Have you ever had an experience where you gave your all for your customers and still they were unhappy? One possible reason for their reaction is that you implemented a major change without preparing them for it. In the absence of information about what they can reasonably expect, customers form their own conclusions about your motives.

In two organizations I visited, I came across situations which aptly illustrate how the failure to communicate with customers can have serious repercussions for the reputation and credibility of the provider. Unfortunately, these situations are far from unique.

Situation 1: Doing to customers, rather than with them

This first organization embarked on a technological upgrade that entailed replacing a significant amount of the desktop hardware and software that employees (internal customers) had grown accustomed to. Not a trivial transition, to say the least.

For many people, mandated change from the familiar to the unfamiliar is unsettling, even when the change will ultimately yield many benefits. Given the magnitude of the upgrade, information for customers about the upgrade and how it would take place would have been wise.

Unfortunately, however, customers received no explanation from upper management to prepare them for the upgrade. As a result, they had no basis for understanding its purpose, scope, or business benefits. To make matters worse, they lacked an appreciation of the steps they could take to contribute to its success, which only made the job harder for the technical staff. In short, those most affected were unprepared for the change.

Is it any wonder that customers reacted with intense negativity when technical staff arrived to “tamper” with their computers? And since many customers experienced an unanticipated period of degraded system performance, they saw the upgrade as a colossal disruption. Their widespread reaction was, “Why are you pushing this down our throats?”

Customers often complain that they don’t understand the reasoning behind the policies and standards imposed on them. After all, no one has communicated with them, prepared them, or involved them in the effort. As a result, they perceive the efforts “on their behalf” as arbitrary, thoughtless, and in some cases, even malicious.

Under such circumstances, customers understandably lose trust in their service providers, and providers face an overwhelming challenge and invariably, much more time that they anticipate to build back that trust.

Situation 2: Keeping customers in the dark

A Network Support Group concluded that the network in a particular customer area faced looming problems and needed to be taken offline for maintenance. The technical Wizard-In-Charge scheduled this maintenance during work hours. A thoughtless decision? It sounds like it, but his decision was based on sound financial thinking: Network maintenance was handled by an outside firm which charged A Big Chunk of Money for daytime work, and A Big Chunk and a Half for after-hours work.

So sure was the Wizard that the more cost-effective daytime maintenance was the right thing to do that he didn’t think to tell his customers the reason for his decision. Neither did he ask for their input. In his view, they were just a bunch of complainers, always grousing about one thing or another. Besides, this was a technology matter, and what did customers know about that? As a result, his customers were kept in the dark and so, during peak hours, was their network. All his customers knew was that the network was done and they couldn’t do their work.

Penny-wise and pounds of foolish

When efforts are undertaken on behalf of customers without keeping them in the loop, the affected customers often see the effort as yet another hare-brained scheme by those #$%!@& people who want to sabotage their productivity and complicate their already complex lives. The offending party, meanwhile, doesn’t understand the customers’ negativity. The sad part is that customers can sometimes offer options that provider staff might never have thought of.

And so it was in this network situation. The customer manager contacted the Wizard to ask why the network was done. The manager’s confrontational attitude puzzled the network maven, but he was certain that his explanation about the Big Chunk and a Half would impress the manager. Instead, the manager became even more upset, and said: “If I had known that was the situation, I would have gladly offered to pay the difference between the daytime and after-hours rate so that we could have kept the network in operation during the day.”

How often do you make decisions that affect your customers without considering their perspective, communicating your plans, explaining your rationale, and inviting their input? What changes do you need to make so that your answer to this question is “Never”?

A black hole is a place in the cosmos where things get swallowed up, never again to emerge. Although I love to travel, it’s not the sort of destination I’m eager to visit. This is not just because it seems like such a dark, dank, distant place, or even because it’s a point of no return, but because it’s overflowing with problems.

How do I know it’s overflowing with problems? I know because of the comments I’ve heard from so many customers. When I ask them about the service they’re getting from their suppliers, vendors and providers, they tell me that when they ask a question or submit a problem, it goes into the Black Hole. These are their exact words.

When I ask customers what they mean, they say they submit problems or requests and never hear back. No response, no follow-up, no clue as to the status of the situation — or even when they’ll be advised of the status. Who knows, maybe after a hundred thousand years or so, the Black Hole will eject its contents and customers will finally get the responses they’ve been waiting for. But most customers aren’t that patient.

