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What do you mean, “last minute gifts?”

December 19, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Don’t you just hate it when the ads start appearing that refer to “last minute gifts,” yet your holiday shopping has barely begun?

Maybe this will finally be the year of the one-envelope-in-the-tree-per-person solution, a gift that can fund a post-holiday shopping excursion…with no returns…or contribute to big, multiple-holiday-gift goals.

But that envelope-in-the-tree solution would meet just one or two gift-giving goals: efficiency and reducing the “rework” of returning gifts that missed their mark.

The envelope-in-the-tree solution takes away all the mystery and magic of packages, wrapped and waiting. It also strips away the fun of the puzzle part of the holidays: wondering if all the gift givers guessed right, and the surprises you’ve given are good ones (I brought my daughter to tears on her birthday once…and they were NOT tears of the right kind. Who knew a pink yoga mat could make someone cry? Perhaps I should have known. It was a gift from the heart, and I figure she’ll be back for a pink yoga mat when, for her, the time is right).

It is about time, with “last minute gift” ads the aggravator, to get myself in the gift-giving “game frame of mind,” to muster up the courage, and take on the malls of December yet another time.

Best wishes for meeting all your gift-giving goals this December, as well (and I hope that your shopping is much farther along than mine!).

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Knowledge Management, Process Management

“You can do ANYTHING…”

December 18, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Talking with a biotech client who has become a good friend over the past few years, we lamented the fact that it’s sometimes hard to choose just a few things to do, to focus on, from among the many things we find interesting in work and life.

It gets down to the fact that we can do almost anything we put our minds to – we just can’t do everything. You surely know the feeling, as well.

I shared that thought recently with the CEO of a young start-up firm going for its second round of funding. She laughed in recognition, and added that she’s also learned another lesson that was not easily won. And that lesson?

Sometimes “good enough” IS good…enough.

It’s a lesson that’s especially good to remember during these busy, busy days at the end of the year. And along those lines, here’s a quote that’s relevant, as well, as the December holidays catch all of us, in some way, in their spell:

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang

Filed Under: People at Work, Process Management

I won’t have what he’s having

December 11, 2007 By Leave a Comment


He’s already had his fill of the holidays
Originally uploaded by jcgr.

Hopefully your holiday season – whatever it is, and however you celebrate – is going better than some are, already, by this time!

Filed Under: Images, People at Work

Customer service at its best

December 3, 2007 By Leave a Comment

My faith in heartfelt customer service was restored tonight.

By an eight-year-old girl.

It was not her job, of course, but it was definitely in her heart.

I’d stopped by a store to get a ten pound bag of sugar for biscotti I’m making. The store’s inventory layout had changed and all the obvious signs or cues I tried to use were…not…obvious (by design? Perhaps. Sometimes it is a retailer’s strategy to create confusion in pursuit of more spontaneous purchases. The result, though, is that it drives some customers to stores that are easier to use).

Seeing no clerks, I spied a woman with multiple kids in tow who looked like she might know…it was worth a try.

“Maybe…over…there?” she suggested, seeing the coffees, teas and sweeteners.

Her daughter, challenged by the puzzle I was trying to solve, jumped to the fore.

“I SAW IT! It’s over THERE…somewhere…” she said enthusiastically, pointing in the opposite direction her mother had.

Which direction did I try? The one advised by another adult, or the one surmised by a confident child? I chose the confident answer.

Her drive for great “customer service” did not end there, though.

She got a clerk and led him back to me to give me PRECISELY the right answer, after having given me a “generally right answer” by steering me at least in the right direction. Not only that, but she brought the clerk to me quickly, before I had zeroed in on just what I needed among the baking supplies.

It warmed my heart, and I finished my shopping with a smile.

This child of eight, I thought later with affection and amusement…well, she may someday set the world straight, as she fearlessly goes about problem conquering. And she’ll do it with confidence and a smile.

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Leadership, People at Work