InnovationCompass

The Power of Empathic Listening

Everyone knows how important listening is -- but how many of us really listen with empathy? Listen with joy? Completely focus on what the other person is saying without your mind crawl interrupting?

Let me share with you a quick story about the power of empathic listening.

I founded the Literacy Council of Highlands in 1993. One of our first orders of business was to recruit tutors to work with children who were struggling in school. Luckily, I live in a community with a huge population of retired professionals, so we had an enormous pool of volunteer talent.

Time and again, volunteers would be sheepish about tutoring. They did not feel qualified. I always asked them: are you compassionate and passionate? If yes, you are qualified! I told them that I could teach them everything they needed to know about tutoring if they were first both compassionate and passionate about being of service.

What we found was that the magic of our one-on-one tutoring was not in the tutoring talent of the volunteers (even though their talent was truly significant). The magic was in the volunteer listening to the student. Focusing on the student with 100% of their attention. Being there for the student.

In fact, during that time we learned that a study had shown that the average child enjoyed no more than approximately 20 minutes a day of real listening from their parents. 20 minutes! And we were giving those children an entire hour of delicious, uninterrupted attention.

We tutored children with learning disabilities, children with different learning styles, and children from dysfunctional families. Every child we ever worked with improved. EVERY ONE. That is the power of listening.

In your role as an entrepreneur, you have many opportunities to tune in and listen to your customers.

Meet your clients where they are. By that, I suggest that you take some time when you first talk with a prospective client to determine exactly where they are emotionally, intellectually, and even spiritually. What are their expressed and unexpressed needs? What is it that they want to have happen? How, specifically, can you be of real service to them?

Let your clients and your market tell you where the pain is for them. If you listen -- really listen -- your clients (and you) will experience a true transformation.

Out of Time

Time is a critical part of customer service.

More than likely, your customer doesn't have nearly enough time to do all the things he or she wants to do -- including purchasing your service or product!

Knowing this, how can your organization save your customers' precious time? What can you do long before your customer decides to contact you to make his journey a smooth and time-efficient one?

First, look at the hoops a prospective customer has to jump through to find your organization. If you are a retail store, restaurant, inn, realtor, or nonprofit, how do customers learn about what you offer and why you are unique?

Are you well positioned on Internet search engines with your website optimized for popular keyword searches? When a customer surfs your site, can she easily find what she is looking for? Is she compelled to stay on your site and make contact with you for an appointment, reservation, or purchase?

Once your customer visits your business or nonprofit, how easy is it for him to purchase from you? Think about all the steps along the point of sale process. Find all the places where there are "hot spots" which waste a customer's time or confuse him.

Acknowledge how busy your customer is and turn those "hot spots" into positive experiences. Would your customer find it helpful for you to hold her purchases until after lunch? Does she need dinner reservations or directions to the best fishing lake?

If your customer wants to look at property all day with his three young children, do you have a box filled with fun games and activities for the kids? Have you planned the day's itinerary down to the minute so that not one precious second is wasted?

Treat your customer's time like it is your own. Guard it, protect it, and try to find ways to make more of it by providing compelling experiences at each opportunity.

The Road to Innovation

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three months to write. [It] was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

--  Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

When I first read Anne Lamott's book, it was through the lens of a struggling writer trying to glean any and all tips on how to tempt the muse to visit on a regular basis. Bird by Bird was both warm and funny. Uplifting and pragmatic. I loved it.

I retrieved Bird by Bird from my office bookshelf the other day and became entranced all over again.

Now, however, I am reading the book through a different lens -- that of an entrepreneur. And I am finding Lamott's advice as welcome and encouraging as it was many years ago.

I have been working with a client who is launching a new venture. He is a delightful, bright, and energetic fellow with a passion for bringing his dreams to life.

Today, he emailed me and confessed he was overwhelmed with ideas. His brain was ablaze with so many ideas, in fact, that he found himself paralyzed and without direction.

What to do first? Second?

I enjoyed responding to his email. I was reminded of the importance of trusting one's instincts and continuing to put one foot in front of the other. And yes, many times the path will be dark or the mountain will appear as if it is impossible to climb.

The road to bringing innovation into your firm's culture, to doing things a new way, and to thinking about things differently is, by definition, well, difficult. As it turns out, we tend not to be big fans of change, and sacrifice turns out to be a rather necessary ingredient in the effort to innovate.

But there is hope. We can recommit to the effort each and every day. Each day, we'll find ourselves further along the path and with more company than before.

And when we seek to bring innovation, bright ideas, and new ways of working into our organizations and, therefore, into our own and our customers' lives, it is important to remember Anne Lamott's wonderful advice: "Just take it bird by bird."

Experience Maps

Every for-profit and non-profit entity would love to have a treasure map showing them where to find the most profitable and loyal customers and/or donors.