Not for customers only

It’s not just customers whose problems make the Black Hole such a congested place. I also hear complaints from service providers who depend on support from colleagues and co-workers in order to do their job. In one situation, I asked a Help Desk group about their experience with the technical problems they transfer to a Level 2 support group. “Often, they just disappear into the Black Hole,” one woman told me. And what about the customer who’s awaiting a resolution to the problem?

Same thing from another group for which I was reviewing the findings of a customer survey. For the most part, customers were pleased with the service they were receiving, but interspersed with the high ratings was a noticeable subset of low ratings. What are these? I asked. Oh, those, said the service manager. (“Oh, those” is usually a signal that bad news is about to follow). Those ratings, he told me, were associated with problems sufficiently complex that they couldn’t be resolved within the timeframe set by the front line staff, so they’d been passed to the R&D group for investigation. A group, he explained, that had actually been dubbed The Black Hole because problems submitted to them seemed to never again emerge.

Are you guilty of making the Black Hole such a crowded, congested place? Do you provide status information to those who submit problems to you or who can’t go about their business until you resolve a malfunction, outage or delay? Are you aware that not knowing the status is one of the most singularly frustrating experiences for customers everywhere? Sometimes, in fact, not knowing the status of the problem is even worse than not having a resolution to it. Not knowing, and not knowing when they’ll know, makes people angry. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually working on the problem. If customers don’t know you’re working on it, their perception is that you’re not. After all, they have no information to suggest otherwise.

Adding to the Black Hole

This frustration can emerge in any type of relationship where one party is awaiting status information from another. I was once invited to give a keynote presentation at an event for which the date had not yet been finalized; it was to be one of two days. I told my client I’d reserve both dates, and she could let me know when the final date was set. Time passed. No follow-up. More time passed. Nothing. Then I was invited to speak at another event scheduled for one of the two dates I had reserved. Now I needed to know.

I called my client. She wasn’t there. I left a message with a co-worker. My client didn’t call me back. I called again. This time I left a voice mail message. She didn’t call me back. I sent a fax and an email, and left a few more phone messages. She didn’t call me back. The Black Hole filleth.

Now here’s the thing. When you’re waiting for information that isn’t forthcoming and you don’t know what the situation is, you start imagining things. They forgot about me. They lost my problem. They’re angry with me. In my case, I wondered if my client wasn’t getting my messages. Or if she was avoiding me, though I couldn’t imagine why. Or if . . .if . . . if. . .

I finally called her one day at a time that must have been too early for her to have been elsewhere. She answered. I identified myself. She sounded friendly as could be. I told her I didn’t know if she knew I’d been trying to reach her. “Oh yes,” she said, “I’ve received your messages, but I didn’t have the information you wanted so I didn’t call you back.” I was flabbergasted.

Was she being malicious in not calling me back? I don’t think so. Nor do I believe that she was being deliberately rude or thoughtless or inconsiderate. More likely, it just didn’t occur to her that any response would have been better than none at all. She wasn’t in charge of selecting the date, and was dependent on others who didn’t yet have the information. But it never occurred to her that if she had told me she didn’t know and would contact me when she did, she would have given me something to know rather than something to wonder about. It was getting no response whatsoever that was annoying.

I don’t know when I’ll stop not knowing

It’s hard to call another party and say, I don’t know and I don’t know when I will know. But most customers would rather know that than nothing at all. Savvy professionals don’t let their customers feel ignored or forgotten, and that’s true whether or not they’re actually working on the problem, and whether or not they know the status of the problem. They regularly give customers updates, even if those updates consist of stating that there’s been no change since the last update.

If customer satisfaction is important to you, get in the habit of asking yourself, Who is expecting a follow-up call from me? Who is awaiting a status update? Who has submitted a problem and wants to know what’s happening? Then contact those people. Don’t contribute to the Black Hole. It’s crowded enough there without your help.

I was doing something dumb in using one of my software packages. Modesty prevents me from boring you with the details. Suffice it to say that although it didn’t keep me doing my work, it did slow me down. Plus, I just couldn’t seem to get the package to do several of the things it was supposed to do.

I knew I should ask for help, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit to anyone that I was having these ridiculous problems. It’s one thing to do something dumb; it’s something else altogether to admit it out loud. I figured that when I had some time, I’d take an introductory class for experienced but confused users (under an assumed name, of course), and I’d get the explanation without having to ask.

