Many of us will be turning to our laptops to avoid the hassle of crowded malls and shipping. You may be one of those who can remember Johnny Carson warning his viewers to, “Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.”  

A recent WSJ article noted a growing trend of online retailers to recognize the power they have to wow the customer TWICE.  Once while shopping and a second time when the purchase arrives.  It turns out that you can box up an experience.

How can you “box up” an Experience? Levenger has been doing this for years.  Open the plain brown box and each of their leather goods is nestled inside its own signature box with a ribbon or elastic tie.  Crate & Barrel makes sure the first thing you see when opening their packing box is a card reading “Big Thanks.”  Anthropologie uses colorful tissue and a decorative envelope for your packing slip.

Online retailers face the challenge of keeping the exterior packing box neutral to avoid theft while pumping up the experience once the seal is opened.  “When you get something in the mail, it should feel like a present, whether you bought it yourself or not,” says Carolyn Keer of Anthropologie.  Watch for more of this type of thinking this season.

Your business may not ship its products, but chances are good you deliver something to your guests or customers. It may be as simple as an invoice or receipt.  I have a colleague in the events business who delivers his final invoice to the client with an iBook capturing the key moments from the event his business just staged.  He claims this simple re-thinking of the invoice-opening experience has brought him more repeat businesses than anything else he has done to enhance his client’s experience.

• What do your customers open from your business?
• How can you box-up an experience and make it more of a wow?

David Livingstone, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

This was the credo of the famous Scottish explorer, David Livingstone who is probably better known for H.M. Stanley’s greeting of him with the famous, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”  Livingstone was a restless soul made famous in the late 19^th century for his explorations of Africa.  Change didn’t frighten him, standing still did.

There are a lot of business owners who share that same fear today.  They don’t relish change, but they fear not changing more.  So, how do you move forward without marching off a cliff?

John Kotter in his Leading Change offers eight steps that provide a pretty good map of the road to a successful change.

1. Create a sense of urgency.  Without a sense of urgency, there will be no spark to get things rolling.
2. Develop a guiding coalition.  You can’t bring about change alone.  You need to gather a coalition … a critical mass to build momentum.
3. Create a vision for change.  There needs to be a clear sense of where the organization is heading; one that others can understand and buy into.
4. Communicate the vision.  This is one of those rinse and repeat steps.  Others need to hear it and then see it modeled.
5. Remove barriers.  The obstacles can be people, pay structures, procedures or any number of things.  This is the step when people need to get off the train if they don’t want to go forward.
6. Generate short-term wins.  Short-term, easy wins can generate excitement and keep things rolling.
7. Don’t let up.  Don’t declare victory too early!  It takes a while for most changes to firm-up.
8. Make it stick in the organizational culture.  For change to stick it needs to be a core part of the organization.  It needs to become “how we do things around here.”

Kotter’s 8 steps are a means to “go forward” and avoid most of the dangers.

• Where does your business need to “go forward”?
• What steps has your organization had the most trouble executing?

Kurt Lewin courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

We can credit Kurt Lewin with this quote, “If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”  For those not familiar with Kurt Lewin, he is often referred to as the father of modern social psychology because of his pioneering work.  He was among the first to use scientific methods and experimentation to look at social behavior.

Lewin was born in 1890, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1932, and died in the prime of his work in 1947.  Although his name may not be well known today, his work is still at the base of much of what we understand about how organizations function and how the people in them change.

His observations on how organizations change are worth pausing to look at as more businesses are attempting to re-create or transform themselves as a means to survive our current economic woes.  Lewin was among the first to see change as a process … you can’t flick a switch and make it happen.

His model for change was simple and it opened the door for many others to follow. It is often described as Unfreeze – Change – Freeze.  These 3 stages were explained by him using the analogy of changing the shape of a block of ice.

1. Unfreeze:  You could try chipping the block, but Lewin pointed out that overcoming inertia and dismantling the existing mindset in the organization will get you much further.  You need to get everyone ready or softened up for change.  This means challenging the current view of things and finding ways to melt the resistance to change.
2. Change: This is the stage when the change takes place, but it is also a period with confusion and fear flowing everywhere.  People are aware of things changing, but no one is that clear about how things will turn out.  There a lot of uncertainty that needs to be overcome through engagement and encouragement.
3. Freeze:  This is the stage everyone wants to rush through.  The new change is firming up, but it takes time for everyone to get comfortable with the new state of affairs.  Pull away the support too soon and you won’t get the new “shape” you were hoping for.