This treasure map would also point CEOs and Board Chairs in the right direction as they design the ultimate experiences and services for customers. Leaders of organizations and firms would have uncanny insight into what their customers want as well as key knowledge on how to provide it.

Sound like an impossible dream?

At the 12th Annual Innovation Convergence, Ben Jacobson of Conifer Research in Chicago hosted an innovation lab on how an Experience Map can be your organization's treasure map. Experience Maps can be the precise tool you need to identify innovation and design opportunities as well as to pinpoint un-articulated customer needs.

What is an Experience Map?

Here is Conifer Research's definition: "An Experience Map is a model of how people experience a product, service, environment, or computer system. Like a good highway map, it organizes and abstracts complex reality to focus us on the important bits."

The core of making an Experience Map comprises three elements: defining which experience you want to map, documenting (through videos, photos, samples, etc.) your observations and conversations in real time, and digging through the information you collected to find treasure (What seems to be working well? What seems to be missing? Where are customers' needs neglected?).

Ben Jacobson suggested that you arrange your data into 5 areas on your map: Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, and Extend. Assign metaphors to each experience stage and explore the relationship of your metaphors to your brand. Fix problem areas, fill in gaps, and build on bright spots. Finally, create a plan and share it with key stakeholders.

What jewels are hiding in the experiences of your customers? Employ Experience Maps in your organization and design around your customers' needs. You'll find that once you do, your own treasure chest will be within reach.

Business Success through Storytelling

"When placed in an outstretched hand, this stone symbolizes that something important is about to be shared. This is good news for business, for if we listen, the gifts within the stories will be ours. The premise behind the storytelling stone is that whoever holds the stone, their voice will be heard."

   -- BJ McCabe, President, Idein Rise, Inc.

During the conference kickoff for the 12th Annual Innovation Convergence, BJ McCabe treated us to a session on storytelling.

We learned the history and power of storytelling and that our charge is to liberate the stories in our own companies. Stories of ordinary people accomplishing the extraordinary inspire others to dig deep down and find the energy and passion to do the same. 

Using traditional Sufi stories as a creative teaching tool, each of us read and shared our stories with those seated at our table. Some made the stories completely their own and stood in front of the group and shared on a larger scale. As if by magic, whether communicating with 5 or 500, an immediate intimacy forms when we tell stories.

BJ McCabe left us with this: "We live our lives by the stories we tell ourselves and tell others. Change the story and life changes."

What stories are you telling to yourself, your team, and your customers? Look for common themes. Do you need to redefine your organization's culture?

If so, decide your future and change your story. Shape a new vision and begin the transformation through stories.

Seeing the World with New Eyes

"When a diverse team (product development, marketing, consumer insights) goes out together into the customer's real world, what they see and hear acts as a powerful springboard and catalyst for their own creative thinking and dialogue. Innovation -- both the insights and the commitment necessary to implement them -- comes from this team-based approach. Customer understanding is everyone's business."

         -- Barbara Perry, PhD (Founder and President, Barbara Perry Associates)

At the 12th Annual Innovation Convergence Event, Dr. Perry shared her ethnographic methods for sparking innovation as well as her 30 years experience consulting to Fortune 500 companies. Her workshop comprised three phases:  getting ready work, the fieldwork experience, and making meaning.

Dr. Perry asserted that via team-based ethnography, companies may experience a "creative leap." Once stories and observations (from fieldwork) are recorded and shared meaning is discussed, an opportunity for discovering actionable insights comes to the fore.

We often only see the "tip of the iceberg" or tangible artifacts, rather than underlying assumptions and un-articulated customer needs. In order to tap the large base of the iceberg below the surface, we must understand what drives a customer's behavior. We obtain those critical insights through listening to and sharing their stories in the context of their lives and beliefs (not through our assumptions or lenses).

This "soft" data helps us formulate predictive or forward thinking.

And, it is here where you may be awarded with the greatest of all gifts -- a glimpse into your customers' world that surprises you and awakens you to new opportunities for developing products and services.

Spend time living in your customers' shoes. Explore where their experiences could be improved or changed completely. Observe where the gaps are currently.

Their values and needs hold the key to your understanding and ability to see what is next.

Conference Magic

I attended the 12th annual gathering of innovation practitioners at InnovationConvergence in La Jolla this past week. As the promotional material for the conference promised, attendees were delighted by presentations from dynamic innovation gurus, rich networking opportunities, and the beauty of the La Jolla coastline.

Over the course of the next few days, I will write separate posts detailing the three workshops that inspired me the most: Barbara Perry's Inspiring Innovation Through Team Ethnography, BJ McCabe's Innovation Stories, and Ben Jacobson's Consumer Experience lab. Interestingly, each shares the power of stories as the driver of innovation.