Another reason I couldn’t ask for help is that I didn’t quite know how to articulate what my problem was. I was sure I was doing everything right, yet strange things were happening. That’s about as precise as I could get, and tech support gurus claim that’s not a whole lot to go on. I knew I should try to find an explanation in the manual, but when I’m completely stumped, the manual might as well be written in linear algebra, because it makes about as much sense.

Then one day I went to a computer show at which the vendor had a large booth with a section devoted to technical support. Unfortunately, I was leery about this vendor’s support because of a negative experience at the same show the previous year. At that time, I was having a quirky printer problem with another package from the same vendor. I showed one of the tech reps an example of my problem. His response was, "Gee, that’s strange." He couldn’t explain it. But he said he’d forward my example to the person in charge of quirky printer problems. He said I should call him in a few days, which I did.

Or at least I tried to. The first few times I called, I was put on hold for what probably would have been the rest of my life if I hadn’t hung up. A week later, I finally got through and was told, "Oh, he left the company a week ago." I gave up.

Reluctantly, I decided to ask the vendor for help with my newest pesky problem. I explained to the tech rep that I’d been having a silly little problem and described what it was. She quickly set up a simulation on her computer and asked me a question: After I did A, did I then do B? The question told me she totally misunderstood what I was talking about. Of course I did B. That dumb, I’m not.

Needless to say, therein lay the solution. Because, of course, you weren’t supposed to do B, and when you do, strange things happen. In less time than it takes to pull the plug on a week of work, she solved my problem. Her solution not only explained the complications I was aware of; it also explained almost everything else about this software that had struck me as odd.

The thing is, I’m positive I’m not alone in having this type of experience. I’m convinced that many people have problems they can’t admit or explain, so they’ll never contact their help desk or tech support group. Instead, they’ll limp along, doing things in a muddleheaded manner, just barely managing to bungle their way through.

However, given the right circumstances, they may gain the courage to seek help. My experience suggests that it can be worthwhile to provide alternative types of support, such as occasionally dropping by a customer’s office and offering to answer technical questions, or calling this or that customer to say "Hi, anything I can help you with?", or running a quarterly Strangest Problem You Ever Had competition. Don’t assume that traditional methods of supporting customers will always work, because for some people, they won’t.

Give me a call and I’ll tell you exactly what my problem was. Who am I kidding? No, I won’t.

Do you ever mystify your customers with vague or ambiguous information? Do you ever provide explanations that seem to leave them befuddled?

I experienced the feeling of ambiguity-induced befuddlement recently in using one of those exercise gadgets that simulate steps. In theory, they’re simple to use: you adjust a variety of settings to indicate the intensity of the workout you want, and then you step up and down until you meet your goal or collapse.

In addition to all their standard settings, this particular stepamajig had an option for testing your fitness. When I selected that option, the digital display started giving me the third degree. First it asked, "How old are you?" Let’s say I entered 27, for the sake of discussion. Then it asked for my weight. Well … let’s just say I entered 106. Then it asked what level I wanted to test at, on a 10-point scale. I selected 6. I didn’t know what 6 represented, but it seemed not too high and not too low. Then this contraption directed me to exercise for three minutes.

I proceeded to climb to the top of the Empire State Building. Just as I thought I was stepping as fast as I could, it blared at me, "Increase your pace!" (It didn’t really blare, but when an inanimate object starts displaying digital demands, it sure feels that way.)

When the three minutes ended, I knew immediately how fit I was, because a display lit up to tell me: "Your fitness is 44." Forty-four? Forty-four what? It didn’t say.

Is 44 good or bad? I haven’t a clue. Is it 44 on a 50-point scale, meaning I’m a fine aerobic specimen, or 44 on a 100-point scale, meaning I’d better start upping my huffing and puffing? I wish I knew. Is it 44 compared with all the jocks who have ever used stepamajigs? Is it 44 relative to a population of 106-pound 27-year-olds? Is it 44 as contrasted with all those who have dared to reveal their statistical secrets to this particular stepamajig? I guess I’ll never know.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who has trouble making sense of ambiguity, but when I see some of the cryptic blatherings given to customers in the name of information, I know I’m not alone. The information undoubtedly made perfect sense to those who prepared it, but that’s irrelevant if those it’s intended for misinterpret it or can’t comprehend it.