All 3 steps are necessary. As Lewin said, “If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”  Fortunately for us, he did.

• What would you like to unfreeze, change and freeze again in your organization? 
• What practices would your customers want you to unfreeze, change and freeze again?

Abilene Paradox by Jerry B. Harvey

A great deal of time and energy is spent on attempting to stage great customer and employee experiences.  Examples can be found everywhere. Earlier this week the local Ann Arbor newspaper described the University of Michigan‘s five-year expenditure of over $450 million on dorm renovations to improve the student living experience. In the competition to recruit students, no one questioned the need.

U of M is following a fairly typical path improving the physical “stage” on which the student experience is played out.  Beginning here is concrete and visible. Changes in the physical environment often lead to changes in processes and finally, to improving the human interactions through better scripting, training and modeling.  ALL of these are great and together can greatly enhance an experience whether is on a campus, in a doctor’s office or in your own business.

So what does this have to do with the Abilene Paradox?  WITH the concrete steps typically taken to improve an experience, there is still need to account for the messier side of organizational dynamics.  Too many change efforts fail before the proverbial paint dries.  One of the most common reasons is the Abilene Paradox where everyone publically goes along with the changes to improve the experience, but no one privately supports the effort.  Jerry Harvey first labeled this phenomenon in his tale about his family’s “trip to Abilene” — a journey no one privately wanted to take, but because no one objected, they colluded in one another’s misery.

Most experience efforts are not quite this bad, but unfortunately, many of them leave key stakeholders out of the process or without much of a voice.  They tend to fall silent and go-along resulting in a “stage” that looks great, but a play that stinks.

How can this be avoided?

1. In the initial stages, special care needs to be taken to hear from lots of different voices in multiple setting where individuals can feel free to express their real opinions or concerns.
2. As change efforts begin, some level of involvement and engagement needs to be cultivated from those who will be living with the outcome.  If they don’t begin to own the change at this point, they never will.
3. As the change effort is about to launch, there needs to be a final investment of time in making sure everyone has both a public and private opportunity to comment.  This takes time, but can save a lot of heartache in the long run.

Changing an experience is more than changing the scenery and the props. It often involves a more fundamental change in the culture.

What do you feel should come first?  The culture change or the physical enhancements?

Old map Abilene 1883, Wikipedia Commons

I admit I have never been to the actual city of Abilene, but I have been to the metaphorical destination of Abilene that Jerry Harvey described in his Abilene Paradox.  In his effort to recount how people often do things as a group that privately no one wants to do, he used a personal example that involved a family visit to west Texas and a long sticky car ride to a café in Abilene.  If you have never read it, I encourage you take a few minutes and read at least the first few pages … you will likely remember similar “trips” you have taken.

The publication of Harvey’s personal set of observations back in the 1980′s, raised the awareness that it was just as important to manage agreement, as it was to manage conflict in an organization.  The dynamics of the Abilene Paradox involve people privately thinking one thing but acting out something very different because they aren’t sharing their real opinions. Once in place, this cycle can get repeated over and over again with growing frustration.

So, how do you break this cycle?  Someone has to test his or her perception of reality with others.  It is that absurdly simple … and difficult.  It’s a bit like being the first to state aloud that the king is wearing no clothes.  It’s high risk, but not stating what you believe can be just as disastrous to you and the organization in lost time and energy spent on repeated trips to Abilene.

Harvey ends his observations on the Abilene Paradox by telling the Greek Myth about Sisyphus who was condemned to push a giant rock up a hill just to have it roll down again … sort of a daily trip to Abilene.  Unable to challenge his fate, Harvey hoped that Sisyphus was at least able to recognize the absurdity of his situation.  He points out that we all “push rocks” from time to time … and the best we can do is to recognize it when we do.

• What was the last “rock” you pushed?  
• When was the last time you risked telling the king he had no clothes? 
• What is the toll of repeated Abilene experiences on an organization?

Traffic Arrow, Wikipedia Commons

Over three decades ago, one of the pioneers in Organization Development, Jerry Harvey, wrote about the tendency of groups to take what he called “trips to Abilene.”  When he first published his original Trip to Abilene, he had just wished to use a personal example to illustrate how organizations often have more trouble managing their supposed agreement than managing their conflict.  He was surprised by the response he got … the problem was much more widespread than he suspected.

