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February 2015 - TD Magazine

An interview with Chip Bell, Senior Partner, the Chip Bell Group, Lake Oconee, Georgia

An Interview with Chip Bell

Chip R. Bell is a senior consultant with the Chip Bell Group and author of several bestselling books, including Take Their Breath Away with John R. Patterson. His newest book, with Marshall Goldsmith, is Managers as Mentors and will be in bookstores in May 2013. His consulting firm has worked with many Fortune 100 companies helping them create an innovation-driven culture. He is a past president of the Charlotte Area ASTD chapter. He can be reached at www.chipbell.com.

Chip Bell

In Part One of this blog article, well-known leaders describe memories about those leaders who made a difference in their lives. Part Two below shares three more luminaries’ stories.Leaders have our back. Leaders are on our side. When others try to undermine our confidence or question our motives, leaders stand with us. They don’t leave us hanging when the going gets tough. As a result, we develop more backbone and leadership skills, and learn the value of standing by others.Kevin Eikenberry, Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, and author of Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill at a Time, cites has father, Phil Eikenberry, as the leader who always had his back. Phil was also Kevin’s first boss.The biggest lesson Kevin learned? When we believe in those we lead, and show them so through our actions, we make a lasting difference. For example, customers were informed that if they received answers from Kevin, those answers were final. People couldn’t bypass Kevin to get a different answer from his dad. If they did, the first question his dad always asked was, “What did Kevin say?” His father set an example that Kevin tries to uphold and teach every day.Leaders trust us. Leaders foster our growth by entrusting us to take on real and consequential challenges. Leaders know that engagement and motivation is highest when people are assigned big gulp challenges where the risks of failure are real, but where failure is not an option. Because they entrust us with the tough stuff, we set out to do a good job for them.In Leaders Open Doors, Elaine Biech, author of more than 50 books, shares how she was hired by NASA to design a management training program. But it wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill, stand-up training session. The training was going to be used as the basis for the first video teleconference prototype beamed to all of the NASA sites around the country. Elaine credits Bill Williams, Personnel Director for NASA Langley Research Center, for entrusting her—an unknown farm girl from Wisconsin—with this substantial challenge. His trust in her to design and deliver a training program for an untested medium was exhilarating—what Elaine called her personal “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Liftoff!” This led her to do the kind of work that continues to fuel her passion: writing, creating, and developing others. She explains: “Believing in someone is the most valuable gift you can give another.”Leaders let us learn. Leaders don’t impose their will on ours. They know that good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is the dividend of bad judgment. When necessary for our learning, and for the development of our better judgment, they let us scrape our knees. They offer their counsel and let us decide whether or not to follow it.Chip Bell is Founder and Senior Partner of the Chip Bell Group and author of more than 20 books, including Managers as Mentors (co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith). When Chip was a new training director for a large bank, he started a search for an assistant training director. The candidate that caught his attention had been a supervisory trainer in the Coast Guard and—this is the part that really impressed Chip—had gotten his master’s degree at a prestigious Ivy League college. Chip was eager to make him an offer, hoping to do so at the end of the day of interviews. But Chip’s boss, who had been a recruiter for a large manufacturing company before joining the bank, had big reservations, explaining: “I think he’s all hat and no cows!”Rather than impose his will on Chip, he left the decision to Chip. Still enamored by the guy’s Ivy League pedigree, Chip hired the guy. But six months later he ended up firing him. Chip’s boss Chuck was right— the guy was all talk and no results. Importantly, Chip’s boss never said a word about his bad decision. Chip recalls, “It was a powerful lesson I have never forgotten—the worth of profound learning more than outweighs an occasional error.”You can read the full versions of these stories, along with others from Ken Blanchard, Jim Kouzes, and Verne Harnish, in the epilogue of Leaders Open Doors.