If you want to know if your policies, standards, procedures, instructions, directions, and explanations make sense, don’t trust your own instincts. Before disseminating such material, test it out on people who are typical recipients of the information. Or send it to me, and I’ll let you know what I think. Keep in mind though that my feedback will represent the perspective of a 106-pound 27-year-old whose three-minute rating at level 6 is a perfect 44!

If organizations really want customer feedback, why do they make it so difficult for customers to provide that feedback? Here are some examples of common flaws and how to avoid them:

1. Requesting feedback about the wrong information. At a hotel I once stayed at, I was satisfied with all the items listed on the feedback form in my room: quick check-in, clean room, and so on. However, the peephole in the door was over my head. Way over my head. When you’re my height, such things are important. How am I to follow the hotel’s advice to look out the peephole before opening the door to visitors if I can’t reach the peephole?

Customers can give top ratings to the attributes you consider important and still be dissatisfied because you’ve fallen short on the attributes they consider important. If you want satisfied customers, find out what they consider important, and invite them to rate your service on those attributes.

2. No space for feedback. In addition to asking customers to rate the items listed, many feedback forms invite customers to add their comments. Some of these forms provide plenty of space for comments — provided customers write in a one-point typesize!

A request for customer comments is a key element of a well-designed feedback form. Given lots of blank space, customers often give extensive amounts of high-quality commentary. However, it’s pointless to request comments and then not provide space for them.

3. No time to think about feedback. I got a call from an office supply store I often shop at. The caller said he was conducting a survey, and asked what I liked and didn’t like about his store. I told him I could give him better feedback if I had some time to think about it, and asked him to call back the next day. He said he would, but he didn’t. I guess he wanted feedback only from those who’d provide it on the spot.

Some people can instantaneously retrieve information from their mental databases. Other people prefer time to cogitate. Whatever method you use to solicit feedback, give customers ample time to reflect on your questions. The quality of the feedback you get is worth the extra time.

4. Inconveniencing customers. One of my favorite feedback forms is from a restaurant whose form is a postcard that requests responses to several questions. The instructions on the postcard state how important the feedback is — followed by the reminder: “Don’t forget to affix a stamp before mailing.” Instead of returning the postcard, I saved it and now offer it into evidence as Exhibit A in my presentations on feedback gathering.

Few enough people fill out feedback forms to begin with; most won’t bother if they have to pay for the privilege of doing so. To maximize the amount and quality of feedback you receive, make it as easy as possible for customers to respond. If you ask dissatisfied customers to inconvenience themselves to inform you of their complaints, you’ve just given them one more thing to complain about!

5. Not responding to feedback as promised. I received a mail survey from a hotel shortly after staying there. One item on the survey asked if I had any complaints. I did, and used the space provided to elaborate. Another item asked if I’d like someone to contact me about my complaints. I checked the “yes” box. It’s been about four years now, but I’m waiting patiently.

It’s a measure of sophisticated service to offer to contact customers about their grievances. Doing so tells customers that you value their feedback and want to set things right, and this evidence of concern can help you retain customers who might otherwise take their business elsewhere. But by not calling me as promised, this hotel fell lower in my estimation than if no such promise had been made. Don’t offer to contact disgruntled customers unless you really mean to do so.

As for me, I’m still waiting.

I believe a man should change his underwear at least three times a year.

If you wear briefs, switch to boxers. If you wear white, try colors. Mix it up. Take a walk on the wild side.

I didn’t always think this way. Far from it. Like many men, I got set in my sartorial ways early in life. Around age six, I think.

I was twenty before I got up the nerve to change my shorts. I’d worn plain white briefs since I got out of diapers. I didn’t choose them. They were just there. Dad wore them. My older brothers wore them. I assumed that all right-thinking males wore white Y-fronts. To me they were a natural phenomenon, like sunshine or maple trees or Chevrolets.

I’d seen pictures of boxer shorts in the Sears catalog, but I didn’t know anyone who wore them. Maybe they were for the same people who wore tasseled loafers or plaid golf pants. For them, perhaps, but certainly not for us.

Then in college my girlfriend decided I needed a style makeover. She dragged me through the mall, picking out my new wardrobe. Including boxer shorts. I guess they were the norm in her family. I felt strange buying them, sure that people were staring at me. I felt even stranger wearing them. They seemed a bit, well, naughty. Thank heaven they only came in manly stripes and plaids!

Several years later it was my wife who rocked my boat. She gave me silk briefs for my birthday. Silk undies for a man? What was she thinking? But they came from L.L. Bean, outfitters to generations of hunters and fishermen, so I grudgingly accepted them.

