Tag Archives: Lean CX

Leadership Card 18 – Engineering Flow and a Clear Objective

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Engineering The State of Flow, and Happiness

In the late 60s, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi interviewed 1000 people on what makes them happy.  He found a few main things that, when present, can engineer what he called the state of “flow”, when you are lost in the moment, time flies, and you feel like you could do a task forever.

In the Leadership Card Deck we’ve seen a few different studies that have shown that a clear objective can make a huge difference to your team’s results.  And creating a clear path for your team with a repeatable process that is easy to use can increase those results again.

But there is more to this story when it comes to increasing the engagement and happiness of your teams.  And it’s because of this:

Have you ever been in a situation where what you did had absolutely no effect on the outcome?  Take this as an example – imagine you were driving a car, and trying to get to a destination, but when you turned the steering wheel it had no effect on the path you took.  In other words, the action you took had no bearing on whether you made it there or not.

A lot of teams are operating like that car ride today, because even if they have taken a step above everyone else and clearly articulated the objective and the process to get there and made it ridiculously easy to do, if your team’s actions have no effect on getting to that objective they will lose interest very quickly.  And losing interest is the absolute opposite of a state of Flow.

Working Towards A Clear Objective, With Control Over The Outcome

Mihali isn’t the only one to have found this in his studies.  In research brought to light via Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, he found that one of the best motivators wasn’t money or rewards, it was actually a thing called “Mastery”, which he described like this:

“Working continuously towards mastering a worthy skill.”

So we have a fairly ideal set up here, and this is only the start of it.  All the research is pointing in the same direction.  In Leadership Card 10, we saw that tying outcomes to a higher meaning had a huge effect on the happiness of your team.  So if we have a clear objective, where our team’s actions have control over the outcome, and those outcomes are tied to a higher meaning or purpose, then we start to see the ideal situation for engineering happiness and flow in the work that they do.

What Happens Next?

And what happens next when your team can effortlessly perform their work and it is working towards something meaningful?  Well, they enjoy coming to work much more than they thought possible.  It stops being just about the paycheck.  And the effects of high engagement show profit can go up by 17%, revenue can be doubled, absenteeism and sick days can go down by 40%, and much, much more.

Enjoying yourself at work takes a little bit of awareness – awareness that is not taught at school and is not present in most leaders who work their way up through the ranks.  But creating this scenario at work has a big payback, and doing even a little bit will show you just how powerful it can be.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 17 – Engineering Flow, Intensely Focused on an Activity

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How Would You Like To Play Video Games For A Living?

No matter how old you are – teen, millennial, Gen Y, X or Baby Boomer, I can pretty much guarantee there was a time in your life when you played some sort of a video game.  Maybe it was on your mobile phone just the other day, maybe it was on one of the original consoles like Atari in the 1980s, maybe it was more sophisticated like the PlayStation or XBox, or maybe it was just plain old solitaire on Windows.  The point is, it was fun, and you could easily get lost in the moment (which turned into moment-s) while playing it.

That’s the thing about games.  Because of their very nature they naturally engineer the state of “flow” in people participating in it – that state where time flies, you get into a rhythm, and you’re so engaged you forget to eat.

And with the state of flow – it can actually be engineered into your work to make it more game-like in its systems, through the process, the feedback, and the way the work is performed.

It’s Not Quite Playing Candy Crush All Day

Now this doesn’t mean we’re literally playing Candy Crush all day and getting paid for it – when I say more game-like I’m talking about the way the work is structured to engineer the state of flow, and help the work get done with more engagement from your team.

So we’re looking at the mechanisms behind games, not games themselves, and how they are addictive because they create this state in people.

Flow Model – The First Tip – Make it Repeatable 

The first part of the Flow Model is creating work for your team that is neither too easy, nor too hard.  This means getting right in there and creating the rules of the game – a repeatable process that can be done the same way every time (or used as a guideline for work that is wildly different, complex or creative).

