from Texas, posted “Are you ready for change?”

He went on to describe “D’ word reactions as fear of, and resistance to, change. And gave advice to the losing side not to “spend all your time fighting it. . .[but]. . .accept it and move forward.” I’m abbreviating substantially.

In fairness, during the last two elections each side has spent four years fighting the elected party and I’m sure this person’s intentions were good, but the timing and the “get over it” message struck me as a bit smug,

I responded with a lecture of my own (again abbreviating substantially):

“People don’t fear change; they fear loss, loss of self-definition, and things they believe in. Mostly they fear loss of autonomy or choice for changes they feel are done to them. So they don’t resist change; they resist your change.”

He responded with a quote from his book, advising me to “cross the fear zone.”

At this point I disengaged, but four days later, I recalled a diagram from much earlier in my career, which I used to “help” people through change.

Moving from denial and resistance to change requires changing focus from the past to future and the personal to the collective

The ‘u’ depicted is “The Emotional Cycle of Change from Gemini Consulting, which is based upon Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s 5 Stages of Grief Model. The matrix is the orientation shift (moving from past to future and personal to corporate).

As a youngish organization development consultant I thought, “if asked,” I could help people move from denial to commitment, making the shift from past to future and personal to company.

I recognize now how naïve that was, but at least I recognized that someone would have to ask for my help. As American psychologist Carl Rogers said in “The Helping Relationship,” “help is defined by the recipient, . . .  help that is not asked for is rarely perceived as help, . . but rather as interference.”

 

Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s 5 Stages of Grief are:

  • Shock, including disbelief and denial
  • Anger, directed at the deceased, self, or lashing out at anyone
  • Bargaining, with God, the medical community, family, “if I do this will you save him (me)
  • Depression, “nothing will ever be the same again, I can’t go on”
  • Acceptance, “It’s over; life goes on.”

Since I created my diagram, I have lost both parents, one sister, one nephew, and a close friend and business partner. I have grieved myself and been around many others who are grieving.

I have worked with people in companies in “hostile takeovers,” and other acquisitions. I have coached business owners whose business failed. I have reorganized companies, seeing people who’ve devoted their lives to one business unit or function, transferred, radically altering their business “identity.” I observed many people go through the “Emotional Cycle of Change.

It doesn’t matter which curve you are on; whether you are grieving loss of a loved one or emotionally processing change, these things are true:

  • It is an individual journey. You are processing your emotion, you must do it yourself.
  • It isn’t a straight line or a one-way journey. You bounce back and forth between phases.
  • You can get stuck in one phase –“De Nile [denial] is not just a river in Egypt,” Is funny for a reason. And perhaps you know someone stuck in anger, – Louis Black’s comedy and his role in Inside Out – are parodies of that.
  • You can’t just – skip to the end. Some individuals might spend less time in one phase or another, but all those emotions are there.

There was a time when I made fun of organizational development consultants who conducted funerals for the old ways, carrying certain values forward into the new. I still think it’s a little woo-woo, but I understand the usefulness.

I saw the remnants of denial left by not saying goodbye to the old. British European Airways (BEA) and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) still each had different British Airways logos eight years after they became BA. Some field workers at BP still wore their Arco and Amoco coveralls ten years after the acquisitions. Cries of “foreign interference” in the 2016 election and “Stop the Steal” in the 2020 election made working together impossible.

Giving my LinkedIn connection the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he just wanted people to work together. Judging from the comments below, several ‘E’-word people found his post helpful.

To be helpful to those grieving or having difficulty with change, a leader might:

  1. Wait to be asked
  2. Start by just listening
  3. Summarize what you have heard.
  4. Assess where someone is on the grief or emotional cycle.
    • Someone in Shock or denial mostly needs someone to listen.
    • Someone in Anger may need to vent, but be reminded not to seem threatening to self or others.
    • Someone ‘bargaining,” or feeling guilty, might be reminded what that sounds like, and asked if they really think it will help.
    • A seriously depressed person might be directed to professional help.
    • Someone moving towards acceptance, might be encouraged to experiment or to act on things they are committed to in the new order.
  5. Prepare for, and try not to judge, “backsliding,” and “revisiting.”
  6. Avoid saying things like “Get over it,” “Move on,” “let’s look at the bright side. At least you have _____” or “Relax and enjoy it.”

 

Might these ideas be helpful connecting with the other side in a political divide? Maybe. (See numbers 1and 2). It is probably most important to recognize grief, and give people space to process their emotions.

Change Craft

Change Craft

“A woodworker must “apply a thousand skills” to find the ideal use for each piece of wood, respecting the “soul of the tree” and shaping it to realize its true potential”  

George Nakashima, architect, artist, builder of beautiful wood furniture worked until his nineties. Now his children carry on his craft.

In the fourteenth century Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a visionary poem, Parlement of Foules, about birds choosing mates and people living joined to nature. He began with a wish for more time to perfect his craft as a poet:

“The lyf so short, the kraft so long to lern”

What writer, woodworker, or musician, or for that matter, electrician, or plumber hasn’t said, “I need more practice to be up to this craft?”