Another year she gave me black briefs. I told her politely that I’d save them for a special occasion. I could tell by her look that I’d said the wrong thing.

“Does it really matter what kind of underwear I wear?” I wanted to know.

“That’s exactly my point!” she exclaimed. “It doesn’t matter at all. So why do you make such a big deal about trying something different?”

I finally got it. If something doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. There I was, clinging to my familiar tighty-whiteys as if my life depended on them.

My wife is right. It won’t kill me to expand my comfort zone. To stop worrying about things that don’t matter. To take changes in stride. Of course, that means I have to try new things. They often feel uncomfortable at first. But I’m getting comfortable with that. One pair of shorts at a time.

It was a gray and gloomy day when we pulled into the ski area parking lot, and decided to sit a spell to see if the sun would shine. A carload of skiers pulled in next to us. Not deterred by the fact that the mountain had vanished in the fog, they started unloading their gear. I noticed they had left their headlights on, and told one of them. The fellow nodded, but didn’t turn out the lights. Odd, I thought. Why did he ignore what I told him? Why wasn’t he paying attention? Why didn’t he listen to me? Can you guess?

A few minutes later, as the group prepared for a day on the slippery slopes, they started speaking to each other – in sign language. Ahhhh . . . . It wasn’t that they hadn’t listened. It was that they couldn’t hear.

I pointed to their headlights. They got the message.

Non-hearing at work

In the workplace, most of us at times have felt that others weren’t listening to us. But by “not listening,” we generally don’t mean that they were unable to hear. Rather, we mean that we introduced a change, prescribed a new standard, offered an idea, proposed a solution, or provided advice – and they didn’t do what we wanted them to do, or they did it wrong, or they did something else instead.

But could it be that, on occasion, we communicate in a manner that leads them to react in a way that we describe as “they didn’t listen?” Think about interactions you’ve had with your customers, employees, management, and vendors – or for that matter, your spouse, in-laws, kids, or pets – that led you to conclude that they didn’t listen. How might you have contributed to their non-listening?

Unmask your messages

Was the information you provided masked by clutter, so that they missed it? Though you didn’t intend to, you may have presented your information in such a way that recipients couldn’t distinguish what was critical from all the rest. As a result, they missed it, and therefore didn’t respond as you had hoped.

In reviewing policy manuals and service guides for companies, I frequently find key advice buried among less essential information. Yet it’s easy to highlight critical information so that it clearly stands out. And when speaking, you can use the spoken equivalent of bold type, such as by saying, “The following points are particularly important.”

Review the information you’ve given your customers and others; I predict you’ll find examples of masked messages.

Avoid a you’re-a-jerk attitude

Did you communicate in an offensive or arrogant manner? How you say something is at least as important as what you say if you want others to accept your directions and recommendations. Even the best advice is worth little if presented in an off-putting manner. If your tone of voice or choice of words convey a you’re-a-jerk, I’m-a-genius attitude, it’s hard to fault those on the receiving end for dismissing not only the information, but you as well. If you want others to be receptive to your offerings, think about how you come across. Would you listen to someone who sounded like you do?

View the world through their eyes

Did you communicate in a way that failed to take their views into account? How you see things is invariably different from how others see the very same things. If you want to sell your ideas to them, you have to consider their perspective. To do so, you may need to learn more about that perspective. Then present your ideas so that you’re clearly taking their concerns into account. Sometimes, gaining their attention is as simple as asking a few questions to learn more about their pressures and priorities. The very process of asking and then listening (that is, you listening to them) may make them receptive to listening to you in return.

Explain the why behind the what

Did you explain the reasoning behind your decisions? Or did you sound like you were issuing directives, orders and mandates? No doubt, your policies, standards and decisions are well thought out. However, in the absence of any explanation about how they came to be and why they matter, they may appear to the other party to be arbitrary and without rationale. It’s not standards, policies, guidelines, procedures and instructions that people resist; it’s being confronted with these rules-of-the-road with no understanding of the whys and wherefores. If it’s important to you that your ideas are accepted, explain the reasoning behind them. Doing so can be an eye-opener that leads the other party to respond, “Oh, now I understand.”