It is a simple tale of family visit to west Texas that takes a strange and unwelcome turn that has everyone piling into an 1958 Chevy before the advent of air conditioning and traveling the 53 miles to eat at a café in Abilene.  Think hot, think gritty, think sticking to the seats, think open windows blowing in more heat than air … well, you get the picture.

Jerry turns this simple tale into a parable to illustrate what can happen when events gather momentum and take on lives of their own, in spite of the fact that nobody wants to take part in them.  I have been on trips to Abilene and I suspect you have too.

So what is the Abilene Paradox?  It is when organizations do things that contradict to what they really want to do.  When they do this, they defeat the very purpose they were trying to achieve.  Think of this another way — our inability to manage agreement is a huge potential source of dysfunction in most organizations.

So what are the symptoms and how do you know when you may be on your way to Abilene?

1. When we all agree privately as to the nature of the problem facing the organization, but we don’t say anything.
2. When we all agree privately on the steps that would be required to cope with the problem we face, but again say nothing.
3. When we fail to accurately communicate our desires or beliefs to one another. In fact, we do just the opposite and lead one another into misperceiving the collective reality.
4. With invalid and inaccurate information about reality, we “go along” and make collective decisions that lead us to do things that are contrary to what we want to do, and thereby arrive at results that are counterproductive.
5. As a result, we all experience frustration, anger, irritation, and dissatisfaction with the organization … and potentially with each other.
6. Finally, if we do not deal with our inability to manage agreement, this cycle repeats itself with greater intensity. Groan … another trip to Abilene!

• When was your last trip to Abilene? 
• How do you avoid them?

From the outside, it appears to be just another food cart parked within a small enclave called Mark’s Carts in the shopping section of downtown.  But, it’s more than that.  Even the New York Times took notice of this humble cart in its recent “36 hours in Ann Arbor.”

Behind every food cart there is a story.  The Lunch Room is the outgrowth of its co-founders, Phillis Engelbert and Joel Panozzo, … their love of cooking and vegan cuisine.  Their early attempts at sharing their gifts were a series of low-key “pop up dinners” serving as many as 5 courses in various spots around Ann Arbor. The word spread and slots for these affairs quickly filled.  With this experience under their belts, they looked for backers on the kickstarter site.  With 196 backers, they had the funds to build their cart and this past May, they opened for business.

What comes with your lunch?  The real secret to their success is that food is actually their secondary offering.  In a world filled with fast food lunch options, they offer true engagement.  It starts with a warm welcome and then a discussion of what you might like to try (the cookies are amazing).  Anyone who has been more than a couple of times is likely to be greeted by their name and an exchange that feels closer to neighbors walking their dogs than a busy lunch scene.  Meals are served up out of the second window on a first-name basis (no numbers here) and with a good word for the rest of the day.  The food is great … but the “feel” is even better.  The Lunch Room and its neighboring carts have formed a community where everyone-knows-your-name.

Their engagement efforts will shift back to their pop-up roots with special events over the winter including help with your Thanksgiving dinner.  They will spend the cold months trying new recipes, making improvements to the cart, and visiting vegan restaurants in other cities.  They will tinker with their menu, but not the “secret sauce” that feels so right.

We have heard it before … it is not what you do, but HOW you do it that that is remembered.  The Lunch Room has figured this out.  Has your business?

• What do your customers most remember?
• Is “engagement” on your menu?

1912 Central Scientific Catalog - Wikimedia Commons

This is the season for mailboxes to be stuffed with catalogs.  Most of us have grown up with them and we tend to assume they have always been around, but as Tom Robbins points out in Another Roadside Attraction, “There were no mail-order catalogues in 1492. Back then Marco Polo’s journal was the wish book of Renaissance Europe.”

Call them wish books or junk mail, catalogs have been around for a while.  Benjamin Franklin is believed to have been the first cataloguer in the U.S.  In 1744, he formulated the basic mail order concept when he produced the first catalog, which sold scientific and academic books. He is even credited with offering the first mail order guarantee: “Those persons who live remote, by sending their orders and money to B. Franklin may depend on the same justice as if present”.