Because you know what?  Most leaders never clearly articulate the rules of the game – the outcomes, the path to get there, and regular check ins to see if we’re on that path.  Can you imagine playing a game – whether it’s football outside or a video game inside – and not knowing the rules to the game?  It wouldn’t last very long, and that is exactly what is happening with your teams.

When creating that work process, it’s also really important to look at the ways we can make it easier to do – to improve the “Ease of Use” of that process.  By improving the ease of use we are making it easier for our people to fall into a natural rhythm and state of flow, and not be interrupted by making mistakes, having to check how to do something, having to wait for someone else, or multitasking between too many things.

That’s what we mean in this first step by “performing a task, that is neither too easy nor too hard”.

Most leaders never get to this step in their leadership.  

Putting out fires unfortunately becomes a routine part of their day.  They don’t understand that you have to engineer the work – design the work – and design it specifically for ease of use.

Now look at it the other way.  Your best staff – the ones you love and the ones who “naturally” do a good job.  There’s nothing natural about it at all – in order to get good at something, any star performer has simply figured out, most likely through trial and error, the best way that flows naturally for them to do something.  They’ve experienced the errors, so they know how to avoid them.  They know the sticking points, so they know how to approach them.   To learn something – anything – humans have to create and strengthen neural pathways in our brains by doing something over and over.

What I’m asking you to do is to do better for your team.  Help them design their work and the process.  Make the objective clear and make the path clear, and help make it easy to do before they have to go through all that figuring out themselves.

In doing so, I absolutely guarantee you will see some incredible results.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 16 – What Workers Want

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It’s Not About The Money (Money, Money)

Apart from being the lyrics to a catchy tune in 2011 by Jessie J, it turns out it really isn’t all about the money when it comes to your team and the people within your business.

When Richard Florida took the responses to an information week survey and filtered them for the things that made people want to do a good job, even he was surprised.  Having “Challenge and Responsibility” came in at number one, where a person is given autonomy in completing a task that isn’t too boring for them.  Flexibility came in number two, and job stability at number three – and these two things match up with other studies and research you will see in these Leadership Cards, such as Anthony Robbins’ six human needs where Variety and Comfort are both necessary to our happiness, even though they can be conflicting.

After all of those things, came money at number four.  Yes, we need money to eat, pay the mortgage, put the kids through school and go on date nights with our partner, but it turns out people put a lot of things ahead of it when it comes to their happiness at work.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators

You see, there is a very large difference in motivating factors within your team.  Sure, there are the obvious ones, like them getting up in the morning and going to work because you’re paying them.  Money and other physical benefits – something external to that person – are known as extrinsic motivators.

But have you ever done something for someone else just because?   Without the need for money and without the need for something in return?  Chances are you’ve experienced an intrinsic motivating force, where you are compelled to do something because it gives you an internal payoff.  Things like working back extra time because you like your leader, or the things you do for your kids or your family or your friends, or perhaps creating something like a drawing or piece of music.

Daniel Pink found three main intrinsic motivators in his book “Drive”.  they occurred when a person had:

  1. Autonomy: Where they are given free reign in solving a problem
  2. Mastery: Where they can work continuously towards mastering a worthy skill
  3. Purpose: Where they are contributing to something greater than themselves

Can you find a way to engineer these into your own work and process?  If you can, the results just might surprise you.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 15 – Design The Situation

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Design The Situation For Ease of Use And People Will Do What You Want

In a study by three researchers featuring college students, and seeing what it might take to get them to donate to a food drive on campus, Nisbett, Griffin and Ross found something very valuable.

Before they started, they interviewed their subjects and separated them into two groups – those who they believed would give to a food drive, meaning they were kind, charitable people by nature, and those who they believed would not give to a food drive.

The funny thing is, the students they believed would not give to the food drive actually gave more than their so-called charitable counterparts when they were given clear instructions on how to do it, where the box was to donate to (including a map of the campus), and asked to think about the exact item and day they would go and donate.

Clarity Matters

You see, it’s not enough for someone to just be “naturally” good at something.  The environment shapes a large part of a person’s results, which is ultimately good news because we can shape the environment to make it easier for our people and customers to do the things we want.