Leaders Behind the Leaders: Part Two

What do the companies known for stellar customer service—like USAA, Amazon, Zappos, Marriott—have in common? They go to school on their customers. They have ways to continually learn about their customers’ ever-changing needs, expectations, and aspirations.  They turn frontline insight into valued improvements and new practices.So, who is in charge of equipping your organization with customer learning skills? Is it market research or the training and development function?Consider a case in which the customers of a large B2B company pleaded for help on ways to remain on the cutting edge of their industry.  “You should be our mentors,” complained one major customer to the chief operating officer. “Don’t just give us information, give us helpful acumen; don’t just give us great service, we need great teaching,” said the customer. The COO of the B2B company turned to the market research department for answers and got back a clichéd “do a study” response.  Frustrated, the COO then asked the training department for help.  Their first suggestion was to stop ending calls at the call center with the all-too-familiar: “Is there anything else I can help you with?” Instead, they suggested ending calls with: “What can I help you learn more about today?” Turning a closed question largely focused on reducing call handle time into an open-ended question focused on learning made a dramatic difference. Not only did first contact resolution scores go up, so did their customer sat scores.  And, call center reps were now up-selling products considerably more than before. Second case in point: What is the real reason customers leave your organization? If that question is asked from a winback marketing approach, you will get a very different answer than if you ask it from a learning approach aimed at gaining understandings designed to create improvements that reduce customer turnover. A large financial services company routinely asked departing customers their reasons for leaving.  What were the most common answers?  Price and customer needs changed.  But, when the company launched a customer forensics study, they learned price and changed needs accounted for less than 20 percent of customer churn.  It was customer experience issues that accounted for more than 60 percent of the departures. The key to understanding the real issue was a difference in the data collection—a focus on learning, not one on sales and marketing. What role does T&D—the custodians of organizational learning—have in customer service?  Unfortunately, too many T&D functions believe their only purview is customer service training—learning events aimed at teaching frontline service-providing employees with the tools to deliver good service.  Yet, without a learning perspective woven into every customer-related component of the organization, it will quickly become outdated, ill-equipped, and abandoned as customers switch to organizations that demonstrate they “know and understand them.”

Who’s in Charge of Customer Learning?

May 2013 - TD Magazine

A review of Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning, Third Edition by Chip R. Bell and Marshall Goldsmith

A Collaborative and Power-Free Partnership

February 2013 - TD Magazine

What it takes to create a culture of innovation.

How Leaders Grow Innovation

In the archives of Sony is a little known anecdote, which was a favorite story often told by the late Malcolm Knowles, father of adult learning.Sony was founded in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka as a small electronics shop in a bomb-damaged department store building in Tokyo. The company had $530 in capital and a total of eight employees. The radios they manufactured were, like most around the world, manufactured with vacuum tubes.The transistor was invented in the early 1950s. Most electronics makers knew the invention would revolutionize their industry. All knew it would take time to retrofit factories to incorporate the new technology. While most manufacturers focused on the technology, Sony focused on the new knowledge required of employees. They began training employees in an array of topics—many of which were unrelated to engineering, including flower arranging, painting, and auto mechanics.When transistor applications were introduced, Sony’s employees—already in the habit of learning—were able to learn faster than competitive organizations. And, they quickly gained worldwide dominance in electronics. While many factors contributed to their success, CEO Ibuka attributed much to learning. “We knew learning was a skill,” Ibuka said in an interview. “The more employees learned, the better learner they became. We knew continuous learning would make them more adaptive to new ways of manufacturing.”“Your ability to learn faster than your competition is your only sustainable competitive advantage,” wrote Arie de Gues in his book, The Living Company, which examined the features of companies lasting longer than 200 years. His quote is not about the ease of reverse engineering or simplicity of copying practices; it is about the impact that continuous learning has on an organization’s competitiveness.Wise Organizations Have Elevated the Traditional Training Director Role to the C-SuiteAlong with the COO, CIO, and all the other “Cs” and “Os,” the chief learning officer now sits on mahogany row. The symbolism is that learning is not just a facet of human resources, but a central part of how an organization views effective change management. Enlightened organizations view learning not simply as a C-level job, but as an integral part of every leader’s mantle. No CEO would delegate an organization’s focus on customers solely to the CCO any more than concerns for all matters financial would be left to the CFO.Benefits of Organized Learning Are Widely KnownLearning is a tool to gain and retain talent, a morale improver, an instrument for team building, and a way to heighten production—the path to increased profits and enhanced growth. But building on the philosophy undergirding the de Gues quote, learning is predominately the means for competitive advantage...and ultimately survival.Folksinger Bob Dylan sang “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.” While Dylan directed his lyrics at people and the need for change, the sentiment applies to organizations. Without the pursuit of learning hardwired into its DNA, the organization lacks the capacity to adjust, renew, and progress. Without the heart of a learner woven into the organization’s culture, employees miss the nuances of “my iceberg is melting” (à la Kotter) or “my cheese has been moved” (à la Johnson). Without the curiosity of a learner, the organization risks simply herding sheep and babysitting sleepwalkers,Top Leaders Must Be First and Foremost Active and Zealous LearnersRosebeth Moss Kantor, professor at Harvard Business School, says: “Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.” It is not about being a proponent of learning, but rather a practitioner. When leaders model that learning is a priority it signals the organization is adaptable.When former CEO Jack Welch lead the transformation of General Electric, he turned to his CLO, Noel Tichy, to position their Corporate Learning Center as the venue for their infamous “work-out” session (their term for action learning). Welch was not just an advocate, he served on the faculty. Noel Tichy would later write in his book, Crotonville: A Staging Ground for Corporate Revolution: “Radically altering the genetic code of a large successful corporation requires revolutionary action. The work-out sessions served as a tonic in achieving that end.”Growing LearningArcheologists excavating the pyramids discovered wheat seeds that dated back to around 2500 B.C. As in the tradition of antiquity, the seeds were there for the dead Pharaoh to eat if he became hungry. The find was important because it would enable scientists to determine what variety of wheat was in use in the ancient world and could be invaluable for engineering new types of wheat. Out of curiosity the scientists planted the 4500 year old wheat seed in fertile soil and an amazing thing happened. The wheat seeds grew! The promise that senior leaders make to their stakeholders is that in the end... “their seeds will grow!”Chip R. Bell is a senior consultant with the Chip Bell Group and the author of several best-selling books. His consulting firm has worked with many Fortune 100 companies helping them create an innovation-driven culture. His newest book is the international best-selling Wired and Dangerous. His next book due in bookstores Spring, 2013 is Managers as Mentors 3rd edition co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith. He is a past president of the Charlotte Area ASTD chapter. He can be reached at www.chipbell.com.