Synchronize what you say with what you do

Did you violate the very standards you created to guide your customers, suppliers, co-workers and members of other teams in working with you? Being responsive means occasionally making an exception. Just be aware of the message those exceptions communicate. Whenever there is a contradiction between what you claim you’re going to do and what you actually do, it’s what you actually do that customers notice. So don’t expect them to “listen” to standards that define your boundaries if you frequently step outside those boundaries. If you find yourself doing it often, it may be time to modify either those standards or your actions, so that they are in synch with each other.

The following point is particularly important

The next time you find yourself claiming others don’t listen to you, S-T-O-P and ask what you might be doing to contribute to this situation. Then decide what you can do differently so that they not only listen, but want to listen. Ya’ hear?

© Naomi Karten, www.nkarten.com

(This article originally appeared in Perceptions & Realities
newsletter, www.nkarten.com/newslet.html).

The weather seems to have gotten colder as I’ve gotten older. As a
result, the ski jacket that once kept me warm became too skimpy.
Sensible people would simply stay indoors, but that lets me out. So I
needed a jacket that would protect me when the thermometer suggested
I should be indoors, relaxing by the fireplace.

Off I went to the ski shop. It took some searching, but to my delight, I
found the Perfect Jacket. It was roomy enough to fit comfortably over
the quadruple layers beneath. It was long enough to keep the nether
regions from freezing. Its multitude of pockets would make me a
self-sufficient storage system. It zipped up to my nose, ensuring
protection from the wind.

And the color was striking. It was orange. Or rather ORANGE. I mean, it
was bright! With this jacket, you could have seen me from a mile away
on a moonless night. What a find this jacket was.

Until I got home, that is. I tried it on several times, and each time, one
more thing annoyed me. Such as that it wasn’t just long, it was
too long to ski in comfortably. The nose-high zipper would be great
in stormy weather but a nuisance on clear sunny days. The jacket was
big and roomy and heavily-pocketed, which was good, but with the belt
cinched, I looked like a blimp with a belt. And that was bad. When
short people wear big, bulky things, they look like big, bulky, short
people.

And then there was the color. Iridescent neon orange. My husband pointed
out that it would attract dirt. He, being a dirt magnet, would
naturally think of this. I knew he was right, and despite my best
efforts, it would soon be not just ORANGE but filthy
ORANGE.

I began to have unpleasant images. I can ski advanced terrain unless it
has strategically situated trees that remind me how much I value my
head. But just because I can ski it doesn’t mean I remain
vertical the entire time. By the 17^th time I tried on the
jacket, I could hear the sounds of skiers shouting, “Look,
there goes a short, dirty, orange, belted blimp — and a clumsy
one at that.”

The jacket had to go back. This 24-hour trial period made that clear. But
it did something more. It helped me clarify my requirements. I
thought I knew what I wanted in a ski jacket, but I was wrong. I’d
missed several key features that I wanted the jacket to have, such as
a color that wouldn’t result in signs saying, “This way
to dirty skier.” And I had failed to realize the importance of
other features. Until I saw a concrete example of my specifications,
I didn’t really understand what I wanted.

Similarly, sometimes your customers don’t initially know what they want
even when they’re positive that they do. What my ski jacket
experience helped me appreciate is that specifications are really
nothing more than a starting point, a first approximation. Sometimes,
customers need, in effect, to try on the solution, simulating its
intended use so as to see if it satisfactorily addresses their
requirements and to make adjustments if any are needed.

I returned my jacket, and after a bout of trying on, I found another
jacket, a beautiful, dirt-concealing blue. It lacked several features
I’d previously wanted, but I loved it. If I’d evaluated
this jacket based on my original requirements, I’d have
rejected it. I have now worn this jacket for many a ski season, and I
still love it.

I learned from this experience that in the abstract, it’s
impossible to know which requirements really matter, and of those
that do, which are more important than which others. You might want
to keep this experience in mind as you help your customers define and
refine their own requirements. You can help them avoid signs that
say, “This way to confused customer.”

This is the story of a runaway cat that helped me make a point during a seminar I was presenting to a client company. We were discussing how easy it is to make false assumptions and how they can lead you astray in solving problems. Suddenly, a secretary appeared with a message for Tara, a manager in the group. The message was from Tara’s neighbor who had called to say that Tara’s cat, Panther, had gotten out of the apartment and was running around in the hallway of her building.

“Not again!” Tara exclaimed. She said the cat probably dashed out when her cleaning lady opened the door. I told her this was the first time I’d ever had a class interruption caused by a fleeing feline. Fortunately, Tara lived only a few blocks away from work. Her secretary was most accommodating and, as she’d done in previous runaway-cat episodes, offered to go to the apartment, retrieve the cat, and return it safely to Tara’s apartment.

