The problem of service is not as much performance as attitude. Those with the right attitude do not always get things right. Mistakes are inevitable. They are recognised by anyone who has had experience of teaching, parenting or mentoring as essential functions of learning.

No mistakes equals no progress, as we all know. However, the mistakes do have to lead to learning. Just repeating them over and over again is clearly not a great idea.

Why then do mistakes get repeated so often? The answer is simple. The underlying attitude to solving them is wrong, sometimes non-existent. Let me give you an example. Yesterday I wrote about poor service in a restaurant. I was actually quite mild, saying mostly nice things about the restaurant. My guest who had witnessed the event said she thought I was excessively kind.

As a matter of courtesy I decided to send the owner of the restaurant a copy of what I was planning to say. It was not my intention to change it but I thought it polite to give him a preview. I sought the owner’s email address. They told me it was too secret to divulge. If I sent them the article from the Daily Paradox they would consider passing it on to the owner. Hang on, I am the customer! I cannot be in direct touch with the owner? It confirms the very worst fears I had about the organisation.

So here we have it. A story going public about poor service in a top quality restaurant. The owner too private or too important to be told – at least directly – about it before the story breaks. So how can the restaurant staff begin recovery if they are not even allowed to divulge the email address of the owner? The sequence of events says it all. Mistake; no authority to put it right immediately; forced, reluctantly, to put it right; no access to the boss to give him or her a chance to respond or even advise the manager what to do. The whole episode is about attitude.

Refer to yesterday’s Daily Paradox again. Staff in the Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai trained to handle good customer relations. They are not taught the rules, they are taught the attitude. More rules, more system, more measures won’t change attitudes, they only harden them. What changes attitudes is focus on care. If you don’t really care it shows.

Always.

I recently dined at The White Rabbit in Dempsey – one of Singapore’s smarter, more chic restaurants. The ambience is good – everyone likes to eat in an old church. The food is high quality – haute cuisine – as are the prices. I’ve always had a good meal at The White Rabbit. Until the other day.

On arrival my guest and I were asked if we would like a drink. She opted for a cocktail. I chose a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. “Sorry, Sir, no Sauvignon Blanc by the glass, only Chardonnay.” Actually I don’t care for Chardonnay. It’s not a life-threatening issue; I just don’t like it.

My further request for a glass of Sauvignon Blanc was met with a stubborn “Not available”. I asked to speak to the boss. “Which one do you want?” I was asked, “I have fourteen bosses”. “Any one of them will do,” I replied, politely. A fair bit of to-ing-and-fro-ing while we tried to establish a suitable boss to contact. Long pause. Eventually the head waiter returned with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc which he proceeded to open for me announcing that he was doing so in order that I could have a glass.

Success – at last? Well, partial success. But I don’t really want to spend the first twenty minutes of an evening with a friend fighting with the Maître D. Do you?

Meanwhile my Singaporean wife was working in Mumbai, staying at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Eliza likes a cup of Masala Tea. It seems to do for her what a glass of Sauvignon Blanc does for me. She drank several during her week there. When it came time for her to leave they gave her a box of Masala Tea and said it was with their good wishes. I’d call that quite Emotionally Intelligent. They had observed and made a note of her preference for the tea and took the initiative to present her with a complimentary box. The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel Leadership is to be congratulated with enabling staff to delight customers.

The waiter in the Japanese restaurant presented her with a complimentary bottle of Perrier when she completed her meal there. As a result of these unsolicited gestures, she has spread the word on the Hotel’s legendary service.

If my Sauvignon Blanc episode was a one-off I’d put it down to a Wet Wednesday or a Troublesome Thursday. Sadly, it isn’t. Rigid rules, inflexible service, uncompromising attitudes, stupid systems are becoming a way of life in a society in which I have lived and which I have loved for 35 years. Two things are increasingly missing – thought and personal responsibility. A society that loses those loses its identity and its soul.

Do I know why this is happening? Oh, I think so. It’s what Mentors see all the time. Thank heavens enough other people see it, too. Enough to begin to make a difference.

So between The White Rabbit and the Taj which do you think is getting the best PR? And which will be getting the repeat business? Doesn’t take Einstein to answer that, does it?

I find it desperately sad.