In today’s experience-based economy, catalogs are still a powerful tool used to entice others to engage with your business.  Their power was brought home a few years ago when I asked a group to describe a business based only on what they observed from the cover of a mail order catalog.  The group consisted of middle-aged men who displayed all the signs of being mall-aphobic.  Yet, with very little prompting, they described what they believed the retail store would look like right down to the floor covering, window displays, employee appearance (dress code, age, & body types), color-scheme, and smell as you walked in the front door.  All from the impressions gained from the cover of a catalog!  And, this business had NO brick and mortar store to visit.

Catalogs play a huge role setting expectations still today.  They pave the way for others to decide if they want to do business with you and to form impressions about what it will be like to work with you … long before they meet you.

Not all of us have catalogs, but we do all have some version of them.  It may be your website, your business card, your local newspaper ad, or mailer.  All of these set powerful expectations, but are they the right expectations?  Are we meeting those expectations?  As Jim Gilmore, co-author of The Experience Economy, says, “Just once, I would like to stay in the room I saw in the hotel advertisement!”

• What expectations are you setting in your “catalog”?
• Are they the right expectations?

I was recently in a final planning session before a major client meeting.  Colleagues had flown in from around the world to be there.  We were gathered to finalize a presentation for that afternoon.  As is often the case, we had a lot more material than we would have time to cover.  As we tackled the time problem, it was clear that we needed criteria for deciding what would stay and what would be dropped.

How did we want them to feel?  We took a few minutes and wrestled with the feelings we wanted the client to have at the very end of the meeting.  We decided on confident, engaged and excited.  With these as our targets, it was much easier to decide what content would be presented and what would be dropped.

In the world of experience design, this is often referred to as the design motif. It is starting with how you want others to feel as they depart.  Several years ago, I was part of a team re-designing an Emergency Room experience.  We could have designed for speed and efficiency, but instead spoke to patients and caregivers about their ER experiences and what drove their choices.  The results directed the entire design.  They were seeking three feelings: reassurance (Should I have come to the ER or waited?), empathy (Will these people care about me or my loved one?) and connection (Will we just be a number or will they connect with us on a human level?)

This simple technique of beginning with the “end in mind” can help define choices and can quickly eliminate the items that just don’t fit your motif.  Over the years I created a collection cards to describe potential feelings … one word/feeling per card.  At some point in the process, I sort the cards into three piles.  One pile for those cards with feelings that I do NOT want to generate.  One pile for the “maybes”, and the final pile for those feeling that I DO want to generate.  My objective is to get the final pile down to just 3-4 feelings and design to these.

• How do you want others to feel after they encounter you or your business? 
• What words do you suspect they use now? 

Yes...She's Texting, Wikimedia Commons

In the most recent PEW study on Americans and Texting, Young adults (18-24) exchange an average of 109.5 texts a day, roughly 3,200 texts/month.  Once limited to only the youngest, texting is increasing in all but the over-65 demographic.  Among the 83% of American adults who own cell phones, three-quarters (73%) of us send and receive text messages.

Millennials, aged 18-19, still out-text any other age group averaging about 88 texts a day.  Gen X’ers text only a third as much on average, and Boomers are texting more than in the past but are only averaging around 10 a day.  The amount of texting has only shifted a bit in the last year although many suspect some of the new technologies such as the Apple voice-activated Siri may make it even easier for all ages to text.

One of the interesting byproducts of texting has been the evolution of a code known best to those who use it, leaving many of those less familiar in the dark.   I was recently stumped by: CU@*$.  Give up?  (See below)  Entire websites are now devoted to deciphering the most common of the acronyms.

There are also websites devoted to sharing humorous exchanges like the one between a college student and his Mom.

• Student: Got an A in Chem!!
• Mom: WTF, well done!!
• Student: Mom, what do you think WTF means?
• Mom: Well That’s Fantastic!

Once limited to personal messages, texting is increasingly part of the digital business environment.  Whether between colleagues, to alert customers, or for company wide blasts, we are likely to see more business applications particularly as industry moves such as Apple’s iMessage service are forcing lower charges for text packages.

With over 2 trillion texts sent in the U.S. last year, it was only a matter of time until a National Texting Championship was held.  This year’s winner was Austin Wierschke from Rhinelander WI.  He averages 600 texts a day … and, no surprise here, he’s 16.

• Where does texting fit in your business?
• What would your customers say?

Answer: CU@*$ = See you at Starbucks.