Well, this book is another effort to right the ship!
In fact, an inbred and determined “back-to-basics” streak has engulfed me in the last couple or so years. In part, it’s in reaction to the entirely preventable financial madness that surrounds us, but it’s also, perhaps, a result of a modest pushback against the hyper-hyped-over-the-top-breathlessly-breathless “absolutely everything we know about everything has changed” air surrounding the likes of Google, iPhones, Facebook, and Twitter.
I do blog, and blog assiduously; hence, this book. And I do in fact tweet and enjoy it and find it powerful and useful as well as pleasurable—so I hardly merit a Luddite badge.
But still …
Oddly, the icing on the cake, the motivational engine, the final flash of re-realization about those “eternal basics” can be traced to a single, slim volume I read in 2008, at the height of the endless Vermont winter, while on vacation in New Zealand. The book, by David Stewart, is titled The Summer of 1787. It is a day-to-day account of the writing of the U.S. Constitution, a grand happening and a landmark in human history, which occurred during a mercilessly hot and humid summer in a hopelessly stuffy, closed-windows room in Philadelphia. (I know of what I speak when I assert that the weather was dispiriting—I grew up near neighboring Baltimore.) I underscore the heat and humidity, because it per se was one of those “little BIG things” that had an enormous impact on the final outcome.
The delegates would often break early to escape the elements, turning over the writing of some key clause to a little subcommittee that would in turn retire to a Philly pub to do their monumental (as we now see it) work. The subcommittee members rarely included grandees such as old Ben Franklin or young James Madison; instead the group likely consisted of four delegates from God knows where with God knows what qualifications (in many cases, not many qualifications) who had simply raised their hands and gotten the mostly unwanted assignment, a “little BIG” assignment, as it turned out, to shape some essential part of the workings of what has ended up becoming the most powerful nation in world history.
But it was more than the weather “basic” that shaped the outcome. Hard as it may be to swallow today, some states simply didn’t bother to send delegates, not thinking the whole exercise was of much import. And the New York delegation, for example, never had a quorum present in the hall—hence never cast a single vote. Furthermore, states that did bother to come could determine the size of their contingent, and wee (then and now) Delaware showed up big time and sent five representatives—and the five were present every damn day from the opening bell to the closing bell. And they voted on every-damn-thing, and because of their numbers—5 out of just 30 on the floor on average that summer—ended up volunteering for many, many a crucial subcommittee assignment. Wee Delaware’s impact on the final document is stratospheric.
There’s the “little BIG thing” called “showing up,” Delaware style, and then there’s, um, “showing up”: Yet another “mundane” but potent-beyond-measure determinant of the final document came via delegates and delegations that showed up in Philadelphia with rough drafts of parts of the proposed document in hand; for lack of better guidance (Madison’s soaring rhetoric was a bit over the top for a sizable chunk of this oft ordinary gang), numerous rough drafts carried to the Convention got tidied up a bit, and became pillars of the final product.
And then there was plain-old-down-and-dirty-with-us-through-the-ages horse trading, where the toughest or most wily bargainers prevailed. To a large extent, success at that “eternal basic” is the reason slavery remained intact in the final document. The Northerners won the rhetoric battle—and the Southerners, South Carolinians in particular, were the tougher and more persistent and stubborn and sometimes devious horse traders.
The frequently tawdry affairs chronicled in Mr. Stewart’s book made me laugh out loud at several occasions, despite the gravity of the topic; and it reminded me of the decisive role in anything, including the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, of numerous “little BIG things”—like showing up, and showing up with a draft document in tow, and then sticking around from the opening to the closing bell. And bringing the right temperament to the party: One of the most apparently powerful delegates played an inconsequential role—because he was deemed by his peers to be a “windbag” and given to “bombast”; hence, his mates refused to accept him as a member of any subcommittee. They wanted to be done and go home—and not linger, thanks to our windy forebear, in a stuffy little room in swampy Philly in August.
Economists and strategy gurus ordinarily … just don’t get it. (“It” being this “mundane” “soft,” “Philadelphia-flavor” stuff.) So I have been determined here to produce what, as subtext, emphasizes the “stuff that really matters” in getting things done—the “little BIG things.”
My colleagues and I mostly expect you to read the book while sitting on the toilet. (Literally or figuratively.) That is, we hardly imagine that you’ll breathlessly read what follows from start to finish—John le Carré or Alan Furst I am not. Instead, I imagine you’ll look at this idea or that—and I obviously hope that a few will be compelling enough to induce you to take action, to try out one of these “little BIG things,” maybe even eventually include it in your canon.