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Some of my best friends are statistics. I couldn’t ‘do-it-myself’ without measure. A timeless flight schedule doesn’t bear thinking about though it must be admitted there are airlines that seem to have adopted one already. Every day our orderly lives are made more efficient, more comfortable and actually longer by the ability to reduce much of them to statistics. We are all grateful for that.

Some things cannot be reduced to figures – or if they are they become meaningless and boring. A symphony by Mozart is a number of notes in a number of bars over a period of time. None of these statistics gives a clue about the beauty of the music. At one point in Mozart’s career his enemies persuaded the Emperor of Austria to criticise a piece by saying “Too many notes, Mozart”. The Emperor became the laughing stock, not the composer.

Knowing about the people who work for you is one area where the statistics conceal more than they reveal. Your employees are not payroll numbers or categories in a balanced workforce matrix. They are individuals with all the enchantment and pain that implies. Have you seen the programmes in the Undercover Boss series? If not, please try to do so.

They are excellent examples of management. As the title suggests the boss disguises himself or herself and goes into the workforce anonymously, doing the same basic but vital jobs as their employees. The people working at the bottom of the managerial ladder are often lonely, feel ignored and have nobody to whom they can express their thoughts – even when those are valuable feedback for the company. The undercover boss hears some things he may not like but also some he will be able to act upon.

How does he do this? Is his ‘undercover’ a series of questions with statistical answers? Absolutely not. He sits in the canteen, listens to the complaints and the suggestions of those of his workforce that he meets. He becomes part of the organisation in a way he cannot while he is recognised as boss. He ‘feels’ the culture of the organisation. He ‘feels’ the mood of the people in it.

Look at his sessions with the managers after he completes his undercover work. Do they seem to get what he is saying.? Sadly, no. They are mostly defensive about his intrusion (as they see it) into their management areas. But the move has been made. There is no going back. From now on the shop floor knows it has a link with the CEO’s office.

Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998) put it perfectly: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

It’s not touchy-feely. It’s touchy-toughie. We should all do it.

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Star Guests outstanding contributions

Our Drink & Think Soiree on 16^th May had again been forecast to be a huge success. Wow! WOW!

Nobody could have anticipated the true Depth of the Discussion or the Fun of the Furore. All agreed – a “winning combination” of our two Star Guests, Glen Goei (left) and Ivan Heng (right). Combined with the so generous gesture of holding it in Glen & Tommy’s home in Goodwood Hill and the outstanding quality of Cornerstone wines so graciously supplied by Clinton Ang, the anticipated success was achieved beyond our wildest dreams. Bless you all.

A big THANK YOU to everyone involved including Terrific Mentors Sandy Oh, Bob Gattie, Renyung Ho, Carlo van den Akker, Tan Chi Chiu who attended and helped – and to our “Shaftesbury Avenue” Terrific Mentor in London, John Faulkner, who sent a much applauded message of love and goodwill for the occasion.

All our Terrific Mentors unable to attend in person were there in spirit.

Drink & Think would be nothing without the most important ingredient of all, the participants, our guests. Many had asked to come but we had, sadly, to limit our numbers. As it was we had nearly twice the number we normally expect – we try to keep it to about thirty-five to make for good discussion, the purpose of the two-hour event. And discussion raged to and fro. Chatham House Rules prevent identifying individual contributions but with a topic like “Culture is the soul of a country” there was never a shortage of hands in the air.

From exotic expression to fluctuating funding, from an audience’s hopes to an introduction to acting for the young, thoughts were generously shared, ideas were freely given, gratitude and love for the work of Wild Rice’s outstanding performers was plentifully evident all round.
‘Bums on seats’ is what pays for theatre; ‘Brains on fire’ is what theatre gives back. A nation emerging from the equivalent of its teenage years into a precarious world needs theatre and the other arts to play a vital role.

All the world, most certainly, is a stage. We, for sure, are the players.

Two themes are emerging from the joy and enthusiasm of Drink & Think. Thinking needs fun creativity to make it meaningful. Our D&T Soirees generate lots of laughter. Out of the smiles comes the serious question ‘What is the point (of whatever the topic)?’ George Bernard Shaw said “When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth”. Drink & Think Soirees will continue to be funny. The search for the hidden truth shall proceed unabated.

Our next Soiree will be in eight weeks’ time. British High Commission Antony Phillipson has agreed to be our Star Guest. Watch for a controversial, challenging topic. And lots of fun.
Let the ship of Drink and Think sail where the winds take her.

