The important of "The Parting Tell"

When the parting comment is the real message.


A friend of mine recently visited the doctor. After a relatively quick consultation was going out the door and made what he consider an off-hand remark. The doctor stopped him in his tracks and preceded to question him at length.

After 15 minutes of interrogation the doctor expanded on my friends treatment to cover an additional, more significant ailment. When my friend finally left the doctor joked that he had made many significant prognosis based on a patients parting comment.

It struck me that the world outside medicine could do worse than adopt this listening technique. Lets call it "the parting tell". When interacting with clients and fiends alike we are incline to tune out or drop our guard as a meeting comes to an end. By having our eyes and ears open for the parting tell we could glean a vital clue that could allow us do a better job or be a better friend.

The next time you meet a client or simply interact with someone look out for the parting tell and ask your self what additional piece of information did you gain and how could it help you the next time you deal with them

A cure to the effects of Office Gossip?

Office gossip is part of our daily working lives but what do you do if you think you are the one being talked about?

A friend of mine recently mentioned an unexpected piece of advice she received on the subject, "it's none of your business what they talk about" she was firmly told when she expressed concern that her work colleagues might be talking about her.   

When the advice was shared with me I was surprise, to say the least, but from the smile on my friends face the reaction had been mutual.  We discussed it's wisdom at length and here are some of my own conclusions:

• Context is everything, not being there means you have missed 70-80% on the true message.
• Who cares what opeople talk about when you are not there.
• Gossip, office or otherwise, invariably becomes negative.
• If it doesn't server don't say it

It is easier said than done to "mind your own business" especially when it could be you they are talking about but life is too short to waste time worrying about it.

Words from Larry Hochman

"Collaboration is the hallmark of Value Creation"

Larry Hochman.

Photography by Conor McCabe from whitespace.ie,

I recently attended Larry Hochman's excellent presentation hosted in Dublin by Marketing Age.  The theme was customer relationship management in an information age.  To get an idea of the quality and content here's a video

The presentation left me with as many questions as it did answers.  

• What does it mean to be more compeditive in a changing world?
  
• Is agility more important than planning?
  
• Is collaboration where the real value creation is?
  
• What is the "promise gap" of my business?
• What are we doing to increase loyalty
• Are our own customers our biggest competitors? 

In searching for the answers to these and many other questions he did offered some clues (it would have been a bit depressing otherwise):

• In order to adapt and change you must  be free of denial, nostalgia and arrogance
  
• You must meet the customers real demands
  
• There are no longer passive customer but co-creators
  
• You need to create "platforms" to give them a voice.
• Ethics will determine your fate

We were left with a challenge "What will you do as an individual to make a difference?"

Larry is a great speaker and your feel the sincerity in his words.  I took away quite a few ideas and even put one or two into practice.  If you get the chance hear him speak.  To use one of the quotes from the day:

"The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas- but to make them forget the old one" - John Maynard Keynes

Understanding Influence, and Making it work for you

Is technology levelling the field for the moderately connected individual, see if you agree?




I finally got around to reading the CNET Networks article on "Understanding Influence, and Making It Work for You", you'll find the full text here

It investigates the whole are of Influence and the research blows away a few myths. The full text is worth a read (9 pages with a few diagrams). The points I took out of it were as follows:

• The idea of a few highly influential individuals concentrated over a mass of other does not hold (someone better tell NIKE ans Gillette)
• Weak Links, those informal relationships between groups, are more powerful than we thought. The reason is that they allow different clusters to interact with the person in between acting as an idea pollinator
• Technology matters, it's mush easier to build and maintain a network when you have the tools that can scale.
  
• The pyramid model (highly influencer at the top) has given way to a diamond model of the moderately connected majority.
• Getting asked for advice and giving it greatly accelerates the growth of your network
• Influencers tend to be active contributes and hunters of unique and trusted information. Which in turn makes them authorities.

I initially thought that the survey was biased because of its survey pool (all technology subscribers) but then I had a thought, maybe the moderately connected majority are becoming more influential because of technology. The "soft-skill" that was networking can now be compensated for with technology tools. Now we are being judged by our actions and discoveries rather than our communication skills alone.

Great Expectation

How setting expectations makes life easier for all concerned

One the the roles of a Relationship Manager (be it CRM, Account or Project Director) is to balance the requirements, sometimes demands, of your clients with the constraints of resources, budgets, time or quality.

One of the most affective ways to handle this is managing expectations. Sometime it's OK to say "not right now" or "can this wait" or even "I can do this but we need to agree a scope change". It sounds so simple, so why do we find it so difficult to manage expectations?

Too often in business we forget that clients are people too. For the most part they are reasonable and will work with you to achieve your mutual success but you must communicate with them. The only ever appear unreasonable because we don't understand their view point.

I have been exploring this topic as part of improving service levels with clients and a very interesting fact came out. Upon review of 2nd and 3rd line calls the client was willing, in almost every case, to move the resolution date, upon request. What was even more interesting was at service reviews satisfaction levels went up! They felt more informed and in greater control of the situation.

Even more interesting,the support teams satisfaction levels went up because they felt more in control and under less pressure.


There are some great articles out there on this topic, one of my favourites is by Naomi Karten.

When NOT to use a Meeting Note

You knew when your teacher was serious....

I mentioned previously that there are times when an emailed note is not appropriate as a form of communication. The rule of thumb, if there are commercial or legal commitments involved it's not enough. The note is essentially a one way communication, an update. What's the difference between a simple email and putting the same content into a document? The tone set, the detail and the confirmation.

When you send a document you are immediately setting the tone that the reader should take this seriously. You will be more formal, very often use a template that looks official when printed. You will also find that you naturally add more detail. Finally, you must ask for some form of confirmation, a call to action, that can be referred to later. e.g. "Please confirm we should go ahead" or "if this is acceptable please issue a PO", etc.

The key to all this is that you have removed ambiguity with detail and you are asking them to confirm they understand. Topped off with an audit trail in case there is "confusion" later.

Power of the Meeting Note

I have a habit I developed some years ago of sending a short note, usually email, after every meeting with a client (and many phone calls). It developed out of my time as a project manager when you needed to keep a history of decisions and to remove any ambiguity over actions agreed. As a relationship manager they serve a similar purpose put from a different perspective, here are some reasons to consider sending a note:

• Looks professional and that you take such meetings seriously, even when the tone is light hearted
• You have a record of what was discussed and any actions agreed.
• You can circulate your note to other interested parties e.g. Project Managers, Sales & Marketing, your boss, the rest of the team.
• Audit purposes (for all the ITIL Service Level Managers in the audience)
• Your own records especially when you are managing a large number of clients
• Personal marketing, so all concerned know the great job you are doing.

I would suggest you have a template ready as speed is import in writing up these notes. If it takes more than 10 minutes you simply won't do it. A text based template (e.g. Outlook Forms) or a draft email saved works very well. Avoid MS Word/PDF documents unless you have to be formal (e.g. Proposal or anything with a price in it). Typical headings would be:

• Subject,
  
• Date/Time and Place,
  
• Attendees, Agenda,
  
• Main Points (short, highlights only)
  
• Actions (who, what and for when).

An optional and very useful heading to have is Internal Only. This is usually at the top and contains information that you want the internal team to know but which you might not be of interest to the client and would not be sent on their copy.

Issue it as soon after the meeting/call as possible as it looks professional and they will very often be filed as meeting minutes by the client who hasn't the time (or interest) to write up their own.