If something is hard to do – if there are many obstacles, it’s not front-of-mind, it has too many steps or we need to redo too many things, or there’s too much waiting around or there are too many hand-offs between departments – then there is a much higher chance that a person won’t do it.  That can include a customer buying your product, or a team member performing work for you.

Getting intentional about designing your work and customer experience, and designing it specifically for ease of use, can make all the difference.

And as we saw in the charitable giving example, that can mean giving clear instructions, a map of where to go, and a clear vision of what to give and when they are going to give it.  In other words – How, What, When, and Where.  For you in your business, it might be simpler.  Knowing who your customers are, what they want, and the steps to get there is a great start.  Then you can improve the ease of use for your customers simply by reducing those steps in getting what they want.

Try it for yourself, and I believe the results will absolutely astound you.

Chat soon – David Mclachlan

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Leadership Card 14 – CEOs versus Customers

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The Customer Experience Disconnect

In a study by Bain & Co it was revealed that around 80% of firms believed they delivered a “superior customer experience”.  The only trouble was, their customers didn’t agree, with just 8% of customers confirming they were provided a superior customer experience.

The study also found that companies were trying to do a good job – they truly believed they were customer focused and recognized the importance of their customers.  They obviously genuinely wanted to provide a superior customer experience, they just didn’t know how to truly pull it off.

Instead of focusing on improvements that truly value the customer, they do things like relentlessly pursuing new customers at the cost of old ones.  For example, heavy discounts for new customers while more expensive pricing for existing customers.  Or they gathered immense loads of data on their customer’s habits without actually talking to them, understanding what makes them want to stay.

How Easy Was It To Get What You Wanted, Really?

Research and consulting firm Forrester has found that making it easy for your customer to get what they want goes a long, long way to providing them that “Superior” customer experience.  In fact, customers are more likely see your company as competent and to forgive any mistakes that happen along the way.

Part of making it easy for a customer to get what they want is reducing the steps to getting what they want.  The more “steps” a customer has to take, whether it’s talking to different people or departments, filling out multiple forms or needing to gather multiple pieces of information, all affects the ease of use and the likelihood of a good customer experience.

Checking in with your most profitable customers to understand what went well, and what didn’t go well, also helped the best companies design their experiences to attract more profitable clients.

Getting Intentional About Designing Your Work

The research by Bain & Co also found that companies who outperformed others when it came to customer experience had intentionally designed their work (i.e. the operations of their business) and customer experience.  They called it Design, Delivery and Developing Capabilities, and this is where it is handy to have a simple yet powerful framework to work through decisions with.  The Ease of Use framework first outlined in the book The Lean CX Score can immediately improve the ease of use for your customers and your team in a few simple ways.

First, it brings clarity to a process by making it repeatable.  Then it reduces the steps to a customer getting what they want, by making hidden things visible and making it impossible to make a mistake.  Finally, by checking in to see if the customer got what they wanted they can reduce the steps further and make things easier again.

Don’t fall into the trap of a complicated programme of work to improve the retention of your customers – make it easy with an easy framework and focus on the ease of use for your customers.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 11 – Clarity and Empathy and Employee Engagement

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Clarity and Empathy – Two Major Keys To Employee Engagement

Straight out of Harvard comes a story and research showing a simple way to improve employee engagement and your productivity, profit and happiness.  It’s called caring.  Actually caring what your customers are trying to solve, actually caring what your team is trying to solve, and providing clarity on the path to solve that problem.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Yet almost no one does this.  Most people are too busy either putting out fires in their own business, or creating fuzzy, vague outcomes and mission statements that when it comes down to it mean absolutely nothing.

To Be Clear Is To Be Unkind

Something financial guru and  entrepreneur Dave Ramsey says is “To be unclear is to be unkind”.  And that kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?  It happens so often not just in business but also in relationships – when you have an expectation that something will happen but you haven’t actually made that clear.  You haven’t told the person what you would like!  And since they can’t read minds, there is a good chance they won’t actually do the thing you secretly wanted them to do.