Learning as a Competitive Strategy

Reviews the book 'Managing the Learning Process,' by Chip Bell and Frederic Margolis.

Managing the Learning Process Book

“Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach,” wrote Harvard professor Rosabeth Kantor. Learning leaders learn for learning’s sake—they get an adrenaline rush out of always honing their skills, enhancing their understanding, and deepening their wisdom. Learning leaders are restless, hungry souls never satisfied with what they know because they appreciate the fact that antiquated is just around the corner and obsolete is just down the hall. Most of all they create a curiosity culture by learning out loud.A culture that values curiosity is one that is inventive and exciting. Walk into the headquarters of USAA in San Antonio, Zappo’s in Las Vegas, or Apple Computer in Cupertino, California, and you can feel the heat of originality cooking in the organizational oven. What you later learn in these settings is that you are in a place with an everlasting focus on perpetual growth.When Arie de Geus author of The Living Company wrote, “Your ability to learn faster than your competition is your only sustainable competitive advantage,” he was speaking of the power of the hunt for insight, not the glorification of the attainment of competence. What are the factors common in a “discovering organization” and what do learning leaders do to foster such a culture?Learning leaders communicate a clear, compelling purpose A stroll through Universal Studios Hollywood with theme park president Larry Kurzweil says a lot about his priorities. He warmly greets guests, asks if they are having a great time, and picks up trash. Bill Marriott, chairman of Marriott Corporation, is passionate about the nobility of service to hotel guests. It is not unusual for a hotel guest to get zealously queried about their experience by Marriott in the hotel lobby or elevator. Kurzweil and Marriott both know that observation is more powerful than conversation—what people see leaders do is more important than what they hear leaders say.Learning leaders demonstrate their passion for learning by constantly asking questions of managers and employees about the customers’ experience, progress on projects, and adventures in new business. And, the query is borne of sincere interest and curiosity, not a “check up” inquisition. They look for every opportunity to learn and to communicate to employees through their actions that searching for what is unknown is as important and valuable as acting on what is known. Most importantly, the theme of their questions always reflects a clear, compelling vision and purpose.Learning leaders tell storiesOne of the most powerful tools learning leaders use to sincerely communicate a clear, compelling purpose is storytelling. Stories are memorable and rich in their capacity to convey meaning. Stories also stir inquisitiveness. It is that trait—inquisitive pursuit of purpose—that inspires and cultivates frontline employees to become customer mentors. Stories instruct everyone on focus and direction.Stories telegraph a set of norms or mores unique to the organization. When Southwest Airlines employees tell stories of retired CEO Herb Kelleher hiding in the luggage bin to surprise passengers as they entered the plane, they are really saying, “We are supposed to have fun.” When FedEx employees tell the story of a West coast frontline employee authorizing a private jet to transport a piece of equipment needed to rescue little Jessica McClure trapped in a well in Texas, they are really saying, “We are empowered to make decisions on behalf of our customers.”Just as great teachers have always used stories to foster learning, learning leaders tell stories to serve as the glue to mold a gathering of people into a partnership of colleagues.Learning leaders deliver target-seeking feedback“Honest criticism,” wrote Franklin Jones, “is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.” Yet feedback is vital to lending direction to human energy. It is also crucial to fostering a discovery-oriented atmosphere.Target-seeking feedback carries the connotation that feedback not only fuels, it inspires. Target-seeking feedback is delivered in the future perfect tense. Instead of historical statements of fact, learning leaders ask honest self-reflecting questions of promise. Rather than delivering proof, feedback attempts to unearth potential. Instead of an accusatory “You were in error when you…,” target-seeking feedback asks, “What might be the impact of your...?” Traditional feedback looks back; target-seeking feedback leans forward.Learning leaders set a powerful tone when they show that they are willing to “learn out loud” as well as encourage others in never-ending discovery. Organizations populated by learning leaders win in the marketplace because they have products and services more innovative, strategic moves more agile, and employees more enthusiastic.