Her home port is always with Terrific Mentors.

“…the play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King”
Hamlet

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Risk management is a hot topic at any time, even more so today in the wake of the financial crisis and the mortgage debacle. Data to signal problems ahead of when they become critical are worked on, summarised, reported, given alert chops and batted around the email inboxes of everyone from management to office boy.

Mortgages going pear-shaped in USA produced a well-known phenomenon – denial. Freddie and Fanny were the tragic result.

Whatever the mechanical warning system it will fail if there is not an equally robust cultural belief that warning data by itself is not enough. We all know the person who paid no attention to the persistent cough or the doctor’s warning about lifestyle. The data for risk and result are there. The ostrich tendency to bury our head in the sand to avoid seeing the obvious is not overcome by alarm bells. In fact, they merely reinforce it. When you were last in a building where the fire alarm started to sound did you rush to an exit? On the contrary, you reassured those around you that it was always happening and merely a false alarm.

The rule is simple. Even enforcing it is not difficult. It is “No surprises”, not even good ones. We all love to hear good news. A nice surprise is built into our system as a bonus, something to lighten our day. Good organisations reject this view. Instead of rewarding surprises they reward good forecasting. We hear many clients say they are not good at forecasting. These same people will spend hours on the golf course perfecting their stroke. Do they not realise that they are forecasting even there?

Anyone who enjoys a punt on the horses, a poker hand or just a flutter on the stock exchange is forecasting for fun. The same energy and thought can be used for business forecasting – and to much greater purpose. Moreover, just as a golf swing can improve with practice so too can forecasting. How is it that for all the assembled brilliance in board rooms and around the tables of top civil servants not one is taking personal bets on the outcome of this or that decision? And yet the organisation – or even the country – needs to know whose forecasts to back, whose projections come true.

Do not reward surprises, reward good forecasting. Set up games to find out who consistently forecasts well. Reward their good forecasting not their smart selling. Punish surprises. It’s a hard game of life but it is unreservedly rewarding.

It sorts the players from the fiddlers.

Lately there has been a debate around ‘value education’ among educators in Singapore. We realize there is a gap in the character building aspect of our structured systems, and that the burden of achieving results may erode the principles we use to get there in the first place. At what cost do we continue to excel?

In a recent forum on values education at an elite college, presided over by one Minister, two Principals, numerous Professors, many Teachers, a handful of concerned Parents and a gaggle of Students, our Minister ended his dialogue with passionate exhortation to students. He asked how many would sacrifice personal ambitions to enable others to achieve their own dreams. In a hall of more than a hundred one person raised his hand.

The first question was from a concerned parent whose child’s moral education classes were being replaced by remedial for the more concrete lessons of math and science. The message: morality is essentially a luxury. In a meritocratic, increasingly unequal society, the stakes are higher on exam results that foretell the future in numbers. A student asked what if society shortchanges you for your values; how to negotiate the tension between differing family values and social ones. A teenager asked why schools were not doing more in organizing value-based experiential learning (another keyword to watch). One professor wondered if Singapore could evolve to accept multiple value systems, with respect and tolerance becoming our foundational social themes.

It became clear that the issues were not so much about whether children were adopting the right values, but to whom the responsibility for prescribing them should fall. Are we lacking a mechanism to create values in the first place? Parents blame schools, schools blame the ministry, the ministry blames society and society members blame each other.

Clearly, the top-down approach of prescribing nation-building values is no longer relevant to the next generation. The most useful way to think about values is first to acknowledge that their creation and evolution is an ongoing process within an individual’s life, and second to use them as tools for decision making – more like a compass than a plaque hanging over our heads. Values are our priorities to enable us to act within the grey lines of life.

Our values do not happen in a moment or on coming of age. Rather, it is through a lifetime of instruction, experience, and reflection, usually in that order. When young, instruction forms a lasting impression of right and wrong; every parent knows children need to have boundaries. As we grow and build our own varied experiences, we filter and identify the common factors the reason for our decisions. Through experience we learn consequence. With reflection, we develop the rationale of our choices, which grow to conviction and become guiding principles for our future decisions.

The best that we can do for our children is to open a dialogue, helping individuals to make their own decisions by doing what mentors do best – ask the right questions without providing what they think is the right answer. Parents, schools, ministers and mentors must ask questions of themselves as well as of others. Only thus will they become comfortable enough to learn.