Which she did and didn’t. That is, she did go over to the apartment. But she didn’t retrieve the cat and return it. Why? It seems it wasn’t Tara’s cat. She’d met Tara’s cat before, and she knew this wasn’t it.

Tara had made an assumption. She had assumed it was her cat. It sounded like her cat. It was the sort of thing her cat had done before. There was no reason for Tara to question the situation before leaping to conclusions. As a result, the idea of calling her neighbor back and asking a few questions to validate that it was her cat never occurred to her. So she didn’t ask what the cat looked like. She didn’t ask where, exactly, it was found. And she didn’t bother to ask if it responded to “Panther.” The odds were that it was her cat. Except that it wasn’t.

The fact that Tara lived nearby eliminated the need to analyze the situation more carefully. It was easy enough to just check it out. If it had been her cat, the problem would have been quickly resolved. And even though it wasn’t her cat, no one had been seriously inconvenienced.

But what if Tara had lived further away? Or her secretary hadn’t been available? Or as accommodating? Or what if the temperature had been 30 below or raining you know what and dogs? Would any of these conditions have caused Tara to challenge her assumptions, or ask some questions, or avoid allowing strong circumstantial evidence to lead her to a false conclusion? Who knows?

I was most appreciative of Tara. It’s wonderful when real life intervenes in a non-threatening way to help drive home a point. This exquisitely-timed situation helped to reinforce for class participants how easy it is to make false assumptions and how readily false assumptions can lead to flawed solutions.

Both in and outside the workplace, false assumptions can create havoc when you assume that you and others mean the same things by what you each say. In important situations, the safest starting point is to assume that they don’t mean what you think they mean and vice versa — until you’ve asked questions, sought clarification, and offered explanations. That way, you are more likely to identify some of the false assumptions that could interfere with a successful outcome.

By the way, Tara isn’t the manager’s real name. And Panther isn’t the name of her cat. I’ve changed both to protect Tara from the taunts and jeers of those know-it-alls who, in the same situation, would have automatically asked, “How do you know it’s my cat?” If I ever catch you in a situation that helps me make a point, I’ll do the same for you.

When is a thank you not a thank you? Consider these situations:

The anonymous thank you

While preparing an important presentation, a woman named Ginny requested and received assistance from six people. The presentation was a success. Afterwards, she emailed a message of appreciation to the six. The message began: "Thank you for your inputÖ". No opening names, no greeting, no indication of who the recipients were.

A thank you ought to be a personal thing. Given that only six people were involved, Ginny could easily have sent a separate message to each one, so that she could address each by name. There is, after all, a big difference between "Thank you for your input" (whoever you are) and "Scott, thank you for your input." How much more special Scott might have felt to be personally appreciated for his contribution, rather than to be merged into an anonymous list. 

The sideways thank you

A company event included a recognition ceremony for the people involved in a complex and highly successful implementation. I was pleased that John, the director, planned this acknowledgment; so often, management views the successful completion of a tough job as "what we pay them to do." Not worthy of any special attention, in other words.

John invited each person in turn to the front of the room and described that person’s contribution to the project. Unfortunately, though, instead of looking at each and saying, for example, "Sarah, thank you for the role you played . . .," or "Sarah, your role involved xyz, and I thank you for your efforts," he looked at the audience and said, "Sarah’s role was to xyz."

See the difference? Instead of speaking to each person, he spoke to the audience about each person. John understood the value of public recognition, but it would have had more impact if he had expressed it directly and personally to those who had earned it. 

The clueless thank you

Here’s a message from a senior VP to his managers and directors:

"I want to congratulate you for your superb work in recent months. I hope you will pass along my deep appreciation and personally thank those who report to you. I’m excited about our people and the performance the company experiences through their efforts. We have a great year ahead. Let’s not lose our momentum."

How many people do you suppose felt thanked by this message? Many might have if it had been part of a culture of appreciation. Such was not the case, however. Low morale and high turnover plagued the company, due in part to a prolonged pattern of non-appreciation, made worse by a reorg which treated employees as irrelevant. In such a context, an isolated, long overdue, global, yay-team thank you like this one can only worsen morale and hasten turnover. Which is what it did.

If you want people to feel lifted by your thanks, thank them personally, thank them directly, thank them now.