Leading for Wisdom

James Cameron is a “mad scientist”—and the director of the two highest grossing films ever made—Titanic and Avatar.  Apple Computer founder and CEO Steve Jobs was a “mad scientist.”  So were Ludwig Beethoven, Henry Ford and Amelia Earhart.  Who could deny their gigantic contributions or their incredible gifts? The label “mad scientists,” is not a reference to some evil maladjusted type like Dr. Strangelove, Dr. No, or Frankenstein, but rather as the catch-all phrase for the gifted eccentric and unconventional wild ducks that occasionally enter organizations.  Some are nerdy, some are whiz kids without manners, and some are amazing talents just marching to their own drum.  For most organizations they bring mixed blessings.All “mad scientists” have common noble traits—brilliant, visionary, perfectionists and passionately driven.  They are also very challenging to work with, extremely bull-headed, egotistical, irreverent and sometimes borderline crazy.  Organizations cannot tolerate very many “mad scientists.”  They disturb the sanctity of stability.“Mad scientists” ask tough questions that can make mediocre performers feel inadequate.  “Mad scientists” ignore tidy rules of corporate civility in pursuit of their bold visions.  They poke around in areas outside their sandbox and beyond their pay grades.  While most “mad scientists” would get an A+ in creativity, their impatience with diplomacy nets them an F in “emotional intelligence.” Some organizations try to expel all “mad scientists.”  Unless these misfits are protected by being in the top slot—like film director, CEO, or owner--they get labeled, ignored and ostracized.  Instead of having someone run interference, “mad scientists” are too often marginalized.  Rather than accommodating their “weirdness” while acclaiming their enormous triumphs, they are asked to “play nice.”  Their performance reviews give short shrift to their vast achievements while spotlighting only their “does not play well with others” dimension.  They are told to get a coach or read a book or see a counselor.  Failing to be valued for their contribution, most exit for larger pastures, not just greener ones.  Consider the loss to the organizations they vacate. But, there is a much graver cost to the organization.Employees watch how leaders treat “mad scientists.”  And, what they observe communicates a great deal about how leaders feel about learning.  Not the kind of learning that is the acquisition of neatly well-honed practices shoe-horned into a person’s skill base for practical application.  But, the type of learning that creates insight, creativity and leads to pioneering breakthroughs.  The type of paradigm-shifting education that can frequently come from the best trainers in the best HRD functions.  The very act of learning is fundamentally about change. Effective learning means breaking old habits and abandoning tired and true methods for ones that can propel a person to new heights. Innovation has become the new battle cry across the fields of marketplace competition.  “Change or Die” has been replaced with “Innovate or Die.” Folk singer Bob Dylan sang, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.” This shift to innovation has come through the realization that faster, better and cheaper are not sufficient for sustained growth.  Organizational winners must show prowess in unique, novel and ingenious, all tightly in sync with a solid bet that “if we build it, they will come.”  Even as overall workforces are being “leaned,” R&D staffing is on the increase.  At the core of an innovation-driven culture is the elevation of such values as curiosity, risk-taking and experimentation—all central tenants of learning.So, before you ask human resources to find a new home for your “mad scientist,” think again.  Making your quirky, smart, eccentric employee you label “a real character” available to the industry might make your work life as a leader a lot less hassled.  But, it might be putting a subtle governor on your employees’ willingness to stretch, develop, broaden...and grow.Every thriving organization needs a few “mad scientists.” They can make us better and more vigorous.  Sure, they are complex, challenging, and downright difficult.  But, they can springboard us to greatness.  Of course they can make us wring our hands and shake our head.  They can also insure our improvement, advancement and competitiveness.  Show your employees you care about learning by celebrating “mad scientists.”  They are very rare and we need them.

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