When Teacher becomes Pupil the world will be heading in the right direction.

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Authors writing about the future of the world usually have to make a stand on the world’s direction. Will the world be a better or worse place?

Kishore Mahbubani’s latest work ‘The Great Convergence’ is one such book. He has chosen to look at the world half-full, citing data and personal experiences to argue that the rising global middle class is forcing a convergence of norms, interests and values. In the current spate of new books, he is not the sole optimist. From Steven Pinker to Eric Schmidt, they are positing an optimistic outlook for humanity using data and experience from their fields and afar.

Are they correct? Truth is ‘Who knows?’. Galbraith liked to say “There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.” In making grand social, economic, political theories and forecasts, we have to be so acutely aware of the biases and weaknesses we suffer from. There are limits to our knowledge, things we do not observe, the unseen, unknown and unpredictable. Small unknown variations in data have huge impact on its findings (as witnessed by the current furor over mistakes found in economists Rogoff and Reinhart’s theory of relationship between government debt and growth which was extensively used by governments to support austerity measures).

In the folly of forecasting, various cognitive biases are at play. We tend to focus on aspects of the past that conform to our views, and generalize from these to the future. Our confirmation bias makes us look for data and information that corroborates our views. This happens at grand scheme levels as well as day to day decisions. We pick data and anecdotal evidence that present the narrative we believe in and want others to hear.

Another bias we suffer from is survivorship bias. Theories and models based on empirical data fail to consider events that did not take place but could have done so. We don’t know the alternatives that did not survive. Such bias can lead to overly optimistic conclusions because failures are ignored.

Our world is increasingly interconnected and complex. Nothing is more certain than uncertainty. The biggest harm we can do to ourselves is to lull ourselves into a false sense of security that we are marching towards a better world with certainty. In this state, we are not prepared for ‘Black Swan’ events. The great convergence just could become the great illusion.

Like the optimist writers, Terrific Mentors are optimists too. We have seen how it is possible for people to change their behaviour for the better. Maybe having that optimistic belief, with all its attendant biases, is the prerequisite to making the world a better place.

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Our lives are stolen for many reasons and by multiple thieves. Dysfunctional upbringing, deceitful lovers, unreliable business partners, unforeseen accident and sickness. All add up to a significant part of everyone’s life being taken away, sometimes when it is critical to get on with it, sometimes when it is merely difficult to do so.

Minimising theft of your most precious gift is not part of the curriculum of school or home. One wonders why.

Often none of the above is the worst cause of lost time. We steal our own time by procrastination. Defined as “To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness” such words do not make clear the damage the habit causes. Better Edward Young’s description: “Procrastination is the thief of time”. Why do we admit such a thief into our parlour? Why do we help this scavenger deprive us so badly?

The easy answer is laziness. It is not the correct one. Tempting as it is to castigate the procrastinator as idle, doing so neither correctly diagnoses nor effectively cures the condition. Something deeper is at work, something we must fathom out and sooth away with balm and ointment if we are to cure it. Our biggest tool is patience; our greatest weapon, perseverance. Used for many emotionally crippling conditions, these two facilities are prerequisite to a lasting cure. Here’s why.

Inability to get on with life arises from fear of failure. Scared that any move we make will be ridiculed, will demonstrate our lack of intellect or judgment, we prefer to hide from life’s constant call to decision. If we do nothing it will be difficult to criticise us for doing wrong. What a sad – and mistaken – thought that is. Yet it is the cause of procrastination, the foundation of management hierarchies, the creator of the committee culture so beloved of the insecure.

Courage does not come easily to us. We see it as sticking our neck out, taking risks that are foolish, placing ourselves, and maybe others, in jeopardy. I mentored a young Personal Client who had failed his school exams, seemed lost in deciding on a career, was a bit too comfortable in his parent’s home, saw no reason to GOWI*. He didn’t understand the Nudge and he resisted the Shove. Then one day he read about the stock market. For all his failed exams he was very bright and completely numerate. He is now one of the richest of our Personal Clients.

Foolhardy Frivolities are not what we recommend but a Culture of Courage is how you annihilate the Predator of Procrastination. Sooner or later the Fear of Failure is erased by the Triumph of Trying.

*GOWI: Get On With It.