Which is hardly to suggest that because these ideas are apparently “simple”—that they are therefore “no-brainers” to incorporate in your daily affairs. For example, the day I finished off this introduction, I also presented a seminar in Manchester, England. At one point I had a lengthy exchange with a technically trained and disposed chap who ran an engineering-services company. The topic was “the power of expressed appreciation”—more specifically, saying “Thank you” with some regularity, or great regularity, which so graphically acknowledges the value of the recipient, maid or manager. Like many, many others, especially men, my engineer-leader not only doesn’t say those two words often, but actually doesn’t understand how to. His “how to” question to me was obviously from the heart—and a brave heart indeed to broach the personal and emotional subject in a public setting. The point is, he “got it,” at least intellectually, and “got” the point of the power of this sort of gesture, regularized. It was a fine discussion—underscoring “little BIG,” and also the fact that there is a genuine discipline, worthy of a methodical engineer’s careful consideration, associated with this flavor of apparently “mundane” activity. From one “just-the-facts” engineer to another, I wish him well, and if he does enter “appreciation” into his canon, that alone will have made my 6,000-mile round-trip across the Atlantic and back worthwhile.
There are, derivative of the anecdote about my engineer colleague just mentioned, two other essential themes I want to note before whisking you on your way. First, I wish to be crystal clear about one essential aspect of the … “Hard is soft,” “Soft is hard” … notion that de facto animates the entire book. Ideas like conscientiously showing appreciation are matchless signs of humanity—and the practice thereof, in my opinion, doubtless makes you a better person, a person behaving decently in a hurried and harried world. But, to the principal point of this book, such acts also result in dramatically improved organizational effectiveness—and goals more readily achieved; whether those goals involve profitability or provision of human services by nonprofits, NGOs, or government agencies. Acts of appreciation, to stick with my theme of the moment, are masterful, even peerless, ways of enthusing staff and partner and client alike, and, hence, greasing the way to rapid implementation of damn near anything. That is, “Soft is hard” is wholly pragmatic—and more often than not, effectively implemented, makes the bottom line blossom!
Second, obviously you learn to fly-fish or play the piano or build cabinets by working your butt off and valiantly attempting to master the craft. So, too, to do financial analysis or plan marketing campaigns. Well, in this book I argue that “the stuff that matters” is the likes of intensive and engaged listening and showing appreciation of the work a
nd wisdom of others, any and all others. And I argue and fervently believe that you can study these full-blown disciplines and practice these full-blown disciplines and become, say, a full-fledged “professional listener.” I suggest, for example, that “effective strategic listening” is a key, perhaps the key, to lasting, “strategic” customer relationships—and top-flight “professional” “mastery” of listening per se beats, on the power scale, quantitative marketing analysis tools pretty much every time, from the world of that little restaurant in Gill, Massachusetts, to the world of an Airbus sale to Emirates Air, or the eradication of malaria in some part of Africa.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. I hope you enjoy—and I hope you ponder and then work diligently on some of the “little BIG things” that overwhelmingly determine effective project implementation and career success and customer contentment and employee engagement and business profitability and the shape of the likes of the U.S. Constitution!
A BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS
Alas, I confess to having begun this introduction with a lie. (Not a very good start.) I said I’d begun the “success tips,” as we initially called them, on September 18, 2004. That was true—that is, the tips—but the book actually began on about August 9, 1966. That’s 44 years, 1 month, and 26 days ago as I write.
On August 9 I boarded a U.S. Air Force C-141 in San Bernardino County, California, and began the journey to Danang, Republic of Vietnam—there was a stop in Guam along the way. I was a U.S. Navy “combat engineer,” or Seabee, to use our ID.
It was my first real job.
(Besides summer stuff, including waiting tables, for nine years in high school and college, and the like.)
This book is up close and personal—and it took all damned 44 years to write. There were those “incidents and accidents” (thank you, Paul Simon) that triggered many of the “tips” at the blog. But mostly, it is a reflection of the Seabees, the Pentagon, the White House and Office of Management and Budget, Stanford, McKinsey, my own company, decades of off-and-on research—and contact with some of the roughly 3,000,000 thoughtful-curious people who’ve attended my seminars in 67 countries since about 1980.
I’ve learned a lot of stuff. Well, maybe, maybe not. I’ve seen a lot of stuff—and perhaps learned a little along the way. For example, I’ve met great leaders—from 2-person companies and 200,000-person companies and government agencies and elementary schools; and I’ve met some, let’s say, real beauts! (Both sorts abet the learning process. Here’s to the jerks as well as the saints.)
Truth be known, engineering training and German bloodline notwithstanding, I’m not much of a linear thinker—so “my secret” is that I run into stuff I care like hell about, and make it into one of “Tom’s passions,” as my wife calls them, for a year or two or 10 or even 20. It need not fit tightly into a framework, like Michael Porter’s work—it’s just “stuff that’s damned important that people are foolishly paying little or no attention to,” according to me.
That stuff includes: Germany’s Mittelstand (mid-sized companies) that often lead the world in exports; Design (!!); execution (I call it “doin’ stuff—the ‘missing last 98 percent’”) (“they” say I wrote the first ever Stanford dissertation on implementation—most of the faculty was busy creating the intellectual foundation for derivatives—whoops, it’s the intro—hold the cynicism for now, Tom); women as leaders (more of, lots more of) and the opportunity associated with developing products and services tailored to women’s abundant needs (world’s biggest and most underserved market); scintillating customer service (I pretty much had that “space” all to myself in the mid-1980s, believe it or not—“everybody” was doing quality, I was doing service); patient safety (grappling with a monster in the closet); and, always, always, always, the bedrock beneath every iota of my work, “people first, people second, people third, people ad infinitum” (still news—do you really think Ken Lewis at Bank of America gave two hoots about his staff? Well, maybe two, but sure as hell not three).
