The Value of Non-Verbal Conversations with Customers

Watching people will tell you a lot about their beliefs, desires, values and behaviors. Each person comes with all types of needs. In sales it is vitally important to try and read what the customer is not telling you and make suggestions that lead to a higher level of sales. Moving beyond the conversation to the core needs of the customer can make all the difference in satisfaction. 

A salesperson's ability to “read” people impacts sales volume and service quality (Puccinelli, et. al. 2013). With the right interactions the customer will feel that his/her needs were met through positive interactions. It also impacts the ability to solicit enough information to give the customer the right product. 

Consider a customer who walks into a store and wants to buy something. Sometimes it is an urge to make a purchase that helps them look good, feel special, or whisk away a feeling. At other times they may need an actual product but are not aware of the options or whether or not there are alternatives. 

An attentive salesperson can see the anticipation, ask the right questions and then lead the person to the product/service that best suits their needs. They do this through watching closely what is actually being said through words and non-verbal actions. If they pay attention long enough and gain experience they can get good at this. 

Puccinelli, N. et. al. (2013). The value of knowing what customers really want: The impact of salesperson ability to read non-verbal cues of affect on service quality. Journal of Marketing Management, 29 (3/4)

Learning to Manage Yourself Before Managing Others

Managers have skill and the authority to use that skill to encourage growth of company resources. Managers who seek to manage others without first managing themselves can create serious problems in the workplace. Those problems can range from employee retention and performance all the way over to improper financial management.

Each of us has experiences and challenges that make us who we are and helps us formulate our personalities. This personality carries forward to determine how we interpret information and the decisions we make. In most cases we have no idea that we putting ideas through our mental filters and acting on that information in realizable patterns.

Most of us carry on those themes throughout our lives. Patterns can be positive or negative but when we meet people with poor patterns that might focus on self-indulgent or self-promoting behavior we might simply keep our distance. In the workplace there is a captive audience so it is important for people to work through their issues and ensure they are capable of leading a group of people.

Bosses who have gambling additions may steal, people with trust issues may do all the work themselves, hurt individuals could be chronically rude to others. If they are able to work through their issues they could be great managers but if they do not they will continue to display their patterns over and over. Great managers understand themselves before they start understanding others.

How Telling Stories Helps Students Understand Business

Telling stories isn’t just for actors and orators but can be used to help students synthesize business curriculum to create higher levels of critical thinking. When people tell stories they need to focus on creativity, developing a narrative, connecting elements, and understanding the details to solve a bigger problem. Story telling allows the class to learn varying ways of using strategy in hypothetical situations.

A study of online courses found that narrating stories helps students describe theories and concepts that lead to higher levels of critical thinking (Mendez, Al Arkoubi & Yue, 2015). The process of thinking about scenarios and solutions and synthesizing course concepts into explaining a potential solution helps students understand and apply material. 

Our brains are designed to create stories so it should come to no surprise that the same thing occurs when we think through options to come to a strategic solution. We are in essence weighing possible scenarios and trying to determine the possible outcomes based upon the information we have. If we are missing information it is up to us to use our creativity to fill the gaps. 

It is so natural that when we sleep we unconsciously weave stories to master unresolved conflicts accumulated throughout the day. Dreams are simply stories that help put events in context and then store them away neatly in our heads. A business story integrates the various elements of theory, events, data, and people to solve a business problem. 

In the online classroom, it is possible to provide students with an open-ended business problem and let them use their imaginations, resources, books, creative thinking, and other cognitive resources to solve the problem. You can see which students can integrate various lessons and apply theories to hypothetical situations. Those students who are learning versus those who are not will become apparent.  

Mendez, M. Al Arkoubi, K. & Yue, C. (2015). Business leadership education: a virtual storytellers exercise. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 19 (1).

Two Flat Tires and 5 Tips for Managing Crisis

I'm biking to work and crisis happens as both tires blow out!. Trying to manage my time by getting to work and getting in shape at the same time I thought I was on top of the game then it all comes crashing down. Projects can be like that. We may be cruising along with the wind in our hair and all of the sudden something goes wrong and you move into crisis mode. Your stranded!

Crisis can take many forms. It could be lost funding in the middle of a project, employee "no shows" on a business day, the power shuts off on the building, your star performer walks out and goes to the competitor. A few tips for handling a crisis may be beneficial. 

1.) Stay Calm: You can easily become overwhelmed when everything hits you at one time. Take a moment, relax, put things in perspective and realize you can overcome any challenge.

2.) Think through Your Options: Take a moment before you act and think through your options. In most cases you can see that there are a number of possible routes.