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The “call to action” we are taught as the epitome of good selling is taking over the human race. Sitting through a concert of beautiful music played by one of the world’s great symphony orchestras I was repeatedly distracted by a lady in front of me who seemed to be in need of frequent and extensive refurbishment.

Her handsome Givenchy handbag’s robust zip-closure was in non-stop use as she delved within for aids to skin softening, lip glossing, hair straightening – or was it curling? – and nail extending. By the end of the second movement I was a fully-fledged beautician.

A row further in front of her was a younger person who seemed seriously deprived of love. Her parents were assailed for tactile reassurance musical bar by musical bar. Crescendos presaged dog-like demands for attention while glissandi led to almost Israeli-like attack. And there you have it. Her parents put up with the whole performance – if you’ll pardon the expression – presumably because the alternative of modest discipline was too wearing for them or had, on previous occasions, proved unsuccessful.

Action is good. At least half the world’s population puts up with a poor quality of life because it is lazy. Some effort on the part of those whose bottoms are sat on more than their legs are exercised would transform indolence into positive zest for living, would convert a dreamed-of purpose into a rewarding achievement. But what then? How to appreciate the fruits of labours? How to reward the smile of success? The runner who passes the tape first wants to see his name on the trophy board.

We do not all win and certainly not all the time. When we do we need modestly to savour the moment of applause. That is only possible when we have learnt how to enjoy and discovered a state of satisfaction for which we are ill-prepared by our upbringing. A pupil seen leaning on a gate to admire the sunset would as likely receive a reprimand as a pat on the back. Yet s/he is learning the most important lesson – gratitude for what we receive.

Such appreciation requires a quiet of the soul, an ability to relax and see, a yawn at the rapacious demands of life, a determined resistance to the call for action. If there is a God I am sure that his most important injunction to us is “Be still, and know that I am God”. Only in that silence, now so difficult to find can, we get a glimpse of what eternity might be. Only when our restless search is over shall we know the secrets of peace.

Meanwhile we should follow W H Davies’ advice. The last verse of his poem on leisure says:

A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

Key Questions: Is high cost work being done by consultants worth the prices paid for it? Can customers use it? Does it improve business performance?

Key Thoughts: Consultants sell what they have, not always what the customer needs. Diagnosis is more important than selling.

Many years ago I worked for a food business that got into partnership with du Pont, a company ten times the size of my employer. I led teams of scientists, including members of both companies, to many distant, sometimes dangerous, parts of the world. I observed that du Pont always devoted about four times the number of people and about twice the amount of time to making a decision than we could afford. Was their decision making better?

Make no mistake, I had great admiration for du Pont and spent many happy, thoughtful days in Wilmington, Delaware. They were, and are, a great company. My answer to the question, being as objective as I can in the circumstances, is that their decisions were generally about 25% better than ours. The question, however, is ‘were those somewhat better decisions about things that mattered or about trivia?’ My answer – they were about both.

Looking through some of the materials provided by big consultants I am astonished by how mixed they are when you consider them under the headings of Information, Guidance, Thought-provoking. They are very research-based and information-based. References to other people’s work abound. Hyperlinks take you down a trail from woe to go and back. For all that, they score high on Information. Guidance comes in a rather lame second best.

Exhortation never impressed me. I sat through a lot of it in church when young. My main impression was that it was for us (the kids) not for them (the cigarette-smoking, wine-imbibing and sometimes rather nasty-habit adults). Tolerance is not a youthful virtue. Telling people to be good or better is the consultants equivalent of apple-pie and motherhood. There is a lot of it.

The problem starts in earnest when you get to the Though-provoking view of consultants offerings. It is usually so poor that I describe it as thought-supressing, not thought-provoking. Why is this? Consultants employ some of the brightest, cleverest and most highly-qualified people in the management spectrum. How do they fail to stimulate?

Customers are nearly always at the root of poor product or service. Horsemeat burgers are the result of price pressure, not butchers’ conspiracy. Customers want to buy packets, as any supermarket owner will tell you. Packages of programmes are neat, clearly priced, have well-defined claims of achievement and sport a serial number for easy ordering. If all else fails, you can weigh the materials to provide evidence of efficacy. Suits HR.

Their disadvantage is that being off the peg they do not fit anyone perfectly. Diagnosis becomes a game of fitting the problem to the solution, not the solution to the problem. They should try the discipline of 500 words.

Then every word counts. As it should.