Monday, October 17, 2005

NAACM – Jackie Frieberg Keynote

Jackie Frieberg was wonderful! Her new book “Guts” just came out and she has a wonderful and refreshing grasp on customer interactions and “culture” in the workplace.

She kicked off with some sobering stats – none more sobering that the fact that 1 in 3 employees when asked is planning to leave within 2 years. Wow! She talked a lot about re-recruiting your employees and keeping them “actively engaged.”

Jackie’s perspective on culture was simple and profound – culture is not about stuff – benefits, causal days and free coffee – she pointed out that culture is simply about relationships that happen every minute of every day. Fixing “culture” is about fixing those relationships.

Other keys from Jackie’s keynote:

- Measuring satisfaction is passé – rather – you should be measuring engagement! Get emotionally and intellectually engaged – wake up!

- She talked about the need for employers and executives to create a remarkable work experience

- Silos – again – Jackie was simple in her interpretation. She asked the question – “who is THEY?” It’s US! It’s a collective, not a battle (my words)

- As a manager/exec take the time and effort to manage “your piece of society” – whether that’s 3 employees, or 3,000.

- The ordinary experience isn’t good enough. For example, if you run a fundraising event and you do everything right (doubtful) and your customers still have an ordinary experience – you lose. Yes, that means all those fundraising walks where even if the loudspeakers are loud enough and the weather holds out just don’t cut the mustard anymore.

So I had to ask myself, what does this mean and how can start creating unique customer experiences… I’m seriously considering and trying to figure out a way for me and my entire team to experience what it’s like to have Leukemia, Lymphoma or Myeloma. We can’t possibly understand what our customers are going through – but we need to try. When we FEEL and EXPERIENCE that, we’ll know how to create a proper event, ask, web site, etc…

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