For now, I'd like to talk about the essence of conference magic:  new friendships.

I was fortunate in being able to share dinners and walks on the beach with new friends who graciously told me their stories, their hopes, and their passions. As I listened, I found simple, tangible beauty, not unlike the lovely, smooth stones that dotted the California shore.

When we engage with each other in an honest and vulnerable way, something happens to us that transcends the here and now. We travel to another place that is at once quiet and teeming with thoughts and emotions. When the conversation ends, we return to where we began, but with completely new eyes.

I realized that creating an opportunity for such an experience is the very charge of all enterprises.

Whether your venture or nonprofit organization is marketing products or services, fostering an authentic conversation among your customers is truly where the magic happens.

Mindmapping with Mindmanager

For those of us who tend to work and think predominantly with our left brain, it is important to ramp up right brain time – especially when we are brainstorming and nurturing innovative projects.

Mindmapping is a fun and productive way to tap the strengths of your right brain and capture dynamic ideas on paper. By working in a non-linear way, you’ll find that mindmapping is an essential tool for all kinds of thinking activities (including everything from meeting agenda creation to project planning).

So how does mindmapping work? How do you mindmap?

Joyce Wycoff, Co-Founder of InnovationNetwork and author of Mindmapping: Your Personal Guide to Exploring Creativity and Problem-Solving, has written a concise (yet thorough) article entitled Mindmapping in 8 Easy Steps.

While mindmapping with paper and color markers is fun and productive, you might find Mindjet’s mindmapping software, MindManager, to be a great idea facilitator. In particular, this easy-to-use software helps you get the ideas down so that you may begin the process of building associations and linkages among those ideas (thereby strengthening them and further clarifying your thinking).

Once something is in ink, one tends to hesitate to cross out and redraw. MindManager lets you drag main topics and sub topics to new locales on the map with the greatest of ease. Plus, you can add URL links, PDFs, spreadsheets, and databases to your map, enabling it to completely house your project at one central place.

Rev up your right brain and watch your innovative ideas and productivity soar!

Creating an Innovative Culture

"The day you stop learning is the day you cease to be valuable in an innovative culture."

                                -- Jeff Immelt, Chairman/CEO of GE

Nobody ever got it wrong because they were too passionate, they cared too much, or were too interested.

Aren't we always attracted to people and organizations with sparkling enthusiasm for everything they do? Don't we find their energy and zeal for learning and communicating ideas to be intoxicating?

And don't we feel an adrenaline rush when we are in the pursuit of new ways of thinking? Isn’t it fun (and profitable) to find new ways of understanding what our customers want now as well as those things they don't know they want yet?

We are learning. We are accruing vast amounts of empathy for our customers. That learning and empathy translates into new experiences (compelling experiences!) for our customers.

If the “keeper of the vision” in your organization believes in and promotes the lifelong pursuit of learning (both for the individual and the organization), that core value will most likely become a part of the organization’s culture.

Without it, innovation doesn’t stand a chance.

In an innovative culture, no one stops learning. No one pulls the old play book off the shelf and dusts it off for the new game. No one mindlessly follows the current way of solving problems “because that’s the way it has always been done.”

And no one believes that doing an “okay” job suffices.

Changing Your Players' Positions

Look at any well-coached team.

Each player has been tapped to fill a certain position according to his or her ability. Once the sweet spot is found for an athlete, the coach keeps the player there and continues to help him or her build and refine skills.

The player and the position tend to blend together. Soon, it is difficult to separate the two or think of a player in any other place on the court or field.

This certainly seems like a winning strategy: a coach places his or her players in positions with skill requirements that coincide with the athletes' strengths.

But what happens when your star shooter is benched due to an injury or illness?

How much back-up talent is trained and able to step right in and play on?

Doesn't cementing your players' positions leave you uniquely vulnerable when life happens?

Consider your employees and the positions they currently fill.

Are you actively cross-training your team so that they can step in for a fallen comrade if needed? Does the fellow taking the order have experience in the kitchen (and vice versa)?

Look at your call center. Does anyone answering the telephone have experience behind the counter actually selling the product? Have they ever seen the product? Have they ever experienced the company's service first hand?

Has the chair of your nonprofit board ever spent a day in the shoes of the executive director? Could the board chair effectively fill in temporarily for the ED if something ever happened?

Do your engineers ever hang out with the folks in the shipping department? Does your marketing team ever sit in on a brainstorming session with the engineers?

Yes, it is important to position your team according to their passions and abilities. But changing things up on a regular basis would give each player a unique perspective into someone else's world, and, therefore, his or her own.

Your organization's ability to provide compelling customer experience ratchets up as well.

And the entrepreneurial team or board of directors won't find itself at DEFCON 1 if life intervenes, and a much relied upon employee decides to move on.