So make it clear.

Make it clear by understanding what your customer wants.  Make it clear in a standard, repeatable process that shapes the path for your team.  Make it clear when you check in regularly to see if everything is on track.

When you’ve made it clear, another thing can happen.  It might be clear that the process is actually pretty hard.  Maybe it’s an emotional time or area for a customer, maybe it’s a long and boring process.  Nothing is perfect.  So this is where the second part of our equation comes in:

Care.

Care about your team, sympathize with their troubles.  Yes, problem solve with them using Lean CX when you can, but also just listen.  Sometimes people need to vent, and need to be heard that they are going through something tough.  Acknowledge that it is, and don’t minimize it.

Empathy and Clarity.  They both make a difference to your team’s engagement, and if you use both I absolutely guarantee you will see some astounding results.

Chat soon – David Mclachlan

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Leadership Card 10 – Tie Outcomes To Meaning

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Giving Your Team a Purpose

There’s nothing worse than getting up at your alarm in the morning, getting the kids ready for school, downing a morning coffee and rushing in to work… only to have that work mean absolutely nothing in your broader life.

You’ve been there before, haven’t you?  The work is either boring and too easy (or too hard), or too little or too much.  It’s rarely ever Goldilocks – just right – and it’s almost never a part of your real dreams, passions, or purpose.

There’s A Lot Of Disengagement Out There

And the stats on this are pretty brutal.  Nearly 67% of workers are disengaged at work – dragging their feet, making additional mistakes, and  having significant time off before leaving altogether.  But the research also shows that people want to do a good job, it’s usually leaders lacking in real team motivation, psychology and operational management skills that cause people to lose their engagement and their drive.  Which makes sense, because no one really ever teaches you this stuff, do they?  Especially not in an easy to use framework like the one from “The Lean CX Score” book.

Tying the outcomes of your team to a higher meaning has been proven to improve the engagement and purpose of your team, and the results they get.  The good news it doesn’t have to be a fancy meaning like curing world hunger, it just has to be a meaning higher than the work they’re doing now.

Things like:

  • Your work will have a direct impact on meeting our profit target in this way, or;
  • The customers you help are impacted in that way, or;
  • You are helping your broader team achieve something by doing your work, or;
  • Even almost any “because”.

Just Saying “Because” Increased People Saying Yes By 93%

During a study by psychology Ellen Langer, she wondered what sort of words she could use to get people to let her cut in line before them at the copy machine.

She used many different variations and ways of asking, but it turned out that almost any reason was enough – the highest performing sentence included “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” with a 94% compliance rate.  But just giving any reason also gave a 93% compliance rate, such as “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

Just including a “because” in your request brings a different meaning to things – a meaning that’s not just all about you, or the other person in the moment.

So when you tie the outcomes of your team’s work to a meaning, give it some thought, but don’t overdo it.  Don’t spend six months coming up with the perfect “meaning”, when a simple higher meaning will do.  And then watch your team blossom just that little bit more, as the engagement within your team grows.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 9 – Setting Clear Outcomes

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A Simple Way To Improve Engagement

In the research Leadership Cards previously we’ve seen that a big part of getting where you’re going is having a destination in the first place.  It’s that old cliche, worn out but it’s true, of setting goals to have success in your business and your life.

But setting goals can sound boring, can’t it?  Instead, we could look at it this way – it’s not so much about setting goals as it is about getting stuff done.  And further to that, getting the right things done.  Setting a clear outcome, a clear destination for your team, puts them on the right path, gives them clarity in their work and life direction.

If you were a pilot taking off from an airport, you would want to have somewhere to go.  If you just flew round in circles for a few hours, you would run out of fuel and crash.  That’s what’s happening with your teams.

The research also showed that setting outcomes collaboratively, where you sit down with your team, choose tasks that suit their strengths, improved results by up to 35%, and in some cases more.

So make it clear!  As part of the Ease of Use framework, outlined in the book “The Lean CX Score”, you find your customers (the people you serve), find what they want, and outline the steps to get there.  That’s clarity.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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