Does this look familiar? It does to me. So often today, we try to simultaneously write a report, read/respond to e-mail, answer the phone (two of them), and talk with someone in our office. The cure? Shut the door for a period, turn e-mail off, set the cell phone to silent, tell your receptionist to send calls to voice mail, and GET SOMETHING DONE! Don’t get me wrong, we MUST be available to clients and staff these days, but I can attest that too much availability results in nothing getting done. Schedule productive periods where you’re only focus is on getting things done.
We live in a graphic world as much today as we have for thousands of years. Thus, the age-old “A picture is worth a thousand words.” We are programed to recognize things visually. As in “Hey! That’s a tiger! Run!” Not, “That’s a t-i-g-e-r, I better r-u-n.”
Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and author of Brain Rules says that when we read, we are actually using brain power to recognize the shape (visual) of each letter in each word. Here’s what he says:
Without visual stimulation, this is what happens:
Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen, put together a little slideshow outlining some of the principles of Dr. Medina’s book as they relate to making presentations, check it out:
[Rant] This post is for you students or job seekers out there. As a Vice President over our East Region for Aquaterra, I receive a lot of resumes - a lot. A lot of resumes that look exactly like the dozens of other resumes I receive. Why? Why in the world would you send me a resume that looks like everyone else’s resume? Are you so lazy and uncreative that you can’t create a resume any better than the standard Word Template? That’s what you’re telling a potential employer to whom you send your template resume - you’re lazy, boring, and uncreative! In this world of technology, be creative. Set yourself apart. Here are some ideas.
Create a personal web site. Go out and register your own domain (joeblow.com). Then put your on-line resume there. But, make it creative. Don’t just tell me about your achievements, show me.
Post pictures from your tenure as Vice President of the student chapter of ASCE. Show me pictures from your participation in the concrete canoe competition, timber bridge, whatever.
Show me your work. You did an internship/summer employment with another firm? Good, show me your work (with permission of course). Show me your senior project.
Create a video. Post it on the web site. Have a friend interview you on camera (Barbera Walters style). Tell me something interesting about yourself. What do you excel at? What motivates you? What obstacles have you overcome? What makes you an outstanding hire? Don’t want to do the interview-style video? Fine. Create a compilation video of you at school, you doing what you do - skateboarding, motocross racing, horse riding, working on cars, whatever. I see what you kids are doing on Youtube -some amazing stuff.
Create a FAQ. Post on the web site a Frequently Asked Questions (i.e. interview questions). Do a search on the web of great interview questions and answer them.
Use some of the cool mapping applications to show me where you’re from, where you went to school.
Post to the web site any presentations you’ve made. Record them and add audio to your slide deck via slideshare.net.
Those are just a few ideas. In all my years, I have received one resume in this manner. After reviewing the young lady’s web site, I called and hired her as soon as I could! [/Rant]
p.s. And for goodness sake, don’t allow your resume to go out with misspelled words. I receive at least one of these a month. Straight into the garbage can it goes. If you don’t care enough to proof your resume, I can’t afford to employ you!
At Aquaterra we have been holding monthly “lunch and learn” presentations since 2006. They are not great production efforts, but they do allow our whole company to sit down together (via webcasts) and hear one of our own talk about something that he/she is excited to share with their peers. For instance, we have one on Monday about Dam Safety issues. Dan Aucutt, P.E. manages several large project of this nature for us in Baton Rouge, and he will review some of the things that he has learned in this work.
One must always consider the cost/benefit ratio of things that are not essential, and make decisions to use those with ratios that are good. The c/b ratio for our lunch and learn program is good. In fact, I see several avenues of benefit to a firm like Aquaterra. I thought that I would consider a few of those with you.
Education “ That is obvious, but it alone is worth the effort. We impart to other employees the knowledge of our experts in various fields.
Cohesion “ As seven offices in five states and with 140 people, we can’t possibly know each other personally. This time together provides a sense of unity for our company.
Confidence Building “ We are the typical firm; not all of our technical professionals are comfortable speaking in public. This provides a “friendly forum” for us to hone our skills and get more comfortable with this task. We encourage all of our professionals to give technical presentations to our peers, and this is a good start for this process.
Humility “ At the outset of this post I said that we don’t make a big production of this. As a result, we have often had problems with audio, web connections, etc. in front of a very important audience “ Aquaterrians. Just when we think we have gotten our technological act together, we have a glitch in the process, and we all are humbled by the effort.
Improvement: We get better and better.
Worth the effort? I certainly think so. What about you?
Providing great service is the best possible competitive differentiator and the most difficult for any competitor to copy or duplicate. If you stop and think about it, our clients do not really need to hire us or use our services - they do have choices. One firm that comes to mind is Southwest Airlines, as they always say “Thank you for flying Southwest “we know you have choices”. Maybe they say it just to be nice and as you leave the plane want you to want to fly with them again. Well, sounds like a good idea because that is what they want us to do isn’t it? The truth is that very few companies in any industry have established a sustainable competitive advantage based on service. Just imagine if you really made great service happen for every client on every project, every day of every week. That would be awesome!
In order to truly excel at great service you must have complete and total buy-in from everyone on your team. The importance of great service does not just apply to Aquaterra’s operations groups (those with outside clients); it also applies equally to those in a corporate support role (operations is the corporate client). Everyone that works for Aquaterra from the administrative assistant to the technician to the engineer to the corporate employee to the senior manager must be service oriented and service focused. Service orientation applies to the manner you interact with and treat clients, prospects, other employees, peers and anyone that you come in contact with as part of your job at Aquaterra. Is your team or group, or you, committed to your clients and with providing them superior service? If not, what can you do or suggest to your team or group or even personally, to excel and stand out in our service oriented business? You don’t need anyone’s permission to provide great service - make it contagious!
Is commitment or even obsession too much to ask for when it comes to doing it right and making it right for the client? I don’t think so. I realize that when it comes to client service, it is the front line employees that really make a difference. But what sparks the front-line is the clear and unambiguous obsession for doing it right and making it right for the client. Obsession for the client starts at the top€¦so all managers and group leaders reading this€¦are you and your team obsessed with service? I hope so, and if not, why not? Try it you will like it!
So what is great service? Great service or service excellence starts with quality and consistency. You can’t excel at providing great service unless you deliver quality and do it consistently. Remember, quality equals conformance to requirements. But great service takes more than just being consistent and providing quality. Really great service comes from the surprises or the unexpected that one receives from truly great service companies€¦the personal, hand written thank you note; the lead about a project; the hand delivered report to discuss findings and recommendations; the desire to solve a problem when service challenges arise.
“In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.”
~ Margaret Wheatly
Exceed Expectations€¦€¦€¦.
- Ricky
* Parts of the above adapted from The Circle of Innovation, by Tom Peters; and other documents.
