The Happy Burro

Our company, like many large corporate offices not located in a downtown metro area, has a cafeteria.  It is one of the perks of working in “the Towers” as the building is known. 

There are the standard options: salad bar, grab-n-go sandwiches, a few hot entrees, even a ‘wrap’ station.  The best by far is the Saute.  Each day there is just one choice – today it was spicy shrimp with Jasmine rice. 

What I could experience

Quietly standing in line while the cook makes my serving, identical to the recipe and everyone else’s, measuring each ingredient, plates it, and hands it over so I can get in another line to pay for my meal.  Quick, efficient, cost-effective.  Boring, unconnected, not remarkable.

What I actually experience

The saute guy has four burners going at once.  The dish he makes each day has at least six different ingredients: various vegetables, garlic, chicken, etc.  While peope queue up in line, they ask for ‘no carrots’ or ‘half portion’ or ‘no garlic’ or ‘light on the oil’. You get the idea.  Personal requests for a custom meal.  Every single one.  

Each request is greeted with ”I’ll take care of you.” or “No problem.” And he never misses…with four meals going at once.  And when he hands over the completed dish, you get, “Have a great day” – and he looks you in the eye to make sure you heard him. (the emphasis on ‘great’ is his, not mine).

Fun, engaging, remarkable.  Taking the time to make a simple transaction into a wonderful break in the day. 

The saute guy is part of the ‘great people’ focus we have here at Carlson.  His name is John.

Joe Raasch :: Feb.21.2007 :: Employee Engagement, Personal :: No Comments »

Why, oh why, do bad powerpoint presentations persist?  Why do we sit in audiences and accept them?!! I know most presenters don’t get in front of a room with the intent to bore the audience and minimize their own excellent ideas.

‘The soul never sees without an image’ – Aristotle

Try building a Powerpoint deck without so many f-ing bullet points!  Try using an image   or two, and telling a story about why your audience should sit there and let you have time with them.
Want them to listen?  Connect…bring them into the story.  After all, isn’t that what you’re trying to do?  Connecting your ideas with these people!

Example:
Title of slide:  Sedona, Arizona Travel

• Sedona is fun
• It is a mountainous region of Arizona
• There is a lot of red rock there
• It is located north of Phoenix
• You should go there next time you visit Arizona

OR

Title of slide:  The mystical powers of Sedona, Arizona
Then have this image on the slide:

 
 
You, as presenter, tell your audience a story about the red rock in Sedona!  Maybe the history, or the indigenous Indians that lived there, or the fun jeep tours, etc.  People will remember the image on the slide, and your energy in the stories. 
They won’t remember bullet points…because bullet points don’t feed us, nourishing the soul.

Want more on this?  Check out Seth Godin for some prescriptive help.  Or Valeria Maltoni for help on the art of conversation.  I did.

Joe Raasch :: Feb.21.2007 :: Employee Engagement, Leadership, Performance Management :: 2 Comments »

I am back, ever so slightly tanner and a bit poorer for my week in the Bahamas. What a beautiful place, people, and experience!

We stayed in our villa, Harborside Resort (part of the Starwood Network), which is somehow fortunately linked to the Atlantis.

The fun stuff: Starbucks, whole red snapper, cooking lobster tails at our villa, almost dying while racing on the ‘Mayan Temple’ waterslide, learning that we can actually sit still for a few hours in the sun, just reading or snoozing, the Nassau Zoo, Kalik beer, rockin’ on the local bus service, finding a roadside restaurant with great energy – fish – beer on the cheap, snorkeling, etc. etc.!!

LOVED – the service mentality of everyone we met.  Two of many we experienced:

1.  We ventured into Nassau to buy groceries.  The local bus service is great – just flag down a little 16-passenger van, and off you go!  They have Bahamian music blasting and everyone is tapping a foot or bobbing to the beat.  We missed our stop by a few miles and asked the driver where we were.  He laughed, and told us where to catch the bus we needed.  Get this, he apologized that we didn’t get out where we needed to, and didn’t charge us for the ride.  Missing our stop was 100% our fault.

2.  Our villa supplies us with everything.  Well almost.  No coffee filters!  So at our morning stop at Starbucks in Marina Village, we asked the barista where we might buy some coffee filters.  She did not hesitate and said, “Here, let me get you some, no charge.” 

NOT LOVED – Northwest Airlines. We booked using frequent flyer miles…we get these, in theory, because the airline loves that we fly so much with them for business (full fare tickets, some international).  Gold ‘Elite’ status, etc.  Sooo…here is what happened:

First, I get an email two days prior to our departure date, confirming our flights.  Hmmm…they canceled the Detroit-to-Minneapolis flight we were originally booked on, and moved us to a much later flight.  This results in a 4 1/2 hour layover in Detroit, and gets us home around midnight.  Not fun.  I checked and their is an earlier flight that leaves one hour after we land in Detroit.  Perfect!!! I call the special reservation line and am told that Northwest cannot put us on the flight I mentioned because there needs to be more than one hour between flights for us to clear customs.  I am not happy, but that does make sense.

So, we have a great vacation, get to the airport in Nassau, and guess what?  They do United States Customs clearing right at Nassau Airport!  We get on the phone right away to move to the earlier flight – and are told, “Sorry, can’t move you since you already are checked in.  You’ll need to go to the gate and get on the stand by list.”  Oh, and don’t worry, there are plenty of seats.  Well, not when we got there.  And many of the people on our plane were able to book this flight directly, no problem.  We may have gotten a hapless call center person who didn’t know about clearing customs, wanted to reduce her ‘talk time’ metric and not rebook us, who knows.  I just know that we are no longer accruing frequent flyer miles and are just shopping for ‘best price’.  I wonder how they treat the platinum ‘elite’ customers?  If only we lived in Chicago or New York and had a CHOICE!!  Living in a ‘hub’ city blows.

I recommend Sun Country Airlines out of Minneapolis if they go to your destination.

Wonder which service people were ‘sheepwalking‘?

Joe Raasch :: Feb.12.2007 :: Employee Engagement, Life :: No Comments »