Can you be replaced by a logic tree?

If you can, it's time to do something different.




Recently, I made a call to a customer service center and was put in contact with a woman in Mumbai, India. She was friendly and helpful as she made her way through a scripted logic tree designed to help me with my product problem. As a former computer service technician, I was intrigued.

Her script had her repeating two phrases over and over.

Each time I described my problem or responded to her questions she said, "I understand."

Her next words were always, "Let me ask you this:..." and then ask me the next question in the logic tree.

This led to an efficient and oddly personable customer service experience. Even though her responses were rote, canned, I really did feel understood. After all, she told me many times that she understood what I said and followed up with a question that demonstrated she DID, in fact, understand.

This woman in Mumbai gave a human touch (and human intuition if needed) to a process that could have been (and probably one day will be) done entirely by a computer. Well, except for that human intuition part. I hope. The woman in Mumbai could have decided at any point that the logic tree wasn't working and tried something else. She was a human safety valve.

Now if you have a job that COULD be handled by a logic tree but is instead handled less efficiently, here is a six step suggestion for you:

1. Design such a tree.
2. Set up an LLC.
3. Contract with a group in Mumbai, India.
4. Sell your new service to your current employer. (Thereby firing yourself and, regrettably, your co-workers.)
5. If your employer won't buy, sell your service to their competitor.
6. Rinse and repeat.

Actually, do steps 2 through 5 first then contract someone in Mumbai to do step 1. Do it fast, before someone in Mumbai or China, or in the cubicle next to you does it first.

Your new job as CEO of Phone Customer Service, LLC should be one that can't, for the moment, be replaced by a logic tree.

OK. I'm joking... sort of.

My point is to do something that isn't routine. Something you love. Something human. Something complex enough to keep you interested. And interesting. Do this something as a career or a sideline or your retirement project.

As Daniel Pink points out in his book, A Whole New Mind, anything that is routine can be outsourced or automated.

Avoid routines. Do Something Different!

Be like Ellen Rohr!

Ellen Rohr did the accounting for her husband's plumbing business. She admits she almost sunk the family business, even though she had a degree in Business Administration.

She found a mentor who taught her how to read and use financial reports. Ellen learned a lot and she and her husband turned the company around. It seems she learned more practical lessons in the school of hard knocks than in college.

After they sold the family business Ellen decided to share all she had learned. As she says, "After all, if a smart, highly educated person like me didn’t know how to read a balance sheet, I figured business illiteracy must be rampant."

Ellen discovered she was right.

Ever since then, Ellen Rohr has been doing her part in keeping our economy strong by teaching entrepreneurs, well, how to make and keep money. Go to her web site http://www.barebonesbiz.com/index.html and sign up to download her e-book "Where Did the Money Go?"

Ellen is a great source of information and inspiration. Her goal: Worldwide business literacy! She wants you to make more money and have more fun. Couldn't have said it better myself, Ellen. Do something different!

A Really Scurvy Story About Change

Great ideas always spread rapidly, right? People see the obvious merits of a really good idea and change, don't they?

Let's look back in history at the treatment of scurvy in Britain's Royal Navy.

Oooo exciting.

On long sea voyages many years ago, scurvy killed more sailors than all other causes, including warfare and accidents. For example, 160 men sailed around the Cape of Good Hope with Vasco de Gama in 1497. 100 died of scurvy.

Captain James Lancaster conducted an experiment in 1601 to see if lemon juice could prevent scurvy. Captain Lancaster commanded 4 ships. He gave 3 teaspoons of lemon juice to the sailors on one ship. Most stayed healthy. The men on the other three ships, his control group in modern parlance, did not get the lemon juice. 110 of the 278 men on the ships that did not get the juice, died of scurvy.

Clear cut evidence, right?

So the British Navy immediately started to give lemon juice to its sailors, right?

Of course not.

In 1747, almost 150 years later, another experiment was conducted by James Lind a British Navy doctor. He found when sailors, stricken with scurvy, were given citrus fruits, the treatment cured them.