I lied again, at the beginning of this riff. “It” didn’t start in Danang—it started in Severna Park, Maryland, in about 1946—that makes “all this” 63 years in the making. My Virginia-born mom was a stickler’s stickler on the subject of manners. (You know, that Southern thing!) I bridled, naturally, but in these last 40+ years I’ve learned just how far a “thank you” and a “yes, sir” and a “yes, ma’am” can take you—at age 67, I still “yes, sir/ma’am” 19-year-old 7-Eleven clerks in inner cities. (You’ll see a helluva lot in this book about civility and thoughtfulness and manners—it was George Washington’s forte and “competitive advantage,” and it’s worked for me in far, far, far more humble settings.)
Manny Garcia, Burger King’s top franchisee at the time, attended a Young Presidents’ Organization seminar of mine in the mid-1980s. At wrap-up time, he said it was great, his best seminar ever, in fact, but he added that he’d learned nothing new. Instead he called it an all-important “blinding flash of the obvious.”
I loved that.
I love that.
Well, here goes. You’re going to get 63 years’ worth of my experience, starting with Mom Peters’ blasts from the Chesapeake past (and could she blast!), from my fourth birthday on, lessons from my bosses and sailors and U.S. Marine Corps customers during two Vietnam tours, and the insights of those three million people I’ve hung out with in my more or less three thousand seminars in Siberia and Estonia and India and China and Omaha and Oman and York, Pennsylvania.
Yup, here it comes—stuff I’ve long, long, long been itching to say.
Yup, and almost all of it is as obvious as the end of your or Manny Garcia’s nose.
Enjoy the ride.
Little
1. It’s All About the Restrooms!
I usually fly to my next seminar in the Great City of Wherever from Logan Airport. The trip from Tinmouth, Vermont, to Boston passes through Gill, Massachusetts. It’s exactly halfway, the 87-mile mark on my odometer—hence, the perfect place for a pit stop. With choices aplenty, I am nonetheless firm in my habit of stopping at the Wagon Wheel Country Drive-in. It’s, in fact, a smallish coffee shop–diner. The food, including the fresh muffins that are about a foot away as you enter (typically at dawn’s early light, in my case), is boffo. The attitude is boffo, too. But make no mistake, my custom is well and truly earned, three or four times a month by …
the restroom!
It’s clean-to-sparkling. (Come to think of it, despite the invariably crowded shop, I have never seen even the tiniest scrap of paper on the bathroom floor.) Fresh flowers are the norm. And best of all, there is a great multigenerational collection of family pictures that cover all the walls; rushed though I typically am, I invariably spend an extra minute examining one or another, smiling at a group photo from a local company dinner, or some such, circa 1930 I’d guess.
To me, a clean and attractive and even imaginative loo is the best …
“We care”
sign in a retail shop or professional office—and (ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!) it goes double when it comes to employee restrooms!
So …
Step #1: Mind the restrooms!
NOT A “TRIVIAL PURSUIT”
Today (fall 2009 as I drafted this), the recession’s tentacles continue to cling. If possible, an abiding obsession with “the basics” beat “brilliance” more handily than ever, and I can’t think of a better place to start than in the loo.
(Or a better person to put in the crosshairs than the owner or manager! Reverting to my Navy days: Owner! Owner! Man your swab!)
To do, more generally: I suggest that you devote most of your “morning meeting” or “weekly phone call” (or whatever) to the “little” things—from clean restrooms to deliveries made or missed to thank-you calls to a customer for her business after an order ships to flowers acknowledging “lower-level” staff excellence.
Keep on each other! How about a designated nag:
; “Little Things” Lunatic.
Or: “Tiny Touch” Maniac-in-Chief.
(Micro-Maestro.)
(Wizard of Wee.)
(Whatever.)
And be very very very liberal with the public kudos for those who go an extra millimeter to do a “trivial” job especially well.
2. “Small Stuff” Matters. A Lot!
Fix your voice message now!
“If you claim to be different from your competition, a GREAT place to start is your recorded message.”
—Jeffrey Gitomer, The Little Red Book of Selling
What other little things might you do today to make a big difference in your business?
Action item: At … every … weekly team meeting, have each and … every … honored invitee (that is, employee upon whom Excellence wholly depends) bring in and present “a little thing” that could become a Big Thing.
Select at least one.
Implement.
Now.*
(*This item is very, very short—and I hope very, very sweet. And I know very, very doable. Hence … zero … excuses for not putting it into effect. Now.)
3. Flower Power!
(1) Put flowers all over the place (!) in the office—especially in winter and especially in places like Boston or Minneapolis or Fargo or New York or London or Bucharest. Or Vermont (!).
(2) Let it be known that the “flower budget” is unlimited.
(3) In the next 24 hours, send flowers to … four people … who have supported you inside or outside your organization—including, and this is mandatory, at least one person in another function.*
The Little Big Things Page 2