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers described K. Anders Erikson’s research at the Berlin Academy of Music to posit that it takes 10,000 hours of focused practice to become world class at anything.  

The phrase “focused practice” is critical. It means not just total practice time. I’m sure I’ve logged more than 10,000 hours playing the guitar since I started at age thirteen. I’m better than I was at thirteen, but not that much better.

No, this is “focused practice,” that is, practice focused on improvement, breaking down the craft, practicing each part in isolation, getting rigorous feedback, and practicing again, then putting all the craft segments back together. Ten thousand hours of that kind of practice and I’d be a lot better guitarist, woodcarver, or writer.

Ah, but the “lyf so short.”

What is a craft?

The English word “craft” has its origins in the Anglo-Saxon “cræft,” which comes from the German “kraft,” meaning “skill or strength at planning and making.” When we think of craft we think “handmade,” or small batch production, like handmade tables, hand-woven blankets or craft beer.

The building trades, carpentry, electric wiring, plumbing, etc., call their work crafts. Actors talk about their craft; musicians and painters talk about the craft foundations of their art. Craft is based upon unique knowledge and skills, or competencies, the craftsman uses to plan and make with quality. That craftsman increases competence with focused practice.

Is leading change a craft?

Does leading change have unique competencies? Absolutely. Is there an opportunity for focused practice? Uh. . .

Most managers have only a few opportunities to lead change in their career. At least, that used to be the problem. These days between changes in technology, global markets, the environment, demographics and people’s attitudes, it seems like we are facing “constant change.”

Some are stuck in the past, when the craft of change leadership was a rarely used capability that could be left to consultants, staff, and other specialists. Some think a new technology implements itself, or that entering a new market on the other side of the world is about language translation, or that people should “just suck it up and work all the time, like I did.”

The basics of change craft

I could write a book on the subject. In fact, I’m writing a book on this subject, Change Leader? Who Me? Wisdom for those new to leading change, due out at the beginning of next year.  This book is mostly about leading change in business, where I spent my career, but I think the concepts are applicable in the public sector, or in personal change as well.

Start with some basic questions.

The most important question is Why?

Because the customers changed –  different needs, wants, or expectations. Competitors changed – different providers (e.g., international) or they are better, faster, cheaper.

Or there is a new technology, an opportunity for us to be better, faster, cheaper. Or the rules of the game have changed – new regulations, community standards, a new owner with new targets.

So what?

Do we have to change? Is not changing an option? What is the impact of not changing? When?

These first two questions are about the change mindset, which I wrote about a few weeks ago here. Change happens when people, individuals or groups collectively, internalize the dissatisfaction with the status quo, envision a different future and act, despite any fear of loss. It is the primary job of the change leader to adopt a change mindset and help others to as well.

Who will help make this change happen?

John Kotter, Harvard professor and author of several books on change leadership has a change requirements model that includes the usual concepts, vision, urgency, communications, short term wins, etc. Kotter though recommends “Building a Guiding Coalition” for the change. He describes this as often a diagonal slice of the organization, with executives, middle managers, and opinion leaders. In my experience these are often people who are outside the current power structure and may be people who have been vocally critical of the status quo.

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap. . . and others don’t, recommends the first step  of change to be “Decide who’s on the bus.” Even individuals making personal change can benefit from this analysis. Who supports you in the change you want to make? Who can help in ways beyond moral support?

My list of criteria for who is on the bus:

  • Has internalized the ‘Why’
  • A true problem solver who invests the time to define and analyze a problem, not just someone who suggests “solutions” before having the facts.
  • Extraordinary communication skills – looking for clarity over eloquence, and simplicity, over “sounding smart.”
  • People others listen to. (This often has nothing to do with positional power, but everything to do with “craft capability.”)
  • A least one person who immediately jumps to the “worst case scenario.” This is your risk assessor, your unintended consequences seer. (You don’t want a whole team of doom and gloomers, but one or two with a sense of humor can help avoid disaster.)

What is changing?

People may answer by type of change, more innovation, continuous improvement, integration (aligning systems, processes, and people, to “get on the same page). There is often a progression in types of change, Innovate -Integrate -Improve -Integrate -Repeat.

People also answer this question in terms of discipline, new strategy, technology, operational processes, people-stuff like training, organization, etc. There are often more disciplines that need to change than were initially thought and people-stuff is always central. Companies don’t change unless people do, including the change leader. Who me? Yes, you.

How to change?

I use a simple model:

  • Insight – discover new data about the why of change.
  • Action – plan, mobilize, take small steps, measure at every stage.
  • Results – project results at each stage, inputs, activities, outputs, measure.

And one last thing, expect backsliding, missed targets and failure. Reframe, regroup and…

Don’t Give Up!

With some focused practice you can be a change craftsman.

Who me? Yes, you.