3.) Act Concisely: Once you have a plan start acting concisely to overcome the challenge. Make sure your actions lead directly to a solution versus creating a bigger problem.

4.) Resolve the Issue: Resolve the crisis by first getting through the immediate problem and then find a longer term solution.

5.) Plan for the Next Crisis: Now that you learned about a potential crisis make sure you adjust your process to handle future crisis or adjust your crisis management plan.

In case you were wondering how my two flat tires turned out. I found out that it is possible to bike on the rims for a mile. I discovered that not to far from my workplace is a bicycle repair shop that will fix it after work. While waiting the 20 minutes they took complete the repair I found some cheap tennis shoes. Both my tubes only had small holes and a $2 repair kit was brought home to salvage them. Not all was lost!

Self-Defense as a Conduit to Fitness

Fitness is boring and it isn't hard to fall of your routine if you are bored. When someone mentions the words self-defense or self-defense you immediately get "ewwww" or "yuck" because it conjures up a 1970's Bruce Lee wanna be. But self-defense is much more than that and has taken on new forms for younger generations. There are plenty of different options for all types of people.

Most of the self-defense enthusiasts are not your 20 year old studs that have something to prove. They are either small children working on coordination or older people who want to stay in shape. I have met the 20-30 year old competitive fighter but most of the people who engage in self-defense are not interested in this type of activity.

The benefits of self-defense are massive and range from the psychological to the physical. Once you have mastered basic techniques you will feel more confident about yourself. Your body language and movements change that signal to others that you are confident and worthy of respect. On the physical side your body will change as you engage in the coordinating and cardiovascular aspects of the sport.

To join or not to join is a personal choice. Fitness isn't always about running up and down the street or pushing massive weights to gain bulk. It should be balanced in its approach and sports and activities like self-defense is one way to do this. Search around and see if you like Karate, Kepo, Jiu-Jitsu,  Aikido, Boxing, Wrestling, or anything else that suits your fancy.

Creating Functional Teams with Quality Enhancements

Teams are formed to create collective knowledge that leads to higher quality results than would not be possible without teamwork. Who is on the team and why they are on the team is an important consideration in developing a selection strategies. When a strong team is formed they have the ability to master serious challenges within their core competencies.

Within any team there are two major considerations, or circles of influence. There are people that have specific knowledge needed to complete the job effectively that constitute the core group and then there are those added to enhance the end product. Therefore groups have essential members and quality control members.

Essential members might be the people needed as a minimum to complete a project. There could be the designer, marketer, accountant, and operations manager. Without core members the project would never get off the ground as the essential skills and knowledge would not be present.

Beyond the core group there are people who have the capacity to enhance the quality of the outcomes. They may have specific knowledge of core customer demographics, may be design experts that can make the product more user friendly, or could have comparable knowledge of the market.

Employee Ethics and Behavior Starts at the Top

Poor employee behavior isn't always the problem of a bad apple but can be a symptom of bigger issues at the top of the organization. All poor behavior and ethical lapses occur within a socioeconomic context that includes personal, professional, economic, and psychological aspects that make such actions more or less likely. When multiple poor behavioral situations and ethical lapses occur the top becomes suspect.

The vast majority of people are followers. They follow each other in dress, mannerisms, behavior and thoughts. If someone jumps up and throws an opinion into a crowd people begin to accept that opinion quickly without critical thought only because others seem to agree. Behavior may not be as individualized as we believe.

The behavior of employees and executives is largely determined by the expectations of people around them (Oxley & Oxley, 1963). In other words, a single bad actor could be an outlier but multiple bad actors are more associated with the contexts of where they live and work. Organizational leaders should be held to account for multiple incidents.

Consider how multiple ethical violations from different people are more likely to be a result of leadership. Sometimes these incidents center around a single department or manager while other times they represent the entire organization. When this occurs policies, procedures, cultures, and leadership become suspect.

The people at the top set the expectations in behavior and mannerisms for everyone else. If production is rewarded based on certain metrics then it will be these metrics, and nothing else, that will matter in the overall assessment of performance and its subsequent reward. It is hard to blame the individual employee for doing what is not only in their best interest but also expected by the leadership team.

Change is not impossible but does require some strategic rethinking. The metrics may need to be switched around or rotated with new metrics to keep people thinking and changing. There may be different metrics used to help round out decisions. Lines of communication can be improved and different people can be hired to work within the organization. A better assessment of stakeholder concerns could be necessary and incorporated into the culture of a workplace. 

Oxley, G. & Oxley, G. (1963). Expectations of Excellence. California Management Review, 6 (1).