Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
As with all choices selecting the right take away coffee has taken on a level of complexity that was thought impossible only a few years ago. And so as I start off on my regular walk around the local park I am almost always sidetracked by what I’m going to order from my local cafe.
Now to be fair to them they don’t yet seem to be in the same league as Starbucks but there is enough to give me pause for thought. And as usual this time I managed to choose the iced coffee and after walking round the corner into a rain shower I immediately wanted the hot cappuccino.
And obviously this got me thinking about Jeremy Vine the UK BBC Radio Presenter.
Companies and businesses have a problem – Trust. Put simply there is a decline in how much trust is being placed in business by customers and society in general. And a business that isn’t trusted isn’t going to survive for long. But is trust that important?
I think so. Customers are spending more time researching the companies they buy from, and the fact that so much information is available on line, opens up a business to a lot more scrutiny than previously possible. As customers are subject to exponential levels of change they will look to anchor themselves through relationships based on trust.
Would you go to a Doctor you didn’t trust?
And businesses play a huge role in society, providing income and rewarding places to work, generating wealth and making tax payments to help governments support their chosen areas of investment. The problem is partly guilt by association. As Edelman reported there is a collapse in trust in 4 of the major institutions (Business, Government, NGOs and Media) in many countries around the world.
At the same time however, businesses face some challenges that while not specific to industry will have a large and potentially dramatic impact. The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is beginning to reshape what business is and what it does and how it does it.
And trust is going to be come one of the most important topics businesses will have to deal with.
I admit it now that I am not the greatest fan of IT help desks.
Whether that is at work or at home I continue to wonder if the person I am speaking to has the first clue about the problem I am trying to solve. And that is of course if you can get to that person. You know how it goes when you dial the number and the first thing that happens is a recorded message saying that the call may be recorded for training purposes. Based on the number of calls I have made the training regime should be brilliant and all problems should have disappeared by now. But for some reason they still want to record the call.
Maybe it’s actually about training me? In which case can you tell me where I can get access to this training material as I am very willing to learn, if nothing else to make sure I don’t have to phone a help desk ever again.
Anyhow after you have ben advised that someone somewhere will benefit from training its time to press a series of buttons in response to being asked a series of questions. A series of questions that never seem to include anything that is relevant to the problem you have. In this case your computer won’t connect to the internet so
‘Press 1 for billings and payments
Press 2 for our latest best ever pricing on something that you have never heard of
Press 3 for voice activated data requests
Press 4 to hear the list again’
Now what?
My typical response is to disconnect and phone again, hoping against hope that a new list of buttons will have magically appeared and there might be some help at hand. Of course there never is so I invariably hit 3.
And then of course it all goes wrong because there is another list of numbers and things to connect to and each seems further away from the problem you’re trying to solve.
Of course you might eventually find a combination of buttons that connects you to a human being but I would seriously avoid doing this as you will go mad.
The human at the end of the phone will sound helpful and reasonable until you explain the problem. And then they will ask for a serial number or a code that you will swear on your ancestors graves that you have never been given or seen. All the while the phone bill and the tutting at the other end continues to grow.
After a while, and a significant increase in your blood pressure, the human will then decide that they might indeed be able to help you? Always assuming it is a human rather than a new Artificial Intelligence Bot. And here’s another link if you’re interested to the top 10 bots? Who knew there was a top 10
Anyhow back to the story. The person at the other end of the phone will then ask you to click on something. Something that you cannot see on the screen in front of you. No problem says the person at the other end of the phone. Simply click on the link in the same precise order as the morse code for ‘wow clicking on this button really doesn’t make anything happen’ and sit back and watch.
Watch nothing happen at all. And so by now you are literally like the man below.
I met up with a colleague in the office today who relayed to me that he’d just had dinner with someone who left the company a few months ago. Meaning it to be a positive statement my colleague regaled me with stores about how his friend was now doing all the things he didn’t have time for when working such as
seeing family
getting fit
spending time on his hobbies
enjoying watching his family grow up
And all I could think about was how sad that sounded. Sad that it was only when his friend was between jobs that he managed to find time for the rest of his life. And yet so much of what leaders seem to expect is to work all hours that exist. And this rubs off on their teams who get equally caught up in the working all hours syndrome mainly because their boss does the same.
I once worked for a leader who wanted to know what was going on continuously. He worked all hours and wanted everyone else to do the same. He demanded to know whatever was happening before anyone else. Presumably because this made him feel good. After a month of 24/7 working (at least that’s what it felt like) I picked up the phone to him and had one of the most difficult conversations I have had. I simply told him that I was not going to talk to him every hour, txt him every 15 mins and make sure he had regular emails. I let him know that I felt I was employed as a trusted officer of the company and once I had agreed with him the objectives he should trust me to get on with it.
He really didn’t like it. The silence on the phone spoke volumes
But he eventually accepted what I’d said and we then worked in the way we’d agreed and despite his nervousness it actually worked quite well.
Sometimes you need to lead your boss.
Or as I sometimes tell my colleagues – boss your superior.
The BBC recently published an article describing how the Japanese are now taking to smart phones with a passion. Its always interesting to me how a country like Japan, viewed as technologically advanced by many, is actually a very slow adopter of the technology they develop.
Appearances can therefore be deceptive.
But I have to say that while the article is a good piece the author really needs to come to Hong Kong. If you want to see a society that is now attached, literally, to their mobile that somehow manages to get around without too many crashes then Hong Kong is the place for you.
The business world has so many opportunities to reshape itself and drive better outcomes - we are only scratching at the surface of the change agenda and all the possibilities open to us. What ever happens next must embrace how we all work better together, how we are organised, the things we do and the many tools we use to make the change. Let’s make good things happen
The Burble 