Wow! Surely the British Navy was overjoyed at this news and started supplying citrus fruits and juice to sailors on all its ships.

It did, in 1795... 48 years later!

And in 1865, a mere 70 more years, the British extended the policy to its merchant marines. Yay!

Why so long?

No one really knows. Maybe because even though Captain Lancaster was a captain, he wasn't as famous a Captain as Captain Cook, whose journals did not support a link between citrus and a reduction in scurvy. And maybe the the good Dr. Lind simply wasn't a prominent doctor who might have had the ear of some naval bigwig (and in those days bigwigs literally had...big wigs).

Whatever the reason, here's what you need to know:

Just because you have a good idea, just because it's proven to work does NOT mean your idea will be adopted.

You will have to work to get even the best idea accepted, let alone implemented. Knowing how to talk to those who can help, knowing how to rally people to your cause, these skills are as important as your idea.

Persistence and perseverance often trump brilliance.

Training Doesn't Work! Take two.

Training doesn't work in organizations either!

Did I just say that?

In organizations the problems aren't just with the motivation of person trained but with peers, managers, systems, procedures, processes, tools... Shall I go on?

Many problems need to be addressed before training can work in an organization. Most have to do with support after the training. Will there be anyone to encourage and coach you after you are trained?

Imagine a high school marching band trained like most organizational employees or volunteers are trained. There would be the training session, say, 1/2 or full day. Much of that day would be an overview of bands. In the interest of producing well rounded band members, each musician would get information on all the instruments. Near the end there would be a brief, usually hurried, role-play of a musical piece. Then everyone would be left on their own with no further practice as a group, rehearsal or coaching.

Imagine the result.

Every training session an organization schedules is an attempt to change that enterprise. Organizations need to get real and provide the support each learner will need after the training session is over.

Training Doesn't Work!

Yes, you heard right... I said, "Training Doesn't Work!"

Not even my training sessions...which are, of course, excellent. ;-)

UNLESS...

You do something AFTER the training session. You will not improve, you will not succeed, you will not do something different, unless you do what you need to do after the training session ends.

You must follow up with the next steps (and then the steps beyond), you must make different connections to find those role models, that coach, those heroes of change. You must discover those new stories that will support your change and help you do something different.

Training can help you with all that. And whoever is doing or sponsoring the training should provide you with the opportunity for support after your training. But, let's get real, nothing will happen unless...YOU take action.

Training is just the start. Training gives you some of the new tools you need. Good training may even give you the inspiration that triggers your motivation to change. But when the training ends it's up to you.

It's up to you to do the deep practice that makes real change, real improvement, real success (however you define that) possible.

After the training it's time for you to get real to make it real.

Training can give you ignition. Lift-off is up to you.

It's a Wonderful Life

These days I'm in rehearsals for a musical version of "It's a Wonderful Life".

The story of George Bailey touches many people and has a great deal to say for those interested in personal improvement and development, and for those who wish to make changes in their lives.

Too much focus is given to the rich and famous. George's story is about an ordinary person. He wishes to travel and is never able to. He sees friends like Sam Wainwright grow rich and move away. His own brother is a celebrated war hero. Yet, George is still in Bedford Falls running his family's Savings and Loan.

A crises dispirits George but then an epiphany helps him see he actually has a rich and wonderful life.

One must appreciate what one has even if striving for something more, something different. Use the gifts you have and work toward what you desire.

Halloween Creativity

Halloween brings out the creativity in people. Amazing is the only word to describe what some people come up with for costumes and decorations.

Do you suppose the organizations these folks work for, or volunteer for, tap into their creativity?

Most of the time the answer would be no.

People are motivated to work most successfully and intensely on undertakings they choose themselves. How many organizations authorize that?

The answer? The very best and most creative organizations.

It isn't just big-C creativity that suffers. Getting better at anything involves a certain amount of creativity. Let's call it little-c creativity.

Creativity is one component of improvement. You need coaching, support, and deep practice as well. How well does you organization support these practices? How well do you do them yourself?

Channel the spirit of Halloween. It's not so scary.

Do Something Different!